The Hobbit

I can understand the complaints about Legolas being a Jedi Master (though he was just as "badass" in LOTR so I'm not sure why it's a problem now, as was mentionned above).. but of course they were going to put him in the movie since 1) he's a fan favorite and 2) he's the fucking PRINCE OF MIRKWOOD. Thranduil is involved in a lot of stuff in The Hobbit (though only refered to as "the elfking") so it makes sense Legolas appears too.

I didn't mind Tauriel at all, she was a good character I thought.

As for the complaints about Smaug being a wyvern, I still don't see the problem with it. All I remember in the Smaug scenes from the book is that he has a "long sinuous neck" (that sure appeared a LOT in the film), lots of mentions of him being "coiled around the treasure" (happened a lot too).. and Smaug's own mentions of his attributes (teeth like swords, check.. claws like spears, check.. wings like a hurricane, check.. fiery breath of death, check..). They even did a goob job showing his utter obsession over gold, especially the (added) scene with the gold "statue" in Erebor.

He was a Middle-Earth dragon, plain and simple. He just wasn't Lord Nagafen like some people here wanted.

Saw this last night, definitely better than the first (I sort of hate the first). The barrel scene was pretty laughable. It reminded me of when in the first movie they all fall way down on that piece of scaffolding and stop at the bottom and the fat turd lands on top of all of them.. just completely unbelievable and silly.

I did laugh at whirlwind mode though.

Ok so I guess we can be generous and give Wyvern Smaug a pass since I guess it doesn't explictly spell out his anatomy in that much detail or whatever..?

So tell me this... why does Tauriel have the wrong fucking hair colour? Every elf in Lord of the Rings has the correct hair colour, I'm not insane and nitpicking as this thing at least is very important in the lore as far as I remember though a quick google search doesn't seem to be agreeing with me.

Chris_sl said:

Ok so I guess we can be generous and give Wyvern Smaug a pass since I guess it doesn't explictly spell out his anatomy in that much detail or whatever..?

So tell me this... why does Tauriel have the wrong fucking hair colour? Every elf in Lord of the Rings has the correct hair colour, I'm not insane and nitpicking as this thing at least is very important in the lore as far as I remember though a quick google search doesn't seem to be agreeing with me.

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Maedhros and the twins Amrod and Amras had auburn hair, from their grandfather Mahtan.

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Does this help?

just got back. peter jackson is now officially george lucas 2.0 all the magic he had when he made the original LOTR movies is gone. this is a brain dead cash grab, plain and simple. there is no reason to deviate this far from the book. the book was perfect the way it was written. bard doesn't need a meaningless back story, legolas doesn't belong, there is no fucking reason whatsoever to tie the hobbit into the LOTR. there was no connection in the books (when the hobbit was written), there doesn't have to be one now. the action in the new hobbit movies is too video gamey. there is absolutely no suspense built up at all. in the original movies, even though i knew what was going to happen, the suspense was awesome and it felt real. in the hobbit movies, it doesn't exist. the barrel scene was just absurdly stupid, and even in the spider scene, it just seemed stale.

i will say that i thought they did a really good job with smuag and his lair. it's just as i imagined it to be when i read the book as a kid. although the action inside the lair was added, i didn't think it detracted from the story too much. but overall, i would give it a 4/10.

Chris_sl said:

Ok so I guess we can be generous and give Wyvern Smaug a pass since I guess it doesn't explictly spell out his anatomy in that much detail or whatever..?

So tell me this... why does Tauriel have the wrong fucking hair colour? Every elf in Lord of the Rings has the correct hair colour, I'm not insane and nitpicking as this thing at least is very important in the lore as far as I remember though a quick google search doesn't seem to be agreeing with me.

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They touched on it in the movie, but it's also explained elsewhere that's she's a lowborn/lower class elf. Hence why Thranduil explicitly told her not to lead Legolas on, as nothing would ever be allowed to come between them.

Golt_sl said:

They touched on it in the movie, but it's also explained elsewhere that's she's a lowborn/lower class elf. Hence why Thranduil explicitly told her not to lead Legolas on, as nothing would ever be allowed to come between them.

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so then why the fuck put her in the movie? the very first thing you learn when you become a writer is if it's not essential, take it out.

etchazz_sl said:

so then why the fuck put her in the movie? the very first thing you learn when you become a writer is if it's not essential, take it out.

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Porbably to appeal to a broader base. Since the original novel was essentially a children's adventure story I am going to guess that Jackson felt he had to add a romantic angle to the movie to give it more appeal to the masses.

etchazz_sl said:

... there is no fucking reason whatsoever to tie the hobbit into the LOTR. there was no connection in the books (when the hobbit was written), there doesn't have to be one now. .

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Bullshit, Tolkien himself retconned the Hobbit when he began writing the sequel which eventually became LOTR. He even kept retconning a lot of the mythology after he wrote LOTR.

Love story was complete bullshit and a waste of screen time.

The entire last 30 minutes of them fucking around in forges climbing/jumping/pulling levels/general faffery just seemed entirely pointless. I mean, it literally accomplishes nothing other than to pad out the length. And wtf why did that liquid gold look like 1995 era CGI.

Still seems Jackson gives two shits about these movies.

NEED A FORBIDDEN TWILIGHT LOVE WEDGED IN $$$$$

saw it today with my kids, wife's friend and her kids

liked it, movie ended and i was like ..MORE.

saw it in 2d and trailers in front showed the godzilla trailer..our kids were like wtf is that, my wife's friend was like omfg GODZILLA WE ARE SO GOING TO SEE THAT! extremely loudly in the theatre.

Ronne_sl said:

Love story was complete bullshit and a waste of screen time.

The entire last 30 minutes of them fucking around in forges climbing/jumping/pulling levels/general faffery just seemed entirely pointless. I mean, it literally accomplishes nothing other than to pad out the length. And wtf why did that liquid gold look like 1995 era CGI.

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That's true. They spent all that time running around chip the glasses, crack the plates style in the forge... for absolutely nothing.

etchazz_sl said:

just got back. peter jackson is now officially george lucas 2.0 all the magic he had when he made the original LOTR movies is gone. this is a brain dead cash grab, plain and simple. there is no reason to deviate this far from the book. the book was perfect the way it was written. bard doesn't need a meaningless back story, legolas doesn't belong, there is no fucking reason whatsoever to tie the hobbit into the LOTR. there was no connection in the books (when the hobbit was written), there doesn't have to be one now. the action in the new hobbit movies is too video gamey. there is absolutely no suspense built up at all. in the original movies, even though i knew what was going to happen, the suspense was awesome and it felt real. in the hobbit movies, it doesn't exist. the barrel scene was just absurdly stupid, and even in the spider scene, it just seemed stale.

i will say that i thought they did a really good job with smuag and his lair. it's just as i imagined it to be when i read the book as a kid. although the action inside the lair was added, i didn't think it detracted from the story too much. but overall, i would give it a 4/10.

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I wouldn't go as far as Lucas 2.0 and in Jackson's defense, I think he remained pretty consistent. All the complaints in these movies you can see hints of in the others. (i.e. Legolas jedi) Lightening rarely strikes twice and I still say if the 3rd delivers and improves the way 2 did from 1, it is going to be a very nice trilogy and I will happily pay for a collectors box set of all 6.

Muligan_sl said:

I wouldn't go as far as Lucas 2.0 and in Jackson's defense, I think he remained pretty consistent. All the complaints in these movies you can see hints of in the others. (i.e. Legolas jedi) Lightening rarely strikes twice and I still say if the 3rd delivers and improves the way 2 did from 1, it is going to be a very nice trilogy and I will happily pay for a collectors box set of all 6.

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the original LOTR movies were critically acclaimed, and won several oscars, including best picture for ROTK. the hobbit movies are complete CGI shit. it's exactly the same as the star wars movies. the originals were critically acclaimed, and the prequels are CGI horse shit. so i think it's a fair comparison to make between jackson and lucas.

etchazz_sl said:

the original LOTR movies were critically acclaimed, and won several oscars, including best picture for ROTK. the hobbit movies are complete CGI shit. it's exactly the same as the star wars movies. the originals were critically acclaimed, and the prequels are CGI horse shit. so i think it's a fair comparison to make between jackson and lucas.

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Somewhat true. However, I think that the original Star Wars trilogy is better than the LotR trilogy and the Hobbit movies are better than the Star Wars prequels so it's far less extreme than what happened with Star Wars. Also this time around it was less of a shock at least to me being a jaded asshole cynic in my dotage.

I wouldn't have minded a small role for Legolas, but not nearly what he had. A lot of stuff in Jackson's changing of the narrative doesn't make sense. Why was Legolas in Laketown again? Because he followed Tauriel? Why did he follow her? Because she convinced him to disobey the elf king in 15 secs of dialog?

Orcs weren't following them from Mirkwood, down the barrels, to Laketown in the book that I recall. And the coolest part of the story was lost: Bard getting the info about Smaug's weakness from the thrush. Would've been an awesome scene.

Jackson has lost it. Not as bad as Lucas, but he has.