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    In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit

    Well, it's over. Half a dozen movies, a span of 13 years and six guaranteed Christmas presents (tickets for the traditional Boxing Day openings in Oz) later, the Peter Jackson saga has ended.

    I know many on OTF won’t agree, or even care, but I reckon the big man put in a decent shift.

    Yes, the first two LoTR movies were padded interminably with inserted and irrelevant focus on Arwen and Rohan respectively. Yes, The Hobbit was what could have been two potentially fast-paced movies expanded into three that at times stretched thinner than Bilbo was by the ring. Yes, it was all done backwards. Yes, the whole project was sometimes all too obviously designed with the inevitable games in mind.

    However, having waited nearly 30 years between my first read of Tolkein and any serious attempt to bring his work to life as movies, I will forgive that. Indeed I will forgive Jackson anything for just one scene.

    The moment when the fellowship enters Moria and the splendor of the Dwarf halls of Khazad-dhum is unveiled is one of those cinema moments that has stayed with me ever since – like the Star Wars opening scene or Ethan framed in the doorway at the end of The Searchers.

    NB: For fellow nerds the deluxe Kindle edition of The Hobbit has audio of Tolkien himself reading some passages. It is really quite good.

    #2
    In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit

    That's a pretty fair OP. I was an avid reader of the books and like you, always wanted someone to make live action movies of them. For a long time it was beyond what was possible.

    Jackson harnessed what was available to him and whilst, as something of a purist I winced at what seemed occasional faux pas, overall I thought he'd done a great job on the LotR trilogy. On a personal level I found Elijah Wood tiresome, but felt bad about it if that helps.

    Actually, I'm probably in a minority but I found Gollum annoying too in time. I know Andy Serkis and the CGI team did an astounding job; I just didn't like him and felt his scenes dragged. Oh, and Galadriel.

    When I heard The Hobbit was to be a trilogy I was nervous, considering the relative size of the book against LotR, but apart from the fact they were too long as a whole, I thought the overall trilogy was very satisfying. Rather like Mike Leigh (see Mr. Turner) Jackson clearly doesn't get edited, but it feels a bit churlish when the whole endeavour is considered as one. Just the burning of Laketown at the start of the last film justified my entrance money. Especially in 3D.

    Side-plots-wise I was initially frustrated about the presence of Tauriel, but if I'm honest, Evangeline Lilly herself softened my stance well enough as time passed. Shallow, me.

    In summary I am much, much happier they've been done, than before when I wished someone would. One regret is that I now have no interest whatsoever in the books, no desire to read them. Perhaps the whole Middle Earth world, the gravitas of so much of it, all feels a little cliched now. It's ended at the right time.

    Comment


      #3
      In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit

      Uncle Ethan wrote: Well, it's over. Half a dozen movies, a span of 13 years and six guaranteed Christmas presents (tickets for the traditional Boxing Day openings in Oz) later, the Peter Jackson saga has ended.

      I know many on OTF won’t agree, or even care, but I reckon the big man put in a decent shift.

      Yes, the first two LoTR movies were padded interminably with inserted and irrelevant focus on Arwen and Rohan respectively. Yes, The Hobbit was what could have been two potentially fast-paced movies expanded into three that at times stretched thinner than Bilbo was by the ring. Yes, it was all done backwards. Yes, the whole project was sometimes all too obviously designed with the inevitable games in mind.

      However, having waited nearly 30 years between my first read of Tolkein and any serious attempt to bring his work to life as movies, I will forgive that. Indeed I will forgive Jackson anything for just one scene.

      The moment when the fellowship enters Moria and the splendor of the Dwarf halls of Khazad-dhum is unveiled is one of those cinema moments that has stayed with me ever since – like the Star Wars opening scene or Ethan framed in the doorway at the end of The Searchers.

      NB: For fellow nerds the deluxe Kindle edition of The Hobbit has audio of Tolkien himself reading some passages. It is really quite good.
      Are you mad?

      Rohan, its culture background, and how it came into existence is woefully under-represented in the plot of the novel.

      (Especially after the interminable trek from The Shire to Rivendell and the focus on Lothlorien in Book I

      Redeemed to a large extent by the appen-dikes, tho')

      Comment


        #4
        In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit

        It's a job very well done.
        Had he done it the way die hard Tolkien fans wanted it who moan all over the internet, it would probably have been as boring as trying to read Silmarillion. Jackson found a perfect middle way where kids could go watch it, people who never read or sometimes even not liked the books suddenly liked the stories and most of all, he managed to convince the producers not only to make trilogies, but way over two hour long ones. These are movies that will last forever, which you once every now and than can sit down to enjoy. They are modern Ben-Hur, Spartacus, Lawrence of Arabia, Das Boot and Gone with the wind x 3 then times 3 again. No chance I would have wanted them shorter or to follow the books exactly.

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          #5
          In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit

          Our Middle Earth bureau chief writes:

          When it started I thought (along with pretty much everyone in NZ) "Yay! Celebs! Jobs! Money!" and looked forward to the milking. After six cows have come and gone, I'm begging for it to stop. Of course that's not a commentary on the films themselves, just the accompanying noise, and the quasi-fascist conflation of Jackson's output and patriotism. The madness has been pervasive - we're not just expected to support the films at the box office, but with our taxes and votes as well ("If you don't love the Hobbits then Sauron has won!").

          I haven't seen any of the Hobbit films, but enjoyed the LOTR trilogy. Enjoyed like a fairground ride, jolted rather than moved. Ultimately I didn't really care about the characters, and I say that despite really enjoying the books (ages ago). As long as they were blasting and biffing each other around, that was the main thing.

          But I shouldn't rewrite personal history (for what that's worth). When the project was first mooted some time last century, I knew that it was a mad idea, and it couldn't be done. I was very wrong.

          Comment


            #6
            In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit

            Fellowship was good, containing plenty of the directorial flourishes that made Jackson's early films such a good watch. Two Towers contained a few good character moments, and the Gollum CGI was genuinely impressive. Return was appalling - the omission of The Scouring Of The Shire was unforgivable.

            Following a similar trajectory, the first Hobbit film was decent enough, the second laboured with a few high points, and I can't muster the determination to see the third.

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              #7
              In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit

              Mumpo wrote: the omission of The Scouring Of The Shire was unforgivable.
              That one thing bothers me to this day

              Comment


                #8
                In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit

                Pietro Paolo Virdis wrote:
                Originally posted by Mumpo
                the omission of The Scouring Of The Shire was unforgivable.
                That one thing bothers me to this day
                Thirded

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                  #9
                  In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit

                  Well, it was there, just very quickly in the Mirror of Galadriel.

                  Bugger it, can't defend the indefensible. But. Moria.

                  If it's any compensation tee rex, the movies clinched NZ as a tourism destination for us and it was spectacular.

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                    #10
                    In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit

                    Yep, me too, that last bit.

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                      #11
                      In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit

                      I saw the first LOTR film with family, the last time I went to the pics with my mum. She loved it, was like a kid afterwards the way she chattered about it. The second I saw in Bangkok while on a really enjoyable month-long Thai holiday. The third I saw twice, the first time with a girlfriend that I was pretty much infatuated with, and then a couple of months later with a female friend who eventually supplanted the one I was mad about and whom I ended up marrying. So in an odd way the three films have become life markers for me.
                      As for the content, the first is fantastic; Weathertop and the chase afterwards, Moria, (especially the Balrog) and the final Boromir fight. The second has its moments, especially the in media res opening but I found the Helm's Deep battle to be a bit busy, and the third is a bottom-numbing experience, though I liked the Gondor scenes. If the Scouring of the Shire had been in, it would have added another ending to a film that has at least three drawn-out ones already.
                      The first two Hobbit films I sat through on DVD and wasn't that fussed with but then 2 weeks ago my wife was entertaining friends at home and I took myself to the flics for the Five Armies film. i had a fine old time though obviously nostalgia played a part. I thought the climactic battle was better than either of the ones in LOTR 2 and 3.
                      In the final analysis, what Jackson has done, as Tolkien before him, is produced superior tosh. But what great tosh.

                      Comment


                        #12
                        In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit

                        Pietro Paolo Virdis wrote:
                        Originally posted by Mumpo
                        the omission of The Scouring Of The Shire was unforgivable.
                        That one thing bothers me to this day
                        That's what the movies needed. Yet another ending to go with the four endings that the first trilogy had.

                        Comment


                          #13
                          In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit

                          Uncle Ethan wrote: Well, it was there, just very quickly in the Mirror of Galadriel.

                          Bugger it, can't defend the indefensible. But. Moria.
                          No it wasn't. In the film, that was a vision of a possible future if Sauron won.

                          Why no scouring of the Shire instead of twenty minutes of goodbyes at the end of RotK? It was an awful way to end a dismal third film.

                          The first 2 hobbit films have been dreadful as well. Anything that Peter Jackson has added has been utterly risible. The elf=dwarf love scene, riding a shield along a river of molten gold, interminable orc-centric bits. You name it.

                          If it wasn't for all the Tolkien nerds who would go see it whatever these movies would have justly bombed. Peter Jackson isn't a visionary film-maker. He took a cracking story (The Hobbit) and turned it into a long-winded bore-fest that made me want to beat him with a telephone directory then read the directory out loud over his twitching corpse that would still have been more entertaining than most of the guff he put in the films.

                          He even fucked up King Kong. I mean how the hell can you fuck up King Kong? The Simpsons did a better job with King Kong in an 8 minute Treehouse of Horror bit.

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                            #14
                            In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit

                            Tolkien nerd here.
                            To me the best parts of The Hobbit were already done, "Riddles in the dark" and "Conversation with Smaug" - I can't be arsed to go and see the third, no matter how glossy.
                            The idea of seeing Legolas doing stoopid acrobatic killings just is too grim to contemplate.

                            Overall I agree Jackson has done a sterling job though, and the LOTR films especially brought to life whatI had been waiting so many years for, imperfect though it was - I mean they promounced things different than what was in my head.
                            But although I preferred Martin Freeman as lead hobbit to Elijah Wood, the squeezing out of blood/dollars for this Hobbit trilogy has left a bad taste.

                            Regarding other attempts they might be considering, as in "The Silmarillion" or "Unfinished Tales" etc

                            There are stand alone stories in those that "could" make great films (The chidren of Hurin - very nordic tragedy, or of course Beren and Luthien - something for the dog lovers, or even the fall of Numenor - which would show Sauron as more of a Littlefinger character than just 'ol big eye) - but I would fear Jackson would try and do the lot, and turn it into ten bloated films - enough Peter please.

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                              #15
                              In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit

                              'Mythical fuckin' beasties', at last it's all over.

                              Comment


                                #16
                                Originally posted by Patrick Thistle View Post
                                No it wasn't. In the film, that was a vision of a possible future if Sauron won.

                                Why no scouring of the Shire instead of twenty minutes of goodbyes at the end of RotK? It was an awful way to end a dismal third film.

                                The first 2 hobbit films have been dreadful as well. Anything that Peter Jackson has added has been utterly risible. The elf=dwarf love scene, riding a shield along a river of molten gold, interminable orc-centric bits. You name it.

                                If it wasn't for all the Tolkien nerds who would go see it whatever these movies would have justly bombed. Peter Jackson isn't a visionary film-maker. He took a cracking story (The Hobbit) and turned it into a long-winded bore-fest that made me want to beat him with a telephone directory then read the directory out loud over his twitching corpse that would still have been more entertaining than most of the guff he put in the films.

                                He even fucked up King Kong. I mean how the hell can you fuck up King Kong? The Simpsons did a better job with King Kong in an 8 minute Treehouse of Horror bit.
                                I finally watched the third Hobbit film on TV last night as it was free and I'm a completionist.

                                It was awful.

                                I don't know if they edited the film for TV but what happens at the end of the battle? Thorin runs up a cliff, kills Azog and that's it. There were orcs and war trolls swarming the valley. Did they just melt away?

                                It annoyed me that they killed off Fili and Kili just to close off the stupid Tauriel sub-plot. They tried to inject humour with Alfred the coward but he runs out of scene and disappears. What was all the White Council v Nazgul thing? Apart from clunkily setting up Saruman's betrayal? And apparently the cure for dragon madness is to stare at gold saying you're not your grandfather.

                                More than that, it was boring. There were several times I saw scenes designed to be computer games.

                                Congratulations to Peter Jackson though. He's managed to make a prequel trilogy even worse than George Lucas's efforts.

                                Comment


                                  #17
                                  It was a slog, I admit, but I'll put my neck on the line and admit to admiring Jackson's ability to organise these effects-heavy epics into a semblance of controlled film-making, even if the Hobbit trilogy doesn't have the same impact as the Rings trilogy before them. The difference between Jackson and Lucas, I suppose, is that the former has enough love and affection for his source material to pour a little heart into them, while the latter invested his outer-space epics with the emotional integrity of a bloke reading the gas meter, leaving it to people like JJ Abrams to do the job he couldn't be bothered to do.

                                  But you're right about the Hobbit's disappearing forces at the climactic stage of the flick. Remember those giant worms that were supposedly going to wreak havoc? They must've buggered off somewhere for a sandwich while all that clobbering was going on.

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                                    #18
                                    I was surprised by how much I was disappointed by the Hobbit films. I would have told you that Lord of the Rings was closer to my heart but no, it wasn't even in the vicinity compared to the Hobbit.

                                    There are several fan edits of the trilogy, specifically ones that reduce the trilogy to one or two films and I keep meaning to watch one as that would solve one of my problems with it. Nothing that Jackson has created adds anything to the films or story. It wouldn't solve my second problem though. Jackson can leave nothing as subtext or ambiguous.

                                    All the way through Gandalf does things that are magic, in particular with the trolls, while in the book things just happen to work out for him, it could be magic it might not be.

                                    I really do dislike how annoyed I got at this adaption of a children's book.

                                    Comment


                                      #19
                                      I don't agree with the arbitrary distinction between adult and children's books but I get your point. I have thought it could probably make one decent length film but I'm not sure he was faithful enough to the original book for that to work for me.

                                      I agree that none of the additions were worth adding in.

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                                        #20
                                        For anyone considering watching the Hobbit trilogy I would suggest watching the Honest Trailers of them first (on Youtube).

                                        Part of the brilliance of Tolkien's books is that to the child reader it feels like reading adult literature. Same as with Richard Adams' Watership Down for example. It was a different time.

                                        The movies, we hates them. Visually spectacular to a fault, dreadful scripts and an overall lack of sophistication.

                                        I see two kinds of Tolkien nerd and they can't both be right. On one side are self-styled purists with an obsessive attention and fidelity to the graphic details of the books and how best to realize them visually, in the assumption that the story will basically tell itself and the main challenge is visuals that "do justice to" the story. This side, which obviously includes Peter Jackson, seemed to know the price of everything and the value of nothing. For starters, they could've at least not fucked with Tolkien's dialogue so much or hired a good writer. As one visual example I would mention Legolas versus the Oliphants in the Battle of Pelennor Fields, which is a scene you'll like if you like that kind of scene. I'd also mention all of the attempts at humor and running gags, which for me never rose above sci-fi convention wince level. They're not funny books, they're quietly good-humored books. Trying to use the humorous elements of Tolkien's plots to elicit laughs and cheers ruined it for me.

                                        On the other side are self-styled purists who, much as they liked the idea of bringing LoTR to life and much as they might have liked the visual results as such (which I did, and go New Zealand), believed that Hollywood could only distort and spoil what makes the books work dramatically. In my opinion this was partly intrinsic to reading as opposed to viewing and partly to do with Tolkien's approach to story-telling, which is Iliadic and heavily allusive but at the same time quite suspenseful.

                                        Take Mordor. For the entirety of FoTR, Mordor is a place on a map and a shadowy legend. You never see it, though you're invited to fill in the visual blanks during Gandalf's history lesson and at the Council of Elrond. In book one, you're in the hobbits' shoes of setting off toward something they can't imagine. In the movie you get a bucket of Mordor and Sauron dumped on your head in the first scene. The Black Riders, too, are introduced very gradually in the book, sniffing around in the shadows and opening farmyard gates at dusk, whereas my recollection of the movie is that you get to see exactly what the hobbits are in for the whole time.

                                        So for nerd camp #2, the tone set by FoTR should be like the cover of Black Sabbath and nerd camp #1 wanted it like the cover of Holy Diver.

                                        I'm sure I could go on. I see the movies as a net negative that will give millions of kids an excuse not to read the books, which are a different universe of entertaining, especially if you haven't seen the movies.

                                        Comment


                                          #21
                                          I agree with all that, Bruno, but I think there are bits of the Jackson LOTR films that make up for the utter pants-ness. But the same can't be said for the Hobbit movies. I would argue they are worse "prequel" films than Star Wars Episodes I - III.

                                          Comment


                                            #22
                                            My reaction was partly and ironically because of how perfectly I thought they pulled off the look - all the details and more epic sweep than you could shake a stick at. It was superficiality on a grand scale. No subtlety, everything too in your face, one clunker of a pseudo-poetic line after another. To me it seemed to illustrate a difference between Tolkien, a pipe-smoking Oxford don with good old-school literary tastes, and his D&D playing fans of a later generation who think dragons and orcs are bitchin, who like bad fan fiction and video games and will applaud attitudey lines in the vein of "take THAT, monster!"

                                            Some of the scenes were awesome to behold, and some of the best parts were when the dialogue stopped and you could soak in the atmosphere. A lot of the characters were perfectly cast, looks-wise. Viggo Mortensen I thought was the best by some distance and the only compelling character, the perfect combination of ranger danger and kingly calm. Ian McKellen like all good English actors can make a bread recipe sound like high art, but he was still the wrong kind of Gandalf for me, or at least didn't have enough to work with. Elrond was a disaster and they got the elves all wrong. They're supposed to be above it all because they've seen it all.

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                                              #23
                                              I didn't mind Hugo Weaving as Elrond or Sir Ian as Gandalf. But I agree with you about how seeing Mordor right at the start drew the suspense out of it. I felt the same way about the duel between Saruman and Gandalf. Seeing that robbed the sense of 'Where the hell is Gandalf.' I wasn't a huge fan of Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn but I can't think of anyone who would have played Aragorn better, off the top of my head.

                                              Comment


                                                #24
                                                The dialogue, especially in the Hobbit movies, really does grate.

                                                "I pledge my loyalty to the Queen of the South"
                                                "Speak you for all of Alloa?"
                                                "Aye, and the warriors of Cowdenbeath"
                                                "The Rangers of Berwick stand ready"
                                                "Then let us cast out the dragon of Dunfermline and make merry in Montrose once more!"

                                                Oh, fuck off. It's not real, you pompous pricks. You're a cartoon, not Winston Churchill.

                                                Comment


                                                  #25
                                                  Yeah.

                                                  One of the best moments of the trilogy is Gandalf facing the Balrog in Moria. The movie scene became iconic with the "YOU. SHALL. NOT. PAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSSS SS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" which I thought missed what Gandalf is all about. Here's the text:

                                                  The Balrog reached the bridge. Gandalf stood in the middle of the span, leaning on the staff in his left hand, but in his other hand Glamdring gleamed, cold and white. His enemy halted again, facing him, and the shadow about it reached out like two vast wings. It raised the whip, and the thongs whined and cracked. Fire came from its nostrils. But Gandalf stood firm.

                                                  'You cannot pass,' he said. The orcs stood still, and a dead silence fell. 'I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. You cannot pass. The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udûn. Go back to the Shadow! You cannot pass.'

                                                  The Balrog made no answer. The fire in it seemed to die, but the darkness grew. It stepped forward slowly onto the bridge, and suddenly it drew itself up to a great height, and its wings were spread from wall to wall; but still Gandalf could be seen, glimmering in the gloom; he seemed small, and altogether alone: grey and bent, like a wizened tree before the onset of a storm.

                                                  From out of the shadow a red sword leaped flaming.

                                                  Glamdring glittered white in answer.

                                                  There was a ringing clash and a stab of white fire. The Balrog fell back and its sword flew up in molten fragments. The wizard swayed on the bridge, stepped back a pace, and then again stood still.

                                                  'You cannot pass!' he said.

                                                  With a bound the Balrog leaped full upon the bridge. Its whip whirled and hissed.

                                                  'He cannot stand alone!' cried Aragorn suddenly and ran back along the bridge. 'Elendil!' he shouted. 'I am with you, Gandalf!'

                                                  'Gondor!' cried Boromir and leaped after him.

                                                  At that moment Gandalf lifted his staff, and crying aloud he smote the bridge before him. The staff broke asunder and fell from his hand. A blinding sheet of white flame sprang up. The bridge cracked. Right at the Balrog's feet it broke, and the stone upon which it stood crashed into the gulf, while the rest remained, poised, quivering like a tongue of rock thrust out into emptiness.

                                                  With a terrible cry the Balrog fell forward, and its shadow plunged down and vanished. But even as it fell it swung its whip, and the thongs lashed and curled about the wizard's knees, dragging him to the brink. He staggered and fell, grasped vainly at the stone, and slid into the abyss. 'Fly, you fools!' he cried, and was gone.”
                                                  It was inevitable that Jackson would whip this up into a Clash of the Titans "time for Gandalf to bring it!" moment. It's so much better in the book, where Gandalf is preternaturally grim and calm. "'You cannot pass,' he said." "Said" all three times, not shouted like he's Braveheart. It's like when Lucas thought it'd be cool to make Yoda go all Matrix apeshit against Count Dooku, and everyone cheered. The Balrog showdown happens in "dead silence" interrupted by the one sword clash and whip crack. If I'm the soundtrack guy I'd maybe put in a soft 20 Hz rumble.

                                                  Anyway.

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