'The Hobbit' Films

Never was big on LOTR or really anything Tolkein. Even so, I'm still kinda happy that the book is being made into a movie and I'm also happy to see Martin Freeman getting some major exposure from this movie. I've always thought he was talented and it's nice to see things work out for a guy like that.

I never read the hobbit/lotr books. But I did enjoy the films yrs ago. The trailer looks pretty good. Can't wait to see it next dec.

thecolorsblend wrote:Never was big on LOTR or really anything Tolkein. Even so, I'm still kinda happy that the book is being made into a movie and I'm also happy to see Martin Freeman getting some major exposure from this movie. I've always thought he was talented and it's nice to see things work out for a guy like that.

Never read the books, loved the films. They just showed the extended versions of all three back-to-back-to-back on Starz a couple weeks ago. Watched them all.

This one looks like it will fit in seamlessly. Take notes, George Lucas....

All this hubbub about The Hobbit made me curious so I checked out the Wiki page. The films were shot and will be projected at 48fps rather than the traditional 24fps. The idea is that the higher frame rate will permit a "smoother" image. Seems logical enough but, as a rookie in this, my hunch is that shooting at that frame rate would require different exposures and thus different lighting levels on set than would be necessary for 24fps. Gotta wonder if anybody took that into account when they were shooting this stuff. Still, there was a stink a few weeks back about people getting sick while seeing the movie. I assume that's to do with the frame rate. It's all kind of interesting from a tech geek viewpoint.

The movie looked fine. The people making a stink about this are people LOOKING for a nit-pick or are lemmings looking to pile-on.

'The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey' is a VERY good film, and deserves an FX Oscar for Gollum ALONE.

WETA is doing CGI work for 'Man Of Steel', and that is going to be a very, very good thing.

Actually just watched the 3D 48fps screening last night...

So, technical stuff first: It was very jarring during the first couple of minutes. My first reaction just based off the opening logos was "OH FUCK". Then the actual 48fps shoot footage, "OH FFFFFFFUUUCK." I found it very distracting, but not as distracting as the group of teenagers around the corner that did nothing but chat and giggle to eachother for the first 30 mins, THAT excruciating! For many years I hear everyone complain about people chatting in theater, but I never had that experience until now. I wanted to rip their fucking heads off like a troll.

I'm rambling. Back to 48fps. Yeah, again it was very jarring for the first 15 minutes. I can definitely imagine a lot of film aficionados will hate it. But to be honest, I actually started to go along with it as the film went by. It would still hit me at some points but it never really killed the film for me. Most positive thing I can say about it is that it WORKS for 3D. Not sure if it would in normal 2D format, but it gets rid of a lot of problems previous 3D releases had like motion blur being emphasized. It seemed a lot more palpable in this frame rate. So yeah, if this is the future of 3D films then I'm all for that, but for normal 2D films I'll prefer the old fashioned 24fps thank you. But like I said, the frame rate really benefits not just 3D but special effects overall that it blends everything so seamlessly. LORD OF THE RINGS looked great ten years ago, but a few things always stuck out like how obvious effects were used to make the hobbits smaller than other characters unless doubles were used. It really stuck out at points. With THE HOBBIT I was very shocked by how realistic it looked with Gandalf and Bilbo interacting with eachother physically whether it's a handshake or a pat on the back, it looked INCREDIBLE.

Worst to say about the frame rate? Not sure if it was right for THE HOBBIT because it made it a little too clean for me. I think this would be perfect for something like a sci-fi film, but I would have preferred a Middle Earth adventure filmed the old fashioned way. That's just my preference, I still applaud Jackson for pulling it off his way.

As for the movie itself? Well, I enjoyed it. A lot. They could have easily cut a lot of fat as some scenes just go on longer than they should, but I really liked the emphasis on Bilbo Baggins finding his place among the group. Does he really belong there or back at the Shire? Can he prove his worth? He obviously does and in a way I found very satisfying emotionally. It's a great escapist fantasy that looked nice and colorful with Howard Shore enhancing the experience. This is no LOTR, but it's still worth seeing on the big screen and I look forward to seeing the next two films.

Watching this now. Definitely moves faster than the book. A vast improvement there. I'll probably never love the Tolkienverse but I'm enjoying myself with this so far. Pretty good continuity with the LOTR trilogy- getting captured by the trolls (which Bilbo talked about in Fellowship), Radagast basically finding Sauron by accident and making sure to tell Gandalf about it (which kinda sorta enables the entire fucking LOTR trilogy), goings on with Saruman and so forth.

Tolkien on film has always faced very long odds. That's nothing new. But so far it looks like Peter Jackson is still the go-to guy if you want to beat the odds.

I still haven't seen The Hobbit even though I own the DVD. I am aware though that Peter Jackson is an awesome filmmaker. But I still wonder why he had to add so much extra stuff to his remake of KING KONG?! Sure, it's a good film but have you ever seen the 1933 original? Sure, it looks outdated by today's CGI standards with all it's 'stop-motion' clay figures or whatever but the film itself is really good & an all-time classic. Growing up with it didn't hurt my preference for it either. I liked Jackson's version but why did he have to put Jack Black in it & make it over 3 hours long? Just saying..........

I really enjoyed the first, looking forward to the second, 'Desolation of Smaug'.

Changed the thread title, since there is going to be a total of three films in the series.

non_amos wrote:I still haven't seen The Hobbit even though I own the DVD. I am aware though that Peter Jackson is an awesome filmmaker. But I still wonder why he had to add so much extra stuff to his remake of KING KONG?! Sure, it's a good film but have you ever seen the 1933 original? Sure, it looks outdated by today's CGI standards with all it's 'stop-motion' clay figures or whatever but the film itself is really good & an all-time classic. Growing up with it didn't hurt my preference for it either. I liked Jackson's version but why did he have to put Jack Black in it & make it over 3 hours long? Just saying..........

I liken it to Chris Nolan Syndrome in reverse. When Nolan directs a Batman film, as you know, it's not my thing. Not what I want for Batman. But his non-Batman films are mostly amazing. I think he's one of the great filmmakers of our era if you exclude his Batman stuff.

Jackson has the opposite problem. By and large I'm not really impressed with him but something cool happens when he goes into Tolkein territory. Granted I'm not a huge Tolkein fan (if ever there was proof that every writer needs an editor...) but I can still acknowledge that Jackson accomplished the unlikely by adapting Tolkein's work in an effective way. But the minute he goes outside of Tolkein and into other material, eh, don't care. Don't really care about Tolkein but I really don't care about his other stuff.

So hmm.

I'd love to see Peter Jackson make a 'HALO' film, as was rumored years back.

'King Kong' wasn't as effects-heavy as the 'Rings' film are, so I think Jackson had to add unnecessary things in to fall back into comfortable territories. The excruciatingly long boat ride was head-scratching though.

But Andy Serkis was AMAZING as Kong.