fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2189 ]

[ SECRET POST #2189 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2189 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 084 secrets from Secret Submission Post #313.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 2 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 2 - posted twice ].
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So I just saw the Hobbit: why all the hate from critics? Sure it was slow and ponderous and a bit repetitive, but so were all of the other LotR movies. Is it selective amnesia?

Or is it just the bellyaching about the 48 fps? I went to a showing where they used that framerate and while yes, of course it looked different, and a bit more like videogames (as most of them are in 30-48, sometimes even 60 fps) the textures were incredible. Much more lifelike. This is definitely where movies are headed.

Goddamnit, olds.

They miss Aragorn.

Oh, Viggo Mortensen, you are the man who launched a million man-crushes.

Seriously, though. I don't get it either. I loved it. It's one of those movies that you have to watch it in a theater to get just how stunning it really is. You can't wait until it hits the dvds.

Now Viggo Mortensen is most definitely a fine male specimen and all, but surely Richard Armitage launched a few man-crushes of his own?

I don't get it. Every review is heaping praise on all of the performances, but wah wah the special effects are so distracting it gets a negative score? What the heck, people.

Armitage is hot. No doubt. But Mortensen just seems bad ass on and off the screen. Like this quiet, cool that goes beyond looks. Strange enough, their characters fitted this difference too.

Thorin has a chip on his shoulder that Aragorn did not have. That could rub people the wrong way. Both were exiled princes but only Thorin seemed to have a bitterness and arrogance. Aragorn was more, "Yeah, yeah, I come from not just a royal bloodline but the royal bloodline of Man. But you know what? Screw it, I am happy to be Strider, a Ranger. Now, if you excuse me. I gotta go kill some Orcs. And do so without messing my hair."

Bah, character flaws to overcome just make Thorin hotter. One thing I never cared for about Aragorn, on screen or in the books, is that he seemed to have very little to overcome aside from some angst about fulfilling his awesome destiny of awesome as the king of awesome. Thorin's got some real prejudices and a bad attitude.

That being said, we do not yet know if he's got Aragorn's abs. That could be a deal-breaker.

/queues up Eastern Promises >>

But Mortensen just seems bad ass on and off the screen. Like this quiet, cool that goes beyond looks.

he's a respected, critically acclaimed, legitimate Actor receiver of multiple prestigious awards. EASTERN PROMISES.

he's the second best main (so excluding beloved cate blanchett) actor in the lotr trilog bar only mckellen.

i love armitage, but he's not going to quite fill the aragorn (+boromir amalgamation) shoes. and freeman doesn't have leading man gravitas.

Thing is, it doesn't matter how well respected the actors is. You can't drop in some other just as respected actors into the part of Aragorn and not get that magic you got with Viggo. Would Aragorn have been the same if he had been played by someone like Daniel Day Lewis? Or Liam Neeson? Or Ralph Fiennes. All of them are Oscar winners and are acclaimed. I doubt it.

Viggo was the perfect actor for Aragorn. He gave Aragorn the right attitude that connected with millions across the globe.

(no subject)

brooms - 2012-12-31 00:50 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

tabaqui - 2012-12-31 03:00 (UTC) - Expand

Richard Armitage and Martin Freeman were actually sort of attractive in this. Not too much, though.

I think they felt they had to make the dwarves more attractive in this movie because more of the important characters were dwarves. When there was only one main dwarf character, it was fine to have him look all dwarfy, but you can't have most of the major characters in the movie looking like Gimli.

I don't think they were wrong in that call, either. There's nothing in LotR canon that states dwarves are necessarily ugly, after all. And plenty of stocky dudes with beards are hot. Thorin needed to be striking and charismatic, and they definitely did a good job with that.

I recall being in highschool and two friends getting into an argument over who was hotter, Viggo or Orlando. They wanted me to choose so one of them could "win"

I hadn't come out yet, so I just said Aragorn because he was my favourite in the books

:S

it was poorly edited and no, the lotr trilogy wasn't this clunkily paced.

eta: also, mortensen's presence is missed not just because he's a hot dude, but because he's a superior actor with gravitas. armitage and freeman are good, but not that good.

Edited 2012-12-31 00:06 (UTC)

I don't know, a lot of the reviews of the original trilogy criticized precisely that aspect. They were overlong, repetitive, with too much walking and chasing. Particularly Fellowship. For critics to have not gotten the point that that was how Jackson intends to tell the story is... interesting.

I disagree. I think Armitage was easily as good as Mortensen was in Fellowship. He grew into the character more in the succeeding two films, true, but you have to give Armitage and Freeman time to do the same.

http://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-hobbit-an-unexpected-journey

---

http://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-lord-of-the-rings-the-fellowship-of-the-ring
http://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-lord-of-the-rings-the-two-towers
http://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-lord-of-the-rings-the-return-of-the-king

Er, yes, the overall aggregate scores are very disparate. That is exactly what my original comment mentioned. Yet, many of the reviews on the same site you just posted criticize the original LotR trilogy for many of the aspects for which they criticize The Hobbit, yet give the former a postive score and the latter negative. Resulting in the disparity. That is what I just. Said.

So...? Why did you post a bunch of links? To illustrate my point? Uh, yes, well, I agree. Obviously.

(no subject)

brooms - 2012-12-31 03:44 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

ariakas - 2012-12-31 09:02 (UTC) - Expand

Everyone keeps going on about this 48fps thing, but am I the only one who didn't notice any difference?

Not every theatre was showing it at 48 fps, so yours might not have been?

No, it definitely was. They were showing it in standard and HFR, and we went to the 3D HFR version. I just...don't get it. =/

Huh. The difference in movement (much more lifelike) and textures (much more detailed) was really striking to me. I was in love with Bilbo's sitting room chair - you could see all of the threads on it, even when the camera panned.

Made the cgi look better and the RL crafted props look a bit more obvious, for good or ill.

I haven't seen it in 48 FPS and though I plan on seeing it again, I just remembered that the 48 FPS version probably isn't showing nearby (so I can't comment on it).

I'm incredibly biased when it comes to Tolkien so no one probably takes my opinion seriously, but I thought it was lovely. There were some slower portions yes, but overall I liked the bits they added from the appendices and didn't think it was overtly long. (I also thought all the actors were great, especially Armitage and Freeman, but...different tastes and all that.)

See, I don't think it was just you - I'm pretty "eh" on Tolkien most of the time (read the books as a kid and liked them, haven't since, hardly a stan), and I thought it was great. With a 65% RT score, I went in thinking it was going to be very disappointing, or at least mediocre.

That reminds me... I have a friend who's never went near a Tolkien book, generally isn't a fan of fantasy, and wouldn'twatch LOTR (partially because she didn't like the look of the Uruk-hai); her husband wanted to see Hobbit so she went. She said it was surprisingly good and that she's looking forward to the next movie. So it's definitely not all Tolkien fans, no.

The LotR movies weren't universally beloved of critics, either. Some critics like to hate on everything that isn't a deadly serious drama that's all "real" and "gritty."

Man, it'd be weird to look for that sort of thing in The Hobbit! Magickses and self-indulgent pacing is exactly why I'm going to see the movie hohoho.

Well, I guess they saw it because it because it was a job to do and not necessarily because they wanted to see it.

You forget one thing. Critics aren't as unbiased as they would like to be. Everybody goes into a movie with ideas of how they would like it to be. With the Hobbit, people draw their expectations not only from the book but also from the previous movies, movies which are for many already becoming pretty nostalgic, and thus some flaws that they had might be getting glossed over. In addition to that, it was hyped up ridiculously. So critics go in with high expectations, which always makes it harder for a movie to meet those expectations. Especially when it is employing a new technique have never dealt with before.

Take for example Madagascar 3. According to Rotten Tomatoes, it has a rating of 78%. Pretty high for a movie that gave us fecking afro circus, right? But it comes all down to the fact that people know what they are getting. The previous movies were a pretty good indication of how the film rolls. We are basically expecting an 80 minute movie that keeps the kids entertained. We are not expecting some huge, world-altering movie. Our expectations are easily met, which leads to favourable results.

In my view, it's a good, but not great movie, burdened a bit by too many chase scenes, troll boogey humor, and too many digressions to make Thorin a co-protagonist. Unlike Lord of the Rings which felt like material was trimmed to streamline the narrative, Hobbit felt padded to justify the three-movie arc.

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