*** The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug ***

Marsman said:
Jackson can't use The Silmarillion as The Tolkien Estate owns the rights, and considering they spent years getting royalties from the movie studio who claimed none of the LOTR trilogy movies made any profit, it seems he will never get his hands on them. I think their hold on the rights runs out in 2043, so I've read anyway. You've assumed right though that content from the appendices will be used to bridge the gap.
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fixed it for you..

it's all about the money, money, money

-- JRR Tolkien sold the movie rights for Hobbit + LOTR for royalties off profits
-- Movie studio claimed the movies didn't make any profit (accounting tricks)
-- Tolkien's son and head of the estate took them to court for years before he got a nice settlement

Tolkien's family are all feeding off his literary success, as you would expect (nothing wrong with it). So it's all about the money, not the "artistic" differences.

Tolkien's son, who is in his 80s, holds the helm of all rights for the remaining books and thousands of pages of his father's work. He produced Turin and the Silmarillion out of it all these past 40 years. I imagine when he passes away all the grandchildren will sell off the remaining works and we'll get more movies and much more content that we've never seen before.
 
'Harry said:
I saw the first Hobbit film in the cinema, and wasn't impressed (I was ****ed). Second time round at home was a much better viewing experience. Still, it lacked the immersion the original film bought

All the LOTR films are over hyped really, much like Nolan's Batman. After a few viewings you spot the errors etc and the magic is lost. These films need to immerse you into their world. I don't feel that anymore. It's just watching a film now.

Another example is Avatar. When I saw Avatar for the first time I was OMG, now I'm like ah Avatar is on the telly...Zzzz

Avatar is good after a toke or two though..the colours get to me ;) I can't watch it sober though, it's uber boring now. Film4 goes through a stage where they're showing it at least twice a month.
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And the attention seeking, **** of the year award goes to.....
 
Back from the giant screen birmingham, despite the 'critical acclaim' to date', i felt pretty livid and betrayed.

The love story. What The ****.

This film can be summed up as a series of cliches and tropes of cinematography packed in for no other reason than 'because we can'.

'Hey isn't this a 3D movie? Better stick a 3d bee in there to fly out the screen cause we don't have any sticky out pointy objects yet'
'Whoops, just realised this is a bit of a sausage fest. Hey, lets chuck in a female elf warrior, and she will kick butt and be awesome. Better give her a romance line, cause girls like boys and stuff. Can't let girl power have TOO much screen time, the audience won't like it.' (I damn well hope A.Sarkeesian does a video on this, because you should all be ASHAMED for letting this trope pass you by. Token women in token love story because...)
 
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I'm hoping to watch it this weekend but need to catch up on some other films such as Thor 2, but reckon this is higher on the list.
Might see if there is any availability on the IMAX as I've only seen documentaries at an IMAX and would be awesome for an epic movie.
 
Saw this tonight.. million times better than the first one.. but still not a patch on LOTR.

Smaug is fantastic, best depiction of a dragon I've ever seen.. and Cumberbatch's voice is perfect.

my big gripe about this is that lack of any form of blood. I know it's probably like that for the rating, but swords slashing and cleaving and coming away bright and shiny is just rubbish, that's what makes this look so bad against LOTR

Also found some of the CGI very suspect, the barrel scene looked terrible in places.
 
Seeing it in a few hours [3D HFR], and can't wait. The first one has grown on me with repeated viewing, even the start which seemed a bore first time around. Just watched the extended version, but I'm not sure the extra footage adds a great deal, apart from the extra Rivendell shots, which are stunning... could certainly have done without the goblin kings song tbh.
 
I booked my parents tickets to see this tomorrow at BFI IMAX as an early Christmas gift. Having seen another trailer for it at the cinema the other night I'm rather jealous, and wish I had bought myself a ticket! :(
 
neoglow said:
Looking forward to seeing it but it's the worst name for a movie ever.
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What's worse is someone actually says it in the film. :rolleyes:

Its well made but there simply isn't enough story here to justify a 2 hour 40 minute film - so its quite dull as a consequence. Also why is Legolas such a ***** in this film?!

Hopefully Jackson will released a single 3 hour re-edit of the whole trilogy one day.......
 
redline said:
Just watched the extended version, but I'm not sure the extra footage adds a great deal, apart from the extra Rivendell shots, which are stunning... could certainly have done without the goblin kings song tbh.
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And more Figwit! But the shot of the CGI dwarves frolicking in the fountain? Dear god, what were they thinking

Bought the extended version purely for the appendices, which were just as brilliant as the ones on LotR.
 
Si. said:
Saw this tonight.. million times better than the first one.. but still not a patch on LOTR.

Smaug is fantastic, best depiction of a dragon I've ever seen.. and Cumberbatch's voice is perfect.

my big gripe about this is that lack of any form of blood. I know it's probably like that for the rating, but swords slashing and cleaving and coming away bright and shiny is just rubbish, that's what makes this look so bad against LOTR

Also found some of the CGI very suspect, the barrel scene looked terrible in places.
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Going to slightly disagree here I thought the first one was better, although this is still good. I thought this one took a little while to get going but the ending was superb.
 
Smaug was perfect, couldn't have done him any better. Fantastic film. I love the whole flavour they've given these films, a more light hearted tone, compared to the seriousness of Lotr. Can't wait till the next one.
 
Okay, just got back from seeing it... hmm, not sure yet, I think I need to see it again, as I wasn't keen on the first one to start with... and there is another problem.... I hate HFR - I wasn't sure last time, but now I'm positive.

This film, maybe purely due to HFR, looks cheap - very cheap. It really looks like something from the early days of video broadcast, with a fake over bloomy [video game] vibe . It also makes actors and sets look fake. When a real landscape shot cuts into a set shot, it was so obvious, reminding me of the original Star Trek series, with its plastic looking sets; heck, the lighting didn't even match, just like Star Trek :eek: ... the look, completely took me out of the experience, and generally p***ed me off.

Couple the above, with some utterly shoddy, low budget looking, effects/cgi an over stretched story, with a horrible, tacked-on, love interest, some dodgy acting, esp. the extra's in Laketown and the negatives are stacking up against it for me.

I'll go and see it again in 3D but at 24fps and hope I get sucked in next time... I love the LOTR trilogy, and the first part of the Hobbit is up there, so I'm not sure what went wrong with this... maybe I was in an over critical mood today.... ATM 5/10 :(
 
HFR makes things look too real - which in a film where everything is fake is a massive problem - watched in normal 3D this time.
 
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