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

Bilbo.

Bilbo comes off as a much stronger person, he's clever and actually does stuff to help, while still maintaining his hobbit nature (as in, not a warrior death machine). Frodo faints and fake dies like three times in the first movie alone, and I can't tolerate that. Bilbo is corrupted by the ring but it hardly seems to slow him down, while Frodo turns into an ill boy right away and there's like ten scenes of the ring trying to force itself on Frodo while Frodo is in some heroin induced stupor with his eyes rolled into the back of his head like he just got high. Honestly, **** Frodo, he's weak as ****. Sometimes weakness works for a character, but I found Frodo to be one of the worst protagonists of all time, up there with Anakin Skywalker and Harry Potter. That was a really bad era for protagonists, imo.

 

I love the scene near the end of ROTK after the four hobbits have returned home, when they're sitting at the table in the pub and drinking beers together. Their behavior compared to how they acted before this journey is very different. They don't even have to say anything; it's all in their faces and the way they look at each other. It's the full weight of what they've been through; and, as they look around at the happy, laughing patrons in the pub, the knowledge that those other people have no idea how bad things could have been had it not been for their efforts. That is, of course, based on the movie and not the novel.

And then Frodo's "How do you pick up the threads of an old life?" voiceover.

 

Frodo "fake dies" in FOTR only as a result of some clumsy (or intentionally obtuse) story-telling by Jackson and co. The cave troll spears him and the blade clearly, obviously sinks in several inches... but lo! Behold! He weareth his uncle's mithril shirt! While the resulting slo-mo and angst-ridden close-ups on the faces of his stricken friends is somewhat insufferable, marring what is IMO the best action scene in the film, we can hardly blame Frodo, a 3'6" non-fighter, for being speared by a large troll... especially when he can't use the Ring to turn invisible, as Bilbo had the luxury of doing on several occasions.

Similarly, Bilbo was never stabbed by the Witch King of Angmar with a morgul blade, resulting in sickness and near death. This doesn't mean Frodo is "weak as ****" by comparison. It means that for Frodo the burden of the Ring is heavier and more dangerous than for Bilbo, who could use the device as a magical helper.

Frodo was an extraordinarily strong character, who carried the Ring and its resultant tortures farther than anyone else could have or would have done. If this doesn't come through in the films then the blame is to be laid at Jackson and co.'s feet.

 

I was talking mostly about the movie.

 

Oh, the one with ridiculous cartoony action intentionally distancing itself from consequences (ad, you know, storytelling at all-who's even the king under the mountain now? What happened tot the whole point of Jackson's quest? Etc.)? The one with a three-hour cgi-fest meaningless battle, but no proper ending? The one that shows a happy, retired Bilbo wirting his book (in less than five minutes) at the end?
That's "darker" and "more realistic?" Really?

 

Yes, we don't know what happened to the Lonely Mountain. There's no proper ending, its ending doesn't come until LOTR's ending.
And Bilbo ends with his ruined reputation at his ruined home, depressed and socially alienated, then it flashes to the future where he's happy to receive a visitor from an adventure that brought him a lot of pain and alienation.
And the deaths of Thorin and Kili and Fili are felt much deeper, especially because of the added subplots that helped develop them further than in the book.

As for these comments on LOTR's ending not being 100% paradise in Middle Earth... so?

In context, yes, this is truly a happy ending.

It just could have been more powerful if they better showed the cost of war.

 

Actually, the book tells us about ending and the Mountain. The Hobbit films don't, nor do the LotR ones (and why would the LotR films?)

I'm still confused how anyone could look at TBOTFA and go "Deep! Realistic! Shows the cost of war! Better than LotR!"
And he's happy to see his /friend/. Pain and alienation? He's become the beloved, if slightly odd, old storyteller himself. Look at his scenes with the kids in FotR.
To say that the deaths of Fili and Kili are felt more deeply than the consequences of LotR, or that Thorin's death was affecting or believably portrayed seems ridiculous to me, and suggests a very shallow understanding of depth, if you'll pardon the pun.

 

The movie ending is deep and realistic in showing the cost of war better than LOTR. (And yes, I know the book's end reveals more, and I'm slightly disappointed it was cut, butt I think it's apparent the filmmakers wanted ROTK to be the true ending and the Hobbit just part of this saga.)

And Bilbo, like Frodo, no longer feels like he belongs in the Shire. That's why he goes to Rivendell. Which it talks about in the book too.

I'm not saying the consequences of LOTR aren't deeply felt.

 

Just in case anyone missed it and is thinking of going to these Extended Edition theatrical showings, these seem to be the dates:
The Hobbit: AUJ Extended – Monday, October 5th
The Hobbit: TDOS Extended – Wednesday, October 7th
The Hobbit: TBOTFA Extended – Tuesday, October 13th

And then the EE of TBOTFA will be available on Blu-ray and DVD on November 17th (and will be available early on Digital HD on October 20th). The EE boxset "The Hobbit Trilogy – The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies" will be available then too.

OK, I think I'm done now with The Hobbit info / announcements.

 

...how do they manage to make extended versions of the Hobbit--a single book that they already extended into 3 films?

 

The Hobbit is a single book, yes, but the film versions also include information from the LOTR Appendices. And even the 12-hour/3-film LOTR:EE leaves out reams of information from the 1000-page source novel. If you read the entire book (TH) out loud it would take longer than 12 hours.

 

As much as I have complaints about the Hobbit movies, the fact that they're based on one book is not one of them (granted, I haven't read the book). They're too long and too bloated (even in theatrical version form), yes, but that's really a separate issue. People often make it sound like most movies that are based on books, and that have a one-to-one ratio, do a good job of covering everything. But it's often the case that they touch on the highlights and gloss over huge chunks, out of necessity.

 

I've come to terms with the first two — if they had the pacing and run time of a Star Wars film w/o some half-finished effects shots and 75% of Orlando Bloom's contributions (i.e. sabotaging Tauriel and Kili and Beorn's plots), they'd be great popcorn flicks. I still have pretty big problems with BO5A in that Thorin's tragedy doesn't carry the full weight of the film as it should (the line of Durin completely collapsed and I don't feel that in the film's theatrical form) , and Bilbo isn't given enough focus until half of the plot threads are dropped in the finale to make way for the audience to be reminded that this is Bilbo's story... even though it hasn't been since Smaug left for Laketown, or, if we're being generous, when Bilbo made his deal with Thranduil. Shore's score says as much when he neglected to use Bilbo's theme over the titles. I suspect some of these issues are Warner's interference, but pacing and editing has been Jackson's worst problem since King Kong.

That said, I don't believe the concept of a trilogy based on the Hobbit is inherently ridiculous— time was just against Jackson. The results are maddening to me because in many ways they're so close to being enjoyable if only it were cut and arranged differently. But in other cases, whole plot threads don't feel earned. I don't feel anything for Thorin when Fili is gutted and he never even learns about Kili. This might be because in the course of the trilogy, they only ever shot three scenes (pick ups) that even let the audience know they were related. They rarely even interact. On the contrary, look at how carefully the dynamic between Aragorn and Boromir is played— they share three key moments together (theatrical) that I believe were all shot after (and building up to) Sean Bean's death scene. Perhaps there's something to be said for shooting so far out of sequence, a luxury Jackson didn't have here.

 

Nicolas Cage: I turned down the part of Aragorn

http://uproxx.com/movies/2015/10/nicolas-cage-aragorn-lord-of-the-rings/

 

^ A man's got to know his own limitations.

 

I for one thank Iluvatar that Cage didn't play Aragorn. When he's good he's good, is Cage, but he's no Viggo Mortensen.

 

Aaaahhhh, my eyes! My eyes!!

Yeah, Cage as Elessar would've been a freshly **** hot mess.

 

I think there are some scenes Cage could've pulled off, but good heavens, try to picture him giving Aragorn's rousing Black Gate speech. It just...nope.

 

Big no to Cage. He'd have ruined everything.

I just read the Silmarillion in like 4 hours. lol. Great book in my opinion but it left me feeling brain dead. While I'd like to see an adaptation, it certainly won't happen and we all know why.

 

Also, these start today:

 

You probably felt brain dead because it is packed with an incredibly complicated history/mythology. It's really more like a mythical history like an Elvish Old Testament or something. It's one of those things that's meant to be read slowly over a few months or a year. Tolkien was very adept at creating a world and cultures, but he wasn't that good with character development in the modern or postmodern sense with which many people are familiar. But that's okay, since he was an antimodernist. Still, The Silmarillion one of my favorite literary works. Morgoth, Luthien, Beren, Maeglin, Sauron, and all those characters and histories are fascinating. Tolkien took decades to write out these stories, and his son, Christopher, had meld them together as one book and fill in some gaps. It was, after all, sanctioned fan-fiction, since Tolkien produced so much during his lifetime and really wanted to change the Silmarillion to better connect the First Age with The Lord of the Rings. But he felt too worn out by that point, as it was, in his son's words, something for a younger man to handle. He would have despised the notion of calling it a prequel to TLOR.







Anyway, after my sex-change operation, I chose Éowyn as a middle name, since I love the character and Tolkien's writings in general. I strongly considered Luthien for a middle name, however. She and Beren are my favorite characters in The Silmarillion. If anything could be made into a film out of that book, it would probably be Beren and Luthien's story because their love, their conflict with her father, with Sauron, with Morgoth, and with death itself is just so epic. Luthien was inspired by Tolkien's wife, Edith, and I think that's part of why he put a great deal of passion and effort into that part of the saga.

Oh, damn, Cage would have been a terrible Aragorn. Ugh. I'm gonna be havin' some nightmares. Anyhow, I for one do not consider the Hobbit films as poor as many do. The Hobbit novel is not a masterpiece, but it is a good book...certainly better than certain other children's books. Those films were never going be as great as the extended editions or even theatrical versions of the Lord of the Rings films. The true strength of the LOTR movies is their character development and acting. Interestingly, I think the best part of the Hobbit films is Thorin, and I liked Bilbo and everyone else. That's just me.

 

"... of Smaug" isn't realistic. In the scene where they get caught stealing weapons in Laketown, they offer the mayor and the townsfolk a share of the treasure in return for help. Of course, everyone is extremely happy, along with the greedy mayor. Then Bard, since he knows the prophecy, tries to stop them and angers everyone present. The dwarfs, of course, get all the weapons and armor they want. There is a celebration/banquet in their honor, a nice boat and a cheery farewell the next morning. While departing, Thorin asks Gili to rest/heal and join them later, seeing as how sick he is. Fili stays behind to help Gili, Bofur is caught napping and misses the boat. Right after that, in the next scene, the three dwarfs are shown, knocking on Bard's door asking for help, saying "no one else in the town will help us" ! (Gili is fainting/falling and looks like he is about to die at that point)

 

So today's the showing date for TBOTFA. Did anyone go to showings for the first two, or planning to go today for the last one? I'm curious as to when we'll find out what the extra scenes were and how they pushed the rating into R territory.

 

full frontal dwarf nudity

 

Thorin calls Thranduil "a boring F star star *****".