An Honest Assessment?

At 4:19 I don't think I've seen anyone look that tired yet still be awake.



Quick, play dead.

Well, it explains a lot.

The LOTR films were, in retrospect, carefully planned. You could see the arc play out.

What is it with Guillermo del Toro, anyways?He is best known for projects he starts but does not complete. If he had followed through, a "Pan's Labyrinth"-y Hobbit might have worked.

And I want anyone competent to do "At the Mountains of Madness." It has eldrich abominations and mountain climbing!

Look- it's trying to think!

I saw the first Hobbit movie and wasn't interested enough to see the other two and I don't feel like I missed anything so I guess that tells my story.




Quick, play dead.

The third was watchable, although I found the scene with Legolas fighting on the bridge that had been inspired by 100 video games to be painful.

The second film: hoo-boy. The barrel-riding scene is for Tolkien films, what the Hayden Christensen-Natalie Portman "It's only because I am so in love with you" scene was for "Star Wars" films.

Look- it's trying to think!

I had to look up the scene you mentioned and - even considering I saw it out of context - that strikes me as the sort of thing an overly hormonal 13 year old might confess to her bedroom wall poster of the Beiber boy.

I don't think I'll ever be accused of following the inner workings of Hollywood too closely but I wonder if del Toro was out of his depth and Jackson was just plain out of oomph and givadams.

Call me an old codger but I found the nasal mucus scene in the first movie uncomfortable to watch and unnecessary, but then I've never been a fan of slapstick. All up there wasn't enough in the movie to get me going back for 2 and 3, but I had similar trouble forcing myself to read the book. Not his best work. Barked like a dog, in fact.



Quick, play dead.

Thanks for that, CTS. Well worth watching.

Yeah, Jackson was in a pretty tight spot. Between the refuse of GdT's departure, and the pressure that he had to start shooting by a certain date or lose the filming rights, he really was squeezed. Oh, plus the fact that the original book is pretty crap (imo), and far from a match for LotR.

Such a pity Jackson didn't get time to do it right.



You might very well think that. I couldn't possibly comment.

(I've reedited this to try to get my view on this complicated topic right.)

I read the article but didn't see this particular video. But I've seen multiple video extras for The Hobbit movies (which I own on Blu-ray) and can compare them with the DVD extras for the Lord of the Rings Extended Edition.

I don't think one assessment is more honest than another. We are all picking at facts which we think will explain why the Hobbit movies fell short in our opinions. I'll give my list.

*** Overall The Hobbit movies had these problems imo;
- The letting loose of Peter Jackson's tendency for excessive action and over the top design.
- This was coupled with a reduction of Philippa Boyens' influence with Fran Walsh (Peter's wife) who together on LOTR were a counter balance to Peter's excesses.
- And most important, the Hobbit films were made to get as much money out of the material as possible at the expense of imo good taste and keeping with Tolkien's mythology.

* I'll look at problems with The Hobbit movies if they had been made as 2 films and then add on the negatives of them being made as a trilogy.

** As two films the Hobbit movies still would have had these problems.
- Fran allied with Peter to design the two movies to make more money.
This reduced Boyens' influence to try to keep the movies closer to Tolkien's material.
For instance Peter and Fran decided to create a Twilight style romance between the dwarf Kili and the elf Tauriel to get more box office (which is completely outside of what happened in Tolkien's mythology).
- With Peter in a stronger position he was able to get into the Hobbit movie gross designs and over the top action which he likes (and which probably were considered better for box office).
Radagast has poop on his head. The barrel riding sequence descends into slap stick.
- This problem came up to a certain extent with the Lord of the Rings movies. In production for LOTR Jackson wanted more action; an Orc attacking Frodo and Sam at the end of FOTR in the lake, Sauron showing up at the Black Gate to fight Aragorn (which some footage survives), Arwen being a warrior maiden at Helms Deep.
Peter likes gross designs which led to the Mouth of Sauron character which is only in the ROTK Extended Edition.
What blocked a lot of this was that in the LOTR production Boyens was allied with Fran Walsh. Fran and Philippa argued with Peter and got him to eliminate these excessive action scenes in LOTR.
- But Boyens' influence in The Hobbit movies was mostly pushed to the side.
As a result Peter got to be more like Peter with the Hobbit films.
And Peter and Fran got to make the Hobbit films with more shlock.

- Still, if The Hobbit movies had been allowed to be just 2 films, that would have been better imo than with 3 movies.

** The chaos of making a Hobbit trilogy;
The Hobbit movies were designed as two films. That is how they were scripted, story boarded, and in the beginning shot.
Then in the middle of production the studios wanted 3 films. This is why there was chaos on the set and with post production.
- Why 3 films? Because that meant about another one billion dollars of box office.
What did that mean in terms of film making?
- There had been no "Desolation of Smaug" as shooting first progressed. "An Unexpected Journey" was supposed to end after the barrel riding sequence. Instead at the last minute, the change was made for AUJ to end on a mountain looking at Lonely Mountain.
- And then an ending for DOS had to be created in the middle of shooting. There was no script for this or special effects yet.
Jackson had actors just do reaction shots as he figured out on the fly how to create a climax in the Dwarf kingdom which could end DOS. It was maddening of course.
- This change then forced Jackson to create "Battle of the Five Armies" with just the material which was left of half of the originally planned second movie. Of course this resulted in a stretched out story in BOTFA.

- With the stretching of the material into 3 movies, time was needed to be filled and over the top action was what was chosen to do that since there was not enough original source material.
Peter's over the top action in two movies was a problem. More over the top action with 3 films made this worse.

** It must be said that The Hobbit novel is not in the same league as the LOTR book. It's not even close.
Sometimes for brief moments the Hobbit films even improved on Tolkien's original story.
No Hobbit film(s) was going to be as good as the LOTR trilogy of movies.
But as I've written, the Hobbit movies were worse than they could have been due to the priority to make the maximum amount of money, the inability to control Peter's over the top taste and there not being enough good material in the books to do 3 films.

** Finally, the Hobbit movies have good moments when the story stays closer to Tolkien's books (The Hobbit, the LOTR and the Silmarillion).
There are many stretches in this film trilogy which I enjoy.

BB ;-)

it is just in my opinion - imo - 🌈

I remember being disappointed after hearing the original plan for two films — one in December and the concluding film the next summer — was changed to three movies over three years.

I didn't realize what a disaster this would cause behind the scenes. LotR was so carefully crafted, while The Hobbit seemed thrown together and a bit lame. The worst thing for me was that weird climax to DOS. It didn't seem like Tolkien at all ... more like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

Which I didn't like either ... 



Never laugh at live dragons.