Census Rank the Middle-Earth Movies

That's anti-antisemitism racism

 

it's racist to be against antisemitism?

 

I know, it didn't make sense.

 

that's why I trust it.

 

I absolutely hate Sam's speeches.

 

that's because you're a heartless automaton

 

Been looking through this thread and I have to ask something. Why all the hate for the unread army? I personally like them in both the book and film.

 

Because they served as Deis Ex Machina in the movie, simply swept all the orcs and made the battle even less intensive.

 

The battle needed to end

 

A librarian's greatest fear?

 

Didn't even notice that mistake. Blame Kindle auto correct

Apparently I'm also the only one to even rank the Hobbit films on the same level as the original trilogy. So I'm wondering if the Hobbit films had been made first would they have been regarded as classics like the LOTR trilogy?

 

I wonder

 

...pretty much, yah

 

1. The Fellowship of the Ring
2. The Return of the King
3. The Two Towers
4. An Unexpected Journey
5. The Desolation of Smaug
6. The Battle of the Five Armies (Theatrical Edition)

I love all six films, but there is a pretty big gap in terms of quality between The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. The Hobbit can get a big bump up from me if the extended edition of The Battle of the Five Armies has more story elements added throughout the whole battle. That being said, I can't wait for the day I own all six films on blu-ray so I can have a massively long marathon of Middle Earth.

 

Return
Fellowship
Two Towers
Unexpected Journey
Desolation of Smaug
Battle of Five Armies


I don't completely hate the Hobbit films, I just feel they are fairly average fair on the level of most superhero movies and the like. I think if you edited them down into two films you might be able to get two pretty good films out of it, they just clearly stretched the material way beyond the intended script.


LotR, on the other hand, is a masterpiece. A few missteps (RotK theatrical is actually better than RotK extended largely because of additions to Undead Army. But bacon is right in that it still was handled in a somewhat silly fashion). But mostly they are classics unmatched so far in fantasy film.

Also, on the question of whether we just think they aren't as good because of LotR coming first, living up to expectations... No. They just genuinely aren't nearly as good. Had Jackson made the Hobbit first maybe it would have been. Because he wouldn't have been burnt out and he also wouldn't have been technically capable of making the horrible HD cinema/hfr decision he did. I think people don't understand just how much that contributes to the cartoonishness of the Hobbit films. Everything looks much more fake and less elegant because of it. But mostly I just think he would never have stretched the Hobbit into three films because a studio wouldn't have let him.

But no, for me it was genuinely about the objective qualities and deficiencies of the Hobbit films. Not expectations because I had very middling expectations that were met by the first two films. There are things to like, but in between there's a ton of filler and I never felt that way about LotR.

 

Why wouldn't they be?

 

Typically, a culture, not an individual, applies that label. And the culture has more or less already spoken on the subject. So your opinion is both valid and noted, but it doesn't change the consensus.

This is coming from someone who would agree that the series is not synonymous with perfection. But the films are undeniably revered on a mass scale.

 

1. The Fellowship of the Ring
2. An Unexpected Journey
3. The Desolation of Smaug
4. The Two Towers
5. The Return of the King
6. The Battle of the Five Armies

 

To be fair, Richard Armitage is also hot.

 

More attractive than Mortensen fo sho

 

What about this stuff?

 

The point is the film doesn't cover nearly as many story beats as either of the other two. The first film covers roughly seventeen or eighteen chapters of Fellowship, and ROTK touches a staggering twenty six chapters of the second and third books. In the second film, Helm's Deep and the encounter with Faramir are stretched out to fill half the runtime, resulting in what, twelve chapters of the book adapted to film? It's not necessarily a bad choice, because Tolkien really doesn't give Frodo and Sam a lot of material post-Shelob, but it does explain a viewer's discrepancy in pacing and story content between the films.