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

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enigmatic_alex44 said:
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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It's subjective. The problem is that subconsciously we associate the 24 fps look with film and anything faster with news, sports and soap operas.
 
Should have only been two movies max.

I actually enjoyed the book back in the day because of its treasure hunt style adventure it was a very classic story.
 
I think I'd like the Hobbit better if I never read the book.

The problem is that I read the book multiple times throughout my youth and seeing it bloated on the big screen with characters seemingly thrown in from the LOTR appendices for extra action kinda ruined the movies for me.

If I never knew the original story or book, I'd probably look at the Hobbit like this generation's Star Wars 4, 5, 6.
 
I like AUJ. Not LOTR level but I think is a fun and good movie.

Smaugh is simply too long, the elf girl sucks and Smaugh, even if it looks incredible, felt rather underwelming. I mean, dude was supposed to be this dangerous beast yet he ends up almost being ridiculized in the chase scene. Overall the movie had fun parts but it's rather meh.

Five armies is just straight shit.

I think they still are a tad better than SW prequels (and I love OT SW) because there's nothing worse than Episode 2.
 
I enjoyed the Hobbit films enough that I'm looking forward to watching the extended versions at some point and as much as I loved Smaug, the bull from Reign of Fire still stands as my favorite dragon in cinema. I simply love the design, which was apparently based off of the dragon from Dragonslayer.

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I actually dislike them more as time goes on. They managed to take the wonderful landscape and make it look utterly fake. Really suffered from the 2>3 film change, too.

However I did enjoy some things about each film (the introduction of the dwarves, gollum, every scene with smaug in it) so it's not like they had no redeeming qualities. I quite liked Martin Freeman as Bilbo too, despite initially thinking he was an odd choice.
 
I very much enjoyed the first two EEs but they don't come close to matching LOTR, that's for sure. Looking forward to watching my copy of BOTFA EE though.
 
The EEs absolutely improved the theatrical versions. The third film's EE actually had me enjoying it. I liked UJ and DoS in theater but didn't care for BoFA.

UJ - 8.5/10
UJEE - 8.5/10
DoS - 7.5/10
DoSEE - 8.5/10
BoFA - 5/10
BoFAEE - 7/10

I'll never watch the theatricals again. I'm waiting for the 6 movie box set supposedly coming next year.
 
I made me retro actively dislike the original LOTR trilogy a bit. The first hobbit I felt started on a steady enough foot. I think it could have been a great one and done movie. I don't even know what the purpose of the third movie was. It was just one boring battle.
 
If he would have made one Movie, i think it could have been awesome, but this was just a bloated crap beyond believe.

Never again.

In fact, the Hobbit-Trilogy was so bad, that i don't wanna watch TLOR anymore :-/
 
enigmatic_alex44 said:
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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Nope. It takes about two minutes of adjusting, which they smartly filled with slower parts on AUJ and DoS, but I thought it helped immerse me in the world even more. I really enjoyed it. If I hadn't enjoyed it as much, my brother and I would have switched to IMAX after AUJ.

I was very happy with 48fps.
 
The first one was ok at best, the second one was awful, and I have no desire to see the third one.

It should have been two movies max, but really, PJ could have told the entire story in less than three hours. So much fucking bloat.

The barrel riding scene is one of my favorites in the book and he totally fucked it up in the most embarrassing way. Bilbo's first meeting with Smaug was pretty well done, though.

The 80 minute cartoon from the 70's did a better job at adapting The Hobbit.
 
I'll be watching BOFA EE this weekend..skipped it in theaters.

My thoughts on the first two films -

AUJ Theatrical - Good movie but not as good as any LOTR
AUJ EE - Great stuff, nearly on par with TT and ROTK IMO with a few scenes from the theatrical that should have not been filmed.

DOS Theatrical - not good. Movie isn't as good as AUJ in the first place but is absolutely ruined by shit pacing from scenes getting cut
DOS EE - Much improved, I think this movie overall is weaker than AUJ but the back half is quite excellent and the pacing is soooo much better in the EE

I'm not expecting BOFA to be any better than the first two EEs, but I was never cool with the idea to extend to 3 movies. 2 EEs would have been perfect for this adaptation.
 
BOTFA was a waking nightmare. It's the only Middle Earth film I haven't gotten the EE for, and I never will. Jackson went full George Lucas.
 
I enjoyed the movies overall, I just think it is sad that the tone of the book was pretty much lost so that we could have an effects laden trilogy of 2hr+ movies. Should have been two movies at most, and retained the kid friendly tone.
 
I think the LOTR trilogy is nothing more than decent, with ROTK being the worst. That movie is already bringing up a lot of hints about the direction the next movies were gonna be, and indeed they went; found them simply horrendous, minus the first one which at least has some sort of charm going on. The LOTR trilogy looks like Kurosawa in comparison
 
Melon Husk said:
Really? Genuinely surprised if that's the case.
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Not quite as good as LOTR's but lots of interesting info about the sets and look of the movies. They can also be pretty blunt about Jackson not being that invested in directing. A little too much behind the scenes joking (good to see the cast and crew bond but it really isn't as funny as they think) but that's my only chief complaint.
 
The Weta Art of Books were really nice. Bought all of em.

Movies themselves would have been far stronger had they stuck to the original 2 Movie Plan. Movie 1: Opening to Escape from Mirkwood. Movie 2: - Laketown to Battle. And less Super Elves.
 
The two-films version would probably have worked better, but I like it. There is a lot of spotty-CG, the action doesn't feel always as real as in LOTR, the climax of DOS is unsatisfactory for both the dwarves and Smaug, and some choices hurts (like the excess of Alfrid and Legolas at the expense of Beorn).

But still, I like them. When they are good, they are really good: the first dialogue between Bilbo and Gandalf, the Gollum and Smaug sequences, Mirkwood (especially in the extended cut), some of the new music, etc. It's still Peter Jackson Middle-earth.

My list matches OP:

DOS > AUJ > BOTFA
 
It probably would have worked way better if they did two films or even just one. Three films for this when the source material was so short was stretching it. I think they could have done a much better job with just two movies. With that said I enjoyed the movies even though they were flawed/bloated. They weren't terrible, but they were pretty average.
 
TheFatOne said:
It probably would have worked way better if they did two films or even just one. Three films for this when the source material was so short was stretching it. I think they could have done a much better job with just two movies. With that said I enjoyed the movies even though they were flawed/bloated. They weren't terrible, but they were pretty average.
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That's my main complaint. The source material couldn't support 3 lengthy movies, and the trilogy as a whole suffered for it. I very much prefer the LotR movies.
 
Jinaar said:
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.
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Is this for real? Someone loses weight and makes a movie you don't like. Must be cocaine!
 
Now that the Extended Hobbit Trilogy is available, I'm hoping someone can finally put together an expertly edited (i.e. no seams or noticeable audio issues whatsoever) fan edit that's basically one film in length. Not everything can really be eliminated, since some terrible subplots are enormous but also sort of necessary to explain why characters are where they are (see: everything in Laketown ever), but I still expect it can be improved a lot by getting rid of unnecessary nonsense.
 
badcrumble said:
Now that the Extended Hobbit Trilogy is available, I'm hoping someone can finally put together an expertly edited (i.e. no seams or noticeable audio issues whatsoever) fan edit that's basically one film in length. Not everything can really be eliminated, since some terrible subplots are enormous but also sort of necessary to explain why characters are where they are (see: everything in Laketown ever), but I still expect it can be improved a lot by getting rid of unnecessary nonsense.
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you know what subplot was REALLY unnecessary? That garbage romance between Kili and Tauriel. I don't think I've seen such a lack of chemistry since the last time Tom Cruise was with a woman on screen, yikes.
 
For all the shit the Star Wars prequels get, at least they aren't 3 hours long each.

I will say that Smaug is fucking incredible and the Gollum scene from An Unexpected Journey is also fucking incredible, but the rest is just bleh.
enigmatic_alex44 said:
you know what subplot was REALLY unnecessary? That garbage romance between Kili and Tauriel. I don't think I've seen such a lack of chemistry since the last time Tom Cruise was with a woman on screen, yikes.
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Apparently Evangeline Lily didn't even realize they were going the whole love triangle angle until they started filming. No wonder there was no chemistry.
 
I dunno about the extended cut, but I remember having a lot more fun watching the 2 hobbit movies rather than the actual LotR films. (Didn't get around to watch the final Hobbit one yet though.)

Maybe I'm outta my wheelhouse here but based on my experience, Hobbit Trilogy easily > LotR.
 
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