Movie Reviews 2.0

[I.S.T.]

I will swear to the end of my days that Transformers 1 was a decent film, though far from, say, The Avengers or any of the Nolanverse Batman films.

I will not defend the second or third. The only reason I did not walk out of the theater for each is that I have a policy to never do so.

And before anyone starts yelling at me, I went to see the third due to the second one having an unusually troubled pre-production that killed any chance of it being good ever. The third did not have that, so I figured it would be better.

I was wrong.

 

[MfA]

I will swear to the end of my days that Transformers 1 was a decent film

There is 1 redeeming feature in that movie ... and she's almost always on screen with the second worst thing in it (second only to Torturro).

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Benedict Cumberbatch as Khan, interesting.

He is a brilliant actor, especially in the BBC produced Sherlock, where he co-stars with Martin Freeman.

Their performance earned them this role, and also Bilbo for Freeman and Smaug for Cumberbatch, in Hobbit. Yes, Cumberbatch will play the dragon, not just voice him. Using mocap. Can't wait to see it

 

[Tahir2]

Looking forward to Elysium and hopefully a District 10.

 

[Mariner]

Their performance earned them this role, and also Bilbo for Freeman and Smaug for Cumberbatch, in Hobbit. Yes, Cumberbatch will play the dragon, not just voice him. Using mocap. Can't wait to see it

I've got serious worries about the forthcoming Hobbit 'trilogy'. The only possible reason for Jackson to stretch it out into three films in this manner is filthy lucre in a George Lucas-stylee.

Pretty comical that after squishing LOTR into three films they are now somehow ekeing out The Hobbit into another three.

No good will come of this, mark my words.

 

[zed]

yes it wont be as good as LOTR though one of the 3 hobbit films is not the hobbit at all, but cobbled together from the similarillion

 

[Mariner]

yes it wont be as good as LOTR though one of the 3 hobbit films is not the hobbit at all, but cobbled together from the similarillion

Eh? How the hell are they going to put anything from the Silmarillion into era of The Hobbit? Most of the stuff in that (very dull) book is set thousands upon thousands of years before The Hobbit and LOTR. The brief bit about the Second Age and the Rings only runs to a handful of pages at the end of the book!

Jackson is going to massacre the whole story, it would seem.

 

[KimB]

yes it wont be as good as LOTR though one of the 3 hobbit films is not the hobbit at all, but cobbled together from the similarillion

Apparently not:
"He also noted the story must be drawn from only what is mentioned in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, as they do not have the rights to The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales."
From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hobbit_(film_series)#Third_film

 

[Arwin]

I've got serious worries about the forthcoming Hobbit 'trilogy'. The only possible reason for Jackson to stretch it out into three films in this manner is filthy lucre in a George Lucas-stylee.

Pretty comical that after squishing LOTR into three films they are now somehow ekeing out The Hobbit into another three.

No good will come of this, mark my words.

My main criticism of the Lord of the Rings was that even three long films wasn't nearly enough. I think every chapter in the book should have been a full length episode in a TV series, at least. So in that sense, the Hobbit as a trilogy makes a lot of sense to me.

 

[zed]

Apparently not:
"He also noted the story must be drawn from only what is mentioned in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, as they do not have the rights to The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales."
From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hobbit_(film_series)#Third_film

I could be wrong, just going off what I heard on the radio, they also mentioned showing what gandalf done when he went on a journey somewhere which was stated in the book, but not described in detail

 

[Mariner]

My main criticism of the Lord of the Rings was that even three long films wasn't nearly enough. I think every chapter in the book should have been a full length episode in a TV series, at least. So in that sense, the Hobbit as a trilogy makes a lot of sense to me.

I'm not convinced that The Hobbit contains enough grist to pad out three films.

However, I don't disagree with you that LOTR would have been much better if filmed expansively as a substantial TV series. To tell the truth, most of the best storytelling around is now produced on TV by the likes of HBO so it's a pity that the LOTR films weren't produced in this manner.

 

[Grall]

Pretty comical that after squishing LOTR into three films they are now somehow ekeing out The Hobbit into another three.

Hurm, well... I'm giving Jackson the benefit of a doubt in this case, seeing as I rather liked his Ring movies. There is more than enough stuff in the Hobbit on its own to fill two feature movies, that's for sure, provided you do a faithful rendition of the story without skipping sections. Then add some fight scenes, the ones with the trolls, the wolves, the moria orcs, and the dragon...and of course the main battle at the end, and you just might be able to eke three movies out of the story. I dunno, I'll have to wait and see what the end result is.

I'm hoping the people behind the movie have the sense and good taste to stay faithful to the original. After all, it's a much easier novel to adapt into a motion picture (or a few... *ahem*), compared to the Ring tomes, which are full of extraneous characters, songs and prose, sidetracks all over the place and so on.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

I'm not convinced that The Hobbit contains enough grist to pad out three films.

However, I don't disagree with you that LOTR would have been much better if filmed expansively as a substantial TV series. To tell the truth, most of the best storytelling around is now produced on TV by the likes of HBO so it's a pity that the LOTR films weren't produced in this manner.

A single movie isn't enough time to tell a great story like 30-40 quality TV episodes. There's so many great books that I would love to see transferred to the screen, but a couple of hours just isn't enough to do them justice. Instead, we get even good source material chopped up to fit into the limits of a couple of hours.

 

[KimB]

A single movie isn't enough time to tell a great story like 30-40 quality TV episodes. There's so many great books that I would love to see transferred to the screen, but a couple of hours just isn't enough to do them justice. Instead, we get even good source material chopped up to fit into the limits of a couple of hours.

Unfortunately, the big bucks are in the movies.

 

[nutball]

My main criticism of the Lord of the Rings was that even three long films wasn't nearly enough.

It wasn't that far off, in their extended form IMO. Arguably there's enough worthwhile material in the book for a fourth movie, but not much more.

There are some bits omitted from the films because they're rubbish - the Tom Bombadil silliness for example. The end-game of the books (return to The Shire) I can see why that was missed out, in that it's a bit of an anti-climactic ending for a movie compared to what came immediately before it.

 

[Arwin]

It's not so much that anything was missed, but that every chapter matched about 10 minutes of film or less.

 

[nutball]

Right, but to some extent that's inevitable. LOTR is a very verbose book - a lot of words map to relatively few things actually happening. There's lots of description of the landscape the characters find themselves in, their thoughts and so on. A lot of these words don't or can't translate to actual minutes of film (not without some really cheesy narrative mechanisms).

Mega-wordy books like LOTR and Game Of Thrones are always going to be a nightmare to turn into movie or TV form. A truly faithful one-to-one transcription sufficient to satisfy fans of the books would bore the tits off most normal people (having cost a fortune to make).

I have the audiobook of LOTR (unabridged) and it is 80 hours in length. No-one is going to make 80 hours of movie, and probably not 80 hours of TV series either for a relatively slow-paced series such as LOTR.

 

[Grall]

The end-game of the books (return to The Shire) I can see why that was missed out, in that it's a bit of an anti-climactic ending for a movie compared to what came immediately before it.

I loved that bit in the books, it was like the little hobbits had leveled up from their experiences like you do in computer games and were now great unbeatable heroes in of their own, although at the time when I first read the books in my youth, it was more of a mental concept than actual comparison to adventuring video games, as I hadn't played any at that time.

...Of course, that sequence would work poorly in a movie where tradition states the movie is over shortly after you've beaten the main badguy. I read somewhere that Jack Nicholson walked out of the screening of return of the king to go warm up the family car, complaining that the movie had too many endings. The liberation of the shire would have neccessitated yet another ending, stacked on top of the three or four or so that's there already.

 

[nutball]

I loved that bit in the books, it was like the little hobbits had leveled up from their experiences like you do in computer games and were now great unbeatable heroes in of their own

Hobbits: Griefing In The N00bie Starter Zone

:smile:

 

[Grall]

ROFL!