DoS extended edition recommendations

As long as the main lines of the plot are there and the characters are there, it can rightfully be called a true adaptation. You can't expect all of the details to be the same- BN

I can expect more than just places and names.
Bilbo is the best example of what is wrong because he is the supposed main character.
In the book his arc his clearly laid out. Its the point of the book. Something the author in the voice of narrator highlights to the reader at the start by posing the question of what did Bilbo learn from his adventures.
At the start he has to be literally shoved out his own front door and the dwarves don't want him and think he is a waste of time and space.
At the trolls Bilbo decides he has had enough of the dwarves attitude and he is going to prove his worth by pickpocketing one of the trolls. He fails and gets everyone caught. They all need rescued by Gandalf.
Bilbo begins to get an inkling of the potential danger on this adventure and takes Sting from the hoard.
The next time they get caught by the goblins in the mountain cave. Again they al need rescuing. But this time Bilbo gets left behind and needs to fend for himself in a scary place for the first time.
He does and escapes, and impresses the dwarves twice. First by sneaking by their guard using the Ring, and secondly to confessing to having done so.
They are then captured again in MIrkwood by the spiders. This time it is Bilbo who rescues all of them and where he makes his first kill of a living thing, and he completes this winning of the dwarves respect by planning and executing the escape from the Elves.
Bilbo has now become the de facto leader of the company to who the the dwarves turn to rather than Thorin.

That is the book up to where the films are now.
The films however dont have any of this character arc or development form the book.
In the film Bilbo chooses to go n the quest willingly from the very beginning.
At the trolls Bilbo has nothing to prove to the dwarves and is not motivated hen any other urge than to free some ponies.
He then gives the terrible anachronistic sounding 'comedy' speech about parasites to buy the time for Gandalf to act and rescue them.
This undermines the whole point of them needing rescued. It demonstrates that they are not ready for what lies ahead and they lack a strong leader, the role Bilbo will eventually take, but not in PJ's.
Nor does film Bilbo take Sting because he is getting a deeper understanding of the perils, he has to have it forced on him by Gandalf.
In the goblin cave Bilbo doesn't even get to see the Great Goblin in the films, he instead gets in a fight with a goblin and inadvertently makes his first kill here.
In the films Bilbo save Thorin's life and kills a warg and another goblin before they even get to Beorns. He earns Thorins respect and a big hug and smiles of approval and acceptance from all the dwarves. His book arc has been condensed out of all recognition by the end of film one and is over.
In Mirkwood in the film Bilbo does kill a spider, but its just another kill, it has lost all ts character moment significance from the book. And PJ is more interested in showing Bilbo going ape shit over the Ring.
Bilbo rescues the dwarves, but there is no significance to it as he no longer needs to still win their acceptance and approval, the company are not slowly turning from Thorin for plans but to Bilbo as they do in the book. And there is no new stuff to fill the gap left by completing Bilbo's arc in film one.
Im fact there is no real development between Thorin and Bilbo in DOS.
And there is very good reason for that which brings me onto to-

' Every decision Peter Jackson and his crew make, are well thought out.'

A big reason there is no real character development in DOS for Bilbo and Thorin and the dwarves relationship is the haphazard way the films were made.
The bulk of the footage for DOS in which Thorin and Bilbo feature was already shot when they decided to go to a trilogy.
They reshot the end of AUJ to make it feel like it had some closure in itself narratively. But this meant that the massive changes made- Bilbo saving Thorin and being accepted by the dwarves, were not reflected in the footage already shot for DOS, as neither the director, writers or actors knew AUJ would have this new later ending.

This is not well thought out. It is a last minute decision having large ramifications for the plotting and character development, made on the hoof, and having to be spliced together with previous footage already filmed not intended to be in that context.


'Peter Jackson and his co-writers have made the Hobbot story much more coherent than it ever was in the book'

The book is simply structured and told. It is a very coherent tale with clearly marked out and developed character and narrative structure and a simple premise.
The films veer all over the place. Its tone is erratic, at turns it tries to  be dark, epic, adult like LotR's and at the same time presents laughable cartoon action sequences such as in goblin town or the barrels.

In fact goblin town is a good example of where PJ gets the tone horribly off. In the book this part is dark, claustrophobic, frightening and dangerous. In the film its wide open, well lit and comedic.

Or the trolls scene which in the book has a humorous juxtaposition between the trolls punning and their genuine menace and in the film its snot gags and arse scratching jokes. There is even a comedy 'bonk' sound effect when one troll hits the other on the head with a ladle.
But the main problem with the structure is the that the threads are all separate from one another and the attempts to make them effect each other meaningfully fall flat or are horribly stretched.

We have the story of Bilbo going on his adventure and becoming the Bilbo we know at the start of fotr- thats the only story in the book, everything else happens around that- you have the story of Thorin reclaiming his home land for his people from the dragon, trying to reclaim the Arkenstone to reunite his people, searching for his father, and trying not to succumb to the dragon sickness, we have Azog pursuing Thorin for personal vegenenace but also working for the Necromancer as is Bolg, and we have Gandalf and the WC investigating Dol Guldur and the Necromancer and all the Radagast stuff too.
And the film gives to much importance to the wrong bits, it overemphasis and invents material for the Necromancer and Thorin stuff that has nothing to do with TH or with Bilbo. He phases out and becomes a grey area in his own film with the viewer never certain where their viewpoint should be, or whose story they are watching.

'But what Tolkien wrote in the Appendices of LOTR gave Peter Jackson the material to give the adventures of Bilbo more significance in terms of the fate of Middle Earth and let Sauron have some influence on the enemies, that Bilbo and the dwarves encountered'

The quotes you give don't even come close to justifying the change PJ made to them and their meaning. Not even at a stretch can the claim be made that Pj included the appendices material. He included some names and places and sort of the events in the broadest sense. But he invented the vast bulk of it, you will not find a word of the battle between dwarves and orcs in the appendices as it was shown in the film, beyond the place names and some character names and the fact a battle happened there. That's all PJ used. Everything else he invented, the battles events, who was at it, who died at it, who survived it, all invented.

The Nazgul tombs and the morgul blade and Radagasts role, all significant parts of the films, all pure invention. None of it happens in Tolkien. The tombs contradict the activities of the Nazgul during this period as Tolkien set it out. There are no Nazgul tombs, no mysterious men of the north who could entomb them.
This is not adaptation. Its invention.

'I think, the dialogue and the execution of is superb, as it always is Jackson's Middle Earth movies.'

I think Tolkien dialogue is excellent. PJ and co don't, which presumably explains why in LotR's and especially Th they avoid it where ever possible. I cringe when I here lines like Legolas' "Why doesn't that surprise me' in FotR for all it smodern out of placeness. Its a sentence struture Tolkien would never have used. And TH is nearly all invented dialogue.
And for those of us who enjoy Tolkien's dialogue for its structure as much as for its beauty to see the way PJ and co butcher it and modernise it and alter it is often painful.

I have sighted some examples of where I think the dialogue is particularly poor- troll scene, the WC but I could add many more- the conversation at the table in Bag End with all the dwarves, which PJ doesnt seem to know what to do with so just has everything break down into everyone shouting every few minutes for his drama. But there are plenty of examples. Almost everything that comes out of Legolas mouth for a start. Almost nothing that comes of Beorns mouth is not exposition.

'so one single joke, that you don't like, makes all of the dialogue in the rest of the movie "cringe worthy"?'

No almost all the jokes. PJ's sense of humour, which is lavatorial and OTT is completely at dds with Tolkiens and the books gentler humour which is often word play and social etiquette based.
The troll scene is good example as in the book the trolls dialogue is witty and clever without ever making the trolls seem witty or clever. In the film its a base humour, reliant on copious amounts of snot and characters burbing, farting or saying gross things for its humour. The two could not be more different in style or execution.


'Whenever Bilbo is around, we see everything through HIS eyes'

There is the problem. When he is about. He is only about for his story, which in the book was all of it, but in the films is less than half of the running time, only one story out of the three being told (four if you count the Azog/Bolg line as a separate story too).
And at those odds he invariable becomes out of focus as the films lead character and as the main focus of attention.

Have you read Jim Wight's book "The real James Herriot - a memoir of my father"? It's a really good and very interesting book- BN

No, I will have to keep an eye out for it though. Thanks.
Did you ever see the BBC drama based on the real Herriots time at Glasgow Veterinary College? I think it was just called Young James Herriot.

BN.filmz wrote:

Who on (Middle) earth cares if it's a CGI bear?! As long as it looks real, which it does, it doesn't matter if it's CGI and some unknown type of bear, that they caught in the middle of Alaska.

Anyhow, I think the "CGI bear chasing the company" scene established Beorn as a very dangerous and impressive creature, and that makes the scene above more intense and funnier.

OK, I'm trying to stay with you're thinking here BN, but this is where you lose me.

I live on a farm in Washington State with bears around me all my life. I can tell one from another at a distance in the way most people can tell their own dog from a stranger's dog.

So I just have to say, it's not just the shape of the CGI bear that's silly (which it is). It's the way the thing moves. It's ridiculous, and not in a funny way. There are men in bear costumes who have mastered the art of moving like a bear far better than this.

For me it would have been both more intense and funnier, as you say, if they'd gotten a good actor in a bear suit to chase them. Or better yet a trained bear, inter-cutting the shots with CGI like they did with the animals in Life of Pi. That was good use of CGI.

Bear-Beorn on the other hand looked to me like a badly conceived cartoon created by people who didn't understand the thing they were drawing, and it forced me into disbelief when I really wanted to like what I was seeing. To me, that's bad storytelling. I understand that you liked the bear, but I hope you understand why I didn't.

BN.filmz wrote:

Eldorion wrote:I can't really agree with that.  There are too many flaws in TH that can be seen in putative form in LOTR to consider them so separately.  Although TH certainly introduced a lot of its own flaws.

I can almost hear the strings playing sad music to accompany the big catastrophe, that this guy from New Zealand has caused.

Well, to quote Christopher Tolkien..

"They eviscerated the book by making it an action movie for young people aged 15 to 25," Christopher says regretfully. "And it seems that The Hobbit will be the same kind of film."

“Tolkien has become a monster, devoured by his own popularity and absorbed into the absurdity of our time. The chasm between the beauty and seriousness of the work, and what it has become, has overwhelmed me. The commercialization has reduced the aesthetic and philosophical impact of the creation to nothing. There is only one solution for me: to turn my head away.”

Sinister71 wrote:

did you forget about Beorn chasing the dwarfs into his home?

Do you consider that to be action? A funny scene with a bit of running? Okay, I'll buy that. 6 scenes, then.

there are way more than 5 action sequences.

No, there are 6 of them.

the dwarfs trying to steal weapons in Laketown and getting caught

is that an action scene? ... No, it's not. There's a little tension: Kili falls down the stairs, and then the town's soldiers point their weapons at the company. That's all.

bard being chased around by the masters guards

That's a bit of a stretch, I think. But allright: I consider it to be a part of the Laketown action, which I have already included.

But my point is: even if you include the funny running scene and Bard playing cat and mouse with the master's men, there are still only 50 minutes of action and 100 minutes (twice as much!) with calm scenes and character scenes.

We feel had he stuck to Tolkien and merely embellished it, while keeping it more based in realism the films would have been much better.

Sorry, but you're not making sense here: You want realisme from an adventure that's filled with talking animals (eagles, birds, spiders and a dragon), trolls, wizards among other things? There is a reason why The Lord of the Rings has a more realistic feel, and that's the removal of all those talking animals + the fact they noones escape in barrels and things like that. ... The book 'The Hobbit' does change it's tone along the way; things get more dark and serious - and that's also what's going to happen in the third Hobbit movie.

I mean my opinion is they can't get much worse.

So they are actually some of the worst movies that you've ever seen?

Well, I think, we must conclude, that reading a book sometimes destroys some people's ability to assess a film's qualities in an unbiased way.

the Hobbit films ..... will not stand the test of time

Where did you buy your time machine? I want one, too.  

Considering the fact that the Hobbit movies have millions of fans throughout the world, I think, that your prophecy will fail. But only time will tell.

BUT in Bilbos time it was not the same evil thing only a physical shell

The "Mine!" scene in 'The Desolation of Smaug' is justified by Gandalf's statement in the LOTR chapter "The Shadow of the Past":

"Clearly the ring had an unwholesome power that set to work on its keeper at once."

Not months or years or even decades later. No, "at once".

But movie Bilbo still doesn't know, that it's the Ring that affects his temper. Since he doesn't know anything about the Ring's master, his thoughts are the same as described in the before-mentioned LOTR chapter: "if anything was wrong or queer, it was himself. ..... He was always worrying about it, but he did not suspect that the ring itself was to blame."

Bluebottle wrote:

BN.filmz wrote:

Eldorion wrote:I can't really agree with that.  There are too many flaws in TH that can be seen in putative form in LOTR to consider them so separately.  Although TH certainly introduced a lot of its own flaws.

I can almost hear the strings playing sad music to accompany the big catastrophe, that this guy from New Zealand has caused.

Well, to quote Christopher Tolkien..

"They eviscerated the book by making it an action movie for young people aged 15 to 25," Christopher says regretfully. "And it seems that The Hobbit will be the same kind of film."

“Tolkien has become a monster, devoured by his own popularity and absorbed into the absurdity of our time. The chasm between the beauty and seriousness of the work, and what it has become, has overwhelmed me. The commercialization has reduced the aesthetic and philosophical impact of the creation to nothing. There is only one solution for me: to turn my head away.”

A statement from a person, that has never seen any of the movies, is worthless.

Royd Tolkien is more reasonable, when it comes to comparing the movies with the books.

The "Mine!" scene in 'The Desolation of Smaug' is justified by Gandalf's statement in the LOTR chapter "The Shadow of the Past":- BN

No it doesn't. Thats in reference to Bilbo's initial lie about how he came by the Ring. Something PJ has left out of Th film. Which is typical, the one thing that could be in there, thats genuinely from the book connecting the evil of the Ring with TH and FotR, and PJ leaves it out in favour of his own made up version of events that lacks all the books subtly of story telling.

David H wrote:

BN.filmz wrote:

Who on (Middle) earth cares if it's a CGI bear?! As long as it looks real, which it does, it doesn't matter if it's CGI and some unknown type of bear, that they caught in the middle of Alaska.

Anyhow, I think the "CGI bear chasing the company" scene established Beorn as a very dangerous and impressive creature, and that makes the scene above more intense and funnier.

OK, I'm trying to stay with you're thinking here BN, but this is where you lose me.  

I live on a farm in Washington State with bears around me all my life. I can tell one from another at a distance in the way most people can tell their own dog from a stranger's dog.

So I just have to say, it's not just the shape of the CGI bear that's silly (which it is). It's the way the thing moves. It's ridiculous, and not in a funny way. There are men in bear costumes who have mastered the art of moving like a bear far better than this.  

For me it would have been both more intense and funnier, as you say, if they'd gotten a good actor in a bear suit to chase them.  Or better yet a trained bear, inter-cutting the shots with CGI like they did with the animals in Life of Pi.  That was good use of CGI.  

Bear-Beorn on the other hand looked to me like a badly conceived cartoon created by people who didn't understand the thing they were drawing, and it forced me into disbelief when I really wanted to like what I was seeing. To me, that's bad storytelling. I understand that you liked the bear, but I hope you understand why I didn't.

Are you kidding me? I didn't say, it looked like one of the bears, that exist in the real world. I never expected that kind of a bear. No, when I talk about CGI creatures that looks "real" in a fantasy movie, I just mean, that it looks like they are really there together with the actors.

Besides that, I will wait for the DVD and watch the behind the camera-stuff to see, how they created the bear and its movements.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:The "Mine!" scene in 'The Desolation of Smaug' is justified by Gandalf's statement in the LOTR chapter "The Shadow of the Past":- BN

Thats in reference to Bilbo's initial lie about how he came by the Ring.

Yes, in the books. But that sentence spoken by Gandalf generally justifies any thinkable scene, where Bilbo does something he normally wouldn't do. And thus it supports the "Mine!" scene.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Have you read Jim Wight's book "The real James Herriot - a memoir of my father"? It's a really good and very interesting book- BN


Did you ever see the BBC drama based on the real Herriots time at Glasgow Veterinary College? I think it was just called Young James Herriot.

No, I didn't. Is it out on dvd/blu-ray? And is it good?

BN.filmz wrote:

Besides that, what do YOU consider to be a "real location". They built big set pieces for many scenes (Bagend, Beorn's house, Laketown and so on), and they went to many different locations in New Zealand. So it's not all green screen, you know.  

Of course I know that. Those are some of the scenes that I liked best in TH. The eagles soaring over a rugged real landscape, for example.

I wonder, why some people suddenly are making a big deal out Jackson's use of green screen in the Hobbit movies. He used the same technique in LOTR.

[/quote]
Speaking only for myself, it's not the technique that's the problem, it's how much less effectively it's blended with all the other techniques at the director and editor's disposal. I suspect that the new demands of 3D meant that some very effective tools like forced perspective, matte paintings and miniatures were used less often and less effectively. The result to my eye is often more jarring. I'm not trying to make "a big deal". I'm just stating my observations and opinion because you asked.

'But that sentence spoken by Gandalf generally justifies any thinkable scene'- BN

But thats the problem. If you do that with almost everything in the book; change it, use it to justify something completely invented, then eventually there isn't much of the book left. And thats exactly what Pj has done.


'And is it good?'

I enjoyed it, but I wouldn't say it was outstanding. Like the books its quite gentle really. Its an odd so of mix of his real life story but presented in the fashion of his stories from the books.

Any other time Id say my wrist has been well & truly slapped, but it is not that time.
Just goes to prove what a wonderfully varied & colourful world we live in when we can have such diverse thinking & discussions I, for one, might just learn something from it. Who knows ? But, if I simply refuse point blank to budge in any of my senseless, ungrounded views then all I can admit to is being thoroughly small minded & blinkered. Not a good place to be. I may have to go back over these films & see them as unemotionally as I can, see if my opinions alter ? Might you know ?

BN.filmz wrote:



Are you kidding me? I didn't say, it looked like one of the bears, that exist in the real world. I never expected that kind of a bear. No, when I talk about CGI creatures that looks "real" in a fantasy movie, I just mean, that it looks like they are really there together with the actors.

Besides that, I will wait for the DVD and watch the behind the camera-stuff to see, how they created the bear and its movements.

No BN, I'm not kidding you. For me, if it's going to be called a bear, it would be nice if it looked something like a bear, if only for the story telling. If you have to wait for the DVD extras to be comfortable with a scene, that for me would be bad story telling.

BN.filmz wrote:

Bluebottle wrote:

BN.filmz wrote:

Eldorion wrote:I can't really agree with that.  There are too many flaws in TH that can be seen in putative form in LOTR to consider them so separately.  Although TH certainly introduced a lot of its own flaws.

I can almost hear the strings playing sad music to accompany the big catastrophe, that this guy from New Zealand has caused.

Well, to quote Christopher Tolkien..

"They eviscerated the book by making it an action movie for young people aged 15 to 25," Christopher says regretfully. "And it seems that The Hobbit will be the same kind of film."

“Tolkien has become a monster, devoured by his own popularity and absorbed into the absurdity of our time. The chasm between the beauty and seriousness of the work, and what it has become, has overwhelmed me. The commercialization has reduced the aesthetic and philosophical impact of the creation to nothing. There is only one solution for me: to turn my head away.”

A statement from a person, that has never seen any of the movies, is worthless.

Royd Tolkien is more reasonable, when it comes to comparing the movies with the books.

I don't think Christopher Tolkien has ever stated publicly whether he has seen the films or not (the main reason the Tolkien Estate didn't want any involvement in the LOTR films (besides having no official say in the matter), was down to them not wanting to 'endorse' them, after all Tolkien is sadly no longer around to share his views, though we can guess them) though I have heard from more than one reputable source that he had (apparently) seen at least the first film (which may well have been enough for him to sway his judgement, if he felt Jackson did a poor job the first time round why would he feel any better this time?), it may simply be that he is to close to the source material (which has essentially spent his entirely life growing up with) to offer a unbiased opinion (though he did have some involvement in the 1981 BBC Radio series I think), frankly given his position as literary executor and head of the board of the Tolkien Estate I wouldn't want him to less than strong opinions (which more likely that not would be similar to his fathers), but I'm still not entirely sure whether it was wise to share them.

Royd Tolkien on the other hand, is a much younger man (who has worked in the film industry), with no say or role in the way the Tolkien Estate is governed so he can afford to publicly offer his opinions, opinions which aren't clouded by the unique responsibilities Christopher Tolkien has, and are perhaps more subjective.

I don't want to just rehash what others have said, but there were a few things that jumped out at me over the last couple pages.

BN.filmz wrote:No, they don't, and no they are not. ... Every decision Peter Jackson and his crew make, are well thought out. He's not a superficial person, but someone who discusses things with his co-writers and the rest of his team. He thinks things over, he tries out ideas and suggestions. In interviews on the internet and in all of the behind the camera-stuff, that you will find on the extended editions, there's sufficient evidence that he never rushes through things, and especially not things that concern the story and the characters.

For someone who later in this same posts criticizes Petty for over-generalizing, this is a pretty bizarre statement.  Watching the EE documentaries, it's evident that a lot of the choices they made while filming were made on-the-go, at the last minute, without a chance to really think them through.  And with LOTR especially, it's clear that post-production was a mad dash to the finish line.  One random example that comes to mind is how PJ called his model team during their end-of-post party and told them to go back and get one more shot of the Orthanc miniature.  There was a lot of barely-organized chaos in the production, and plenty of rushing.  Now clearly, a lot of things turned out really great despite that, but suggesting that PJ is some master of careful planning and deliberate execution just isn't true (despite his numerous talents as a filmmaker, which I would be silly to deny, despite not being fond of his last several movies).

I disagree. Peter Jackson and his co-writers have made the Hobbot story much more coherent than it ever was in the book. The book is too episodic with new characters and creatures coming and going all the time, instead of having at least SOME recurring bad guys throughout the story. But what Tolkien wrote in the Appendices of LOTR gave Peter Jackson the material to give the adventures of Bilbo more significance in terms of the fate of Middle Earth and let Sauron have some influence on the enemies, that Bilbo and the dwarves encountered:

That depends mainly on your definition of coherent.  If you have an aversion to episodic storytelling, then I can understand why you would approve of many of the changes PJ made.  But I think a lot of the changes PJ introduced just didn't make much sense, such as the Dwarves being willing to abandon the Quest at the very threshold of Erebor just for the sake of a contrived bit of drama that even people who had never read the books could tell wouldn't amount to anything.  Also, the quotes you give from the Appendices deal with the events of the War of the Ring and things that Gandalf feared might potentially happen if Smaug continued to control Erebor. The idea that Sauron was actively pulling the strings throughout the Quest has no basis in Tolkien's writings, and actively "shrinks" the world by reducing the number of players and downplaying anything that does not drive directly towards the LOTR endgame.

The Hobbit movies are always clear about, who the main character is. Whenever Bilbo is around, we see everything through HIS eyes; not literally but through his reactions. But the fact that Bilbo is the main character, doesn't mean, that there aren't any other protagonists. No, there's also Gandalf and - to some degree - the dwarves. Some have said, that Thorin is the main character in 'The Desolation of Smaug', but actually we're never with Thorin the same way we're with Bilbo, because we don't always know where we've got Thorin. He is often silent, and most of the time he's reserved and grumpy. He is being unreasonable towards the elves (because of past events), and he often argues with Gandalf. And last but not least: he's not always being kind to Bilbo. We like him, but we don't sympathize with him the same way we do with Bilbo and Gandalf - no, we have our reservations about him. There's no way that he could ever be the main character.  

That's a rather strange definition of main character, especially in this day and age when morally ambiguous anti-heroes are all the rage.  It is Thorin's decisions, Thorin's backstory, and Thorin's motivations that drive most of the plot.  Bilbo's primary role in the films -- after deciding to join the Company -- is as a helper of this main plot, with the big exception being his encounter with Gollum.  This is to some extent true in the book, where Thorin is definitely the deuteragonist, but his increased prominence in the film and the screentime devoted to exploring his character edges him up to at the very least co-main character status with Bilbo (sorta like Frodo and Aragorn were in LOTR, especially the latter two films).

BN.filmz wrote:Yes, in the books. But that sentence spoken by Gandalf generally justifies any thinkable scene, where Bilbo does something he normally wouldn't do. And thus it supports the "Mine!" scene.

I just want to highlight this quote in its own post because of how confusing I find the reasoning. In what logical framework does the Ring's immediate unwholesome influence mean that it can cause the wearer to do absolutely anything, no matter how out of character, in a very short period of time? Not only is this a massive logical jump, but it's inconsistent with the effects of the Ring in both the books and in the LOTR films, where it's power and influence over the wearer grows greater with time. People who carry the Ring only briefly, like Sam (or Bilbo at the time he's in Mirkwood) are only slightly effected, whereas Frodo by the time he reaches Mount Doom or especially Gollum can become dominated by its effects.

Well, clearly they are close to Sauron in Doggle Door while they are in Mirkwood. This amplifies the Ring's powers by 5 fold, making any attempt to resist it's pull nearly impossible unless the characters base morality is higher than the total of the D-20 roll added to the Ring's amplified strength.

{{{I know nothing about D&D}}}

BN.filmz wrote:

bungobaggins wrote:Bard: Hey Bragga.

(Bard holds up woman's undershirt.)

Bard: Your wife would look lovely in this.

Bragga: What do you know of my wife?

Bard: I know her as well as any man in this town.

That's not a "sexual joke" - it's a criticism of his wife's lack of ethics. Do you see Bard laugh at him or even smile?

It's a veiled sexual joke. He's not laughing or smiling because the whole time he's thinking, "Oh, shit. I hope they don't find the dwarves."

BN.filmz wrote:

Besides that, what do YOU consider to be a "real location". They built big set pieces for many scenes (Bagend, Beorn's house, Laketown and so on), and they went to many different locations in New Zealand. So it's not all green screen, you know.

I wonder, why some people suddenly are making a big deal out Jackson's use of green screen in the Hobbit movies. He used the same technique in LOTR. Most of the scenes with Gandalf and Bilbo in Bagend plus the ones with Gandalf and Frodo (almost every scene where you see both faces or where they are walking or standing) were done exactly the same way. They also used forced perspective, but only for a very few shots.

They may have used real locations but you would be forgiven for thinking they are mostly greenscreen they are so digitally altered and colour graded to be almost unrecognizable as a real landscape. Also the great sets they built for TH are onscreen for miniscule moments, you dont have time to take in the details so they are pointless. PJ may have used some greenscreen in LOTR but it is SUBTLE, it doesnt look plastic and fake. The irony is that the computer wizardry is less effective now than 10 years ago as regards the wargs for example or the size of the various races. Thorin just looks downright weird in the Prancing Pony, its not good and its not believable and it takes me out of the film. Oddly in LOTR I never noticed the big/small characters at all it looked organic and real.

'Tis the Second Coming of Gandalf's Beard

BN.filmz wrote:

I disagree. Peter Jackson and his co-writers have made the Hobbot story much more coherent than it ever was in the book. The book is too episodic with new characters and creatures coming and going all the time, instead of having at least SOME recurring bad guys throughout the story. But what Tolkien wrote in the Appendices of LOTR gave Peter Jackson the material to give the adventures of Bilbo more significance in terms of the fate of Middle Earth and let Sauron have some influence on the enemies, that Bilbo and the dwarves encountered:
 

I disagree. The Hobbit films are now a complete mess with mindboggling switcheroos every 5 minutes, people popping up hundreds of miles away from where they were minutes ago, confusing us Beyond Belief, its all a hideous mess. They have discarded the episodic chapters in favour of a load of invented and overblown action scenes which dont add anything to the characters development but turns them into little more than plastic action figures to be thrown around. I also disagree that there are new characters coming and going ALL the time. Thats just not true, there are secondary characters like in most fiction, they are essential to move the story forward, like the Eagles, Beorn, or Gollum, these characters come and go in the films too but with much less meaning or charm than in the book. The appendices are just a convenient excuse to blow up the films into a bloated trilogy.

Ringdrotten wrote:'Tis the Second Coming of Gandalf's Beard

True!

Sinister71 wrote:

ABOUT DAMN TIME!!! finally something from the book done halfway decent, Beorn still looks like shit though

yeah that is ok but as you said Beorn looks rubbish, and quite fake acting imo. It all hinges on Sir Ians great acting because Bilbo was blank faced through out.

malickfan wrote:

BN.filmz wrote:"someone who loved the source material"? ... So you're able to conclude,  that Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Guillermo del Toro don't love the source material, just because they have not made ​​the films the way you want it?? I think it's more a case of doubting how much faifth they had in the book, due to the amount of changes and fabrications by the screenwriters.

That's one of the most unfounded and unfair allegations I've ever seen, when it comes to Peter Jackson's adaptation of 'The Hobbit'.

Firstly, welcome to Forumshire!   It's nice to see a fan of the film's post here,  It's always great to get another viewpoint, and see new people posting.

Thank you very much!  

I've got to ask you: Does your nickname "malickfan" mean, that you're a fan of Terrence Malick, cause in that case I should probably mention, that 'The Tree of Life' is my favourite movie, it's number 1 on my personal top list of movies.

The impression I personally have got from Jackson is that he loves some of the source material,  he seemed very enthusiastic about The Lord of The Rings, but  every-time I have seen an interview with him in regards to The Hobbit,  he is either downplaying the book's tone/genesis or recepetion in the fanbase, or exagerating the degree to which Tolkien planned to 'rewrite' the book and it's connection to Lord of The Rings

That's only natural, bearing in mind that he made The Lord of the Rings trilogy first. He just wanted The Hobbit to fit the style and tone of The Lord of the Rings.

Actually it's pretty much the same thing that happened, when Tolkien himself had written The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien retrospectively wanted to give the events in 'The Hobbit' more significance in terms of the fate of Middle Earth, som he went back and changed the chapter "Riddles in the Dark" and also wanted to re-write the whole book. He didn't finished the latter project, but in the Appendices of The Lord of the Rings he adds a lot of depth and background to 'The Hobbit'. In fact he also shed new light on Bilbo's ring and the necromancer in the chapters "The Shadow of the Past" and "Council of Elrond" . ... As a result, anyone who knows Tolkien's works, will always think of Sauron when they read about "the necromancer", and the will think of Thranduil when they read about "the Elven King". And they won't regard the Ring as just an innocent and helpful magical ring, but as the One Ring made by the evil Lord Sauron.

You always have to remember, that Tolkien took comfort in the following fact:

"the tone and style change with the Hobbit’s development, passing from fairy-tale to the noble and high and relapsing with the return." - J.R.R. Tolkien (Letter to Milton Waldman)

And he's right: As we go along things get darker and more serious in 'The Hobbit'.

Some Tolkien fans seem to think, that he didn't finish the re-written version of his book because he was pleased with it. But he wasn't. In his Letter to Milton Waldman he said:

"The generally different tone and style of The Hobbit is due, in point of genesis, to it being taken by me as a matter from the great cycle susceptible of treatment as a "fairy-story", for children. Some of the details of tone and treatment are, I now think, even on that basis, mistaken."

personally I never really got why people get so excited about seeing the appendices adapted-there's barely a dozen pages that actually connect to The Hobbit, and a lot of it is vague notes).

You could say the same thing about

Spoiler:

I never really felt like he would be the type of filmaker Tolkien would approved of.

As far I know NOONE would ever have been approved by Tolkien.