The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - Review Thread (Spoilers)

[PaniqL]

Just got back from watching it for a second time and absolutely hated it, as much as i loved it the first time it just wasn't as good the second time.

I felt that the dialog was very forced and the acting was just the worst, it wasn't the same knowing that nothings going to happen to the characters, in LOTR i had genuine fear for some of the characters

[Velmeran]

Originally Posted by threefiftyrocket

Now, maybe Grand Bob or Radagast can answer this one for me, or maybe its just a plot hole. But,

[Show spoiler]in LotR, when they show up to Moria, Gimli is incredibly surprised to find that his kinsman are dead, and that orcs run rampant throughout Moria. BUT, in The Hobbit, it says that after Smaug runs the Dwarves out of Erebor, Thror or Thrain, can't remember which, tried to take Moria back from the Orcs? Shouldn't Gimli have KNOWN at the time of the War of the Ring, that Moria was infested with Vile Creatures???

I have a terrible memory for remembering things, which is why I enjoy watching movies over and over :P Is this just a plot hole in the movies or is there a better explanation for that in print? Thanks fellas!

Not Grand Bob or Radagast but I'll take a shot

[Show spoiler]Sometime after the (40+ years) after the Quest of Erebor,, Balin thought to reclaim Moria from the Orcs. Despite the warnings form Dain, Balin left with several other Dwarves and entered Moria.

They were there for a few years and the Dwarves colony did well before ultimately Balin was killed and the colony was overrun. None of the Dwarves knew what had happened to the Moria colony and it was about 25 years later with Gimli and the Fellowship ventured into Moria.

More detailed accounts can be found here

[threefiftyrocket]

Originally Posted by Velmeran

Not Grand Bob or Radagast but I'll take a shot

[Show spoiler]Sometime after the (40+ years) after the Quest of Erebor,, Balin thought to reclaim Moria from the Orcs. Despite the warnings form Dain, Balin left with several other Dwarves and entered Moria.

They were there for a few years and the Dwarves colony did well before ultimately Balin was killed and the colony was overrun. None of the Dwarves knew what had happened to the Moria colony and it was about 25 years later with Gimli and the Fellowship ventured into Moria.

More detailed accounts can be found here

Well usually its Grand Bob or Radagast that answer cuz they are something like Tolkien Encyclopedias... :P Thanks that makes much much more sense now... I was kind of confused watching this

[threefiftyrocket]

Originally Posted by Pelican170

Just saw this yesterday. Very surprised so many people thought this was a 4 or 5 star movie... I thought it was nothing like the first 3.. Very geared toward kids i felt, Dancing and singing in the movie? Corny humor that seemed to ruin scenes that could have held a serious tone... not what i had hoped for.. many things seemed the same from the first movie, just redone here and the story resembled the first LOTR movie very much I felt...

3 stars for me, and thats being generous...

That's because The Hobbit was a children's book, it was only turned into the grandiose story when the publisher wanted Tolkien to write a sequel... at which point he said oh yeah, how bout this... BAM Lord of the Rings... or something to that effect

[TheWildWhelk]

Originally Posted by Duffy12

Yea but however.....


in a youtube interview Jackson states that the

[Show spoiler]White Council gets to kick major ass in the second film.

Sooo...that means for the final 3rd film there is NO Dol Guldur but we get to see the Battle of the Five Armies

last about half of the film.

.

You know, based on that, Film 2 is going to get awfully crowded with the amount of stuff going on. Let me throw out here the idea to you that Jackson isn't going to go with a cliffhanger, and that the narrative for the end of the 2nd film will be resolved in the same way of Fellowship and Towers.

This means that, according to what we know, we have:

[Show spoiler]
The party encounter Beorn. They encounter the spiders in Mirkwood. They are captured by Thranduil. They escape in Barrels, get to Laketown and then onward to the mountain where Bilbo engages in a game of words with Smaug.

...And on top of all that we have the events of Dol Guldur?

Okaaay, so what we basically have is the most event-packed film in the history of Cinematic Tolkien unless you want to get into the dog's dinner that was Ralph Bakshi's effort. Just saying that there is one hell of a lot happening in Film 2.

By the way, the above speculation is based on the end-point of Film 1, the first-released promo image of Bilbo-on-Pile-Of-Gold for Film 2, and above comments from fellow users suggestion what Jackson et al have mooted for Film 2.

[Duffy12]

.

Benny Hill/Goblin Town MASHUP-


http://youtubedoubler.com/?video1=5F...authorName=FAV

.

[Duffy12]

.

Worldwide gross is now: $824,834,893

(still just a fraction of Smaug's worth)


http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=hobbit.htm

.

[jbig31]

Originally Posted by Velmeran

Not Grand Bob or Radagast but I'll take a shot

[Show spoiler]Sometime after the (40+ years) after the Quest of Erebor,, Balin thought to reclaim Moria from the Orcs. Despite the warnings form Dain, Balin left with several other Dwarves and entered Moria.

They were there for a few years and the Dwarves colony did well before ultimately Balin was killed and the colony was overrun. None of the Dwarves knew what had happened to the Moria colony and it was about 25 years later with Gimli and the Fellowship ventured into Moria.

More detailed accounts can be found here

Velmeran! I was racking my brain for this info. I read it a long time ago and it's a nice refresher to read it again.

[TheWildWhelk]

Originally Posted by Duffy12

.

Worldwide gross is now: $824,834,893

(still just a fraction of Smaug's worth)


http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=hobbit.htm

.

I hope it breaks the 1 Billion mark, it deserves to. I'm certainly going to see it again before the end of it's run, so probably some time at the start of february due to other films on at the cinema. Promised my wife i would take her to see Quartet.

[Offender_Mullet]

Originally Posted by toddly6666

Is Smaug going to be in the second film or is Smaug and final dwarf/elf/people vs orc battle going to all be in third film?

The 2nd movie is titled: The Desolation of Smaug so it's safe to say we'll see him....and his death. Idk why they'd give it away in the title.

[Buddy Ackerman]

Originally Posted by Offender_Mullet

The 2nd movie is titled: The Desolation of Smaug so it's safe to say we'll see him....and his death. Idk why they'd give it away in the title.

It's still unknown if we'll see his death. The Desolation of Smaug refers to the area of land that Smaug attacked and... well, desolated. The place where Dale once stood and that the Company must travel to to reach The Lonely Mountain. It could be a title that works both ways but it's not a definite. His fate may wait until the first part of the third film.

[toddly6666]

Originally Posted by Buddy Ackerman

It's still unknown if we'll see his death. The Desolation of Smaug refers to the area of land that Smaug attacked and... well, desolated. The place where Dale once stood and that the Company must travel to to reach The Lonely Mountain. It could be a title that works both ways but it's not a definite. His fate may wait until the first part of the third film.

It's hard to imagine that the second film would just revolve around Beorn, spiders, and mean elves.

[Buddy Ackerman]

Originally Posted by toddly6666

It's hard to imagine that the second film would just revolve around Beorn, spiders, and mean elves.

It won't. We also have

[Show spoiler] Laketown - which I imagine will get similar treatment to Rohan in spending time there building up the culture and characters (Bard, the Master of Laketown and his corruption)- , the trek to and up The Lonely Mountain, Bilbo's confrontation with Smaug and all of the White Council/Dol Guldur plotline (which, by all accounts, should reach its climax here which would give us a big battle to end the film with).

We'll definitely get to Smaug in the next film, the debate seems to be whether the films ends with him

[Show spoiler]flying off to Laketown leaving the third film to open with Smaug's attack

or if we'll see

[Show spoiler]Smaug's attack on Laketown as the climax to film two, along with his death and the first part of the third film being the aftermath of that and the politics that drive the Battle of the Five Armies.

I can see the pros and cons of both but I think Jackson might go for the former. Otherwise, even with loose threads or hints of what's to come, casual audiences might wonder what's left to cover in a third film if

[Show spoiler]the dwarves have found their treasure and Smaug is dead.

[drichter33]

Originally Posted by Pelican170

Just saw this yesterday. Very surprised so many people thought this was a 4 or 5 star movie... I thought it was nothing like the first 3.. Very geared toward kids i felt, Dancing and singing in the movie? Corny humor that seemed to ruin scenes that could have held a serious tone... not what i had hoped for.. many things seemed the same from the first movie, just redone here and the story resembled the first LOTR movie very much I felt...

3 stars for me, and thats being generous...

There were a couple of silly jokes, and 2 songs, both at Bilbos house, and one by Goblin King that are in one way or another in the book. So staying true to the material IMO and really didnt make the movie childish at all. The creatures and length of the film alone, plus pg-13 rating were enough for me.

[Buddy Ackerman]

The Lord of the Rings had its fair share of songs too. Gandalf, Bilbo, Aragorn, Eowyn, Merry, Pippin, Sam (sort of) and a bunch of elves all get to have a go (and Merry and Pippin get to dance as well).

I can see why some going into The Hobbit expecting a LOTR-tone might be thrown but the tone was one of the things I loved most about it. Absolutely nailed the whimisical, more innocent tone of the book whilst keeping it in the same world as the LOTR films.

[bluballer]

It is worth while remembering that the original story was told to children and as such, was not intended to be an epic game changing tale (although it did anyway).

[drichter33]

Originally Posted by Buddy Ackerman

It won't. We also have

[Show spoiler] Laketown - which I imagine will get similar treatment to Rohan in spending time there building up the culture and characters (Bard, the Master of Laketown and his corruption)- , the trek to and up The Lonely Mountain, Bilbo's confrontation with Smaug and all of the White Council/Dol Guldur plotline (which, by all accounts, should reach its climax here which would give us a big battle to end the film with).

We'll definitely get to Smaug in the next film, the debate seems to be whether the films ends with him

[Show spoiler]flying off to Laketown leaving the third film to open with Smaug's attack

or if we'll see

[Show spoiler]Smaug's attack on Laketown as the climax to film two, along with his death and the first part of the third film being the aftermath of that and the politics that drive the Battle of the Five Armies.

I can see the pros and cons of both but I think Jackson might go for the former. Otherwise, even with loose threads or hints of what's to come, casual audiences might wonder what's left to cover in a third film if

[Show spoiler]the dwarves have found their treasure and Smaug is dead.

Absolutely agree.

[Elandyll]

Originally Posted by bluballer

It is worth while remembering that the original story was told to children and as such, was not intended to be an epic game changing tale (although it did anyway).

I am reading the book for the first time (gasp!) and am currently at the Gollum / Bilbo encounter.

Have to say so far that while very enjoyable, I found the pacing to be all over the place to be honest. Some important scenes are treated in what seem like literally one page (like the encounter with the Goblin "chief"), while songs and discussions often take 2- 3 pages. Maybe seeing the movie first ruined it for me?

[JamesKurtovich]

It would be disappointing if Smaug

[Show spoiler]didn't meet his end in DOS. They're already dragging out Azog! Smaug should be brought down at the end of DOS, similar to Saruman being brought down at the end of TT.

[Buddy Ackerman]

Originally Posted by JamesKurtovich

It would be disappointing if Smaug

[Show spoiler]didn't meet his end in DOS. They're already dragging out Azog! Smaug should be brought down at the end of DOS, similar to Saruman being brought down at the end of TT.

I sort-of agree but I can also see why it might be a bad thing - as mentioned above, apart from the fact that audiences might wonder why there's a third film if by the end of the second

[Show spoiler]Smaug is dead and the dwarves have reclaimed their treasure

, there's also the argument that

[Show spoiler]Smaug's death is in the inciting incident that leads to the Battle of the Five Armies

so, narratively, it might make more sense to have it in the third film which will concentrate on that battle.