Any fans of The Hobbit and Hannibal already discuss Richard Armitage's casting in the latter? Seems like he's not getting away from the fairy-tale roles: first a dwarf, now the Tooth Fairy! Can't a hairy Englishman get a break?
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
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syndalisGetting ClassyOn the WallRegistered User, Loves Apple Productsregular
I really really like HFR in intense action sequences, and I grew to tolerate it during conversations and stuff. I'll go further and say that I stopped noticing it, though it was amazingly jarring for the first 15-20 minutes the first time I watched it.
If the rumors are true and Avatar 2 is going to be using something ridiculous like 4K 3D 120 frames a second, I am curious to see what that does to the look and feel of things.
SW-4158-3990-6116
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
If the rumors are true and Avatar 2 is going to be using something ridiculous like 4K 3D 120 frames a second, I am curious to see what that does to the look and feel of things.
Saw the final movie last week. Saw it in 2D because I really could care less about 3D.
I'll probably need to go watch all three of them again, but I do feel this one might have been weaker than the other two. I feel they should have probably cut a few sub-plots, so they could focus more on other plots that didn't seem to get properly developed.
I'll probably get the extended edition set at some point, but I do feel that the LotR Trilogy was better.
Saw the final movie last week. Saw it in 2D because I really could care less about 3D.
I'll probably need to go watch all three of them again, but I do feel this one might have been weaker than the other two. I feel they should have probably cut a few sub-plots, so they could focus more on other plots that didn't seem to get properly developed.
I'll probably get the extended edition set at some point, but I do feel that the LotR Trilogy was better.
Pretty unanimous at this point that LotR was better. I love LotR, I enjoyed the Hobbit.
I do think people who hate on the movie as terrible are a little off base. For all of its faults, the Hobbit is still a pretty good series of Fantasy film. I see ads for dreck like Seventh Son and am sadly reminded that it seems to be extremely hard for people to make good fantasy films.
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frenetic_ferretwildest weaselEast Coast is Best CoastRegistered Userregular
I really really like HFR in intense action sequences, and I grew to tolerate it during conversations and stuff. I'll go further and say that I stopped noticing it, though it was amazingly jarring for the first 15-20 minutes the first time I watched it.
If the rumors are true and Avatar 2 is going to be using something ridiculous like 4K 3D 120 frames a second, I am curious to see what that does to the look and feel of things.
IMAX is already something like 10x7k resolution, and can go up higher. 4k is impressive for home viewing or a monitor, but movies can do better.
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syndalisGetting ClassyOn the WallRegistered User, Loves Apple Productsregular
I really really like HFR in intense action sequences, and I grew to tolerate it during conversations and stuff. I'll go further and say that I stopped noticing it, though it was amazingly jarring for the first 15-20 minutes the first time I watched it.
If the rumors are true and Avatar 2 is going to be using something ridiculous like 4K 3D 120 frames a second, I am curious to see what that does to the look and feel of things.
IMAX is already something like 10x7k resolution, and can go up higher. 4k is impressive for home viewing or a monitor, but movies can do better.
It's the 120 frames that made the number interesting.
And imax aside, 4K is our theater standard.
SW-4158-3990-6116
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
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MortiousThe Nightmare BeginsMove to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
I really really like HFR in intense action sequences, and I grew to tolerate it during conversations and stuff. I'll go further and say that I stopped noticing it, though it was amazingly jarring for the first 15-20 minutes the first time I watched it.
If the rumors are true and Avatar 2 is going to be using something ridiculous like 4K 3D 120 frames a second, I am curious to see what that does to the look and feel of things.
I too liked the HFR in the action sequences.
First couple of minutes were weird, then I got used to it. But at least I could tell what was happening during the chaotic action scenes (for better or worse)
And it was much better in this one than the previous one, at least in terms of props. This time the swords looked metal and sharp.
Saw the final movie last week. Saw it in 2D because I really could care less about 3D.
I'll probably need to go watch all three of them again, but I do feel this one might have been weaker than the other two. I feel they should have probably cut a few sub-plots, so they could focus more on other plots that didn't seem to get properly developed.
I'll probably get the extended edition set at some point, but I do feel that the LotR Trilogy was better.
Pretty unanimous at this point that LotR was better. I love LotR, I enjoyed the Hobbit.
I do think people who hate on the movie as terrible are a little off base. For all of its faults, the Hobbit is still a pretty good series of Fantasy film. I see ads for dreck like Seventh Son and am sadly reminded that it seems to be extremely hard for people to make good fantasy films.
Yeah, I mean the Hobbit movies not not be as good as the LotR trilogy and there are probably a few fantasy movies that are better than the Hobbit movies outside of the Middle Earth Universe, but I think despite their faults, they were solid. Even if most fantasy movies didn't seem to suck, and were great, I would say that the Hobbit movies would still be solid and worth purchasing for home viewing. Obvious caveat being if one enjoys the fantasy genre.
Traditionally I'm a Tolkien purist but I love Martin Freeman and Ian McKellan so I caved. Thought the first movie was great, the second movie was tepid and the last installment decent. They could have avoided a whole lot of Internet rage by just calling the series 'A Trilogy Inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit'.
Traditionally I'm a Tolkien purist but I love Martin Freeman and Ian McKellan so I caved. Thought the first movie was great, the second movie was tepid and the last installment decent. They could have avoided a whole lot of Internet rage by just calling the series 'A Trilogy Inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit'.
Nah, this is The Internet. We're mad that it's not Tuesday. Even on Tuesday.
This was the first of the three movies where Bilbo and Thorin seemed to have a real relationship. The first two, Bilbo was more like a self serving sociopath who's goals just happened to be furthered by saving the dwarves. His act with the stone was the first time he was acting purely in the dwarves' best interest. His bromance with Thorin was the first emotionally true moment in all three films and that's why this was my favorite of the trilogy, despite its obvious flaws.
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Big DookieSmells great!Houston, TXRegistered Userregular
The first two, Bilbo was more like a self serving sociopath who's goals just happened to be furthered by saving the dwarves.
Erm... what?
Particularly at the end of the escape from Goblin Town, Bilbo does nothing heroic, he just skates out with his new magic ring into a big mess. When it's over, Thorin claps him on the back for being such a true friend of the dwarves and Bilbo just owns it like he deserves all the praise in the world. I dunno, until the very, very end of DoS, he seemed to be on his own quest that just so happened to be going to same way as Thorin. They were supposed to be buds, I saw no real growth towards that until Bilbo decided to stage an intervention over the Arkenstone. A lot of that was covered up by Martin Freeman being the sweetest, kindest looking man on Earth, but he never seemed to return the affection the dwarves showed him until this movie.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
I'm surprised to see that edit omits all the Dol Guldur stuff but keeps the barrel sequence.
Well, the escape is pretty important to ingratiating Bilbo into the company. I don't know how you edit out all the stupid orc bullshit and still show them on their way down the river. There are orcs and elves and arrows in like every single frame of that shit.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
I'm surprised to see that edit omits all the Dol Guldur stuff but keeps the barrel sequence.
Well, the escape is pretty important to ingratiating Bilbo into the company. I don't know how you edit out all the stupid orc bullshit and still show them on their way down the river. There are orcs and elves and arrows in like every single frame of that shit.
Actually, if you get a chance, rewatch it. There's enough footage there to easily omit the majority of the sequence.
Particularly at the end of the escape from Goblin Town, Bilbo does nothing heroic, he just skates out with his new magic ring into a big mess. When it's over, Thorin claps him on the back for being such a true friend of the dwarves and Bilbo just owns it like he deserves all the praise in the world. I dunno, until the very, very end of DoS, he seemed to be on his own quest that just so happened to be going to same way as Thorin. They were supposed to be buds, I saw no real growth towards that until Bilbo decided to stage an intervention over the Arkenstone. A lot of that was covered up by Martin Freeman being the sweetest, kindest looking man on Earth, but he never seemed to return the affection the dwarves showed him until this movie.
Doesn't Bilbo go out of his way to defend Thorin when he's being attacked by Azog at the end of An Unexpected Journey? He also saves the dwarves both from the spiders and from imprisonment by Thranduil, and he's the one who sticks around and discovers the keyhole leading them to Smaug's lair. I fail to see where Bilbo is a "self-serving sociopath"; it may be wrong to characterise each of his actions as selflessly serving the dwarves, but then I don't see all that much affection given to him by the dwarves as a whole, rather than by two or three individual dwarves.
Thirith on
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
I'm surprised to see that edit omits all the Dol Guldur stuff but keeps the barrel sequence.
Well, the escape is pretty important to ingratiating Bilbo into the company. I don't know how you edit out all the stupid orc bullshit and still show them on their way down the river. There are orcs and elves and arrows in like every single frame of that shit.
Actually, if you get a chance, rewatch it. There's enough footage there to easily omit the majority of the sequence.
I actually don't mind the first half. I think the natural ending was at the little gate bridge thing. Everything important happens before that and you could pretty easily end with the shot of them floating through the gate/away down the river. Cut straight to the dwarves washing up and then legolas and turiel finshing off the orc's and discussing whether to return or go on to lake town (and just pretend like that part is happening back at the bridge).
"The world is a mess, and I just need to rule it" - Dr Horrible
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
I'm surprised to see that edit omits all the Dol Guldur stuff but keeps the barrel sequence.
Well, the escape is pretty important to ingratiating Bilbo into the company. I don't know how you edit out all the stupid orc bullshit and still show them on their way down the river. There are orcs and elves and arrows in like every single frame of that shit.
Actually, if you get a chance, rewatch it. There's enough footage there to easily omit the majority of the sequence.
I actually don't mind the first half. I think the natural ending was at the little gate bridge thing. Everything important happens before that and you could pretty easily end with the shot of them floating through the gate/away down the river. Cut straight to the dwarves washing up and then legolas and turiel finshing off the orc's and discussing whether to return or go on to lake town (and just pretend like that part is happening back at the bridge).
That's kinda where I planned the break, except I'm excising Legolas and Tauriel. It'll just be the dwarves escaping, and then finding Bard.
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frenetic_ferretwildest weaselEast Coast is Best CoastRegistered Userregular
I really really like HFR in intense action sequences, and I grew to tolerate it during conversations and stuff. I'll go further and say that I stopped noticing it, though it was amazingly jarring for the first 15-20 minutes the first time I watched it.
If the rumors are true and Avatar 2 is going to be using something ridiculous like 4K 3D 120 frames a second, I am curious to see what that does to the look and feel of things.
IMAX is already something like 10x7k resolution, and can go up higher. 4k is impressive for home viewing or a monitor, but movies can do better.
It's the 120 frames that made the number interesting.
And imax aside, 4K is our theater standard.
I dunno there are plenty of IMAX with Dolby Atmos around depending on where you are. It's not like anything you'd want to watch in IMAX-3d-atmos. I mean, unless you're in one of those non 4g-broadband areas.
I don't care how dumb it is, I absolutely love Bombur rolling over orcs in a barrel then becoming a spinning whirlwind of axes.
I felt like that scene was important, because it solidified that even the goofiest of the dwarves was actually a force to be reckoned with, which was why Thorin agreed to have them along in the first place. The book has them all as pretty hapless, but making the dwarves individual badasses helps to bring them in line with the LotR movies.
Of course, it also has the effect of making it seem like they weren't trying very hard in An Unexpected Journey when they kept getting captured or forced to run away. Makes me wonder how much they leveled up between, "Oh god they have worgs, let's run" in the first movie and "Goblin mercenaries? There's barely a hundred, no problem" in the third.
I was surprised to find that for all its flaws I genuinely liked The Battle of the Five Armies. I enjoyed parts of the two previous films, but neither came close to how I felt about the LotR movies. This one, though: I cared about the characters, even ones that had barely registered previously, I found the action engaging, the drama worked for me. It's too long, certainly, but compared to the tonal mess of the previous two films I think this one might actually be number three on my list of favourite Middle-earth movies by Peter Jackson. Definitely not what I expected going in!
Edit: One thing that the film hit home, though - either Weta Digital or the VFX industry as a whole doesn't seem to have figured out yet how to make entirely virtual environments as convincing as, say, the location work for Edoras or Hobbiton. Edoras remains my favourite location in the LotR films, and that's partly because it is so much more convincing than any of the more obviously CGI locations in the Hobbit movies.
Thirith on
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Cut? No, Atomika, I daresay, is going to ADD. Like, 30 minutes of Lars Von Trier's Antichrist, just to drive home the fact that the desire for the Arkenstone is like a literal mill wheel bound to Thorin's leg.
Fan-Wank: The worms are indigenous to the region (which tracks with Azog's statement), and can't be "controlled," per se, they can only be driven using, like, a big gong or something. So when they found the worms underground, they just drove them in the direction of Dale. Worms probably didn't like being outside, and just started digging again after breaking through "Whoops, giant blue warm cavern, fuck that place, going back to the cool dark underground."
They're not bred siege-creatures, they're just natural creatures that Azog exploits to get his army through the mountains faster.
I'm pretty sure that the giant, sprawling dwarven mines of infinity would have trouble being in the same region as enormous underground digging worms.
What is this I don't even.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
Atomika, what are your plans for TBotFA when you do your edit? In particular, how much are you planning to cut, and what?
I actually was talking about this with Astaereth last night. I'll just cut and paste my list from there :razz:
- I'm cutting out the Legolas/Tauriel/Kili triangle
- eliminating Legolas and Tauriel almost completely
- re-inserting the parts of the EEs that deal with the origin of the Elves' conflict with the dwarves
- re-inserting Thrain's sequences in the EE
- trimming down the scenes with the dwarves at Bag End
- putting more focus on Bilbo
- minimizing dwarf silliness
- cutting out the stone giants sequence
- trimming the Goblintown sequence
- trimming down the scenes with Bard and his family
- Cutting out most or all of the Master and Alfrid
- Cutting out most of the Smaug/forge sequence
- Probably cutting Frodo out entirely, as well as much of the opening monologue and scenes at Bag End with old Bilbo
- Cutting a few lines from Saruman at Rivendell
- trimming out almost all of the barrel sequence
- probably cutting out everything with Beorn
- re-inserting the scenes from the EE with toddler-Bilbo
- eliminating the Orc raid on Esgaroth
- tweaking out some of the atonal slapstick from the Battle of Five Armies
- making Radaghast less cartoonish
I'm sure there's more, and I'd love to discuss any of it with any of you.
If anyone has any decent experience with digital coloring, let me know, because there's a few things I'd like to try out :biggrin:
Fan-Wank: The worms are indigenous to the region (which tracks with Azog's statement), and can't be "controlled," per se, they can only be driven using, like, a big gong or something. So when they found the worms underground, they just drove them in the direction of Dale. Worms probably didn't like being outside, and just started digging again after breaking through "Whoops, giant blue warm cavern, fuck that place, going back to the cool dark underground."
They're not bred siege-creatures, they're just natural creatures that Azog exploits to get his army through the mountains faster.
I'm pretty sure that the giant, sprawling dwarven mines of infinity would have trouble being in the same region as enormous underground digging worms.
Fan-Wank: The dwarves of Erebor learned to put peanut butter on the inside of their passages, so that when the earth-eating worms try to eat their way into the dwarven tunnels, they get peanut butter in their mouths and turn away because that shit is satisfying, they don't need to go any further.
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Big DookieSmells great!Houston, TXRegistered Userregular
Fan-Wank: The worms are indigenous to the region (which tracks with Azog's statement), and can't be "controlled," per se, they can only be driven using, like, a big gong or something. So when they found the worms underground, they just drove them in the direction of Dale. Worms probably didn't like being outside, and just started digging again after breaking through "Whoops, giant blue warm cavern, fuck that place, going back to the cool dark underground."
They're not bred siege-creatures, they're just natural creatures that Azog exploits to get his army through the mountains faster.
I'm pretty sure that the giant, sprawling dwarven mines of infinity would have trouble being in the same region as enormous underground digging worms.
Fan-Wank: The dwarves of Erebor learned to put peanut butter on the inside of their passages, so that when the earth-eating worms try to eat their way into the dwarven tunnels, they get peanut butter in their mouths and turn away because that shit is satisfying, they don't need to go any further.
Alternate Serious Wank: The worms naturally move away from sound and unnatural activity. Anytime they would have gotten anywhere near the dwarves kingdoms, they would have immediately turned in a different direction. It's the method the orcs used to drive them through in the first place.
Some initial thoughts on your proposed cuts, Atomika:
I'm surprised at this, but the Tauriel/Kili stuff worked pretty well for me. I wonder how Kili's story would work without it; I could imagine you'd be sacrificing (potential) emotional impact, because we'll have less reason to care about Kili. Having said that, though, if the material didn't work for you in the first place, eliminating it should work well.
I agree with you on Beorn, although I think it's a shame they didn't stick closer to the book with him. There's an interesting (if minor) character there who isn't well served by what's in the film.
I fully support any and all cuts you propose to make the film(s) less goofy, because apart from the bloat it's the tonal inconsistency that I mind most. A version of The Hobbit that like the novel is a kids' adventure could work well, but Jackson's silly streak doesn't gel with Tolkien at all, as far as I'm concerned. Better to work with what he does well, which is the stuff that's in the Lord of the Rings vein.
I'm curious as to how much longer the Thrain bits are compared to the Thrainless scenes in Desolation of Smaug. It's probably the first time in all the Jackson films that we get two entirely different versions.
I wonder what will be in the Extended Edition of The Battle of the Five Armies, because that film worked better for me than either of the two previous ones, whether in the cinematic or the extended cut. I can almost only imagine it suffering from additions. Has there been any info on this?
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Atomika, what are your plans for TBotFA when you do your edit? In particular, how much are you planning to cut, and what?
I actually was talking about this with Astaereth last night. I'll just cut and paste my list from there :razz:
- I'm cutting out the Legolas/Tauriel/Kili triangle
- eliminating Legolas and Tauriel almost completely
- re-inserting the parts of the EEs that deal with the origin of the Elves' conflict with the dwarves
- re-inserting Thrain's sequences in the EE
- trimming down the scenes with the dwarves at Bag End
- putting more focus on Bilbo
- minimizing dwarf silliness
- cutting out the stone giants sequence
- trimming the Goblintown sequence
- trimming down the scenes with Bard and his family
- Cutting out most or all of the Master and Alfrid
- Cutting out most of the Smaug/forge sequence
- Probably cutting Frodo out entirely, as well as much of the opening monologue and scenes at Bag End with old Bilbo
- Cutting a few lines from Saruman at Rivendell
- trimming out almost all of the barrel sequence
- probably cutting out everything with Beorn
- re-inserting the scenes from the EE with toddler-Bilbo
- eliminating the Orc raid on Esgaroth
- tweaking out some of the atonal slapstick from the Battle of Five Armies
- making Radaghast less cartoonish
I'm sure there's more, and I'd love to discuss any of it with any of you.
If anyone has any decent experience with digital coloring, let me know, because there's a few things I'd like to try out :biggrin:
I'm pretty handy with Davinci Resolve, so feel free to hit me up when you get to that point. Resolve Lite is free, and it can do everything you'd want to do, so once you learn the basics, you can experiment to your heart's content. I think the only thing Lite doesn't have compared to the paid version is noise reduction and 3D support, and you can only export up to 1080p.
Some initial thoughts on your proposed cuts, Atomika:
I'm surprised at this, but the Tauriel/Kili stuff worked pretty well for me. I wonder how Kili's story would work without it; I could imagine you'd be sacrificing (potential) emotional impact, because we'll have less reason to care about Kili. Having said that, though, if the material didn't work for you in the first place, eliminating it should work well.
I agree with you on Beorn, although I think it's a shame they didn't stick closer to the book with him. There's an interesting (if minor) character there who isn't well served by what's in the film.
I fully support any and all cuts you propose to make the film(s) less goofy, because apart from the bloat it's the tonal inconsistency that I mind most. A version of The Hobbit that like the novel is a kids' adventure could work well, but Jackson's silly streak doesn't gel with Tolkien at all, as far as I'm concerned. Better to work with what he does well, which is the stuff that's in the Lord of the Rings vein.
I'm curious as to how much longer the Thrain bits are compared to the Thrainless scenes in Desolation of Smaug. It's probably the first time in all the Jackson films that we get two entirely different versions.
I wonder what will be in the Extended Edition of The Battle of the Five Armies, because that film worked better for me than either of the two previous ones, whether in the cinematic or the extended cut. I can almost only imagine it suffering from additions. Has there been any info on this?
This is a pretty good analysis on what could be included on the final Extended Edition, based on production footage and trailer scenes not featured in the final film. Nothing official yet, but Jackson himself has speculated that he'll put about 30 minutes back into BotFA.
I wish the Tauriel/Kili stuff worked better. I really do. I wanted these films to have at least one strong female presence (outside of Galadriel, natch), but unless the EE changes things quite a bit, it's a poorly-handled subplot. Tauriel never gives any real motivation and investment in why she completely and utterly falls for this guy upon first sight, and their relationship gets almost no development whatsoever, so her huge breakdown at the end just seems ridiculous and completely inappropriate.
Jackson says he has a lot more Beorn stuff to put in the BotFA:EE, so that may have influence on what I do with him ultimately, but as it stands he offers absolutely nothing to the story.
No disagreement from me on the lack of motivation for the Tauriel/Kili romance - and still, it worked miles better for me than the Aragorn/Arwen material in Lord of the Rings, where the only thing that rang true for me was the kiss towards the end (well, one of the ends) of Return of the King. Most likely it's just the two actors; not that their acting was amazing stuff, but it sold me on the attraction. Hey, I'd go for Aidan Turner over Orlando Bloom any day of the week.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
No disagreement from me on the lack of motivation for the Tauriel/Kili romance - and still, it worked miles better for me than the Aragorn/Arwen material in Lord of the Rings, where the only thing that rang true for me was the kiss towards the end (well, one of the ends) of Return of the King. Most likely it's just the two actors; not that their acting was amazing stuff, but it sold me on the attraction. Hey, I'd go for Aidan Turner over Orlando Bloom any day of the week.
Aw, man, I really liked the Aragorn/Arwen romance. It felt like some history was there, not like the abrupt randomness of Kili/Tauriel.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
I'm going to be cataloging the various edits that are coming out, putting the links to them in the OP. If you lovely people want to watch them and discuss what you think works and doesn't, it would be an awesome way to crowdsource some ideas for my eventual edit.
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"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
If the rumors are true and Avatar 2 is going to be using something ridiculous like 4K 3D 120 frames a second, I am curious to see what that does to the look and feel of things.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
You'll get a clearer shot of boring stuff again.
I'll probably need to go watch all three of them again, but I do feel this one might have been weaker than the other two. I feel they should have probably cut a few sub-plots, so they could focus more on other plots that didn't seem to get properly developed.
I'll probably get the extended edition set at some point, but I do feel that the LotR Trilogy was better.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
Pretty unanimous at this point that LotR was better. I love LotR, I enjoyed the Hobbit.
I do think people who hate on the movie as terrible are a little off base. For all of its faults, the Hobbit is still a pretty good series of Fantasy film. I see ads for dreck like Seventh Son and am sadly reminded that it seems to be extremely hard for people to make good fantasy films.
IMAX is already something like 10x7k resolution, and can go up higher. 4k is impressive for home viewing or a monitor, but movies can do better.
It's the 120 frames that made the number interesting.
And imax aside, 4K is our theater standard.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
I too liked the HFR in the action sequences.
First couple of minutes were weird, then I got used to it. But at least I could tell what was happening during the chaotic action scenes (for better or worse)
And it was much better in this one than the previous one, at least in terms of props. This time the swords looked metal and sharp.
It’s not a very important country most of the time
http://steamcommunity.com/id/mortious
Yeah, I mean the Hobbit movies not not be as good as the LotR trilogy and there are probably a few fantasy movies that are better than the Hobbit movies outside of the Middle Earth Universe, but I think despite their faults, they were solid. Even if most fantasy movies didn't seem to suck, and were great, I would say that the Hobbit movies would still be solid and worth purchasing for home viewing. Obvious caveat being if one enjoys the fantasy genre.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Nah, this is The Internet. We're mad that it's not Tuesday. Even on Tuesday.
Oculus: TheBigDookie | XBL: Dook | NNID: BigDookie
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Particularly at the end of the escape from Goblin Town, Bilbo does nothing heroic, he just skates out with his new magic ring into a big mess. When it's over, Thorin claps him on the back for being such a true friend of the dwarves and Bilbo just owns it like he deserves all the praise in the world. I dunno, until the very, very end of DoS, he seemed to be on his own quest that just so happened to be going to same way as Thorin. They were supposed to be buds, I saw no real growth towards that until Bilbo decided to stage an intervention over the Arkenstone. A lot of that was covered up by Martin Freeman being the sweetest, kindest looking man on Earth, but he never seemed to return the affection the dwarves showed him until this movie.
I'm surprised to see that edit omits all the Dol Guldur stuff but keeps the barrel sequence.
Well, the escape is pretty important to ingratiating Bilbo into the company. I don't know how you edit out all the stupid orc bullshit and still show them on their way down the river. There are orcs and elves and arrows in like every single frame of that shit.
Actually, if you get a chance, rewatch it. There's enough footage there to easily omit the majority of the sequence.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
I actually don't mind the first half. I think the natural ending was at the little gate bridge thing. Everything important happens before that and you could pretty easily end with the shot of them floating through the gate/away down the river. Cut straight to the dwarves washing up and then legolas and turiel finshing off the orc's and discussing whether to return or go on to lake town (and just pretend like that part is happening back at the bridge).
That's kinda where I planned the break, except I'm excising Legolas and Tauriel. It'll just be the dwarves escaping, and then finding Bard.
I dunno there are plenty of IMAX with Dolby Atmos around depending on where you are. It's not like anything you'd want to watch in IMAX-3d-atmos. I mean, unless you're in one of those non 4g-broadband areas.
Of course, it also has the effect of making it seem like they weren't trying very hard in An Unexpected Journey when they kept getting captured or forced to run away. Makes me wonder how much they leveled up between, "Oh god they have worgs, let's run" in the first movie and "Goblin mercenaries? There's barely a hundred, no problem" in the third.
Edit: One thing that the film hit home, though - either Weta Digital or the VFX industry as a whole doesn't seem to have figured out yet how to make entirely virtual environments as convincing as, say, the location work for Edoras or Hobbiton. Edoras remains my favourite location in the LotR films, and that's partly because it is so much more convincing than any of the more obviously CGI locations in the Hobbit movies.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
I am good at films.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
I'm pretty sure that the giant, sprawling dwarven mines of infinity would have trouble being in the same region as enormous underground digging worms.
I actually was talking about this with Astaereth last night. I'll just cut and paste my list from there :razz:
I'm sure there's more, and I'd love to discuss any of it with any of you.
If anyone has any decent experience with digital coloring, let me know, because there's a few things I'd like to try out :biggrin:
Fan-Wank: The dwarves of Erebor learned to put peanut butter on the inside of their passages, so that when the earth-eating worms try to eat their way into the dwarven tunnels, they get peanut butter in their mouths and turn away because that shit is satisfying, they don't need to go any further.
Alternate Serious Wank: The worms naturally move away from sound and unnatural activity. Anytime they would have gotten anywhere near the dwarves kingdoms, they would have immediately turned in a different direction. It's the method the orcs used to drive them through in the first place.
But I like the peanut explanation better.
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- I'm surprised at this, but the Tauriel/Kili stuff worked pretty well for me. I wonder how Kili's story would work without it; I could imagine you'd be sacrificing (potential) emotional impact, because we'll have less reason to care about Kili. Having said that, though, if the material didn't work for you in the first place, eliminating it should work well.
- I agree with you on Beorn, although I think it's a shame they didn't stick closer to the book with him. There's an interesting (if minor) character there who isn't well served by what's in the film.
- I fully support any and all cuts you propose to make the film(s) less goofy, because apart from the bloat it's the tonal inconsistency that I mind most. A version of The Hobbit that like the novel is a kids' adventure could work well, but Jackson's silly streak doesn't gel with Tolkien at all, as far as I'm concerned. Better to work with what he does well, which is the stuff that's in the Lord of the Rings vein.
- I'm curious as to how much longer the Thrain bits are compared to the Thrainless scenes in Desolation of Smaug. It's probably the first time in all the Jackson films that we get two entirely different versions.
I wonder what will be in the Extended Edition of The Battle of the Five Armies, because that film worked better for me than either of the two previous ones, whether in the cinematic or the extended cut. I can almost only imagine it suffering from additions. Has there been any info on this?"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
I'm pretty handy with Davinci Resolve, so feel free to hit me up when you get to that point. Resolve Lite is free, and it can do everything you'd want to do, so once you learn the basics, you can experiment to your heart's content. I think the only thing Lite doesn't have compared to the paid version is noise reduction and 3D support, and you can only export up to 1080p.
Here's a long tutorial that goes into some of the more in-depth stuff you can do with Resolve. This tutorial really helped me out when I started transitioning from After Effects to Resolve. Probably more than you'll want to do, but it'll give you an idea of how much control you actually have. Plus you can see what it takes to make high-end footage look good!
This is a pretty good analysis on what could be included on the final Extended Edition, based on production footage and trailer scenes not featured in the final film. Nothing official yet, but Jackson himself has speculated that he'll put about 30 minutes back into BotFA.
I wish the Tauriel/Kili stuff worked better. I really do. I wanted these films to have at least one strong female presence (outside of Galadriel, natch), but unless the EE changes things quite a bit, it's a poorly-handled subplot. Tauriel never gives any real motivation and investment in why she completely and utterly falls for this guy upon first sight, and their relationship gets almost no development whatsoever, so her huge breakdown at the end just seems ridiculous and completely inappropriate.
Jackson says he has a lot more Beorn stuff to put in the BotFA:EE, so that may have influence on what I do with him ultimately, but as it stands he offers absolutely nothing to the story.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Aw, man, I really liked the Aragorn/Arwen romance. It felt like some history was there, not like the abrupt randomness of Kili/Tauriel.