I thought the movie was very good. It was a little slow to get going, but I thought it had good character development. I thought the riddles in the dark scene was amazing! I am a huge LOTR fan though, and I do wonder if someone who wasn't a LOTR fan would enjoy this movie on its own. As it does tie so heavily into the LOTR more than the original book.
As for Howard Shore's music it was odd.
[Show spoiler] I thought parts of it really fit like when the eagles were coming and the scene where Bilbo decides to spare gollums life.(Playing the same music they played when Gandalf told Frodo why Bilbo spared Gollum in Fellowship).The scene where Thorin faced of against Azog and they played the nagzul scene was very odd and didn't fit at all.
The soundtrack is vastly different from what appears in the movie, which does lead one to wonder what happened behind the scenes. The score was descent, but it does pale in comparison to the LOTR soundtrack.
The technology used to bring Gollum to life has really evolved, and once particular shot impressed the heck out of me the way we saw his emotions coming through. Kinda makes me wanna watch the originals, King Kong and Rise of the Planet of the Apes just to see the tech evolve.
Agree.
However my favorite Gollum scene was when
[Show spoiler]Bilbo made a slight noise while hiding from him with the ring on. Gollum was panicking looking for the thief and when he heard Bilbo he stopped still and turned his head straight at him while in a bit of shadow. You could then see his eyes start to glow a little and an evil expression appear on his face.
A very creepy and fantastic shot.
Quote:
Originally Posted by spanky87
I never fantasize about Cate Blanchett the actress. But I do fantasize about Cate Blanchett as Galadriel a lot.
Well, that see through gown did help a bit. Hubba hubba.
[Show spoiler] I thought parts of it really fit like when the eagles were coming and the scene where Bilbo decides to spare gollums life.(Playing the same music they played when Gandalf told Frodo why Bilbo spared Gollum in Fellowship).The scene where Thorin faced of against Azog and they played the nagzul scene was very odd and didn't fit at all.
The soundtrack is vastly different from what appears in the movie, which does lead one to wonder what happened behind the scenes. The score was descent, but it does pale in comparison to the LOTR soundtrack.
Yup.
Click the spoiler below-
[Show spoiler]
Quote:
The music: Message for Peter Jackson
I have seen An Unexpected Journey today, and to make it short, the way Howard Shore's beautiful music was presented and used and edited was absolutely abysmal.
I don't know if Mr. Jackson or any of the editors realise it, but the music means a great deal to many of the viewers, and not just to Lord of the Rings or Tolkien fans, but average film fans as well.
This movie lacks trust in the composer's work, and severely so. Otherwise it would be inexplicable why so many cues were edited the way they were.
The inclusions of direct quotes and tracking from all over the Lord of the Rings trilogy, when similarily great music was written by Howard Shore, took me out of the film several times. That usage of themes throws thematic continuity right out the window, something that was always one of Howard Shore's strongest abilities in this Tolkien film series.
Some of the strongest moments on album - not there at all. "The Adventure Begins", first half gone. "The World Is Ahead", mostly gone. "A Good Omen", almost entirely gone. "Riddles In The Dark", mostly gone. The choir in "Radagst The Brown", gone. The dramatic bits of "The Hill of Sorcery", gone. The first minutes of "The White Council", gone. Some of "Brass Button", gone. The middle part of "Over Hill", gone.
And in their place isn't even new music most of the time. How the Riddles in the Dark sequence began, with direct lifting of the Ring theme from Fellowship (yes, those Ring variations on album are all gone!), and Gollum's menace and pity themes tracked in, like, six times in a row, that drove me mad right in my seat. Really, they must have used every cimbalon statement of his theme there is in Lord of the Rings.
Not even the haunting chorus from the end of "Brass Buttons" is there. Then, in all honesty, The Breaking Of The Fellowship is used in the scene when Gandalf talks about Bilbo giving him courage. That didn't match the pacing at all.
Then, my god, the worst musical moment as far as continuity is concerned is when Thorin attacks Azog with the Nazgul music behind him. That was so unbelievably awkward for someone knowing the music a bit.
Then there was the direct reusing of "Master Peregrin's Plan" from Two Towers, followed by an absolutely out of place statement of Gondor Reborn. Jesus. I think it is even a re-recording because the french horn counterpoint is not there.
What is this new devilry?
Out of all the things I was worried about going into this film, frame rate, pacing, the music was the least of my worries.
Bilbo's theme is cut almost entirely from the film!
The Nature variations at the end are really breathtaking, but at that point, the music took me out of the film a dozen times already.
The coup de grace at the end is that the music is removed completely from the final shots of zooming in on the Lonely Mountain and Smaug opening his eye.
I have no idea what was going on behind the scenes, if the amount of rearranging affected the score so much that there wasn't enough time to properly rescore it, but that seems unlikely because you could have simply left the pieces as they are and not lose anything.
Whether Mr. Jackson realises it or not, music is a major part of these films, and for the way it is treated in An Unexpected Journey by editors and the director, the term "careless" is the mildest one.
I expect a better treatment in The Desolation Of Smaug, and many others as well.
What's up with all the tracked music in the Hobbit?
I saw the Hobbit today, and the score as heard in the film is a complete mess. There's tracked music from all three LOTR films all throughout the film in moments that are wildly inappropriate to the thematic continuity Shore created. Huge chunks of the Hobbit score as heard on album are missing.
With so much care given to the music in LOTR, what the heck happened here?!
Went to see it in HFR 3D this afternoon ($11 for matinee?! although paid $6 per tix because we had $5 movie cash from the LOTR SB). Not a fan of this format for this movie, personally, because it looked like watching a play, many shots looked sped up, but the 3D was great, but diminished the epic look and scale we're used to watching from the LOTR films; we kept the green framed 3D glasses especially marked "The Hobbit" as souvenir. The movie itself was quite enjoyable (haven't read the book) with great casting of the younger Bilbo and the dwarves and good to see familiar characters from the LOTR films and hearing the familiar theme score). Will definitely check it out again soon in regular 3D theater. 4/5
Just got back from seeing it (in 3D HFR with Dolby Atmos).
Based on the critical response, I was prepared to be bored to death by something resembling the interminable extended cut of ROTK, but I was pleasantly surprised that the movie flew by pretty briskly. It didn't blow me away, but it was enjoyable. They tried to hit many of Fellowship's beats, but I don't think the story is meaty enough to measure up; but it's still enjoyable for its cinematic realization of Middle Earth and all the spectacle that entails. I'd give it a 7/10.
I'm a bit concerned about the next film though. I think they'll have to invent quite a bit of original plot to give it enough of an arc to carry through to the conclusion.
As for HFR, it's an interesting experiment but I'm not sure the upsides outweigh the negatives. It does lend the visuals a certain slickness, and I grew used to it as the film went on (never completely though, there were still many shots where it looked weird), but the CG starts looking a bit like a fancy video game, and any bit of fakery is made much more apparent... suspension of disbelief becomes a much finer line. In many scenes I was suddenly looking at a soundstage with some lights off to the side. Gave me a hell of a headache too, and I usually don't have trouble watching 3D.
Watched it at the Arclight in HF 3D and Dolby Atmos.
The movie, I liked it overall. I'm not familiar with the book at all, the same as I wasn't familiar with LOTR before watching and falling in love with it. There were a couple of hokey sections, like the 3 stoog...er trolls. Also the initial dinner scene with the dwarves was awkward. But overall I thought it had some great action and was beautifully shot. Also, the CGI characters have come a long way. So much detail and finally muscles under the face actually move giving us subtle expressions. I liked the callbacks in the score but I agree with others it seemed to be a mess. Other than the dwarf hero piece that would get played over and over I didn't really like it. The 2 1/2 hours flew by though and I can't wait for #2.
HFR: I hate the fake use of it on TV's. You can't create something that was never there. Luckily HFR 48 doesn't look like that. But it has its own problems.
First the good, wow I have never seen 3D clearer than this. No ghosting, no tearing, no artifacts and no motion blur. Everything was sharp and the action had so much detail it over powered the brain at times.
The bad, wtf is up with the sped up look at times? The beginning was rife with it. Others have mentioned that it looked like Bilbo was moving at 2x speed. Simple camera pans and quick cuts seemed to be the biggest culprit. I think this technology has a lot of potential but it will also require directors to relearn techniques that work and don't work with the new frame rate. The 2x speed look was very jarring and took me out of the movie every time it happend.
Dolby Atmos: Holy ****ing shit!! Now this is the technology we should all be raving about. As soon as the new Dolby trailer played and we got to experience every single speaker in all its glory, the audience erupted in cheers. I haven't seen that since the first time the THX 'sound' played at a theater. We have all gotten used to surround sound but this is on a whole new level. This is the first time it felt like characters were position in hundreds of different locations around the theater instead of just side/side/back. Amazing stuff! It blows away any true Imax theater I've been in.
Yeah I agree with most of this. The themes they used from Lord of the Rings were sometimes odd. I am all for thematic song continuality, and it was used effectively some. Like the scenes I mentioned in my previous post. Sometimes, though it was odd and didn't seemed to fit at all. I really don't know what happened.
Maybe because it's not that great? It was "ok" but nothing to write home about in my IMHO. After seeing it I can say that no way does it deserve to be nominated for Best Picture.
I was just going to reply to your IMDb post and say how off the critics are on RT, but you posted it. When I logged on to rate it myself, I was like "65, what the hell!?" I gave it an 80%.
Maybe because it's not that great? It was "ok" but nothing to write home about in my IMHO. After seeing it I can say that no way does it deserve to be nominated for Best Picture.
I'm not suprised either at the rating. I'm a huge Tolkien nut and middle earth junkie but Hobbit is not amazing or outstanding in any way.
But that's not to say I didn't enjoy it and won't go see it again.
And again if you liked it why bother concerning yourself with what critics thought?
Yeah, coming from someone who's a Star Wars prequel fan, take it from me, you can't live and die on what the critics say. You're never going to change their mind. I only hope this doesn't snowball into a similar thing that happened with SW, where people denounce the Hobbit as being the death of a franchise like what they do with SW.
I actually really like the Hobbit, it did take some getting used to considering it's a new story with new characters and a different tone. I actually went out of my way to not watch any of the LotR movies before watching this, it just didn't seem logical to compare this with the original three.
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