The Hobbit Trilogy 4K UHD Extended & Theatrical (2012-2014)

[PissedOffPeoN]

Least the ending of the third hobbit movie extended was epic .

[Nothing371]

The Hobbit could have been perfect if it would have been edited and condensed down to two 90-minute movies or less.

Longer isn't always better and it seems like everything is a 2hr20m movie these days. Most of which meander for around 30min. of runtime.

[slimdude]

Originally Posted by Nothing371

The Hobbit could have been perfect if it would have been edited and condensed down to two 90-minute movies or less.

Longer isn't always better and it seems like everything is a 2hr20m movie these days. Most of which meander for around 30min. of runtime.

I don't think Peter Jackson knows what a editor is. Anybody who'll turn a simple story like King Kong (a story that could've been depicted in two hours) but no. Nobody but Peter Jackson had to make it into a bloated, three and a half hour movie.

[SuperFlyHighGuy]

Originally Posted by slimdude

The Hobbit trilogy seemed like a quick cash grab immediately after the success of The Lord of the Rings, and it was a disappointment to a lot of people. Peter Jackson tried too hard to make it an epic more than it needed to.

Immediately = 9 years later

[Davetek463]

Originally Posted by Alister_M

It's simply a matter of Jackson in particular having far more prep time for LOTR. When it came to The Hobbit, he was insanely rushed from the get-go, locked into an unreasonably tight schedule and with an anvil of expectations hanging over his head to replicate the success of LOTR. What we got was an uneven ride at best, shoehorning in a bunch of unnecessary additions, but there's still some magic to be found.

Thank you. I see a lot of people dumping on the Hobbit trilogy while ignoring the mess behind the scenes. That doesn't make them any better, but by and large the blame is being put on the wrong people. Of course opinions will vary, but the fact that we got something even remotely watchable at all is a minor miracle.

[Zombie Dude]

Originally Posted by slimdude

The Hobbit trilogy seemed like a quick cash grab immediately after the success of The Lord of the Rings, and it was a disappointment to a lot of people. Peter Jackson tried too hard to make it an epic more than it needed to.

Originally Posted by SuperFlyHighGuy

Immediately = 9 years later

Yeah, exactly what I was thinking. That's a big gap between trilogies.

Plus with the shakeup of loosing its director right before filming I think the Hobbit trilogy turned out fine.

My biggest complaint is usually this guy:


I just feel he looks pretty stupid compared to any other character in this world.

[Farerb]

There's something to be said about an adaptation that would take you longer to watch than reading the book it is based on.

[Gacivory]

Originally Posted by farerb

There's something to be said about an adaptation that would take you longer to watch than reading the book it is based on.

It means nothing. I can most likely read The Godfather in less time than watch the two movies. But that doesn’t lessen those movies to me. People read at different speeds.

[Hardback247]

Originally Posted by Davetek463

Thank you. I see a lot of people dumping on the Hobbit trilogy while ignoring the mess behind the scenes. That doesn't make them any better, but by and large the blame is being put on the wrong people. Of course opinions will vary, but the fact that we got something even remotely watchable at all is a minor miracle.

Yeah, in spite of all of the behind-the-scenes drama that happened, the Hobbit Trilogy still has very good production values.

[MisterKorman]

Originally Posted by Hardback247

Yeah, in spite of all of the behind-the-scenes drama that happened, the Hobbit Trilogy still has very good production values.

Knowing what a turbulent and wild production the entire trilogy was, I find the films to be even more impressive than I did when I originally saw them. The fact that they turned out the way they did, especially the third one, seems to have been some kind of miraculous, herculean effort.

I like the films a lot, but I really feel for the entire production team. Working on this film must've been... a lot.

[LMFAObros]

Any chance of Peter next year making these edgier and adding more cg blood to get it an R rating and make them the edgy cuts similar to the extended battle of five armies.

[levcore]

BOTH the Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit trilogy are fantastic, six amazing fantasy adventure movies. I love both. I can never understand the hyperbolic distain for The Hobbit movies. Peter Jackson is one of those film makers, like James Cameron, who really knows how to take the audience on a captivating journey and an amazing ride. The Hobbit movies contain some of the best visual fx i have ever seen, yet so many call the CG crap. Thousands upon thousands of man hours spent on the intricate VFX, pushing the envelope with these fully CG environments and characters. Hugely complex action and battle sequences of the like that no other movie had realised at that point. There are people that didn't even realise that Dain was a fully CG character, he was that convincing. Smaug is one of the best realised monsters/ creatures in cinema history.

It still seems to me that most detractors just cannot accept the one Hobbit book being embellished to become 3 movies, ignoring the fact that the trilogy is not only an adaptation of that one book, but a further exploration of the world of Middle Earth. I'll never get bored of revisiting these amazing movies as there is so much to digest and enjoy.

[Alister_M]

Originally Posted by levcore

BOTH the Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit trilogy are fantastic, six amazing fantasy adventure movies. I love both. I can never understand the hyperbolic distain for The Hobbit movies. Peter Jackson is one of those film makers, like James Cameron, who really knows how to take the audience on a captivating journey and an amazing ride. The Hobbit movies contain some of the best visual fx i have ever seen, yet so many call the CG crap. Thousands upon thousands of man hours spent on the intricate VFX, pushing the envelope with these fully CG environments and characters. Hugely complex action and battle sequences of the like that no other movie had realised at that point. There are people that didn't even realise that Dain was a fully CG character, he was that convincing. Smaug is one of the best realised monsters/ creatures in cinema history.

It's every bit as much a triumph of Kiwi ingenuity as LOTR, that much is inarguable. The behind the scenes stuff was actually even more fascinating, especially the way in which they realized the barrel-ride sequence. There's actually lot less CGI in those films that most people seem to assume. That said, I still think HFR was a huge mistake - to the point where I never even bothered seeing Battle of the Five Armies at the cinema*. It just strips away the haze of motion blur and was far too revealing of the cinematic sleight-of-hand. They definitely work far better in 24fps, so I'm thoroughly looking forward to seeing how they look in 4K.


*That was also because there were annoying technical issues when I saw the first 2, which pissed me off so much I couldn't be bothered suffering through more incompetence. The first few minutes of An Unexpected Journey must have had the projector set to 24fps, so it was a completely unwatchable jerky mess, and all of Desolation of Smaug had incorrect 3D calibration so anything "popping out" was blurred and halo-ey. Ugh. Haven't bothered with any 3D movie at all since those two visual abortions.

[levcore]

I've watched The Hobbit trilogy many times on 3D blu ray, love them.

[morphinapg]

Originally Posted by Nothing371

The Hobbit could have been perfect if it would have been edited and condensed down to two 90-minute movies or less.

Longer isn't always better and it seems like everything is a 2hr20m movie these days. Most of which meander for around 30min. of runtime.

I personally really liked the stuff they added to the Hobbit movies. i think they complimented the story nicely, and I agreed with Jackson's justification for doing pretty much everything he did.

[moreorless]

Originally Posted by SuperFlyHighGuy

Immediately = 9 years later

Beyond the rights issues I suspect a lot of the reason Jackson wasn't so keen to jump into the Hobbit is because he realised the potential problems it would create.

You have the issues with the tone of the story relative to LOTR, the story itself being quite similar(Hobbit party, journey to Rivendel, travel though the mountains and then orc tunnels, meet Gollum, a mystical woodland, etc) and the prose being much sparser meaning more had to be filled in.

I mean in terms of "bloat" I don't really see THAT much which could qualify, maybe Legolas, Afrid and the Elf/Dwarf romance plus a few over long action scene could have been cut out but besides that its almost all either fleshing out events covered in the book, referencing the Sauron/Ring plot or building up the Bilbo/Thorin story.

In the end I think it was the Bilbo/Thorin story Jackson let guide him in terms of having three films. AUJ is the story of them becoming friends, DOS the story of Thorins corruption and friction between them then BOTFA his falling out with Bilbo and then redemption.

The choice to end AUJ were it does maybe seems strange I think you see a clear shift in the story there, the first film has Thorin shown in a mostly heroic fashion but when you get to Beorn and the Elves in Mirkwood character flaws are shown more clearly. Bilbo winning his respect at the eagle escape I think makes much more sense than after the barrel escape as he's still someone who's respect counts for alot. Plus of course without that spilt you would probably have to lose quite a bit of the narrative, the Trolls, Beorn, maybe a bit more.

[Alister_M]

Originally Posted by levcore

I've watched The Hobbit trilogy many times on 3D blu ray, love them.

I'm sure they're fine on 3D BD, I just happened to get put off cinematic 3D projections after DOS being botched. Doesn't help that I saw it in a smaller, older theater which had obviously been poorly retrofitted for 3D, rather than the larger one in which I saw every other 3D presentation prior to that.

[rexcrk]

Originally Posted by levcore

BOTH the Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit trilogy are fantastic, six amazing fantasy adventure movies. I love both. I can never understand the hyperbolic distain for The Hobbit movies. Peter Jackson is one of those film makers, like James Cameron, who really knows how to take the audience on a captivating journey and an amazing ride. The Hobbit movies contain some of the best visual fx i have ever seen, yet so many call the CG crap. Thousands upon thousands of man hours spent on the intricate VFX, pushing the envelope with these fully CG environments and characters. Hugely complex action and battle sequences of the like that no other movie had realised at that point. There are people that didn't even realise that Dain was a fully CG character, he was that convincing. Smaug is one of the best realised monsters/ creatures in cinema history.

It still seems to me that most detractors just cannot accept the one Hobbit book being embellished to become 3 movies, ignoring the fact that the trilogy is not only an adaptation of that one book, but a further exploration of the world of Middle Earth. I'll never get bored of revisiting these amazing movies as there is so much to digest and enjoy.

Your last paragraph nailed it. I’ll never not think that’s the reason. Another member used the term “Age of Rage” in a different thread and that’s really what I think it is. I feel like the world was overall more innocent and less jaded in the early 2000s than the 2010s where people seem like they would rather dislike something then like it. And I definitely used to have that kind of mindset too (in, like, my teens before I grew out of it lol) so I do know what it’s like. Depending on how much you want to like or dislike something will absolutely affect how you see any potential flaws.

And like I always say, no one has to like everything, because that would be boring. And I sure as hell don’t think the Hobbit movies are perfect, I also don’t think Lord of the Rings is perfect (if people looked at the same way they do The Hobbit, they would find plenty to complain about). But what I’m so tired of is the hyperbolic criticisms and I hate that that has become so glorified these days and I wish people would stop eating it up.

[wildphantom]

I concur and have said it many times. The Hobbit is a cracking trilogy. So what, it isn't as good as Lord of the Rings. What is? As a fantasy epic it's probably got as close to the Rings trilogy in terms of quality as any film/s in the last 20 years - and boy have other studios tried!

[ZombAid]

The Hobbits are a bloated mess, with too many uninteresting characters that you should follow for 9 hours, where the story doesn't have enough capacity to fill 3.