The Hobbit - An Unexpected Journey

[Wrathborne]

Non-refundable tickets. The armed guards will escort you to the theatre

[Dracarys]

Apprehensive. I want them to succeed so badly but the pessimist in me is wondering how they can drag a fairly small book out into three 160 minute films.

Like Game of Thrones in a hour long ten part series, pretty much.

[Carnivol]

Difference also being that Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit are written in two entirely different ways.

The Hobbit is written in a way that makes it very light reading; lots of things happening over few pages.
Lord of the Rings is written in a way that makes it heavy reading; few things happening through entire chapters.


Also, gotta love how the same people moaning about how Lord of the Rings had to cut corners and skipped this or that, are the same people now moaning about The Hobbit not just being one or two movies, but in fact three movies.

[Pikminister]

Also, gotta love how the same people moaning about how Lord of the Rings had to cut corners and skipped this or that, are the same people now moaning about The Hobbit not just being one or two movies, but in fact three movies.

The people who always complain about cutting corners are the die-hard fans.

I remember that well and it was happening at the One Ring forums. Something similar went down among the Harry Potter fanbase (who went ballistic over how the films changed things or cut stuff from the books). It happened with the Hunger Games. With Coraline. If a film was based on a book, that is what happened among the die-hard fanbase. Mainstream or casual audiences couldn't tell the difference (what was cut or not).

The people who complain about The Hobbit being made into 3 films are:

1. Reviewers & Mainstream audiences that had to sit for 2 long hours before things FINALLY got going (mostly thanks to Gollum)

2. People who actually read the book and feel the film is bloated beyond belief (which was the opposite of what happened in the original trilogy - the films were a condense version of the books which were filled to the brim with stuff).

[[STARS]TyranT]

Just got back, and bare in mind I do love me my Middle Earth so....

I absolutely fucking loved it, I found the critics issue with the films length and bloat completely unfounded but then I would as I treasure every minute of being in that world. But that said, it was for me an extremely brisk 2 hrs 40, and certainly felt closer to two hours if truth be told.

The action and special effects are pretty mind blowing, and CGI characters such as Gollum now may as well look real, but a huge well done to the animators of the Goblin King who could of very much been real too.

The character beats are absolutely superb, with McKellan, Armitage and Freeman being stand outs, the rest of the dwarves have moments, some pretty great ones, but as expected some do get lost in the back of a lot of the scenes. We barely seen Oin and Gloin for example.

The LOTR linking scenes, with Galadrial, Elrond.etc. are the stand out moments of the film for me. The acting and dialogue is really special, so pleased to see these characters in the roles again. I could literally watch them for hours and hours.

Riddles in the Dark, where Bilbo meets Gollum is undoubtably the highlight of the film, and it's really really excellent.

Yeah. I absolutely loved it.

I am however, not yet sold on 48FPS. It certainly looks amazing sometimes, but also made for tv HD in others, the opening scenes in the Shire really take some getting used to, and I know the for a fact that the film will ironically be more absorbing in native 2D 24fps. I'm looking to go next week to compare. As an experiment it's certainly interesting, and it really amazing at times, you can certainly see the benefit, but.... yeah. I don't know yet.

[BBboy20]

I'm not getting the hate myself.

Frickin' stone giants!

[Trent]

Like Game of Thrones in a hour long ten part series, pretty much.

A Game of Thrones = close to 1000 pages
The Hobbit = 400 pages

Saw the film yesterday, almost fell to sleep in the middle. So much bloody dialogue!

[Wrathborne]

Peter Jackson has kind of "episode 1'd" the film in favor of some more roller coaster type of effects and sequences. there was more room to get more story and stuff, but they chose to not do that. The films pacing felt really off which was kind of sad because the Hobbits story isn't exactly fast paced, but they kind of focused on the wrong parts to focus on.

I'd say its a 7/10. Not a terrible film, but only a 'good' one.Jackson should have tightened the pacing more.

[Rick Hunter]

Saw the film yesterday, almost fell to sleep in the middle.

Glad I wasn't the only one. Confusing battles and non-stop action (?!) at the end didn't help.