The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

[Dementeleus]

I hope to God that DOS doesn't drag that terribly, because the second half of this movie had some really nice stuff in it. 

 

As a book fan I loved the pre-departure stuff, but don't worry: not only do the adventures continue, but the story also diverts from the LOTR journey.

[RobinHood26]

-

Edited April 17, 2018 by Jay Hollywood

[Lordmandeep]

Music was a strong part, Misty Mountain theme was really good 

[Goffe]

In terms of score, Hobbit is like MOS; really amazing theme, but most of the score feels like reused material from composer previous works.

Edited June 20, 2013 by Goffe

[Ozymandias]

So I finally just bought this hoping I would like it more this time, I haven't seen it since December.

 

Back before I saw this, my expectations for this were very, very high. I'm a huge fan of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies and how he brought Tolkien's world to life, they are without a doubt among the best movies ever made and certainly the best trilogy ever made.  I was in Junior High when these movies came out and  I saw each of them around 5 times in the theater(can't remember exactly).  Like Lawrence of Arabia,  the Lord of the Rings movies will be around as long as film is.  So, could The Hobbit really follow in the footsteps of those films and enjoy their enormous success(not talking about money, fuck that).  That was... my God!  Eleven years ago and it stood out as a unique, trailblazing vision at the time, hardly anything rivaled its genius.  But since then, how would The Hobbit movies stand out today?

 

The reality is that I can't help but feel pretty disappointed by The Hobbit, and it has nothing to do with it not being as dark, grand, or huge in scope as the Lord of the Rings movies were.  I have read both The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy so I was very aware of the differences between them going into this movie, so I'm not one of those obnoxious idiots who has never read them and came out of this movie whining that this movie was nothing like the Lord of the Rings.  My problems with this movie are almost entirely how it was executed.

 

First and foremost, the biggest problem with this movie is without a doubt the pacing(this really does mostly coming from stretching a 300 page book across three 2 and a half hour movies) and lack of character with no strong ensemble feel.  Basically half of the scenes in this movie feel blunt and forced because they go on forever, and some of them don't even do anything except waste time and bore you to tears.  The biggest offender is the 35-40 minute scene at Bilbo's house with all the Dwarves in the beginning.  Seriously, if you're gonna spend that much screen time in one room, richly develop most of the Dwarves instead of having them throwing plates and singing songs like a Disney musical skit.  Very few of the Dwarves get any kind of character development treatment besides having distinguished looks so you can easily tell them apart.  What they should have done here is have rotating scenes of most of the Dwarves talking to eachother, Bilbo, and Gandalf, fleshing them out while having the singing by the others in the background.  To hell with a narrative cohesion here, especially as this film eschews that in favor of a thematically consistent, but narratively unsatisfactory denouement.

 

Another reason why this movie feels really bloated is because there is also a good amount of screen time dedicated to things that doesn't matter at all until the sequels.  We have a lot of shit in which a wizard, named Radagast(who I didn't like how he was brought to life), discovers that a mysterious thing called the Necromancer, is infecting the animals/forests and commands an army of giant spiders.  This antagonist presence is established, discussed at length by Gandalf and returning cameos from Lord of the Rings and then immediately put aside and never heard from again.  It just simply doesn't have enough bearing on any further part of this first film's story.  All of these scenes with Radagast could have been better suited in the prologue of Desolation of Smaug, where they could have neatly started a plot that actually involves that character.  I might change my mind on this though depending on how Desolation of Smaug is done/structured though, but for now it bugs me.

 

Secondly, I really didn't like the way how a lot of this movie looked and how the action was handled.  Middle Earth looked really fake in this movie compared to Lord of the Rings.  It's because Peter Jackson abused the use of CGI and green screens.  There was just a lot of instances where it wasn't needed.  Also, cartoony video game action?  No thanks, when there is no sense of reality, there is no tension.  Also, bunny rabbit sled?

 

Despite these gripes, I don't hate this movie, there is definitely a good amount of stuff I like in it(which I don't feel like going through, sorry if this sounds just like such a negative rant because of that) and it had great performances from Ian McKellen as Gandalf and Martin Freeman as Bilbo.  There are people like to compare this or any other movie they were really looking forward to that they didn't like to TPM are honestly idiots and not worth having a discussion with.  TPM is a film that failed in almost every way imaginable.

 

Anyways, I hope Desolation of Smaug is better.

 

C/C+

Edited June 24, 2013 by Shpongle

[LexJoker]

A-

 

Enjoyed it. Thought only the start was drag, but it picks up. 

[Dilusha Bandara]

A-

 

Enjoyed it. Thought only the start was drag, but it picks up. 

Read the book?

Edited August 9, 2013 by The Joker

[Dilusha Bandara]

In terms of score, Hobbit is like MOS; really amazing theme, but most of the score feels like reused material from composer previous works.

Its re-mixed, but still its pretty much the same score form LOTR trilogy!

[Dilusha Bandara]

I give C- because PJ has mutated too much elements in the book, unlike LOTR trilogy. That's where everything went wrong! Due to his enormous reputation for LOTR trilogy, So he thought that everything what he did in this movie would be well praised by both critics and the audience. But unfortunately it didn't work for PJ! Pretty much similar thing happened for Shyamalan as well! He was self obsessed by the overwhelming success of The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable! PJ will never be a Shyamalan, but PJ needs to get into the right track! Honestly I lost all my anticipation for the next 2 movies after watching this! Still he can fix the errors, but not in DoS. If PJ really wants to fix some serious issues, TABA is his only chance!

Edited August 9, 2013 by The Joker

[4815162342]

In terms of score, Hobbit is like MOS; really amazing theme, but most of the score feels like reused material from composer previous works.

 

There's actually not that much re-used material outside of the Hobbit/Shire Motif, the Rivendell motif when they first see Rivendell, the very brief snippet of Galadriel's and Saruman's themes when they appear, and the Nazgul/Mordor motif for the Dol Guldur scene.

Edited August 9, 2013 by 4815162342

[Leyla]

A-

didnt feel it dragging at all at the beginning

the mountain stuff with trolls tho - it should have been cut a bit

tales in the dark was phenomenal!

but obv in comparison with LOTR TH pales

 

looking forward to Dos very much

[Dilusha Bandara]

A-

didnt feel it dragging at all at the beginning

the mountain stuff with trolls tho - it should have been cut a bit

tales in the dark was phenomenal!

but obv in comparison with LOTR TH pales

 

looking forward to Dos very much

DoS won't get any worse!   

[IndustriousAngel]

Now that I've seen the extended cut, I have the feeling this longer cut will stay my favourite. I tend to agree that some of the first part of "The Hobbit" is overlong and tedious (upon multiple viewing), but contrary to most, it's the action and running scenes that seem too long to me, and it's the close-ups, the dialogue, the intimate scenes where the movie finds its voice. And in the extended cut, we have more of these character scenes - sometimes it's just two or three additional lines in a scene, sometimes a whole new scene, but they're really nice ones!

 

My preferred cut would be this one, with action sequences trimmed down - the storm giant battle which does absolutely nothing to further the story could go as a whole (like the crumbling stairs in "Fellowship"); the troll battle and warg battle are too long, the running-from-wargs with Radagast is too long, the rollercoaster through goblin town is too long.

[TheMovieman]

I also saw the Extended Cut and my feelings actually didn't change one bit. The extra scene with the young Bilbo was nice but otherwise it still felt long and I couldn't care less about any of the characters and, especially, the plot.

 

***/*****, (C+, 6.1/10, 2.5/4)

 

Edit: Although I wasn't a fan of the movie, the bonus material is 9+ hours long and well worth checking out.

Edited November 1, 2013 by The Movieman

[4815162342]

Watched the EE earlier today. Most of the scenes gel well (particularly the extension of the Prologue explaining the Dwarf/Elf dislike and the scene with Gandalf/Elrond talking about Thorin's family's tendency to madness) but the scene with the Dwarves playing half-naked in a Rivendell fountain was wisely axed from the theatrical cut.

[IndustriousAngel]

Watched the EE earlier today. Most of the scenes gel well (particularly the extension of the Prologue explaining the Dwarf/Elf dislike and the scene with Gandalf/Elrond talking about Thorin's family's tendency to madness) but the scene with the Dwarves playing half-naked in a Rivendell fountain was wisely axed from the theatrical cut.

What du you mean by "half-naked"? You counting those beards as clothing?

[4815162342]

good to know you nitpick at the most inconsequential fragments of a post and not discuss anything substantive

[Goffe]

rewatched this tonight for the first time since I saw the film in the cinemas, it holds extremely well.

 

Good: 

Filled with very good moments and surprisingly the best moments were the quiet ones, I thought the first hour was the most enjoyable part of the movie, and while lighter and more kid friendly, it still hold some substance (at least more than the average blockbuster). Despite most dwarves being bland, there were some standouts, like the one that tried to convince Bilbo to stay when he was quietly leaving, quite moving. They really felt like a family. Martin Freeman was stupendously good as Bilbo. Loved  last scene with Samug and the score, while very recycled, it was very good.

 

Bad:

My biggest problem with the film was, how they managed to make some really terrible effects with Weta in charge and with a 250m budget? I mean, the wolfs looked New Moon bad. I also hated the unnecessary action (why we had the Stone Giants sequence again?) and it was really annoying how they were always saved in the last moment, that shit was getting absurd. The sense of danger was way too low, they could have killed a couple of dwarves. The climax was underwhelming, they aso could have killed that white orc and everything would improve. That Orc sequence inside the mountain couldn't be any more absurd, total lack of physics, overlong and looked like a video game.

 

 

B+ (80)

[Kalel009Shel]

Hobbit 2 is still one of the films I think that could break IM3's claim to be top law dog with its 1.2B WW.

And possibly break  CF as the domestic king with its estimated 440-460M domestic final tally.

 

 

Heh heh...Cant wait... I need to see the Hobbit 1 also . Cant believe I never got out to see it in 3D theaters

[Noctis]

Hobbit 2 is still one of the films I think that could break IM3's claim to be top law dog with its 1.2B WW.

And possibly break  CF as the domestic king with its estimated 440-460M domestic final tally.

 

 

Heh heh...Cant wait... I need to see the Hobbit 1 also . Cant believe I never got out to see it in 3D theaters

 

LOL. LOL. LOL.

 

God, I love that you haven't changed.