221 replies to this topic

[fagerstrm]

Yeah, alright!

 

Hi Mathjis! Yes it's been far too long, I've peaked in a few times over the past months but not as before. Hope all you guys are great in these chritmas times! I still launch up the games once in a while, never gets old really, but I don't think I could contribute anything anymore. Modding wise. Had some map projects going on before with Gothmogtheorc, but it all just fell aside..

[NewErr]

I was so sure Azog would die in DOS cause it would have been such a cool ending. But then again doing so will have many loose ends .... But now thinking of it, it will have even more now that he's alive. (Nobody thought about the fact that there are 3 Goblin-kings in this trilogy? ... Forget the pale orc shit , Bolg and Azog were goblins afterall )

[Lauri]

But what is a goblin, really?

[Bashkuga]

An other word for Orc I thought.

[NewErr]

If it's orc or goblin (even if some consider it the same) the observation still stands.

[m@tt]

Saw this tonight, and was 2 hours well spent. 

 

Whereas AUJ was slow in periods and felt a bit padded, DOS was fast-paced. Once the prelude is over, the film starts running and doesn't stop. 

 

There's a lot to like. Smaug is excellent, drawing well from the books to be a unique character. A dragon very much in love with himself (and gold). Thankfully the CGI for him is a lot better than in the trailer. I also found Jackson's depiction of the Necromancer very interesting, and it really works well in terms of going from in the void to a spirit to the flaming eye, and in doing so shows how he could have then retaken physical form. The wood-elves feel like a race of their own, rather than repeats of the Rivendell and Lorien elves, and Thranduil is well played with a nice mix of majesty and haughtiness. 

 

In terms of negatives, the LOTR repeats felt too obvious - whilst Tauriel and Afrid are characters within their own rights, they are clearly mirroring Arwen and Wormtongue, and the references to Gimli and kingsfoil/weed felt a bit forced. I'd heard moaning about the 'there could be anything down my trousers' joke and perhaps that ruined it for me, but it felt a bit crude for the films. Legolas gets a lot of air-time and by the end still feels very different to the character we know from LOTR. But on the plus side, they got rid of the bright blue eyes!

 

Action scenes are generally well worked and entertaining (as you'd expect), and have enough choreography to make them interesting and humorous, though the camera work was often nauseous, and unnecessarily so. And people seem to keep on surviving ridiculous falls!

 

In terms of dwarven character development, with all the new faces (Beorn, Thranduil, Legolas, Tauriel, Bard, Master of Laketown, etc), the main dwarves were Thorin and Kili. Thorin's pride has increased as they near their goal - like in AUJ it leads to some unwise actions, and knowing what the third film has in store (from the book content), it should be a fairly smooth transition to the dwarf that then cuts all times with the people who helped him and locks himself in the mountain. I'm not sold on the whole Kili romance with Tauriel, it just feels silly and (as mentioned) a play on Aragorn/Arwen. Balin is the ever-able supporting dwarf, well played by Ken Stott - you can see how the pains of his life and leaving Erebor have made him the wise one of the group. Bombur and Dwalin were focused on less than in AUJ, the rest were the same. 

 

The splitting up of the dwarves will undoubtedly annoy purists. From a storyline perspective, I can see it helping the lead-up to the BOT5A with an emphasis on aid and not just on getting their share of the treasure. 

 

And the ending... it worked in that it made me want to watch the next film immediately. But it's not a TV show that will resume next week, we have to wait 12 whole months and the film as a stand-alone production feels a bit unfinished. 

 

So in conclusion, it was a really enjoyable few hours. The LOTR trilogy remain some of my favourite films and I saw all three having not read the books and even managed not to read any spoilers (though it was easier in the dial-up days to avoid it), so I didn't have any preconceptions about characters and events. But even if that is slightly holding me back from really loving the Hobbit films, I think it's stating the obvious to say that we're still not quite at the LOTR level - but we're closer and I'm still really looking forward to the third and final film. 

[Mathijs]

That was a good read, great review. I agree on pretty much all points.

[Radspakr Wolfbane]

2 days until it comes out here, still not sure if I'm going to see it or not, maybe if DIGI is going on the 26th I'll join him like last year,

If I do go see it it's obvious I'm going to have to turn off the purist side for a few hours.

[Ridder Geel]

Very well said M@tt

[m@tt]

Thanks guys!

[fagerstrm]

Great thoughts and opinions. A thing I thought about alot was: Why all the CGI? Of course it might be cheaper and easier but he has a great landscape to work with along with a record-breaking crew, some fighting scenes are like a videogame. It works perfectly in Avatar for example but could it not have been avoided here?

[Radspakr Wolfbane]

Just watched it and man was there some whatthefuckery but Smaug almost makes up for that.

[Devon]

I finally saw DoS last night.  And I have to say, I must be the only one here who thought AUJ was far superior to this.  Going in I was expecting myself not to like a lot of it due to unnecessary Tauriel/Legolas subplot shenanigans.  I actually found her to be really well done though, and my complaints are mostly in other areas.

 

I suppose I'm a little bit of a purist in terms of canon (Faramir's depiction in the original trilogy annoyed me, for instance) but I can usually deal with some minor alterations for the sake of increasing drama.  This, however, went far beyond that.  A good hour and a half of this movie was made up of sequences made up and inserted by Peter Jackson, and I'm really bummed this is why they split it from two movies into three.

 

I'm sure I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't read the book.  But as it was, I was just bored.  When I see a movie like this (or Ender's Game, or any book movie) one of the things I tend to get excited for in the theater is when one of my favorite parts is coming up.  But those parts were often rushes over or skipped completely in favor of long, unnecessary fight scenes.  Mirkwood was the biggest transgressor on that account.  I couldn't believe how much they skipped (the forgetting river) and how short the rest of it was in order to make time for the barrel chase.  There was just no need.  Likewise for Beorn.  

 

Gandalf's scenes also frustrated me to no end.  Had we been given a single good reason for him to spring the Dol Guldur trap instead of waiting for the white council, I would have really enjoyed it.  But as it was it seemed very stupid and completely out of character.

 

The goblins attacking laketown.  What.  Just, why?

 

And finally, Smaug.  When Bilbo first encountered him, I was excited for the movie to finally redeem itself for me.  He did look fantastic, and I think Benedict Cumberbatch nailed the voice.  But then we got the absurd sequence of the dwarves fighting Smaug.  My friends and I had the theater to ourselves (10:30 showing on a Wednesday night) and we just starting laughing our asses off.  It was so absurd it could have been a parody (although giant golden dwarf notwithstanding, I did think covering Smaug in molten metal was a really cool way to make him gold).

 

 

Things I liked: Tauriel and Killi.  Yes, a repeat of Aragorn and Arwen, but I think it's done better than they were honestly.  Still a bit heavy-handed but I liked it.

Bard's black arrow being a ballista shot: we'll see, but for now I'm reserving judgement until I see how it's handled in the next one.  Overall I liked Bard a lot.

Thranduil.  Those eyebrows, mmmmm.

 

 

Other things I didn't like:

I guess they give morgul weapons to any old goblins these days.

Sauron's figure and the eye.  Would have been much cooler to just keep it that weird shadowy thing, I think.

CGI orcs.  http://static.comicv...511-Lurtz_2.jpg  vs http://static.comicv...Azogcloseup.jpg .  Come on.

[Radspakr Wolfbane]

On it's own merits it's an alright movie but as a retelling of the Children's book it was bad.

Legolas mentioned in one of the press interviews that the Elves always steal the show and he wasn't kidding the Elves made up like 60% of the damn movie on 2 characters who weren't even in the book.

[Spartan184]

But were not those scenes badass?! I mean I've read the book and all and its great, but the movie is fantastic too. Also for all you hardcore lore guys its nothing to sweat over its a movie and it has to make money so changes need to be made to keep the audience interested. I mean I thought the first one was kind of boring and I'm a total lotr geek. 

[Bashkuga]

It wouldn't be so cool if they didn't make those changes, because if you go 100 percent with the book, it would all be very predictable. Also there is in some way more logic in the movie, for example I think a ballista with a black arrow would be much more realistic than a normal bow to kill Smaug.

Also they made more use of CGI orcs because computer made characters can be made looking much bigger, uglier or mutated than a normal make up/costumed human can ever be.

Also I thought it's good that they added an action sequence with Smaug vs Dwarves, because I think that should have been done in the book too, Smaug left the lonely mountain way to fast in the book imo.

I agree on the Mirkwood/Beorn sequence being too short, but who knows, perhaps we will see more in extended edition.

Edited by Bashkuga, 03 January 2014 - 02:24 AM.

[MattTheLegoman]

Let me say that there is more in the EE. =D

[njm1983]

Oh you know this? How?.....
.....

A palantir is a dangerous tool MTL

[Elvenlord]

Having finally seen it, I pretty much despise all of it except Smaug before the dwarves come running in. Tauriel is the worst kind of Mary Sue, she has two canon characters in love with her. It's bad enough in fanfiction, but in a major movie release? What. 

 

The introduction of Bolg makes me wonder why they bothered to resurrected Azog. Bolg could have just replaced him in all the scenes in both movies, and cut out what little Azog did at Dol Guldur.

 

Beyond other canon issues, I simply found it boring. The fight scenes seemed way too choreographed (perhaps because so much of it was Legolas and Tauriel, Legolas was pretty much the same way in LOTR). Agreeing with Yoda they simply pass up much of Beorn and especially Mirkwood. Smaug consistently being distracted by the dwarves when he's so close to a few others bothered me too. Maybe it's just me, but isn't he supposed to be intelligent and cunning? But he gets tricked up by what is essentially 'hey you!'?

 

But at least seeing the fire build up in Smaug's chest was amazing.

[MattTheLegoman]

Why? Why should we fear to use it? =p

I just saw Desolation in the cinemas. I thought it was wonderful, I do agree with you all - but probably to a lesser extent. =D