Being 4P's resident Tolkienite, you guys should have expected this thread. Who's pumped for the first film in The Hobbit trilogy? I plan to see it fairly soon after release - I doubt it'll be on release day since this is hell week for me with work, but as soon as possible afterwards. I'm kind of skeptical about how they can expand a fairly short book like The Hobbit into three LotR-length movies, though there is plenty of supplemental material to draw from. I don't expect it to be as strong as the LotR films though...simply based on the fact The Hobbit just isn't as good of a book as The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
I was going to see it this Thursday with some friends, but because of school and a lack of transportation, I'm not going to be able to. :/ If it makes up for it, I plan on having a The Lord of the Rings marathon over winter break, since I haven't seen any of the films before.
Saw it the other day with some of my family. In keeping with tradition, it was waaaay better than the book. To my personal tastes, anyway. (LotR is one of the few series where I've always felt the films were vastly superior to the books because they cut out all the useless parts beautifully [and there are a lot of useless parts] and stayed perfectly coherent... this one was no different.) I wish they were only doing two movies instead of three. I still think three is overkill for the amount of plot they need to cover.
I think, last I read was that this will still be two movies for the core story. The third movie, while under the Hobbit banner, will be more of an inbetweenquel between the proper Hobbit story and the LotR films. Appendix material and stuff EDIT: My copy/pasted review from PC... Saw an HFR 3D UltraAVX presentation of the film today. That's a lot of acronyms. UltraAVX is essentially the local cineplex chain's lingo for "one of the auditoriums that we've bothered to upgrade recently and you can pay a premium to be in it". The movie was a mixed bag. The first act in the Shire could use some editing. A lot of editing. It takes a good long while to get going and the burp-jokes feel out of place. Pacing and tone is still kind of broken until after the troll scene. After that it's enjoyable and it feels more like you're back in the old films. But it always has a very evident feeling (at least if you're familiar with the book, I guess) that this is lighter fare being padded and stretched beyond its limits. I don't mind the extra material and trying to make it fit better with the first trilogy, and as two well-paced films it can work. But three? No. Also, as if bowing to pressure from Tokien fans after complaints in the last trilogy for not following every single word - this movie, unwisely, includes the songs. In short, this movie needs editing. As for HFR, I don't think it adds much. The first ten minutes or so (basically, the prologue) looked really awkward as I adjusted to the speed. Actions were jittery and people walked around like in an old-timey movie. After I adjusted, I didn't notice it anymore. Which I guess it good, but also... then what's the point if it ultimately looks like same? Action scenes were still blurry, it didn't solve that problem. Sure still scenes were really clear, but IMAX does this already. It made 3D look terrific though, some of the best I've seen. And yet...I didn't enjoy the 3D. Whereas Hugo (which I think made the best use of 3D), embraced 3D and used it to enhance the movie into a beautiful work of art - with The Hobbit, 3D coupled with HFR feels very realistic. And I don't want realistic. I want film. This is Tolkien. This is fantasy. Hyper-realism doesn't fit. it feels like you're really there - not in Middle-Earth, but on a film set. The best description I've seen likened the effect to the greatest BBC or PBS production. A soap opera. A high-end home video camera. It lacks the filmic quality that I want when I go the movie theatre. The magic. Throughout the whole movie though, any quick shots or inserts felt too fast and would take me out of the movie. Speaking of which...40 minutes of commercials and advertisements before the movie actually started. Holy cow. Did not have to make this movie any longer than it already was.
Saw this again in HFR and wow it was weird. It looked like it was in 1.5x speed or something. Every movement felt really unnatural and I actually laughed out loud every time the camera panned because it felt so sped up. (The aerial fly-by pans were my favourite because they just seemed so silly.) Any mundane action, like walking or standing up, seemed unnatural and strange with it. I think it's something I'd be able to get used to one day in the future--or if I'd always grown up with movies at a high framerate--but as it was, I found it distracting throughout most of the movie. I'd get used to it only for some specific scene to come up and make me notice it again (usually with a pan). On the contrary, I think it really improved action scenes--I felt it was much clearer and the movements were way easier to follow. Compared to seeing it in normal 3D, it was much more watchable during action scenes. There was no blur and of all the movies I've seen i the last few years with action scenes, this was easily the best for being able to follow the intent of the action. Usually it's easier to just relax my eyes and not pay attention at all, only assuming what happened based on how everyone looks when the action is finished. Seriously, any other movie and I can't tell you if someone in a crowd of close combat kicked the other person, tackled them or so on. But it was easy to focus on in HFR for once. I think the movie would've benefitted from upping the framerate only in those kinds of scenes and keeping it normal everywhere else. But I agree on the quality thing. I didn't feel it in normal framerate but in HFR the film quality seriously reminded me of this crappy British soap opera my dad is addicted to. (I can't remember what it's called right now.) And that always weirds me out because you can just FEEL the studio setting. It really is like you're right there standing where the camera man is. Everything is so clear and fluid and just... surreal if only because it's too real.
Right at the beginning where we have a backshot of old-Bilbo walking down that hallway, it looked so weird XD
I've seen it three times already. Absolutely blown back by it. I remember seeing Fellowship with my dad as a kid and as soon as I was sat there and I saw the title and the shire I nearly broke down in tears because it felt like I was 11 again and first discovering Middle Earth with my old man. Fair play the film took a lot of liberties with the story but I don't think any of them detracted from the experience.
I've still yet to see it, unfortunately. The Bluray releases next month, so I'll probably rent it then, but I'm not going to buy it until the Extended Edition comes out this fall. With LOTR, I absolutely can't go back to watch the theatrical editions, so I'm assuming it'll be the same with The Hobbit.
I did notice that a fair few clips from the trailer aren't in the theatrical edition sadly. I will be getting it on blu ray too as soon as extended is out, cannot wait.
It just became available in Redbox in the last week or two, so I rented it last night. I thought it was...good. Nowhere close to the LotR trilogy, but then again The Hobbit is a totally different book from LotR (and frankly, not as good of a book). It definitely seem stretched thin at some points - I adored the scenes that were added with Radagast/Dol Guldur and the White Council, but other things really felt forced. And the beginning was almost painful...it took waaaay too long to get rolling.
