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

Why is everyone opening their posts this way? Is it some type of code like how you say "over" on a walkie-talkie?

 

Just got back from seeing it. I thought it was good. Only dragged in a few places, and although I don't remember all the dwarves' names that really didn't matter. Other than the picture, my biggest complaint was the sometimes-inappropriate humor. That decapitation thing was just sad, not funny.

 

I haven't seen this movie yet.

 

I do actually, i look up things

And i read the book as well

 

That scene with the decapitation wasn't supposed to be funny and it wasn't, it violent

 

Erm, when Gandalf decapitated the orc and nudged its head off its neck, that was clearly being played for humor. I don't know what other decapitation you thought I was referring to.

 

Just read DV's posts in the voice of Darth Vader. World-class entertainment to be had.

 

there was also Azog decapitating Thor ( i believe ) which i thought u were refering too

 

Thror.

 

Radagast is slowly losing his sanity and power in LOTR, since he's "forgotten his purpose" in coming to Middle Earth. The Wizards are emissaries of the Valar(called "gods" by men, but more like angels) and servants of Eru Illuvatar(God). Wizards aren't human, they are basically lesser angels. Sent to protect Middle Earth from Sauron(who is actually one of them, corrupted by Melkor the Morgoth(Satan, basically) in an earlier age). Radagast has lost sight of this, being more interested in the critters of the forest than in doing his job. So, yeah, he pokes his nose in early in Fellowship of the Ring when Gandalf is explaining what he'd been up to in the 17 years between Bilbo leaving the Shire and Frodo beginning his journey to Rivendell.

Basically, Radagast gets kookier as time wears on.

 

Yeah, I'm half-expecting a lot more Elvish cameos in the next few movies. There's the Mirkwood section, of course, but considering the director, its almost certain they're going to add in even more Elvish stuff than in the original novel. Probably play them up even more while making the dwarfs even more oafish (like them poking at vegetables as if it was a foreign substance).

I'm not entirely familiar with the lore, but was the Angmar King/Witch-king/head of the Ringwraiths ever buried? I remember the part about him fleeing and some Elf predicting that no man could kill him, but guess they wanted to really push the Necro part of the Necromancer title, because subtlety is not a strong point of these movies. Unless I'm thinking of the wrong human-ish ghost, or just overthinking and they were just going for the most obvious LotR reference with the Morgul blade and all that. And yeah, Gandalf and Galadriel having a private telepathic conversation was silly, if it was around Bilbo or Thorin is one thing, but all four of them were ancient, powerful beings.

Never heard that part about Radagast before, but then I've only read the appendices and that was years ago, so no idea how much other stuff there is (tried reading the Silmarillion once, too much for me by that point).

With how much these movies are throwing in from other sources, I wouldn't really mind an epilogue-ish glimpse of the Lonely Mountain during LotR, to show what Gandalf's eventual goal was (making the area safer in general with a restored dwarf kingdom). I kind of wish we had seen Gandalf and Thorin meet in Bree too, since getting rid of the dragon relates to the whole White Council thing (preparing for the eventual return of the Enemy), but maybe they'll add it in as a flashback in one of the other movies. Or maybe not, I don't remember if this first part referenced how Gandalf and Thorin met, but with how childish he is for most of the movie (as well as pushing the whole "we're the only dwarves bothering to do anything!" angle), I wouldn't be surprised if its rewritten too. Although technically Bilbo shouldn't know about that since Gandalf might have only told others about that first meeting while they're recovering in Minas Tirith but they've already thrown out a lot of the backstory (like Gandalf passing through Dol Guldur himself to get the map and key from Thrain, but guess they had to give Radagast something to do) and its not like a stable detailed backstory matters that much to these movies.

I hope they do include Beorn considering his eventual role... but then I'm half afraid they'll just cut out his part and have the elves hold the orcs back until the eagles arrive (probably by way of butterfly-courier since that seems to be how it happens all the time). Too bad we had Radagast and the eagles in the same movie but no contact. They bothered to get a (relatively) younger guy for Thorin, hope he puts up a better fight by the final movie than he did in this one. Since he had to be bailed out by Bilbo of all people. Did Bilbo even kill anyone in the book? I honestly don't remember, but guess that's a modern movie, Bilbo jumped in and saved Thorin and killed an orc after night fell really, really fast, since before they were fleeing into the sunlight from the mountain orcs, and then Bilbo is really accepted (mainly for saving Thorin of course, just not a fan of excessive violence, such as Aragorn killing the Mouth of Sauron in the extended cut). Not that sunlight slowed down the ones chasing Thorin earlier in the movie (during the silly chase scene, although Radagast was quite entertaining).

By the way, I've forgotten already, but in the movie when Bilbo ran out the door, Gandalf wasn't there, right? I was getting bored and losing interest after all the attempted guilt trips about not being Took-ish enough (an adventure of this magnitude was too much for most Tooks even, if I remember the book right), although in the FotR movie I think Gandalf just said he only gave Bilbo a little push out the door, but I'm probably nitpicking too much (not like they planned on a Hobbit prequel all those years ago and that was just friendly bantering).

 

Beorn will be in the movie, he will be played by Mikael Persbrandt

 

ah thanks for the correction

 

Okay I saw it last night, 2D, in a moderately full theater with a (thank Eru Illuvitar, mightiest of mightys) intermission. And it needed it.

Spoiler: My Hobbit impressions

Overall, I really liked it and enjoyed it. Erebor was brilliant (though I never imagined Smaug in Erebor, more like in a cavern in the mountain. Dale was beautiful.

Martin Freeman is the perfect Bilbo Baggins. I cannot say anything negative about his performance, only about how they use his character in the movie, where there's a long stretch in which we hear nothing of Bilbo. Riddles in the Dark was very VERY close to perfect, only ruined by the inane and idiotic Gollum losing the ring right in front of Bilbo. That was just dumb. But otherwise, fantastic.

Here's where the movie kind of lost me. PJ goes overboard with a couple of things in the movie. For one, this movie is paced like a slug. Instead of a brisk tour through Middle Earth, it's a meandering slog. Which in an adventure film, you don't want. There were several times in the movie (flash forward Bag End, Bag End in particular, Rivendell, the Stone Giant fight, and the fight in the Goblin-town) in which I was like, wow are they still here? Shouldn't they be moving on? So essentially, some scenes overstay their welcome.

Though I didn't dislike the additions to the storyline, they were frustratingly obvious, with Radagast's introduction coming out of nowhere, the short trip to Dol Guldur being weirdly thrown in and the discussion between Saruman, Gandalf, Galadriel and Elrond. That section in particular was just weird. It seemed like there was another movie encroaching on the Hobbit, slowly but surely.

In the end though, I truly liked it. I didn't love it, I didn't leave the movie feeling absolutely high on Hobbit fever. It's a great movie that could be excellent if it had a good edit and picked up the pace a little.

For the most part, what was there worked perfectly fine for the movie, and I'm pleased with what I saw.

I'm debating on whether I'd give it a 7.5 or 8/10.

Little things that bugged me.

-The trolls, while I loved their accent and movement, didn't look all that great and kind of wore out their welcome.
-When battle scenes wore out their excitement and just became roller coasters where I was looking for an end. Essentially, the fight scene in Goblin-town. The platform that just kept losing parts was too much for me.
-Great Goblin's "That'll do it." Can we all agree that was dumb?
-WHO THE HELL IS AZOG?

 

Azog was a great Orc and he did torture and kill King Thror, but then he was slain in the battle that followed after by Dain, leader of the Dwarves of the Iron Hills, whom we will see in the 3rd film.


Also! A previous comment made me remember another tiny detail they included that made me so happy; Radagast acknowledging that the forest was actually named Greenwood and that some people had started to call it Mirkwood.

 

But why was he here? I thought he'd serve as this movie's antagonist and his death would wrap up Thorin's mini-arc for this movie. Him not being defeated here kind of bugged me.

 

Azog is the main villain for all 3 movies,

 

disappointed.jpg

 

But the next time we see Azog will more than likely be at the beginning of Part 3 because in Part 2, it would near impossible for Azog to get near Thorin and the Dwarves because of where their at in the movie

 

Personally I like the inclusion of Azog as a recurring villain. It adds an extra dimension to Thorin's journey.

 

Azog also has a badass warg

 

Thanks, Dawud786

I kinda like Azog as a villain. Evil AND scary.

 

He was also played by that one crazy eyes fellow from Spartacus: Blood and Sand.

 

Saw it yesterday in 2D 24FPS and loved it. I got pretty much what I wanted and was very entertained. Seeing it today with my two best friends in 3D HFR, so we'll see how that whole thing pans out.

 

He also played Gregor Clegane in the first season of Game of Thrones I do believe.