Movie: The Hobbit

[monster]

Originally Posted by ChainLegacy

Nor Dwarf women, for that matter.

I think I saw one amongst the dwarves fleeing. I don't know why, but I half expected, but didn't see, a beard.

[GDB]

Originally Posted by ChainLegacy

Nor Dwarf women, for that matter.

It's true you don't see many dwarf women. And in fact, they are so alike in voice and appearance, that they are often mistaken for dwarf men. And this in turn has given rise to the belief that there are no dwarf women, and that dwarves just spring out of holes in the ground! Which is, of course, ridiculous.

[Chiibi]

Originally Posted by ChainLegacy

Nor Dwarf women, for that matter.

I think Tolkein said that the dwarf women stay in their villages or something...never come out to go on quests or adventures. D:

How boring for them. Though most hobbits are fine with it.

[kyp275]

Originally Posted by ChainLegacy

I really love the stories in The Silmarillion, especially how Morgoth operates subtly to foment dissent, etc. I think they may be the best of Tolkien's work, but after seeing this movie I do not want those stories to be touched....

Agreed, the Silmarillion is really among my favorite of all the Tolkien stories. I doubt we'll ever see it on a movie screen, the short story collection-esque format doesn't really lend itself well to movie adaptations. (also, can you imagine the number and length of time skips? it'd put cloud atlas to shame! )

[Xagzan]

Originally Posted by kyp275

Agreed, the Silmarillion is really among my favorite of all the Tolkien stories. I doubt we'll ever see it on a movie screen, the short story collection-esque format doesn't really lend itself well to movie adaptations. (also, can you imagine the number and length of time skips? it'd put cloud atlas to shame! )

I predict I'm going to like Smaug when we finally see him in full.

But as much as I would, to think about how someone like Ancalagon might be portrayed, it's that much better. Makes my imagination overload with awesome. Any of the stories, really. There was such an epic, magical atmosphere to the Silmarillion that even surpassed Lotr, in a way. I always felt that.

I think if they were ever to do Sil films, they would have to approach it by focusing on an individual story per film, then probably expand each one a bit to fit a full movie length, if it couldn't already.

[willx]

Originally Posted by Xagzan

I predict I'm going to like Smaug when we finally see him in full.

But as much as I would, to think about how someone like Ancalagon might be portrayed, it's that much better. Makes my imagination overload with awesome. Any of the stories, really. There was such an epic, magical atmosphere to the Silmarillion that even surpassed Lotr, in a way. I always felt that.

I think if they were ever to do Sil films, they would have to approach it by focusing on an individual story per film, then probably expand each one a bit to fit a full movie length, if it couldn't already.

I think it was because .. no matter how "epic" Lord of the Rings was, all the wars and armies and lords and kings.. None of it mattered. Whereas the Silmarillion was truly the things of "legend" .. The apex of Elven power, the pride, the wealth, everything was just "bigger" !

Outlook remains positive

[james0246]

Why does Silmarillion have to be a film (seen in theatres)? Why couldn't AMC, Showtime or HBO just do a mini-series concerning the more popular tales in the collection?

[kyp275]

Originally Posted by willx

I think it was because .. no matter how "epic" Lord of the Rings was, all the wars and armies and lords and kings.. None of it mattered. Whereas the Silmarillion was truly the things of "legend" .. The apex of Elven power, the pride, the wealth, everything was just "bigger" !

Outlook remains positive

Well, I wouldn't say it didn't matter...but scale wise you're right, LOTR compared to the Silmarillion would be akin to the battle of the Shire to the rest of the LOTR, it's just on a completely different level of epic-ness

Originally Posted by james0246

Why does Silmarillion have to be a film (seen in theatres)? Why couldn't AMC, Showtime or HBO just do a mini-series concerning the more popular tales in the collection?

First thing that comes to mind would be budget. It may work for some of the more personal stories, but I doubt a mini-series would have the budget to do justice to the likes of the fall of Gondolin or Nirnaeth Arnoediad.

[Xagzan]

Originally Posted by willx

I think it was because .. no matter how "epic" Lord of the Rings was, all the wars and armies and lords and kings.. None of it mattered. Whereas the Silmarillion was truly the things of "legend" .. The apex of Elven power, the pride, the wealth, everything was just "bigger" !

Outlook remains positive

Yeah, bigger, that's how I used to put it too. Though I wouldn't say the story of LotR didn't matter; it was the fate of the world at stake. Kyp's battle of the Shire analogy is good--I think the distinction is, with LotR, that world-hanging-in-the-balance thing was just a one time occurrence, and took up the entire trilogy. Whereas in the Sil, it was happening on a regular basis thanks to Melkor

Originally Posted by kyp275

First thing that comes to mind would be budget. It may work for some of the more personal stories, but I doubt a mini-series would have the budget to do justice to the likes of the fall of Gondolin or Nirnaeth Arnoediad.

Yeah, that's really the only hurdle I can think of. Because otherwise the Silmarillion might actually be more suited to that format than it would movies. But the Game of Thrones 2nd season final battle was already pushing the absolute limits of what you can do on TV, so I can't imagine how stuff from the Sil could be done justice. I mean, portraying the complete destruction of the three giant mountains Thangorodrim by a dragon apparently large enough to crush them under his fall, all the while having other dragons battling eagles and Earendil in his flying ship in the air, armies that outnumber any from LotR on the ground, including multiple Balrogs, with the landscape being cataclysmically altered around it all? I don't think TV could handle it Actually, I'm not even sure a full on movie could handle it. Such a scene might only be successfully realized within the imagination after all.

[TooPurePureBoy]

Holy crap you guys just sent me on a Tolkienwiki spiral for an hour with your sillmarillion talk!

Hadn't read that stuff in years!

[Flower]

Originally Posted by Xagzan

...I think the distinction is, with LotR, that world-hanging-in-the-balance thing was just a one time occurrence, and took up the entire trilogy. Whereas in the Sil, it was happening on a regular basis thanks to Melkor ...

And Ungoliant!

Shelob was "the last of the children of Ungoliant" if you remember. When Melkor attacked the two trees he was accompanied by Ungoliant. Toughest ... spider ... ever. Makes Lolth look like a rain-drenched kitten in comparison....

[Chiibi]

To be honest, I was rather underwhelmed by Shelob's appearance in Return of The King. She looked more like a big crab.... but the biggest reason was that Aragog and his 'children' from Harry Potter were SO. MUCH. SCARIER.

[ChainLegacy]

Originally Posted by Flower

And Ungoliant!

Shelob was "the last of the children of Ungoliant" if you remember. When Melkor attacked the two trees he was accompanied by Ungoliant. Toughest ... spider ... ever. Makes Lolth look like a rain-drenched kitten in comparison....

Ungoliant was always one of my favorite characters. Her backstory is very mysterious and implies Iluvatar did not create her, that instead she sprang from 'nothingness' itself. She even grows to the power of opposing Morgoth at one point if I recall, though he eventually puts her down.

Originally Posted by willx

I think it was because .. no matter how "epic" Lord of the Rings was, all the wars and armies and lords and kings.. None of it mattered. Whereas the Silmarillion was truly the things of "legend" .. The apex of Elven power, the pride, the wealth, everything was just "bigger" !

Outlook remains positive

Indeed, and the Ainur make our usual power players like Gandalf pale in comparison. The ever-so-feared Sauron is merely a lesser Ainur... Kinda feels like we're discussing Dragonball powerlevels here, but with so much more epicness involved.

Originally Posted by james0246

Why does Silmarillion have to be a film (seen in theatres)? Why couldn't AMC, Showtime or HBO just do a mini-series concerning the more popular tales in the collection?

The flight of the Noldor or Beren and Luthien might work in such a format. Actually I just had a weird idea but a high quality animated miniseries with stylized art might be really cool for the story of Feanor, the Silmarils, and flight of the Noldor. Actually animation might be better all around in trying to portray the Ainur too.

Some of my favorite parts of the book are equally awesome but essentially just backstory and not really translatable to TV or movies, though. For instance, I really enjoyed the explanations on the awakening of the elves, and the various ethnicities that formed as they were called to Valinor and branched off along the way.

[Xagzan]

Originally Posted by ChainLegacy

Ungoliant was always one of my favorite characters. Her backstory is very mysterious and implies Iluvatar did not create her, that instead she sprang from 'nothingness' itself. She even grows to the power of opposing Morgoth at one point if I recall, though he eventually puts her down.

She grows larger than him, iirc. Larger than the guy who was like a tower in height, as they say. Although it's never clear just how tall Melkor was; on one hand, you'd think a guy who could alter the landscape during battles with the other Valar, have a foot whose weight was like a "fallen hill" on Fingolfin's neck, and create dragons large enough to crush mountains would be impossibly huge, like, God of War Titan sizes (which could be fitting, since he is essentially Tolkien's Satan). But on the other, such a colossus wouldn't exactly be able to have a traditional duel with Fingolfin, or have a crown whose jewels could each fit in a man's hand. I think at minimum, he had to have been as large as the FotR Balrog, no smaller.

But yeah, Ungoliant became an even fouler thing. And this art of her and Melkor is one of my favorites from the Silmarillion

Spoiler:

I forget who the artist is, though I remember it's one of the "main" Tolkien ones.

Indeed, and the Ainur make our usual power players like Gandalf pale in comparison. The ever-so-feared Sauron is merely a lesser Ainur... Kinda feels like we're discussing Dragonball powerlevels here, but with so much more epicness involved.

It's better because the power levels here don't consist of cheesy shouneny superhero powers

[Vexx]

An article discussing some of the brain science factors with 48fps - interesting.

http://movieline.com/2012/12/14/hobb...es-per-second/

[Flower]

Originally Posted by Vexx

An article discussing some of the brain science factors with 48fps - interesting.

http://movieline.com/2012/12/14/hobb...es-per-second/

So it is finally here that one can (apparently) say "TMI! TMI!"

[Kokukirin]

I watched the movie last night on imax 3d. I was forewarned on the 48 fps issue, but I came out alright. No dizziness or headaches. On the other hand, the 48 fps is a mixed experience for me. It definitely takes some time to get used to. The first part, featuring mostly the Bilbo's Hobbit hole and interior of Erebor, looked a bit fuzzy to me. But in some later scenes in the movie, the picture looks incredibly sharp. Most of the time though, I simply don't notice the 48 fps.

The story is slow as most would expect from a medium-length story being expanded into a trilogy. The addition of Radagast and Rivendell is nice if you know some backstory of Middle Earth. I think some audiences may get confused over who the Necromancer is and what "Angmar" is.

The dwarfs are, on the whole, rather uninspiring. You learn that Thorin is a proud warrior bearing a grudge for the orcs and wants to get Erebor back badly. You can tell Balin is the older and wiser dwarf among the rest of them. The rest of them are just fillers. They are further undermined by repeated appearance of Gandalf, always baby-sitting them through the journey, and stealing the show at time of crisis. In the end it makes you wonder why this bunch of useless dwarfs even try to challenge Smaug.

Having said all the bad things, I'd still say the movie is thoroughly enjoyable. The costumes and scenaries are second to none. The acting is as good as you can expect, given the limitation of the story. The scenes involving Gollum are especially stunningly good. Actions are fun and come frequently once they are outside The Shire. I hardly noticed 3 hours have passed when the movie ended.

[Chiibi]

While his brother Rob is not as fond of it, this movie is Doug Walker-approved!

[Kafriel]

Watched it at last! Or, I think I did...wel, I set out to watch the hobbit, but I ended up watching something entirely different in the end.

First things first, the movie isn't bad. There's action, drama, lots of pretty things to touch on and a solid plot to unravel; thing is, it's like someone decided to make an original script with awesome padding, which leads to the two things I didn't like so much:

1) Living Azog and the non-stop chase all the way till the very end. It could be an adventure without everyone's lives on the line for almost every second of the movie, it's kinda offensive towards the author's original concept of this adventure, which gave emphasis on leaving home and setting off to unknown lands in chase of unseen riches, facing many kinds of problems (which is the part where Bilbo should prove his worth) and not giving up when things get tough.

2) Bilbo's role in all of this. Gandalf's interventions were mostly given out to Bilbo so that he can prove his worth as a member of the group, but I found it way too much (troll part was ok, bashing orcs to save Thorin...wtf REALLY!?). Although the movie's title is The Hobbit, the leading role is shared by the dwarves, but it's being custom-made so that they have Bilbo to thank for everything.

By the end of the movie, I wonder what is to come...more fighting? More (admittedly) unnecessary characters in what could be an interesting side quest, which could take up a good hour before it ties back to the main plot? I don't know, I guess I'll have to wait for the rest of it to come out first.

[Ithekro]

Well considering where they landed, I'm expecting Beorn next followed by Gandalf's adventure to Dol Guldur before getting the White Council to act in concert with the Dwarves distraction of Smaug (so that Smaug and the Necromancer can't team up against either force).

Mirkwood Forest is suppose to be nearly psychodelic in colors if we go by the production blogs (made when it was going to be two films instead of three). Spiders, the Elfking's Hall, and down the falls was to be the end of the film...but as it is now, that would be a five to six hours movie to get to that point.

I admit the film could have been shortened by maybe 20-30 minutes by cutting down the length of the chase scenes and the panoramic views of New Zealand that seem like they were added for the National Tourism Bureau. But aside from that I had no problem with the film. It was altered from the novel, but so were Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films, and I didn't mind that either since it made them look really cool and kept the "flavor" of Middle Earth, so to speak.