DESOLATION OF SMAUG reviews thread

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...and for audiences so hungry for high fantasy they’ll gobble up whatever is served to them and ask for seconds.

Yea I'm not going to lie that's one of the main reasons why I liked first movie. Just having AAA-budget high fantasy spectacles in the theater like The Hobbit is entertainment for me. On a side note I like that the writer brought up Gandalf's low tones, it just doesn't add anything to have him speak like that in my opinion (I haven't watched the sequel but it's a criticism that extends to Gandalf in general I suppose). These dwarf characters just don't translate well to the big screen either
 
It's not bad, but definitely not as good/necessary as the LotR EEs. It's 11 minutes, most of which is extended/new scenes in Rivendell, and the Great Goblin sings a song in the caves. Oh, and a super brief but very cute scene of Bilbo as a kid interacting with Gandalf.

Also a nice scene showing off Hobbiton before Biblo meets the dwarves - I thought that was the best addition.
 
I love LOTR but I really have less than zero interest in this series. I didn't watch it in the theater, I didn't watch it on Blu-Ray or OD, I can't even be arsed to watch it on HBO.

To quote Noel Gallagher, Jackson needs to pry himself out of his own asshole too.
 
I'd love for the positive reviews to be true, but after the first I'm anything but optimistic. And no matter how good the sequels are, the first one can't be undone.
 
I'm not sure I can support watching any of these films, given the blatant cash grab of splitting a simple 400 page children's book into three films/6+ hours. Although the trailers for this one certainly look good.

Do you feel the same way when they take a whole season to spit out one book on Game of Thrones? Hell the current season was only HALF a book.
 
Do you feel the same way when they take a whole season to spit out one book on Game of Thrones? Hell the current season was only HALF a book.

Yeah, but half of A Storm of Swords alone is longer than the entirety of The Hobbit. So imagine if Game of Thrones did 4-6 seasons based on just one book, and you'd get the scale of bloat we're dealing with here.
 
Yeah, but half of A Storm of Swords alone is longer than the entirety of The Hobbit. So imagine if Game of Thrones did 4-6 seasons based on just one book, and you'd get the scale of bloat we're dealing with here.

True, but that's like 20 hours, vs 6 for the hobbit.
 
Holy shit, if it's better than the first, I'm going to fucking love this shit.

Just to clarify: I loved the hell out of the first one. Probably my favorite if all LotR movies. I liked but didn't love the first three. I loved AUJ.
 
The Guardian 4/5

The Desolation of Smaug is a cheerfully entertaining and exhilarating adventure tale, a supercharged Saturday morning picture: it's mysterious and strange and yet Jackson also effortlessly conjures up that genial quality that distinguishes The Hobbit from the more solemn Rings stories. The absurdity is winning: you're laughing with, not laughing at. For me, it never sagged once in its mighty two hour 40 minutes running time and the high-frame-rate projection for this film somehow looks richer and denser than it did the last time around

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/dec/08/the-hobbit-the-desolation-of-smaug-review
 
First one is a masterpiece and possibly one of the best movies ever. Can't fucking wait to see this one.

No one can possibly seriously think this about the first Hobbit. It's a fundamentally flawed film in many ways, not least in that none of its setups are paid off during its runtime. Everything the first movie introduces doesn't even get any real development, let alone resolution until the second movie.

It's very much a first act of a three part story, which is why so many people found it wholly unsatisfying. It's a terrible standalone film, unlike the Lord of the Rings films, which did a much better job of creating individual arcs within themselves in addition to the overarcing story of the full trilogy. The first Hobbit will probably stand well alongside the other three, but "one of the best movies ever"? That's an indefensible statement, IMO.
 
"Non-stop peril and action" sounds like LOTR, not "the Hobbit."

An Unexpected Journey was 169 minutes and covered the first six chapters of the book.

At average reading speeds, it takes less time to read "the Hobbit" than it does to watch the movie adaptation.
 
Yeah, but half of A Storm of Swords alone is longer than the entirety of The Hobbit. So imagine if Game of Thrones did 4-6 seasons based on just one book, and you'd get the scale of bloat we're dealing with here.

This is pretty stupid of me..but technically, assuming the next Hobbit movie falls somewhere between these two in length, then it's 40~ pages per hour (spread out over roughly 8 and a bit hours of film), compared with Storm of Swords 50~ pages (spread out over 20 1 hour episodes)

..so yah. Similar amounts of bloat.
 
and the high-frame-rate projection for this film somehow looks richer and denser than it did the last time around

Looks like the color grading effort Peter Jackson was talking about has paid off.
 
Desolation of Spelling

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In Shanghai they just have a plethora of smog
 
This is pretty stupid of me..but technically, assuming the next Hobbit movie falls somewhere between these two in length, then it's 40~ pages per hour (spread out over roughly 8 and a bit hours of film), compared with Storm of Swords 50~ pages (spread out over 20 1 hour episodes)

..so yah. Similar amounts of bloat.

Well game of thrones is a mediocre ass show anyways so who cares who wins this bloat-off?
 
Are we doing HFR Gaf?

Yes, I am. I did it the first time and I did not like to experience totally. The Gollum scenes were fantastic but everything else lost that cinematic quality and felt like a video game.

I was not going to do HFR again, but the friends I am going with bought tickets for us at the HFR screening. It will still feel like a video game, but hopefully the film is better this time. Fingers crossed there are no rabbit chase sequences or multiple dwarf musical numbers.
 
I think adding in extra material from other sources into these films was a good idea, it lets Jackson make a story that ties into LOTR more fully and can sit next to it more easily.

The Hobbit as the book stands doesn't quite fit perfectly with LOTR, Tolkien also once tried to re-write the story to fit in better with LOTR's. Maybe the three movie split has hurt the pacing a bit, but the idea behind what they are trying to accomplish is the best approach I think.
 
If it gets any less than 6 bags of popcorn and 4 jumbo sodas I'm going to rage.

the first hobbit movie really looks like it came straight from tim heidecker's dreams/nightmares. I was looking for the CG spaget the whole time
 
the first hobbit movie really looks like it came straight from tim heidecker's dreams/nightmares. I was looking for the CG spaget the whole time
I hope they can get WETA for SatQftGT, Spielberg should be able to get a huge budget from the studios.
 
True, but that's like 20 hours, vs 6 for the hobbit.

The Hobbit trilogy is going to be almost 9 hours before the EE, but that's a fair point nonetheless. The biggest problem remaining, however, is pacing. As a TV series, Game of Thrones can have self-contained 1-hour stories that don't especially drag on week-to-week or get too muddled in the source material. The Hobbit on the other hand is adapting something as long as each individual book in the LotR trilogy and yet delivers three times the movie on a per-page basis. And all of this from a much more straightforward story.

I'm definitely willing to believe that films 2 and 3 of The Hobbit could have considerably better pacing and content than AUJ. It's just that AUJ set such a poor precedent that I can't take anything on faith.
 
I enjoyed the first one. It doesn't really hold a candle to the original trilogy, but I can appreciate it for what it is. I'm watching this one.
 
David Ehrlich of Film.com, no review yet, but it will be a positive one.

david ehrlich ‏@davidehrlich

DESOLATION OF SMAUG is excellent. stakes & scale can’t match LOTR, but nails world-building & sense of adventure that made those films work.
 
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