The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014)
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Kirun
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Friend and I both agreed. It was the same for LotR as well. There seemed to be a shitload of things that were rushed (the movie was 30 minutes shorter than the first two), so I'm hopeful that the EE adds a lot. I'd say the theatrical version was a 7.5/10. Rating the entire series, I'd probably rank them as such..
Fellowship of the Ring - 9.5/10
Return of the King - 8.5/10
The Two Towers - 8.0/10
An Unexpected Journey - 8.0/10
Battle of the Five Armies - 7.5/10
Desolation of Smaug - 7.0/10
I refuse to believe that even someone as retarded as you actually believes what you just wrote.
Tearofsoul
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Himeo
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Two towers was the best movie of both trilogies. Otherwise, pretty accurate list.
Lithose
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Overall? This was better than the Star Wars prequels, people who are comparing are just blinded by howrelativelybad these are compared to the original LOTR. In terms of boring, sterile, CGI sets with mind numbing, campy, ridiculous action sequences? Yeah, the Hobbit films are on par with the Star Wars prequels for bad inthatcategory.Butthe difference is, Star Wars prequelsalsohad bad acting, bad dialogue and a terrible plot. Hobbit at least does pretty well in those other three areas. They really aren't comparable.
Or just think about it like this. If you edited out all the action scenes from Hobbit, or trimmed them down to short, lively story based scenes (Only enough to convey what the characters did and where they were going.)--The Hobbit prequels would still be somewhat enjoyable to watch, in fact, they might be even more enjoyable (Because it would only be 2 films). If you did the same thing to the Star Wars prequels, you'd have a terrible sci fi soap opera. (Sadly, the sterile effects in Star Wars...were also the best part of it.)
Well for 1, yes, that was the point of the comparison. Hobbit vs LotR and Prequels vs Original Star Wars. That's literally the whole reason the comparison came up.
2, you don't just consider the movies in a vacuum. Yes, strictly speaking the Hobbit part 1 was better than Phantom Menace. Much better because Phantom Menace was garbage until one fight scene with Darth Maul. Phantom Menace was a new story however, something worth watching just because it was new official Star Wars content. The Hobbit is a story we've all read, we don't need to consume it to see or learn anything. Hell, there is already a pretty decent cartoon movie worth watching about it. Instead we get something that's an egregious fuck-up of the the telling of a beloved classic and it's completely due to Peter Jackson's hubris and what is probably some money-grubbing. The Hobbit is made worse because of what it could have been, what it should have been, and what it most definitely isn't.
Sure, you could pare the Hobbit trilogy down and make a better movie(it'd be nice to fix some of the unnecessary changes while you are at it). That's not what we were given though. That's precisely why what PJ did was on par with George Lucas.
I agree. What makes what PJ did to "The Hobbit" so much worse is because at least George Lucas didn't already have a wonderful story to go off of to make the prequels. He was writing it as he went along (which turned out to be horrible). PJ already had the source material, and it was an amazing book. Had he just followed the novel, and not added in all the extra unnecessary crap and made everything in the movie but the 15 or so main actors CGI garbage, it would have been just as good as the LOTR. It's a very accurate comparison between the two directors: both made an original trilogy that they were extremely passionate about and emotionally involved in, along with taking the advice of other creative minds during the process. Then they both bought into their own hype, were consumed by their own massive egos, and made another trilogy that was all CGI bullshit with no substance and were too pompous to take the advice of others who would have helped to make the movies better.
Royal
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Who was eliminated from PJ's circle of advisers between LOTR and The Hobbit? I genuinely have no idea if anyone was. I know his wife/partner helped write and produce both trilogies, but other that I have never heard of anyone else having input into his process.
Kirun
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Basically, Etchazz is making shit up, in an attempt to draw a more direct comparison to Lucas.
I don't care how fantastic of an adaptation The Hobbit might have been, it could never match LoTR. The source material just wouldn't allow it, which, I think, created a lot of the problem with Jackson's adaptation. He clearly went to great lengths to bind the two trilogies together and infuse The Hobbit movies with action and "epicness" in an attempt to equal what came before.
Lithose
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Yes, andI don't believe the gap is nearly as big. The gap between the Hobbit and LOTR was around a 4 (I'd give the Hobbit at 5-6, while LOTR a 9 or 10.)....For the Star Wars prequels it was around a 7. (3-4 vs 9-10). I totally understood the point of comparison, I just completely disgaree. The Hobbits on their own were average, but somewhat poorly paced, with boring CGI, films. The Prequels were bad films all together.
Like I said, there were various areas the SW prequels suffered in, that the Hobbit did not. As you even said, the Hobbit, strictly speaking was asuperior movie. In other words, if we assume both the original trilogies are classic and excellent movies, then the gap between the sets can NOT be as big, it would stand, by any reasonable measure, a less bad movie would simply have a smaller gap if both points of comparison were excellent films. Also, I totally disagree about the actual story in the films being a massive fuck up. Like I said, you make the CGI action sequences more of a story centric theme, and pare them out? The Hobbit would have been a great adaption. The only ridiculous change was the Elf Romance angle. But otherwise, all the additions didn't "ruin" thestory. Rather, combined with the CGI action, they ruined the pacing. (Prune out those ridiculous slap stick action sequences and you'd have had two solid, solid films.)
The Hobbit had ONE major weaknesses, and that was it's reliance on CGI.
In the SW prequels, EVERYTHING was a weakness. It was hard finding a 'strength" at all in that movie. In fact, everything was so awful, that the CGI became the strongest point in the film.
The difference is pretty clear.
The point was, you could remove stuff from the hobbit and it would actually get better. If you removed the action sequences from the Star Wars prequels, it would get significantly worse. That's because, despite it's flaws, the cinematography, camera work, dialogue and plot in the hobbit were all at least average. Meanwhile, all those things were terrible in Star Wars (Like Sit Com worthy stuff.)
Royal
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I would say it had more than one. Excessive chase and action sequences that had no other purpose than to serve as filler for expanding the story into the time requirements for 3 films was even more of a weakness than the CGI.
Lithose
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Well, I was logging that under the CGI weaknesses. All of them were green screen, CGI messes. I should have worded it as that, specifically where CGI was used to put on a slap stick chase or fight scene, or to specifically build an environment for that garbage to take place in.
Basically, you're a fucking dip shit. John Gilbert, who did the editing for The Fellowship of the Ring (by far the best of all 6 movies) was not involved at all in the Hobbit trilogy. Nor was Jamie Selkirk, who did the editing for Return of the King, and Stephen Sinclair, who helped to write the original screenplay for the LOTR trilogy. So, there were a lot of people who helped to make LOTR great who were not there to try and prevent The Hobbit from becoming the cluster fuck that it became. It's a perfect comparison, because both directors started out as geniuses and are now complete laughing stocks, shitting out horrible abortions like the Star Wars prequels, Indiana Jones: The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and the Hobbit trilogy and, in a final, tragic irony, ruining the exact franchises that they helped to create.
Muligan
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I still think you are way off base. I believe Zignor referencing the source material and PJ's interpretation is the primary issue. I've already posted my list of "good" and "bad" but when you get down to it, I don't care who was or was not on staff would have made the difference. You could have a better movie sure but ultimately you can make any of The Hobbit anything like LotR. I think with some corrections you have a great film, I'm not going to list them, the horse has been beaten.
Ultimately, I'm no where near the point of begging PJ not to make more like I would be with Bay and Transformers or Lucas and Star Wars. I'm honestly pretty good with the movies especially if the EE for this one proves to be solid.
Again, I agree the movies could be better but visually, it brought to life a lot of what was in my mind from my childhood and now as a parent who has read the book to my child.
I said I wouldn't but I'm going to now that I've began rambling. You move Smaug's final scenes to the end of movie 2, remove the dwarf/elf love, and extend or shorten a handful of scenes in each movie and i'm really happy.
But after all that the main problem would still exist: PJ completely failed to capture the essence of what made the original Hobbit novel epic. Instead, he did everything in his power to try and tie it in to the LOTR movies; which was a huge mistake. The other big issue is all the CGI in the movie, which makes it look way worse cinematically than the LOTR movies, which were made a decade earlier. I don't understand why all the orcs were CGI, when men in costume worked just fine in the original movies. There is absolutely no tension or suspense in the Hobbit movies because it's all just computer generated garbage. In all honesty, the animated movie from the 70's is a million times better than this trilogy.