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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

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

Discussion in 'Community' started by -Courtney-, Nov 25, 2006.

  1. DarthBoba

    DarthBoba Manager Emeritus star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jun 29, 2000
    Um..why? 72% is hardly a bad movie. Admittedly that's only with 29 reviews, but it's still a not-half-bad score for RT.
     
  2. tom

    tom Chosen One star 8

    Registered:
    Mar 14, 2004
    even if it's terrible a lot of people will convince themselves it's great for years just because they want it to be so bad (see: the prequels).
     
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  3. laurethiel1138

    laurethiel1138 Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Feb 6, 2003
    Photos of the NYC premiere. Everybody looks fine, but I have to say that Armitage is especially dashing. Hello, Mr Thornton... [face_love]

    Cheers,
    Lauré :)
     
  4. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    May 4, 2003
    I think he may be concerned at that most all the negative reviews are from major publications with professional reviewers and wide circulations, and most of the positive reviews are from niche fan sites and internet reviewers. If that pattern holds, it would be a pretty negative public reaction.
     
  5. DarthBoba

    DarthBoba Manager Emeritus star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jun 29, 2000
    Oh, okay. Still, for RT that's not unusual-there's plenty of films on there that critics hated and audiences liked.
     
  6. AAAAAH

    AAAAAH Jedi Knight star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 8, 2012
    i can't wait for this movie to be terrible.
     
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  7. Jabbadabbado

    Jabbadabbado Manager Emeritus star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Mar 19, 1999
    Again, the really interesting thing about the reviews is that the positive and negative reviews all agree precisely about what's wrong with the movie, so I think you can take those criticisms to the bank. The only issue is your tolerance to the things people don't like about the movie. As a hobbit book fan, I have a high threshold for being bored by indolent meanderings through Bag End. But general audiences will likely be less forgiving.
     
  8. Merlin_Ambrosius69

    Merlin_Ambrosius69 Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Aug 4, 2008
    Critics are fickle, unreliable creatures. They tend to report their emotional reaction to a film, irrespective of its technical merits. They tend to side with the critical zeitgeist created by their peers, and are extremely conservative and traditionalist when it comes to cinema. They often claim to want originality and innovation in cinema, but when actually presented with a film that flouts expectations or achieves something really unusual, they often slam it for being weird or bizarre. Critics are also short-sighted, unwilling or unable to see how certain trends might develop down the line. They eschew fan sentiment -- ie, the opinions of those closest to the material -- which sometimes renders critics incapable of understanding the themes of a work, or the underlying reasons for the choices a filmmaker has made.

    Critics will criticize the first installment in a series for being incomplete, a long film for being too long, a short film for being too short, a fantasy film for being too fantastical, a musical because they personally, subjectively didn't enjoy that particular musical genre.

    Then ten years later their opinions will change, and a work they initially excoriated will be vaunted as extraordinary.

    Critics are fickle, unreliable creatures.
     
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  9. I Are The Internets

    I Are The Internets Shelf of Shame Host star 9 VIP - Game Host

    Registered:
    Nov 20, 2012
    6 more days! I'm really glad I don't have class the next day since I'm going to the midnight showing. I'll probably see it that Friday too as well if it's good enough. 72% is not really that bad. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close was in the 40's and still earned a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars. I mean they're different genres obviously, but critics reviews should not be the lone guiding voice of films.
     
  10. Jabbadabbado

    Jabbadabbado Manager Emeritus star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Mar 19, 1999
    Critics are fickle, unreliable creatures.

    They're people. And they tend to be mostly entertained by the things other people also find entertaining.

    "The first third of the film bored me" and "48 fps makes sets and props look cheap." Those are the same points made by virtually every review of the movie, from Some Random Nerd at AICN all the way up to the Hollywood Reporter and Variety.

    That level of consensus doesn't make them look fickle or unreliable, at least in this case.

    They aren't. Box office revenue is.
     
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  11. Lugija

    Lugija Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Oct 3, 2009
    Well I'm going to watch the movie with a very very casual LOTR fan who hasn't read the books. We might have fun after-movie discussions.
    "The beginning was very boring"
    "I loved it! I was back in Middle-Earth! The Shire! Gandalf! Bilbo! The Bag End! The Song! Balin! Howard Shore! The maps on the walls! The dinner table! The spoons!"

    6 more days. Remember when Jackson said he can't see himself doing the Hobbit because of the dwarves? When the first announcement came in 2007? When there was going to be a bridge film? When the castings started? When the first video blog came out and the shooting started? The first trailer, the second trailer, tv spots (which I have avoided) and now, it could be just 4 days depending on where you live, and the first part has been seen.
    Then, it just gets started.
     
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  12. Merlin_Ambrosius69

    Merlin_Ambrosius69 Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Aug 4, 2008
    "They're people" -- and with all of the flawed perceptions, preconceptions, unrealistic expectations and lack of comprehension that often attend that condition.

    I find myself adoring films that others despise -- sometimes for the same reasons that others despise them. Pirates 2, HULK and QoS are three recent examples. All of those films did very well at the box office but were excoriated in the press and in discussion forums. In 10 years' time the public and critical perception of those movies, so hated on initial release, is likely to have flipped. I'm already seeing a softening of the hate for HULK as its merits are retrospectively being considered within the context of the Avengers film "house style". Now HULK stands out as being unique, different, intellectual compared to the sturm-und-drang of the typical Marvel film. At the time of its release it was dumb, incomprehensible. Yet it remains the same film it was in 2003. I reiterate: critics are fickle and unreliable, and that includes armchair critics such as myself and most folks posting here.

    I further observe that critics often miss essential facts, plot points, visual cues and/or lines of dialogue which, had these been noticed, would have completely obviated a given critic's negative reaction. How many of us have read a negative critique of a movie and rolled our eyes as we thought: "But that was explained in scene X?" Did the critic step out for popcorn or bend to tie his/her shoe? Fickle and unreliable.

    So critics and fans currently think the first hour of Hobbit is boring. So what? Within the context of the entire 8-hour trilogy -- the next seven hours of which is pure adventure -- that hour-long set-up will probably play beautifully. The long view is currently being ignored in favor of a clamoring for urgent, breakneck pacing. In retrospect, the first Star Wars film may seem slow and plodding to some, yet at the time of its release the pacing was considered brisk. These are fickle aesthetic preferences, reflecting the spirit of the times, not ironclad assessments of the technical merits of a film.
     
  13. black_saber

    black_saber Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 4, 2002
    Here a better review from IMDB so far!!!!!! 9.1 out of 10
    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0903624/

    EDIT 22 so far said the movie was good. 22 people out of 8 so far liked the movie! Thats alot more people and its now at 73% percent!!!!!!
     
  14. Boba_Fett_2001

    Boba_Fett_2001 Chosen One star 8

    Registered:
    Dec 11, 2000
    AWESOME! A 9.1 RATING FROM 9,000 USERS WHO PROBABLY HAVEN'T SEEN IT!!!!111!!!!!
     
  15. Darth Guy

    Darth Guy Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Aug 16, 2002
    Ugh.
     
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  16. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

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    May 4, 2003
    I'm pretty sure no one has ever accused any film adaptation of the Hulk franchise of being "intellectual" in the slightest.
     
  17. DarthLowBudget

    DarthLowBudget Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jan 17, 2004
    I think maybe the long view is being ignored in favor of each 2.5+ hour film being well-paced for what it is. Like it or not, movies, whether or not they are part of a series, should each be well paced in each installment. If there's an hour of slack in part 1, there's still an hour of slack in part one, regardless or whether or not its only the first part of a longer cycle.

    As to critics, while they may be as you say, fickle and fallible, so is every single other person on the planet. So if we allow that we are all fickle and fallible, we can take that as a baseline and pretty much eliminate it as a factor.

    EDIT: That is to say, all of our opinions have some level of fickleness and fallibility (which is why opinions are not facts, after all) so we have to weigh the biases and context of each of those fickle and fallible opinions. To that end, who's to say whose opinion of a film is more valid? The critic whose profession is to view a film and attempt to assess it's value in the context of the history of film, or the fan who is predisposed to view the film through the context of his own love for a specific property?
     
  18. Rogue1-and-a-half

    Rogue1-and-a-half Manager Emeritus who is writing his masterpiece star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Nov 2, 2000
    It's been a long time since I've seen a film that spent too much time on character building.
     
  19. DarthLowBudget

    DarthLowBudget Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Jan 17, 2004
    Well, since none of us seen the film I guess we can't really comment, but too much is still too much.
     
  20. Darth Guy

    Darth Guy Chosen One star 10

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    Aug 16, 2002
    I think people in this thread are reacting to the reviews regarding the length and pace (48fps is indisputably awful, sorry) in extreme ways. Some are overly defensive, others are neck-deep in their own confirmation bias.
     
  21. Merlin_Ambrosius69

    Merlin_Ambrosius69 Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Aug 4, 2008
    Sure they have! I've spoken to them. I'm one of them. Horror novelist Stephen Romano is another. This is of course is a sidebar, but Ang Lee's HULK film is an intellectual exploration of the characters in a way that is wholly distinct from the other Marvel films. (Maybe we can take this to a different thread.)
     
  22. Merlin_Ambrosius69

    Merlin_Ambrosius69 Jedi Master star 5

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    Aug 4, 2008
    Yes! -- including the character of the setting, Middle earth. Fifteen major characters -- the 13 dwarves, Bilbo and Gandalf -- plus the setting need time to be established, and room to breathe in. I haven't seen the film yet, but I'm pleased to hear that Jackson and co. have given this much time and attention to the Unexpected Party, which involves not only the multiple characterizations but also the exposition of the plot on which the rest of the story -- two more films -- hangs. Lest we forget, the Falcon roars out of Mos Eisley about an hour into Star Wars. It's okay -- even adviseable -- to let a wild adventure build slowly.
     
  23. DarthLowBudget

    DarthLowBudget Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jan 17, 2004
    To be fair though, one of the big questions that always gets asked in writing workshops is, if you got a big group of characters, do you need all of them? That seems to be a complaint people are having with the movie (and its one that maybe i've got against the book too, though its easier to get away with that many characters in a fairy tale when they can be handwaved just as names).
     
  24. hudzu

    hudzu Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 1, 2003
    i heard that in the second movie, peter jackson goes off on a weird tangent where all the dwarves shave themselves bald and knit winter clothing out of their hair.

    was that in the book anywhere?
     
  25. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2001
    Are you kidding? That's possible the ugliest suit I've seen worn by man or beast. Dear god.