The Hobbit

[ladyjane]

We saw it today. I wish I was impressed as you guys, but I wasn't. It was way too long and the padding (overlong action sequences, extra storylines and characters) too obvious. I was quite literally almost dozing off in the spider and barrel sequences. They were good sequences, just drawn out too long. A good twenty minutes could have been cut out and the movie would have lost nothing. I remember an interview with PJ in which he said they'd had to drop characters like Tom Bombadil from LOTR because it was death to a movie if you didn't keep the story moving along. Yet here we see overlong sequences and more padding than my grandma's couch in the interests of making three movies.

That said, I loved Smaug (awesome dragon) and Benedict's voicing of him.

I guess my overall impression of parts one and two is that the little director who could has sold out to the Hollywood ego and money train and it's not pretty. You don't get best director Oscars for movies like these.

[Mugsy]

To be fair, I don't think Jackson was going for a best director Oscar here. He loves these stories and genre, and has a gift for bringing this world to life. I think he just wants to entertain.

And I'm a little agog that someone could doze off during the barrel sequence.

[ladyjane]

Jan 9, 2014 23:53:37 GMT -4 Mugsy said:

To be fair, I don't think Jackson was going for a best director Oscar here. He loves these stories and genre, and has a gift for bringing this world to life. I think he just wants to entertain.

And I'm a little agog that someone could doze off during the barrel sequence.

I don't necessarily think he was aiming for a BD Oscar either - I guess what I was trying to say was that these movies are, to me, a fall from the LOTR trilogy, for which I think he deserved more acclaim than the lets-hang-out-for-the-last-movie that the Academy handed out (although the earlier movies did score in technical categories). I suppose that's the difference between the first project, which to me captured more of his long-term passion and this one, which he did not intend to direct himself, only produce.

As for me dozing off, lack of night-time sleep was a big contributor, but the drawn-out sequences didn't help.

[Laira]

I was cracking up at the sight of 5'6" Evangeline Lilly being filmed to tower over 5'11" Aiden Turner.

I liked it overall, although they could have cut come scenes without detriment to the movie.

[chiqui]

I finally saw the first Hobbit movie. I liked it a lot, though it didn't have the WOW! factor of The Fellowship of the Ring, in part because I knew what to expect, and it retread a lot of ground -- that couldn't have been helped. As others have said it was CGI-heavy, but that was true for certain parts of the other movies as well--in Jackson's Middle Earth, everything is overstated and larger-than-life, from the greenery of the Shire to the immenseness of Moria and Erebor, the snow capped mountains that are never out of sight, the Pacific Science Center feel of Rivendell (no kidding, that's what it always reminds me of) and even the size of Bilbo's pantry. Now I know in the books hobbits eat a lot, but honestly, he had enough in there to feed a whole village, and most of it was spoilable stuff! I took it all as just part of the movie, like excessive dust and violence are a part of spaghetti westerns.

That said, it was too long, though it held my attention. It should have ended right after they came out of the Goblin Kingdom, but I guess that would have made it too much like TFOTR, which ended after Frodo & Co. came out of Moria and thought they had lost Gandalf.

I liked the dwarves, they came off as Time Bandits type characters to me, initially, and I enjoyed the crazy humor in the movie like Radagast riding a sledge pulled by bunnies (with bird doo in his hair)and the Goblin King crashing down on the dwarves as they're beginning to recover after the fall down the chasm. Other parts were inadvertantly humorous, like Thorin's shmoopy, suffering face every time a comment is made about his past (halfway through the movie I began calling it his "Blue Steel" look.) And the musical cues at times were like something out of Monty Python and the Holy Grail (where they had a chorus every time the grail was envisioned) and I noticed it first when Galadriel appears. I had to giggle at that even though Galadriel was cool, as always, and so was Elrond.

I am looking forward to renting the next one!

[Ripley]

TTMR & I saw the third film today. He loved it; I liked it. I still think this should have been two movies, not three, but I definitely liked this one better than the second.

[lea1977]

I just saw it, I thought it was good, but less Thorin please and more Luke Evans and Lee Pace together because that was just yummy. I am looking forward to the extended blue ray version.

[kateln]

I'm debating whether or not to go see it. I finally saw the second movie on a plane in October, and by the time I'd landed I'd totally forgotten it.

This sucks because I love Peter Jackson, love the LOTR films, and really like most of the actors in this.

[Auroranorth]

I've only seen the first one and that felt like a retread of Fellowship. Not really motivated to see the second one, and will probably wait till this one hits DVD if I bother.

[Baby Fish Mouth]

We saw the final installment last night and I was very disappointed. Way too long and too much padding. There wasn't much plot and the entire movie could have been condensed down to about 15 minutes. Special effects were a problem. I was rolling my eyes in several scenes because the effects looked so bad.

I did think the ending was lovely, and Luke Evans is really nice to look at.