I loved the Hobbit

Screw the critics, I thought it was better done than the original. Freeman as Bilbo was so much better than Elijah Wood as Frodo. Yes the battle scenes were over the top, with good guys winning against plainly impossible odds; and there was a thoroughly excessive number of rickety suspension bridges and high stone bridges without guard rails. But I have to say I think it was much better than the LOTR movies.

• I liked it quite a bit, but I liked the LOTR movies a lot better. Yes, it was ridiculously over-the-top. And there were some weird time inconsistencies and discontinuities. Several times it went from exciting to ridiculously laughable. But over-all, I thought it was really well done and entertaining.

• I did notice that Gandalf referred to "the Enemy" once when he technically shouldn't have known of one.

• Gee, how about some Spoiler Alerts next time, OP? Post spoilers INSIDE THE THREAD!!!

• OP, did you go to college?

• I didn't think orcs could move and attack during the day? They made a big deal out of that in the LOTR movies, which is why they came up with the uruk hai.

• [quote]Yes the battle scenes were over the top, with good guys winning against plainly impossible odds Fuck you, OP, for spoiling the ending. I haven't seen the movie yet. Most people haven't since it just came out today.

• Given that there are two more movies to go, R6, you can assume there isn't going to be a mass culling of characters just yet. Also, hasn't pretty much everyone read The Hobbit?

• R6, do you ever just stop reading something or avert your eyes. If you haven't seen it, why are you reading a thread entitled The Hobbit? Do you plan on being stupid your whole life?

• It's not a foregone conclusion that the good guys win in a movie called "The Hobbit?" I mean, come on!

• I had no idea that good triumphed over evil in The Hobbit.

  DL%20Collective%20%22Wisdom%22

• I'm going to see it in IMAX later this morning. It's a present to myself for finishing finals. Actually, I'm mostly going to see the first nine minutes of Star Trek Into Darkness. As long as the movie doesn't bore me too much, I'll consider it a success.

  The Voice of the Night

• They had technical difficulties and showed no previews at our showing VOTN.

• The whole Mountain's fighting and goblin kingdom section was beyond over-the-top ridiculous. But buried in it was the gem of the interaction between Bilbo and Gollum. So that sort of made it worth it.

• I thought it was great. It works as a prequel to LOTR but at the same time recognises that the stakes of the quest are very different. As such, the tone is a bit lighter in many parts. The only thing I didn't like at all was how completely non-threatening the Goblin King was. It didn't feel like the dwarves were in danger for a second. Which was a bit jarring given the atmosphere of the Gollum scenes. And I adore the queeny dwarf Dori.

• I liked, but didn't love it. [quote]They had technical difficulties and showed no previews at our showing VOTN. We got 3D trailers for "Oz the Great and Powerful" (I liked that in 2D, but am definitely buying into the gimmick if I end up seeing it; it looked great) and "The Man of Steel" (pass), plus Star Trek. As far as the actual movie, I mostly enjoyed it a great deal. There was a great movie that was sort of trapped inside a much longer, good one. Ian McKellan was clearly the MVP, although I also though Martin Freeman was terrific. A couple of the dwarves, particularly Kili (Being Human's Aidan Turner) were hot. If you're on the fence about seeing it, see it for the scene with Gollum, if for no other reason.

  The Voice of the Night

• I thought Bofur was hot too, in an odd sort of way.

• [quote]Screw the critics, I thought it was better done than the original. Um, "The Hobbit" *is* the original. The "Lord of the Rings" trilogy was published nearly a decade after "The Hobbit" -- which doesn't even have *close* to three films' worth of interesting material in it.

• Goiters neither disgust people nor frighten them. You can tell Peter Jackson is a fat phobe! As well he might be, being a practitioner!

• While I overall didn't care for the scenes with the goblins, I did find the Great Goblin amusing. Barry Humphries, possums. I was also impressed with whatever they did to de-age Elijah Wood, Cate Blanchett, and Hugo Weaving. I ordinarily find that sort of thing creepy (they did the same thing to Patrick Stewart in X-Men Orgins: Wolverine, and he looked like an alien), but the only thing that really noticeable to me was that if I didn't have a reference point, I wouldn't have noticed anything. I assume Ian Holm, Ian McKellan, and Sir Christopher Lee, being in various phases of "old," didn't really get the same treatment.

  The Voice of the Night

• [quote]do you ever just stop reading something or avert your eyes. If you haven't seen it, why are you reading a thread entitled The Hobbit? When you read fast you really can't control how much text your eyes take in. I read whole paragraphs at once, not word by word like some people.

• Worst movie ever.

• Interesting little 3 minute or so "behind the scenes" featurette:

  http://gizmodo.com/5968781/this-is-how-all-the-fantastical-creatures-from-the-hobbit-come-to-life-on-the-screen

• Someone in another thread mentioned a slow start. I was dozing off during the first hour or so, then woke up toward the middle, I guess. It might have been the flu causing me to doze.

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• Apparently, audiences didn't hate it.

  http://www.gossipcop.com/the-hobbit-box-office-records/

  The Voice of the Night

• You can't compare Martin Feeman's role to Elijah Wood's. It's apples and oranges. One is a plucky Hobbit on simple "adventure", and the other one is basically walking to his death while holding an evil object that gets more and more evil as it gets closer to Mordor. It's like comparing comedy to Drama. Now comparing Ian Holm to Martin Freeman..that's another story. While I liked Freeman, I prefer Holm's Bilbo.

• It's interesting that the movie made this much money. My sis-in-law and 2 nephews and i went to see it yesterday and were surprised at the amount of people that were not there. We went early expecting lines and crowds but 20 minutes before the movie started we walked right in to the theater. We were surprised. Nobody was waiting in line to get to the 6:30 showing, either.

• Same happened to me. It's very strange.

• My theater at 11:00 am was PACKED.

• I saw the 1:30pm showing on Friday. Theater was pretty empty. Maybe 20% full?

• Yeah yeah "My theater was empty TOO!!!!" I predict several of these comments while the Big box office numbers for the weekend roll in. Apperently these people live in an alternate universe.

• What should I say that it was full when the theatre was half empty?

• Curious that The Hobbit hasn't attracted the sort of gay vibes that LOTR did. Martin Freeman does ping a bit.

• Three of the dwarves are attractive.

• Who can tell about the attractiveness of the cast when they are all covered in long hair, beards, prosthetics and heavy clothing/armor?? The king, or whatever, seems sort of attractive, so do the other 2 or 3 that aren't covered up.

• After reading a few reviews, I was expecting to be disappointed. Turns out it's not that bad of a movie. Definitely over long (an editor that isn't in awe of Jackson could easily cut 15 minutes from the movie, and once again, a Jackson movie doesn't know when to end), and the film speed thing does not look right for wide, panning shots. But the casting is great, I like the fleshing out of Thorin, and there's nothing original in this movie that messes too much with canon. Lee Pace looked perfectly haughty as Thranduil. The King rides an Elk, for god's sake! I can't wait to see him in battle.

• I enjoyed it well enough, it definitely isn't LOTR but it shouldn't be, the stakes are lower here and it is much more a simple adventure and not some epic quest. The stone giant scene was stupid and I can't believe they didn't force Jackson to cut it, in addition the beginning with Old Bilbo/Frodo was really unnecessary, they were just trying to be nice and use those actors again. It definitely had some sharp tonal changes from the light-hearted almost slapstick Hobbit nature to also trying to be a dark and epic LOTR prequel. Overall though I definitely liked it.

• What exactly did he spoil? all they do walk, run around, and then fight.

• "At 4,045 locations, The Hobbit earned an estimated $84.78 million this weekend. That's a bit ahead of the previous December record held by 2007's I Am Legend ($77.2 million), and also noticeably up on the three-day start for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King ($73.3 million). With 3D/IMAX premiums and a bit of ticket price inflation, though, The Hobbit had lower initial attendance than both of those titles (it also likely sold fewer tickets initially than The Two Towers)."

  http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/%3Fid%3D3587%26p%3D.htm

• Yeah, higher ticket prices.. I'm pretty sure my sis-in-law paid over 50 bucks for 4 tickets. 3D, XD and all that jazz.

• Give it up already [R-38]. Obviously there is inflation and 3-D ticket prices, but the film is a massive hit and most people think it's very good. Not as good as LOTR...but good. Clapping in my PACKED theatre.

• [quote]You can tell Peter Jackson is a fat phobe! As well he might be, being a practitioner! Tee many martoonis tonight, eh r18?

• R40, you'd increase your credibility if you didn't do stupid things like trying to put a dash between the R and the reply number, or typing the square brackets yourself...

• Oh me oh my. I saw it again.

• I guess I have a "problem" that I went out and saw it again. Is there a support group for people who are too attached? And yet I tell myself it's because I couldn't tell the first time around (or the second) if Thorin managed to cut off the other hand of the Goblin King or not. I thought maybe that was the story of how they survived, but I'm not 100% sure.

• It's not a hit, it's on par to make King Kong nUgh, survivor is being delayed for Obama grief porn. umbers, and that film was a financial flop at 500 million plus worldwide because it cost so much. This film cost north of 300 million and will have to gross much more than twice that to make a profit. It broke December records (not hard to do) but for a film of this caliber and prestige had a soft opening. It didn't even open with Return of the King numbers. It was definitely damaged by terrible word of mouth about the 48 fps rate that makes it look like a cheap soap opera, and bad reviews. There's no doubt, it's in trouble.

• [quote]It's not a hit, it's on par to make King Kong nUgh, survivor is being delayed for Obama grief porn. umbers, and that film was a financial flop at 500 million plus worldwide because it cost so much. Are you in the middle of a stroke?

• [quote]It's not a hit, it's on par to make King Kong numbers, and that film was a financial flop at 500 million plus worldwide because it cost so much. DL bizarrely interjected another post into the sentence.

• The studio probably hoped for higher but the Hobbit is far from flop or financial disappointment. Also the movie had an "A" cinema score so WOM apparently isn't bad.

• It's fan driven right now, whether or not it's a BO success is yet to be seen. Check back after Christmas.

• So your post was raped R47? Violated? How did that make you feel, in your anus?

  Dr.%20Hannibal%20Lechter

• r47, a month ago I bumped an old thread that was missing my post and one other, and had posts from another thread in their place. But blended posts are even more bizarre, especially since it blended with you a freeper, it looks like, yikes!

• A great review:

  http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/12/17/the-hobbit-at-48-frames-per-second-a-review/

• R 49 It's fan driven and above all warner bros driven.

• R53, why did you put a space between the "R" and the reply number?

• The dwarves were annoying. Strangely enough, the few among them you were supposed to care about looked like regular human beings (so we could identify with them ???). The other dwarves just looked like movie dwarves (no empathy from the viewers there). Martin Freeman was excellent, very natural. No slashy vibes, R32. Because you need two sensitive, relatively cute guys for that. I'm not sure, I'm going to watch the other movies. Nine hours is a bit too long for a kid tale.

• watched it on opening day. As a LOTR fan i was mildly disappointed. The 3D was unnecessary (as usual) and the HFR 48 fps took a while for me to get used to. The technique looked great in longshots and fighting scenes. So basically anything that had to do with CGI.

• I will see the movie at some point. I liked the book (although not as much as the Lord of the Rings), but even then the dwarves annoyed me and got on my nerves at times.

• In what universe were Elijah Wood and Sean Astin sex symbols? None. The man flesh was a little superior to LOTR in this one.

• Um... Viggo Orlando Karl Urban Sean Bean Conviniently forgetting them are we? And For some, yes, Sean, Elijah, Dom and Billy were sexy. If not sexy, then very very cute.

• R58 Wait for the next instalment "The desolation of Smaug" with our gay guys Luke Evans, Lee Pace and Richard Armitage. Lee Pace and Richard Armitage, who met on The Hobbit set, are the hottest couple ever. Keep an eye on them.

• How was the dragon's voice? Smoldering? Sexy?

  http://bestof.provocateuse.com/images/photos/benedict_cumberbatch_95.jpg

• Benedict Cumberbatch is attractive, talented and has a very sexy voice but he's not on our team, unfortunately.

• Like it a lot. Best scene was Gollum. Even liked Radaghast, although I may be alone in that. And look, I'm an old Tolkien geek who likes to spend lots and lots and LOTS of time "in Middle-Earth", but even I thought it was too fucking long! PJ didn't need to spend half an hour showing the "unexpected party", he needed to advance the story. And if the box-office isn't all they hoped for, then maybe he'll listen to the studio and do a tighter job of editing the second film. I've always thought that the second film would be more fun than the first, as it'll include Smaug (oooh), Thranduil, spiders, Dale, etc.

• I liked it but it had too much CGI especially the bad guys. Probably see it again on IMAX ....

• You are clearly on crack or prefer action movies to fantasy.