Over the past year I read the Hobbit and I'm past book 1 of Fellowship, mid Council of Elrond. I had heard not so good things about the Hobbit movies, so when I watched them, I wasn't surprised that I didn't enjoy them as much as I did the book. I have the same opinions as everyone else I've seen, that the second movie is the best, then the first and the third. Most of what annoyed me was how much shit they added in for no reason to pad the run time, then not focusing on things that were well elaborated on in the book and having Bilbos big moment be with Azog and not with the spiders like in the book. Still, I've heard things about the LOTR trilogy being the best ever made, rivaling or superseding that of the original Star Wars. So, when I finished Book 1, I wanted to get a quick peek.
I had read about Christopher Tolkien's dislike of the movies, and by the time I watched up to where Sam and Frodo first start the adventure, I felt the same way. Maybe it's because I'm watching the extended version, but it just feels too Hollywood for me. Is it because I read the books beforehand that I kinda tainted the viewing experience? I watched the Rankin Bass Hobbit and absolutely fell in love with it. It felt like it had a similar soul to the books. Am I moronic or something and being one of those "MYEEH IT WASN"T EXACTLY LIKE DA BOOKS" gays?
Separate the books and the films, they're different beasts made to take advantage of their respective mediums. Generally I prefer the books, but there are some things I prefer in the films, and sometimes there are changes I don't prefer but fully understand.
Liking one doesn't preclude you from liking the other.
The ring was copied from Wagners ring which was about israelites stealing German gold
Tolkien felt threatened because of his German heritage so he destroyed his books main narrative to avoid being called an "antisemite"
I dunno, he was pretty supportive of Francisco Franco, who wasn't a big fan of israelites.
is this from the emj essay?
I always thought LOTR basically boiled down to nothing, there was no coherent metaphor there. this explanation is the best account for that I've seen
>I always thought LOTR basically boiled down to nothing
atheists have no understanding of literature.
I got into Tolkien because I'm a catholic and in those circles he's really popular. He's stated before that The Hobbit and LOTR are inherently catholic stories. I've always seen it as a story about growing into a person who is willing to fight for the right thing no matter the circumstances, and how the greatest hero is the one who sacrifices himself for his friends.
>inherently catholic stories
There is no child molestation in the books
Are you moronic?
It's about being appreciative of what you have because you never know when a great war could take all away.
The movies are good but they arent the be all end all. Kubrick was once interested in doing it and i would have liked to have seen what he or someone like him would have created. Jackson is more interested in creating set pieces than investing movies with something deeper and thematic. I think the fact that he used a lot of dialogue from the book carried the movies along and made people think about the deeper themes. Im sure he cared somewhat but you can tell from The Hobbit movies that spectacle was more interesting to him than storytelling. The movie narratives are based action set pieces (which is why i think theatrical works better) and big moments. Its really lazy to compare a book to a movie though so just let them live on seperate plains of existence. The experience i had with the books will stay with me for the rest of my life because i invested part of myself in them. Its a much harder sell for movies to do that but people seem genuinely moved by the trilogy and im happy for them.
I think its a big indicator of how Jackson misunderstood the material that he filmed a fight between Aragorn and Sauron during the end battle. Him or his partner doubled back on that but there are loads of extra scenes (stuff not in the extended) that show that the movies were saved in editing. Eowyn fighting Urakai being an example. Also, just avoid the extended ROTK because of skull avalanche.
Jackson was in charge of the editing though. If you watched the behind the scenes he always would go into a room with the editor who he basically treated as his little slave, constantly telling him to do things.
>I think the fact that he used a lot of dialogue from the book carried the movies along
there are only a few lines in the movies that Jackson took directly from the books actually
>>I think the fact that he used a lot of dialogue from the book carried the movies along
>there are only a few lines in the movies that Jackson took directly from the books actually
I'm reading the books atm and i watched the movies about a month ago. something that is fricking bugging me is that i will read a passage of text, recognise a line that jackson lifted directly................... only he changed which character said it in the movie or who was involved. it's the most bizarre thing to reconcile
It’s rumored that Jackson’s wife was heavily involved in the production of lotr and not at all present in the hobbit. She used to read and edit his notes
she was involved in the hobbit
the difference was guillermo del taco withdrew last minute (again) and jackson had barely any time to prepare for the hobbit, compared to lots of prep for LoTR
I’m assuming the actors contracts had been signed so he just had to roll for his friends to get paid then
I think it says son that since the hobbit he has done nothing but documentaries
I actually just watched through the DVD appendices and its insane how much prep work Jackson did on LotR
Like they storyboarded everything, then turned the storyboards into animatics, then he had the miniatures team build rough miniature sets with stand ins of the cast so he could shoot the whole movie on a tiny camera
for VFX heavy shots (like Balin's Tomb) they basically invented a method where they built a whole CGI set that they could do scaled up (for the troll) or down (for the hobbits) motion capture in, and then Jackson could walk around with a camera and "film" the CGI set and get all the movements and blocking down before they filmed it for real
and all the while for like 18 months they had the only 2 professional swordsmiths in NZ forging all the swords in a real forge, they invented a way to make realistic looking chain mail out of plastic so it would be light enough to act in, countless sets and miniatures built, actors getting swordfighting lessons and horseback riding and rowing lessons - its insane
also the secret sauce of LotR is that New Line largely let Jackson do whatever he wanted, whereas The Hobbit had involvement from MGM and WB who all wanted to stick their fingers in the pies
and then the Hobbit also is marred by the fact that they jammed the Dol Guldur stuff into the story, which clashes horribly with the tone of the Hobbit. The Hobbit has a ton of problems beyond that too.
>the Dol Guldur stuff
yup, marvel-tier...
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As much of a master Kubrick is, I don't think his style would lend itself well to Middle Earth, but the thought is interesting. I guess I'm not a fan of how Jackson directs, with the Battle of Five Armies it was like watching a 3 hour videogame cutscene.
I guess I'll have to learn to view them as two different things, like having a preference between what parent reads you a story when you're a kid. Still, it's hard to separate such a story.
I would have liked someone like Kubrick because he would have made the world and all the small things something to marvel at. Jackson made a perfunctory world for the characters to travel in. The production crew did a good job but i would love to see that detail that Kubrick would bring. I wonder what paintings would inspire him and what lighting he would use. Maybe he wouldnt be good from a storytelling standpoint though.
>Maybe he wouldnt be good from a storytelling standpoint though
Exactly, I think Kubrick saw his films like moving paintings that were dense with meaning. He's first and foremost and artist, but I think with what LOTR is, it wouldn't meld with his style of storytelling. A lot of his characters evolve by slowing realizing things as his work goes on. It's like putting a Wagyu steak on a wedding cake. It's great and amazing on it's own right, but it's not what is needed for a certain piece of work.
As far as film goes though, im alright with botched storytelling as long as the film is something that sticks with me. The recent Dune adaption is better told than the Lynch version but the visuals from the Lynch version are still more memorable. A happy medium would be good though.
I got about halfway through the Lynch version because the visuals were so unique, I loved the practical effects and the otherworldliness of the cg of the body shield things. But the pacing kinda fumbled it for me. I guess I'm a stickler, but I just need both. Kinda like half of being smart is knowing information and the other half is knowing how to explain that info easily. Godzilla 1954 and Lawerence of Arabia do it for me :/
The worst thing about The Hobbit movies is that they took the colour out of the book. The book was designed to illuminate the imagination of young people. Jackson stripped all that away to make it closer to his LOTR movies.
I think if you read the books first you may have just set up different expectations. The LOTR films are my all time favorites. I read the books after and loved them but they are very different tonally. Also I saw the films as a kid so I have huge nostalgia for them.
But the Hobbit movies are irredeemable. They add so much shit to a tiny book that they become the most bloated movies I've ever seen. At least LOTR adapts an epic into well, an epic. But the Hobbit films try to adapt a small scale (for the most part) D&D campaign into an epic scale thing, which it just isn't.
oh btw op if you were more of a LOTR book person than a film one, I think you'd love the BBC radio drama adaptation. It's much more faithful and tonally compatible https://archive.org/details/the-lord-of-the-rings-bbc-radio-drama
it's tricky to separate the two of them if you are consuming within such close proximity of each other. the best you can do is not get too bummed out because they are still fantastic movies, even if they do not capture the spirit of the book. some of the changes to themes and characterisation were just a bit confused which is a let down but i guess you could say it's made up for generally by the production quality.
>But the Hobbit movies are irredeemable.
it's tricky for me to go completely in on the hobbit movies considering how troubled the development was with the financial issues and what not. i think when del toro left and jackson signed on, there was barely any time to prep before they had to start filming. so a lot of it was just rushed so they could make something. it's why there was a shift to a lot of shitty cgi because literally had no time to refine the practical effects. iirc, originally it was only meant to be 2 films. i would love to know why they decided to force it to a trilogy
the first one has some charm to it. but then really took a misstep by essentially making bilbo a background character in the later movies. i really wish they managed to keep del toro on or gave it to someone other than jackson because he just had to try to make it feel like lotr.
>think when del toro left and jackson signed on, there was barely any time to prep before they had to start filming.
People b***h about the Hobbit films but I feel like Jackson did the best he could. LotR worked because Jackson started preproduction 4 years ahead of filming and basically had free reign to do what he wanted and could still tell the studio execs to frick off if they demanded stupid changes. He had none of that with The Hobbit and was brought on last minute after years of production hell. The end result could have been much, much worse.
At the very least we got enough material that fans were able to edit together their own Hobbit movies and salvage something good from it all.
The only things I remember from the hobbit movies are the barrel river sequence and legolas running on a falling bridge.
>Over the past year I read the Hobbit
How the hell did it take so long? That's less than a page a day
i only read when im pooping
I finished the hobbit in about 6 months since I always had other things to do like schoolwork, having a job and general life stuff. I'd go long stretches without reading it at all.
You're not moronic, you just have good taste. Try to separate the two, as others have said, the LOTR movies are fun and good in their own, Hollywood lite way.
I can't separate them, Movie Frodo, Aragorn & Gimli fricking suck.
Elrond saying men are weak was bullshit.
He’s buttmad over his brother and daughter choosing the gift of men and being able to make their own music instead of living forever as part of it
>and having Bilbos big moment be with Azog and not with the spiders like in the book.
This was done to artificially conclude Bilbo's arc at the end of the first movie, and then Bilbo remains static and uninteresting for the next two movies. It's rubbish movie-making.
Also although the spiders are a huge moment for Bilbo taking on the heroic role, the book explicitly states his climax is the long walk alone down the secret passage to Smaug's chamber. The 90minute 1977 Rankin Bass The Hobbit gets this perfect, but it is completely cut from the 10 hour abomination so they can fit in more elf-Dwarf love triangles and CGI chase scenes.
I despise the Jackson Hobbit trilogy.
i read the books before the films were released. i struggled with the first film. A lot of changes, that were imo unnecessary. I grew to like them a lot in the end. It did feel like Tolkiens world to me.
Nobody has ever seriously contended that the LOTR extended editions are the best anything. The rest of your post is seemingly linked to this weird assumption
Comparison is the death of joy.
Peter Jackson's a hack, who thinks any movie must be good if it's 3 hours long. His movies are often filled with lazy cliches and too much cgi.
If you blame him on the hobbit being three 3hour movies youre wrong, it was the studios who wanted a trilogy because lotr was a trilogy,
The hobbit should have been one 3hour movie or two 2hour movies, and no pretty boy dwarves, that pissed me off, fili and kili were twins, and klingon thorin was a bad choice, dont know if thats on taco or jackson
>extended edition
>first viewing
Yeah. Big mistake.
Also it seems too Hollywood because it IS Hollywood and was an adaptation intended to remain sincere while also being a triple blockbuster that would justify its enormous scope and expense.
Whenever I read a book after watching a tv/movie adaption I always picture the characters as the actors. So I would suggest always reading the book first so your imagination can take over.
Im glad i read the hobbit before the movies because everytime i read it, i picture the walkways where i lived and wandered as a child. That being said, those movies are so bad that nothing could replace that.
You are a fricking midwit with no taste, or opinions on your own.
Council of elrond, in the book, is an unfilmable 60 min exposition fest.
You have no concept of pace and visual affinity.
Chamber of Mazarbul on the book is described as "Aragorn and Boromir kill a lot of them" and that's it.
And you expect a movie to just be 900min of offscreen narration and character's soliloquys? Get an audiobook
You have no brain.
This dude creamed his pants over all the talking in Oppenheimer and can't wrap his head around all the talking a faithful adaptation would have had lmao
I loved the 3 LOTR movies. I enjoyed The Hobbit trilogy, but mostly the 1st movie.
I am in love with the 78 LOTR animated movie though. Yeah, they never completed the story, but I just can't get enough of it.
>words words words words words
Yes the movies suck, what is your question exactly?
Has any other writer completed his series of books before publishing them? LOTR will always be goat because of this.
Peter Jackson just isn't that good of a director.
The only director IMHO who could've done a LOTR trilogy that matches my expectations from the book would be Akira Kurosawa.
Ridley Scott could've done a Hobbit two-parter. Back when he was good.