The Hobbit movies

[BlackInk]

Yeah, one of my most major complaints about the Hobbit movies is that the visual tone is so different from the LotR movies, not just the story's tone. Different isn't always bad, but in this case it really was. Especially the colors, they were really gritty and real in the LotR movies, whereas in the Hobbit, everything looks like a painting. Which certainly looks pretty, but not at all like a real place like the first ones did. I don't know anything about how color grading and stuff like that works, but even to me it's painfully noticable.

And then of course there is the obvious overuse of CGI characters, as mention so many times before.

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

LOTR VHS FTW!

[rumborak]

I was gonna watch it, mostly out of obligation, but frankly, the more I read comments about the movie, the less I am inclined to watch it. It sounds like a movie-sized computer game from anything I heard.
Maybe better to not watch it, to keep the book "untainted".

[Lucien]

Hey, it wasn't THAT bad (I just saw it)

The only thing that REALLY stood out to me as "Really? That was dumb"  was the part where Legolas climbs up the falling stones when the tower bridge gets destroyed

The Thorin death scene was excellent. Also Galadriel is a badass.

[snapple]

I was gonna watch it, mostly out of obligation, but frankly, the more I read comments about the movie, the less I am inclined to watch it. It sounds like a movie-sized computer game from anything I heard.
Maybe better to not watch it, to keep the book "untainted".

Just go take a piss whenever the female elf or Legolas is on screen and you'll enjoy it.

[Kotowboy]

I was gonna watch it, mostly out of obligation, but frankly, the more I read comments about the movie, the less I am inclined to watch it. It sounds like a movie-sized computer game from anything I heard.
Maybe better to not watch it, to keep the book "untainted".

Just go take a piss when Smaug dies and then just leave the cinema after that.

[King Postwhore]

Still better than the first two Hobbit films really.


What a difference from one trilogy to another.

[Kotowboy]

They're entertaining enough. They didn't need to be three films though as I can barely remember anything from the first two.

[Kotowboy]

Still better than the first two Hobbit films really.


What a difference from one trilogy to another.

See also Star Wars. At this point it's only  50% a good franchise.

[jammindude]

Still better than the first two Hobbit films really.


What a difference from one trilogy to another.

See also Star Wars. At this point it's only  50% a good franchise.

Ok, I will admiit that they can't touch the LOTR series.   But I think comparing them to the SW prequels is going a bit far.    I mean, just having Martin Freeman as a lead actor over Hayden Christensen is a *VAST* improvement.

[Kotowboy]

The Hobbit > SW Prequels and it's not even close.

Peter Jackson actually has talent as a director and can form a story. The Hobbit trilogy has a lot of CGI but it's to enhance the story - not the other way around.

[Lucien]

The Hobbit > SW Prequels and it's not even close.

Peter Jackson actually has talent as a director and can form a story. The Hobbit trilogy has a lot of CGI but it's to enhance the story - not the other way around.

[senecadawg2]

The only thing that REALLY stood out to me as "Really? That was dumb"  was the part where Legolas climbs up the falling stones when the tower bridge gets destroyed

I also just saw it today, and agree about that part. 

Still, I enjoyed the movie as a whole. Definitely more than the first one and almost as much as the second. Unfortunately, though, I can't see myself ever doing a Hobbit/LOTR marathon. They're just too different, stylistically, for me to enjoy them that way. Despite PJ's multiple attempts at tying the two together, I really feel like they're coming from two, quite different, universes. And that's the biggest disappointment of all.

[jammindude]

Well that's why I personally would split it up over two days.    One marathon one day, and one the next.   Having a full nights sleep between the two would split it up nicely.   (besides....who really wants to watch *anything* for 24 hours straight)

[ariich]

I was gonna watch it, mostly out of obligation, but frankly, the more I read comments about the movie, the less I am inclined to watch it. It sounds like a movie-sized computer game from anything I heard.
Maybe better to not watch it, to keep the book "untainted".

I think I'm fortunate that I don't find the book anything very exciting, so I find the movies greatly enhanced by all the additional stuff. They have their flaws definitely, and come nowhere near the LOTR trilogy, but they're a lot of fun.

I would say the quality of the movies as compared with the LOTR movies is closer than the gap between the Hobbit and LOTR books.

[Zantera]

The Hobbit movies are far from LOTR levels, but even comparing them to the Star Wars prequels is dumb. The Hobbit movies actually has talent, effort and you can see that people put a lot of work into this. Despite feeling more CGI than the LOTR movies, you can still tell that they cared enough to go out and shoot, instead of every shot being in front of a green screen. Despite the book being stretched out way too much, the scripts of the Hobbit movies are still way above Star Wars prequels levels. And mainly, Peter Jackson is a great filmmaker, and that really shows in the movies. George Lucas is not a good filmmaker. He's a great idea-man, and his best contribution to Star Wars was not behind the camera, but rather the world he created.

And while this may be slightly off topic, I think people give the actors of the Star Wars prequels way too much shit, when it's really the script and bad writing that's the problem. You have actors like Natalie Portman, Liam Neeson, Samuel L Jackson and Ewan McGregor, there's some serious talent there. And while he's not on the same level as them, Hayden Christiansen is far from being as bad as people make it out to be. I don't even think Daniel Day Lewis could deliver the "sand is coarse and rough and gets everywhere" quote without sounding like a jackass. Hayden Christiansen is a decent actor who was given some of the worst lines ever, in addition to playing a really dumb character. (The whole way the transformation happens and how it is written is just completely baffling)

But anyhow, while I've seen the Hobbit movies once and don't feel a strong urge to re-watch them, I feel like even comparing them to the Star Wars prequels is like comparing The Beatles to Rebecca Black.

[lucky7]

I made sure I watched the first two again as a refresher before seeing the third film, and I loved it. I don't compare it to LOTR because that was a 2 book trilogy where this was one book...that could have been two movies.
It did make me wish the author had written a book just on the elves   Thranduil (played by Lee Pace) was excellent, he had such presence on screen, the whole cast were great. Well worth seeing.

[Podaar]

I'm not sure what I'm missing, so I'm here to be educated.

What's everyone's beef with CGI characters? They seem much more believable to me than a rubber mask...or rather, less difficult to suspend my disbelief. I thought some of the makeup work in LOTR was fantastic, but there were other times when some of the orcs were pretty cheesy.

As long as Jackson doesn't have them doing physical feats that completely destroy the laws of physics I actually prefer the CGI characters. So, why am I wrong?

[Kotowboy]

I think it's the over reliance on computer effects over an actor in make up.

Sometimes a CGI character can appear to be "on top" of the action instead of in amongst it.

The Hobbit films weren't anywhere near as poor as the SW prequels though.

But it's just that they cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make and that could have been spent on more sets and actual make up / actors

rather than doing everything in chromakey or a computer.

Look at Interstellar - that film has many many outer space shots and it's almost all practical effects / sets / real locations **. The spaceships were full size sets in front of a projection screen

showing the actors inside what they're actually supposed to be looking at. There was no green screen at all.

I think it was tastefully done in The Hobbit films. It wasn't really distracting like a Star Wars prequel.


** obviously the actual outer space shots were digital..

[Zantera]

I think the best is usually a blend of real effects and CGI, something that I love about the original LOTR trilogy. The use of miniatures is really neat. Personally there is the sense of detachment when it comes to CGI that often shines through. Take the Star Wars prequels for example. Pretty much all scenes where filmed in front of a green screen, and as a result, you can tell by the look of the actor's faces, that most of the time, they have no idea how their surroundings look. It's small signals you pick up from the way they act, walk around, look around and so on, but even if you show an actor how it will look, it's very hard to make it feel authentic. No matter how good of an actor you are, it's hard to capture that legit feeling of seeing something spectacular and showing that "awe" with your expressions. It's similar with CGI characters. They may look good, but seeing a real actor interact with a CGI character can sometimes look really jarring, because no matter how realistic you can make a CGI character, there will always be a difference.

Just for me personally, the problem with CGI is not that it isn't up to par quality-wise. You can do a lot of beautiful things with CGI, but that sense of realism is often lost in the process. It doesn't matter if it looks beautiful, if it doesn't feel real.

[Podaar]

Hmmm, interesting. It's logical what you say and you both make persuasive points yet, I've never felt that way myself. I don't believe I would have come to Zantera's conclusion on my own...as far as the Middle Earth films are concerned, the SW prequels are pretty obvious.

I would much rather revisit the scenes with Azog the Defiler than any scene with Afrid of Laketown. The CGI actor, and those who interact with him, are infinitely more immediate.

[hefdaddy42]

I didn't find ANY of the practical makeup in LOTR to be unbelievable or cheesy.  It was all believable, and it was all THERE, and you could tell it was there.

The CGI "makeup" in the Hobbit films looks like it is CGI.  There is nothing believable about it at all, you can tell it is CGI, so it isn't THERE.

[RuRoRul]

I think the fact that we have seen Lord Of The Rings, which used a bit more practical effects for orcs and action scenes than The Hobbit (though both were a mix of CGI and practical) doesn't help either. For example to me something like Guardians Of The Galaxy was full of scenes that came across feeling just as obvious CGI overload as parts of the Hobbit, but I barely remember people mentioning or criticising that. I suspect it's partly because we just accept "OK, this is what this world looks like", where as with Middle Earth we remember the orcs and fights that felt more real in the Lord Of The Rings so we react more to some of the one as that feel more fake in the Hobbit.

Incidentally, I mainly mention orcs and action sequences (and maybe locations) as the things that feel faker in the Hobbit compared to Lord Of The Rings, because I think those are the main things that suffer from CGI overload. The Hobbit actually contains some of the best CGI in my opinion - Gollum from the Hobbit feels even more real than in the Lord Of The Rings, making him possibly the greatest CGI character ever, and Smaug was received extremely well too. Those two things were considered by many to be the highlights of the films, and I think it shows that when they put the time and focus into it (and possibly utilise mocap acting) the CGI can be extremely effective. Some of the problems I think come from the Hobbit's production hell and some things being rushed. You can find info on the internet about the many changes along the way in terms of what the orc villains would look like, and Azog as he is now was only done a few months before the first film (and incidentally imo it was in the first film especially that Azog looked most like a video game orc compared to the rest of the film, in film 2 and especially 3 I remember thinking he looked slightly more realistic). And the action sequence with the dwarves and Smaug at the end of film 2 was added after most of the filming was done,  after the split from 2 to 3 films called for it. I suspect that many parts of the films had similar journeys to the screen, and that is why we see more fake looking orcs etc. compared to the stronger CGI in the films (highlighted by Gollum and Smaug, but even including things like the trolls and spiders).

[Zantera]

^I think you bring up a very good point with how an established world comes with expectations from us as viewers. I remember disliking the Matrix sequels partly because of that. The first one had its fair share of CGI and effects, but by the time Reloaded, and especially Revolutions came out, with even more CGI, and scenes like the final fight between Neo and Agent Smith in the rain, it just felt like such a stretch from what we saw in the first movie. It felt kinda fake and computer-y, and not at all like the world I fell in love with in the first movie.

It's similar with Hobbit. I have a friend who keeps telling me to not compare Hobbit to LOTR, and while I see his point and agree that Hobbit should stand on its own merits, it's kinda hard not to compare them. Apart from the obvious parts of same author, same director, same world, some of the actors returning, Peter Jackson has done his best to really connect this to LOTR. Basically every scene where they talk about "grave danger" or mention Sauron is so LOTR-heavy that it's impossible not to compare the Hobbit trilogy to LOTR.

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

Just for clarification: Aren't we mainly talking about HFR (48fps) more than CGI when we're talking about the diffrence between LOTR and The Hobbits? Sure the CGI is improved but HFR is what makes it look clear and real.

[Kotowboy]

Actually after BOFA - my brother and I both simultaneously remarked that despite seeing it in 2D and normal frame rate - the sets still looked like cheap sets.

I thought that maybe people were putting all the blame solely on HFR when it was just cheap looking sets to begin with...

[Mister Gold]

Honestly, it doesn't matter if we don't compare The Hobbit trilogy to the LotR trilogy (though it's very difficult not to, considering how far Jackson went to try and connect the two trilogies together): The Hobbit films simply aren't that good.

I was initially impressed with the first film when I saw it two years ago, but it didn't hold up very well with repeated viewings. The second and third films weren't particularly great either. 

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

Oh maybe so, only seen them in HFR.

[hefdaddy42]

I think the fact that we have seen Lord Of The Rings, which used a bit more practical effects for orcs and action scenes than The Hobbit (though both were a mix of CGI and practical) doesn't help either. For example to me something like Guardians Of The Galaxy was full of scenes that came across feeling just as obvious CGI overload as parts of the Hobbit, but I barely remember people mentioning or criticising that. I suspect it's partly because we just accept "OK, this is what this world looks like", where as with Middle Earth we remember the orcs and fights that felt more real in the Lord Of The Rings so we react more to some of the one as that feel more fake in the Hobbit.

Yes, exactly.

Incidentally, I mainly mention orcs and action sequences (and maybe locations) as the things that feel faker in the Hobbit compared to Lord Of The Rings, because I think those are the main things that suffer from CGI overload. The Hobbit actually contains some of the best CGI in my opinion - Gollum from the Hobbit feels even more real than in the Lord Of The Rings, making him possibly the greatest CGI character ever, and Smaug was received extremely well too. Those two things were considered by many to be the highlights of the films, and I think it shows that when they put the time and focus into it (and possibly utilise mocap acting) the CGI can be extremely effective. Some of the problems I think come from the Hobbit's production hell and some things being rushed. You can find info on the internet about the many changes along the way in terms of what the orc villains would look like, and Azog as he is now was only done a few months before the first film (and incidentally imo it was in the first film especially that Azog looked most like a video game orc compared to the rest of the film, in film 2 and especially 3 I remember thinking he looked slightly more realistic). And the action sequence with the dwarves and Smaug at the end of film 2 was added after most of the filming was done,  after the split from 2 to 3 films called for it. I suspect that many parts of the films had similar journeys to the screen, and that is why we see more fake looking orcs etc. compared to the stronger CGI in the films (highlighted by Gollum and Smaug, but even including things like the trolls and spiders).

Yes, I agree with all of that.

Just for clarification: Aren't we mainly talking about HFR (48fps) more than CGI when we're talking about the diffrence between LOTR and The Hobbits?

No.

[Podaar]

I didn't find ANY of the practical makeup in LOTR to be unbelievable or cheesy.  It was all believable, and it was all THERE, and you could tell it was there.

The CGI "makeup" in the Hobbit films looks like it is CGI.  There is nothing believable about it at all, you can tell it is CGI, so it isn't THERE.

I get that's the way it feels to a wide group of people but my comment was that it isn't that way for me. The non expressive, latex masks of LOTR were way more distracting from reality than the CGI characters.

For example Lurtz vs Azog. Aragorn's battle with Lurtz is more convincing physically but as a character, it's just a big guy in a latex mask with prosthetic teeth. Azog's battle with Thorin is less 'weighty' yet as a character I find it much easier to suspend my disbelief based on the fluidity of his movement and the expressiveness of his face.

[hefdaddy42]

*shrugs*

If that's the way it is for you, then that's the way it is.  But I would imagine that you are in the minority.

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

Just for clarification: Aren't we mainly talking about HFR (48fps) more than CGI when we're talking about the diffrence between LOTR and The Hobbits?

No.

Ok.

[rumborak]

*shrugs*

If that's the way it is for you, then that's the way it is.  But I would imagine that you are in the minority.

Same here. To me, the plastic mask is way better. The white orc is faaaaaaaaake.
I mean, just look at the two pictures right there. Lurtz has a completely natural shading; he is a clearly physical object. Azog looks like a computer game character.

[Zantera]

Agreed. I think I mentioned it in my earlier post, but something looking realistic is way more important than looking perfect. Sometimes the imperfections of the physical costume adds to the reality of it. And with things like lightning, you can get close to it, but you can never fully achieve that natural lightning when you're trying to recreate shade on a CGI-character.

[BlackInk]

Yeah, I'll take the rubber mask any day of the week.