Now that the Extended Hobbit Trilogy is all available, was it all worth it?

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enigmatic_alex44

Whenever a game uses "middleware," I expect mediocrity. Just see how poor TLOU looks.
I watched through the extended version of Battle of Five Armies last night. For the first half I thought it was a lot better than I remembered, then the 2nd half played and I remembered what a bloated mess the battle was. Felt like it was never going to end. Having Thorin's
funeral scene and Dane becoming the new ruler of Erebor
put back in definitely helped give the film a lot more resolution this time around.

Lord of the Rings trilogy is one of my personal faves. The Hobbit was never going to live up to that but I was hopeful for 3 great movies. I don't think they turned out as bad as the Star Wars prequels, but they were definitely drawn out, bloated, and loaded with some really iffy CG at times. How on Middle Earth the LOTR trilogy has better effects with older tech and being a decade old is beyond me.

I do think it was worth making these movies as Middle Earth on screen is so wonderful and the cast was great, but it's clear Peter Jackson kind of phoned it in this time around. I don't know if he was just tired, or bit off more than he could chew this time since he had to pull from other source material as the Hobbit book is so small, but maybe he should have let another director do these film. I know Del Torro was possibly involved at one point.

I will say Smaug is the best on screen dragon ever, the effects are stunning, he looks incredibly cool and Cucumberbatch voices him really well, making him a terrifying threat with a sharp tongue.

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For me I like the films in this order:

Desolation of Smaug > An Unexpected Journey > Battle of Five Armies

A shame that the worst of the six films is the finale to the LOTR/Hobbit saga *sigh*
Even though the movies were already too long, I do think each of the Extended versions is better than the theatrical. A step or two down from the LOTR trilogy for sure, but still worthwile, if flawed, films. I won't be revisiting them nearly as often as with LOTR though.

What do you think?

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It was a wasted opportunity, tbh.

A very long, action ridden, unnecessary, wasted opportunity.
Still better than having nothing, I suppose?
 
I like these movies. I saw them all in theaters over the holidays they came out.

I still haven't seen Two Towers or Return of the King, and I own Two Towers on Blu-Ray!
 
Yes. It's a fun ride. No one is saying their academy award winners but damn if kids or anyone who likes the setting won't be taken away for a few hours.
 
I can honestly say, without any hyperbole, that I dislike the Hobbit trilogy even more than the Star Wars prequels.

An Unexpected Journey was actually pretty decent. A Solid 7/10.

Desolation of Smaug was just bad. Overly long, shitty special effects, cheesy dialogue, nonsensical plot progressions and character decisions... The Smaug scene at the end of it kind of saved it though, so I'd give it a 5.5/10.

Battle of the Five Armies? Holy hell, what kind of awful, nightmareish monstrosity is this? Honestly one of the worst 3 hours I've ever wasted on a film. I love the completely random 100% CGI dwarf that shows up half-way through the film for absolutely no reason. A charitable 2/10.
 
I get the need for some of the CGI, but I think they went overboard in a lot of places. So much of it was so well done in the LOTR trilogy, that I was really baffled when they opted to go for so much CGI this time. Also some of the over the top action sequences were just a little too much.

Other than that it was an enjoyable fantasy movie, but I feel it could of been a lot more.
 
I watched it all recently and I think the Hobbit has somehow made me retroactively like LoTR a bit less. The over reliance on action sequences and lack of emotional depth stood out to me more after watching the Hobbit. I would have preferred the movies not to exist, sadly.
 
Aside from the first film, the trilogy was really forgettable to me. I absolutely hate that realization because the LotR trilogy is my favorite series of films of all time, hands down.

Just really no magic at all in the Hobbit trilogy. I won't linger on the problems with the films as they have been mentioned time and time again. Regardless, the extended versions (except for DoS) don't enhance the films to a level that the EEs of LotR did.
 
Fortunately, I will never watch the Extended versions. Watching the regular versions was enough to tell me Peter Jackson hit the cocaine hard. Like a lot. To the point of no return.

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I still gush over the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Built with love. Not cocaine.
 
digitalrelic said:
I can honestly say, without any hyperbole, that I dislike the Hobbit trilogy even more than the Star Wars prequels.

An Unexpected Journey was actually pretty decent. A Solid 7/10.

Desolation of Smaug was just bad. Overly long, shitty special effects, cheesy dialogue, nonsensical plot progressions and character decisions... The Smaug scene at the end of it kind of saved it though, so I'd give it a 5.5/10.

Battle of the Five Armies? Holy hell, what kind of awful, nightmareish monstrosity is this? Honestly one of the worst 3 hours I've ever wasted on a film. A charitable 2/10.
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What makes it kind of funny is that the Hobbit production had a quality book to fall back on for their source material and still managed to fuck it up. It's a remarkable failure. And, yeah, it's kind of soured me on all the LOTR films now, even though I do think they are a quality production.
 
Extended? I thought it already had been extended enough.

Note, I haven't and do not intend to watch Battle of the Five Armies. The first two movies were enough for me, ~30 minutes of brilliance each surrounded by boring filler. And I loved LOTR.
 
Darryl said:
I watched it all recently and I think the Hobbit has somehow made me retroactively like LoTR a bit less. The over reliance on action sequences and lack of emotional depth stood out to me more after watching the Hobbit. I would have preferred the movies not to exist, sadly.
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Woooooah.... LOTR isn't lessed by the Hobbit films. Just do what Star Wars fans do and ignore the prequels in that case. The LOTR trilogy is a once in a lifetime achievement, I doubt we'll see a film project on that scale and level of quality again for a long time.

Danneee said:
Extended? So now it really will take more time to watch the movie trilogy compared to reading the book.
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Real talk: it takes you 9 hours to read a 200 page book??? O______o
 
Eeeeeeehh


I'm like you really. I don't feel they were horrible, or even bad movies. Bloated is the word i'd use, like you. But it's definitively nowhere near "Star Wars Prequel" levels of bad.

For me from the very start, the hobbit movies suffered simply mostly because the LOTR trilogy came first. With that in mind, the stakes were already much less important, even though Peter Jackson tried to work in some stuff from the Silmarillion in it, which was more or less okay. But in the end I still felt less attached to this than the LOTR trilogy mostly because the pacing was off (really, too many movies for what it should've been) and it was a bit awkward. I still enjoyed my time watching most of them tho (most of all the second movie)

By that I mean that PJ didn't seem to know if he wanted to do hobbit movies or LOTR movies. It swings weirdly between whimsy, more personal and warm general fantasy adventure that the hobbit was to sometimes more LOTR-esque big dramatic end-of-the-world-foreboding and suddenly you were in a completely different movie. The third movie in itself was a total shift to that, trying desperately to cram in a final epic battle which just ended up being overdrawn and confusing.

My favourite movie, like you, is desolation. I think it's the strongest mostly because of how much "new" there was in it and how close it was to the spirit of the hobbit rather than LOTR: Talking spiders, corrupt Laketown, house of the elves, and the great scenes with Smaug. Sure there were some silly stuff like the barrel riding (and it's weird go-pro footage) but I still think it's a pretty strong entry.
Then I'd put also the first movie. It's not super bad, and I really enjoyed that he put in a lot of the songs. And the gollum scene was brilliant. But it felt very "safe". Almost retracing the entire fellowship of the ring movie in some ways.
Battle of five armies was just a mess. It had moments, but they were fleeting. The fights themselves stopped being serious early on and it just became silly videogame-style nonsense for most of the movie.

Overall, it just felt like it overstayed it's welcome by the third movie. Should've been two. Every Legolas and Tauriel (especially Tauriel) stuck out like a sore thumb. Bilbo, which should've been the main character, was put in the backseat most of the time in favour of Thorin who they were too afraid to make different from Aragorn as he's almost a replica of him in the beginning. Heck even the other dwarves, except for Balin and Kili, don't do that much. And that love story felt so forced that even the theater laughed when Tauriel got that ray of light after saving Kili. It was just plain ridiculous.

I don't hate them (except maybe heavily disliking BotFA) but yeah, it is a huge wasted opportunity. And simply baffling after the brilliance of the LOTR trilogy. It's like Peter Jackson forgot all the magic of these movies.
 
enigmatic_alex44 said:
Woooooah.... LOTR isn't lessed by the Hobbit films. Just do what Star Wars fans do and ignore the prequels in that case. The LOTR trilogy is a once in a lifetime achievement, I doubt we'll see a film project on that scale and level of quality again for a long time.



Real talk: it takes you 9 hours to read a 200 page book??? O______o
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It's sad but once you see it, you can't unsee it. :(
 
If it wasn't for my childhood nostalgia for the book, I would have totally hated everything about them. As it is now, I'm mildly amused. I thought Martin Freeman made a pretty good Bilbo though.
 
Fuck these movies. The only interesting part in the entire trilogy was the scene between Bilbo and Smaug after they first meet.

I don't often think of movies as "bad", but this was just awful and a waste of everybody's time.

It's just such an empty trilogy, completely lacking any soul.
 
This trilogy really doesn't get the respect it's due. However, despite being snubbed three times by the Academy, I'm comforted by the knowledge that everyone who has seen these movies knows the thrill of experiencing life back in JK Tolkein's time.

Maybe I'm a little bit biased; I am something of a Hobbit freak and Bilbo is a personal hero of mine. Hanging out with Bilbo and the gang really is as good as it gets. I can't wait for the saga to continue throughout this century with the Silmarillion.
 
I doubt I will ever watch these films, but it sounds like from reading the comments that they should have made one focused film.

actually... I think I saw like an hour of the Five Armies film at a movie in the park this past summer but I guess I wasn't really paying attention ha as I can't remember a single scene.
 
enigmatic_alex44 said:
I will say Smaug is the best on screen dragon ever
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Agree with this at least. For all that's terrible about the Hobbit trilogy (which is most things, including that idiotic Benny Hill-style chase culminating in dousing Smaug in gold), those movies don't get enough credit for Smaug. He is absolutely the best dragon ever put on screen. The design and CGI are perfect, and Cabbagesnatch is spectacular.
 
I loved the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and the EE especially, but this? No, it's shit.

It isn't even good fun if you forgive all its flaws. I mean the SW PT is shit, but even then there are some things I can look at and go "oh yeah, I can re-watch this and enjoy myself."

The Hobbit, though? Never need to see these movies again. If anything it needed to be condensed into one movie, not extended.
 
ultratruman said:
This trilogy really doesn't get the respect it's due. However, despite being snubbed three times by the Academy, I'm comforted by the knowledge that everyone who has seen these movies knows the thrill of experiencing life back in JK Tolkein's time.

Maybe I'm a little bit biased; I am something of a Hobbit freak and Bilbo is a personal hero of mine. Hanging out with Bilbo and the gang really is as good as it gets. I can't wait for the saga to continue throughout this century with the Silmarillion.
Click to expand...

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Smaug is pretty much the only awesome thing from these movies. They are definitely over-bloated, B-Tier Middle-Earth nonsense compared to LOTR.

Barrel Rider
 
Huge Tolkien fan and I didn't even realize the BO5A EE blu ray was out.

I haven't even finished the theatrical edition.
 
MrHoot said:
...You can't really fault the movie for doing something that was exactly in the book to be fair.
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no, but i can fault the movies for portraying a children's book as an action epic, complete with slow motion shots, insane acrobatics and an antagonist who wasn't even in the book.
 
I've yet to see the final Hobbit movie. The first two were...just there. I remember being really excited to see the first one. It was okay. The second one I saw on a plane. Eh. I think these films were really hurt by extending them to 3 movies. This is why they feel so boring and bloated. But, greed won out in the end and we're left with what we got.

As others have said, I think I like the LOTR films a little less now for some reason. I always felt RotK was the weakest of that bunch as well, btw.
 
Haven't seen the Extended Editions, but I loved AUJ and DoS in 48 fps. BoFA was less fun but it was still an enjoyable experience.

So, I'm going with yes.
 
Skiptastic said:
Haven't seen the Extended Editions, but I loved AUJ and DoS in 48 fps.
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Didn't that just make everything look "cheap" with all the costumes/sets being more obvious or so I heard? Like a daytime soap opera effect I mean.
 
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