You missed a good joke though "If I need more people, I put in another me" *insert other Dom* "But your audience needs a female role model" "Ahem" *pan to Dom in a wig and dress* "What about me?"
mii6619 The addition of the female elf to "The Hobbit" movies. She is not a character in the original novel and was created specifically to combat the stigma of adapting a movie with an entirely male cast.
I grew up with the Rankin and Bass animated feature version of "The Hobbit" from 1977, my sister and I also had read along book and audio cassette. I can tell you that when I was a small child nothing terrified me more than it got to part of the story involving the goblins and Gollum, because even as a child I had a very active imagination. I didn't actually get to read the book until I was in high school, but I knew to expect because of the earlier experience.
My dad used to read the Hobbit to me and my brother when i was 5 and when he finished the book we loved it so much that he began making up new adventures for bilbo from the top of his head as he thought that LOTR would be a little bit heavy for a 5 year old. Even those stories were better than the movies and thats including one where bilbo is abducted by aliens and then has to find a glowing jewl from a temple in the rain forest with Indiana Jones.
I really wish this was a two-parter by Del Toro. I don't think you can make a satisfying adaptation of The Hobbit while also being a prequel to Lord of the Rings in just one movie. The book is short, but it's also VERY condensed. The fact that there was still Middle Earth material that was yet to be covered shows that adding material that wasn't in the original book was absolutely necessary. But with all the material they had, they did NOT need three bloody movies!
I am unfamiliar with the LOTR movies so I might have missed something or somethings so maybe you can enlighten me. To my knowledge the only bit of extended universe stuff explained was where Gandalf was since he kinda just floated out of the story for no real reason given in the original tale. If anything that fixes a very big hole in the story that was originally there. I don't see how that is a bad thing.
darkironyoshi It's not a bad thing in concept. Although it does create a hole in the movies. Gandalf didn't know about Sauron's return until a little after Fellowship of the Ring begins, yet he sees it happen in Hobbit 2.
Agreed. I don't think three movies were necessary, but I simply don't see how they could have done the Hobbit justice in just ONE movie. There is a LOT that happens in that short novel. They should have cut most of the superfluous stuff (like Tauriel. I'm SORRY, I'm a woman, I know there are no women in the Hobbit, but she wasn't necessary and just ended up being a good example of WHY being PC for the sake of being PC doesn't work) and just done two movies - one focusing on Smaug, and one focusing on the Battle of Five Armies. I disagree that del Toro should have done it though. The reason LOTR was so brilliant was that Peter Jackson is a massive perfectionist and would literally reshoot/rewrite scenes a hundred times. Kinda like Kubrick. The reason the Hobbit was so shoddy, despite this, was that he was thrown into it too late and ended up still writing scenes (not even rewrites; first drafts) AS they were filming. If he'd been the director from the start, this wouldn't have happened. It's also worth noting that it took maybe half a decade to make LOTR. Peter needed about the same amount of time for the Hobbit, especially if he was doing three films - but he fell victim to shooting and release schedules, which are much tighter than they used to be. All in all this could have been a great adaption, but everyone was fucked over.
They made the mountain giant scene which was a passing line in the book into a 5-10 min action sequence. These films were the the definition of gluttony with how bloated they were. I loved the LOTR films and Peter Jackson did an amazing job on those movies. The Hobbit Trilogy though Peter Jackson seemed to have lost all his directing talent and seemed to learn from the Michael Bay school of directing. The only good scene in any of the movies was the Riddle in the Dark scene and that was it. The one scene that infuriated me and still burns me a little was the barrel riding scene and how utterly fucking ridiculous it was especially Bombur's Barrel Riding Orc Bonanza smartphone app game thing going on with secret barrel armor battle sequence.
"they made the battle of the 5 armies a 3 hour long film when it was 5 pages in the book" Bilbo slept through most of the damn battle. If the movie version of the battle had also happened off-screen there would have been a damned riot, and a well-deserved one. The battle as presented had issues (the nature of the 5th army, bad CGI Dwarf king) but it's size and scope was not I think one of them.
I think my biggest problem with the Battle of the Five Armies is that Bilbo is pretty much shafted in this film. Due to his role as the burglar being complete, he has no other contributions to make to the story outside of the very beginning with the Arkenstone and then just makes a few sporadic appearances in the battle with him using the ring just once so they'd have a cool shot of it for the trailer. I know this isn't Bilbo's fight, but it made his return home just feel plain and uninteresting despite him having just been on a grand adventure.
Whatever else you want to say about the hobbit films, Smaug was the single best representation of a Dragon in modern cinema. A perfect blend of arrogance, intelligence and raw, palpable *power* where so many others end up underwhelming or dumb beasts.
The writing on the map was indeed in the book, it's the last two pages of chapter 3. "Moon-letters are rune-letters, but you cannot see them," said Elrond, "not when you look straight at them. They can only be seen when the moon shines behind them, and what is more, with the more cunning sort it must be a moon of the same shape and season as the day when they were written. The dwarves invented them and wrote them with silver pens, as your friends could tell you. These must have been written on a midsummer's eve in a crescent moon, a long while ago."
"...and probably offered a dress to wear." Actually, even dwarf women had beards, at least according to the films (I'm not knowledgeable enough to say if this is true in the books). This is referenced directly in one of the LotR films in which Gimli talks about other races not being able to tell the difference between dwarf men and dwarf women, after which Aragorn quietly clarifies "It's the beards" behind his back. In Rivendell, this confusion is actually shown happening in reverse, as Kili demonstrates an inability to tell the difference between elf men and elf women since they share the human "feminine" traits of being slender, long-haired, and having smooth, hair-free faces. All of which is simply to say that I doubt they considered their beards an expression of maniliness so much as just... dwarfishness. - Lewis
Your right about the Norse/Beowulf connection! JRR Tolkien was a professor of Saxony culture so there was a strong Norse influence and it was he who made scholars look at Beowulf for its literary merit, not just as something giving information about the time it is written and it also influenced his work.
come to order! C.G.:the Cartoon Judge! Um, yeah. He was an academic writer, theologian, and poet. He wrote much on folklore and mythology that were not directly tied to Middle-Earth. While fantasy influenced him throughout his life, it wasn’t solely directed towards creating middle-earth.
come to order! C.G.:the Cartoon Judge! Well, like NinjaCell mentioned, Tolkien’s renditions of some of the oldest British texts, are what a lot of people use. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight for example- it’s Tolkien who is often credited when they teach it in schools. But in terms of fiction writing, yeah, Middle Earth is his magnum opus and the most celebrated works.
come to order! C.G.:the Cartoon Judge! Technically, Middle Earth books in general, since LOTR is just one segment but yeah. Also, maybe I mean, we still have the 1977 animated Hobbit, which is a superior adaptation to these films.
You guys forgot that Thorin is OLDER than Balin, he was the leader of the group and the direct heir to the throne of Erebor. He had a beard almost as long as Gandalf had...
The forced love interest in this trilogy and setting up a kickass female character only for her to be the token damsel REALLY pissed me off with these films -_-'.
Yeah although there's no shortage of kickass female characters in Middle Earth... with Galadrial at the very top, a being of such elegance and grace capable of fury and destruction, she is the perfect female hero IMO, a well balanced marriage of fierce physical stopping power hidden away behind a tranquil, comforting presence of feminine beauty at its pinnacle.
That's what happens when you shove your (essentially) fanfic character into an established story. She was made up on the spot when making the movies, not an actual part of the story. So she had to be shoehorned in, which leads to her being unable to do things that matter, without causing issues, or undermining another character.
@@i.147 I don't see what difference their gender makes. A valid argument is valid no matter the gender. Seems a bit sexist to imply otherwise. Inb4 "I didn't say or imply anything of that sort." Uh huh. Yea. Sure.
@@lastmanstanding7155 Well, the gender someone has been assigned does affect the values people have attempted to instill in them, their life opportunities, how they're treated...no one's arguments exist in a vacuum. It doesn't matter how logical you want to consider yourself, your life experiences always influence everything that you say.
I like how Thorin wasn’t as “bad ass” in the book which actually makes him more interesting. In a way it’s actually more bad ass when you don’t try too hard to make someone bad ass.
the things that made aragorn so badass where how he really did not care what people thought of him and how soft he was, when there was no need fo a decisiv leader. The contrast of the tenderness with which he heals, how he enjoys story telling and singing elvish verses, the sympathy with which he regards eowyn and his heroic, fearless leader moments makes the later all the more impressiv. he can to proud and heroic, stern and even intimidating, but unless he needs to, he reather did not
You know, if I had a pound every time the phrase "Thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread" in relation to the Hobbit films, I would be rich enough to buy a small island!
In the middle of the earth, in the land of Shire there's a brave little Hobbit who we all admire. Bilbo, Bilbo, Only three feet tall. Bilbo, Bilbo, He's the bravest little Hobbit of them all.
The effects were definitely not better than the Lord of the Rings. The CGI was cartoonish and they relied FAR too much on it. Peter Jackson is notable for his use of practical effects in all his older films. Lord of the Rings uses them expertly to make orcs look gritty and real. He also filmed actual models for the castles and towns. Not just CGI madness everywhere
The Imax 3D thing sunk the visual side of this movies. It was just too good of a quality of picture where you could see every little detail being off. The LotR CGI is not really groundbreaking, it's just perfectly integrated with the rest of the picture and lower (compared to Hobbit) picture quality helps to seel the illusion, while Hobbit's CGI sticks out like a sore thumb.
@@MkZuO12345 I'm pretty sure Weta Workshop literally won an award for groundbreaking CGI, due to their work on Golum. They did a lot of groundbreaking when it came to mo-cap CG characters being integrated with live characters
One of the most eye-rollingly blatant scenes in the first Hobbit movies was Bilbo visiting the shrine with the shards of Narsil and staring at the ring in the painting of Isildur vs. Sauron as the music grows ominous. Come on, guys, we know Bilbo's going to find the ring already, geez.
You're right! Beowulf and the Poetic Edda were inspirations for the Hobbit. Overly Sarcastic Productions makes a note of that in their episodes on these texts. Dwarf names in LOTR are pulled directly from a chapter in the Poetic Edda that consists mostly of common dwarf names. In Beowulf, the titular hero/king defends his town from a dragon who's trying to burn his town. Why? Well, this dragon lives in a cave full of gold, gold that it loves very much. And somebody stole its favorite cup. He doesn't know how to single out the thief, but he can kill that criminal and the rest of the town all at once.
0:15 You are my spirit animal, Dom. 14:33 This is simply due to everyone and their dog believing that everything in the middle ages was brown and dirty when in reality rich people flaunted their wealth by dressing in the brightest primary colours possible.
AdalRoderick well, that and that it was in many regions forbidden to wear certain colours unless you had a certain income/status/job... and dye was quite expensive to begin with.
We are talking about a *dwarven King* and his men. And even if, say, red were forbidden because it's reserved for clerics there is still the rest of the rainbow. There's no excuse for this habit in media since 90% of the main characters in these kind of shows and movies follow rich/noble main characters and everyone is still clothed like a lower class merchant.
I know this is a bit late, but I just wanted to point out that while I agree with many other films, in this case I disagree. While the Dwarves where of relatively high status and Thorin was a king, they were planning from the first get-go to go on a dragonhunt. Knowing this, it makes sense that they would discard their usually lavish attire for travel robes which tended to be dark greens and browns in order to blend into the environment. The Elves meanwhile wore very bright and richly adorned robes in their town of Rivendell. I really wish Peter Jackson had paid more attention to this detail in the first trilogy, Theoden always looked like he was just about to go out and lay siege to a city, even when at court. That really bothered me.
AdalRoderick Not only rich people, but virtually ALL people liked to wear nice bright-coloured clothing. The same as today. And the wealth is no issue when you weave your own clothes.
Same. My only major gripes with the first movie were mainly just them "resurrecting" Azog to be an overarching villain and the orcs hunting the party near Rivendell in _broad daylight_ Apart from those, most of the changes and additions in the first movie were minor or innocent enough to accept, forgive or overlook. Sadly, it only got worse after that...
I really liked the first film. The other two dragged on but I still liked them. I really do wish they had just stuck with making just two films. It's just crazy that they took a rather short book (what was it, 300 pages?) and stretched it over 3 films but condensed 3 much longer books into the same number of films.
rissabubbles yes yes omigod yes. also random question because no one else I know reads which is your favorite book and what do you think of the horse and his boy
I personally wouldn’t have minded adding more LOTR elements into The Hobbit, since Tolkien originally never wrote the book too be part of a bigger universe and it wouldn’t had been a stretch that if he had made the book knowing what would come next he would’ve added more. Having two Hobbit films with extra stuff like Gandalf’s journey from the originally appendices on paper don’t sound like a bad idea (I’d even argue it’s what De Toro was probably intending to do). The issue tho for me was the poor execution and them stretching it into three movies.
There's one major thing untouched in the video. The behavior of the dwarves besides Thorin. A major example of the changes in their behavior is in the musical number chip the glasses, crack the plates where the movie depicts the dwarves doing all the terrible things they mention, such as smashing dishes, bending silverware, and smashing wine on the front door and over all just wrecking Bilbo's house. However, Tolkien depicted the dwarves as singing this to tease Bilbo but they actually cleaned up after themeselves as a show of thanks to their host Bilbo. “I suppose you will all stay to supper?” he said in his politest unpressing tones. “Of course!” said Thorin. “And after. We shan’t get through the business till late, and we must have some music first. Now to clear up!” Thereupon the twelve dwarves-not Thorin, he was too important, and stayed talking to Gandalf-jumped to their feet, and made tall piles of all the things. Off they went, not waiting for trays, balancing columns of plates, each with a bottle on the top, with one hand, while the hobbit ran after them almost squeaking with fright: “please be careful!” and “please, don’t trouble! I can manage.” But the dwarves only started to sing: Chip the glasses and crack the plates! Blunt the knives and bend the forks! That’s what Bilbo Baggins hates- Smash the bottles and burn the corks! Cut the cloth and tread on the fat! Pour the milk on the pantry floor! Leave the bones on the bedroom mat! Splash the wine on every door! Dump the crocks in a boiling bowl; Pound them up with a thumping pole; And when you’ve finished, if any are whole, Send them down the hall to roll! That’s what Bilbo Baggins hates! So, carefully! carefully with the plates! And of course they did none of these dreadful things, and everything was cleaned and put away safe as quick as lightning, while the hobbit was turning round and round in the middle of the kitchen trying to see what they were doing-The Hobbit, Chapter One: An Unexpected Party Tolkien makes it clear the dwarves respect and honor their host but also find Bilbo's behavior and worry ammusing and while they joke about it, they still clean up as a show of respect and gratitude. Ultimately the dwarves are not jerks or college students who trash their dorms during frat parties, they have a strong sense of respect and honor but also a strong sense of humor. Of course they did act in a manner that may seem abraisive and slightly rude and reckless, but for them it is rather efficient and they acted without delay.
13:25 I just read this book for the first time, and the moon runes on the map were certainly in the book, and Elrond shows it to them, just like in the movie.
DarkHero Gamer While we were watching the first Hobbit, which we went with my father, who introduced my brother and I too Lord of the Rings when we were kids. I even dressed up as Galdalf for Halloween as a kid. Our dog was named Strider. Anyway, while we were in the theater the Sandy Hook shooting happened. Which we heard as my step mom was a teacher and we knew some of the people killed. So that really messed up that viewing...
DarkHero Gamer It definitely made watching the rest of the movie rough, as we didn't know all the details yet. My dad was getting texts in a movie, which we are not the type of people who do that. we respect others watching movies. But then other people in the theater started hearing about the shooting and the whole theater, which wasn't many people, got pretty somber.
DarkHero Gamer I have a similar thing. I went with my Grandparents, Uncles, Dad, and siblings just after Christmas each year. My Granddad had read the Hobbit/Lord of the Rings 14 times so he always organized it. But then for the third one my Grandparents and Uncles went without us because we couldn't find a time that worked for all of us. So my Granddad came over one night to apologize and he gave us money to go see it since he felt bad, what I didn't know at the time was that it would be the last time I ever saw him. He died a few weeks later from a sudden heart attack.
The first film gave me hope, especially when it made all those early references to the book. Even using Tolkien's notes to pad Gandalfs side of the story seemed a good idea for making it a bit darker to fit LOTR and adding runtime, but the next 2 films just make me sad inside.
I recently had one of those "On This Day" things pop up in my Facebook timeline. It from when I had just seen _The Hobbit_ at the cinema in December 2012:- "Went to see 'The Hobbit' today. It had me grinning every time they used a line from the book. It was a bit like when your favourite band plays the opening chords from one of their classic hits." [Sigh] Talk about diminishing returns.
Ho now - I'll Freeze your marrow cold if you don't behave yourself. I'll sing your roots of. I'll sing a wind up and blow leaf and branch away. Old Man Willow! What be you a-thinking of? You should not be waking. Eat earth! Dig deep! Drink water! Go to Sleep! Bombadil is talking!
Honestly, the Tom Bombadil part was the only one of The Fellowship book when I really considered to just put it away. Throughout the whole thing I was like "Can someone get this obnoxious weirdo out of the story".
Since I'm currently at Tom Bombadil's part in my reading of the book, I'm glad I'm not the only one who finds that whole sequence drawn-out and pointless. I hope it doesn't last too many chapters…
Don't worry, keep going, it's just this little shitty part that you need to get through. It picks up later again and it goes full rollercoaster once the Fellowship leaves Rivendell.
Why does everyone feel the need to add short to the description of the Hobbit as a book? It’s not a long book by any stretch of the imagination, but I wouldn’t call it short. Short implies novella length. It’s an average length novel, not stupidly long and not too short. In defence of the three films an awful lot happens in the book, and some without very much build up (e.g. Bard). It was nice to see all the scenes from the book play out and to expand on certain back stories to make them more interesting. And it is wise to give a central villain across all three films to give us some real stakes. I would have accepted 2 films on this, but I do agree that 3 was excessive.
I feel like I'm the only one who actually loved the Hobbit Movies. I thought the additions weren't bad at all but I actually enjoyed most them. I liked that they actually showed what Gandalf was doing while he was gone, I enjoyed that the filmmakers actually tried to give at least some of the other dwarves some personality etc. I also loved how they expanded on this simple story to connect to the lord of the rings and I loved the additional Lore from tolkiens work that they added. Yes I have read the Hobbit and I still absolutely enjoyed these movies
You're not the only one. I do have criticisms of the Hobbit movies, mostly related to the crazy action/fight sequences, but for the most part I still enjoy them. I actually think the acting is equal to or in some cases superior to LOTR. I guess I feel that it's very subjective whether people care for a piece of art or not, and this goes for books, films, music, etc.
Sher-Lock Holmes I'm with you, I love the movies. Yes, they do deviate quite a bit, but the heart of the book is still there. The action scenes could have been toned down, but I still found them awesome. To me the movies are kind of say "If this is the last time we get to journey into Middle Earth, we are going to make it epic". And the attention to detail was astounding. Peter Jackson and his wonderful crew really made the world feel real. I had so much fun watching them.
seriously, if you can't relate to another human being on the topic of a book just because of the genitals you possess, then the problem is yours. sheesh. aside from that cool review. like your co-host, but imho it was just unnecessary to introduce her like that . thought we were talking about books here not identity politics. either way, you stay subbed. love your show.
ok then i just didn't get it. my bad. times have just gotten so tense and so many things have become über-politicized as of late.. meant no offense there. i apologize
Vermithrax plays First , love your name. I can understand your view with how crazy SJW and feminist things can happen nowadays. But, as the Dom said too his reference here made sense. Basically, I can see both sides and I'm glad everything turned out fine :)
jep. seems i was the only one that didn't get it. i am actually relaxed. i am just rather jaded because i love the way media can take me away from all the shit in the real world and i tend to react allergically when somebody bursts that bubble. even if it was my own fault. like here. so from the depths of my heart i sincerely apologize and i'll try to take a longer harder look before i comment, when something rubs me the wrong way. well, that was quite a lesson. thanks for showing me where i was wrong. kinda feel ashamed now
No not really they didn't have her shield surfing like Legola., I swear everytime I see the scene where legolas is jumping off of the falling stones I can't help but hear the mario leap sound play through my head.
Love the Dom/Calluna duo! They work well off one another and I'd definitely like to see more of them together. (Terrance is great. Nothing about this will ever change.)
Influenced by scandinavian myths... It really is. The names of every member of the company are in a list at the beginning of the poetic Edda. It was hilarious when I started reading that list. Fili, kili, thorin... all of them
One does have to love how the moon letters were pretty much the only memorable thing that happened during their visit to Rivendell, and the map presented at the start of the book even has the moon letters presented in transparent text as opposed to solid black for the curious rune-reader. And how you thought it was copying the door to Moria when it was far more likely that the door was Tolkien recycling the map's concept because it was so cool.
Not missing much. There's not even anything really memorable in the other two. THe few good scenes of the trilogy are in this one. I mean, they got Cumberbatch and Stephen Fry and made it uninteresting. How.
Hardly uninteresting, sacrilegious and dumb in places, yes, but there's also so much talent and pathos as well. Unfortunately their so bloated and exhausting that many people don't appreciate their good parts.
Gazi Hobbit 2: Desolation of Smaug* (*Desolation not included). All the actual desolating occurs in the first 10 minutes of Hobbit 3: Legolas and the 4 piles of corpses.
I really love the Lord of the Rings movies. I know they have a lot of differences from the books (which I have also read), some of which do seem a pointless, but I think it's offset by the fact that they really capture that combination of badass heroics, wistful sadness at a bygone age and the gradual loss of innocence, and the resolute struggle of good against overwhelming evil that is the essence of Lord of the Rings. They might not correspond to the books completely or even the best they could, but they capture how the reading them felt. Which of course the Hobbit fails to do in every way. I feel like they took all the bad things from the Lord of the Rings trilogy and left out all the things they did right.
Tolkien did indeed attempt to rewrite the Hobbit in a post LOTR world. He ran into many of the same problems the movie ran into, and it never did get too far.
are the dom and calluna dating? I heard him mention that he's dating an american, and she pops up a lot where he's involved if you know where to look so I'm just assuming here XD
I just finished the movie trilogy and I couldn't believe it when I first saw Thorin. He looked like Fili and Kili's older brother, instead of their uncle who is older than their mother.
I grew up with the Rankin Bass version, and read the book much later. I still haven't been able to bring myself to watch the newer film adaptation. I hope someday I'll get to see a comparison to the animated version.
* I've heard people with actual literary schooling backgrounds describe _The Hobbit_ as "[the last third or so of] Beowulf, told from the perspective of the thief". So the comparison is probably apt. * I'd argue that The Hobbit is not a great film. Certainly, it doesn't work as well as the LotR films; the plotting and pacing is a bit of a jumbled mess. That's what happens when you take a small, compact story, cram in a bunch of extra storylines that don't compliment the characters, themes, or anything else in the original story, and call it a movie. * As to LotR...I'd argue that trying to tell LotR's story with a movie, without changing anything, would be like trying to tell the story of (say) Doki Doki Literature Club in a book; you'd lose too much simply by changing medium. Leaving aside LotR's own flaws, the way it told its story was suited to literary storytelling, because it was literature. There's nothing inherently wrong with this; it's just how books work. But films don't work like books-they have their own strengths and weaknesses. If you want to tell a story _well_ in a different medium, you _need_ to change things. DDLC doesn't work in a book, because books lack the interactive elements which are required to tell DDLC's story; similarly, though to a lesser extent, the way a good book tells a story is different than how _any_ movie _can_ tell a story. Jackson made a film version of LotR which worked as a movie, and which communicated essentially the same characters, themes, storyline, etc as the original; I can't fault it for leaving out Tom Bombadil.
My favorite part of both the book and movie was Bilbo and Smeagol's riddles, I love it so much. That being said, the second and third movies left out a lot of cool stuff from the book but added needless padding when they could've just used the actual material
I loved the first Hobbit movie. I thought it was the second best LOTR movie after Return of the King. The third movie is a bloated mess however. Cool army battles was about all it had going for it.
I genuinely quite liked the inclusion of the "I'm going on an adventure!" part from Bilbo. It makes him a bit more proactive and I like that. Gods no to the rest of it though.
@ ... Actually yeah that sounds pretty good. Plus it would be animated and not relying on an abundance of CGI. And the dwarves could have been made more into individuals with the animation style. Dayum I want this now
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@@rachelfoster2872 1:don't think complaining c.g.i is redundant? 2:Writing makes a character stand out.(the reason 2D died is underdeveloped writing.). The hobbit is tailor made for Disney!
Say what you will about Rhadaghast or however you spell his name, he's probably the only druid we've gotten in any form of big budget movie any time recently, and his character wasn't bad. if you were intending on a totally accurate hobbit movie then sure, but I think everyone knew that they were going to take 'creative liberties' with bits here and there and frankly, I'm glad to see another of the several wizards, always thought the two blue wizards would be a great starting place for a different storyline in the universe.
I like that they made Azog the main villain and Thorin's nemesis. This wasn't Dain's story, it's Thorin's so it makes sense to give him that. Also the first one is the best because it's the most focused. 2 and 3 start jumping from place to place a bit too much instead of focusing on the main quest. I think that LOTR too was at it's best when the Fellowship was together, not when they were split into multiple parts.
Hey Dom, quick question. Will you also review the Rankin and Bass animated movie of The Hobbit and possibly compare it to the book and the recent movies?
I was wondering and hoping the same thing. When he 1st announced he was doing the Hobbit i hoped he was gonna psyche everyone out and actually do the animated movie instead.
I still shake my head at the people that whined that should have been one film. The Hobbit book is written in such a way where the story had 2 climaxes (Smaug first, the 5 armies after), that could not be contained in one film. However, the film did not need 3 films with the overabundance of plotlines. We did not need an unnecessary love triangle plotline, or a female character who existed JUST to be an unnecessary love interest (and the poor actress was quite upset with her roles, as she was promised to be a kickass, non romantic character). This should have been a 2-film series. But corporate wanted to eat their marketing cake
Might I recommend the Dustin Lee cut of the Hobbit? It removed almost all the Lord of the Rings fan service and subplots with the intent of making the trilogy a single 4 hour film with only the elements that were adapted from the book. It worked surprisingly well and it makes for easier and better entertainment that feels more faithful and less tiring.
I do agree that the hobbit didnt need to be split into three movies. However I also am of the opinion that there was too much going on in the hobbit book for just one movie. Two would have been ideal. I also think that the climax would have been better in both the book and the movies if the battle of the five armies had happened before smaugs attack. I've always wondered how others would feel about that.
There actually are reasons why the eagles can talk in the extended Tolkien lore. The eagles are very specifically the direct servants of one of the Valar (gods, essentially) and are empowered to do certain things in his service and they're gifted with speech to better meet his needs. Ravens can talk because, come on, that's a super common fairy tale trope. Also, ravens can mimic human speech, so it's not that much of a stretch for a fairy tale derived story. The men of the dale being able to talk to thrushes is just . . . a thing they can do. That's kind of justified in Tolkien's extended lore, but only in the sense that elements of the extended lore technically make anything possible, as long as Tolkien didn't feel it broke the story. As I understand it, every single person who ever lives in Middle Earth is given a certain amount magic power by Iluvatar, the creator of the universe. Each person could use that power however he saw fit, as long as he could consciously figure out how to access it. Most people never did, but whenever someone did, he would usually teach that power to his children, and they to theirs and it would eventually sort of become just a thing the family line could do after a while. An interesting implications of this: the reason why hobbits were so good at growing things and so resistant to the evil of the ring was because they loved simple, pastoral pleasures so much that they were unconsciously tapping their magic power to make them good at it. Because they cared most about simple pleasures and disliked grand adventures, they would also be less tempted by the ring's power and their innate, but totally unconscious use of magic gave them additional protection. However, the power of the ring was such that even they would be corrupted over time if they subjected themselves to it for too long. Another fun fact: everybody's magic power was finite. They only got a certain amount of it to be used across the whole of their lifetimes and once you used it up, it was gone. That's why you see so many huge displays of magic across the Silmarillion and why Galadriel was an absolute bad-ass early in her life, and why Sauron had tons of different powers when he served under Morgoth, but all of them seemed to have so little they could do by the time Lord of the Rings rolled around. Gandalf, for example, had tons of unbelievable power, enough to destroy the Balrog and drive away the ringwraiths without too much effort, but he'd been using it slowly over centuries and was very conservative with it because he knew if he ran out, he'd find himself needing it later, but not be able to use it. And Sauron? He'd got killed twice during the Silmarillion, but each time, he used huge amounts of personal power to restore his spirit to a physical body, and each time he got progressively weaker. When he died for a third time in the Battle of the Last Alliance, he no longer had enough power to rebuild a body for himself. Knowing this was a possibility, he bound his spirit to the One Ring so his soul wouldn't be banished into the abyss at his next death and he could use it's power to revive himself again, but before he could do so, Isildor took the ring as a prize for his victory. Tolkien's extended lore is fascinating.
Personally, I think these movies as a whole were pretty good. It took a children's story that, for me, was WAY TOO LONG and actually allowed it to live up to it's full potential as an epic fantasy tale. And come on, you can't tell me that Radaghast wasn't crazy-awesome. :P Who else can fight orcs and wargs with RABBITS? He is a true druid :D
The Hobbit is way too long? Its substantially shorter that any Harry potter book and no Radaghast was not improved by being covered in bird crap and otherwise acting like a spacey stoned hippie.
Terminalsanity to me, it felt confused as to what it wanted to be, badass fantasy or some whimsical kids tale of 13 dwarves fighting a dragon. I mean, what was the point of the battle of 5 armies? Why didn't it just END with Smaug's death? It felt like padding. The movies actually went into detail as to WHY all of these factions wanted the treasure.
Am I the only one who is extremely disturbed by the Goblin King's neck goiter, to the point that I have to avert my eyes during that whole scene? :shudder:
You're actually quite right about The Hobbit's Scandinavian/Anglo-Saxon influences, Dom. JRR Tolkien was (and is) pretty much a rock star in the field of Germanic literature studies, and cribbed A LOT from "Beowulf" and the Old Norse Eddas. Hell, Smaug himself is almost a carbon-copy of the dragon from "Beowulf".
Dammit!! You know what have you done? Now there is going to be an avalanche of Terrance x Calluna fanart, and a wave of Twilightest fanfictions with them, and another wave of her realizing that she made a mistake and getting with the Dom at the end. I expect you are happy!
I hope the Rankin and Bass cartoon gets a mention (or even its own episode, pretty please). I've always thought it better captured the novel than the bloated trilogy.
So I'm a die hard Tolkien Fan, I read the Hobbit and LOTR at least once a year every year, read The Silmarillion at least twice now. Big fan of the Lord of the Rings movies, and I love the Hobbit Movies just as much. Why? well because for all their flaws I still feel like I'm back in Middle Earth just 60 years before LOTR. And there are things in the Hobbit movies I think were done better than LOTR such as 1. Bilbo is all around a better protagonist than Frodo, I'm sorry but when you watch the two, you realize how useless Frodo as the movies go on, I know ring bearer is different from burgler but come on who would you rather have watching your back Bilbo or Frodo? 2.Thorin is much more believable as a king, no offense to Aragorn but when you see Thorin you buy that this dwarf is a lost king returning to his throne. And speaking of the Dwarves, I'd much rather travel with the company of Thorin than the Fellowship. 3. I know this one might piss off people but I prefer the villains of the Hobbit movies compared to LOTR, I am not saying Sauron and Saruman are bad villains far from it, what I am saying is I prefer how in the Hobbit the villains, Azog, Smaug, and Sauron are actively driving events and interact with our heroes, especially Azog because by the time of the third movie that final duel is earned and it's great. and Smaug is just so awesome. And also the Goblin King's a great foe as well even if he's only in it for a short time. Overall the Hobbit is not as strong as LOTR but I still love both trilogies and will probably still be watching them when I'm 105 and can't remember what I ate 5 minutes ago.
Congrats on 50 episodes. and knowing Del Toro was planing on hiring Brian Blessed just makes me wish his version had happened even more, what he had planed for Smaug was also super cool
"I can sympathise with the film being worried the audience wouldn't be able to take them seriously" Do you mean that the characters from a children's book were clothed with childish clothes? I'm shocked, truly ^^
while a lot of the changes were negative i think the idea of Bilbo actually choosing to go on the adventure rather than being forced into it is a positive one and same with the eagles being summoned rather than "yea we just happened to be in the neighborhood and decided to help"
In some ways I can understand the corner Peter Jackson was painted into, since he'd made the LOTR movies first. The tone changed so completely between books...The Hobbit was an adventure story suitable for younger readers, with a more folksy, chattier tone of voice. LOTR started out that way (as, indeed, Tolkien had never intended for The Hobbit to be part of his Middle-Earth legendarium in the first place--early editions had Bilbo mentioning China!), then developed into more elevated, epic fantasy. So for PJ to make a more book-faithful Hobbit would have seemed jarring. (Gandalf calling Radagast his "cousin" showed how far the book started out from what Middle-Earth would become...it just sounded as if Gandalf and Radagast were mortal men who became wizards, not angelic beings who took human form as the wizards were later confirmed to be.) But I still think they could have pulled this off without the padding or pacing issues that plagued the Hobbit trilogy. (Make it two movies, not three...and NO DAMN LOVE TRIANGLE.)
Fair point, Hobbit is, unfortunately, a prequel that wasn't a prequel. It was a children's book that open the gateway to an expanded world. As a book it wasn't written to serve 'leading up to the Lord of the Rings'. Yet, as a PJ movie it had the weight of doing that, of being the 'next' LoTR. And it shot it in the foot more then it helped it.
With his long wooden pipe, fuzzy Wooly toes, he lives in a hobbit hole and everybody knows him Bilbo, Bilbo, Bilbo Baggins, he’s only three feet tall, Bilbo, Bilbo, Bilbo Baggins, the bravest little hobbit of them all, now hobbits are peace loving folks you know they’re never in a hurry and they take things slowly they don’t like to travel away from home, they just like to eat and be left alone but one day Bilbo was asked to go on a big adventure to the caves below, to help some dwarves get back there gold, that was stolen by a dragon in the days of old, Bilbo, Bilbo, Bilbo Baggins he’s only three feet tall, Bilbo, Bilbo, Bilbo Baggins, the bravest little hobbit of them all, whether he fought with the goblins, he battled a troll, he riddled with Gollum, a magic ring he stole, he was chased by wolves lost in the forest, escaped in a barrel from the elf king’s halls, Bilbo, Bilbo, Bilbo Baggins the bravest little hobbit of them all, now he’s back in his home in the land of shire that brave little hobbit whom we all admire just sitting on a treasure of silver and gold puffin’ on his pipe in his hobbit hole, Bilbo, Bilbo, Bilbo Baggins the bravest little hobbit of them all!
You missed a good joke though "If I need more people, I put in another me" *insert other Dom* "But your audience needs a female role model" "Ahem" *pan to Dom in a wig and dress* "What about me?"
As much as I love an excuse to get into a dress that might have confused the parody we were going for XD
This was what I was waiting for. Like a post credits stinger.
+The Dom Do you mind enlightening me as to what you were parodying? Cause I did not get it 😅
mii6619 The addition of the female elf to "The Hobbit" movies. She is not a character in the original novel and was created specifically to combat the stigma of adapting a movie with an entirely male cast.
I grew up with the Rankin and Bass animated feature version of "The Hobbit" from 1977, my sister and I also had read along book and audio cassette.
I can tell you that when I was a small child nothing terrified me more than it got to part of the story involving the goblins and Gollum, because even as a child I had a very active imagination.
I didn't actually get to read the book until I was in high school, but I knew to expect because of the earlier experience.
Urhh.... How did I miss those fucking moon letters?! Resigning myself to years of "well actually" comments.
I never read the full book, but I remember them at least in the Rankin and Bass Hobbit.
In fact, wasn't the Dwarves being weirdly super tossy and reckless with the plates from the Rankin and Bass Hobbit too?
The better question, I think, is how did Calluna not correct you on that?
The Dom you recognized it. therefore you are forgiven.
The Dom Well, nobody's perfect.
My dad used to read the Hobbit to me and my brother when i was 5 and when he finished the book we loved it so much that he began making up new adventures for bilbo from the top of his head as he thought that LOTR would be a little bit heavy for a 5 year old. Even those stories were better than the movies and thats including one where bilbo is abducted by aliens and then has to find a glowing jewl from a temple in the rain forest with Indiana Jones.
I'd pay to see that.
That would beat infinity war for the most ambitious crossover ever
Your dad sounds amazing! I would love to read the kind of wild fanfiction he could write if he had the inclination to do so. 😀
Your dad is a god damn legend
I'm surprised that he didn't write them down for you guys to enjoy for years to come.
I really wish this was a two-parter by Del Toro. I don't think you can make a satisfying adaptation of The Hobbit while also being a prequel to Lord of the Rings in just one movie. The book is short, but it's also VERY condensed. The fact that there was still Middle Earth material that was yet to be covered shows that adding material that wasn't in the original book was absolutely necessary. But with all the material they had, they did NOT need three bloody movies!
I am unfamiliar with the LOTR movies so I might have missed something or somethings so maybe you can enlighten me. To my knowledge the only bit of extended universe stuff explained was where Gandalf was since he kinda just floated out of the story for no real reason given in the original tale. If anything that fixes a very big hole in the story that was originally there. I don't see how that is a bad thing.
darkironyoshi It's not a bad thing in concept. Although it does create a hole in the movies. Gandalf didn't know about Sauron's return until a little after Fellowship of the Ring begins, yet he sees it happen in Hobbit 2.
Ah. Now I see why a lot of people criticized that part. Thanks for explaining that.
Adrijana Radosevic what the hell are you being so sarcastic about??
Agreed. I don't think three movies were necessary, but I simply don't see how they could have done the Hobbit justice in just ONE movie. There is a LOT that happens in that short novel. They should have cut most of the superfluous stuff (like Tauriel. I'm SORRY, I'm a woman, I know there are no women in the Hobbit, but she wasn't necessary and just ended up being a good example of WHY being PC for the sake of being PC doesn't work) and just done two movies - one focusing on Smaug, and one focusing on the Battle of Five Armies.
I disagree that del Toro should have done it though. The reason LOTR was so brilliant was that Peter Jackson is a massive perfectionist and would literally reshoot/rewrite scenes a hundred times. Kinda like Kubrick. The reason the Hobbit was so shoddy, despite this, was that he was thrown into it too late and ended up still writing scenes (not even rewrites; first drafts) AS they were filming. If he'd been the director from the start, this wouldn't have happened.
It's also worth noting that it took maybe half a decade to make LOTR. Peter needed about the same amount of time for the Hobbit, especially if he was doing three films - but he fell victim to shooting and release schedules, which are much tighter than they used to be. All in all this could have been a great adaption, but everyone was fucked over.
The only problem I have on this film series is that they made the battle of the 5 armies a 3 hour long film when it was 5 pages in the book...
They made the mountain giant scene which was a passing line in the book into a 5-10 min action sequence. These films were the the definition of gluttony with how bloated they were. I loved the LOTR films and Peter Jackson did an amazing job on those movies. The Hobbit Trilogy though Peter Jackson seemed to have lost all his directing talent and seemed to learn from the Michael Bay school of directing. The only good scene in any of the movies was the Riddle in the Dark scene and that was it. The one scene that infuriated me and still burns me a little was the barrel riding scene and how utterly fucking ridiculous it was especially Bombur's Barrel Riding Orc Bonanza smartphone app game thing going on with secret barrel armor battle sequence.
"they made the battle of the 5 armies a 3 hour long film when it was 5 pages in the book"
Bilbo slept through most of the damn battle. If the movie version of the battle had also happened off-screen there would have been a damned riot, and a well-deserved one. The battle as presented had issues (the nature of the 5th army, bad CGI Dwarf king) but it's size and scope was not I think one of them.
I think my biggest problem with the Battle of the Five Armies is that Bilbo is pretty much shafted in this film. Due to his role as the burglar being complete, he has no other contributions to make to the story outside of the very beginning with the Arkenstone and then just makes a few sporadic appearances in the battle with him using the ring just once so they'd have a cool shot of it for the trailer. I know this isn't Bilbo's fight, but it made his return home just feel plain and uninteresting despite him having just been on a grand adventure.
That is your ONLY problem? The films are an utter insult and betral to everything Tolkien stood for..and that is your ONLY problem?
Miles Greb obviously there is more problems but this is my biggest problem... sorry I didn't clarify
Whatever else you want to say about the hobbit films, Smaug was the single best representation of a Dragon in modern cinema. A perfect blend of arrogance, intelligence and raw, palpable *power* where so many others end up underwhelming or dumb beasts.
Manic Dogma yes
Omg that is to true
Was there a better dragon before cinema was modern?
theflyingninja1 Depends on your exact date range for modern cinema, but Sleeping Beauty (1959) has a pretty dope dragon.
Manic Dogma eh I prefer dragons as beasts they can't be reasoned with and they only care about feeding and collecting gold to lay on.
The writing on the map was indeed in the book, it's the last two pages of chapter 3.
"Moon-letters are rune-letters, but you cannot see them," said Elrond, "not
when you look straight at them. They can only be seen when the moon shines
behind them, and what is more, with the more cunning sort it must be a moon of
the same shape and season as the day when they were written. The dwarves
invented them and wrote them with silver pens, as your friends could tell you.
These must have been written on a midsummer's eve in a crescent moon, a long
while ago."
"...and probably offered a dress to wear."
Actually, even dwarf women had beards, at least according to the films (I'm not knowledgeable enough to say if this is true in the books). This is referenced directly in one of the LotR films in which Gimli talks about other races not being able to tell the difference between dwarf men and dwarf women, after which Aragorn quietly clarifies "It's the beards" behind his back. In Rivendell, this confusion is actually shown happening in reverse, as Kili demonstrates an inability to tell the difference between elf men and elf women since they share the human "feminine" traits of being slender, long-haired, and having smooth, hair-free faces.
All of which is simply to say that I doubt they considered their beards an expression of maniliness so much as just... dwarfishness.
- Lewis
So my wife iiisss a dwarf...
I thibk she was saying that female dwarves keep their beards short and trimmed
To be honest I'm surprised to see you here
I always thought they just had thick Sideburns
Yes, that's taken directly from the book's appendices. Dwarven women look so much like Dwarven that they are hardly distinguishable.
Your right about the Norse/Beowulf connection! JRR Tolkien was a professor of Saxony culture so there was a strong Norse influence and it was he who made scholars look at Beowulf for its literary merit, not just as something giving information about the time it is written and it also influenced his work.
Yeah my copy of Beowulf is the JRR Tolkien version
@@ninjacell2999 did Tolkien wrote other things besides the middle earth books?
come to order! C.G.:the Cartoon Judge! Um, yeah. He was an academic writer, theologian, and poet. He wrote much on folklore and mythology that were not directly tied to Middle-Earth. While fantasy influenced him throughout his life, it wasn’t solely directed towards creating middle-earth.
come to order! C.G.:the Cartoon Judge!
Well, like NinjaCell mentioned, Tolkien’s renditions of some of the oldest British texts, are what a lot of people use. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight for example- it’s Tolkien who is often credited when they teach it in schools.
But in terms of fiction writing, yeah, Middle Earth is his magnum opus and the most celebrated works.
come to order! C.G.:the Cartoon Judge! Technically, Middle Earth books in general, since LOTR is just one segment but yeah.
Also, maybe
I mean, we still have the 1977 animated Hobbit, which is a superior adaptation to these films.
You guys forgot that Thorin is OLDER than Balin, he was the leader of the group and the direct heir to the throne of Erebor. He had a beard almost as long as Gandalf had...
Watch part 2! :-)
The forced love interest in this trilogy and setting up a kickass female character only for her to be the token damsel REALLY pissed me off with these films -_-'.
Yeah although there's no shortage of kickass female characters in Middle Earth... with Galadrial at the very top, a being of such elegance and grace capable of fury and destruction, she is the perfect female hero IMO, a well balanced marriage of fierce physical stopping power hidden away behind a tranquil, comforting presence of feminine beauty at its pinnacle.
That's what happens when you shove your (essentially) fanfic character into an established story. She was made up on the spot when making the movies, not an actual part of the story. So she had to be shoehorned in, which leads to her being unable to do things that matter, without causing issues, or undermining another character.
@Finn 1203 let me guess...you're not a woman right ?
@@i.147
I don't see what difference their gender makes. A valid argument is valid no matter the gender. Seems a bit sexist to imply otherwise.
Inb4 "I didn't say or imply anything of that sort." Uh huh. Yea. Sure.
@@lastmanstanding7155 Well, the gender someone has been assigned does affect the values people have attempted to instill in them, their life opportunities, how they're treated...no one's arguments exist in a vacuum. It doesn't matter how logical you want to consider yourself, your life experiences always influence everything that you say.
I like how Thorin wasn’t as “bad ass” in the book which actually makes him more interesting. In a way it’s actually more bad ass when you don’t try too hard to make someone bad ass.
the things that made aragorn so badass where how he really did not care what people thought of him and how soft he was, when there was no need fo a decisiv leader. The contrast of the tenderness with which he heals, how he enjoys story telling and singing elvish verses, the sympathy with which he regards eowyn and his heroic, fearless leader moments makes the later all the more impressiv.
he can to proud and heroic, stern and even intimidating, but unless he needs to, he reather did not
You know, if I had a pound every time the phrase "Thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread" in relation to the Hobbit films, I would be rich enough to buy a small island!
" _And end up as a delicious low-fat snack for a Dragon? Eheheheh, dream on!_ "
- And there was much giggles.
Please do stardust, the movie and the book are excellent and yet uniquely different
Also its a Neil Gaiman novel, and he was involved in making the film
Yes
Is the movie really good? I've only ever read the book.
I would say it’s one of the “fantasy movies because of Harry Potter” yet doesn’t feel like it as it’s quite good
Yess!!!
In the middle of the earth, in the land of Shire there's a brave little Hobbit who we all admire.
Bilbo, Bilbo,
Only three feet tall.
Bilbo, Bilbo,
He's the bravest little Hobbit of them all.
The effects were definitely not better than the Lord of the Rings. The CGI was cartoonish and they relied FAR too much on it. Peter Jackson is notable for his use of practical effects in all his older films. Lord of the Rings uses them expertly to make orcs look gritty and real. He also filmed actual models for the castles and towns. Not just CGI madness everywhere
The Imax 3D thing sunk the visual side of this movies. It was just too good of a quality of picture where you could see every little detail being off. The LotR CGI is not really groundbreaking, it's just perfectly integrated with the rest of the picture and lower (compared to Hobbit) picture quality helps to seel the illusion, while Hobbit's CGI sticks out like a sore thumb.
@@MkZuO12345 I'm pretty sure Weta Workshop literally won an award for groundbreaking CGI, due to their work on Golum. They did a lot of groundbreaking when it came to mo-cap CG characters being integrated with live characters
Ik azogs CGI drove me crazy
But the writing that appeared in a specific moonlight WAS in the book. The rest -> yeah, I agree with you.
Yeah, the moon runes were definitely in the book, and Elrond discovers them, just like in the movie.
"The group tended to create most of their own problems in the book."
So, they were a D&D party.
Well..Yeah.. DnD was HEAVILY Inspired by Tolkien. Look it up - it's quite interesting
@@Kairos_Akuma in terms making them showrunners for g.o.t George RR Martin:https:m.th-cam.com/video/a5Pos5Al8FM/w-d-xo.html
One of the most eye-rollingly blatant scenes in the first Hobbit movies was Bilbo visiting the shrine with the shards of Narsil and staring at the ring in the painting of Isildur vs. Sauron as the music grows ominous. Come on, guys, we know Bilbo's going to find the ring already, geez.
to be fair, it was only in the extended cut. plus the scene itself was nice, because it sets up bilbo going to rivendell in Lotr
Watching this is depressing. This adaptation should have been two films long at most.
That was the original plan: two, two-hour long films. The studio demanded three films later on.
one film, the original book was short.
You're right! Beowulf and the Poetic Edda were inspirations for the Hobbit. Overly Sarcastic Productions makes a note of that in their episodes on these texts. Dwarf names in LOTR are pulled directly from a chapter in the Poetic Edda that consists mostly of common dwarf names. In Beowulf, the titular hero/king defends his town from a dragon who's trying to burn his town. Why? Well, this dragon lives in a cave full of gold, gold that it loves very much. And somebody stole its favorite cup. He doesn't know how to single out the thief, but he can kill that criminal and the rest of the town all at once.
Overly Sarcastic Productions are awesome
0:15 You are my spirit animal, Dom.
14:33 This is simply due to everyone and their dog believing that everything in the middle ages was brown and dirty when in reality rich people flaunted their wealth by dressing in the brightest primary colours possible.
AdalRoderick well, that and that it was in many regions forbidden to wear certain colours unless you had a certain income/status/job... and dye was quite expensive to begin with.
We are talking about a *dwarven King* and his men. And even if, say, red were forbidden because it's reserved for clerics there is still the rest of the rainbow.
There's no excuse for this habit in media since 90% of the main characters in these kind of shows and movies follow rich/noble main characters and everyone is still clothed like a lower class merchant.
I know this is a bit late, but I just wanted to point out that while I agree with many other films, in this case I disagree.
While the Dwarves where of relatively high status and Thorin was a king, they were planning from the first get-go to go on a dragonhunt. Knowing this, it makes sense that they would discard their usually lavish attire for travel robes which tended to be dark greens and browns in order to blend into the environment.
The Elves meanwhile wore very bright and richly adorned robes in their town of Rivendell.
I really wish Peter Jackson had paid more attention to this detail in the first trilogy, Theoden always looked like he was just about to go out and lay siege to a city, even when at court. That really bothered me.
AdalRoderick Not only rich people, but virtually ALL people liked to wear nice bright-coloured clothing. The same as today. And the wealth is no issue when you weave your own clothes.
As someone that always loved the book I liked the first movie, but they got worse as the movies continued.
yah, I call the first one"The onlyworthwhileHobbitmovie"
Studio system cash grab for sure...
Same. My only major gripes with the first movie were mainly just them "resurrecting" Azog to be an overarching villain and the orcs hunting the party near Rivendell in _broad daylight_
Apart from those, most of the changes and additions in the first movie were minor or innocent enough to accept, forgive or overlook. Sadly, it only got worse after that...
Dom don't be mad on Terrance... Look how handsome he is.
Franciszek Rychlewicz I freakin loved his face when Terrance showed up🤣🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂
I really liked the first film. The other two dragged on but I still liked them. I really do wish they had just stuck with making just two films. It's just crazy that they took a rather short book (what was it, 300 pages?) and stretched it over 3 films but condensed 3 much longer books into the same number of films.
I know people who say that 500 pages is a massive book which I considered short in my binge-reading days.
Please do the Chronicles of Narnia! I would love to see you discuss how bafflingly different Prince Caspian's movie plot is from the book.
rissabubbles yes yes omigod yes. also random question because no one else I know reads which is your favorite book and what do you think of the horse and his boy
The horse and his boy is my favorite book in the series.
Magician's Nephew is my favorite
WHAT!?
ARE YOUR FUCKING SERIOUS!
BRIAN BLESSED!
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!
GORDON'S ALIVE
I personally wouldn’t have minded adding more LOTR elements into The Hobbit, since Tolkien originally never wrote the book too be part of a bigger universe and it wouldn’t had been a stretch that if he had made the book knowing what would come next he would’ve added more. Having two Hobbit films with extra stuff like Gandalf’s journey from the originally appendices on paper don’t sound like a bad idea (I’d even argue it’s what De Toro was probably intending to do). The issue tho for me was the poor execution and them stretching it into three movies.
There's one major thing untouched in the video. The behavior of the dwarves besides Thorin. A major example of the changes in their behavior is in the musical number chip the glasses, crack the plates where the movie depicts the dwarves doing all the terrible things they mention, such as smashing dishes, bending silverware, and smashing wine on the front door and over all just wrecking Bilbo's house. However, Tolkien depicted the dwarves as singing this to tease Bilbo but they actually cleaned up after themeselves as a show of thanks to their host Bilbo.
“I suppose you will all stay to supper?” he said in his politest unpressing tones.
“Of course!” said Thorin. “And after. We shan’t get through the business till late, and we must have some music first. Now to clear up!”
Thereupon the twelve dwarves-not Thorin, he was too important, and stayed talking to Gandalf-jumped to their feet, and made tall piles of all the things. Off they went, not waiting for trays, balancing columns of plates, each with a bottle on the top, with one hand, while the hobbit ran after them almost squeaking with fright: “please be careful!” and “please, don’t trouble! I can manage.” But the dwarves only started to sing:
Chip the glasses and crack the plates!
Blunt the knives and bend the forks!
That’s what Bilbo Baggins hates-
Smash the bottles and burn the corks!
Cut the cloth and tread on the fat!
Pour the milk on the pantry floor!
Leave the bones on the bedroom mat!
Splash the wine on every door!
Dump the crocks in a boiling bowl;
Pound them up with a thumping pole;
And when you’ve finished, if any are whole,
Send them down the hall to roll!
That’s what Bilbo Baggins hates!
So, carefully! carefully with the plates!
And of course they did none of these dreadful things, and everything was cleaned and put away safe as quick as lightning, while the hobbit was turning round and round in the middle of the kitchen trying to see what they were doing-The Hobbit, Chapter One: An Unexpected Party
Tolkien makes it clear the dwarves respect and honor their host but also find Bilbo's behavior and worry ammusing and while they joke about it, they still clean up as a show of respect and gratitude. Ultimately the dwarves are not jerks or college students who trash their dorms during frat parties, they have a strong sense of respect and honor but also a strong sense of humor. Of course they did act in a manner that may seem abraisive and slightly rude and reckless, but for them it is rather efficient and they acted without delay.
13:25 I just read this book for the first time, and the moon runes on the map were certainly in the book, and Elrond shows it to them, just like in the movie.
If you have time, are you going to discuss the differences between this and the Rankin-Bass Hobbit animated movie?
Well actually, because you pinned you acknowledgement of the moon letters, I won't make my intended comment. How many is that?
Calluna seems nice. I'm gonna check out her work.
This comment is Dom approved.
I still have fond memories of these movies, because every Christmas my godmother would take me to the movies, and we watched these movies.
DarkHero Gamer While we were watching the first Hobbit, which we went with my father, who introduced my brother and I too Lord of the Rings when we were kids. I even dressed up as Galdalf for Halloween as a kid. Our dog was named Strider.
Anyway, while we were in the theater the Sandy Hook shooting happened. Which we heard as my step mom was a teacher and we knew some of the people killed. So that really messed up that viewing...
Vegeta8300 I'm sorry, that must have been terrible.
DarkHero Gamer It definitely made watching the rest of the movie rough, as we didn't know all the details yet. My dad was getting texts in a movie, which we are not the type of people who do that. we respect others watching movies. But then other people in the theater started hearing about the shooting and the whole theater, which wasn't many people, got pretty somber.
Vegeta8300 Damn.
DarkHero Gamer I have a similar thing. I went with my Grandparents, Uncles, Dad, and siblings just after Christmas each year. My Granddad had read the Hobbit/Lord of the Rings 14 times so he always organized it. But then for the third one my Grandparents and Uncles went without us because we couldn't find a time that worked for all of us. So my Granddad came over one night to apologize and he gave us money to go see it since he felt bad, what I didn't know at the time was that it would be the last time I ever saw him. He died a few weeks later from a sudden heart attack.
The first film gave me hope, especially when it made all those early references to the book. Even using Tolkien's notes to pad Gandalfs side of the story seemed a good idea for making it a bit darker to fit LOTR and adding runtime, but the next 2 films just make me sad inside.
I always thought the first one was the best. The padding became alot more obvious in the 2nd.
I recently had one of those "On This Day" things pop up in my Facebook timeline. It from when I had just seen _The Hobbit_ at the cinema in December 2012:-
"Went to see 'The Hobbit' today. It had me grinning every time they used a line from the book. It was a bit like when your favourite band plays the opening chords from one of their classic hits."
[Sigh] Talk about diminishing returns.
It's a testament to how incredibly pointless Tom Bombadil is that even in these movies he couldn't get any screen time.
Ho now - I'll Freeze your marrow cold if you don't behave yourself. I'll sing your roots of. I'll sing a wind up and blow leaf and branch away. Old Man Willow! What be you a-thinking of? You should not be waking. Eat earth! Dig deep! Drink water! Go to Sleep! Bombadil is talking!
Honestly, the Tom Bombadil part was the only one of The Fellowship book when I really considered to just put it away. Throughout the whole thing I was like "Can someone get this obnoxious weirdo out of the story".
BIG-LIPPED TOM BOMBADIL MOMENT
Since I'm currently at Tom Bombadil's part in my reading of the book, I'm glad I'm not the only one who finds that whole sequence drawn-out and pointless. I hope it doesn't last too many chapters…
Don't worry, keep going, it's just this little shitty part that you need to get through. It picks up later again and it goes full rollercoaster once the Fellowship leaves Rivendell.
Why does everyone feel the need to add short to the description of the Hobbit as a book? It’s not a long book by any stretch of the imagination, but I wouldn’t call it short. Short implies novella length. It’s an average length novel, not stupidly long and not too short.
In defence of the three films an awful lot happens in the book, and some without very much build up (e.g. Bard). It was nice to see all the scenes from the book play out and to expand on certain back stories to make them more interesting. And it is wise to give a central villain across all three films to give us some real stakes. I would have accepted 2 films on this, but I do agree that 3 was excessive.
"Conventionally handsome" Aiden Turner? I'm straight and I'd offer myself in tribute.
Could you guys imagine Guillermo Del Toro's take on Mirkwood though? It probably would have been amazing!
I feel like I'm the only one who actually loved the Hobbit Movies. I thought the additions weren't bad at all but I actually enjoyed most them. I liked that they actually showed what Gandalf was doing while he was gone, I enjoyed that the filmmakers actually tried to give at least some of the other dwarves some personality etc. I also loved how they expanded on this simple story to connect to the lord of the rings and I loved the additional Lore from tolkiens work that they added. Yes I have read the Hobbit and I still absolutely enjoyed these movies
Sher-Lock Holmes I actually loved the movies too
Sher-Lock Holmes I didn't care for the book but I enjoyed the movie
You're not the only one. I do have criticisms of the Hobbit movies, mostly related to the crazy action/fight sequences, but for the most part I still enjoy them. I actually think the acting is equal to or in some cases superior to LOTR. I guess I feel that it's very subjective whether people care for a piece of art or not, and this goes for books, films, music, etc.
Sher-Lock Holmes I'm with you, I love the movies. Yes, they do deviate quite a bit, but the heart of the book is still there. The action scenes could have been toned down, but I still found them awesome. To me the movies are kind of say "If this is the last time we get to journey into Middle Earth, we are going to make it epic". And the attention to detail was astounding. Peter Jackson and his wonderful crew really made the world feel real. I had so much fun watching them.
seriously, if you can't relate to another human being on the topic of a book just because of the genitals you possess, then the problem is yours. sheesh. aside from that cool review. like your co-host, but imho it was just unnecessary to introduce her like that . thought we were talking about books here not identity politics. either way, you stay subbed. love your show.
Jebus relax, it was just a reference to why they added Tauriel to the story.
ok then i just didn't get it. my bad. times have just gotten so tense and so many things have become über-politicized as of late.. meant no offense there. i apologize
Vermithrax plays First , love your name. I can understand your view with how crazy SJW and feminist things can happen nowadays. But, as the Dom said too his reference here made sense. Basically, I can see both sides and I'm glad everything turned out fine :)
jep. seems i was the only one that didn't get it. i am actually relaxed. i am just rather jaded because i love the way media can take me away from all the shit in the real world and i tend to react allergically when somebody bursts that bubble. even if it was my own fault. like here. so from the depths of my heart i sincerely apologize and i'll try to take a longer harder look before i comment, when something rubs me the wrong way. well, that was quite a lesson. thanks for showing me where i was wrong. kinda feel ashamed now
and i do really love this channel. one of my absolute favorites as of late
Ironic that you called what Hermione goes through "Legolas Syndrome" since Tauriel made Legolas look downright grounded in comparison.
No even Tauriel was no match for Legolas in the end. I'd even say the Tauriel suffered bad ass decay in The Battle of the Five Armies.
No not really they didn't have her shield surfing like Legola., I swear everytime I see the scene where legolas is jumping off of the falling stones I can't help but hear the mario leap sound play through my head.
What film were you watching? Legolas is way overpowered in these films.
Love the Dom/Calluna duo! They work well off one another and I'd definitely like to see more of them together. (Terrance is great. Nothing about this will ever change.)
Nice! You should also do, Miss Perigrine's Home For Peculiar Children and A Monster Calls :)
"The Battle of Anzaga-boogoo-boogoo" I FUCKING SNORTED XDDDDD
Oh great, now I ship Terrance and Calluna
I've never watched Calluna's stuff but her voice is strangely familiar.
StudioInkblot she did some voiceover stuff for a few of Dom's videos
She's also been on Linkara's pokemon livestreams if you watch those.
She was in Jacob Chapman's short-lived audio adaptation of Fruits Basket.
She sounds like Tamara from Channel Awesome to me.
She sounds like the woman that speaks in Watchmojo channel...
WHY would you foreshadow the whole Tauriel subplot with your co-host ONLY TO COMPLETELY AVOID THE TOPIC IN THE ACTUAL REVIEW. WHY.
Because Toriel isn't in An Unexpected Journey?
Good channel bro
...This says a lot on how long it's been since I've watched these movies. My mistake!
Because Undertale wasn't based on a book. That's why.
googamp32 It took me way too long to get it and now I'm cracking up. What a trainwreck of a comment lol
Influenced by scandinavian myths... It really is. The names of every member of the company are in a list at the beginning of the poetic Edda. It was hilarious when I started reading that list. Fili, kili, thorin... all of them
Congrats on 50 episodes Dominic
I'm so sad I can't watch Howl
"scene of Tom Bombadill just dancing in the background"
I seriously pictured him doing that and burst out laughing.
One does have to love how the moon letters were pretty much the only memorable thing that happened during their visit to Rivendell, and the map presented at the start of the book even has the moon letters presented in transparent text as opposed to solid black for the curious rune-reader. And how you thought it was copying the door to Moria when it was far more likely that the door was Tolkien recycling the map's concept because it was so cool.
23:59 - sadly this was the "good" one in the trilogy.
Lynn Green I feared as much! I saw the first one in the cinema but couldn't be bothered with the other two.
Not missing much. There's not even anything really memorable in the other two. THe few good scenes of the trilogy are in this one.
I mean, they got Cumberbatch and Stephen Fry and made it uninteresting. How.
Hardly uninteresting, sacrilegious and dumb in places, yes, but there's also so much talent and pathos as well. Unfortunately their so bloated and exhausting that many people don't appreciate their good parts.
Gazi
Hobbit 2: Desolation of Smaug* (*Desolation not included).
All the actual desolating occurs in the first 10 minutes of Hobbit 3: Legolas and the 4 piles of corpses.
The Desolation is the area around the mountain :D
I really love the Lord of the Rings movies. I know they have a lot of differences from the books (which I have also read), some of which do seem a pointless, but I think it's offset by the fact that they really capture that combination of badass heroics, wistful sadness at a bygone age and the gradual loss of innocence, and the resolute struggle of good against overwhelming evil that is the essence of Lord of the Rings. They might not correspond to the books completely or even the best they could, but they capture how the reading them felt.
Which of course the Hobbit fails to do in every way. I feel like they took all the bad things from the Lord of the Rings trilogy and left out all the things they did right.
Tolkien did indeed attempt to rewrite the Hobbit in a post LOTR world. He ran into many of the same problems the movie ran into, and it never did get too far.
are the dom and calluna dating? I heard him mention that he's dating an american, and she pops up a lot where he's involved if you know where to look so I'm just assuming here XD
They are!
Actually, he announced their break up on Twitter in Feb 2020...:/
I just finished the movie trilogy and I couldn't believe it when I first saw Thorin. He looked like Fili and Kili's older brother, instead of their uncle who is older than their mother.
I grew up with the Rankin Bass version, and read the book much later. I still haven't been able to bring myself to watch the newer film adaptation. I hope someday I'll get to see a comparison to the animated version.
* I've heard people with actual literary schooling backgrounds describe _The Hobbit_ as "[the last third or so of] Beowulf, told from the perspective of the thief". So the comparison is probably apt.
* I'd argue that The Hobbit is not a great film. Certainly, it doesn't work as well as the LotR films; the plotting and pacing is a bit of a jumbled mess. That's what happens when you take a small, compact story, cram in a bunch of extra storylines that don't compliment the characters, themes, or anything else in the original story, and call it a movie.
* As to LotR...I'd argue that trying to tell LotR's story with a movie, without changing anything, would be like trying to tell the story of (say) Doki Doki Literature Club in a book; you'd lose too much simply by changing medium. Leaving aside LotR's own flaws, the way it told its story was suited to literary storytelling, because it was literature. There's nothing inherently wrong with this; it's just how books work. But films don't work like books-they have their own strengths and weaknesses. If you want to tell a story _well_ in a different medium, you _need_ to change things. DDLC doesn't work in a book, because books lack the interactive elements which are required to tell DDLC's story; similarly, though to a lesser extent, the way a good book tells a story is different than how _any_ movie _can_ tell a story. Jackson made a film version of LotR which worked as a movie, and which communicated essentially the same characters, themes, storyline, etc as the original; I can't fault it for leaving out Tom Bombadil.
My favorite part of both the book and movie was Bilbo and Smeagol's riddles, I love it so much. That being said, the second and third movies left out a lot of cool stuff from the book but added needless padding when they could've just used the actual material
Wait is he datin an elf? Wow where you found her, recommend me the forest pelase. Looking for an elf girlfriend who is into gaming and fantasy books.
I loved the first Hobbit movie. I thought it was the second best LOTR movie after Return of the King. The third movie is a bloated mess however. Cool army battles was about all it had going for it.
The whole skit thing has such Channel Awesome energy.
I genuinely quite liked the inclusion of the "I'm going on an adventure!" part from Bilbo. It makes him a bit more proactive and I like that. Gods no to the rest of it though.
@ I honestly don't know.
@ ... Actually yeah that sounds pretty good. Plus it would be animated and not relying on an abundance of CGI. And the dwarves could have been made more into individuals with the animation style.
Dayum I want this now
@@rachelfoster2872 1:don't think complaining c.g.i is redundant? 2:Writing makes a character stand out.(the reason 2D died is underdeveloped writing.). The hobbit is tailor made for Disney!
@ I don't hate CGI, and I agree complaining about it is pretty redundant. But you can't deny that the Hobbit uses it a lot.
@ Ooof yeah
Say what you will about Rhadaghast or however you spell his name, he's probably the only druid we've gotten in any form of big budget movie any time recently, and his character wasn't bad. if you were intending on a totally accurate hobbit movie then sure, but I think everyone knew that they were going to take 'creative liberties' with bits here and there and frankly, I'm glad to see another of the several wizards, always thought the two blue wizards would be a great starting place for a different storyline in the universe.
I love Radagast, too.
Bit odd seeing you in a crossover, but you guys work well together.
The book is basically: the hobbit a tale I don’t want to go on
I like that they made Azog the main villain and Thorin's nemesis. This wasn't Dain's story, it's Thorin's so it makes sense to give him that. Also the first one is the best because it's the most focused. 2 and 3 start jumping from place to place a bit too much instead of focusing on the main quest. I think that LOTR too was at it's best when the Fellowship was together, not when they were split into multiple parts.
Personally, I liked Two Towers better than Fellowship
I'm definitely more in favour of a solo Dom or double Dom review. Nothing against the lady.
Ooh, good choice! I hadn't thought to expect this one, but it seems such an obvious choice now.
If the Lord of the Rings were adapted to film the same way the Hobbit was, it would be over 29 hours long.
Hey Dom, quick question. Will you also review the Rankin and Bass animated movie of The Hobbit and possibly compare it to the book and the recent movies?
I was wondering and hoping the same thing. When he 1st announced he was doing the Hobbit i hoped he was gonna psyche everyone out and actually do the animated movie instead.
I still shake my head at the people that whined that should have been one film. The Hobbit book is written in such a way where the story had 2 climaxes (Smaug first, the 5 armies after), that could not be contained in one film.
However, the film did not need 3 films with the overabundance of plotlines. We did not need an unnecessary love triangle plotline, or a female character who existed JUST to be an unnecessary love interest (and the poor actress was quite upset with her roles, as she was promised to be a kickass, non romantic character).
This should have been a 2-film series. But corporate wanted to eat their marketing cake
Might I recommend the Dustin Lee cut of the Hobbit? It removed almost all the Lord of the Rings fan service and subplots with the intent of making the trilogy a single 4 hour film with only the elements that were adapted from the book. It worked surprisingly well and it makes for easier and better entertainment that feels more faithful and less tiring.
I do agree that the hobbit didnt need to be split into three movies. However I also am of the opinion that there was too much going on in the hobbit book for just one movie. Two would have been ideal. I also think that the climax would have been better in both the book and the movies if the battle of the five armies had happened before smaugs attack. I've always wondered how others would feel about that.
The runes that appear only by the light of the moon WERE in the books. That scene with Elrond in the films is not to different from the books.
There actually are reasons why the eagles can talk in the extended Tolkien lore. The eagles are very specifically the direct servants of one of the Valar (gods, essentially) and are empowered to do certain things in his service and they're gifted with speech to better meet his needs.
Ravens can talk because, come on, that's a super common fairy tale trope. Also, ravens can mimic human speech, so it's not that much of a stretch for a fairy tale derived story.
The men of the dale being able to talk to thrushes is just . . . a thing they can do. That's kind of justified in Tolkien's extended lore, but only in the sense that elements of the extended lore technically make anything possible, as long as Tolkien didn't feel it broke the story. As I understand it, every single person who ever lives in Middle Earth is given a certain amount magic power by Iluvatar, the creator of the universe. Each person could use that power however he saw fit, as long as he could consciously figure out how to access it. Most people never did, but whenever someone did, he would usually teach that power to his children, and they to theirs and it would eventually sort of become just a thing the family line could do after a while.
An interesting implications of this: the reason why hobbits were so good at growing things and so resistant to the evil of the ring was because they loved simple, pastoral pleasures so much that they were unconsciously tapping their magic power to make them good at it. Because they cared most about simple pleasures and disliked grand adventures, they would also be less tempted by the ring's power and their innate, but totally unconscious use of magic gave them additional protection. However, the power of the ring was such that even they would be corrupted over time if they subjected themselves to it for too long.
Another fun fact: everybody's magic power was finite. They only got a certain amount of it to be used across the whole of their lifetimes and once you used it up, it was gone. That's why you see so many huge displays of magic across the Silmarillion and why Galadriel was an absolute bad-ass early in her life, and why Sauron had tons of different powers when he served under Morgoth, but all of them seemed to have so little they could do by the time Lord of the Rings rolled around. Gandalf, for example, had tons of unbelievable power, enough to destroy the Balrog and drive away the ringwraiths without too much effort, but he'd been using it slowly over centuries and was very conservative with it because he knew if he ran out, he'd find himself needing it later, but not be able to use it.
And Sauron? He'd got killed twice during the Silmarillion, but each time, he used huge amounts of personal power to restore his spirit to a physical body, and each time he got progressively weaker. When he died for a third time in the Battle of the Last Alliance, he no longer had enough power to rebuild a body for himself. Knowing this was a possibility, he bound his spirit to the One Ring so his soul wouldn't be banished into the abyss at his next death and he could use it's power to revive himself again, but before he could do so, Isildor took the ring as a prize for his victory.
Tolkien's extended lore is fascinating.
You do realize now The Dom that the ship of TheDomxCallunaxTerrance shall all set sail, for maybe around... 3 months.
"I work alone" Ha! You two live together now beech! That's what's up! That mountain ain't lonely no more!
Personally, I think these movies as a whole were pretty good. It took a children's story that, for me, was WAY TOO LONG and actually allowed it to live up to it's full potential as an epic fantasy tale. And come on, you can't tell me that Radaghast wasn't crazy-awesome. :P Who else can fight orcs and wargs with RABBITS? He is a true druid :D
The Hobbit is way too long? Its substantially shorter that any Harry potter book and no Radaghast was not improved by being covered in bird crap and otherwise acting like a spacey stoned hippie.
Terminalsanity to me, it felt confused as to what it wanted to be, badass fantasy or some whimsical kids tale of 13 dwarves fighting a dragon. I mean, what was the point of the battle of 5 armies? Why didn't it just END with Smaug's death? It felt like padding. The movies actually went into detail as to WHY all of these factions wanted the treasure.
Am I the only one who is extremely disturbed by the Goblin King's neck goiter, to the point that I have to avert my eyes during that whole scene? :shudder:
I like the hobbit all three and the Lord of the rings to
You're actually quite right about The Hobbit's Scandinavian/Anglo-Saxon influences, Dom.
JRR Tolkien was (and is) pretty much a rock star in the field of Germanic literature studies, and cribbed A LOT from "Beowulf" and the Old Norse Eddas.
Hell, Smaug himself is almost a carbon-copy of the dragon from "Beowulf".
Terrance at the end cracked me up xD
Dammit!! You know what have you done? Now there is going to be an avalanche of Terrance x Calluna fanart, and a wave of Twilightest fanfictions with them, and another wave of her realizing that she made a mistake and getting with the Dom at the end.
I expect you are happy!
I look forward to all of that. And teasing Dom with all of it. ^^
That's funny, I always imagined the bear guy from the book as Brian Blessed. Point is, Brian Blessed definitely should have been in The Hobbit.
I hope the Rankin and Bass cartoon gets a mention (or even its own episode, pretty please). I've always thought it better captured the novel than the bloated trilogy.
YES!
Completely agree with this.
So I'm a die hard Tolkien Fan, I read the Hobbit and LOTR at least once a year every year, read The Silmarillion at least twice now. Big fan of the Lord of the Rings movies, and I love the Hobbit Movies just as much. Why? well because for all their flaws I still feel like I'm back in Middle Earth just 60 years before LOTR. And there are things in the Hobbit movies I think were done better than LOTR such as 1. Bilbo is all around a better protagonist than Frodo, I'm sorry but when you watch the two, you realize how useless Frodo as the movies go on, I know ring bearer is different from burgler but come on who would you rather have watching your back Bilbo or Frodo? 2.Thorin is much more believable as a king, no offense to Aragorn but when you see Thorin you buy that this dwarf is a lost king returning to his throne. And speaking of the Dwarves, I'd much rather travel with the company of Thorin than the Fellowship. 3. I know this one might piss off people but I prefer the villains of the Hobbit movies compared to LOTR, I am not saying Sauron and Saruman are bad villains far from it, what I am saying is I prefer how in the Hobbit the villains, Azog, Smaug, and Sauron are actively driving events and interact with our heroes, especially Azog because by the time of the third movie that final duel is earned and it's great. and Smaug is just so awesome. And also the Goblin King's a great foe as well even if he's only in it for a short time. Overall the Hobbit is not as strong as LOTR but I still love both trilogies and will probably still be watching them when I'm 105 and can't remember what I ate 5 minutes ago.
I've been waiting for this since it was mentioned in passing!!
Yay!!
Annie's_Beanie Me too!
Congrats on 50 episodes. and knowing Del Toro was planing on hiring Brian Blessed just makes me wish his version had happened even more, what he had planed for Smaug was also super cool
I remember my dad reading this to me and my sister when we were little, it was so cool.
Also, YAY TERRENCE!
Huh, I thought the Godfather would be next.
"I can sympathise with the film being worried the audience wouldn't be able to take them seriously"
Do you mean that the characters from a children's book were clothed with childish clothes? I'm shocked, truly ^^
while a lot of the changes were negative i think the idea of Bilbo actually choosing to go on the adventure rather than being forced into it is a positive one and same with the eagles being summoned rather than "yea we just happened to be in the neighborhood and decided to help"
Same. Honestly, I really liked the characters in the movie more than the book. The movie was really good character-wise; dynamic, with stakes etc.
In some ways I can understand the corner Peter Jackson was painted into, since he'd made the LOTR movies first. The tone changed so completely between books...The Hobbit was an adventure story suitable for younger readers, with a more folksy, chattier tone of voice. LOTR started out that way (as, indeed, Tolkien had never intended for The Hobbit to be part of his Middle-Earth legendarium in the first place--early editions had Bilbo mentioning China!), then developed into more elevated, epic fantasy. So for PJ to make a more book-faithful Hobbit would have seemed jarring. (Gandalf calling Radagast his "cousin" showed how far the book started out from what Middle-Earth would become...it just sounded as if Gandalf and Radagast were mortal men who became wizards, not angelic beings who took human form as the wizards were later confirmed to be.) But I still think they could have pulled this off without the padding or pacing issues that plagued the Hobbit trilogy. (Make it two movies, not three...and NO DAMN LOVE TRIANGLE.)
Fair point, Hobbit is, unfortunately, a prequel that wasn't a prequel. It was a children's book that open the gateway to an expanded world. As a book it wasn't written to serve 'leading up to the Lord of the Rings'. Yet, as a PJ movie it had the weight of doing that, of being the 'next' LoTR. And it shot it in the foot more then it helped it.
In the middle of the earth, in the land of Shire there's a brave little Hobbit who we all admire.
With his long wooden pipe, fuzzy Wooly toes, he lives in a hobbit hole and everybody knows him Bilbo, Bilbo, Bilbo Baggins, he’s only three feet tall, Bilbo, Bilbo, Bilbo Baggins, the bravest little hobbit of them all, now hobbits are peace loving folks you know they’re never in a hurry and they take things slowly they don’t like to travel away from home, they just like to eat and be left alone but one day Bilbo was asked to go on a big adventure to the caves below, to help some dwarves get back there gold, that was stolen by a dragon in the days of old, Bilbo, Bilbo, Bilbo Baggins he’s only three feet tall, Bilbo, Bilbo, Bilbo Baggins, the bravest little hobbit of them all, whether he fought with the goblins, he battled a troll, he riddled with Gollum, a magic ring he stole, he was chased by wolves lost in the forest, escaped in a barrel from the elf king’s halls, Bilbo, Bilbo, Bilbo Baggins the bravest little hobbit of them all, now he’s back in his home in the land of shire that brave little hobbit whom we all admire just sitting on a treasure of silver and gold puffin’ on his pipe in his hobbit hole, Bilbo, Bilbo, Bilbo Baggins the bravest little hobbit of them all!