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Coffee House => Coffee House Boards => CH / Entertainment => Topic started by: Kesa on January 31, 2013, 11:29:22 AM
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So what did everyone think about the Hobbit?
I saw it a couple of days ago and thought it was pretty OK. Definitely an improvement over the trilogy. I dispised the trilogy because of all that over acting and melodrama. The hobbit was a relief in comparison.
I was a little disapointed by the way it would switch constantly from 3D to 2D. LOTR is famous for being tech innovative so this left me a little peed. It made it feel cheap somehow.
Overall in my opinion it is the best of the movies. But i think it would be better without the wizard Gandalf and err... Bilbo Baggins. I don't like Hobbits. Or wizards.
Also the butterflies were kewl when they flew towards the screen. It made me want to reach out and grab it. Really kewl.
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So what did everyone think about the Hobbit?
I saw it a couple of days ago and thought it was pretty OK. Definitely an improvement over the trilogy. I dispised the trilogy because of all that over acting and melodrama. The hobbit was a relief in comparison.
I was a little disapointed by the way it would switch constantly from 3D to 2D. LOTR is famous for being tech innovative so this left me a little peed. It made it feel cheap somehow.
Overall in my opinion it is the best of the movies. But i think it would be better without the wizard Gandalf and err... Bilbo Baggins. I don't like Hobbits. Or wizards.
Also the butterflies were kewl when they flew towards the screen. It made me want to reach out and grab it. Really kewl.
It was okay. Having the guy in front of me have a diabetes seizure didn't help. But once we got him packed onto the Ambo trolley it was back to the movie. Not sure I could handle 3 sittings. Two maybe.
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@Kesa
i went to see it in the 2D, normal frame rate version, and i loved it! it stuck to the text much better this time around, and yeah, i did indeed prefer it over the melodramatic hogwash they introduced in the trilogy films. i think folks that enjoyed the books loved it. those that never read them probably think the pace is too slow.
really looking forward to the next one! :)
-- eliyahu
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Saw it in 2D, 24fps, so no comment on technical issues. There were a lot of things I liked about it (Martin Freeman in particular is excellent as Bilbo,) but there were some pretty serious problems too. The biggest problem, to my mind, is that they're trying to solve the problem of adapting one story over three movies by re-jiggering it into separate movie-sized pieces, and then forcing standard arc structure on the individual sections of the story. This first one is suddenly "about" Bilbo earning the acceptance and respect of the dwarves, and them learning to maybe not be so dismissive of him. That was something that happened over the course of the entire book, not just the part of it covered by the movie.
Also problematic is that, pursuant to that, they tried to make Bilbo into a more active player (being the one who keeps the trolls arguing until sunup, saving Thorin from the Orcs at the end, etc.) That's plain and simple wrong. He's supposed to be a bewildered ordinary person dragged off on a quest where he's in way over his head, not a secretly-aspiring hero just waiting for a chance to do hero stuff. He doesn't even start really taking initiative until the rest of the party gets captured in Mirkwood and he has no choice.
There's also some tonal and structural problems. For one thing, most of the movie is a string of chase sequences broken up by talking scenes, and it just feels wrong. It's another symptom of trying to chop up a single story into three separate Hollywood-arc movies - The Hobbit is a very relaxed, slow-paced book at the start, and things don't really start to pick up until Mirkwood, whereas in the movie they're barely more than five minutes out of the Shire before it's one-thing-after-another wham-bam.
The humor is all over the map, too - sometimes it's the book's gently snarky take on the modern fairytale, sometimes it's standard Hollywood template comedy beats and grossout gags. Peter, man, I know sometimes you're probably wondering what happened to the Peter Jackson who directed Bad Taste and Meet the Feebles, but there's a time and a place for that stuff, okay? And it's not here. Also, someone took Radagast and stuck him with an IV full of grade-A Quirk, and consequently it feels like he's from a completely different movie - which is a shame, because I liked what they were trying to do with him as far as doing a different, sort of Druidic shaman wizard as opposed to Gandalf and Saruman's more dignified wise-counselor schtick. Does give me hope for what Beorn's gonna look like, though.
All that said, I did like it - I just wish I liked it less conditionally. I do like that they kept a lighter tone, and that where they did tie-in material with LOTR's plot, they didn't do it quite as bleak and dark as those movies. (For example, the Ring's wraith-world is still eerie, but it's not the terrifying hellscape that Frodo had to live with.) Overall, it's good, but it's not as good at being The Hobbit as The Lord of the Rings was at being The Lord of the Rings.
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Damn, I missed the seizure part. It was probably exciting but was it true to the book?
It was okay. Having the guy in front of me have a diabetes seizure didn't help. But once we got him packed onto the Ambo trolley it was back to the movie. Not sure I could handle 3 sittings. Two maybe.
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I thought the CGI was clearly superior to the trilogy.
Jackson's really dragging this one out though.