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

No, that's 42, silly.

It's a good movie.

And HFR is High Frame Rate. Just to clarify there.

 

I'm coming around on the rabbit sled. Radagast and his bunnies are going to play a pivotal role in the battle of the five armies.

Check out this leaked image from the third movie:

 

I get it, it's the visual counterpart to Azog's white warg, right? Nice.

 

It looks nothing like a BBC production. I honestly fail to see the comparison. It looks like a crisp, ultra smooth, film.

 

OK so if I understand correctly; people who were nerding out before this came out love it and if they were pressed would say the only fault they can think of was that it wasn't 12hrs long; and people who failed to see how you could rape the Hobbit into 3 films unless your conscience had been sufficiently paid off are disappointed.

So, it's the prequels all over?

 

No, it's not at all like the prequels-- if only because the acting is consistently great. I largely agree with the RLM review, and I imagine a lot of people do.

 

You're pushing it to the extremes, there. I was (and still am) nerding out about it, but I don't think it's a perfect film, by far. And I think it could've been edited better, some sequences were unnecessarily long (or just plain unnecessary, *coughfinalduelofThorinandAzogcough*). Still think it's a bloody good film, and HFR 3D looks great.

 

I still haven't seen the HFR 3D, but that will be remedied in 6 days.

 

re: HFR 3D. When I first bought a flat screen TV (HD capable) I had no access to HD content. So everything I watched was in standard definition. Whilst it looked okay (sometimes terrible, to be honest), I never felt like the images were at home on the TV. They were unable to do it justice. Like a squatter in Downton Abbey. Then I bought a Blu-ray player and plugged into the HD channels. Suddenly the picture looked at home on the screen. A lovely crisp image for a big television. One technology working in unison with another to produce a great end result. Lord Grantham had evicted the squatter. I experienced a similar feeling when I saw AUJ in HFR 3D. Previously, I'd seen films in 3D and hated it each time. Our of focus far too often, dark, gloomy, juddery... a general nightmare for my eyes. The 3D wanted to dazzle me, but the footage itself simply wasn't up to the job. Then I see AUJ in HFR 3D and suddenly 3D works. It blended in, it was bright, effective - invisible. A feast for my eyes. The increased frame rate makes 3D feel at home on a cinema screen. Result.

 

HFR is good for those who tend to be against 3D because it makes them feel sick or hurts their eyes or whatever since it largely eliminates those problems, so it could help with getting more people to watch 3D movies. I still would champion IMAX over it, purely for the fact it has superior clarity and 3D effect. Where HFR will do well is not costing more than a standard 3D movie and offering something more, providing most people are happy to have 20minutes of their movie look like it is suffering from a projector fault until their eyes get used to it.
Also, if 3D is invisible, what is the point of it? You might as well watch it in 2D if the depth enhancement is not noticeable (and save ticket money).

I'll have to look at it again, but the lighting is what bothered me, it seemed lit as if it were live or a TV show (like a guy was standing behind the camera with a big lamp)

The big problem I think will be DVD/Blu Ray HFR if The Hobbit is available. Are people going to be OK with buying something that for around 20minutes looks like it's stuck on fast-forward every time they watch it?


On the whole I agree with Mark Kermode's review of both the movie and the HFR format (I like the opening stuff myself, but I can see why many people think it drags and could be shorter).

 

I doubt everyone falls that neatly into the categories but there are definitely a lot of PT flashbacks on other grounds.

This movie and TPM are pretty much in the same territory on RT (all critics and top critics) with the same, "Not as good" angle on these films vs their blockbuster trilogy predecessors.

There's even a slight 'racist' allegation tie in if you compare the much larger Jar Jar controversy to the casting dust up from The Hobbit.

And then there's even the, "This is what happens when a director has no controls" angle.

So basically Inthink PJ can at least sympathize with Lucas better than anyone else on the planet.

 

It didn't look like fastforward to me at all, just oddly clearer. And it just takes a bit to get used to. Like 24 FPS did when you started watching movies. Or the really jerky old footage does.
And it's not that the 3D is invisible, just not intrusive, so it adds by showing depth and such (for the most part, one or two scenes are really in your face)

 

Best thing about that though is that many of the reviews make sure to emphasize that the LOTR's prequel is no where near as bad as THE PHANTOM MENACE.

It's kinda funny.

 

I'm probably harder on The Hobbit than I am with the prequels because it's an adaptation of somebody else's work. The prequels are not; George can do whatever he likes with them because they're his creations. The Hobbit is not Peter Jackson's creation and the author is long dead; some respect for the source material is in order, thanks

 

It looked like it was on fast forward for maybe two minutes for me, then I adjusted and didn't want to go back.

I use the word "invisible" because I simply stopped noticing the 3D as a separate effect... it became part of the whole, present but not pressing, which I think has been the hope for the technology since it was introduced.

 

The goal for tomorrow is the 12:10 HFR showtime.

 

I though Jackson had some respect for the source material; but his choices about when and when not to have respect seemed arbitrary to me. But I don't dislike the Hobbit at all. A fun movie, with plenty of hope for improvement with parts 2 and 3.

 

I just think the notion of turning what's a pretty light novel into a 9-hour trilogy (basically equivalent to LOTR in run time, but with 25% of the actual story length and a heck of a lot less to cover) pretty well killed any chance of me thinking Jackson respects the source material at all.

TBH-Jackson should have just adopted the titles of Christopher Tolkien's 'History Of Middle Earth' for these films. They're alot closer to that than The Hobbit.

 

A minor, but important, correction.

Carry on.

 

Well, ya know, as much as I like McCoy's performance, John Cleese should have reprised his role as Tim, er, I mean, Radagast.

 

It's explicitly called tobacco in the text of The Hobbit, while in LOTR it is called Nicotiana, a fairly clear reference to nicotine.

 

There was a really obvious gun on the mantelpiece scene when Bilbo found Sting and Gandalf said "Real bravery is not knowing how to take a life, but knowing when to spare one."

 

As far as I can tell this isn't really TPM 2: Electric Boogaloo. The Hobbit does seem to have gotten a mixed reception critically. Yet unlike TPM the movie seems to have got a good reception from audiences to some degree. Going by Rotten Tomatoes the public reaction to AUJ is rather strong, sitting at 81% liked and receiving a 4.2 average score on a 5 star scale. The Phantom Menace only has a 62% like rate and an average score of 3.2. That's a sizeable difference in public opinion.

It's true that The Hobbit's legacy may not be so warm in the future. People could go off of these movies by the time the trilogy is done. But for now, as far as I can tell, the public reception to AUJ is nowhere near as cold as it was to TPM.