The Spoony Experiment - Because bad movies and games deserve to be hurt back!

http://www.facebook.com/ChusterMerino Chuster M. Merino

“An albino ork… the Prometheus alien”
Yep, now that I remember, it looks exactly like one of those Space Jockeys.

Mo0rbid

The book is 200 pages long. There will be three movies made out of that. That’s 66.6 pages of text per movie. Doesn’t bode well

http://twitter.com/MMike42 Michael Robertson

Apparently Peter Jackson added stuff from the Simirillion too. We get to see what Gandalf was up to with the necromancer.
- taranaich
  
  Not from The Silmarillion: the film-makers don’t have the rights from the Tolkien Estate. They did, however, pull from The Lord of the Rings appendices, particularly “Durin’s Folk” and “The Tale of Years.”
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000505407582 Jordan Leary

Hahahah imagine my reaction when I picked up a copy of The Hobbit. I finished it in about two days and I’m thinking “THREE MOVIES? ARE YOU JOKING?”
http://www.facebook.com/margot.valles Margot Valles

I wish people would let that complaint go now that everyone and their dog have made it. Yeah, if it was just the Hobbit it would be odd. But it’s not. It the Hobbit AND bits from the lotr annex AND presumably bits from the Silmarillion (? I haven’t read it so I can’t really tell). There is PLENTY to tell. Like Spoony and Miles said, if you’re really into Middle-Earth and everything that goes on there, you’ll love every bit of it because they’re not padding most of the time. A good deal of the stuff that is extra is very interesting. Well that was my opinion at least but don’t diss a movie based on a complaint that you’re repeating from everyone else and has little to do with the end result. Trust me there’s plenty of stuff to tell in two other movies (presumably one will be weaker than the other two but only time can tell).
lightice

But Tolkien skips off massive events that you could turn into hour-long scenes with a single paragraph. And he leaves out explanations for things like where Gandalf goes all the time, which he then explains in one sentence at the end. Put all that stuff in properly, and you end up with two movies, minimum.
http://twitter.com/Eliphas8 Sam Pagano

Thats longer than your average screenplay.

http://twitter.com/MMike42 Michael Robertson

Miles looks more comfortable on camera than he used to.

As for the Hobbit, I really liked it. I’m surprised that more people didn’t re-read it like I did before watching it. It was too long for a theater release. I didn’t mind but I’m a huge fan of these movies, the average movie-goer won’t appreciate a three hour 3D film.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Deacon-Hagan/100002190854170 Deacon Hagan

Whhhhhhat? a peter Jackson film is too long?

ANNONNY

I can understand where Spoony is coming from, but I’m with Miles and Brad Jones with this one..

Drags on and isn’t that great to the rest. Felt like I was watching the 4 endings at the end of the last LoTR movie..

Vismutti

About the dwarves not reading ancient Dwarven: Well can YOU read this shit: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4b/Franks_Casket_vorne_links.jpg/220px-Franks_Casket_vorne_links.jpg ?

On the other hand, Elrond has lived for ages and studied stuff so…

You know, just to be fair to the movie.

http://twitter.com/essenegocio Ruivo

Gandalf knew, he just wants Thorin to accept help from Elrond.
http://twitter.com/MammaJambas Yomommmmma

Um, no, we can’t.But then again, WE’RE NOT EXPOSE TO BE ABLE TO!
- Kyle Rybski
  
  What.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Peter-Paizs/1068134059 Peter Paizs

Okay, this is not English, what came to my mind was Old English. Not many people can read that, yet it is not THAT different :)
- Vismutti
  
  It’s supposed to be Anglo-Saxon, the language which preceded English (could be it’s not though, I can’t read it either. I think the first word might be “fisc” which would mean “fish” but hell if I know). But okay, Old English is probably a fairer comparison.
  - lightice
    
    Anglo-Saxon is the same thing as Old English. It’s the language from which the modern English developed through thousand years or so.
  - Solemn
    
    I have a concise edition of an anglo-saxon dictionary (true ones are MULTIPLE VOLUMES LONG).
    
    Fisc: Yup, fish =D
    Flóde: channel, gutter; POSSIBLY flood.
    And yes, lightice is correct, anglo-saxon = old english ;)
    What a lot of people think of as “old english” is really chaucer or shakespearean english, which are middle and early modern respectively 0:
- Solemn
  
  …. that IS old Enlgish (aka, Anglo-Saxon). You’re probably thinking of Chaucer or Shakespeare, right? That’s middle english and early modern english respectively.
misjif2341

Yes, I can read it. It appears to be a request for pizza delivery and hookers.
lightice

You can’t read moon runes at all, except under the right moon. Gandalf didn’t know that they were there to begin with. He was hoping that Elrond could deduce any extra information out of the map, by any means that he had not thought about.

http://www.facebook.com/minkers.vanbuul Minkers Van Buul

Ooohhh yes! I’ve been waiting for this for days!

http://twitter.com/Brut3man Ioannis Maniatis

I am pretty sure that they will show the battle against the Necromancer in the 3rd movie, so the scene on the White council is used to set it up

http://twitter.com/Brut3man Ioannis Maniatis

Radagast was a filler

http://www.facebook.com/lucas.allen.96 Lucas Allen

I wasn’t bored with this movie! I simply slip myself back into the world of Middle-earth and I felt comfortable being there. I saw it in 3D and I thought it was a smooth ride all the way through. Overall, I enjoyed it for what it is and I’m looking forward to the next two films.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1756540070 Christopher Stratton Smith

In Gandalf voice: “He’ll hook a brother up. He sells cheap.” :D:D

Antti Iisakki Bräysy

Watched Hobbit couple days ago, and I think it’s better than Lord of the Rings trilogy. It took it time when it needed to have some quiet and powerful moments, and have some great fight scenes. Unlike in Two Towers, these fight felt more realistic, being more brutal and not acrobatic. Most important to me was that they didn’t betrayed Tolkien story or cut important scenes out of movie. They add some new plot lines and scenes to movie, what is in opinion great, because this way even those who already know the story and mythology around it have something new to see. There are some inaccuracies, but unlike in Lord of the Rings trilogy, those inaccuracies are minor.

Vismutti

About Faramir: he’s not really all that different from Aragorn or Gandalf. The way I see it is that he would be tempted but he knows enough to stay away because he was taught by Gandalf himself. Maybe if he was in the ring’s presence long enough, sure, but he only spend like a couple of days under its influence. Even Boromir held himself back for way longer.

And Tom… well it’s talked about in the council of Rivendell how Tom would be just too capricious to trust the ring with. Sure he’s out of its reach but he’s basically a god and he doesn’t really give a shit so you’d have no idea what he’d do with it. Gandalf says he’d probably just forget about it and leave it lying somewhere.

But yeah, even I admit that his character was unnecessary and maybe even harmful for the story. It’s a fun little sidetrack but that’s about it.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Vaughan-MacDonald/100000473507885 Vaughan MacDonald

I never read the book (Although I do have a copy) But I used to listen to cassette tapes of an old BBC radio adaptation which to my knowledge is a near exact adaptation of the book. Save for some dialogue and set pieces. But I remember the story being very light hearted and very enjoyable adventure. I always had a certain image in my head as to what the dwarves and Bilbo looked like. Ahh, the memories. Seriously, go find the BBC radio show on youtube, it’s awesome.

Jeff Albert

A few notes. First you nailed it with rivendale. I saw the movie twice (because I told my father I would see it with him too). I intentionally waited til rivendale to take a piss and visit concessions….

As far as the movies go. You MIGHT see the morgal blade again. Im fairly certain that Smaug will be defeated in the second movie (As its subtitle is even “The Desolation of Smaug” and I think the 3rd movie is going to follow the journey back. I think the main villain of the 3rd movie is goign to be that necromancer and its goign to follow the book the least and simply hold a ton of LoTR foreshadowing, which has me worried if that is the case)

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000511270547 Nic Payne

“It’s too long”.

I’m sorry but this is not a reason to dislike it. Not unless you have ADHD up the ass. People that tend to have low comprehensive skills usually blame the movie instead of themselves for their own low attention span.

As for another topic, The Hobbit relied on all of the enemies being rendered digital. Now although it does show how great the image has improved, it is sort of a downfall when portraying ANY sort of seriousness to the film. Granted, it does not make the movie bad by any means because I also the movie was amazing.

What set the bar high for LOTR was the intention for all of the orcs intended actors with costume design. This definitely made it seem more real and very serious at ALL times. Seeing those goofy looking digitally rendered Goblins and orcs made it seem like something out of Narnia. Everything seemed more fake.

Radigast was definitely annoying though. It’s good seeing other Wizards than Gandalf and Saruman, but Radigast wasn’t a good example to show the other Wizards of Middle-Earth.

Guzthesnake

It’s not about low attentions spans. It’s about whether or not a movie has enough content to justify its running time. Take Andy Warhol’s Empire for instance. 8 hours, one take, of the Empire State Building. Now that movie is to god-damn long. Compare padding, for instance, where you just cram stuff into the movie because you literally run out of plot. Anime filler is also related. As mentioned above, a lot of people felt that Pirates of the Caribbean 3 was too long, because the makers kept cramming it full of scenes that didn’t need to be in the movie.

I mean, I guess you could blame it on low attention spans if you want, but it seems a bit snobby and elitist. Plus, you’re essentially putting all the blame on the audience for something that might as well be a fault of the filmmakers.

I didn’t think the Hobbit was too long, though. But then, like Spoony, I am a huge mark for LotR stuff.
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000511270547 Nic Payne
  
  Content? I thought that it had enough attention grabbing plot to keep the average person entertained. In fact, the only type of people that have said otherwise are the types of people that claim: “there’s too much talking, I want more action”. I never hear people saying “It was too long, I needed to go to work in about 2 hours so I decided to catch what was HOPEFULLY a 1 hour movie, but instead I had to wait for 3 hours.” In which my rebuttal would have been “Well why did you attend a three hour movie if you had to do something later? Why not research what you have going on?”
  
  There’s quite enough action in there, hell even the book didn’t have daily orc and warg raids, just the occurrences were enough to be entertaining. Like what happens in the mountains, how the dwarves climbed onto the trees and pelted flaming acorns onto Wargs, etc. I really couldn’t possibly think of any “boring scenes” that I could think of besides Radagast. I was even intrigued with the council. If it’s meaningful to the story, then it clearly is good content, even to something as low as a warg raid, or the mountain climb, the party at the beginning and etc. Did they not traverse through the Misty Mountains in the book? Oh, they did? Well then why take it out?
  
  If this is honestly your case, then you are defending the viewers that
  
  A) Never read the books
  B) Teenagers that go in it for the action
  C) Others that can’t keep their attention span when a movie is delivering all the key points relative to the book
  - Guzthesnake
    
    In my original post, I wrote that I didn’t think the Hobbit was too long. I was merely objecting to the general idea that there cannot be such a thing as a movie that is too long.
    
    Furthermore, I’m not saying that “A movie longer than [X length] is too long.”, as you seem to be implying that I am. I’m simply saying that a movie can’t go on forever. You bring up the Hangover, which would make an excellent example for my view of the matter. It’s not too long as it is, but do you think they could successfully have made that movie as long as the Hobbit? I don’t, and thus that movie would have been longer than warranted by its content, or too long.
    
    Just to clarify at the end here: The Hobbit kept my attention for the entire running time. All the content they added from the Appendixes and other sources of lore was completely welcome, as was the completely new relationship between Thorin and Azog. Personally, I even liked the addition of Radagast.
    
    I have to disagree with your statement that a movie can be “better” just by virtue of being longer. I mean, as with my example above, the movie isn’t better just because it’s longer if you just spliced in 3 hours of a static shot of the Empire State Building.
    - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000511270547 Nic Payne
      
      I clarified that the movie had all “good” content. When it is “good” content, then it is justified to have a 3 hour long movie. I also never said straight up that a movie that has more content is better, I said that all of the scenes were meaningful to have in there. So why take out a meaningful scene, if it’s good content? Since when (and please quote me) did I ever say that a movie needs to go on forever?
      
      Also proved my point about how movies differ in terms of length. It’s almost impossible to take a FANTASY-DRIVEN book and compress everything into an hour and a half. Anyone saying that it’s too long should realize that it is derived from the book, and shouldn’t be counted as a flaw. If they made it shorter for the people that are complaining, then you’d have hardcore fans getting mad.
    - Guzthesnake
      
      I agree with pretty much everything you say here. I probably misinterpreted your earlier statements. In fact, looking back at your posts I can’t even seem to find the statements I seem to be responding to in my posts.
      
      In short, I thought you were talking about movies in general, rather than this movie in particular when you said “People that tend to have low comprehensive skills tend to blame the movie instead of themselves for their low attention spans.” That’s what I objected too, but since that’s not exactly what you’re saying, my criticism aren’t really applicable here.
      
      So, yeah. That was awkward.
    - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000511270547 Nic Payne
      
      Yeah sorry on my behalf too, I should have made it a little more clear when in my first post. I was just talking about Book based fantasy movies. Not movies in general.
Vismutti

I do kinda have to agree on the length issue. But then again, I kinda get the opposite argument too, I mean it is a bit much to watch without a break and if you add a break (which I think they should do for these longer movies) it’ll get so long that there will be a lot of people who simply don’t HAVE that much time to spare. Blame it at least partly on modern lifestyle…

Mostly, though, I get that it’s annoying when the movie is so long and you can’t get a toilet break without missing something. I don’t even dare to drink anything before going to see movies anymore. So then I’m thirsty and irritable. But complaining because you can’t keep your focus… well, then the movie probably isn’t meant for you.

“It’s good seeing other Wizards than Gandalf and Saruman, but Radigast wasn’t a good example to show the other Wizards of Middle-Earth.”
Well, the trouble is, there aren’t any others, though… Unless you bring in those “two blue guys” who nobody knows anything about. (I did check the Tolkien wiki, yeah there’s some info on them and even their names but still. You’d have to make a lot of shit up.)

I didn’t see the movie yet so I can’t say much about Radagast but it’s definitely disappointing to hear they made so many of the orcs CG this time…
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000511270547 Nic Payne
  
  Disregarding the whole length, I don’t know what the Wizard tiers are. I haven’t been quite aware of the different colored wizards. If Brown Wizards are better than Blue Wizards then I guess it can’t be helped, but if Blue is basically one step under Gray then I’d much rather see them than the eccentric Radagast (*I spelled his name wrong before). Making Radagast that much involved with the movie was very weird and he wasn’t even mentioned to go as far as interaction with the dwarves/Gandalf.
  
  Did they even talk about the Blue guys in the Silmarillion? I didn’t read up on it yet but I heard that the book mostly displays about the first and second ages with the Last Alliance and all that.
  
  As for the CG Orcs and Goblins…yeah, it was kind of a disappointment but I can see how they wanted it to be more ‘fable-like’ according to Spoony unlike LOTR’s depiction of them.
  - Kibble
    
    I wouldn’t really call them “tiers”, seeing as there is only five wizards, ever. They don’t go to some school to learn that stuff, they are basically lesser gods come down to middle-earth to help people or something like that.
    - Charred Newt
      
      Yeah, Radagast is just the follower of a different god (Vala) than Gandalf or Saruman or the blue guys. I’d say Radagast is a Yavanna guy, since she’s the main goddess of wild nature and trees.
    - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000511270547 Nic Payne
      
      Yeah I just learned that in a Wiki. But isn’t ‘White’ the best? Gandalf does evolve into that, does he not? Can the God descendants come out starting ‘White’? Just curious.
    - Kibble
      
      Late reply is late, but anyway, on further research their isn’t much information on what the robes signify, but white apparently is meant to represent their leader, it’s assumed that Saruman is leader because he just volunteered first (Gandalf was told to go). Later on, Gandalf was basically to only one to still be doing what the wizard’s were told to, so he is given the ability to unleash more of his Maiar powers and decides to take over Saruman’s place (Galadriel gave him the robe and staff). So other than who is the leader, the robes probably don’t mean anything, their powers don’t come from magic in the traditional sense, they just use as much as the Valar allow them too.
  - Vismutti
    
    There’s nothing about the blue guys in Silmarillion… there’s like a tiiiny bit of info on them in the Unfinished Tales. So like I said, they’d have to make a lot of shit up. Plus Radagast at least was in the area, I think he even lived in the Mirkwood or something.
    - Kyle Rybski
      
      Not at all, they’re alive at this time, but very far to the east, way past Mirkwood and into Avari and Easterling territory.
    - Kibble
      
      I don’t remember if they were described as becoming evil. Just that they didn’t care about fighting against Sauron and just went off to do their own thing, I think, Radagast is somewhat the same.
  - lightice
    
    Radagast was involved because he lives on the edges of Mirkwood, which is a major setting for The Hobbit, and because the Necromancer sets his home there, and the movies deal with Gandalf’s own subplot which the book explains in a single sentence, which involves the White Council coming together to drive the Necromancer out of the forest. Radagast is a peripheral member of the Council, so his presence is thrice necessary. What we saw in the first movie was just an introduction.
  - Kyle Rybski
    
    The Blue Wizards both fucked off, though. Neither of them were anywhere near these events. Meanwhile, Radagast is the one who got word to Gandalf about Dol Guldur. We just get to actually see that in the movie.

Skolex

Pirates of the Caribbean 3 was too long for me. This movie was NOT in any way. I wanted it to never end, I was so enveloped in the world and in the story. I really, really wanted to see what Smaug looked like! This didn’t feel like a 3 hour long movie to me. I was there with my 60 year old mother and she felt the same way, and out of anyone at my theater she would probably be the one to feel so. I also felt a little timid at the thought of making three movies out of such a short (generally) book, but then again, I was also excited that they would simply just put more details and take more time to effectively tell the story. I loved this movie and I can’t wait for the second part.

http://www.facebook.com/JCW91 Jake Willson

I’m pretty certain that the Council scene was made because they’re adding the necromancer into the movie.

http://twitter.com/Gatecleaner Gatecleaner

Think in an old interview, the guy who will voice the Necromancer for part 2 for the batle at that castle, will ALSO be at the Battle of Five Armies in part 3 (which the Necromancer wasn’t in the book).

Also, the Albino orc is probably there so the Orc army in the Battle of 5 Armies has a face/leader. Kinda like the malformed white orc in Return of the King with 1 working arm.

http://dumdoi.com/klarden/ Kain Klarden

Tom is actually not pointless in LOTR, because his character shows that a lot of very ancient and powerful creatures just don’t give a fuck about such “small conflicts” as the war of the ring. He lives the future, the timeless and endless happy future which, in his eyes, will never be affected by such simple mortal things. So he just wouldn’t care about the ring and will probably even loose it somewhere and go dancing and singing. So he kinda underlines the importance of hobbits’ quest, without realising that his future will not be always happy because it is, but it will be happy because thos small mortal creatures always insure that there is future with their daily lives. Something like that.

Also, that sound from the trailers – i now call it “concentrated dubstep” after someone called the Reapers (from Mass Effect) sound, which sounds similar, like this. Seriously, google “Do the reapers shoot concentrated dubstep?”

http://www.facebook.com/manuel.wolf.94 Manuel Wolf

i read the hobbit back when the two towers was in theaters and i actually thought it was rather boring. i mean, aside from the dragon attacking the town not much happened and
that part and bilbo being saved from the ogres by the rising sun is
pretty everything i can still remember.
about ten years later they say “hey we’re gonna make a hobbit movie” and i’m like “okay… it was obvious they’d eventually adapt pretty much anything relating to such a succesful
franchise”
then they say “hey it’ll be two movies” and i immediately start bitching how it will be drawn out and boring, because not much happens in the source material. i know it’s a sacrilege to mention these franchises in the same sentence but *cough* breaking dawn *cough*
… and then they say it will be a trilogy.
i heard many people defending that, by saying: “oh, they’ll add stuff from general middle earth lore that weren’t in the book” but is it really the hobbit then? right now it sounds more like “your fix of lord of the rings – now give us your money part 1″
because i haven’t met anyone who could give me a reason to adapt an about 300 pages long children’s book into 3 over 2 hour long movies, other than more ticket money.

http://www.facebook.com/margot.valles Margot Valles

Well they couldn’t very well call it “An Assorted Pick and Mix of Different Tolkien Works” now could they? And really, you can’t see the appeal of adapting to the big screen stuff that wouldn’t have been adapted otherwise? That’s why the stuff from the appendix has its place here and why it’s NOT just a 300 pages book. I mean I want to see that stuff! If you don’t then…well that’s sad for you but it’s better to actually show the stuff for the many many people who want it than just forgoing it just because some dudes think it should be just that one book. People will make fan edits. There, problem solved. And yes, they probably want to make a lot of money (from movies that cost them 250 million dollars to make but that’s not even the point). Look at the nerve on those assholes. I mean as far as I’m concerned if they keep on delivering like they did this time, they can have my money and I don’t even care if I’m the only one.
- http://www.facebook.com/manuel.wolf.94 Manuel Wolf
  
  i see your point and i met a lot of people who share it. if you want to see these things because you’re a lord of the rings fan that’s fine, but please ask yourself honestly: would you let any other franchise get away with it? let’s say they made “the twilight saga: a subtitle that relates to the sun somehow” and they adapted all those other “from the perspective of vampire x” novels and every last piece of material they can find, to make another trilogy of this fictional blight. Would you still say “well they can’t very well make a movie out of each individual one. good for the people who want to see that. ” or would you be annoyed by all the people telling you how great it is and that you have to see it, even though you knew you were going to avoid it, ever since they said there was going to be more than one movie?
  in a way, i’m sorry for comparing twilight to something related to the hobbit, but splitting breaking dawn into two movies to me was equal to the hobbit trilogy. maybe that gives you an understanding of why i don’t like this movie at all.

http://twitter.com/Yadokingu Moritz

And springboard doesn’t have enough free bandwith to actually play this video… again.
Man I get that blip was a bitch to work with, but if your videos can’t actually be played back, you might lose viewers over time.
And no, it’s not me. My internet and flash are fine. This is something that happens with your big videos from time to time, Spoony.
I suspect it’s also why they transcoded a lot of your videos down so much. They just can’t handle the HD videos. Basically they are just as crappy as blip, just in other ways…

dragonfly82

Really enjoyed the Hobbit, gonna rewatch in 48 fps sometime this week….

Considering the amount of Lore Tolkien’s universe has, I didn’t think it was hard to make a trilogy out of 1 book….

http://twitter.com/Uchusi Ulla Siltanen

Thank you Spoony, you really made my day when you said you like these movies. I’m going to see The Hobbit for a second time today and I don’t think it’s too long. I’m that fangirly. If you had bitched about it, I would have been dissapointed.

PeaTearGryfin

I went and saw this last night. I had the same thoughts you guys did. I sat there the whole movie thinking about scenes that I would have cut. I actually thought the movie was about to end about 10 times before the actual ending. I still largely enjoyed it, but there was so much that I would have cut (namely several battle scenes, a great bit of the Rivendel sequence, and the Radagast stuff).

Guest

It’s not the theme from Two Towers, it’s from Requiem for a Dream.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax6nxy1OJX4

Vismutti

Oh yes! Thanks for pointing that out, I totally forfot. I think The Two Towers started the trend of using it in trailers, though.

LotusPrince

You know what really bothers me about Pacific Rim? Not that they used Ellen McLain – that’s cool – but the fact that they’re actually using the musical, up-and-down autotuned GlaDOS voice. What the hell.

Fervidor

“We should saturate the oceans with deadly neurotoxin. Doing so should solve all our problems.”
“But… won’t that kill and the indigenous lifeforms as well?”
“All our problems.”
- LotusPrince
  
  You think you had a bad day? I’M A POTATO.

http://sbkmulletman.deviantart.com/ sbkMulletMan

You know it’s bad for a dwarf when an elf has to teach you your own historical culture. That’s like a French person teaching an English person how to read the King James Version of the bible.

And I’m with Spoony on the whole thing about elves and their salad-eating sissy hippie ways. I’ll take a drunken dwarven booze n’ barbecue environment over a snobbish elf salad any day.

Norman Stillwell

I think one of the main problems with doing The Hobbit is that the main narrative was going to suffer from a sense of feeling overshadowed when compared to what is going on in thebackground.

Basically what I mean is that while the story of Bilbo’s escapades with the dwarfs is interesting, it creates a sense of being almost being unimportaint in the wider sceme of things, seeing as there is the greater importance of Sauron’s return compared to that of the dwarves getting back their treasure, the events of which (appart from Bilbo’s finding of the One Ring) are quite unconnected with each other.

http://www.facebook.com/margot.valles Margot Valles

I guess that’s why they decided to bring on the Necromancer and all that.

http://twitter.com/incarnedine_v Dan Hibiki

In the immortal words of the Dude: I hate the fucking Eagles, man

http://www.facebook.com/people/Freddy-Duran/100000817426762 Freddy Duran

How the fuck did you make that noise?

wasn’t his name like Micheal or something?

Anyone00

I remember back in the day when every other trailer had White Zombie’s “More Human than Human” in them.

Really Spoony, you can’t tell the twist in the Tom Cruise movie? Seem obvious to me: the aliens actually won, the drone’s Tom Cruise’s character is repairing are hunting down the human left on Earth like the ones lead by Morpheus Freeman, Tom Cruise’s character is actually a clone grown by the aliens.

!!!BBBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!

http://twitter.com/SantaPrime Christopher Miles

I feel the same as Spoony. I loved it but know people who get bored easy and didn’t
grow up with the novel will get fatigued. Thought the goofy goblin chase was awesome. Gonna speed it up with some beeny hill music when I get a copy.

Robert Hopkins

That shrieking siren noise in the Prometheus trailer was a callback to the trailer for the original Alien.

That was where that sound first appeared.

mondomolesto

I felt it was good. It could have been better, could have been worse. For as long as it is, they really seem to rush the story. I dont mind that it’s long, it just seems to not use it’s time very wisely. I think they should have taken the whole Azog subplot out entirely, doesnt really add anything, then focused on the actual story and maybe even character development for the dwarfs. It did tend to rely on CGI too much, not “star wars prequels bad”, but a little too much for my taste. One big complaint i had with LOTR is they never bother to explain the eagle thing, and the hobbit doesnt either. They basically treat the eagles like they’re mindless servants of Gandalf who show up whenever he wants them to, and dont bother to explain that the eagles are sentient and have motives of their own, the main reason they save them in the hobbit is they want to break up a fight in there territory, and they find it funny to deprive the goblins of their prey.

Overall maybe 7/10, would bang.

Fervidor

I disagree about Azog, really. He does add something, which is to put a face on the orc menace and give the movie an actual villain, which is really kinda important in an action/adventure movie. Like Spoony said, you really get the feeling that Azog and Thorin genuinely hate each other and would like nothing more than to murder each other to death. That gives us a very personal conflict, which is more engaging than just: “They fight some orcs, you know, because they are orcs.”
- mondomolesto
  
  I dont even understand why Azog is in the movie. In the books he’s killed by Dain Ironfoot at moria, then his son Bolg is the one who leads the orcs at the battle of 5 armies. I’ve seen screenshots of Bolg, so not sure why they’re using Azog now and not just Bolg all the way. I think they’re obviously planning on Azog being killed and Bolg taking over, so that kinda messes with the entire “villain” sub-plot, if you’re villains are interchangeable like that, then arent they all just random orcs?
  - Fervidor
    
    I’m guessing they went with Azog because he’s a very distinct character, which is a rare thing for a LotR orc: Huge, pale skin, rides a giant white warg, has some kind of mace-claw thing for a hand… Dude stands out.
    
    As for why they didn’t go with Bolg, for that to make sense they would have to change the story so that Bolg was the one who killed Thror and then he’s basically just Azog by a different name. Plus, as you say, they probably have plans for Bolg as well.
    
    Bottom line is, I don’t see how leaving Azog out would make the movie better. It certainly would have made it less fun, at least as far as I’m concerned.
    - taranaich
      
      “I’m guessing they went with Azog because he’s a very distinct
      character, which is a rare thing for a LotR orc: Huge, pale skin, rides a
      giant white warg, has some kind of mace-claw thing for a hand… Dude
      stands out. ”
      
      All those things are inventions of the film, though: we don’t know what Azog looked like in the book.
      
      “As for why they didn’t go with Bolg, for that to make sense they would
      have to change the story so that Bolg was the one who killed Thror and
      then he’s basically just Azog by a different name.”
      
      Why? So that we can have a direct connection between Thorin and the Orc antagonist via killing his grandfather? What would be the point of that? Orcs and dwarves already despise each other, there’s no need to inject the cliched “you killed my (grand)father, prepare to die” plot.
    - Fervidor
      
      “So that we can have a direct connection between Thorin and the Orc antagonist via killing his grandfather?”
      
      Yes. Or more precicely, so Thorin could watch Azog kill his grandfather, and then cut off Azog’s hand. The result of this is that they both REALLY hate each other, in a directly personal way.
      
      You may think this is cliché, but it’s actually not: It’s more like an archetype. That’s an important distiction because doing something that has been done many times before is not inherently bad, and absolutely not undesirable in storytelling. Hollywood returns to this formula it all the time because it really works; because it is a very powerful way to create an engaging conflict. See, nobody really *cares* that dwarves and orcs hate each other on principle because ancient blood feud/ethnic differances/racism. Not really. Oh, it’s a great excuse for violence, but it doesn’t make the conflict sympathetic. It’s enmity for no particular reason.
      
      The enmity between Thorin and Azog, on the other hand, is very specific and very intense because they hate each other as individuals. Most of us have wanted to take revenge on someone at some point, so that mindset is *much* easier for an audience to tune in to than just “dwarves hate orcs, because they are orcs.”
      
      Why do you think Inigo Montoya is still such a popular character? Why do you think it’s important that Luke Skywalker had a direct relation to Darth Vader? It’s because people will always cheer harder for a hero when he as a personal stake in what’s going on.
- lightice
  
  The problem is, he shouldn’t have been Azog. Azog has a son, Bolg, who is actually alive in the timeline, and has actual motivation to hate dwarves. They could have replaced everything about Azog with Bolg, instead.

KayAU

I’m pretty much in the same situation as Spoony here…I just love this stuff. And regarding the length, despite the nearly 3 hours runtime, it didn’t *feel* long to me at all. I left the cinema wanting to go watch it again.

Then again, I am more into probably more into this stuff than most people. I did, after all, watch The Fellowship of the Ring five times during its original theatrical run. Those were the days. :) And this movie took me right back to those days.

http://www.facebook.com/Pabloqueseyo Pablo Gerbasi

i feel like spoony, except i did not read any of the Tolkien Books, and im not a big fan of the first LOTR. but i fucking loved the movie precisely because of the fable-feel it had
Charred Newt

Exactly! When I walked out, I was all “Dude, when is the next one coming? I want MORE, I’m F*CKING PUMPED HERE!”.
Treason

Agreed, it was definitely less trying than the end of Return of the
King where they kept faking you out with scrapped ending ideas separated
with a fade to black between each one. I swear to God I must’ve half
gotten out of my seat five times because of that, largely owing to the
fact that I needed to take a leak and I was holding it in so as to not
miss the end of the movie. When they got to the ships with the elves I
almost practically screamed “Oh, now you want to be true to the books!
Fuck you Peter Jackson!”

http://www.facebook.com/adamantyr Adam Haase

Okay, here’s the deal with the wizards:

First, Radagast did not appear in the Hobbit, he was only mentioned in passing. He had a brief appearance in Lord of the Rings that was easy to skip in the movie. I very much enjoyed Sylvester McCoy’s portrayal of him as well; you can see why he doesn’t get invited to the Councils.

Second, Tolkien had a few versions about the Istari (wizards) which are floating around in the Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales. The chief ones mentioned are Saruman and Gandalf. In one story, it is mentioned that Radagast was an apprentice of sorts to Saruman, but he was largely left to his own devices, which is why he ended up going native and living with the animals.

The blue wizards are a total mystery. Tolkien himself said they went to the far east (in some versions, with Saruman, who returned alone) to try and undo the damage Morgoth and Sauron had done to the men in the east, who worshiped darkness and death. They clearly failed at their task, since Sauron had no difficulty in amassing armies from that direction. In one unfinished bit of writing set in Valinor when the Istari were being chosen to go out, they are named Alatar and Pallando, but their names in Middle-Earth are unknown.

That, incidentally, is what made Gandalf’s comment about forgetting their names funny… because there are no real names to remember.

taranaich

“They clearly failed at their task, since Sauron had no difficulty in amassing armies from that direction.”

I wouldn’t say it’s clear: while one could presume that Sauron’s lack of difficulty in amassing armies of the Haradrim and Easterlings, Tolkien also said “They must have had very great influence on the history of the Second age
and Third age in weakening and disarraying the forces of East… who would both in the Second age and Third age otherwise
have… outnumbered the West.”" Considering the landmasses south and east of Middle-earth are far larger than what we see on the map, perhaps the Blue Wizards had more success in the end, even if they failed to stop Sauron directly.

http://www.facebook.com/Winkuru Antti Saavalainen

To those that dont want to sit in theathere there is always the option to watch the animated film of it. It has more traditional dwafs and a lot better gollum.

And by the way. Everyone keeps complaining about the eagles but what about Sauron not sealing the fucking entrance to mount doom or placing guards there. I know he is not expecting anyone actually to reach mount doom but fucking come on.

Vismutti

Dunno, I got the impression that Sauron never even considered the possibility that anyone would want to destroy the ring. It’s possible that he didn’t even think about how it COULD be destroyed. Mount Doom, to him, was just his forge, not something to be specifically shielded. Imagine the ring as the most powerful weapon in the world. You wouldn’t think anyone would want to destroy it, especially if they were in the middle of a war. And he probably didn’t think that his enemies would figure out that his power was linked to the ring. Maybe he didn’t even figure it out himself, thinking he was totally just that unbeatable.

What I do wonder is why he never made another one… I mean, he made the first one, so why not a new one? Though I guess his powers were diminished at that point.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Sebastian-Proano/610127942 Sebastian Proaño
  
  If I’m not wrong, Sauron poured his entire power into forging the One Ring, he simply hadn’t enough power to build another one…
- http://www.facebook.com/Winkuru Antti Saavalainen
  
  How could they not know considering that he originally DIED because the ring was cut from his hand. And i’m pretty sure that he would have found out that the original plan was to destroy the ring.
  
  Or was the Elrond only other person that knew what happened (i can buy that)
  
  But anyways. Sauron not figuring it out that someone might actually try to destroy the ring is just ridiculous. Is it some kind of fantasy book rule that that the villains cant have any common sense.
  
  And the reason why he didn’t make another one because the original purpose of the ring was to control the minds of the people that hold the other nine rings. Why would he make another ring because that plan was botched long time ago.
  
  Also he was really weakened state during the third war so he simply could’t not even make one and it wouldn’t by any use anyway.
  
  The whole ring is actually biggest annoyance in the book for me. They keep telling how powerful artifact it is but it is never shown to have any positive effect on it’s wearer expect the prolonged life.

Yuri PRIME

Hey Soony :)

http://www8.georgetown.edu/departments/medieval/labyrinth/library/oe/texts/a4.1.html
This is text written in OLD ENGLISH… well as you read and speak english, you should obviously be able to read that, right? ;)

Volteau

Stole the words right out of my mouth. And Radagast IS mentioned in The Hobbit, Spoony. But he was just that. Mentioned.
- Erik Kowalsky
  
  That changes … absolutely nothing.
  - superhyperduck
    
    the biggest issue is that we have about 1000-1200 years between us and Beowulf, where as the dwarfs that sealed the mountain weren’t that far separated from those who had the map and key it was only about 3 generations. But it could be old linguistic professor dwarfs intentionally used a dead version of their old dwarfish to seal the mountain and were killed by the dragon before they could teach anyone else. :P
    - http://www.facebook.com/people/Noelle-Myers/682522006 Noelle Myers
      
      You do know dwarves live way longer than, say, 90/100 years, right? I believe they state that one of them is upwards to 2 or 300? Either way, dwarves live longer – so yes, we’re talking about 1000 years, give or take.
- Kyle Rybski
  
  Yeah, Radagast is written to be who informs Gandalf about the Necromancer, which is exactly his role in the movie. The only thing is that in the book, Tolkien didn’t write that meeting, only referred to it. Because the book’s perspective stays with Bilbo a lot more.
  
  Much like the White Council scene. That meeting did happen, it just wasn’t described. Because, again, Bilbo’s perspective.
  - lightice
    
    Actually, not quite. Gandalf namedrops Radagast in The Hobbit as his cousin when he’s trying to establish himself as a trustworthy character to Beorn. Beorn apparently knows Radagast and considers him a friend to some extent.
    
    The White Council meeting is indeed alluded in the book, but it didn’t happen during their stay at Rivendell and Elrond wasn’t a part of it, considering that we found out about the event when Gandalf explained what happened there to to him. It’s all elaborated on much more in the Lord of the Rings, where the events are recounted with much more detail in the Council of Elrond. There we learn that the Necromancer is none other than Sauron, and that when the White Council drove him out from Dol Guldur, he simply feigned defeat and returned to his Mordor strongholds.

http://www.facebook.com/arne.maes Arne Maes

Pacific rim sounds like a Roland Emmerich movie to me :p

Tykittaa

Guillermo del Toro actually knows how to tell a story though, so no.
- http://www.facebook.com/arne.maes Arne Maes
  
  Yeah yeah I know, was talking about the title though

http://www.facebook.com/adamantyr Adam Haase

Concerning the length, I think it’s more a problem of editing. The first hour is by far the worst in terms of pacing and boredom. Even the whole opening scene doesn’t work; they should have moved that into the party scene as a flashback, rather than start with it.

Also, if you thought the Tolkien purists yelled and screamed loud about the Two Towers, just WAIT until you see the vitriol about this one.

In honesty, Tolkien himself wanted to re-write the Hobbit to more closely match Lord of the Rings. For one of the revisions he rewrote the third chapter (the one with the trolls) but he was dissuaded by his publisher from making the change, because “it doesn’t sound like the Hobbit anymore”.

What Peter Jackson and his writing team have done is actually do a lot of the work Tolkien had written out in unfinished stories. In particular, the political events that were occurring at the same time as the quest to Erebor, including the Council dealing with the Necromancer. Gandalf even uses a line from one of the unfinished stories about the dragon being used “to terrible effect”. More or less, had the quest not occurred, Smaug would have been recruited by Sauron, and nothing would have stopped the Eastern armies from invading Eriador. Rivendell, the Havens, Bree, and the Shire would have all been destroyed.

Drak

The reason they didn’t give Tom the ring was it held no interest for him and they feared he would misplace it.

strifesong

Well, I’ve never been much for the LotR movies but I did tell myself I’d give The Hobbit a chance (I was getting the more light-hearted vibe from what I’d been seeing in trailers and stuff so I thought the tonal shift might help) though I was dreading the running time when I heard the adaptation was going from two to three movies.

That said, I actually loved this movie a lot- and I did not feel the running time AT ALL. I thought the pacing was excellent (with the one exception being that council scene; that definitely could have been edited down). Hell if anything, it made me want to give the LotR films another chance, so I don’t entirely agree with the whole “Oh if you’re not into Lord of the Rings you’ll hate this” point.

Pearse Hillock

New blog post so check it out.

http://spoonyonesucks.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/final-fantasy-xiii-part-1.html

Favio Ferreira

Swashbuckly is the perfect word for the action, especially the escape from the goblins. It reminded me a lot of the action for Pirates of the Carribean.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Lauri-Vallin/100002880253890 Lauri Vallin

About hobbit:

- Radagast is simply unforgivably (I know that’s not even close :)hideous and terrible
- How the fuck didn’t the other dwarfs know about Thorin’s past? He’s famous for a dwarf, and it is in their nature to know about the great battles (trying to reclaim Moria).
-Too short. Yes, I am serious. I could have watched it far longer. Although I do grant that some people might think it’s too long, but fuck those guys.
+Everything else

And One more thing. Lets get this straight: If you have not read Silmarillion or the unfinished tales, You are not a Lord of the rings Fan. That’s a simple fact. I’m not saying Silmarillion is a literary masterpiece, but I am saying that if you haven’t read it, you don’t really know that much about middle earth.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Lauri-Vallin/100002880253890 Lauri Vallin

It just occurred to me that me & my friends had no problems with the length, because

1) All of have read all of the books (Including silmarillion and unfinished tales)
2) Nearly all of us had done our military service (We’re Finnish) and that does wonders to your patience.

And one more negative thing.
I hated the one liner “That would do it” (The Goblin King). That was terrible.
Oh and I did not like the mushroom comment from saruman.
http://twitter.com/bizarrogeek Sean Hodges

Sooo…. if you haven’t read something that isn’t LoTR, you’re not a fan of LoTR?

Seems kinda odd to me, given that you can enjoy LoTR without delving into the Silmarillion and still understand what is going on. I’d go as far as to call it fandom elitism, actually, kinda like saying “if you haven’t read the issue of Detective Comics where Batman premiered, you’re not a real fan of Batman.”
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Lauri-Vallin/100002880253890 Lauri Vallin
  
  “Sooo…. if you haven’t read something that isn’t LoTR, you’re not a fan of LoTR?”
  
  Pretty much, yeah. But that is only because there are a lot of people who read all of the books once a year, so I prefer calling them fans and the people who haven’t read silmarllion just like the LoTR.
  
  Because if we call everyone who liked the LoTR books/movies Fans, we still have to call the Readers of Silmarillion something (else than Fans), and calling them Freaks would just be rude.
  
  My point is: there is a world of difference between being a Fan and just liking some books/movies, at least in my opinion there should be.
  
  And by the way. “if you haven’t read the issue of Detective Comics where Batman premiered, you’re not a real fan of Batman.”
  I think so. If you haven’t read the premiere, not a batman fan. Might be a batman-Movie fan, but not a batman comic-fan (again, there’s a huge difference,obviously).
  
  I just want the word fan to mean something.
  - http://twitter.com/bizarrogeek Sean Hodges
    
    The word “fan” does mean something. It means you like the series. I don’t think there should be a distinguishing use of it; perhaps there are different kinds of fans, but a fan remains a fan no matter their exposure to the medium. I can see your point, though, and why you’d want to use the term in that way.

Tjitze de Boer

It seems like an opposite world, a verbose version Hobbit and an action packed Lord of the Rings.

CaptainDingaling

You know, Spoony and his brother look a lot alike in this video.

Fervidor

I pretty much had the same reaction as Spoony, except that I didn’t think it was too long – probably because I was enjoying myself pretty much non stop. I even liked Radagast and the White Council part in Riverdell, because it felt like they were really forshadowing some epic shit and the mood was just right.

If I had to complain about anything, it’s that the story feel kinda disjointed, Actually, it kinda reminded me of playing Skyrim, the way they kept running into adventure on their way to the adventure.

(“Let’s head to that mountain and fight a dragon. Oh, we’re attacked by
wolves! Now we’re fighting trolls! Hey, I heard that there’s a necromancer living in that old abandoned fortress!”)

Gandalf summoning the eagles also kinda broke my suspension of disbelief, because… well, it’s a butterfly. Even for an insect, they aren’t very fast flyers. And yet the eagles show up after like five minutes. What, where they roosting right nearby behind a rock or something?

It also disappointed me that Orcrist didn’t glow. (And yes, I had the same complaint about Glamdring in the older movies.) Especially considering that Gandalf hands sting to Bilbo and is like: “It’s an elf blade! They glow when danger is near, everyone knows that!” And yet the two most prominent elf swords don’t glow. In fact, Sting seems to be unique in that regard. So, how the hell could Gandalf know it had that ability?

Ah, I’m probably nitpicking. I just think glowing swords are awesome. (Impractical, yes, but awesome.)

Finally, I didn’t like the giant fight – I know they were in the book, but I thought they felt out of place. They appeared out of nowhere despite being impossibly large, and one has to wonder why things like dragons and ents and giant elephants are such a big deal with those guys around. Convince a stone giant to step on the enemy army. Done.

Oh well, as I said, besides those few issues, I liked every minute of it and I’m totally looking forward to the other ones.

PS. I feel for Saruman. I really do. Dude must think he’s the only istari who takes his job seriously. I can totally see him looking at Gandalf and Radagast and be all: “Damn it, you two, with your shrooms and your weed. Would it kill you to not dress like bums? We’re supposed to be these legendary wizards…” Really, there’s no wonder he snapped and joined Sauron.

Lobster Mobster

> “Gandalf summoning the eagles also kinda broke my suspension of disbelief, because… well, it’s a butterfly. Even for an insect, they aren’t very fast flyers. And yet the eagles show up after like five minutes. What, where they roosting right nearby behind a rock or something?”

Wait, who says that the eagles got there after only five minutes? I assumed that Gandalf was atop that tower for days, if not weeks, before the eagles showed up.
- Kyle Rybski
  
  You’re talking about a scene from Fellowship, where it is very much implied that Gandalf was there for a long time. Fervidor is talking about a very different scene in The Hobbit.
  - Fervidor
    
    Yeah, all the other times Gandalf summoned the eagles, I could justify it as a kind of long-term prep. (Granted butterflies seem like an unreliable medium of communcation, but what the hell, fantasy movie.)
    
    Just, in this case I seriously don’t see how it could have found the eagles, plus the time it would get the eagles to get there, in time to save the day. Unless the eagles were, like, within shouting distance anyway.
    - http://www.facebook.com/bobby.ladd.39 Bobby Ladd
      
      Don’t you all know it’s the singing butterfly from the Last Unicorn. He’s magical!!
      Really it is never said how Gandalf summoned the Eagles in the Hobbit as I recall but as stated by Spoony it’s been near a decade since I have read the book, and to top it off I do believe I read the first edition of the Hobbit not one of the latter re-wrights Tolkien did to tie it in to the LOTR better.
- superhyperduck
  
  its quite easy to explain “a wizard did it”. You didn’t have to suspend disbelief in a world of hobbits, elves, dwarfs (I mean little people), wizards, rock giants, trolls, wizards, and orcs? Maybe the butterfly relayed the message with the spirit of the forest or something else. The whole premise is over a butterfly delivering a message to an eagle if you can believe an insect can do that you can believe it can get to an eagle as fast as it can.
  - Fervidor
    
    Yes, but there are limits. I’m not saying I can’t suspend my disbelief, but that there comes a point where the disbelief comes crashing down because what I am watching is no longer just “fantastical” but actually “unbelievable”, which is quite a different thing.
    
    Besides, if the explanation is “magic”, you don’t need to mess around with butterflies in the first place. Yeah, you can rationalize it, but you *shouldn’t have to*, and the implication is still that Gandalf sent a butterfly to fetch the eagles. I just found that to be -in this very specific scene- a bit hard to swallow.
http://coja.in.rs Mrmotinjo

Sting didn’t glow during the last battle, too. I was like, WTF? Hundreds of orcs around, including the Big Bad Pale Orc, and Sting looks like its batteries had run out ;/
- Doleth
  
  Not a plot hole, they were actually dwarf disguised as orcs to play a prank on Thorin.
- http://www.facebook.com/johndavid.bachmann John David Bachmann
  
  No, Sting just forgot to get aroused
- Kyle Rybski
  
  I thought that, but looking closely, I only saw wargs passing Bilbo.
http://twitter.com/Patrick_PHA13 Patrick Allen

The mountain giants are only a problem insofar in that they’re huger than they probably ought to be, and you wonder why the Fellowship wasn’t concerned about them when crossing the Misty Mountains.
- Vismutti
  
  Well they might only live in the northern parts of the mountains.
- Fervidor
  
  Yeah, I think that’s what I was trying to get to. They just seemed… too large to fit in the world of these movies. Literally. Walking mountains reenacting Fight Club is something people would take note of.
http://www.facebook.com/niklas.lundquist.5 Niklas Lundquist

The story is disjointed because they didn’t just make a movie out of the hobbit, but also out of the story’s Tolkien didn’t finished thats going on at the same time as the book the Hobbit.
Vismutti

Could be that the giants think of the other peoples as insects, they probably wouldn’t really care about the little peoples’ wars. I mean, what could you even give them as a reward?
http://www.facebook.com/people/Brandon-Greif/100002116448083 Brandon Greif

Yeah…the sword glowing frustrated me. They turned the glow effect into Spoony’s Revised Checkov’s Gun. They do a really interesting bit with Golum and showing the death of a Goblin without getting too gory, then…

Then, I don’t know what happened. Maybe they’re like Smartphones. It moved out of cell coverage as they headed East? LowBat? The Sword Glow App froze? I don’t know, but the more I think about it, the more I think it was some sort of middle finger to the die-hard fans. The glow is CGI, and how do you forget something like that? It’s like the shot that misses the zombie in Alone in the Dark. Either there was a terrifying level of incompetence, or it was on purpose.

I found that more funny than maddening, though. I liked this movie.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Brandon-Greif/100002116448083 Brandon Greif

Also, Thorin’s disgracefully short beard. I thought maybe he lost it in battle, but…all the flashbacks have him being some sort of metrosexual Dwarf, too! Almost all the other Dwarves in the movie put him to shame, with REAL Dwarven beards.

Ish

Forced to post, for the trailer of Prometheus, this is a reference to the first Alien movie trailer back in the 80s. The strange sound come from there.

http://twitter.com/AlKusanagi Al Kusanagi

I loved it as well. Regarding the length, it basically felt like this IS the extended cut. There are several scenes that could be entirely taken out and the movie would have been fine, but they did give lots of great lore related info.

http://twitter.com/MammaJambas Yomommmmma

Spoony changed so much that he is so different, but Miles is still awesome! WE MUST HAVE THEMILESEXPERIMENT

http://www.facebook.com/people/Filipe-Isabelinho/100000173498272 Filipe Isabelinho

I don’t think it’s too long, I think it depends on the persons stamina tbh, The return of the king has 4 hours and I watched it all, non-stop and I didn’t feel it was too long, I just felt it was epic, I just felt it was an amazing movie. I friggin loved this movie, just like Spoony says, I LOVE THIS SHIT! (Also I don’t agree the ents were the msot boring part, I love the ents, they’re awesome and can’t get enough of them to be honest, specially when Treebeard sees Fangorn forest, that was fucking potent on me.)

I’m getting off topic, what I’m trying to say is this, this movie is 2h50m long and it felt amazing all along, I felt the ending coming when the eagles dropped the dwarves, bilbo and Gandalf on the small mountain there and I’ll be honest, I didn’t want it to end there! I wanted MORE! I could’ve probably watched another 2 hours of it XD, but that’s for the next movie =P. And then there are 1h30m movies that you get BORED AS FUCK in the middle of it! that’s a movie that in 45 minutes makes you want to shoot yourself. That’s the difference for me, I just think people have different “stamina” when it comes to this type of thing, now as I said before, I love this shit too, so I can watch hours upon hours of it without getting bored, so really I can’t judge the movie really, in fact, I watched the 3 extended movies, after I watched the hobbit, one after the other, I did not get bored and I still want more! There’s just not that many fantasy movies out there of this quality, there aren’t, there’s tons of books that are almost if not as good (that’s another argument, don’t bring that here now), but movies? Aside LotR I can’t think of any to be totally honest.

Bottom line, I could even do with one more hour and I wouldn’t have flawed it even then, I think anything I can point out in the movie is just nitpicking and when you enjoyed something that much, it’s not worth to nit pick on. My wall of text of two cents XD.

Godmars

For the Tom Cruise movie I’m guessing either aliens won the war and brainwashed Cruise into maintaining the automated system used to track down and kill human survivors, or the aliens are actually humans, the 1%, trying to reclaim the planet.

http://profile.yahoo.com/C5TKOE6TYE53TLTTX6BMBKYCN4 cyxceven

I’m not expecting Robot Jox. I’m expecting Battleship with a robot.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Williams/506191785 Mike Williams

The council scenes and the radaghast scenes were all to set up the extra bits that are padding out the three movies – the necromancer subplot from one of the short stories which gives something for gandalf to do once he sods off from the party

http://www.facebook.com/people/Filipe-Isabelinho/100000173498272 Filipe Isabelinho

Oh you don’t like the eagles idea? fine, you’ve got a really good point Spoony, I 100% agree with you, but I’ve got another idea, a simpler idea.

Sauron as waht? 10,000 orcs at his command? Why in the FUCK didn’t he post TWO, two fucking orcs, at the entrance of mount doom? Would that be so hard? Now, I’m not saying maybe Frodo and Sam could take the orcs on, that’s another topic all together, they have the element of surprise, but it seems to me it’s god damned stupid not to have at least ONE guard there.

And another thing, why not build a door? they build all these weapons and huge siege towers, Sauron couldn’t build a massive door? with a key that’s guarded at the top of Barad Dun??? No? Fine, let’s say, the mountain doesn’t allow for a door to be built there for some reason, it’s always exploding, the door would always be blowing open with the power of the mountain, I don’t know, many things are possible. But I honestly think ,these are 2 very simple ideas, that would deter Frodo from entering mount Doom, I think Sauron would think first, well… they need to get inside mount doom… maybe I should bar their way at the enterance… or maybe, Sauron is just that much confident of himself that he’ll catch the Hobbits before they reach mount Doom.

EDIT: OH and another thing I just realized, there’s am moment where he actually knows Frodo got in! The mouth of Sauron hands the mithril shirt to Gandalf and says he’s dead to try and demoralize them, now wouldn’t you think, at the very moment he KNEW the Hobbit got in, he’d get a group of Orcs to guard the entrance??? MAYBE? I know he sees everything, but seeing and taking action are different things, he saw Frodo inside the mountain and the Fel Beasts rushed to him, big fucking deal his sight was when he couldn’t do shit!

Oh and don’t stone me people!!! I actually love LotR, I’m just bringing valid points here! Even if it is flawed, I still love it =P

Aodhan O’Leary

He knows a spy got in, but doesn’t know its the ringbearer. After all, they took everything from the only one they found and there was no ring on him. So no, there was no reason for Sauron to assume there’s someone in there, trying to destroy the ring.

In fact, that’s a) why there was any hope in the expedition at all – because of the very nature of the ring, Sauron (correctly) assumes that no-one could bring themselves to destroy and b) why the armies of men go to the gates of Mordor, to draw away the guards who would otherwise make it impossible for Sam and Frodo to get there by making them think it was the leader of that group of men who had the ring, which is why he dared to challenge Sauron’s might!
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Filipe-Isabelinho/100000173498272 Filipe Isabelinho
  
  Ah, you’re right, he DOES not know he is the ring bearer, or his purpose, but like I told ShadowFlame, covering your bases, I do not believe, anyone, would leave the only thing that can destroy you, in this case, throwing the ring into mount Doom, unprotected, I also do not believe Sauron would marshall the whole of his forces at the gate, to destroy such a small force, 10.000 orcs, he could not spare 2? or 5? non-sense. Just because he doesn’t think they are going to destroy the ring, it doesn’t mean he wouldn’t consider it possible, unless he IS that arrogant and believes it so impossible, to leave the only place that can kill you unprotected is foolish imo. Question is, would Sauron be that foolish? maybe, I don’t really know much about Sauron aside from the movies, I have to admit I never read the books, I’m not much of a reader unfortunately ^^’ I play way too many games, I want to, but I never make time, I’ve only read the Dragon Lance chronicles, until the gods leave XD. But that’s another matter altogether =P.
  
  I also think it would be foolish to assume Aragorn had the ring (or merri), because that’s in the realm of possibilities not facts, until Sauron saw the ring for real, he should treat it as only a possibility and not leave Mount Doom unguarded by a few orcs, hell he could even leave 1000 orcs with the numbers he had against such a small force o.O
  - Aodhan O’Leary
    
    You pretty much hit the nail on the head – he literally can’t conceive of the idea that someone would want to destroy the ring. And the fellowship works very hard to keep that idea from ever entering it! That’s the entire point of the army at the gates – they make him think Aragorn or Gandalf has the ring (in the books, Aragorn reveals himself to him by looking into the orthanc stone, to goad him with this very fear). Sauron knows that both of them have the strength of will to wield it, and quite possibly overthrow him, given time – so he doesn’t give them time! When they come to attack him in Mordor he sends all his forces so there can be no chance of his plan failing.
    
    Also, in the book I think it’s ~7000 men who arrive at the black gate, with some others set up to protect the rear and other sides. Sauron still has many more troops at his command, but it’s not just a joke. Or rather, it is, but a bitter one.
    
    Re: guarding the volcano – it had erupted shortly before sam and Frodo reached it and was threatening to erupt again. Not sure how you’d guard that, exactly, any better than he already had? He probably did have guards at the foot of the path, but Frodo and Sam don’t take that way, and the Mists of Sauron and the cloaks of the elves hide them from sight.
    
    Basically: all of these things come up in the book and you should ream it/them.
    - http://www.facebook.com/people/Filipe-Isabelinho/100000173498272 Filipe Isabelinho
      
      I guess I’ll have to do just that =P. take some time off gaming, but I have so many unplayed games ; _ ;
    - Aodhan O’Leary
      
      Man, I know that feeling. And I just got the last Wheel of Time book.
http://jaketaylorwritingstudio.com/ Shadowflame

The main idea is that Sauron has no clue that anyone would ever intend to -destroy- the ring – he can’t really fathom it, and he doesn’t know that’s their plan. He thinks they intend to use it to destroy him.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Filipe-Isabelinho/100000173498272 Filipe Isabelinho
  
  That’s all well and good, but if I knew my only weakness, I’d try to protect it nonetheless =/. He knows only he can use the ring, he knows the only way he can be destroyed, I’d protect my only weakness at all costs, why else would a Hobbit be in Mordor with the one ring? How would he even use it? I guess Sauron doesn’t care how, he just expects them to try something and fail then get the ring, but anyways, I’d cover my bases, he doesn’t expect them to destroy the ring, doesn’t mean it’s not a possibility.

Aodhan O’Leary

The White Council pissed me off because of how wrong the lore was, on basically every count – especially the throwaway Angmar comment. Why include such an obscure thing just to be completely inaccurate with it? It would have worked just as well with the correct lore as well.

Overall, the movie was enjoyable, but bloated.

Fiddlewheel

Tom Bombadil is the “Big lipped Aligator moment” of lotr.

user9000

I actually prefer Happy Spoony :)

Agrippa911

The swords the hobbits took from a barrow that belonged to a prince of Cardolan. Cardolan was one of the successor states of Arnor when the sons quarreled over the kingdom. Since they were Numenorian’s it’s very likely that those swords (daggers really) were old, old magic.

Effectively Merry shanked the Witchking with a +5 vorpal dagger.

SeanMcTiernan

Actually, there was an important point of Gandalf going off… He knew that dropping the blade would give Thorin and company time to escape, so in the backdrop, there was more reason for it than it at first seems like there is.

Grif2501

i still dont know how they are going to split it in 3.

however i loved the movie.

Willam Edmonds

I enjoy the movie. If you see it. See it in 3D.

Morgil27

I deliberately reread the book about a month ago, so when i went to see the movie, it was still fresh in my mind and i was able to easily spot all the changes.

Willam Edmonds

Of course there are changes Books are a different media than movies. Please don’t turn into one of those that account for every change as if it is a meaning full reason the movies is bad. Beside, why see the same exact story in a movie that you read in a book?
- Morgil27
  
  No, while i did spot most of the changes this way, i didn’t mind most of them. In fact, there was really only one change that really bugged me: The changing of Gandalf in Dol Guldur to Radaghast, since it kinda creates a plothole in regards to how Gandalf obtained the key and map to the mountain.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Adam-Staley/100000231763949 Adam Staley

I thought that The Hobbit was a little dull at times, and the pacing can be excruciatingly slow in some moments. It didn’t have the same sort of charm as the original LotR series, but still has its own special little something that made it a bit enjoyable for me. Maybe it was the thrilling adventure. Maybe it was the characters. Maybe it’s my secret love for Ian McKellen. I dunno. I ended up liking it regardless. But I think I was judging it as a single, stand-alone movie, not a trilogy. Frankly, all this time, I ashamedly had no idea this was supposed to be a brand new trilogy. After I heard that, I ended up forgiving the movie for its slow pace, because I knew that it had to take the time and let it build up adequately. No sense in making another epic trilogy if you blow your load in the first act. Still, can’t wait for the second flick.

http://www.facebook.com/IstillDontCare2 Matt Cook

the blue wizards were Alator and Pallando. There was going to be a sequel to lord of the ring where they were supposed to be the focus, along with Aagorn’s son.

istilldontcare

ancresty actually.

Hath

I’m surprised that Spoony didn’t mention GlaDOS in the Pac-rim trailer. XD

Skelemelon

Didn’t they play Supermassive Black Hole in the baseball scene in Twilight? That’s actually a pretty good song, and well known.

Internet’s Frank

The Nazghul don’t get the fellbeasts until after they lose their horses. Conceivably, while Gandalf knows they’re stuck land bound in the Shire he could have taken the eagles to Mount Doom. Any fellbeasts organized in defense would be easy prey to the smarter eagles with no Nazghul to guide them.

Aodhan O’Leary

Gandalf didn’t (and couldn’t) force them to come, or even ask them – they came of their own free will. They chose not to come sooner.

http://twitter.com/Shada67 Shada67

Guys, loved your review, I agree with most of your points. I loved the racial/cultural tension between the elves and dwarves.

You missed the coolest part of the Pacific Rim trailer. . . the AI is GLaDOS! Same voice actress, same voice modulation. . . this will be such a cool movie!

http://www.facebook.com/kelly.menendez1 Kelly Marie Menendez

For a reviewer who is so hard to please, it’s nice to see that your thoroughly enjoyed this movie.

http://twitter.com/Zephronias Zephronias

I loved every second of this movie, and I squeed when I saw Radagast, partly because I remember him getting shafted in the LOTR movies, but also because It’s good to see a wizard aside from Gandalf and Saruman (and he had a motherfucking bunny sled! COME ON THAT’S KINDA AWESOME.) My brother hadn’t read the book, though (nor the LOTR trilogy, though he did see the movies), so I kept having to explain stuff to him. He still really enjoyed the movie, though, even if it was just because “hoshit, orc attack! Hoshit, goblins! Hahaha, Bilbo’s not equipped for the outdoors!” Our theatre was absolutely packed.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=673535623 Mike Oxsmall

Spoony was wrong on some points near the end.

1. a. Bombadil. His powers only extend as far as his forest. He wouldn’t be “invincible” if he took the ring and left his land.

b. He would never leave the girl that he was with, he loves her too much. He couldn’t conceive of leaving her – and not protecting her.
2. a. The Eagles were a plot hole. It was established that the Eagles have an ARMY, and one Eagle can take on a Nazgul (as shown in RotK). We only have evidence of a few fell beasts.
b. Mordor is a giant realm. You have hundreds upon HUNDREDS of miles to entire Mordor from.
c. These bus sized Eagles fly at jetplane heights. Legolas was unable to make out what was following them (during Two Towers) when he was crossing Rohan. When the trio met with Gandalf, he said it was an Eagle keeping eye. No weapon could touch an Eagle, let alone hit one.
3. The Eagles were mentioned to be the species with the highest sense of honour. They would think the ring disgusting, and humiliating to even let it corrupt one of them, let alone touch it. Hell, they might even refuse to be in the vicinity of the ring, because of their loathing for it. THAT might be a decent explanation for the plot hole.

Kibble

They way I saw it, the eagle’s honour and pride would make them highly susceptible to the ring (like men). The reason why the ring doesn’t work so well against Hobbits is because they don’t really hold to that warrior’s pride stuff (Smeagol was probably just a real arsehole by Hobbit standards).

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=673535623 Mike Oxsmall

The After Earth twist is that it’s Earth – IN THE PAST.

Humanity evolved, left, all traces of their existence erased, and then a few came back. Smiths son is basically the “Adam” of our world. You see some prehistoric animals in the trailer, sabre-toothes, some other ones.

Lobster Mobster

But Spoony, if the reason the eagles couldn’t fly the ring to Mt. Doom right away is because of the Ringwraiths’ mounts, why did they show up in the final battle at Mt. Doom in Return of the King and then save Frodo and Sam from death?

Godmars

Because with the Ring destroyed so were the Ringwraiths.

Pretty much in the movie.
http://sbkmulletman.deviantart.com/ sbkMulletMan

Let’s just say it took god a little extra time to get into the machine on that one.
lightice

Because the Nazgûl can’t live without the One Ring binding their lifeforce to the world.
theshamster

Very simple answer: they’d be spotted and shot down as they flew over Mordor, or they’d reach the crack of doom to find all of Saurons army and the RingWraiths AND Sauron waiting for them.

Ryan

ROFL @ Miles singing

Lobster Mobster

What, no mention of GlaDOS in the Pacific Rim trailer?

http://www.facebook.com/people/Matt-Kinol/100001311443569 Matt Kinol

So, this is completely off topic, but I was watching the The Ring: Terror’s Ream video, and I think I figured out what dalad jelly is. Since, s is right next to d on your standard keyboard, it was most likely a typo, and really was supposed to be salad jelly. Even if they caught it, they probably wouldn’t have bothered to fix it because who gives a crap about the cafeteria menu in a video game? Also, the rest of the game doesn’t inspire confidence in their quality control.

Now, issue two, why the hell does salad jelly get its own section. This, I believe, was just poor formatting. The sign does not indicate salad jelly, but both salad and jelly as separate items. I can’t read the sign on the far left, but because everything else is just one word, we were assuming one item per sign. Italian, and Chinese are category, not items, denoting multiple items in those categories, so each sign does not in fact refer to one item. We now see a progression from entree, to side dished to… drink. I cannot explain drink, unless they only serve one drink, in which case, what the hell?

You see? Everything can make sense if you just sit back and realize that sometimes people have no fucking idea what they are doing. All of you nitpicking can be solved if you loose a little faith in humanity. I’m working on Lightning’s gravity generator thingy, but I think it comes down to Square completely loosing their shit.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Eric-Mc/100000152293904 Eric Mc

Yeah, but is there this song?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdXQJS3Yv0Y

Alex Huneault

In the tom cruise one i think that he is a prisoner/slave by the aliens who won and the creatures scurrying around were the survivors. Also he is fixing attack drones that are wiping out the remnants of the humans.

http://twitter.com/Ishanji Ishanji

Faramir:
I do not want your one great ring
I do not want your anything
I would not wear it with a frock
I would not wear it on my cock

Frodo:
But would you wear it if t’was found
While Minas Tirith burned to the ground?

Faramir:
No! I would not wear it if you paid me
Or if Balrogs came and flayed me
So get that shit out of my face
And take it to that evil place!

http://www.facebook.com/people/Mads-Bolding-Fenger-Poulsen/1513209391 Mads Bolding Fenger Poulsen

Imagine the length of this trilogy on the extended versions. I’m going to see the film in a few days, and I think that I’ll be siding with Spoony for this one, given that I have read the book several times and loved it. I just love the world that Tolkien has created, and it is my impression, from this review, that the film stays pretty true to that.

http://twitter.com/Spekkio1983 Daniel H

I don’t know if I like or dislike Tom Bombadill. He was strange, I remember I got the thought “Why don’t he take the ring to Mordor, it would be a simple task for him”. But then I think I got the impression that Tom Bombadill doesn’t care about the world, that he is so close to a sort of god that he knows what exists outside our small perception of the universe, that for him, the end of the world is a tiny problem. But still, he is a strange character to have, a little out of place I must say :)

But for some reason I like him, I smile whenever I think about Tom, and get like a happy feeling inside. It’s very strange :)

http://www.facebook.com/people/Joe-Ottoson/100000693361189 Joe Ottoson

Gandalf basically said that there’s no way Tom’s attention span would hold up and he’d loose the ring sooner or later if all of Sauron’s armies didn’t take him down first. Dude’s an airhead.

Kostantine

Where’s ff13 dude?

lightice

There was no escape from elves in the book until they reach Mirkwood, which won’t happen until the second film. The “escape” from Rivendell was an addition to explain Gandalf’s absence a little more smoothly in the goblin caves.

People do die in The Hobbit, the book, actually. More of the Company end up dead and buried by the end of the book than members of the Fellowship in the LotR, actually. It’s an interesting book in the sense that it starts very light, but it ends up quite serious by the end, with actual political ramifications of a massive treasure becoming up for grabs dealt with seriously, even though a deus ex machina ultimately prevents a bunch of more or less decent people from butchering each other for gold.

Personally, I continue to think that the films would have been better off as two. Two 3 h 15 min films, though, but still just two. I was most peeved by the fact that most dwarves got so little character development, when I thought that was the whole point of making it three movies. Instead we got Azog the Defiler, who is dead as a dodo in the original timeline at this point, and could have stayed that way just fine.

You are actually mistaken concerning the White Council and its significance. It’s not just foreshadowing for the LotR-trilogy, it also has ramifications in these movies, as well. The dark power has arrived at Mirkwood, and to those who have read the LotR books know that this power is none other than Sauron himself. Gandalf is absent for long stretches in The Hobbit because he’s out with the White Council fighting Sauron, and ultimately driving him away from Mirkwood — but he just pretends to lose, and returns to Mordor, instead, setting up the LotR-trilogy. You can’t cut out the White Council because they will play a major part in this expanded version of the plot where you get to see everything, not just Bilbo’s personal point of view. It’s going to be Sauron who is the main villain of The Hobbit trilogy, not Smaug, which is true in the backstory, if not the book itself.

Malidictus

Well, when it comes to Lord of the Rings, my favourite character is the one with long hair and a beard. I can’t remember his name, though. Can anyone help me out?

Guzthesnake

I think I know who you mean! Is it this guy? http://collider.com/wp-content/uploads/All-13-Dwarves-Peter-Jackson-THE-HOBBIT-AN-UNEXPECTED-JOURNEY.jpg

Strelnikov

On Promethus: A person named “Ish” pointed out 16 hours ago that the weird noise in the Promethus tailer is a callback to the original Alien trailer in 1979. Ish is dead on….I just wanted to repeat that before his/her comment is swallowed by the mists of time.

On the ungodly length of these movies: The Rankin/Bass people did an animated Hobbit in the 1970s. It was only 77 minutes long, because it was a TV special. Some people think it goes too fast. Peter Jackson had a choice: make a good three-hour adaption that hews to the book exclusively, or go all-out and throw in some things from the larger Middle Earth canon. He went for the latter, knowing that dragging these films out will bore some people, but there is another element – this is the last time he can make a movie with these characters, because none of them appear in any other Tolkien book (except for Gandalf, but he had another name.) So that’s why we get a Hobbit movie with bits of “The Book of Unfinished Tales” and “The Silmarillion” and whatever else they could jam in, because there is now way in Hell that any studio is greenlighting a film based on those books. It’s his last shot; nobody has successfully made both “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings” as movies, and if Jackson does it, he will be the king of fantasy film making. We might see the Hobbit movies hated now, but on DVD they might gain a larger audience; all that counts is if the other two movies are better than the first.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Joe-Ottoson/100000693361189 Joe Ottoson

They don’t have the rights to use content from anything but the appendices.

Vismutti

Oh, good point. I forgot about that.

Sajeh

Your embeded flashplayer takes surprisingly – yet reflective and nearly worrying, though comprehensibly cheap amateurishly, when educational and informative on it’s own – large amount of one´s CPU.

http://www.facebook.com/saiduruya Said Uruya

It’s absolutely too long, but we’re going to see EVERYTHING again that you think we won’t — it’s the entire Necromancer of Dol Guldur sub-plot that’s mentioned in a single line in the Hobbit and is expanded on in the LotR appendices, which PJ has said will be used.

http://www.giantbomb.com/profile/cornbredx/ CornBRED-X

I really liked the hobbit the most as a kid so I think I’ll dig this movie. The book has the most crazy stuff in it, from what I recall, and I’m not a fan of Frodo.
Bilbo was always more clever and braver than Frodo. I mean, ya Bilbo was scared too, but he was a bit of a smart ass, and he would often taken on stuff with his wits more than anything. He was the perfect thief. He even tried to steal from an Orc, I think it was. That’s crazy! Frodo would never do that. I can’t wait til they get to the dragon. His battle of wits with the dragon is epic, and not so much in an action packed way but more because he out smarts the dragon. To me, Bilbo is the action hero to the Twilight emo like teen pop Frodo- even though his actions are more in line with some one like Loki. He fights with strategy more than brawn.
I get that Frodo had to be that way, too, as that is why he was the one to carry the burden of the ring- because he was weak and timid. I just could never stand him.
Sam was the real hero of LOTR. =P

theshamster

Sam is a bad-ass mother-$#!$er dude of deliciousness! he kicks major ass!

http://www.facebook.com/foster.daviessmith Foster Davies-Smith

Anyone else want a Counter Monkey for why Spoony hates elves? I’ve got my own problems with the pompous, lazy, arrogant, shit stains but I’d love to hear his.

areoborg

I wonder how much of the White Council scene (the Rivendell bit you mentioned) is going to play a part in the next two movies, since they’re going to include the routing the Necromancer scenes that took place when Gandalf split from the party in the book.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Dave-Caspermeyer/100000845876867 Dave Caspermeyer

You can NEVER satisfy Tolkien purists or the ‘elite’ so I won’t try. I
did read the published works with the exception of the tales works. One
could consider Silmarillion just a collection to tales works as well.

I know some of the things that have been changed, but it still does not detract from the movie.

taranaich

“You can NEVER satisfy Tolkien purists or the ‘elite’ so I won’t try.”

That may be true, but that doesn’t mean all opposition to changes should just be dismissed. “What do you mean Beorn wasn’t a jive talking robot? Who cares, you can NEVER satisfy Tolkien purists!”

Kendotuxedo

Miles giving Two Thumbs Up, getting all hyped for Pacific Rim
Fuck Yeahhhhhhhhh. That made my day.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001000782571 Brogan Cordova

Every review keeps saying “if you didn’t like Lord of the Rings this won’t be the one to win you over.” But oddly enough, I liked Fellowship, was bored with Two Towers and Return of the King, and the Hobbit really won me over. Am I an anomaly in the universe or something?

Nathan

Not only was Hobbit better than the Lord of the Rings movies… Hobbit was better than its own book.

John Wikoff

Everything on this planet has evolved to kill humans. Welcome, to Space Australia.

Nathan

Radagast could have been cut and not missed if you didn’t know it was an option.

But meanwhile we all know why the Seventh Doctor vaguely believed he had once been Merlin. He was in fact Radagast. And very, very stoned the whole time.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Joe-Ottoson/100000693361189 Joe Ottoson

I always viewed Faramir as an example of the good men of Gondor. One of the last pure and true descendants of the Numenorians. Everyone else outside of Aragorn is pretty much a dick, so it’s helpful to have at least one human from the city they’re trying to save not act like a total asshat so that you have some degree of investment in wanting Gondor to not be erased from the map.

In the movies, I’m pretty content to let Gondor burn since everyone there is a dick. It makes humanity on the whole look like shit with no internal redeeming qualities.

BoboTheClown1987

Spoony looks like shit. How can someone who lives in Arizona be so pale?

http://sbkmulletman.deviantart.com/ sbkMulletMan

From what he’s told us, “don’t go outside” is practically the survival motto of Arizona.
http://twitter.com/Eliphas8 Sam Pagano

By being a nerd who doesn’t go outside.

Emperor_Z

After reading the reviews almost universally complaining about the length, I was pleasantly surprised by The Hobbit. Yes, it was long, but the only part of me that really felt the runtime was my shoulders. There were some parts that I would have cut, like the stone giant fight (As it was almost pointless and a bit silly. Giant Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots, anyone?), and I agree with another commenter that it had that same sort of distracted flow as a session of The Elder Scrolls, but overall, I felt that the movie was very captivating and enjoyable

likalaruku

I read The Hobbit for the first time early this year; it’s a comedy. I actually liked it a lot more than LotR. By modern wussified political correctness standards, some parents might somehow find the book “too dark” for kids, which is probably why The Hobbit shows up on TV Tropes “what do you mean it’s for kids?” page.

theshamster

If Tom was THE god and refused to help, then he would be a complete and total bastard who let his world get raped by darkness, his children tortured and demonised and he would truely deserve what he gets once Sauron totally ruins the world and finally snuffs his life, or drags him into the hellish void and turns him into some grotesque demon who now sings evil songs.
To just sit idly by and allow the world to be consumed is foolish; even Eru (the real god) had to step in when Sauron stepped onto the undying lands (he flooded most of the world).
I beleive that Tom is a Maia (sp?) spirit and had power over nature and his magic was invoked by song; the problem is that, like Radagast the brown, he strayed from his true mission and settled into the woods with his wife Goldberry.

likalaruku

Come on Spoony; everyone knows Directors don’t do their own trailers.

http://www.facebook.com/joethewize Joe Kline

I agree with the barrow knife being a flaw in the films, in the
theatrical version there’s no explanation for why his dagger hurt the
witch king.In the extended they have Galadriel give him the knife which
makes more sense. The books actually explain the moth (not a butterfly)
as a familiar of Radagast that is mentally linked with him, so he sends
for the eagles.

Glad you mentioned the trailer boom trend as i
have parodied it in a video I made to promote my film project, check it
out! http://youtu.be/_TB4aIiT52o

theshamster

I think that the Knife/swords from the Barrow is Sting.
Galandriel gave Merry and Pippen knives/swords.
All of them were elvish weapons, and thus, can harm wraiths.
- http://www.facebook.com/joethewize Joe Kline
  
  Sting is not from the Barrow, it was found among the troll horde in the Hobbit. Still, in the theatrical cut there’s no mention of the dagger used to kill the witch king being an elvish blade at all, they only get explained in the extended version. The Barrow knives were weapons actually specifically made to fight ring wraiths, but Sauron was defeated before they were ever used. If any elvish sword could do the trick then elves would have killed them already. Also, did anyone notice how Galadriel’s Phial shows up out of nowhere in ROTK if you follow the theatrical cuts?
  - http://twitter.com/KeroseneBitumen Christina Nordlander
    
    That’s not true. Galadriel gives Frodo her phial at the gift-giving scene in the theatrical cut of FotR.

theshamster

Well, this isn’t really fair!
You guys in America get to see this film earlier than us lot in Australia, (it comes out on Dec 26th)

http://www.facebook.com/people/Mursa-ArtDragon/100001067306478 Mursa ArtDragon

I hate that bandwagon stuff because it starts making me sorta show disdain toward the original thing that made it popular. It’s like when you hear a funny joke from a comedian and you laugh, its great. Then every one in school starts quoting that same comedian every 10 seconds. I’m just waiting for it to go too far.

In a world of joy an innocents, one duck finds himself all alone, BRRRRRRRR brought to you by pixar entertainment BRRRRRR The ugly duckling

Mankoi

I know I’m being a total nerd here, and I’ve not finished the review yet, shame on me, but I do think the Necromancer stuff will add to the later films, if not this one. It’s not just a backstory to Lord of the Rings. I’m fuzzy on the details, but during that time Gandalf isn’t with the main party anymore, he and the council joined up with some people to go to Dol Guildor and kick the Necromancer’s ass and toss him out. Which they did, and his soul or spirit or whatever went back to Mordor to grow in power there. Or something. But it’s not just foreshadowing for Lord of the Rings, that’s leading up to stuff for later in these films.

http://www.youtube.com/user/yfnwaffle Waffle

I was kind of hoping they’d comment on how the 3D was. Though…as I understand it not every theater is showing it in 3D. Hell, until recently I didn’t know it was available in 3D. lol.

solidsamurai

I suppose the issue with Tom Bombadil is that Tolkien is telling us how petty the rest of the world is. Parts of the world are content in only their own magical existence, and one of them is Tom Bombadil. “Who cares if Sauron dominates middle earth, he cannot touch me! Hi ho!” Says Tom.

And then of course, Sauron finds a way, and arrogance was Tom’s downfall and the same story that basically went with the elves and men, etc.

theshamster

Imagine if Tom had the ring and kept it hidden in his house and forgot about it; eventually Sauron would locate it and, after wiping out the whole damn world, Tom’s precious forest is raised to the ground and Sauron himself knocks on Toms door and responds to Tom’s sing-song voice with his mace.
Tom dies….painfully, Goldberry dies, agonisingly, and the world ends.
The end.
- solidsamurai
  
  So? That’s if he took the ring, but he didn’t take the ring.
  
  Arrogance is still his downfall, if Sauron had won and Frodo hadn’t destroyed the ring – it may take decades or centuries without the ring, but Sauron, having dominion over middle earth, would figure Tom Bombadil enough of a nuisance to wanna murder.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Joe-Gaffen/1118004381 Joe Gaffen

It’s the sound of the Reaper invasion!

Treason

In regards to Tom Bombadil, I think they established in The Fellowship of the Ring (the book anyway) during the council meeting that even though this guy was practically a nature God and was immune to the temptations of the ring, he was a total flake. He would sooner leave the One Ring of Power in a ditch or on a tavern bar stool to go chase some butterflies or skip through a field of flowers than take any of his duties seriously.

http://www.facebook.com/TheBohy Daniel Newton

To Spoony

Regarding the Prometheus trailer

nobody seems to have mentioned this so I will. that shrill sound effect from the prometheus trailer is actually a sound effect that was used in the original alien trailer. I dont think the sound effect was actually used in that movie either.

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjLamj-b0I8

Kyle Rybski

I can’t understand the feeling that the movie was at any point dragging or redundant. Too long, fine, I understand having trouble sitting in a theater for three hours. But the pace was ridiculously fast. From the trolls onward, we were practically jump-cutting from one battle to another. This movie was absolutely crammed as much as it could be crammed without causing seizures.

http://www.facebook.com/scott.woodward.338 Scott Woodward

After Earth twist: Will Smith is subjecting his kid to a terrible holodeck sim so he appreciates the important of family or some shit.

http://twitter.com/BCJedi Business Casual Jedi

The noise in the Prometheus trailer is actually a callback to the original Alien trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjLamj-b0I8

togsolid

Odd that he says the audience seemed to hate it. At the theater I saw this at, there was honest applause when it ended. Everyone enjoyed it and seemed pretty pumped for more.

smek2

Fucking Springboard doesn’t load the video :(

http://sekiwat.deviantart.com/ sekiwat

im not a fan of lotr and i still thought this movie was great.

MichaelT

I did like this film overall, although I did feel it dragged a bit, probably due to it being split into a trilogy.

Note: I have not read the book, nor any works by Tolkien.

Valnar

I wonder whether the whole “it’s too long” complaint is mainly an American phenomenon. As far as I’ve heard, people in New Zealand loved it and so did everyone I talked to here in Germany. Personally, I thought it had just the right pace and that you didn’t really notice the length because there was just so much happening all the time.
Yeah, there were a few slow scenes, but I thought those were absolutely necessary to give the audience some time to calm down after all the action that is constantly happening in this movie. Also, I thought it was much more exciting and engaging than any of the LOTR movies which bored me to death.

MichaelT

I saw the trailer for Pacific Rim, and while it does indeed have an unbefitting title, it does look pretty fucking cool! (as giant monster movies go.)
I also saw the trailer for Jack Reacher (the Tom Cruise movie), which looked pretty generic but well-made.
And I saw the trailer for Beautiful Creatures, and it is indeed a blatant rip-off of Twilight. And it is indeed hilarious.

CoHScrapper

No, no, not Jack Reacher, they were talking about “Oblivion”–Tom Cruise’s new movie and how similar it is to Will Smith’s “After Earth.”
If you haven’t seen the trailer for Oblivion, here’s the link: http://www.imdb.com/rg/s/4/title/tt1483013/#lb-vi2391713561

(My one complaint about both Tom Cruise movies–and pretty much any movie that does this–is his cheap/generic first name. Jack and John are two of the most generic names ever used, albeit, I understand they’re common, and it’s easy to add just about anything to Jack and John and make it sound some-what cool–Jack Bowman or John Crowe–but still, it’s lazy. I’m almost instantly bored whenever I hear the lead character’s name is either Jack or John.)
- MichaelT
  
  I know, I keep getting those two confused. They’re both Tom Cruise action movies where the main character is named Jack.

sifer2

lol I walked into the Hobbit naively believing is was a one part film. Since the Hobbit book was shorter than any of the 3 LOTR trilogy books. Damn hollywood greed strikes again though. And it definitely hurt this film cause it is sooo padded out. The beginning sequence with the dwarves eating his food, and all could have been 30 minutes shorter. But nope we got to make this into several films so let’s take literally everything in the book an make a slow scene out of it.

That said Spoony is right that if your a big fan of the books the movie is a treat just to sit there, and watch. It also has a reunion vibe to it where you get to geek out over seeing all these returning characters like Gandalf, Elrond, Saruman, all played by the same actors. And the action sequences in the film are a fun ride as well. Though they really over used the whole “Oh no they are about to fall off a cliff!” thing way too much. I mean the whole group nearly falls off a cliff like at least 3 times in the movie.

Also the whole thing with Radagast took me completely off guard. I was almost positive he wasn’t a big character in the Hobbit book. And looked it up when I got home, and sure enough almost none of that stuff is from the book. I’m surprised honestly since up until now they have never strayed too far from the books plot aside from minor changes like Arwen saving Frodo instead of Glorfindel or just cutting out something like Tom Bombadil. But now they are just flat out making stuff up. Makes me wonder how much they are willing to fabricate since they will have to add a lot in order to make this into a new trilogy. I don’t remember there being that much left to cover other than raiding Smaug’s lair, and the big battle they fight with Orcs.

Hans Christian Lauvaas

The sound effect from the Prometheus trailer was from the original Alien. It was awesome, when i saw the 1st trailer i almost yelped the same squeel myself.

theshamster

I wonder if we’ll see the scene in the next film where Saruman tries to use the palantir and gets snared by Sauron.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Mads-Bolding-Fenger-Poulsen/1513209391 Mads Bolding Fenger Poulsen

Stoned Wizards meet up with bored vulturi… hilarity ensues

Void

Keep it down keep talking like that and people will think some good came of Twilight…..besides the ticket sales being used by a shadowy government agency to locate the intellectually and emotionally subnormal.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Mads-Bolding-Fenger-Poulsen/1513209391 Mads Bolding Fenger Poulsen
  
  I believe strongly that one should extract whatever positive can be found from whatever it might be.
  And I would strongly suggest that the idea of “bored vulturi” should be credited to Spoony rather than Twilight!

http://www.facebook.com/alex.wally.k.053 Alex Kaminski

I love ya man! My thoughts exactly! Also, don’t forget the Titanic re-release did the “BWAAH!” except as the bell. Which ripped off a fan-version which used the actual “BWAAH!”

http://www.facebook.com/people/Mads-Bolding-Fenger-Poulsen/1513209391 Mads Bolding Fenger Poulsen

It’s funny that people at your screening became impatient…

I live in Denmark, and went to see it yesterday night in a theater which was just over halfway full, my impression was that people really enjoyed it (as did I)

Something that I did think was a bit interesting (not bad… at least not yet) was that it seems to focus as much, if not more, on Gandalf as it does on Bilbo. I’m excited for the next one, and I could see it being either great or less so. I won’t judge the series or any of the individual films as a whole yet, since I haven’t seen them all yet.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Valerie-Dicaire/100000800421372 Valérie Dicaire

Spoony, I am APALLED! How do you not know what the sound in the Prometheus trailer refers to?! I don’t think I’ve yell at my computer screen this much in my entire life trying to knock some sense into someone (and yes I realize that makes me look a bit crazy, but that’s how strongly I reacted)… All I can say is: GO WATCH THE ORIGINAL 1979 ALIEN TRAILER *N-O-W*. You will go “Ooooh, I see. Boy, do I feel stupid now…”. I shake my head with shame, Spoony, with shame!

Ok ok… Admittedly I’m one of the dumb person of fell for the trailer and promo and was completely pumped when the movie came out… and got smacked in the face with a giant turd. So I probably shouldn’t be so quick to judge… Guess I still love ya! <3<3<3

panzi

When I saw that trailer, I thought: Please don’t make it earth, that would be boring. Oh great, it is.

Aiddon

Your complaints about The Hobbit actually remind me of why I get frustrated with Tolkien’s work. I won’t deny the guy was incredibly influential and if he didn’t make his books fantasy wouldn’t be where it was, but if you actually sit down and think about it his talent in actual writing is…kind of suspect. He would kill the pacing in his books SO many times it just got annoying, usually whenever he would go on some long-winded, ultimately kind of boring explanation of something that didn’t have anything to do with the actual plot of the books. I understand why he did it as he put so much work into making this world of his with such a rich history, but he really got masturbatory with his world building. And it’s clear they shoved the Untold Tales (which, let’s face it, have dubious canonicity due to Tolkien never really wanting to publish them) to pad out running time.

As for the trailers, it is annoying how everyone is aping Nolan. Though since Nolan is awesome I can get the aping.

Stephen White

Robot Jox was giant robot gladiators, not giant robots VS Giant Monsters. Although a remake of Robot Jox would probably be an improvement.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Miika-Aarnio/1104857914 Miika Aarnio

that ain’t the escape from elves? should there still be the one in forest when the golden elves capture them?

http://twitter.com/KaijuZ Emil Petrunov

I marathonned The Lord of the Rings movies. Just finished movie 3.

My god. My eyes have never gotten drier x _____ x

http://twitter.com/RoppongiCoffee Mr. RHC

Couldn’t agree more with most of your points, l loved The Hobbit. Even the scenes some say were to long, also the beginning, that was actually kind of refreshing for me.

http://twitter.com/fatherdagoon Wesley L

I have a distinct feeling you will see the Morgul blade in movie two… as it looked to me like jackson was building up to showing the entirety of the White Councils battle with the necromancer, which would include the shade forms of the original Ring Wraiths (the ghost like creature that attacked radaghast was a weakened ring wraith). They really focused on a lot of the White Council buisness and I am pretty sure thats his method for fleshing it into three movies. I’d be surprised if Bilbo makes it beyond Dale in movie two.

http://twitter.com/BillHiers Bill Hiers

Just playing devil’s advocate here, but from a strategic standpoint using the eagles would be difficult, but not impossible. It’s not as simple as “the bad guys also ride flying creatures therefore it can’t be done.” The presence of flying enemies doesn’t automatically mean an attempt to take the Ring in by the air is doomed to failure. It just carries lots of risk. No more than taking the damn thing in on foot, a decision which gives Mordor’s forces time to mass and move against several key enemy targets, resulting in several costly ground battles whose outcomes are meaningless in the long run if the Ring isn’t destroyed.

There’s only nine Nazgul, and they can’t be everywhere at once, so really, isn’t all you need to do is send in more eagles than there are Nazgul? Surely there’s more than nine eagles in Middle-Earth… and surely at least some of those might be willing to risk their lives and even die to help keep the Nazgul off of Frodo long enough for him to get to Mount Doom, which, despite being Sauron’s personal forge, is conspicuously unguarded, at least in the movie.

Clearly, the issue here isn’t that them using the eagles is impossible (it isn’t), but that it would result in a shorter and less dramatic adventure. I have no problem with the way it was done, as a longer, more dramatic adventure is certainly better, but dismissing the use of the eagles out of hand just because the villains also have flying creatures is kind of dumb.

Void

Ok well I can understand you’re point of view but there is other considerations

1. The Ring has to go to Mount Doom, spitting distance from the Eye of Sauron its rather unlikely it would go unnoticed, especially on the back of a giant bird.

2. The nazguls and their fellbeasts don’t need to win a fight against the eagles the only need to kill the one carrying Frodo and the ring, the fall of several thousand feet into a orc’s lap will do the rest.

3. The only way to ensure the safety of the Eagle carrying Frodo would be to have more eagles along as wingmen…wingbirds… whatever. But in turn bigger group means greater chance of being spotted.

4. The only member of the fellowship who has contact with the eagles is gandalf, so unless he was going to try and convince them of “yay suicide mission wooo!” then their aid seems unlikely.

5 The Eagles I believe either implicitly state or at least imply in the books (I think the hobbit) they don’t wish to get involved in the affairs of men.

6. On foot if the hobbits are caught by orcs, there is a chance that the ring won’t instantly get to sauron (orcs may not recognise it, long shot I know) but Sauron himself won’t be immediately aware of its location and its capture, by sticking it on a flying bird as soon as he sees the ring is there his eye will be fixed to that location allowing the entire might of Mordor to home in on ground zero.

7. You are correct that Mount Doom ,the place where the ring can be destroyed, is noticably unguarded, however lets assume Sauron is A of above average intelligence and B is aware that the only weakness the ring has is the forge of Mount Doom. Now pretend you’re Sauron, and you see a host of eagles flying to Mount Doom and once you look at it you’re going to know the ring is there. So host of eagles carrying the ring, to the only place it can be destroyed? how quick do you think 3 nazgul are getting sent to stand in the doorway and stab the first hairy footed short person they see?

These are the first points off the top of my head. feel free to comment, improve or diseminate at will.

http://www.facebook.com/people/David-Pierson/1152517641 David Pierson

11 years ago, when The Fellowship of the Ring first came out, you know what I heard from people? It’s too long, the ending sucked, too many characters, you know, the exact same complaints that the Hobbit is getting. I imagine that by the time the second movie comes out, all those initial complaints will vanish.

I thought the movie was perfectly paced, I was never bored, never checked my watch, and thought it was in fact more accurate to the book than the initial LotR’s movies. Of course, LotR is a far more difficult book to adapt than the Hobbit is. But all in all, I loved the movie, and I think it really showed how little of Middle Earth we saw in LotR’s.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Chris-Behellmorph-Beckett/100001737277871 Chris Behellmorph Beckett

I loved the Hobbit, as much as the original films. I get what Jackson is going for, and I have no problems. Besides I got to see the Seventh Doctor on the big screen and he was entertaining to watch. I know how things go down in the book and I like how they greatly expanded on the roles of various characters like making the Pale Orc a recurring threat, though i do miss the orcs being real and not CGI. Of course a company of 14 instead of 9 does leave the problem of that not everyone is gonna get a satisfying amount of screen time. But Bilbo is great and to me is better than Frodo (though I still like Frodo), Gandalf is just as great as ever, Thorin and Balin get enough screen time for me to remember them easily and be satisfied. I do like the dwarfs but I hope that they will get more screen time, well we do have 2 more films to go through so their is plenty of time left.

Of course the length is a issue, extended versions would be fine like Return of the King. But I think Lee might not have liked it if that happened to him a second time, I would be pissed too if I took the effort of flying at a really old age only to not even appear in the main cut.

http://www.facebook.com/mcatladyhendrickson Meghan Cat-Lady Hendrickson

Okay give me a second to recover! You’re Mark Wahlberg bit had me laughing so hard I was crying, snorting and couldn’t breath all at the same time. It’s been awhile since I’ve laughed THAT much. XD It’s funny you mentioned the “bahhhh” sound from all your trailers, because you DIDN’T get the one trailer I got that did that for the whole trailer, that being the new Star Trek. If you’d gotten that instead of Beautiful Creatures, it would’ve been classic. As for The Hobbit, which I saw a few days ago on my own, I agree with just about everything you had to say. I was very glad to hear how much of a fan you are, because although I don’t know everything about Tolkein’s work, I only read The Hobbit once, never finished LOTR, etc etc. I still love it just because it’s awesome. I love lore, I love imaginative worlds and characters, I love getting sucked into everything that’s going on, so I no qualm whatsoever with how highly you praised it. I’ll agree that I could’ve done without the necromancer and brown wizard bits, as much as I knew where that was going from seeing LOTR as a kind of “lead in”, but I don’t think they needed to lead in to anything. It should just concentrate on being The Hobbit. For that reason, the pale orc grew on me a bit, it wasn’t in the book (that I recall anyway), but as an addition to fill out the film medium a bit, I could tolerate it just fine. Not to mention Thorin’s showdown at the end was just plain epic… I also laughed my ass off at your bit with the wizards, “those two blue assholes” “met them at a party once”, etc. etc. I did like the brown wizard (sorry, I know his name but don’t want to attempt to spell it), as a character, I think he had a lot of charm and could’ve just been something fun to run into along the way sort of how you were going on about Tom. I don’t think he needed to be a part of any necromancer storyline. Overall, I tend to feel like films go by REALLY fast for me, especially in the first viewing, so this didn’t feel long to me whatsoever. There were times it felt a little unbalanced, things were too slow and then suddenly ACTION SCENE, and it felt like they were trying to appease the action crowd for a minute and then go back to appeasing the Tolkein crowd. I actually grew up watching that old VHS of The Hobbit A LOT, I loved that thing, so I was pleasantly surprised to hear and recall the “that’s what Bilbo Baggins hates” song in the beginning, but it got bogged down almost immediately by the dwarves more somber song soon after. I loved their song, I just didn’t think it was the right place for it. I was on a high point, to a sudden low point, which was a little jarring. Anyway, loved New Zealand, love the music, as always. I didn’t mind the council meeting with characters I recognized, even if it was about the necromancer. I liked and actually remember some of that old VHS from things Jackson directly pulled from the source, like the Goblin King’s reaction to seeing Foehammer. I’d completely forgotten that whole part and was like, oh that’s right, they camp out in a cave and get taken by goblins, yeah I remember that! I’d actually say that although this definitely has the LOTR film feel, there were noteable times when I felt this had it’s own “dwarven” feel, whether it was the music change or choices being made by the dwarves that made it a little less predictable or “elegant”, if that makes sense? Especially with Thorin, I think he shines here and there as his own person and not something I can quite define. I also really liked the actor portraying him, I haven’t looked him up yet, but I dug him. For him, I think the final face-off really hit home for me because you have that huge build-up when you realize Thorin’s not going to let this guy see him fall off a cliff, he’s going to make his last stand no matter what. But then, the fight is over almost immediately, which was disappointing, however almost a bit more realistic that way. Firstly, face-offs in real life usually are just that fast, they don’t really go back and forth. So now I’m feeling and think this character must be feeling, well was that worth it? It wasn’t a fair matach-up, not when this guy’s on a big ass wolf that can just jump on me and crunch me into pieces. And now I’m dead, and now the hobbit’s saving me and wow geez, that kinda sucked. It was sort a humiliation, which can do interesting things for a character, especially one that you’re not quite sure yet if he’s that sort of infallible Aragorn. I watched Brad’s review of this yesterday and he or one of his buddies mentioned that Thorin wasn’t really a character until that last bit when he tells Bilbo he was wrong for doubting him, that it was the first real spark of his personality. I’m probably thinking WAY too much about it, but how that last fight unfolded I feel developed a lot in very little time in a surprsing way for me. Anyway, until the next part of the trilogy, which I actually was still under the impression it was two parts and directed but Del Toro, you can tell it’s been awhile since I looked into it. THREE parts huh… I know I’ll love the movies either way, but I think two was fine XD

Lamashtu

I suspect that might not be the popular opinion here, but Muse is one of the best modern rock bands. It’s their song which plays during the twilight baseball scene in question if I remember correctly, and it’s called “Supermassive Black Hole”.
They’re experimenting with the genres quite a lot, from almost radiohead ripoffs in their first albums, to the usage of Rakhmaninov’s motifs in some songs in the second album. And a 16-minute long classical orchestra symphony in the fourth.
And their stage performances are what appeals to me the most. There are frequent lengthy guitar solos and some subtle changes to the pacing of the song which set these performances greatly apart from the studio recordings.

http://www.facebook.com/markus.saren Markus Sarén

Hey, I like Paramore! And I also like Florence + the Machine (the band from the “Beautiful Creatures” trailer)!

http://twitter.com/truesolitair Bradley Armstrong

Spoony is really starting to piss me off every time he talks about music. His Guitar Hero 5 vlog is the only one I have never rewatched, because he comes off like a tool in it.
http://twitter.com/piratenovelist Josh G.

Paramore is my favorite band. It seriously pissed me off when he said that… like i can understand if he researched it and was like ehh it’s not my style but making that bad of an assumption …

Chase

I liked this movie (had a few complaints, but not too many). Well, it’s been ages since I read the books, but there was more put in there compared to the movies. The runes thing…can’t remember if it was in the book or not, but one of the things Bilbo was included in this trip was because he was a map reader (so no idea if Bilbo pointed out stuff they needed help translating or not). As for the guy with the slingshot, his story is explained in the side-off books Tolkien wrote. As a kid, he played with a slingshot and worked on his aim because he wanted to join the dwarven army and come in as an archer unit. Well, the dragon came in and wrecked shit before he could enlist and go through proper training, so, his second weapon training is only in slingshot, not bow~

Dasby

I gotta thank Spoony for at least admitting that he’s just a sucker for this franchise and as such was kind of guaranteed to like it. Had he not made that proviso at the beginning Spoony would have come across as the type of fanboy that’s still insisting that Phantom Menace was a good movie. The Hobbit isn’t BAD per se, but it’s deeply, deeply flawed. Especially so if you’re not a huge fan and merely just wanted to watch an entertaining or involving adventure film. It’s far too long, slow as hell, frequently juvenile (far more than the kids book for which it’s based) and dripping with unconvincing and overused CGI.

CoHScrapper

I watched this video… BUUUUUURRRRRR and I liked what I saw… BUUUUUURRRRRR So now I’m leaving a comment… BUUUUUURRRRRR that everyone can read… BUUUUUURRRRRR. Some… BUUUUUURRRRRR might even… BUUUUUURRRRRR reply! BUUUUUURRRRRR.
*Looks over shoulder* BUUUUUURRRRRR

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=502480641 Patrick Wilson

Everybody;

Given the above video, I just had to share this wonderful video I tripped over on YouTube:

The Hobbit- Shots, by The Hillywood Show®
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXFQFnUdh5I

Give it a shot ;)

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jan-Zlotnicki/100000190359386 Jan Złotnicki

One of the tragedies of the LotR movies was the depiction of Ents. In the books they are by far the best part. In the movie they’re boring as fuck. How do you do that, Peter Jackson?!

Drakedragon

The complaints about the length seem strange to me. Maybe it was just me, but it went by really fast for me. It actually almost felt too short, because it did NOT feel like I sat there watching it for nearly 3 hours.

But then, I love LotR and Tolkien in general, so maybe I’m the wrong person to ask for judging this.

http://handsomefatman.com/ Carlos Alexandre

Tolkien has never really captured my imagination, and The Hobbit did little to change that.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001487516587 Ryan Young

I’m in your boat Spoony. I’m almost religiously devoted to Tolkien’s works, and it is very clear that this movie was made with folks like us in mind (probably because Peter Jackson himself is also one of us). I loved every minute, from the Morgul Blade to Radagast. I saw this thing three times, as I can’t get enough of these movies and have no life. Though I will admit that coming out of the theater after the first showing, I kind of felt that those who didn’t have the same obsession I had would probably be a little lost on this one.

http://www.facebook.com/damion.jackson.5872 Damion Jackson

The Giant Eagle ‘Plot Hole’ is such a lie! They wouldnt have even made it to the Mordor let alone past the wall and into Mordor! Like Saruman the White didnt know about the giant eagles and have his swarms of Craban keeping an eye out for them! In the movie you even see that Saruman can control the weather, summon storms and the like, might have been the collectors edition of the movie. So they jump on some of the giant eagles and fly off and Saruman’s like ‘Oh Really! STORM MOTHER FUCKERS!! The Ring is MINE!!’

Xrosstalk

It sure sounded like the Trollslayer (Total Warhammer reference for those that don’t know.) dwarf was played by Gerard Butler,
in the flashback scene he had the mohawk and two handed hammer and later
with the shaved head and tattoo on his head with the two handed hammer
and two axes on his back. He was playing Dwalin i believe. His older
brother is the dwarf with the white beard and hair that was sort of the
historian; they headbutt each other and he was called Ballin if i
remember right. Anyhow like Spoony I am a sucker for LOTR materiel and
although The Hobbit was more a early teen type adventure than dark and
brooding like the LOTR trilogy I loved all of it. Even bringing in
Shelob’s children briefly in this first movie i was giddy. Course my
favorite character is Beorn which if they are on the edge of the
Mirkwood ( I can’t remember if that was the name of the forest or not.)
then they should come across Beorn (Who without a doubt inspired
Were=bear’s from Dungeons and Dragons; unlike almost all othere “were”
creatures who were evil, Were-bears were absolutely good.) and his cabin
first thing in the next movie since they go there to re-supply I think
(Can’t remember right now.) after losing all their gear fleeing from the
goblins.

Anyhow anxious to see how it turns out, although I
would have thought max two movies out of the book even WITH the appendex
added stuff.

Kinigget

The thing about Tom Bombodil, and this is mentioned, is that he would forget that he even *had* the ring if it were left with him. He would get bored and drop it in a river and the whole thing would start again.
Also, he physically cannot leave the borders of the old forest, the barrow downs were as far as he could go. Remember that the fellowship *begged* for him to come along, and he would have were he able.

CoHScrapper

At 8:53 when Spoony says “Spoilers.” /sarcasm: Oh, no! Spoony used a word that some people want to ban from the English language!
Here’s the link: http://news.yahoo.com/list-no-love-fiscal-cliff-spoiler-alert-092339244.html
But if you don’t want to read about it, then here’s an explanation:
(“Spoiler alert,” the seemingly thoughtful way to warn readers or viewers about looming references to a key plot point in a film or TV show, nevertheless passed its use-by date for many, including Joseph Foly, of Fremont, Calif. He argued in his submission the phrase is “used as an obnoxious way to show one has trivial information and is about to use it, no matter what.”)

Sean Idzenga

This may have already been mentioned but just in case it was missed, the high pitched whine/alarm that was used in the Prometheus trailer is the alarm used on the Nostromo in Alien.

likalaruku

Finally got to see it. I didn’t think it was too long at all. Afterwards, I was hyped up & debating between whether I felt more like playing some D&D or sitting at the computer & playing LotRO.

For entirely different reasons, It could have just been 2 & 1/2 hours of nothing but Frodo, Elrond, Kili, & Thranduil prancing around while Smeagol talks to himself, & I still would have been satisfied.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Kathrin-Öllerer/1468213627 Kathrin Öllerer

A journey like the Hobbit is not a story for a movie. It’s a story for a game.
Take the scenes in The Hobbit, make them cutscenes and let the player solve Bilbos problems while you’re not watching the movie. It would have been linear, but nowhere near boring like the movie was. Given they’d have put as much efford into the game parts as they put into the movie, of course.

http://www.facebook.com/john.rose.921 John Rose

You know, spoony, i didnt think the eagle thing was a plot hole anymore when you explained it… then I saw the third movie for the first time, and the hobbit. Theres clearly more than 9 eagles, at least by my memory, and in the 3rd each held its own against the nazgul’s dragons. if they fly more than 10 eagles over there, one would be free to fuck around for a little bit and then just have a rider toss the ring in.

Critic From The Future

I thought the movie’s way of telling the story was far superior to the book’s which I’m reading right now so I would know.

http://twitter.com/ravenwoodwitch angela

I was beginning to wonder about halfway through where that dog was. She seems bound and determined to show off her squeaky toys every-time you turn on the camera XD.
By your analysis of the film, it sounds to me like it has all the makings of a cult-classic: the popularity rests in a group of people. Personally, I only knew about the movie’s existence because Benedict Cumberbatch and Martian Freeman would have parts in it. (It’s elementary, my dear Bilbo).
Though, on the matter of trailors, I hear World War Z didn’t do so well either…

http://www.facebook.com/SchnellerDamon Jonathan Gabriel Chavez

When I went to go see the Hobbit it didn’t come with the Pacific Rim trailer, we got Superman and Star Trek. Did anyone else not get the PR trailer?

http://twitter.com/daphnerunning won’t put clothes on

Thank you so much! This movie is for me, too, and given that I consider myself to be a pretty discerning filmgoer, I was a little startled to find out how few people came out of it with as positive experience as I did. Your reasons make a lot of sense, and put the whole thing into a much brighter perspective for me.

Thank you, from one D&D and Tolkien huge fan to another!

Михаило Мандић

Damnit, Spoony, you couldn’t remember the name of the white-bearded Dwarf, even if you saw his tomb in the Fellowship of the Ring – it’s Balin! :)

exploda

I went to see it yesterday and the theater was packed. There is going to be a lot of shit going on that is not directly read in the book. I remember reading the book when I was like 13 and being confused about the Necromancer. The appendices of LOTR are the best.

thegodemperor

I’ll say it, people are stupid and impatient. People just can’t
appreciate the journey and just getting into things and the set up. They
want the climax right away, they want the payoff. Not realizing all
along what makes a payoff so great is the entire journey before setting
it up.

Guest

I gotta be honest, I hate Will Smith’s kids. I mean, Jaden Smith can be ok, Karate Kid was good, but rest was meh. And his daughter? Created the worst pop song ever -_- well one of em.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Brett-Engetschwiler/1386578279 Brett Engetschwiler

I agree and disagree with Spoony here. I am a huge Tolkien fan, I’ve read the Silmarillion, I was semi proficient in the elvish languages even. This movie was too much for me. Maybe it was because I was sick while I watched it, but the scenes with the white council and Radagast bugged the hell out of me. Radagast would have been fine if he didn’t have bird shit on his face and riding in the completely unattested bunny-driven sled. In LotR, Radagast rides a horse, why didn’t he have it here? That was really my problem with this whole thing I think, because, despite him only having like two sentences in the books, Radagast was kinda my favorite wizard and they basically turn him into clown shoes.

http://twitter.com/Ymedron Elisa Partanen

Regarding Tom Bombadillo, I remember Gandalf reasoning that even if he would keep it safe, (he might just forget and throw it away), he couldn’t hold back the entire warforce of Sauron forever. It would buy everyone time but it wouldn’t save them.

Dan Schuett

Just saw the movie today, really enjoyed it. My biggest worry going in, and I was very big about avoiding any information about this film before seeing it, was that they’d try too hard to make it like the Lord of the Rings movies and forget that the Hobbit was a fun book. It’s a mainly light hearted book with moments of tension and seriousness, as opposed to the Lord of the Rings which is tense and serious with very little in the way of comic relief.
One moment in the film though that almost had me falling out of my seat at just how silly it was, was when Radaghast says he’ll draw the orcs off and Gandalf is all, “Those are South Westminster Wargs, they’ll outrun you,” and Radaghast just goes, “Bitch I got rabbits!”

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000005596843 Andreas Andy Persson Fondell

Tragedy strikes in this book too, Characters will die.

http://www.facebook.com/bobby.ladd.39 Bobby Ladd

The Bad Witch effect was something Joss Wedon did in the evil Willow in Buffy the Vampire show.

Larry

Tolkien didn’t establish Tom or the Eagles to be loyal to anyone aside from themselves. Families are required to rely on one another. When you have someone born into your family who doesn’t need the aid of the rest of the family, that person becomes distant. That’s natural. The Eagles and Tom are both representations of that.

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Vlog 12-17-12 – The Hobbit, An Unexpected Journey