You still somehow think that me not watching the third movie (by choice) means I'm not allowed to criticize the first two. You are really attached to The Hobbit series, I can tell.
Yea...the series' greatest asset is the visualization of the LOTR universe...the actual content leaves a lot to be desired.
I tend to agree about the length of the movie if it were merely strictly following the book, but to be fair to Jackson, I kinda understand his motivation to go all Revenge of the Sith and tie up things as a prequel for what he already made. Tolkien certainly wrote enough other stuff about the Gandalf and White Council driving the Necromancer out of Dol Guldur, and that provides a good reason for Gandalf to leave the dwarves and Bilbo. But instead of creating a she-elf who then needs a love subplot with a dwarf to legitimize her character, he could have given us some snippets of young Aragorn cutting his teeth fighting for Ecthelion, to lay the groundwork for the politics of Gondor that he expands in LOTR.
the first two books are in my top 5 books the story is much different, takes place in the 70s/80s, completely diff bad guy, etc
Tolkien's annotated map of Middle-earth discovered inside copy of Lord of the Rings A recently discovered map of Middle-earth annotated by JRR Tolkien reveals The Lord of the Rings author’s observation that Hobbiton is on the same latitude as Oxford, and implies that the Italian city of Ravenna could be the inspiration behind the fictional city of Minas Tirith. The map was found loose in a copy of the acclaimed illustrator Pauline Baynes’ copy of The Lord of the Rings. Baynes had removed the map from another edition of the novel as she began work on her own colour Map of Middle-earth for Tolkien, which would go on to be published by Allen & Unwin in 1970. Tolkien himself had then copiously annotated it in green ink and pencil, with Baynes adding her own notes to the document while she worked. Blackwell’s, which is currently exhibiting the map in Oxford and selling it for £60,000, called it “an important document, and perhaps the finest piece of Tolkien ephemera to emerge in the last 20 years at least”. It shows what Blackwell’s called “the exacting nature” of Tolkien’s creative vision: he corrects place names, provides extra ones, and gives Baynes a host of suggestions about the map’s various flora and fauna. Hobbiton, he notes, “ is assumed to be approx at latitude of Oxford”; Tolkien was a professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University. The notebooks reveal that Hobbiton is on the same latitude as Oxford, and imply that the Italian city of Ravenna could be the inspiration behind Minas Tirith. Photograph: Blackwell’s Rare Books The novelist also uses Belgrade, Cyprus, and Jerusalem as other reference points, and according to Blackwell’s suggests that “the city of Ravenna is the inspiration behind Minas Tirith - a key location in the third book of the Lord of The Rings trilogy”. “The map shows how completely obsessed he was with the details. Anyone else interfered at their peril,” said Sian Wainwright at Blackwell’s. “He was tricky to work with, but very rewarding in the end.” Correspondence between Tolkien and the late and acclaimed illustrator Baynes, who also worked on books for CS Lewis, as well as Baynes’s unpublished diary entries, gives further details about the sometimes thorny relationship between the two. On 21 August 1969, Baynes describes a visit to Tolkien and his wife in Bournemouth, “to chat about a poster map I have to do – he very uncooperative”. The author later apologies for having “been so dilatory”, and a later lunch sees the author “in great form – first names and kissing all round – and pleased with the map”. Henry Gott, modern first editions specialist at Blackwell’s Rare Books, said the map was “an exciting and important discovery: new to scholarship (though its existence is implied by correspondence between the two), it demonstrates the care exercised by both in their mapping of Tolkien’s creative vision”. “Before going on display in the shop this week, this had only ever been in private hands (Pauline Baynes’s for the majority of its existence). One of the points of interest is how much of a hand Tolkien had in the poster map; all of his suggestions, and there are many (the majority of the annotation on the map is his), are reflected in Baynes’s version,” said Gott. “The degree to which it is properly collaborative was not previously apparent, and couldn’t be without a document like this. Its importance is mostly to do with the insight it gives into that process.” Blackwell’s is selling a range of works by Baynes, who died in 2008, aged 85, including a range of her original signed drawings from the Narnia books.
Watched Battle of the Five Armies this week...more like battle of the five HOURS, am I right? Holy shit that movie was long.
It's actually the shortest of all 6 movies by about 15 minutes. The main battle scene is so long and drawn out, I think it makes it feel like a ridiculously long movie.
The hobbit trilogy was disappointing but I will say that the scene where the white counsel fights the wraiths and galadrial bitch slaps sauron was dope AF
Yeah, it's one of the great battles of all time in cinema... I saw the movies before reading the books, and I was absolutely shocked at how short the book battle was lol.
Scourging of the shire would've been terrible in a movie, considering all that Frodo and Sam went through to destroy the one ring and Sauron.
You know what's worse than an obvious bad troll? The mouth breathers that cannot simply ignore them and move on.
I get the point of the scourging of the Shire but it still was hard to really care about after spending 2.8 books on the main plot. I was fine with the movie leaving it out. And the battle at helms deep gives me goosebumps even after seeing it dozens of times. The big battles in LOTR are amazing. The one thing I didn't like was the ghost army as mentioned before but everything else was great IMO, especially leaving out Tom Bombadil
the LOTR movies got worse as they came out. The Fellowship of the Ring is the best movie of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The Two Towers is good and has great scenes, but it lags in a lot parts of the movie. I cringed when Gimli & Legolas were competing with number of kills at Helms Deep. Return of the King is decent at best. Peter Jackson drew that movie out too long with unnecessary shots and close ups. Peter Jackson was awesome until he started to do eye candy and unnecessary shit with his films (RotK, King Kong, and Hobbit movies). Naomi Watts scene with Kong in Central Park is a prime example of this. It ranks up there with the Shia monkey scene in KotCS and the Anakin & Padme love dynamic in AotC as movie killer scenes.
I also think the Smaug's part of the story in the Hobbit book is kinda underwhelming. They didn't need to make some huge gold dwarf to piss him off but I had no issues with Jackson extending that scene a bit in the movie. Smaug is one of the few things they did very well in the Hobbit trilogy, and I loved anything with Sauron.
One other thing that PJ completely ruined in his stupid Hobbit movies was Radagast the Brown. How the fuck are you going to make one of the 5 Wizards out to be a bumbling idiot that rides around on a stupid rabbit sled? He's not really described in detail much in any of the books, so PJ got to use a lot of creative freedom on him, so PJ fucked him all up.
And I have extended editions of first two hobbit movies and will be getting extended edition of BOTFA when it comes out.
Just saw the extended edition of the battle of the five armies. Honestly it was much better than the one released in theatres. Main difference was instead of just additional footage, the battle scenes were different, I'm talking big differences. Gandalf being captured made a lot more sense. The dwarves actually fought the elves for a minute or two before the big Orc army showed up. Beorn had some awesome 1vs50 moments. There were a lot more clips of the 12 dwarves fighting on the field. The dwarves had atleast 100 rams fighting with them, they also had chariots led by Rams which were unstoppable. It made the battle more believable. My previous opinion was this movie sucked, but this extended edition honestly isn't that bad.
I agree with AptosDuck, Artoo and others on the Jackson-ing of the movies. So much good, original content from Tolkien. The liberties he took are unforgivable. With that being said, I still enjoyed the first three movies, but the Hobbit films weren't good. Also, there were no elves at Helm's Deep. I understand why he (Jackson) included them, but they weren't there.
Finished re-reading. It's truly amazing how succinct everything is without really losing any of the effect of the prolonged battles in the books. Just a supremely written story, IMO. I'll never understand why Jackson decided to replace the Witch King with that Orc in ROTK... Maybe it's because he is one of my favorite characters, but the Witch King riding into Gondor in the books is absolutely incredible- I just feel like excluding that moment alone, and his and Gandalf's conversation before the Rohorrim arrives is such a missed opportunity. Aragorn is my favorite character in the books and the film.
I need to do a re-read myself. I re-read The Hobbit a year or so ago but haven't done the trilogy since my original reading over a decade ago.
After 9 hours setting up two huge battles to conclude the movie in an epic fashion, the expulsion of a few ruffians from The Shire is just... well... dull. Boring. And most importantly, not fit for a movie, not cinematic enough, just like the whole Tom Bombadil part. Apparently from Jackson, and I agree. That movie is long enough as it is. If the trilogy was made a decade later RotK would have 2 movies and could've included more.
I don't think that was the "whole point" The third book is named "Return of the King," not "The Domestic Application of Lessons learned Abroad" ROTK is already too long, cinematically it would have taken much more time than the Legolas action sequences you mentioned... Aragorn's coronation was a good way to end the films, IMO, it just dragged on after all of the action.