A Long-Expected Hobbit Movie Thread

[RickZarber]

I think it's less premeditated and more that Jackson just indulges in excess and has difficulty cutting it away.

That said, I still think that the main problem with this movie is that it doesn't feel like enough of a story; the actual length is not the problem so much as the fact that--as Lumen said--it spends so much of that runtime setting up plot points that don't even bear on this section of the story. On reflection, I honestly didn't find any of the action sequences to be overlong or detrimental. Or even all that repetitive, really. I was very impressed, for example, just how short the rock giant sequence was. I was expecting PJ to make that into a whole long thing, and then in the end I don't think it was even more than a few minutes.

I also think that time will be kinder to this movie, and it will feel more natural once we have the entire story available to us. (Though people may still cling to their initial dislike, so who knows how that will affect how it's remembered.) But in a few years from now, when we sit down for our... 12 hour marathon of the Hobbit it will feel more like a proper opening act and less like an incomplete film.

[Magus]

I don't understand why Warner Bros. allows him to indulge in excess with their money unless they think that a three-hour movie is more of a draw than a two-hour one or something. Like it basically would have been fine at two hours long, would have saved them money, made just as much money, etc. etc. But maybe the run-time IS a draw, I dunno. The only reason I can think of is that people expect it to be around three hours long so he worked towards that expectation...

[RickZarber]

I think it's just the simple logic of "The LOTR movies were 3 hours each, they made us a crap-ton of money. Let's do exactly that again." So they keep their 3-hour runtime restriction, even though I'm sure they would have been fine with a shorter movie. It's just that Jackson, in his own words, doesn't know how to make short movies.

[Bells]

Honestly? I think it's too soon to say, Jackson already shot the 3 movies, the second one is in Editing right now, probably close to done, i would like to watch the second one before passing any judgment on this prequel saga.

The movie was Fantastic, it had material for it's run time. If you were to cut the Stone Giants, Shorten the Beginning and then Shorten the Goblin king segment a bit to round down 30 minutes, it would probably be a slimmer project. But i will not complain about an awesome movie that is just "89% as awesome as it can be" ...

[Magus]

The thing with the stone giants was it was super amazing to watch and actually from the book, but basically flies in the face of any logic of the original trilogy's world, so there's a big disconnect there...that or I am oddly more accepting of talking trees than stone golems that are a dozen stories tall and also for some reason have not been harnessed to do battle for one side or the other and are also not mentioned at all by anyone in LOTR despite being literally the most amazing thing ever.

Of course the Trolls in LOTR clearly were never meant to be intelligent/talking ones either so I guess it's just as well that Jackson ignored the internal logic of his previous take on the universe.

[Bells]

The trolls ? you mean the 3 Stroollges? Seriously, that was hilarious, but some parts they were Moe'ing it up pretty hard in there!

Also, i want to think that the stone giants are gone cause they are assholes. I mean, they were pelting rocks at each other apparently for no reason and out of the blue ... i mean, 3 Mountains decide to have a snowball fight with each other within marching range of an Elvish city... you would notice that shit.

[synkr0nized]

Originally Posted by Magus

Of course the Trolls in LOTR clearly were never meant to be intelligent/talking ones either so I guess it's just as well that Jackson ignored the internal logic of his previous take on the universe.

But the three in The Hobbit do talk, and quite a lot. In fact, it is dialogue which gets them in trouble, not a brawl itself (though individually or in small groups the dwarves do approach and tussle with them a bit before being captured).

It's not their fault the other trolls that make on-screen (on-page?) appearances don't do much beyond growl and grunt.




I, for one, welcome more scenes that show us what nonsense Gandalf is up to when he buggers off, and of course anything that continues to build up a connection to the Dark Lord rising and the forces of Good giving that their attention is a worthwhile addition. In that sense, I have become much less worried about this not being handled in one movie.

[Bum Bill Bee]

I just saw it yesterday, great expanded plot and humor and loved it long run time and all.

The only bits that bugged me were 1. the Troll's cave being significantly smaller than the trolls themselves 2. The subtitles kind of nerded it up too much. Sorry, not everyone can love the fictional linguistic side of the LOTR verse. and 3. The way they did the main wolf riding goblin antagonist. I mean come on, how many billions of villainous Albinos and amputees do we gotta have?

I did however love how kind and thoughtful the dwarves were, they even did favors for their goblin enemies, like helping them with their over population problems. I mean seriously, countless thousands of goblins living in a dang cave? They surely must've suffered through tons of diseases and starvation, but the dwarves went out of their way to cut their population down to a more manageable number. And Gandalf was kind enough to start the morbidly obese Goblin King on a "Cut your stomach open" diet.

Such wonderful role models for the kiddies to look up to. You just don't see that very often these days.

[Magus]

Those bleeding-heart Elves were always complaining about the great Goblin genocide. Dwarves just call that population control.

[Locke cole]

Bah. Just another example of wizards taking depopulation jobs away from hardworking citizens like Gollum.