Amph One Thread To Rule Them All: The Rings of Power + The Hobbit & Lord of the Rings Trilogies

"TPM 2: Electric Boogaloo"....

 

I watched the movie in 3D HFR, while I enjoyed the sharpness of HFR I really hated the 'fast forward' aspect of it, which made a lot movement look unnatural.

 

The good guys are chased by the bad guys. Good guys are trapped or captured. Cue theme music. Good guys fight their way out. If the good guys are unable to fight their way out then dues ex machina arrives: Gandalf, elves or eagles. Repeat for three hours.

 

Or, "Lord Grantham saw that the squatter was evicted."

 

In my opinion the only way to save the Goblin King is to recast him between now and the EE.

 

WHY DON'T ALL THE SWORDS (Glamdring, Orcrist, and at the end, Sting) GLOW?

 

Do they in the book? I noticed Gandalf says it like all elven blades glow.

 

I thought I saw somewhere that somebody brought up that Glamdring doesn't glow in LotR, and PJ admitted to that being a mistake, so I'd kind of see why they wouldn't have it glow for continuity (discontinuity, but still)'s sake. But Orcrist should, and Sting doesn't glow at the end of the movie when there are orcs a couple feet away, and only really shines in the moonlight (as in it's not nearly as pronounced as it was in the caverns, so it probably wasn't glowing at all.

 

Saw this a few days ago, and loved it. The Hobbit is pretty much my favorite Tolkein book, as it was the first one I read. Jackson did take some creative liberties with An Unexpected Journey, but I don't feel that any of them took away from the story. I enjoyed the expansion of Thorin's character, and Bilbo's journey in the dark being shortened didn't bother me at all. One thing I didn't understand was Greenwood turning into Mirkwood; I had assumed that Mirkwood had been such a place for a very long time rather than being a recent addition. I don't know a whole lot of background info, so if anyone can enlighten me, I'd appreciate it.

All in all, the movie was fairly faithful to the book. The only thing that bothered me was the Goblin King's ballsack of a chin.

 

The Goblin King is just a distant cousin to Jabba the Hutt

 

It looked like some sort of massive tumor to me. Between him and Radagast's bird crap, I'm not sure why they felt to ramp up the disgusting character designs.

 

I just got back from seeing the HFR and I loved it. There are places where it looks like a play does on tv. In others it looks a magic view finder but in motion.

I forgot to mention after my first view that I liked how the dwarves left Bilbo's home perfect and clean after making a mess of it the night before.

Ok, I'm assuming when the goblin is killed by Gollum that Sting ceasing to glow is unrelated and I'm assuming that when it was stuck in the worg the orcs were not yet close enough for it to glow because it was not glowing even though way down there with Gollum he seemed to have fallen far enough to be away from everything. Or is all this a bit inconsistant?

Is there anything that says how far away the eagles dropped them from the Lonely Mountain? Off the cuff making an assumption of Everest height and just eyeballing the distance I would guess anything up to 200 miles.

Goddam I live for that Smaug gutteral growl at the end.

 

I just looked at a map of Middle earth, and according to the scale there, it is approximately 250 miles from the east side of the Misty Mountains to Erebor. I'm not sure where the Eyrie is in relation to all that, so the number will be anywhere from 200 to 250. Good estimate!

 

Exactly my feelings. I don't always agree with GL's creative decisions (and not just in the PT, unlike some folks here ), but it's his world and his story. But when I see an adaptation one of the greatest works in the Western culture (written by a freaking philologist) and dialogue is often not better than that of Lucas's (who's actually intentionally corny), along with character assassination and needless changes Hollywood style, it's really hard for me to accept.

 

URL to a large Middle Earth map

The Eagles Eyrie is shown, looks like I did guess right at 200-250. This is just what came up in a google image search so I am not 100% on its accuracy.

Any final shot Smaug shots out there yet? I can't find any.

 

More importantly, any shots of Thranduil on his Elk named Moosie?

 

Wouldn't Smaug shots be massive spoilers at this point?

 

I think he meant the final shot of the film shots of Smaug buried in the gold, not the full dragon.

 

Oops

 

Exactly. The nostril to the eye, what is shown, looks quite a bit like the head from D&D 3.0 Red Dragon Monster Manual.

 

When the camera pans down to Smaug there is a stair with what I assume is dwarvish writing. Anyone know what it says?

 

Exit only?

 

Even as a Tolkien fan first, I don't agree with any of this. Despite LOTR's running time (about 12 hours for the full EE experience) it still cannot dramatize every scene in the books. Material still had to be deleted, summarized or/or altered. Of course, that's still true with TH, but more breathing room means more of the novel can make it to the screen. if you're a fan of the novel, that's a good thing. If you're not, don't bother seeing the movie because you won't enjoy it anyway.

Even if all three Hobbit movies are 3 hours long each, that's 3 hours per 100 pages of source text, roughly. And at 9 hours total that's still 3 hours less than LOTR's length. So just looking at it from that perspective, your demand that less running time be devoted to less source material has been met by the filmmakers.

Another counter-point is that not only The Hobbit's 300 pages, but also scenes from the Appendices in ROTK are being dramatized here. Events only hinted at in the books are realized cinematically with pacing and dialogue, extending their length or duration by dint of the medium of transmission, as though they were full scenes from the book. As a Tolkien fan I find that exciting. Don't you? And if you're not a Tolkien fan then again, why bother seeing these movies?

I think that despite the changes, Jackson's adaptations respect and honor Tolkien and his work. The changes are well-intentioned from a confluence of creative and entertainment choices and marketing pressures, as with any film competing in the global marketplace. They keep intact the spirit of the books while tweaking material for mass audiences. If you want the exact sequence and dialogue of the books, you can always read them. Tolkien's wonderful creations are still on the page.

 

And at 9 hours total that's still 3 hours less than LOTR's length.

The theatrical cuts, which are all you can compare at the moment considering we don't know long The Hobbit's final EE runtime will be, run 8 hours and 50 minutes minus credits. If we can guess that each film in the trilogy will be the same length, The Hobbit will only run 50 minutes shorter. And even if you're considering the LOTR EEs, they're 11 hours long (again, minus credits), not 12.