Movie Reviews 2.0

[Mariner]

Where in the story does movie #2 end?

Hobbit #2 ends with Smaug flying out of the mountain on the way to kick the crap out of Laketown.

Fundamentally, Hobbit #3 is based on the couple of chapters of the book after this which is fricking preposterous.

Spoiler

Oh, some other shit was added as well, of course. In Hobbit #2, Gandalf is captured by the Necromancer/Sauron when he is investigating Dol Guldur. In Hobbit #3, Galadriel, Elrond, Saruman and Radagast come and free him, fighting off the Nazgul and Sauron - for some reason Galadriel does her demonic funny voice/glowing blue thing again which makes Sauron flee to Mordor. Saruman knowingly says he will deal with Sauron. Yeesh.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Gonna have to agree, that's one of the most well known facts about the pedophile rapist.

Now I don't want to derail the thread but I think one has to be very careful with statements like this, especially in our current climate where as a man you are pretty much always fucked (no pun intended) if women charge you with rape, sexual assault or whatever. Or at the very least you are looking at a uphill battle.

I didn't know about this case so I read the wikipedia link. A few things that caught my eye;

Initial charge;

rape by use of drugs, perversion, sodomy, lewd and lascivious act upon a child under 14, and furnishing a controlled substance to a minor

Which then changed to;

but later accepted a plea bargain whose terms included dismissal of the five initial charges[4] in exchange for a guilty plea to the lesser charge of engaging in unlawful sexual intercourse.[4][5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Polanski_sexual_abuse_case#cite_note-Palmer2009-09-28-5

So he probably pled guilty to avoid being sent to jail for a 1000 years or whatever punishments they got in the US. But the first charge and the new one are totally different. Unlawful sexual intercourse to me sounds like something that could have been a stupid decision by two people but not necessarily bad or damaging to a person while the initial charge obviously was.

In 2003 the victim said;

Geimer testified that Polanski provided champagne that they shared as well as part of a quaalude,[17] and despite her protests, he performed oral, vaginal, and anal sex acts upon her,[18][19] each time after being told 'no' and being asked to stop.

But in 2000 she said this;

In a documentary for A&E Television Networks entitled Roman Polanski (2000), Samantha Gailey Geimer stated "…he had sex with me. He wasn’t hurting me and he wasn’t forceful or mean or anything like that, and really I just tried to let him get it over with." She also claimed that the event had been blown "all out of proportion".

Okay that sounds at least a bit contradicting to me.

He also underwent a psyc eval and...

Polanski's lawyers had the expectation that Polanski would get only probation at the subsequent sentencing hearing, with the probation officer, examining psychiatrist, and the victim all recommending against jail time

.

And ofcourse

Geimer sued Polanski in 1988, alleging sexual assault, intentional infliction of emotional distress and seduction.[38] The case was settled out of court in 1993. After Polanski missed an October 1995 payment deadline, Geimer filed papers with the court, attempting to collect at least US$500,000. The court held that Polanski still owed her over $600,000, but it was unclear as of 2009 if this had since been paid.[39]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Polanski_sexual_abuse_case#cite_note-39

$$$, and by the looks of it not a small sum.

Not saying nothing happened, nor defending the guy but given whats written on the wikipedia page I'd say this is more a case of two people doing something stupid with one of the two having regrets afterwards rather than pure rape.

 

[London Geezer]

Yes, the thread is now extremely derailed and should go back to being about Lego Movie, Mad Max and Marvel superheroes. Please.

 

[tuna]

Fundamentally, Hobbit #3 is based on the couple of chapters of the book after this which is fricking preposterous.

Spoiler

Oh, some other shit was added as well, of course.

Have you read the novel "Brookeback Mountain"? The movie has the same pages to screen time ratio as the Hobbit movies and no one complained about that.[/spoiler]

 

[tuna]

Not saying nothing happened, nor defending the guy but given whats written on the wikipedia page I'd say this is more a case of two people doing something stupid with one of the two having regrets afterwards rather than pure rape.

I persionally do not really think you can get any more "pure rape" than drugging a 13 year old girl and putting your dick in her anus.

 

[I.S.T.]

Have you read the novel "Brokeback Mountain"? The movie has the same pages to screen time ratio as the Hobbit movies and no one complained about that.[/spoiler]

It really depends on what's being adapted. the scale of The Hobbit required either a 3 and a half hour minimum movie, or two movies. Stretching it to three was the issue.

Movie 1 was kind of ehish, movie 2 kicked as much ass as the LOTRs, movie 3... I haven't seen partially out of fear it sucks insanely hard.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

I persionally do not really think you can get any more "pure rape" than drugging a 13 year old girl and putting your dick in her anus.

Not that I care much to defend the guy but just reading that wikipedia page makes me feel this is more likely a very stupid decision and not so much rape as in guy forces himself onto girl that really doesn't want to.

The probation report submitted to the court concluded by saying that there was evidence "that the victim was not only physically mature, but willing.

Pretty sure that anal rape is going to leave some visible damage, doesn't really stroke with the probation report saying that there is evidence the victim was willing.

Anyway, whatever the case a 40 something guy shouldn't sleep with a 13 year old no matter what the situation.

 

[Alexko]

If anyone wants to keep discussing the Polanski case, I think doing so in RPSC would be best.

 

[Dave Baumann]

I'm beginning to think the MCU should have its own thread, but for those that are interested, it seems there is a board shake up at Disney / Marvel that now has Kevin Feige (effectively the mastermind behind the MCU) reporting directly to Disney:

http://collider.com/marvel-kevin-feige-now-reports-to-disney-has-more-control/

The report indicates that this may actually be positive for the future of the MCU as Kevin has butted heads with the current Marvel CEO, but Disney have been rather pleased with Kevin's results with the MCU so far.

 

[tuna]

It really depends on what's being adapted. the scale of The Hobbit required either a 3 and a half hour minimum movie, or two movies. Stretching it to three was the issue.

Why would the movie adaption of "The Hobbit" be different from the movie adaption of "Brookback Mountain" regarding pages/screen time ratio?

 

[I.S.T.]

Why would the movie adaption of "The Hobbit" be different from the movie adaption of "Brookback Mountain" regarding pages/screen time ratio?

Epic battles need time to properly show, and the original book didn't give anywhere near enough time to them. Expanding on them wasn't a bad idea. Neither was adding some of the Silmarillion material. the main issue was the last movie trying to stretch like... 25 pages into a full fucking movie. Even with some more Silmarillion material(I assume at least. I haven't seen it), it can't really hold up to a full movie.

Though, for the record, this is coming from someone who thinks the LOTR movies needed longer and/or split up adaptations for the latter two movies(FOTR doesn't need a second movie. Hell, they probably could have condensed it a little more and it'd be fine). Same with every Harry Potter starting with the fourth aside from possibly The Half Blood Prince. Again, probably a movie where you can condense some more stuff compared to the adaptation that came out due to the nature of the work it is directly adapting.

Anyway, my first point is it depends on scale. Brokeback Mountain does have a larger scale than your average romantic drama, but it's got nothing on The Hobbit in terms of scale. Scale requires more length in most cases, especially if it involves super epic battles of super epicness. Second point is it also depends on the direct content of the work itself, and how easily condensed one can make it without fucking up the adaptation in terms of accuracy of adaptation and keeping the spirit of the adaptation.

A bit off topic, but I feel the first and third Harry Potter movies manage to pull that off pretty well for the most part, though I dislike the first one as a movie for other reasons(Boring director, most of the young actors clearly not ready to act in a huge role yet). They condense, in some cases switch around, but overall manage to nail the books quite well.

Helps, in the third movie's case, that it's the only good movie out of the eight...

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Oh man I also love Azkaban the most. In fact seeing that movie was the push for me to read the books. All the rest are mostly crap, except maybe some of the fourth; but the final three were irritatingly bad. The director couldn't lead the child actors and pushed the cream of British cinema into the background, ehhh.

 

[I.S.T.]

Azkaban is a legitimately good fantasy film, something I wish people who dislike HP or dislike the way the adaptations were handled would recognize more. It has more than enough quality to stand on its own two feet, and IMO, made reading the book even better(Read the book after seeing the film).

 

[London Geezer]

There is no such thing as a page to screen time ratio. And for sure there is no such thing as judging the quality of the movie from the length of the material it's based on.

 

[cheapchips]

Azkaban is a legitimately good fantasy film, something I wish people who dislike HP or dislike the way the adaptations were handled would recognize more. It has more than enough quality to stand on its own two feet, and IMO, made reading the book even better(Read the book after seeing the film).

I'm pretty indifferent to the Harry Potter films & books but was quite impressed by Azkaban. It felt much more natural than the prior films and less bogged down than the latter films (for want of a better explaination).

I'm also a sucker for a 'storied' effects shot and the womping willow? transitions are very lovely.

I think my wife hankers after the missing bits from the book. Guess that's always a problem with adaptations.

 

[I.S.T.]

I'm pretty indifferent to the Harry Potter films & books but was quite impressed by Azkaban. It felt much more natural than the prior films and less bogged down than the latter films (for want of a better explaination).

I'm also a sucker for a 'storied' effects shot and the womping willow? transitions are very lovely.

I think my wife hankers after the missing bits from the book. Guess that's always a problem with adaptations.

I did dislike the removal of the greater use of the map and the more detail on the social group(for lack of a better term because my brain is barely functioning) that Harry's father and co were in, but I dealt with it. It's a fine film either way.

 

[Mariner]

I've always thought that LoTR would have been great as a 20-part (or 22-part as the US TV system seems to prefer) high-budget TV series.

I'm far from a big fan of the movies - bits taken out, contexts changed, storyline altered for no apparent reason, random shit added in - but I think one of the modern style of well-produced and lengthy TV shows could have done the storyline more justice. Game of Thrones shows what can be achieved. Note, I should admit here that I've never read any of the GoT books so can't say how true to the books they are! that said, the last GoT series jumped the shark a bit for me at times and I reckon this is perhaps because I've heard it has now gone off-book to some extent?

 

[Grall]

I've always thought that LoTR would have been great as a 20-part (or 22-part as the US TV system seems to prefer) high-budget TV series.

LoTR was shot in 1999; the financial viability of big-budget fantasy TV wasn't established back then, I also doubt the basic technology would have been there at that period of time. I remember looking at the bonus materials from the first movie and hearing genuine-looking digital fire had only just been invented back then, for example.

Now, I'm not sure anyone would want to go with a TV series, not when it would mean having to be compared with Jackson's uber successful trilogy at every turn. ("This Gandalf's fine, I guess, but he's no Ian McKellen Gandalf", and so on and so forth.)

 

[Alexko]

I suspect that a number of very successful movie sagas will one day be remade as TV series, including LOTR and probably Harry Potter. But we'll have to wait some time for the technology to evolve and allow the producers to have better special effects than the movies at a much lower cost, to let people forget a bit about the old movies, and to reach generations that may not even have seen them.

 

[Arwin]

There is no such thing as a page to screen time ratio. And for sure there is no such thing as judging the quality of the movie from the length of the material it's based on.

Well, having read the books three times before the movie adaptations, I have a very clear movie play-time to reading-time ratio for TloR, and that is 1:6, as in one chapter in the books takes about 5 minutes in the movies. I wish it had been three seasons of TV shows instead. I thought that The Hobbit was a huge improvement in that area. I also like Bilbo a tonne more than Frodo, but the dwarves aren't as rounded a company as the company of the Ring, that to me held it back more than anything else.

I thought the final Hobbit movie was immensely satisfying, and I really enjoyed it, even if one aspect dragged on a bit too long (if you've seen it you probably know it).