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Post by The Doctor on Dec 15, 2012 8:18:38 GMT
I suggest you give the original novel a try. It's a much lighter read both in page count and in tone than The Lord of the Rings.
-Ralph
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Post by Toph on Dec 15, 2012 22:40:53 GMT
I think I might try.
Stephen Colbert said the other night when he had Pete Jackson on, that after he wrote LotRs, Tolkien went back and altered The Hobbit a bit to make sure it jives with LotRs.
Then, since apparently these two stories were intended to be texts he had discovered and were presenting to us, he wondered "Why is Hobbit" a children's book, while LotRs is so dark and hard? Oh! Well, Hobbit much be a newer translation from the original text, and was changed into a children's story.
So he set out to rewrite the hobbit from scratch, to make it thematically fit, as well as have the same air that LotRs had, citing that "This is a more ancient, and more accurate translation."
He got a few chapters in, when friends told him, "Look, this is really great stuff... but this isn't the hobbit anymore." And he stopped the project.
Grain of salt, but Colbert is such a huge Tolkien buff, I can't imagine he'd be making this up.
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Post by The Doctor on Dec 15, 2012 22:46:45 GMT
Well the thing to bear in mind with Tolkien's writings is that he was making it up as we went on. A detailed reading makes this obvious. This is not a bad thing though. Nowt wrong with the writer discovering things at the same time as the reader.
-Ralph
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Post by Marc Graham on Jan 9, 2013 8:17:32 GMT
Watched the Hobbit at the weekend, movie was way too long for my liking, repeated a lot of action sequences that felt similar to those in the Rings trilogy and frankly, little plot, stretched thinly and the tension was removed from the action because there was so many scenes where there was a massive numbers disadvantage but things ploughed on regardless.
In short, yet again I preferred the book.
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jan 9, 2013 19:17:26 GMT
there was so many scenes where there was a massive numbers disadvantage but things ploughed on regardless. Given that the quest wasn't important to the world at large in the way the Lord of the Rings quest was, the silly scenes in The Hobbit were among my favourite bits. It felt more fitting to have wargs led a merry chase by a rabbit-pulled sledge, and dwarves make complete fools of orcs in a long underground chase involving swinging bridges and rolling boulders in this film than it felt to have the various Legolas shenanigans in LOTR, which seemed somewhat out of place given the seriousness of the other events going on at the time. Martin |
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Post by Toph on Jan 9, 2013 23:15:59 GMT
I kinda think the Legolas/Ghimli shinanagans in the Rings trilogy were nessisary.
As brilliant as the movies are, they are indeed a chore to watch through. As much as I love them, I can only sit through them every couple years or so.
While the movies are ultra serious, as they should be, levity is needed. It's how real life works. Even in the middle of war, you'll still find the absurd.
In the heat of World War II, there was once a german who was captured by a pitbull an american troop kept as a company pet.
As long as the legolas/ghimli jokes weren't over the top, I found them a plesant distraction. Anyway, it's not like Tolkien himself didn't find the humor in their unlikely friendship. The jokes were already there for the most part, Jackson just put a bit of a modern spin on it.
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jan 10, 2013 7:40:38 GMT
I wasn't referring to the Legolas/Gimli banter, so much as the solo Legolas ultra-unrealistic heroics, such as shield-surfing down a staircase and taking down an Oliphaunt with acrobatics. I do like those sequences, they just seem to clash a bit with the death and sacrifice going on around them. With the dwarves in The Hobbit, the tone seems more suited to such things.
All the Legolas/Gimli humour that derives from the books is spot on, though, and a necessary lightening of tone which, as you say, reflects how people get through stress in real life.
Martin
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Post by Marc Graham on Jan 10, 2013 8:14:03 GMT
I guess the Hobbit is more suited to slapstick, but any illusion of peril is destroyed by how often it occurs in the movie. So much of it felt like filler to me...
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Post by The Doctor on Jan 10, 2013 8:46:42 GMT
Whereas for me almost all of the LOTR films felt like filler and it could have been done fine in just one film. What works in print does not always transate to what works on film.
-Ralph
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Post by Benn on Jan 10, 2013 10:09:27 GMT
The Legolas kills an oliphaint thing has always been an eye-rolling one for me, but it never killed the film the way the Army Of The Dead did.
That always struck me as being Peter Jackson going "Well, I've set up this huge orc army. They've smashed the walls of Minas Tirith, driven back the Riders Of Rohan, and now in comes Aragorn to save the day in an epic swashbuckling fight scene where he proves his kingship by battling through an army of evil and routs the orcish leaders.
...
What? This is the halfway point of the movie? Still got to destroy the ring?
...
Okay, lets wrap this up as quickly as possible, then."
And then, instead of holding them to thier oath to fight against Sauron (think how much easier that battle would have been!), he lets them go. All while Gimli is shouting over his shoulder about how much of a bad idea that is.
No. Sorry. Legolas pole dancing around an elephant I find much easier to take than that.
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Post by blueshift on Jan 10, 2013 10:56:11 GMT
Yeah, the ghost army was way overpowered, and made all the heroic sacrifice stuff earlier a bit silly, because "oh look, here comes the ghost army to steamroller the villains"
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Post by The Doctor on Jan 10, 2013 21:23:02 GMT
I don't remember that bit at all! I must have been sleeping at the time.
-Ralph
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Post by Toph on Jan 11, 2013 0:06:54 GMT
...and I'm the opposite. I actually forgot that part *wasn't* in the book!
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jan 11, 2013 5:40:33 GMT
The ghost army steamrollered the bad guys twice in the extended DVD version - first the pirates in the estuary, then the orc army. Happens just after Legolas kills Peter Jackson. www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_BK-kuQ-FoI'm glad I saw The Hobbit twice because the first time I went to the loo in what I thought was a boring bit, and came back thinking I hadn't missed anything. Turns out, I had missed the stone giants' battle in its entirety. You could say it was completely unnecessary to the story (which is why I was oblivious to missing it), but it made my day. Martin |
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Post by Toph on Jan 11, 2013 7:12:53 GMT
That was the best part! I think you were in the theater with me, because a dude near by did the same thing.
But yeah, that's the reason I tell everyone to see it in the theaters. That's not something that'll translate as well to the small screen. I think it's going to lose a lot.
Also, is Hobboit going to be two, or three parter? Does anyone know? I heard and assumed it was a two parter, and assumed the next/last part would be subtitled "There and Back Again" (naturally).
But the next one is called Desolation of Smaug.
I thought it would be a stretch to stretch small to average length book (If memory serves me) into two parts. But three seems like forehead smacking time.
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jan 11, 2013 8:07:27 GMT
Three parts. Apparently they just filmed the whole thing, looked at how much footage they had, and decided that it made three long films. (Which is why the first film ends at a random point - just a third of the way through the full thing.)
I'm happy with that decision, in that I'd rather have the full thing in cinemas than have it butchered and only get the full thing on extended DVDs (like what happened with LOTR, which I'd have preferred to see as four or five films in the cinema, than the three abridged films that they did release, followed by the much better paced extended DVD releases, which rounded out the secondary cast and made Middle-Earth seem much bigger and richer than it did in the theatrical releases).
When I take a bath, I stay in until I'm wrinkly. When I'm in a fantasy world like Middle-Earth, I want to explore its every corner at leisure.
Martin
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Post by The Doctor on Jan 11, 2013 19:50:39 GMT
If Sunday is as cold as forecast, I hope to catch the lunchtime showing of The Hobbit again before the 2D version exits cinemas. It would be nice to see it again on the big screen.
-Ralph
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Post by The Doctor on Jan 13, 2013 15:50:49 GMT
Still enjoyed it on second viewing though did feel the length more.
-Ralph
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Jan 14, 2013 15:54:16 GMT
Going to see it tomorrow.
Andy
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Post by The Doctor on Jan 14, 2013 19:54:12 GMT
Three parts. Apparently they just filmed the whole thing, looked at how much footage they had, and decided that it made three long films. Martin Yes and no. Additional footage is being filmed in the Spring. -Ralph |
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Jan 15, 2013 6:32:12 GMT
I stand corrected.
Martin
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Jan 15, 2013 16:18:20 GMT
Saw it and thoroughly enjoyed it. Far more pacier than the LOTR films.
Andy
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Post by The Doctor on Jan 16, 2013 21:48:31 GMT
I hope Sylvester McCoy gets more screen work out of it. After years of being used to him as an audio actor I was taken aback by his screen prescence. He works wonders in a small role with not that much dialogue. But he's really good and memorable even though he probably only has about 10 mins of screen time in the finished film!
-Ralph
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Post by legios on Jan 16, 2013 21:58:46 GMT
It is a very impressive performance indeed. I was quite taken by his turn when I saw it in the cinema. I'd never really thought of him as a big screen actor before, but I think he really does have what it takes to thrive in that environment.
Karl
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Post by The Doctor on Nov 27, 2020 9:12:18 GMT
Future sister-in-law's family are upgrading to 4K for Lord of the Rings/Hobbit so gave us their regular blu-rays. Not seen any of these since theatrical releases. Bit puzzled why the LOTR films are split over two discs. I thought Blu-Ray had much more storage?
Anyway, watched the 1st half of the 1st LOTR. What really stands out from a 2020 perspective so far is how white Middle Earth is. All white folk. Maybe that changes as it goes on. I don't remember.
The Gandalf/Saruman fight is hilarious.
-Ralph
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Post by Toph on Dec 18, 2021 18:11:21 GMT
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Stomski
Fusilateral Quintro Combiner
YOU INTERRUPTED MY SPEECH!! But don't worry. It won't happen again.
Posts: 6,120
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Post by Stomski on Dec 19, 2021 7:27:07 GMT
A damning indictment of the man that it's far from his most questionable actions in life. Did he want Kevin Spacey as Elrond too?
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