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

Another reason why the EEs are totally worth it– it becomes very clear through the appendices (particularly in DOS and BOT5A) that in the process of making these films, Jackson lost his mind.

Here's a teaser to what you'll see in the EE – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Av1pvYv2BvA

 

Today's the day for these. I'm not getting them, but reminding people who do want something is fun.

 

I can't even imagine the drudgery of watching an extended Hobbit trilogy. I'd be contemplating taking breaks to clean mold from bathroom tiles or for a colonoscopy or prostate exam.

 

today's the day where i export this ***ing edit and delete all the source files forever!

 

Anytime I get irritated that TBOTFA didn't get any Razzie nominations, I remind myself that Kirk Cameron's wankfest of a Christmas movie did instead.

 

But to be fair, the Hobbit movies aren't really Razzie-worthy anyway.

 

They're pretty close...

 

Not only did Jackson butcher the source material, but he took a massive disgusting crap all over it.

 

That's a great summation of them. That already bloated runtime (for the theatrical versions) explains why I couldn't even entertain watching the EE's of them. Then again, I prefer the theatrical versions of LOTR too.

 

me too. FOTR theatrical edition! A timeless classic on par with the original Star Wars.

 

Same with the PT, they just didn't reach people's expectation.

 

I'm happy to keep on being a hold-out against the internet consensus that these movies suck. We just watched the Bo5A:EE (streamed on Vudu) and loved every glorious hyper-stylized moment of its 2:43 running time. There is so much incredible detail in every frame of this massive film that the visuals alone dazzle the eye and delight the mind. The action scenes are bombastically entertaining; granted they're over-the-top but they're also a blast to watch, gag after ingenious gag pummeling the senses, causing outbursts of laughter and hand-clapping and cheers for our team. The goat- (ram-?) chariot sequence alone is worth the price of purchase! Plus with all the added gore, beheadings, hammering by Dain, battle footage in general, elf v. dwarf combat, trolls being catapulted, Alfred being catapulted (into a troll's maw!), additional dialogue scenes, fuller characterizations, plot clarifications, more and 'cooler' White Council v. Ringwraiths battle, extra dragon kills, and innocents in general seen to suffer, it's just a better, more expansive and emotional version of the movie.

The hatred of these films, and especially the exaggerated criticisms of this super-powerful masterpiece of fantasy cinema, are WAY over the top, IMHO. Don't heed the doomsayers, o internet, say I; this movie and its predecessors are seminal works, beautifully produced achievements in screenwriting, cinematography, and the various arts including costuming, design and animation. 4 1/2 stars!

 

0.00045 stars.

 

Let me ask you (and all harsh critics of these films) this. Have you ever seen any Ray Harryhausen movies? Most notably his 60s-80s output, which included four low-to-mid-budget but still highly regarded sword-and-sandal pictures? The reason I ask is that, in my view, these Hobbit films are closest in tone and genre to those old flicks, with wizardry and monsters and sword-fighting galore, only now with (obviously) updated effects, massive budgets and prestigious casts.

If you dislike Ray's two Sinbad movies and his two Greek myth films, then it follows that you would also dislike the Hobbit movies. Harryhausen's monsters are cleverly conceived but they are obviously, almost laughably fake. The plots tend to be slow-moving, and the dialogue while suitable for children is not exactly Shakespearean. Yet given all that, I love them dearly. Part of my attraction is surely nostalgia, yet part of it is adult, intellectual admiration of the skills involved in bringing these creatures and characters to life. The blue-screen, optical printing and stop-motion technologies were limited, sure, but they still took enormous effort and talent to achieve. And it's the same, in my view, with the Hobbit films.

If on the other hand you like Harryhausen's fantasies, then there is no obstacle to your enjoying the Hobbit movies as well, on more or less the same level. Like Harryhausen's stuff, Jackson's output aren't Oscar-caliber dramatic films. They move slowly and the dialogue tends to be functional, expository rather than emotive or poetic. And most of the effects are clearly achieved in computers, using a variety of programs to produce almost-but-not-quite photo-real textures, movements, skins, weaponry, backdrops, landscapes, etc. Computer animation is essentially an updated, massively complex, far more sophisticated reiteration of the same tools Harryhausen once used.

So, to sum up, if you dislike Harryhausen's work, then clearly fantasy films of this kind are not for you. You're unlikely ever to be satisfied with the obvious fakery of the techniques used. But if you like them, why not try to approach the Hobbit movies with the same willingness to suspend disbelief? None of it looks especially real, but it sure is fun as heck to watch.

 

Think that The Hobbit trilogy was an ill thought out mess? Guess what? So do the crew!



This explains so much.

 

It's pretty impressive that they started over "from scratch" after Del Toro left. This "laying the tracks down in front of a moving train" approach produced an incredibly successful series of films.

 

Also, it's pretty easy to take about 6 minutes of footage to give the impression that the production was a chaotic mess. Even if there was chaos, I believe it was more of the orchestrated chaos kind not untypical of a movie production (see Cleopatra for a case in point), which doesn't preclude it having a general bearing. Think of it as a ship travelling on the ocean: winds and currents are different on every single mile, sometimes it's dead calm while in other moments a veritable storm is brewing, and yet under the right captain the ship manages to make it from point A to point B. Everything considered, the Hobbit films would be more on the success side than the failure one. Let us not forget that, after all, they did make just shy of 3 billion dollars in box office alone (not taking into account merchandise or DVDs, of course...).

 

Well that pretty much explains why the films turned out the way they did. I admire Peters honesty.

The Battle looked like the biggest cluster****, and it's nice to know that it was shot as a cluster**** as well.

 

Exactly. I've watched the making-of stuff on all three films so far (I'm about 2 hours into the Bo5A 5-hour doc) and it's clear that the production was well under control. If anything the lack of prep allowed for more creative freedom on the part of the actors, who during script readings were allowed to change/alter/add stuff to suit their interpretations. And of course Ian McKellan was always there with Tolkien's book in hand, pointing out to Jackson where he felt a return to the source material was the better choice. McKellan seems always to have won his case. Sure, for a time there Jackson was working 21-hour days (film, plan, sleep; film, plan, sleep) and this led to his illness, and a 6-week shut-down of production, which let them all catch up. The whole production makes for a fascinating story of overcoming odds in the face of extreme pressure.

 

It's nice to be able to have some empathy for Jackson's predicament. As a huge fan of LOTR, I've always been interested in what went wrong with the Hobbit. And maybe part of it was bad timing, bad luck and being overwhelmed by circumstances.

 

To further my point above, a question for the ages: what is creativity, if not chaos, if not what happens when, somehow, out of darkness, comes the spark of inspiration? Some people may prefer a well-ordered marching plan, but even the best of generals admit that, in a real battle situation, the dice fall where they may and the best they can hope for is for everything, somehow, to make sense. Coordination can be had by more or less sophisticated means, but really, it's all up to luck, or fate, or coincidence, or whatever deity one might prefer to invoke at that point. And filmmaking isn't all that different.

 

Yes. Poor Peter Jackson. He'll just have to go home and polish his Oscars.

 

And count his millions by the fistful.

Poor Professor Higgins.