The Hobbit

[Mutagen]

I thought the first Hobbit honestly kind of sucked, while the second one was a 100% improvement and really fun to watch. Having just seen the third, I'd put it somewhere in the middle. I enjoyed it overall but there were some moments that were unintentionally hilarious, the two worst offenders being:

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1) When Thorin and the other dwarves tore down the wall and charged onto the battlefield, it looked SO MUCH like a football team running through paper

2) Legolas' little "Super Mario" move on the falling rocks.

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And, beyond that, for all the reversals in the battle there was nothing as goosebump-inducing as Rohan's charge in ROTK. Still, it was a fun watch. Oh, and I was totally unspoiled for the appearance of <<

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Billy flippin' Connolly!

>>, so that was great.

[chiqui]

Very late to this thread, but I finally saw The Desolation of Smaug, and went back to read this thread from the beginning. Have to agree with every word of it, fun in parts but padded padded padded to a degree I have NEVER seen in a movie produced in my lifetime. The whole thing was like some crazy theme park ride that never stops.

They really padded padded padded that cute little inconsequential children's story by Tolkien to within an inch of its life and adultified it way too much.

And, while I could have just enjoyed the ride, my intellect made an appearance and ruined things. Like, WHERE did Smaug get so much gold? Not just a room of it, but the interior of an entire freakin' hollow mountain. Why didn't it melt with his hot dragon belly crawling over it all the time?

I guess what my COVID brain is trying to say is that there was so much intellect involved by the movie's creators in setting up the storyboards, the CGI, voicing the characters, planning and shaping the sequences for maximum heart-thumping effect from the viewers, that it made me notice the material itself was thin. I mean, WHY does an admittedly large dragon, who's as intelligent if not more so than a human, NEED all that gold? He can't spent it, and it serves him as nothing but a big down comforter. These are thoughts I might not have had if the movies was smaller, lighter, less serious. In a smaller movie, he'd want the gold because he was a greedy dragon and not too bright. End of story.

And why is Erebor so freakin' BIG anyway? These seven dwarves are going to rattle around in it. Even the mummies of the dwarves that didn't survive were no more than a few dozen. Really, how could they work and make things in a place that was so overscaled, where a walk from one area of the factory to the other might have taken an hour?

And HOW or WHO or wove those giant circus-tent tapestries in the Hall or Kings? There was enough cloth there to rig a fleet of large ships.

And WHAT was the point of pouring molten gold on Smaug? He's a dragon! He's a furnace and used to melting things! Wouldn't dwarves know it was futile?

I don't know, this whole project seemed ill-advised from the start.

[technicolor]

Yeah, I think the movies are such a waste. There are beautiful moments/scenes throughout, but it gets swallowed by all the unnecessary CGI and padding, as you say.

And it's a shame. Martin Freeman was the perfect Bilbo and he turns into a supporting character in his own movies. Richard Armitage is a fine actor, but the focus on Thorin and his endless brooding didn't help the films IMO. Lee Pace is hilarious, menacing and awesome as Thranduil. Cumberbatch is terrifying as Smaug, the voice acting at the end of the second movie when he goes all "I am fire. I am death" is a chills down your spine moment. There's a good movie in there somewhere, but it's overwhelmed by all this STUFF they shoved in to make it into three parts. And the material is just not there, you see it at every turn.

[chiqui]

If they wanted to cash off of everything they had already created, AND the rights they still owned, why not re-use the sets as a basis for a Hobbit reality show, showing people trying to live like hobbits, act like hobbits, deal with things like dark riders and wizards and stray dragons? THAT would have cleaned up for years!

ETA: Hoping one day they will be an abridged cut of all three films combining them into one that keeps the good and cuts the dross.

[famvir]

Taika Waititi said he and some friends snuck onto the Hobbit set and stole the green screens and other stuff to use on What We Do in the Shadows.

So things have been repurposed! Just not legally.