fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3349 ]

[ SECRET POST #3349 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3349 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[X/1999]

Notes:

Early today, places to go!

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 060 secrets from Secret Submission Post #479.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 2 - random memes with no secrets in them ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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What are your opinions on them now that enough time has gone by for all the hype/rage/squee to die down some?

Great cast, would have have been amazing as a single movie. If only.

Should've been only two movies

Cast was great

Liked that they developed the characterizations of the non-Thorin dwarves because the fact that they were so flat was the one thing I really didn't like from the books.

Liked that they went into the whole thing at Dol Guldur that was obliquely referenced in the books but not shown.

Galadriel A+++++++++

Hated all the padding and the pointlessly long fight scenes and the cringey bathroom humor

REALLY didn't have to squish so many characters that were in LoTR but not in the Hobbit book into the movies, just the council was enough

Fuck all the padding

Did I mention all the really crappy humor? I love humor, but that was 80% of the time such crappy out of place humor

I can agree to all of this tbh. I still enjoy the first movie and the second two have bits I like, but there is way too much padding that the films didn't need.

I don't remember the humour being so bad, but I also can't remember a lot of the jokes anyway so it probably didn't annoy me enough to make a lasting impression.

I used to agree with you about the liking the fact that they gave some characterization to the dwarves but now I feel it would've been better if they hadn't. Giving them distinct personalities for the actors is great, but it felt like they wanted to showcase each one and give them "moments" which ended up detracting from the characters we should've cared about. They shouldn't have given lines to any dwarf not named Thorin, Fili, Kili, or Balin. Maybe one other dwarf (Bombur or Dori) but no more than that.

I've talked to a lot of people who didn't read the book and any BTS stuff. None of them can tell the dwarves apart even after watching 3 movies. They know Thorin and Balin and Kili (but usually not by name for him). Nobody else. The story would've been served better if they'd had the dwarves but kept them in the background so the audience would know who they're supposed to be invested in. I feel like PJ got hung up on the minutia of the dwarves and lost the forest for the trees.

nayrt

Hmmm, I guess that's sort of true. (However, it would've been nice to perhaps elaborate on Gloin, being the father of Gimli who a lot of viewers would've known.)

Re: The Hobbit Movies

(Anonymous) - 2016-03-05 23:27 (UTC) - Expand

Re: The Hobbit Movies

(Anonymous) - 2016-03-05 23:26 (UTC) - Expand

I agree with this. Two movies would've been perfect, and if there was less focus on the elves and more on the dwarves, I think the films would've benefitted a lot.

I don't mind the Gandalf and Galadriel stuff, and I LOVED that the dwarves were given more personality, but so much of the last two films felt needlessly drawn out. Some of the action scenes dragged on forever, past the point of being fun. As someone who loves Legolas, I was not happy with his scenes and think he should've had a smaller role. I don't think we needed a romance (other then Thorin/Bilbo, heh), although I didn't loathe it... It just wasn't well written or explored enough, and it felt awkward.

The cast was absolutely fantastic, but the film would've been five times better if it had taken itself a bit more seriously and didn't have so much padding.

Mostly though, even though I think the first film is the only good one, I'm still glad these movies exist because Middle Earth is gorgeous, Bilbo/Thorin is wonderful, and the cast do the best they can with what they're given, which in moments is pretty impressive.

Agreed on all points. I hated most of the humor. Dramatic scenes were mostly on point, if sometimes drawn-out.

I also liked Thranduil for the most part. Legolas should've been cut.

As a fan of the book and Tolkien stuff in general, it was mostly really stupid and boring, with a small handful of REALLY good bits and scenes, some of which were actually even better than the book. I loved dwarves, and Thranduil in the 2nd movie.

It also made me ship Gandalf/Galadriel like crazy.

(I don't care that much about movies being faithful to the books, but I do care when movies are different from the books in crappy generic boring ways rather than fresh and interesting and creative ways.)

I think on average, it wildly exaggerated both the shitty/disappointing aspects and the notable strengths that were present in the LOTR movies, but the former much more so.

Decent cast for the most part, very disappointing production values, disappointing writing and plotting. There were some poor decisions made about how the pacing of the plot was broken up into three movies, especially the third.

As has been said, the cast was great.

I quite liked getting to see Bard's family and also Laketown being fleshed out like that.

I like that we got to see the battle instead of skipping over it like in the book, but it got pretty ridiculous (sand worms?).

Three movies was too much.

Legolas would have been perfect as a cameo, not as a gravity-defying main character whose face has been made to look weird to hide the actor aging.

I would have preferred a shorter/less silly barrel scene and no obstacle course through the old dwarven gold works with Smaug.

I feel the pacing is odd. There is almost enough for an entire (shorter) movie in Mirkwood and the Wood Elves alone. That sequence felt awfully rushed. I would have thought it would have flowed better if movie one one had ended just after Bilbo's escape with the ring, opened with the flight from the Wargs, then Beorn, Mirkwood, Laketown, and ended with arrival at the foot of the Mountain in movie two. Then keep the burglary, dragon attack on Laketown, and battle for the big finale movie. The movies would probably have to be a bit shorter, but the pacing would have been better.

I kind of hate them. There were some good points but the bad points ruin the good points for me.

I admit I do love the books but it's not a nostalgia thing for me because I didn't read them until I was in college. And, a good adaption can sell me on any changes to the book (LOTR managed that). But this wasn't a good adaption.

The films were a huge letdown. The only good music was the Misty Mountains theme; otherwise, it was all forgettable. The battle at the end was a mess; it was not engaging the way LOTR battles were. The Dol Guldur stuff was completely pointless and uninteresting (where it should've been awesome). The characterization was god-awful. I also really hate some of the production/character designs, which was one thing I really had to give them props for in the LOTR movies.

Also, the film completely lacked any depth, nuance, or greyness. All complexity was stripped from the characters and the situation in the book. Anything the filmmakers added to the film was really bad, where the parts from the book were the best parts, and the filmmakers added SO MUCH useless crap. And they made SO MANY references to LOTR that you couldn't get away from them. You couldn't let the Hobbit movies stand on their own even if you wanted to, and they definitely don't compare favorably. The worst part is that you can see a decent movie hiding in all of the dreck but it's just drowned in all the stupid stuff they added.

I mostly really didn't like the stuff that was in the movie that wasn't in the book (except for the little quiet character development scenes), but I actually really liked the Dol Guldur part, and I especially loved Galadriel (more than I did in the Lord of the Rings movies).

Waaaaaaaaaayyyyyy too many references to the Lord of the Rings. Apart from elaborating on the Necromancer and Dol Guldur stuff that pulled Gandalf away in the Hobbit book (partly because that would've been an actually GOOD way to tie it into LOTR, and because in the book it felt a bit weird for Gandalf to take off in the middle for an offscreen reason), none of it needed to be there at all. But they didn't even do the Dol Guldur part all that well either...

Ugh, yes. +Million

I was so looking forward to Dol Guldur. They could've done ANYTHING there. There's nothing in the books to constrain them. Really, the only thing they should care about is how Dol Guldur ties into the later LOTR films since it really doesn't tie into the Hobbit story.

But they did such a shitty job of it. It was completely thrown away in the movies themselves. Galadriel was on the floor during the battle, WTF. They completely wasted the opportunity to do something interesting with Saruman and the great Christopher Lee. The Nazgul are now introduced here so that it undermines Gandalf's surprise at them AND Sauron in LOTR. And Dol Guldur itself looked like all the other Sauron strongholds in LOTR. There was nothing visually interesting about it. It was just so poorly done. It wasn't even entertaining.

I have no idea why Legolas was in the movies at all. If they wanted to repeat the success of Legolas in having a hot elf to please the teenage girl fanbase, Lee Pace as Thranduil was definitely more than satisfactory.

I don't think it was for teenage fangirls. They're only a small percentage of the audience, so pandering to them doesn't make a whole lot of sense. If they were doing that, they would've put in Thranduil shirtless, or Thorin/Bilbo making out or Fili/Kili having an oddly intimate moment.

What DOES make sense (sort of, from a marketing point of view) is that Legolas is an established, recognizable character from a very, very successful trilogy in the same universe. THAT'S why he's there.

nayrt

Honestly, I think only a few scenes really qualify for the "so bad it's good"... like that sex scene in the pool where Nomi is thrashing around like a convulsing dolphin. THAT was freaking hilarious.

Re: The Hobbit Movies

(Anonymous) - 2016-03-06 05:23 (UTC) - Expand

Expanding the roles of Bard, the Master of Laketown, Legos was a bad idea and a waste of time, IMO. Adding in Alfrid for alleged comic relief was even worse.

Would love some Gandalf/Galadriel recs because that scene in the 1st movie was literally the only good new thing that PJ added to the story.

My opinion of them has lessened once the hype of being back in Middle Earth died down. I mostly dislike them apart from some bits. I loved the characters a lot (mostly Bilbo and Thorin and Gandalf and Smaug). I liked some bits (Smaug vs. Bilbo, everything in Dol Goldur, the White Council and all the stuff in Rivendell). But there was a lot I didn't like (the execution on Tauriel, the love triangle, Thranduil, the misunderstandings of elven and dwarf cultures, the substandard effects, etc.).

...were legit the greatest trailers I've ever seen. Especially the first one.

The movies themselves were sort of crap except a few bits (mostly, the bits that were in the trailers).

I liked the first movie, I felt it stuck to the original story more than the second two. Things started to slide in the second one and really crash by the third. What others have said - too much padding, removing canon pieces that would have been better than a lot of the pointless padding, too much interest in the Elves, too much Legolas, Tauriel's character falling down in the third movie to a useless Love Interest, too much stupid humour, too much Alfrid, not enough insight into dwarves other than Thorin, not enough Fíli in general (which may have been a fault of the late cast change).

I liked the potential the movies gave for AU plots, as quite a bit of RP Valandhir and I have played since DoS is all based on doing it better, with Silmarils included. (Really, we started one timeline based on the idea of it being Kizár who heals Kíli instead of Tauriel.)

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[ SECRET POST #3349 ]

The Hobbit Movies

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the movie trailers...

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