The Hobbit (2012)

Which movie is that scene in, I don't recall it at all. And I'm obviously not a big fan of the films so I've seen them maybe twice (theatrical too, so it's possible that scene is in one of the extended versions?).

And with that said, most of my recollection of Elrond's attitude toward man is from his snarling in the first movie about how the race is so weak (which might tie into the Isildur failure to destroy the Ring, I don't recall). I sat there thinking it was a bit over-the-top for someone who's been like a father to Aragorn. Forgot about the elves marching up at Helm's Deep, stupid f'n scene anyways.

I think it's in RotK but I can't recall clearly. Having just watched them all in marathon a couple weeks ago they're blending a bit. It's in which ever movie has Arwen marching to the sea because it is the pretext for her almost leaving Middle Earth.

Elrond lays out his vision of her future as an endless mourning and says "Go to the sea, already!" So she does but on the way she has her own vision of Aragorn and their future son and turns around to tell daddy he's a douche for being selective in his revelation.

Frankly, it's easy to forget since the initial revelation, the march, and her return confrontation are kind of filler in between more interesting scenes.

I think it will depend on how long its been since you last read The Hobbit. I really like the LOTR films, but when I saw them in theatres it had been a few years since I'd last read the books, so I was willing to let the films tell me the story rather then be concerned about how accurate a version they were. And I think a lot of people who dislike the films are people who saw them with the books fresh in their mind. Which is fine, just that it impacts your perspective. I haven't read The Hobbit for several years so the films will succeed or fail on their own merit.

Ultimately films and books are different so I don't expect exact and literal versions, though sometimes you get that. But I can also think of examples of where I think the film was better then the book, or even significantly different but just as good in its own ways.

Wait, "The Hobbit" was a book? I thought this was a remake of the Rankin/Bass cartoon.

Bombadil was flat-out immune to it, it had nothing he wanted. Bilbo gave the ring up up when it's power was weak and it was seeking a new holder. All of the nine except Boromir could stand to be near the thing, though Frodo wasn't exactly waving it around. Gandalf and Galadriel rejected it when offered. Faramir passed it up when the ring's power was approaching it's full strength. And Sam alone possessed the thing at the height of it's strength in the land of Mordor and gave it up willingly.

It may be surmised that Sam could safely have tended the gardens of Morgul Vale as well.

I find these discussions very intriguing. I love the LOTR stories but the level of certainty that enters the analysis is always a bit puzzling to me. There was a guy on QT3 who would always answer these questions in terms that simply left zero room for any argument. He WAS right about it. He had STUDIED it. End. Of. Story.

Somebody mentioned the idea of Peter Jackson's changes and the problems they can cause when people get the sense that such and such a character "wouldn't have done that."

So I've spent hundreds of hours writing stories over the past five years and finished four crummy to mediocre novels :)

If there's one thing I've learned it's that "wouldn't have done that" is an extremely, extremely fluid concept even for the author. There have been cases where I've thought "Joe Hero wouldn't have done that" only to realize later on that if he didn't do that it was going to make the story worse. So suddenly Joe Hero is doing the exact thing that I thought he wouldn't do two days ago.

Now clearly Tolkien was a far better author than I am, but I just don't see any reason to believe that being a good author imbues you with some sort of super-human level of certainty. If you've ever read about Tolkien's abortive plans for sequels they honestly don't make much sense. If you saw the thoughts he had for the sequels but they were presented to you as if somebody else had dreamed them up you would say "oh man Tolkien would never have done that!" and you would be wrong.

Or well, you would be right because he didn't. But he almost did!

So I think the level of convincitude that some people display about these things is a little over the top. It's all guesswork in the end...sometimes even for the author. (For further reference see Lucas, George.)

Correct. It is.

Sounds like a personal problem to me. "Doesn't make sense to John Reynolds" is not a particularly compelling argument. I'm sorry.

You know, some people are able to come to different conclusions than you while still engaging their critical thought processes. I know! It's amazing! I was shocked when I learned that too! But in time, as you get older, you'll find it's actually a common ocurrence.


Here's something else that might blow your mind. Some things are bittersweet. That means that they're filled with both joy *and* sorrow. Arwen getting married to Aragorn is just such thing. And some of us don't need a movie to spell out literally every thought process for us to understand when a character is somewhat ambivalent about something. "Ambivalence", by the way, can result from either no opinion in either direction (i.e. apathy) or from having strong opinions in both directions. (i.e. Elrond in this case)

There better be a version of "Where There's a Whip There's a Way" in the remakes!

That's not from The Hobbit. :/

I withhold a like because you're the bearer of bad news.

I love those Hobbit production videos.

The motion picture event of the year has arrived!

The Age of The Hobbits!

I think that was Desslock....

I find your argument interesting because I felt the same way about the Brian Herbert Dune books concluding the Idaho saga to be similar BS.

I never thought in a million years Herbert intended to bring back vanquished thinking machines from the Butlerian Jihad as the answer to what everyone on the Scattering was fleeing from. I also never thought the story of the jihad would be so lame but I blame that on the authors that wrote that filler. But all evidence indicates he was working from his father's notes and that indeed that had been his intent..

Live from the Wellington premiere.

Good beard, Hugo.

Oh that's cool, I didn't know Sylvester McCoy was playing Radagast! I am looking so forward to this, honestly more than the LOTR movies, as I've always liked The Hobbit more than the LOTR books.

/rolls, in the thread

Is it some 12 days til? I don't think I can keep calm guys.

Personally I have high hopes for the acting :D
I mean look at this quote:


First time posting around here.
Don't kill me please.

*petpets VaticanCameos*

Geeking out something horrible because HOBBIT WEEK on Colbert and uh, it's a week away.
I pretty much have nothing coherent to offer.

Martin Freeman was so damn adorable on Colbert with his little Lego guy.

I saw the movie tonight, I was afraid it would be a Phantom Menace kind of thing, and I still prefer Fellowship and Two Towers, but I was pleasantly surprised.

The action scenes were alright, although they could have been shorter and weren't as impressive as the Moria scenes were when Fellowship first came out. Fortunately there were enough heartfelt moments, and quite a few clever throwbacks to the LOTR movies. Martin Freeman was pretty great too.

Saw it yesterday at the Embassy in Welli, HOBBIT FUCKING CENTRAL. I thought it kicked ass and if the two films to follow are similar I'll be very happy.

The HFR stuff is weird, but not unpleasant – it was a net positive, I’d say. I went in expecting to dislike it. It definitely makes the 3d less flickery, which is nice.

I just got back from seeing it in an HFR theater and it was definitely pretty jarring at first. Almost like I was watching a live stage play with the most impressive props in the universe. It's just so very different from what we've been used to all these years that it didn't feel like a movie. Whether that's good or bad, I don't know. I'll have to see many more movies shot that way before I can really say.

The theater I saw it in was also one of the few to have the new Dolby Atmos sound and I have to say that it was way impressive. It was as big a jump to me as going stereo to 5.1 and this was the perfect movie to take advantage of it. The 3D was pretty excellent, but the sound was just completely amazing.

The opening flashback scenes in HFR felt particularly jarring. I think because the camera pans were so quick. It's like the movie was trying to show off what HFR does to pans.

just came out of it. I need to digest, but it might be near the top of Tolkien movies for me. While you guys are right about pacing and character moments, the lack of bad acting I think makes up for a lot of those issues. As said, martin freeman is sean bean level, but more importantly noone is Sean Astin.

Is Sean Bean level a good or a bad thing?

I got home from seeing it, and although I also need to process it, I have some thoughts, although they're more nit picks:

1. Horse wigs

2. Lee Pace dye your eyebrows!!!

Other than that, and having the bad luck to have to sit in the front row (the theater we normally see movies in didn't have it due to the rival theater getting an exclusive,) I quite enjoyed it. I'm glad they kept the lightness I remember from the book.

Did anyone else spot Stephen Colbert's cameo? I think he was one of the hobbits in the road when Bilbo is leaving the shire, but because I was in thw front row, anything with a lot of motion in it was blurry. :(

Oh one more thought: loved seeing the 7th doctor as Radagast!

Forgot to look for PJ, he said he's in the first seven minutes or so. Didn't know Colbert might be in there. Brit McKenzie from FotC had a much larger part than I expected.

Also, when the ring flew into the air and somehow landed on Bilbo's finger I almost screamed. What is the probability of that exact same thing happening to both Bilbo and Frodo?! I excuse it by thinking the ring wanted to be worn and manipulated its trajectory and spin, which may actually be true.

Saw it in 3D Imax last night. It will be my last #D film. Made me slightly queasy, but that wasn't the problem. The 3D wasn't gimmicky and gave great depth to the scenes, but the flatness of foreground objects was jarring.

I thought it was much better than the reviews led me to expect, but not as good as the trilogy films. The first hour in particular dragged. Given that the scene at home with the dwarves went on forever, it was disappointing that we didn't get more of the individual personalities.

Once they hit the road, I thought it was excellent. I particularly enjoyed the White Council. I could watch Ian Mckellan talk to the trees for three hours alone. And the Gollum scene was riveting.

A shame Elijah Wood was in there. I see a lot of knocks on Sean Astin in this thread, but to me wood is the Achilles heel of the trilogy and I cringed the entire time he was on screen.

The action sequences were pretty thrilling, but Jackson obviously takes the laws of physics as mere suggestions.

3 and a half rings out of five.

Just got back. Saw it in HFR 3D. I enjoyed it - much lighter in tone than LotR so you can just sit back and enjoy the action without the weight of the world being at stake. It's nice seeing Gandalf just kick ass and remembering back when the Ring was actually more tool than trap.

On the HFR front, it's definitely jarring at first but I quite liked it once I got used to it - a lot of which is just shaking the fact that my brain has associated 24fps as being "just what movies look like.". I think it works particularly well with the 3D, as it really does come across looking like you have a portal into that world.

I think the probability is so low that it happening like that at all is intended to be making the point.

I saw it in a non-3D cinema. Not sure if it was just me but it seemed that the film quality was just not as sharp as I thought it should be. That said, I did not choose the theater we went to and if I had, I would not have chosen it- it is just a run of the mill theater in a mall. Nothing special and I think probably they just have crappy equipment.

That said, when I see it again, I will NOT make that mistake. As for the movie, well it was just wonderful. Yeah maybe a touch long in parts but I never felt that it was dragging. It was absolutely gorgeous and I enjoyed every minute of it.

So now, 3 movies? Aren't they like 1/2 way done with the story at the end? Eh, Jackson has me hooked- he is getting more of my money and I don't care!

I've had more time now to reflect and for me the thing I found frustrating with the presentation of HFR is that combining the new format with the slow introduction in Bag End doesn't do it many favors. You do get a sort of Masterpiece Theater vibe as it's just a dude with a pen sitting there, and that winds up being a horrible first impression of what this format has to offer.

HFR makes things feel extremely real, which mixes poorly with stuff when your brain is telling you what's on screen is real so it MUST just be a dude with some makeup and some really fancy props because obviously hobbits and dwarves don't really exist, and it comes across somewhat like you're watching an extremely well-costumed live-action play. However, this takes a turn for the awesome when this blends in truly fantastical elements, because it's like your brain is telling you this is real shit happening on the screen even when it's dragons or giant eagles or sweeping fantasy vistas, and that's a truly great experience.

I would love to see a movie that plays with HFR as just another tool where it gets used selectively (sort of like how Wizard of Oz used color to represent the fantastical land of Oz while "reality" was black and white). Probably not realistic unless the format gets widely adopted, because such a film would effectively require HFR projection to work properly. I bet with modern digital techniques you could even have some elements on the screen operate in HFR while others stayed at 24fps.

I agree with your spoiler, I think that's setting up as the possible culmination of the third movie. And they've already changed some things signficantly about that whole plotline...

Saw it, had fun. The only really jarring thing I found was the dwarves throwing plates. Everything else in the scene is real, or a beautifully detailed prop, and then there is plate magic where hands don't touch things and... It looked wrong. That type of CGI is a challenge 48fps can't meet right now.

Also, CGI doods running across hills. They don't look quite right and I have no idea how the effects people will ever make that work.

saw it, liked it. Mr W thought the "reverse foreshadowing" (is there a word for that? when a prequel beats you over the head with knowledge of what will happen later) was too heavyhanded, but I thought it was fine. I thought the beginning could have been tightened up, but otherwise the pacing seemed pretty good to me.

re: superJay's spoilers