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I get to see all three in 3D on Monday. That's early for North America to see the third, and I'm excited. I thought the first one was stretched in places, but I really liked the second one. I don't much care that Jackson added stuff, because, quite frankly, it's his vision. How is it any different than Joss Whedon's changes to The Avengers storylines? To a certain segment of the populace, the Avengers are just as sacred as The Hobbit. Some of them are up in arms, but not nearly like Tolkien fans. Same with the changes made to the Harry Potter series.

Jackson has the right to innovate. I like some of his innovations. I dislike others. Most of what I actively dislike was in Return of the King (fucking ghosts). I find myself really enjoying the addition of Legolas to The Hobbit, because it makes sense. And let's admit that when Jackson takes straight from the books he does it right. Riddles in the Dark, anyone? If you try to tell me that part of An Unexpected Journey isn't the best piece of fantasy cinema done recently, if ever, then you're crazy. It was picture-perfect. I get to see it again on Monday on the big screen, and I'm excited.

Once again, in The Hobbit movies, the titans of acting rule. It's a fucking ludicrous world, but you have Ian McKellan essentially acting into space with incredible gravitas in most situations. As Maturin says, Richard Armitage is fantastic. The thing I love about Thorin is that he is flawed. He is, in the end, a dwarf, obsessed with gold, the curse of his kin. Armitage lives that, and it's fantastic to see. He'll do whatever he has to, in the end, to get his cash money. To get his throne. Even the perilously stupid.

And Smaug is glorious.
 
Maturin said:
I won't see it until DVD-release, but I thought the other two were very good. Unlike The Lord of the Rings, they didn't have Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan play Dumb & Dumber ("What about second breakfast?") and the source material is far better in that actually is a far better told story than the happy accident that made The Lord of the Rings work. Thorin Oakenshield is by far the most interesting hero between him and Aragorn, and in the films Richard Armitage is an equal match with Viggo on screen presence. I get so annoyed with Elijah Wood's Frodo, with Merry & Pippin, with Legolas and with Gimli - with The Hobbit I didn't have those feelings. I think that the vital difference is that Martin Freeman does a much better job of carrying the film and that the tone of Jackson's films fits like a glove this time - last time I felt it was very contrived.

People will always think that The Lord of the Rings were better films, because it is sort of the same thing again, 10 years later, when everybody have already watched the first films until they got tired of them - but I still feel that they got so much more right this time.
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I certainly agree about the actors. Martin Freeman gets the best performance out of every movie, even if he has little dialogue to work with. Richard Armitage is fantastic and there's plenty of Thorin stuff you'll enjoy in this third installment.

My problem is that the storytelling is so bloated. It is painfully obvious that this thing was stretched out beyond all repair. It would have been vastly better as two films. This film certainly improves upon the second (which was a waste of time), but it still spends far too much time on completely pointless subplots, worthless characters, and pathetic exposition. Bilbo and Thorin are great, every other character in these films is underdeveloped (including Gandalf).

As much as I enjoy Thorin's battle against greed, there are at least 3 scenes of other characters saying the same thing to him in different words, trying to get him to see reason. When he eventually does, there is no catalyst - no moment, no great loss that inspires the change. He just walks around and then decides, "Enough!" I have not read the book, so maybe this is true to the source, but it's incredibly poor storytelling either way.

LooseCannon said:
Jackson has the right to innovate. I like some of his innovations. I dislike others. Most of what I actively dislike was in Return of the King (fucking ghosts).

And Smaug is glorious.
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Get ready for more ghosts...

And yes, Smaug is glorious. And easily the best part of the film, once again.
 
I'd go see it purely for Thorin and Smaug, although I do like Martin Freeman as Bilbo. The similarities between Arthur Dent and Bilbo Baggins finally registered for me.
 
MrKnickerbocker said:
This film certainly improves upon the second (which was a waste of time), but it still spends far too much time on completely pointless subplots, worthless characters, and pathetic exposition.
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I find myself wondering what it is about the various subplots that you find pointless, and what about the characters you find worthless.
 
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999)

Being a film that resonated deeply with my 8-year old self, I find it has got too harshly criticised over the years. The opening scene is atmospheric, the pod-race sequence is brilliant and the lightsaber duel at the end is the best one throughout the six films As for that pathetic lifeform everyone seems to hate, he didn't ruin the film. I wouldn't say I like him, but he is a necessary part of the film. He's there to show that no other Jedi than Qui-Gon would take any pity to him. I see it as a riff on Gollum from The Lord of the Rings - a character takes pity to a pathetic lifeform who goes on to play a vital part in the whole quest.

I think what makes The Phantom Menace so bad in many peoples eyes' is that it is a rather silly space adventure/old fashioned costume-drama on the surface, and an incredibly sophisticated and ambitious film on a narrative level. It's an interesting mix, but it's perhaps not hard to understand why it was recieved in the way it was. It lacks a Han Solo and witty dialogue, but as a Star Wars fan who never payed much attention to Han, I can put it among my favourites.

Minority Report (2002)

I remember watching this on TV probably 10 years ago, and I've intended to watch it again for quite some time. As luck would have it, it was on TV tonight. Although Spielberg's take on Philip K. Dick is very different from Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, the same kind of philosophical issues that the science fiction of it's time were so concerned with are present and the two stories do have similarities. Being a very noir-esque and many layered murder mystery, the premise is a near future in which murder has been eradicated through the use of psychic mediums, and which makes it possible to arrest people who are going to commit a murder before it has happened. A great film which will undoubtedly stay with you for a long time.

LooseCannon said:
Jackson has the right to innovate. I like some of his innovations. I dislike others. Most of what I actively dislike was in Return of the King (fucking ghosts).
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What I personally never understood about The Return of the King was how they totally blew the single most epic scene from the book. I'm talking about Aragorn's arrival to save Minas Tirith. In the book it goes something like this - Éomer is out on the battlefield and then he turns and sees the black ships sail up the river. The battle is lost... until he sees the ship fly the colours of the Gondor and understands Aragorn has arrived. It's the turning point of the whole bloody thing, and would have been incredibly effective visually.
 
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Maturin said:
What I personally never understood about The Return of the King was how they totally blew the single most epic scene from the book. I'm talking about Aragorn's arrival to save Minas Tirith.
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This is the #1 thing I find incomprehensible about Return of the King. It would have taken...3 minutes to show Aragorn getting his army. If they wanted to. In a flashback. Or something. It just...didn't need to be ghosts, and it felt so deus ex machina.
 
LooseCannon said:
This is the #1 thing I find incomprehensible about Return of the King. It would have taken...3 minutes to show Aragorn getting his army. If they wanted to. In a flashback. Or something. It just...didn't need to be ghosts, and it felt so deus ex machina.
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Exactly. But it would have been so much better had they just left it alone completely - show Aragorn enter the Paths of the Dead - and show him arrive at Minas Tirith. Just like the book. Knowing that Aragorn made it is a complete waste of tension in Return of the King. Jackson did many things right, but that choice really makes no sense at all. We should have got an epic moment in the same way Gandalf arriving at Helm's Deep was epic. The Paths of the Dead was boring, and the army... (At least Tolkien had the sense to not show them directly and replace them with the Grey Company before they reached Minas Tirith.)

I would really like to hear the reasoning behind it, because I'm honestly interested in what inspired that drastic change. They're the professionals, not me. I'm reasonable, and will listen. :p
 
I'm not at all surprised. It seemed awfully brazen to me from the first time I saw the trailer. I didn't think it would be this big of a deal, though. It really surprises me.

Posted from Malaysia
 
The thing that scares me about this is that the lesson people are going to learn is exactly the above. What happens next time we make a movie someone doesn't like? They'll threaten to attack. God forbid someone make a movie about people who actually have the ability to pull off a terrorist attack. They might actually do it.

I'm sorry. Maybe North Korea would have done something, but if they tried a terrorist act, they'd get rolled, and they have to know it. They have to know they'd get torn to shreds. And, quite frankly, their e-terrorist attack on Sony isn't scary enough to warrant this sort of response. Sony, and the associate theatres, are bloody cowards, in the end. And that's their choice.

I will admit I have a lot of problem with people being concerned for freedom of expression. That's not really at stake here. What's at stake is a question of whether or not corporations will kowtow to terrorist or state-terrorist demands.
 
Exactly what LC said. Freedom of expression is not in danger, but if the distribution sources for that expression dry up because of cowardice, what does it even matter?
 
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