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The Hobbit The Hobbit THE HOBBIT

Already seeing complaints about the HFR version. I don't know if it's the same people who complain about all the 3D stuff, or WHAT. I will wait to see what my trusty MFers think. Of the TWO 3D films I've seen, I enjoyed the 3Dness of it.
 
OK, just got back from seeing it - Massive spoilers ahead.

(It's bloody great - truly magical, but wished I had seen it in 2D)

The opening scenes are wonderful and quite charming. Bilbo Baggins (Ian Holm) is excellent again and the transition between old and new is deftly handled. Then we have Martin Freeman - and he is really rather good. I think he was made for the part. Either that, or he has been playing Bilbo Baggins in the office (which is possible) anyway, not going to nit pick, he was just brilliant.

The Dwarf feast in the Shire was also very well done. I didn't mind the over use of CGI in the plate clearing scenes because it was actually FUNNY! Allowing fourteen characters to breath must be difficult, and Mr Jackson did it well. He isn't known for his brevity, but this initial "character introduction" bit was again, subtle and controlled.

When I saw the troll scene in the trailer / blog I was quite worried. Cockney trolls with snot? DONT BE WORRIED, it's absolutely brilliant and has a great balance between funny and scary.

The "flashback" dwarven war scenes are also really rather beautiful, I just wish I had see it in 2D. The difficulty I have with 3D is that you cannot focus on the ENTIRE screen, you are restricted to move about and focus, move and refocus etc. This makes complex scenes such as war quite tricky as you cannot see the entire battlefield. Quite a shame and I am very worried about seeing Life of Pi in 3D for the same reason.

Moving on the Goblin underworld scenes are extraordinary and just spellbinding, but for me the stand out scene is Bilbo and Gollum. The humour, the most incredible Gollum expressions and self torture you see on his face... This scene is long and deservedly so, I wanted it to never end. The script is particularly good at this point BTW.

We then move onto a really quite standard battle at the end involving the Pale Orc. I must say now that while Gollum CGI was quite breath taking, the Pale Orc looks a little "avatar" in the extreme. I never was very scared by him at all. Contrast him to the infantry Orcs (who looked stunning) and I would love to know peoples opinions. Notably when the Orc scouting party first find the dwarf party at night we have a brief glimpse of our first standard Orc, and it is quite wonderful. He is truly visceral, and his flesh appears both alive, and unnervingly dead and necrotic.

Anyway - Thoroughly charmed by Mr Peter Jackson's work again. I shall be attempting to get my hands on the LOTR trilogy as my boys loved it and want to see the others.
 
I saw this film.

I liked this film.

But I'll start off with one of it's major flaws, and it's one that's it's pacing and structure. The film is basically a series of unrelated adventures that the Dwarves get into as they make their way to Erebor. They walk, they fight some things, they walk some more, they fight different and unrelated things. It all feels a bit (and ONLY a bit) disjointed.

Of course, the thing with that is, that's exactly what the story of The Hobbit is. It's not Peter Jackson's fault, and it's really not Tolkien's fault either. It's mainly a symptom of having the book split into parts, so you get all the small adventures but no actual resolution of story.

But the important thing is, all the little adventures, the trolls, the goblins, the wargs, Riddles in the Dark, etc. are really really good, really well made and really well put together, and a pleasure to watch.

Radagast was awesome. I love Radagast. In the books, I loved Radgast. I loved Radagast here. He's mad and all about animals and helps hedgehogs and is fantastic. Can't get enough Radagast.

And all the other bits of filler, the flashbacks, the White Council - again they all felt slightly out of place... but were all so good you didn't really care. And they even mentioned the Blue Wizards. Awesome.

I'd say the main problem this film has is it's lack of an ending, which was kind of unavoidable really. They did try and give the film an arc of it's own, with the whole thing between Thorin and Azog, but that didn't really work...

Oh, and the eagles didn't talk. Fuck that.

About the HFR:

I went in three stages with the HFR.

First, it was really really strange. People looked like they were moving at double speed... but they weren't. It only lasted a few minutes, though.

Once my brain had realised what was going on, it still looked a bit... off. Mostly it was simply because I knew I was watching a film, but it didn't look like a film, so it looked kind of... fake.

But eventually even that went away, and it looked fine. Really smooth, detailed, and pretty. I don't know if I'd call it better than 24fps but it certainly wasn't worse once I got used to it.

One thing I will say is that as the smoother motion makes everything look more 'real', everything looks more real. The CGI creatures looked amazing, and looked like they lived in the same space as the live action people. The trolls and Gollum was easily some of the best looking stuff I've seen in a film, helped by the HFR making them look more natural.
 
Might be seeing it in HFR tomorrow, so glad to hear it didn't make you throw up. Especially intrigued about the CG looking realer.
 
In relation to Tomtreks post

(I don't think I need a spoiler)

Nailed it - The storyline is The Hobbit as it is. A children's book that has lots of different scenes to keep their attention. Racing between scenes is exactly what children want.

It reminds me a little of the treatment of the late Harry Potter films - SO MUCH FUCKIN STORY and people who loved the story and didn't want to edit it. Peter Jackson is a complete Tolkien fanboy and sees himself as chronicling the tales in a modern format. He seems to take his caretaker role almost as seriously as his role to make a lucid, coherent film. Good luck to him, he is walking a fine line and doing brilliantly.

Ultimately? My kids want to read the book RIGHT NOW. How many films do you see where kids will say "Yeh, no worries I saw the film, so don't need to read the book" - this is one of Jackson's (and let's face it Tolkiens) magic tricks. There is such depth here that you really cannot find the bottom. This intrigues minds of kids and kids at heart.

I hate long films, but I sat through 2 hours 40 minutes of this and wanted more.
 
I'm going to see it in 2 hours. HOBBITS HOBBITS FURRY FEET HOBBITS MY PRECIOUS ETC!!!!1
 
Argh. I'm jealous of all of you - looks like I won't have the opportunity to see it till the new year. :(

At least with the mutterings I've heard both in public and online (without reading the spoilers) I know it's going to be good, when I eventually do see it.
 
IT WAS REALLY NICE, I LIKED IT. I could never do the movie justice with words, like Tomtrek and headvoid have.

I am going to complain about the 3D, though. I think I would have enjoyed it so much more if I'd gone to the 2D version. My eyes never adjusted to 3D, and always felt like they were being pulled in different directions. Whenever there was a bright background behind a character it was the worst. I spent way too much time during the movie thinking about my eyes, it was a huge distraction from what should have been a completely immersive experience. When part 2 comes out, I'm not even going to worry about seeing it in 3D.
 
I saw it in HFR last night... and I didn't really like the HFR. It wasn't puke inducing, but it was quite distracting at times and ultimately didn't add anything to the experience as far as I could tell. I suppose I'd have to see it at standard speed to make a fair comparison, but I was constantly reminded of the different speed every time someone appeared to dart along like a person in an old film reel from the 19th century.

I did really like the 3D, though. You always have the problem of your eyes being torn apart because it's working counter to how you really see in 3D, but I found it worked really well in the establishing shots, a few PoV shots during the fight with the goblins and the sweeping shots through their caverns.

My main issue with my viewing of the movie was the man with the gigantic head sitting in front of me.

ANYWAY. It was really good! Much, much better than The Fellowship, in my opinion. My problem with the LotR movies was that I always felt a real lack of connection with the characters, which meant I never felt invested in them or cared if they completed their quest. Maybe part of that was due to how cold Frodo was during much of the movies, which might explain why Bilbo's such a breath of fresh air. He really is the perfect window character for me because as much as I like an adventure when I'm experiencing it, if I was asked beforehand to choose between adventure or the comforts of home, I'd choose the comforts. So I can empathise with him very readily. I suspect this goes for a lot of the audience.

I'm still not very keen on dwarves, though. Or how Gandalf basically forced entry into the home of someone he barely knew and had a load of strangers steal the guy's food. What a dick.

Radagast the Brrrrrrrreeeewwn was great. Sylvester McCoy at his best. I struggle to imagine why anyone would dislike him. He's not Jar Jar at all. He checked a potion was correct by listening to it! He's charming.

The Gollum/Bagginses cave scene was the best. A welcome change of pace, some witty dialogue and frankly quite fascinating facial expressions. There's something about Gollum that's almost hyper real. I suppose it's that his emotions are so close to the surface. No interpretation or supposition about his thoughts is required, it's all there, direct, and therefore very easy to empathise with.

I agree about the troll scene, too. From the snippets I'd seen on tv it looked almost like it'd sink to a Lucasian level of humour, but in reality it was probably one of the highlights. I felt kind of sorry for them when they got beaten up.

Didn't have a problem with pacing on the whole, but the slight repetitiveness got to me. It seemed like virtually every time an individual or the group got into a sticky situation, they weren't saved by their own ingenuity, but practically by a deus ex machina. At least twice it was a case of "hey, Gandalf hasn't been seen for a while?" (because he'd been cut off from the group by chance, rather than as part of a plan), another time it was elves conveniently showing up. Finally it was the giant eagles. You could debate whether that's ingenuity or a cop out. I suppose it's a symptom of the way the book's written, as you've all commented on. The formula just really stands out when it's repeated several times in one sitting.
 
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