Peter Jackson's Middle-earth Saga

[JWPlatt]

DW, did you enjoy pondering what's down the dwarf's pants and other juvenile excesses from PJ? There is so much more to complain about than praise about The Hobbit - in absolutely stark contrast to Lord of the Rings. The video game and physics-free CGI. Radagast's eye-crossing and "leading away the orcs" like a bizarre Roadrunner versus Wile E. Coyote episode mixed in with a Benny Hill chase scene and song - and he just ran circles around the group instead of away. A formulaic coven of writers who badly change Tolkien's superior words to their own even when it serves no purpose to the narrative. Writers who make Gandalf, of the MAIAR, subservient to Galadrial, an Elf... Pffft. The list goes on and on. I wrote too many pages about it on TheOneRing.net and I don't want to waste any more time on it.

In retrospect, The Lord of the Rings seems to have worked simply because Jackson was under financial and technological restraint. Once unleashed, like the Dark Lord Sauron, or like Dragon Sickness, with a high budget and all the technology at his command, he's the horror story of the kind he used to make.

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The comedy continues with $800 $720 $600 $500 bookshelves.

 

[DigificWriter]

^ Only if you want to sit and pick at things instead of enjoying yourself, which I would personally rather do.

With regards to Peter injecting juvenile humor and antics into the story, I'm not sure why that's such a surprise, or such a turn-off, since we're dealing with a man who made his mame making splatter comedies and whose overall filmography remains defined by said projects.

You can let that stuff bother you if you choose, but, for me, it is what it is, and doesn't in any way detract from the narrative Peter and Co. chose to present.

 

[sojourner]

If I rent a log cabin I expect it to look like a log cabin when I walk in, not an Apple store. There's no surprise that I would be disappointed. Just because Jackson conceived of and executed The Hobbit as he saw fit doesn't mean that I have to be happy with the outcome.

 

[LJones41]

So you've just realized that LOTR is a darker retelling of The Hobbit? Welcome to the club. That being said, PJ's Hobbit trilogy is bloated, cartoony, and terrible.

I actually prefer it over "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, which seemed marred by a good deal of plot holes in "The Two Towers" and "Return of the King". I'm not saying that "The Hobbit" was perfect. Quite frankly, it didn't annoy me like "TTT" and "ROTK" did. Also, the characterization in "The Hobbit" films struck me as a bit more ambiguous, which I find ironic since it is more of a tale for children.

 

[Skywalker]

Nope, I complain about that romance being added, period. And from what I understand, there are fan edits of The Hobbit that cut out most of the stuff I mentioned quite easily. Most of that stuff wasn't "integral" at all.

Thanks for the link, I'll definitely be checking that out. What I find amusing, without actually seeing this edit yet, is that if you split it in half you'd have approximately the original goal for Jackson's then-duology, An Unexpected Journey and There and Back Again, with the split occurring after Thorin and Company escape the Wood Elves.

I'm really intrigued by TolkienEditor's proposed standalone movie about Gandalf exploring Dol Guldur. It looks like there hasn't been an update since last year; hopefully they still plan to finish and release that.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Nope, I complain about that romance being added, period. And from what I understand, there are fan edits of The Hobbit that cut out most of the stuff I mentioned quite easily. Most of that stuff wasn't "integral" at all.

I will check this out. I've seen similar edits done to the Star Wars PT that did wonders for those movies.

 

[Mr Light]

Count me in as a fan of the Hobbit movies. Not that they didn't have problems. But any filmed Middle Earth is magical nostalgia to me. The only addition I took issue with was the dwarf/elf lovin', and even that was really just a couple of scenes. I love these books so much, the chance to see them on screen, to see MORE than the books on screen, to see what was also going on between the pages, is wonderful.

 

[Set Harth]

If I rent a log cabin I expect it to look like a log cabin when I walk in, not an Apple store.

You must have loved the nu-Enterprise bridge!

Writers who make Gandalf, of the MAIAR, subservient to Galadrial, an Elf... Pffft.

No ordinary elf, and "subservient" is a stretch.

The only addition I took issue with was the dwarf/elf lovin', and even that was really just a couple of scenes.

More importantly, it has precedent in the source material.

 

[LJones41]

I really enjoyed the romance between Kili and Tauriel, even if it wasn't in the novel. And I thought it added something to the story.

 

[DonIago]

I enjoyed the Hobbit films well enough, but I think they pale in comparison to LotR (though there are portions of LotR that aren't all that hot, or that haven't aged well), and I also think stretching them to three movies was a dubious decision.

Ironically, though, I feel the extended edition of Five Armies is superior to the theatrical cut. Go figure... It's almost as though when they needed to cut material, they cut the wrong material.

Really though, I feel as though if you go from LotR to King Kong to Hobbit, you see Peter Jackson's directing gradually giving way to his own worst impulses.

 

[sojourner]

You must have loved the nu-Enterprise bridge!

Why, was it inside a log cabin I rented?

 

[Jedman67]

Pretty much everything in the movies that were not in the book ruined it. the orc subplot, the love story with the elf, Radagast, the fight on the river, the cartoon physics of Legolas, Legolas himself, Peter's "Pirates of the Caribbean" version of Lake Town, the Elf King's motivation change. I'm sure there's more, but that's all I can think of off the top of my head.

There was a fan edit of the Hobbit trilogy trimming it down to a 4 hour duology. I haven't watched any of it since the theaters; while I thoroughly enjoyed An Unexpected Journey despite the bloat, the other two were simply bad, IMO.
The barrel-rider scene felt like it was lifted straight from a video game and was completely contrary to the spirit of that story in the book. The faux love triangle between Tauriel, Kili (who didn't look like a dwarf) and Legolas was disjointed and unnecessary. Neither were the unsubtle sexual innuendo. Or the 25 minute dwarf-vs. Smaug battle ending with Smaug being covered in molten gold. Or the stupid lackey from Lake Town who dressed up as a woman. Or the fight with the necromancer which looked awful and may have been useful in a standalone movie but certainly not in the Hobbit.
I could go on and on, but I wont.

I will check this out. I've seen similar edits done to the Star Wars PT that did wonders for those movies.

The only thing that could possibly have saved the PT would have been if the Bad Lip Reading people had done an overdub

More importantly, it has precedent in the source material.

The source material is quite clear that Elf-Human love is frowned upon at best, with only 3 examples in all of history - Beren and Luthien, Aragorn and Arwen, Tuor and Idril; and they were all tragedies to boot. An elf falling in love with a human was considered all but impossible, certainly for romance with a dwarf was simply unheard of.

 

[USS Firefly]

So you've just realized that LOTR is a darker retelling of The Hobbit? Welcome to the club. That being said, PJ's Hobbit trilogy is bloated, cartoony, and terrible.

i couldn't agree more

 

[Set Harth]

and they were all tragedies to boot.

Hardly, unless you're using the definition very creatively.

An elf falling in love with a human was considered all but impossible, certainly for romance with a dwarf was simply unheard of.

I'm talking about Gimli's attraction to Galadriel.

 

[Silvercrest]

I'm talking about Gimli's attraction to Galadriel.

Yeah, that? That was wrong in every way. She had no beard to grab while they were gettin' busy! The mind boggles as to what he intended to do instead, the little pervert.

 

[DigificWriter]

As I work my way through the Appendices for The Desolation of Smaug, I find myself needing to pivot back to something I talked about earlier regarding what was shot during the year-and-a-half Principal Photography phase and what was added, in both script and shooting, later on in order to expand things from 2 films to 3 by admitting that, although I've watched the BtS stuff before and knew what had been shot when, I had gotten a few things mixed up in my brain for some reason, and had also forgotten that there were two major sequences for Desolation that were added after-the-fact, the confrontation with Smaug and the meeting at the beginning between Gandalf and Thorin at Bree.

I had also forgotten that not everything shot during Principal Photography ultimately ended up being used, as there was an entire sequence in which the Dwarves are taken before Thranduil that ended up on the cutting room floor and stayed there.

 

[Mr Light]

The Dwarves fighting Smaug is one of the greatest additions to the movies for me. It never occurred to me before seeing that movie, but how unsatisfying is it that the entire quest of the Dwarves, to kill Smaug, is done by someone else and they never even meet him?! It also makes a wonderful use of the geography of the Lonely Mountain, showing us the interior in a way I've never seen or imagined before. It's a wonderfully constructed sequence where we see them building the trap bit by bit, all the while running around like maniacs from an unstoppable dragon. That to me is a prime example of the positives Peter Jackson added to the franchise.

 

[ancient]

The 3rd hobbit movie was the only one that became truly tedious to sit through. My eyes glazed over, and I can sit through almost any movie for 3 hours.

 

[Skywalker]

The Dwarves fighting Smaug is one of the greatest additions to the movies for me. It never occurred to me before seeing that movie, but how unsatisfying is it that the entire quest of the Dwarves, to kill Smaug, is done by someone else and they never even meet him?! It also makes a wonderful use of the geography of the Lonely Mountain, showing us the interior in a way I've never seen or imagined before. It's a wonderfully constructed sequence where we see them building the trap bit by bit, all the while running around like maniacs from an unstoppable dragon. That to me is a prime example of the positives Peter Jackson added to the franchise.

That was one change I was fine with for the same reason. After all that build-up, to not allow the Dwarves some kind of emotional climax in their quest to defeat Smaug was underwhelming, to say the least.

 

[DigificWriter]

Since people are bringing up specific things that they like about the Hobbit films, here are my Top 3 favorite sequences from each movie in the Trilogy:
An Unexpected Journey
- The Unexpected Party
- The White Council
- Riddles in the Dark

The Desolation of Smaug
- The entire journey through Mirkwood
- The Orc attack on Lake-town
- Bilbo and the Dwarves' confrontations with Smaug

The Battle of the Five Armies
- The "parley" with Bard and Thorin
- The titular Battle of the Five Armies itself
- Thorin and Bilbo's farewell as the former lies dying