Jump to content

Recommended Posts

I think that The Hobbit was successful in that it was:

a) a fun blockbuster action movie series

b) a natural continuation of the cracks that began to show in the end of the LOTR trilogy

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 minutes ago, mstrox said:

b) a natural continuation of the cracks that began to show in the end of the LOTR trilogy

 

Very astute.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think the Hobbit films stopped being "fun" halfway through DoSBotFA was certainly a dreary chore.

 

AUJ is more a case I could argue more for mirth and life than the others.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 hours ago, BloodBoal said:

 

I didn't refer to the Hobbit films as dog shit. I did refer to the visuals of the last two films as dog shit, though, and I stand by that.

 

Also: I'm not on any horse. I don't know how to ride one.

 

The visuals aren't dog shit either. How can someone call a film with that incredible design of Smaug, Erebor, Beorn, Mirkwood, Laketown etc shit? DoS has its fair share of dodgy CGI, most noticeably the Forest River and the Forgeries stuff in the end, but there is a vast difference between a director demanding over the top scenes being created, resulting in effects looking fake (Legolas barrel dance), and the actual designs and visuals, which are just great.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 years later...

I like the video retrospective series that one Youtube woman did.  They were popular, can't be bothered to find them right now.  I don't know how balanced they were, but they accurately reflected my feelings and she was clearly passionate about Tolkien.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, SUH said:

An enjoyable balanced review of the Hobbit trilogy, though mostly focusing on the positives.

 

I still think saying that its a study of Bilbo and Thorin's relationship is a wrong asesment. Its much more about Thorin as a solo character, and of his and his compatriots' yearning for their homeland, and of Thorin's personal tragedy.

 

I find that aspect fascinating, deftly handled, worthy of a trilogy and refreshingly different to anything in The Lord of the Rings.

 

I also don't see the Dol Guldur subplot as so extraneous. Undercooked? Yes. At times mishandled? Absolutely. But redundant? No. It is part of the Tolkien canon, it explains Gandalf's absence (which is imperative) and its actually woven quite tightly into the narrative, by making both Azog and the Orc armies attacking Erebor subservient to Sauron.

 

8 hours ago, Disco Stu said:

I like the video retrospective series that one Youtube woman did.  They were popular, can't be bothered to find them right now.  I don't know how balanced they were, but they accurately reflected my feelings and she was clearly passionate about Tolkien.

 

She very quickly went on some tangent regarding some contractual stuff with Warner Bros that I couldn't care less about. Just as much as we need to separate the art from the artist, I think we need to separate art from the process.

 

I generally find Lindsay's essays (and really the whole concept of a full-length essay delivered in video format) overwrought and overly pedantic and petty, and of course when it came to discussing matters such as Tauriel, she infused it with her own brand of social agenda - which I found distasteful. For comparison, she once said that the closing line of King Kong - "It was beauty killed the beast" - should be "colonialism killed the beast". Or her notions of racism in Tolkien's works. I mean, gimmie a break, lady.

 

Also, Lindsay's much more of a screenwriter than Chris, and her analyses are much more script-oriented - making her reviews and essays much less well-rounded than those of Chris Hartwell or the blokes at 3byThree, who make prudent comments on both the way films are written and directed.

 

I'm saying this not necessarily as someone who agrees with Chris all too often, but I appreciate the way he articulates what he likes and why.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

I like the video retrospective series that one Youtube woman did.  They were popular, can't be bothered to find them right now.  I don't know how balanced they were, but they accurately reflected my feelings and she was clearly passionate about Tolkien.

Lindsay Ellis' 3-parter, you mean?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not a big fan of Bolg, but that prize goes to Gothmog surely?

 

Chief issue with Gothmog is that I always considered Orcs to be a society (I use that term loosely) where the biggest and strongest would rule the roost, boss about the other Orcs. You could well believe Azog would be in this position, but gimpy old Gothmog? I didn't work for me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 hours ago, Barnald said:

I'm not a big fan of Bolg, but that prize goes to Gothmog surely?

 

Chief issue with Gothmog is that I always considered Orcs to be a society (I use that term loosely) where the biggest and strongest would rule the roost, boss about the other Orcs. You could well believe Azog would be in this position, but gimpy old Gothmog? I didn't work for me.

Oh yeah the Elephant man of the orcs. Definitely my least favourite orc design after the Great Goblin. Also since Tolkien never explicitly describes this lieutenant of the Mordor armies I always pictured Gothmog something else than an orc, maybe a half-troll or an olog-hai but not a measly orc. But it is one of those PJ RotK excesses where he just wanted more grotesque on-screen. Everything had to be bigger.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The design isn't intimidating, though, between the poor character design and shoddy mo-cap work, something the LOTR films (and IMO the first Hobbit film) never dealt with.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
  • 1 year later...

Very interesting thread here:

 

 

To be honest it's no surprise to me whatsoever. Those BTS extras never tell the whole story, however 'frank' they seem. We've had rumblings from actors down the years (not just Lily), and it's just common sense really to think a massive studio like WB are going to be more hands-on when they have hundreds of millions staked on the project. Of course some misgivings will still rest on Jackson, but there is obviously more to this story than we know.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It’s petty, unfocused, laborious and before she can really get into any of her perceived flaws she disappears into behind-the-scenes politics bullshit that has no bearing on the films themselves.

 

There is NO substantial evidence to studio interference in the making of these films. All the evidence points to the decision to going to three films being a) made by the filmmakers, b) facilitated editorially, rather than through extensive reshoots and c) was for the better, regardless of how you think of those films.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Do you really think a director who was incredibly pressed for time producing TWO movies after the initial director said goodbye, voluntarily chose to make three instead in the heat of post production? 

 

That said, I stopped watching said Lindsay Ellis "autopsy" about 15 minutes in when she claimed the Star Wars prequels were "a good and appropriate tonal segue into the original trilogy". 

She sounds exactly like someone just using popular movies to raise her profile. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I thought the only really notable bit of her documentary was the interviews with Mark Callen, who (IIRC) made it pretty clear that the studio were getting involved in things, particularly concerning the role of the Dwarves (after the first film, I can well imagine studio notes like 'less Dwarves beyond the important ones', 'more Elves', 'less Radagast' being passed to Jackson).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, gkgyver said:

Do you really think a director who was incredibly pressed for time producing TWO movies after the initial director said goodbye, voluntarily chose to make three instead in the heat of post production? 

 

Yes, absolutely. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As I've said before, given what must have been facing them in terms of the post-production on a two-movie AUJ, I actually think Jackson may have pitched the idea out of sheer pragmatism. When you see how late they were motion-capping Azog, I can't see how they would have got all the early DoS big CGI set pieces (Beorn, spiders, barrel race) done in time. A short-sighted move perhaps in terms of overall planning, but perhaps one of sheer desperation, because Warner Bros wouldn't have wanted to delay it again (after all, they didn't when Jackson had his stomach ulcer, which probably tells you something).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Barnald said:

the interviews with Mark Callen, who (IIRC) made it pretty clear that the studio were getting involved in things

 

An actor in a supporting role isn't really the best evidence for studio interference. Didn't Ian McKellen vouce for the integrity of Jackson's artistic vision? So you have conflicting reports from two actors, except one of them was a) in a more central role b) had prior acquitance with the filmmakers and c) spoke on the matter closer to the time of production wrapping-up, which would make his memory the fresher and more reliable. I know who I'd rather believe.

 

14 hours ago, gkgyver said:

Do you really think a director who was incredibly pressed for time producing TWO movies after the initial director said goodbye, voluntarily chose to make three instead in the heat of post production? 

 

Yes, because it gave him MORE TIME, and because the two-film version was by far inferior to the three-film version.

 

14 hours ago, gkgyver said:

She sounds exactly like someone just using popular movies to raise her profile. 

 

She also does very little by way of actual movie criticism and much more by way of perpetuating her societal views through the medium of online film criticism. Her major isn't in film its in media studies, which is basically "gender-studies/poor-man's-sociology-through-the-medium-of-cinema" studies.

 

I still remember an earlier (and equally laborious) essay of hers which made Tolkien out to be a racist just because he equated his Orcs to "the least-lovely Mongol types." One would expect even a pseudo-intellectual like Ellis to know that Tolkien was referring not to modern-day Mongols, but to the murderous hordes of Genghis Khan, but alas...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Like any YouTube film doc, I wouldn’t bother watching it.  I read an article with Callen’s comments from it, though, and it sounds legit.  I think Callen’s and McKellen’s comments can coexist, Chen, with the key difference being in the levels of diplomacy between the two.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, mstrox said:

 I read an article with Callen’s comments from it, though, and it sounds legit.

 

And yet its at odds with the words of another actor, the filmmakers themselves and any other piece of evidence we have.

 

There's a bit in the behind-the-scenes which I love where Jackson informs Stephen Fry that the scene they're currently shooting (where the Master chomps on some bollocks) was rewritten without informing the studio, so "they'll see the rushes before they know the scene had been changed." That tells you everything you need to know about how unfettered these filmmakers are, and I love it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 minutes ago, mstrox said:

Like any YouTube film doc, I wouldn’t bother watching it.  I read an article with Callen’s comments from it, though, and it sounds legit.  I think Callen’s and McKellen’s comments can coexist, Chen, with the key difference being in the levels of diplomacy between the two.

 

Indeed, McKellen probably knows he's going to be working with WB again at some point, whereas Callen won't. Moreover, he was more likely to be one of the victims of interference (the studio are hardly likely to tell Jackson to rail back on Gandalf are they?)

 

Also, what would Callen have to gain from seemingly lying at this point in this life?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nevertheless, Callen's sense of there being interference (and its never presented as more than a sense or hunch) is quite insubstantial evidence.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm sure there was some studio interference, as is usually the case. But I think it's been largely exaggerated, and it's clear Peter made the films he wanted to make. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 5 months later...
  • 3 weeks later...

There wasn't. There is no proof of studio interference.

 

We do have quite a few instances to the contrary. Warner Brothers objected to changing the title of the third film to "Battle of the Five Armies". Jackson stuck his heel down and did it anyway.

 

There's so much in these films that, had a studio been running the show, would not have been as it is. The length of the films is certainly not in the studio's best interest (in terms of number of showings per day) and each film was skimming the R rating, which again a studio wouldn't have done.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

37 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

We do have quite a few instances to the contrary. Warner Brothers objected to changing the title of the third film to "Battle of the Five Armies". Jackson stuck his heel down and did it anyway.

 

Wait, what?

 

What was the title that WB wanted? I thought There And Back Again was the intended closing chapter title (and I could actually see studios preferring the BOTFA title).

 

Also, how I hope this particular shot looks better on the 4K remaster:

Martin-Freeman-as-Bilbo-Baggins-and-Ian-

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, crumbs said:

thought There And Back Again was the intended closing chapter title (and I could actually see studios preferring the BOTFA title).

 

The studio preferred it stayed "There and Back Again."

 

Having "war" or "battle" in a title is considered a turn-off to audiences.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Guidelines.