The problem i had with Peter Jackson filming the Hobbit movies (besides the dumb changes to the story) was the tone of the movies. He or the studio felt the need to have them match the look and feel of the LOTR. Yeah it’s the same world and same characters but tonally it just doesn’t work, as the story is a bit more fantastic and adventurous. The film we got had none of the soul that the animated versions do despite having a ton of budget to dip into.
Anyway. I can talk about my issues with LOTR and The Hobbit forever.
You try and find another universe for which such care and attention was paid to set design, language, costuming, uniqueness of races, and the overall tone of the series. Yes, I said tone. This is a book for youth, with fun and whimsy that so many seem to want to tear out of the story.
I know it’s in and chic to be all high-brow and act like the movies were terrible, but I sincerely enjoyed the experience, as intended - as a fun ride through middle-earth dotted with serious and sombre character moments, and foreboding tales of what is to come. In many ways, you get to watch the death of innocence in that age of middle earth.
Come on, it’s not like that idiocy from Fellowship where Gimli somehow doesn’t know Moria has fallen.
Riddles in the Dark and the trolley scene introducing the Elvish swords were both quite good, and the special effects (particularly the animation of Smaug) were excellent.
But the story itself was fundamentally changed, to the point of being antithetical to Tolkien’s vision. The whole bit with the Wood Elves (on mooseback!) happening to have an army standing around waiting for Smaug to arrive so they could flip off the Dwarves was utterly nonsensical; given his reaction to the cover illos on the Ballantine editions of his work, I am certain Tolkien would have been enraged.
That’s the Teddy Roosevelt edition. It ends with him punching Smaug out, restoring the kingdom the dwarves, defeating the Orc army by glaring at them and then flying off on a Eagle while shouting “Bully!!”.
Here’s a screenshot from it with an actual line from the movie:
All of those were wonderful. Pretty much everything with Smaug, the Elves, and Martin Freeman – who was perfectly cast – was great.
Where I start to get huffy is when you’ve cut out all the cool Beorn stuff that was actually in the book to make more time for poopy-head Radagast on a bunny sled or Hobbit love triangles that they admit they just made up to pad the film.
What do you mean? Is this at the same time as the Holiday Special or one of those Ewok movies or an animation or something? Actually doing the prequels as full blown movies sounds like a good idea. Maybe now that Disney own Lucasfilm they’ll finally get around to it.
Comparing the Hobbit films, which are merely bad, to The Star Wars prequels, which do not even exist, is a critical barb too far.
This is an interesting side edit that fits nicely with a shortened version of the hobbit. It contains the background/side quests that drag the trilogy down but it works fairy well by itself.
Lol i don’t know every bit of lore and character, but i grew up reading the books so i have a lot of love for them. When discussing it with most people i tend to keep my criticism of the movies pretty short because i’m fairly sure no one wants to get into that kind of discussion.
I personally felt inconsistency of tone was one of the biggest problems plaguing the Hobbit trilogy versus the Lord of the Rings movies.
Lord of the Rings wasn’t a cheerful family fantasy but it was tonally consistent. We knew from the outset that it was going to be mostly serious with a few bits of levity spaced throughout, and with the exception of a few magical showdowns it felt somewhat connected to our laws of physics.
By contrast The Hobbit jumped around between “melancholy fantasy epic” to “lighthearted family musical” to “slapstick fart-joke cartoon” to “improbable video-game action sequence.”
I don’t hate the dishwashing scene because I think a bunch of characters spontaneously breaking into a suspiciously well-rehearsed song and dance routine was inappropriate for a Hobbit movie. I hate it because it felt completely out of place for THAT Hobbit movie. It was like watching Christian Bale’s version of Batman start dancing the Batusi.
