The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

So the film is coming out this weekend, and the reviews are decidedly mixed. It's only getting a 79% Fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes, with most of the complaints settling around the 2 hour and 45 minute run time that seems to be filled with lots of bloat!

I was not happy when they first announced that Jackson would be turning the two planned movies into three. My fears were that the story of the Hobbit as written on the page is a simple, fast moving story. While I understand they have expanded on the story by mining the appendices of LOTR, three movies still seems like an awful lot of extra stuff that could bog down the story. And from the reviews, that's exactly what seems to happen, with a majority of the complaint regarding the slow pace of the film with lots and lots and lots of extraneous and unimportant scenes simply filling the time. A leaner, meaner two-film series sounds like it would have worked so much better in terms of story pacing, but it seems like Jackson got greedy and is simply trying to line his pockets.

Will "The Hobbit" movies actually be the downfall of Peter Jackson?

One film would be enough. I predict lots of padding.

They can't be worse than King Kong.

Fixed the thread title for ya.

And don't forget the sequel!

The Hobbit: This Shit Is Back Again?

And the final movie in the trilogy!

The Hobbt: I'll Take The $$$$$ From You Fucking Losers

Saw it today. Fell asleep in the second act. Yup, basically all the predictable problems are there and I don't plan to waste money on the other two.

What a fucking disappointment.

Sounds like too much bread, not enough butter.

They're really going to strech this thing into a 9-hour snore-a-thon?

I'm thinking I may not bother, though I would like to (1) ss the new Star Trek footage and/or (2) find out how the 48 frames/second projection looks.

You thought it was fast? Jebus, I got bored halfway through and tossed it.

I know I'm in the minority here, but I found the whole Lord of the Rings movie series to be excessive and tedious. I mean, I enjoyed them for the most part, but they all just kinda blend together in my memory. I have little desire to re-watch the entire trilogy. And the idea of watching the still-longer director's cuts holds even less appeal for me...

Yep.
Liked 'em in the theater, haven't gone back, haven't forced myself to get the ultimate cut DVDs.
Haven't read the books.

It's like The Great Classics Of Western Literature you tell yourself "I should really get to those", and...you never do.

I've come to terms with, if I haven't gotten to it in a couple years, I probably din't like it that much.

And then, I pop in "Goonies", or "The Punisher", again.

Saw it yesterday, thought it was okay. Visually stunning but way too slow. A lot more "epic" than I remember the book to be. I thought it was only going to be two movies but now you guys disavowed me of that notion. Jesus Christ...

I honestly liked all three movies, especially the extended versions which add a bit to the story. I only didn't like how much the comedy relief was played up with Gimli and Legolas, and admittedly the last movie dragged on for a bit. Other than that I liked them so much that it became a yearly tradition to watch them over Thanksgiving Break, at least until I had them pretty much memorized. First one is still my favorite out of the bunch.

The last three films were a bore. I can't even remember what its about. I read the Hobbit as a kid. Have to say it totally sucked. No desire to watch these films.

Saw the first LOTR movie in the theater, was bored to motherfucking tears. I'd read the book as a kid and enjoyed them, but couldn't stand the movies. Jackson can't seem to grasp that one of the reasons why the books have dialog that goes on for pages is because it breaks up the monotony of having the narrator explain things to you, and that in a fucking movie you don't need ten pages of dialog telling you what's going on, because you can fucking see the shit!

I'm curious to see how the 48 frames looks, so I'll probably catch the first one in the theater, but I doubt if I'll ever bother to watch the others. I certainly didn't bother to watch the others in the LOTR series.

The padding part really concerns me, because I'm at a loss as to what else they could put in there. Gandalf wiping his ass?

There's only like a few hundred theaters showing it a 48/second so make sure not to waste your nap on 24/sec screen.

Yea, well, I'm still gonna see it. I actually read this book, in contrast to LOTR which put me off at about page 100 of the first volume each of the 20 times I tried. LOTR for me is like King's DARK TOWER: I just can't get myself to read it because it just doesn't hold any interest for me. With the movies one can at least marvel at the handiwork.

You're far from being in the minority.

I still can't believe the Academy gave a trophy to Jackson. Instead of being lauded, he should have been shot for the 63 false endings in ROTK.

I agree, although I find the extended versions better because they offer greater intelligence to the story. I rewatched them just a couple of weeks ago. What I find is that with the extended versions I don't feel compelled to watch a whole three hour film. Instead I treat the whole series like a TV box set, watching one or two hours at a sitting. For me they are far less tedious that way.

But I agree, I never saw what was so ground breakingly wonderful about them. Certainly not worthy of a best picture Oscar.

Whever I bring up watching the trilogy again, my wife groans and sighs. "Those battle scenes just go oooon and ooooon forever! Battle scenes bore me!"

She's a chick, what do you expect?

Adore the books and have read everything, including Unfinished Tales and The Silmarillion, but I detest Jackson as a film-maker. Sweeping shots of NZ's beautiful landscapes shouldn't distract from the fact he's a schlock director who got a lucky break. And the cunt Boyens is ten times worse with the liberties she takes with the scripts.

The mixed reviews so far delight me.

Except if you want to see it in IMAX. If your local IMAX theater is a "real" 15perf/70mm IMAX theater, they're (probably) showing it on film, but only if it's in 24fps. If it's in 48fps, they're definitely showing it digitally, and IMAX digital projectors are 2k units. The only advantage they'll have is in sound and brightness, but picture quality will be substantially worse because of the larger screen size.

I think the formats to see The Hobbit in, from most to least optimal, will be 48fps in a 4k theater, 24fps IMAX on film, 24fps on 35mm, 48fps in a 2k theater, 48fps IMAX, 24fps in a 2k theater, 24fps IMAX digital. JMHO, YMMV.

You all are fucking nuts! LOTR was awesome!! I'm seeing The Hobbit tonight but I am worried that it will drag a lot. LOTR was 1000 or so pages and that was 3 movies. Hobbit was what 250 pages? One movie...DONE!

Like others, my views on the LoTR movies have changed. They're good, but they're not that good. There are significant problems there that a better director would have corrected.

The Hobbit Review

A "vainglorious trainwreck".

"reminded me more than once of the jarringly amateurish "Star Wars Holiday Special"."

"comparisons of Hobbit 1 to Episode I and of Jackson to George Lucas land uncomfortably close to the bone."

"lacks the sense of wonder and gravity of any portion of Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. "

"it approximates what I could do with my smartphone and a ton of cheap makeup. "

"A disaster."

Oops.

Total Film gave it 5 stars, but then they're notoriously influenced by hype.

Such as?

Such as too much exposition, too literal a reading of some of Tolkiens writing (the "Great Eye" for example), the distortion of the plot of The Two Towers in particular to gave central focus to a sequence that took something like two pages in the book, the use of Gimli and others as stupid comic-relief, the multiple endings of the third movie.

Off the top of my head.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKbyWSwd7hk

I made the mistake of reading ROTK before seeing it in the theater. The actual movie pailed, failed, in comparison. They blew some what would've been great scenes & hilarious dialogue between Christopher Lee and Brad Dourif. But, as was the case with Peter Jackson's 2 previous films in the trilogy, his ROTK was TOO EFFING LONG & TEDIOUS!

You could call it "Trilogy of Error"!