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peter jackson lost his touch
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Author:  Moj [ Fri Mar 27, 2015 7:13 pm ]
Post subject:  peter jackson lost his touch
So I was watching the movies last night and while I really enjoyed getting to see all of the dwarves in action in the hobbit, I can't help but think that the trilogy is inferior to the lotr trilogy.
Pj overused cgi and none of it feels real. Smaug is cool, he's the exception obviously, but for me, azog never felt threatening.

We could have used some more character development for the dwarves. Some of them don't even have any lines, for crying out loud.

the story is stretched ( like butter scraped over too much bread!) And the worst of it is, he adds characters not in the book, and focuses on them. Legolas and tauriel are fine, but why use them to fill out the movie when there are better characters like beorn and dain, who were actually in the book? Even alfrid gets more screen time than them!

also, radagast. Please.

What do you guys think?
Author:  jdizzy001 [ Fri Mar 27, 2015 8:39 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: peter jackson lost his touch
It is my understanding that he never wanted to do the hobbit in the first place. Regardless, you are right. Lotr far outshines hobbit.
Author:  Monotone_Matt [ Fri Mar 27, 2015 9:48 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: peter jackson lost his touch
Yeah, also he had to rush things to make the deadline, as far as I can recall.
Author:  Elladan & Elrohir [ Fri Mar 27, 2015 10:30 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: peter jackson lost his touch
"Do not talk to me of Peter Jackson! His pride has muddled his wits, and spoilt his films!"
- Saruman the Wise

We can rant for ages about the Hobbit. But here is a few points.

Disregard of the books. Yes the Lord of the Rings films have a lot of changes, but the books were always respected as the ultimate life of the stories. PJ did take them and make them his own, (which was sometimes for the worse) but overall the books were treated as the higher authority. With the Hobbit films though, PJ openly mocks the books (and Tolkien) and makes believe that his own additions and changes are what really makes these films special. This was greatly the case with the last two Hobbit films...

Breaking the spell. All stories are set in a world, even a fantasy one. There are certain things which can happen and other things which cannot. This is the reality that the author or director weaves into the story to give it plausibility and life. So often in the Hobbit films you are shocked by things that break the story's spell or enchantment. We aren't just talking about things that are "un-Middle-earth." Many elements of the Hobbit films do not belong in the story or setting, or even the genre of film.

If its cheaper or easier to do it CGI, why not? PJ overuses CGI. George Lucas CGI bug. In the Lord of the Rings, CGI was only used when the real thing wouldn't work. Monsters have to be done by CGI. But then we don't see monsters every day. When you have ordinary things CGI though, the audience sees it immediately. Overuse of CGI is also due to last minute changes and indecision on PJ's part.

Do you want this or not? PJ doesn't seem to have been able to make up his mind on what he wanted these movies to be like. WETA came up with some amazing ideas for these films, and many scenes were made with their designs. PJ seems to have changed his mind somewhere near the end however. Great designs and ideas were thrown out and exchanged for flat and run of the mill work. The standard of these films has dropped, especially in the last two. This is proved by lack of Oscar Awards, which crowned the Lord of the Rings films. These changes might have been influenced by the market these movies were aimed at.

Commercialisation. These films were made for wider audiences in mind. Youngsters and popcorn munchers especially, who just want entertainment and don't think to much behind the story. Characters and plot depth are nothing beside ridiculous action and jaw dropping CGI stunts. When the Return of the King finished, people just sat in their seats in the cinema and where dumbfounded. With the Battle of the Five Armies, people just got up or sat on texting on their phones.

There is much to like in the Hobbit movies, but also much to complain about. Some parts are really memorable and we love them. The Lord of the Rings films are far superior to the Hobbit though. They are not perfect, and there is a lot we don't like in them, but overall they are great films.

That's just our opinion. The great thing is that everyone is different and has different opinions. :)

Elladan & Elrohir
Author:  Erunion [ Sat Mar 28, 2015 1:57 am ]
Post subject:  Re: peter jackson lost his touch
@Elladan & Elrohir -- You've pretty well nailed it. Still enjoyable, because of how few times will I get to experience Middle-earth like that, but just off the mark too many times.
Author:  Moj [ Sat Mar 28, 2015 4:44 am ]
Post subject:  Re: peter jackson lost his touch
Yep. His indecision and commercialization got in the way. That's how I feel. It's like he's trying to please everyone and ultimately lost sight of what the story was about.

Must have been embarrassing, though. I bet they were waiting for the awards to be handed over to them.
Author:  Dikey [ Sat Mar 28, 2015 11:19 am ]
Post subject:  Re: peter jackson lost his touch
I liked the Hobbit trilogy. But I loved the LOTR. If I have to choose which one I would like to see right now, it wouldn't be the Hobbit.
Even putting aside the loyalty to the book, there are still pretty MAJOR problems.

The Villain, Azog.
Azog is not scary. Is grotesque, but not at all scary. I think of Lurtz and Ugluk (or basically every other uruk-hai), Gothmog...those are fearful foes. Plus, there's not a single moment in which Azog seems real (to me, at least). Lurtz was so well done you could literally smell him. Azog and Bolg where not. The always look misplaced.

The fight scenes
In LOTR we already had Legolas doing his over-the-top stunts. But in the Hobbit it gets much worse. The Barrel-fighting scene seems fun, at first glance. Then, when you pause for a moment, you realize that is just dumb.
The Legolas defying gravity-scene, the whole Dain IronHEAD (those orcs had helmets! Ok, you are strong, but those are steel helmets!), the Uber-elk. I mean, LOTR has a Legolas vs Mumak scene that is idiotic to the core, but nearly every other fight scene was amazing. Boromir's Death is wonderful, to say just one of them. I want to say Legolas cutting heads with a sword, I DON'T want to see him flying!

The Dwarves
Oh boy. Do you realize that some of them don't even have lines? Nori doesn't say a word, Bombur has ONE WORD in three movies. I am a LOTR fan. But if I weren't I would have never cared about them. Why should anyone bother to learn their names?

Radagast
That was disgraceful. The Radagast anyone always imagined is closer to old GW model. It only makes a brief appereance in the book, but we know enough to say it's nowhere near his movie counterpart. Guardian of Nature, yes, but one of the Istari. The movie gives us someone between "the Dude" and a drug-addict hyppie.

Legolas and Tauriel
I wasn't against them when they first came out. Legolas has sense (he is the son of Thranduil after all) and Tauriel was needed because the film would have otherwise been a sausage-fest. But there was absolutely no need to have Legolas everywhere, overshadowing the Dwarves and the very Bilbo. The book (and the movie) is called The Hobbit not "LooK how good Legolas is!".
And for the infamous love triangle...that was pathetic. But I would have understood the Kili-Tauriel thing. I mean, Gimli istantly falls in love with Galadriel. But Galadriel is a powerful, ancient being of great winsdom and power. Why does Tauriel care about Kili? Was it love at first sight?
One minute she takes him prisoner. The minute later she loves him.

Beorn and Dain.
You took 2 great characters and give them as little screentime as you can. Less Legolas, Less Tauriel, more Beorn kicking orc's heines pleas.

Soundtrack
Disappointing. Not bad, but disappointing. They never catched the majesty, the power, the atmosphere of the LOTR soundtrack.
Author:  abcdefg [ Sat Mar 28, 2015 11:40 am ]
Post subject:  Re: peter jackson lost his touch
In the case of Alfred, the only theory I can come up with is that the actor is close friends with Jackson. The length and regularity of is appearances in Battle of Five Armies virtually make him a main character. And the worst thing is, even with the different plotline, he is still unnecessary...

I can sort of understand that once Jackson decided to use Legolas and Tauriel, he also changed the plot to make them necessary character in the story. But with Alfred this just isn't the case. Personally I thought his part was a waste of time.
Author:  Moj [ Sat Mar 28, 2015 12:10 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: peter jackson lost his touch
Pj's full of gimmicks now. And yes, there could be a whole forum topic about what's wrong with radagast.
The bunnies. The insect in his mouth. The bird stains.

"hey, radagast, did something crawl out of your mouth and die?"

Radagast: "it didn't die!"
Author:  Paradigm [ Sat Mar 28, 2015 12:53 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: peter jackson lost his touch
I love LotR, and the Hobbit just as much for all its faults. Now, I won't say anyone else is wrong, but this is my take on it:

The deviations from the story in The Hobbit honestly don't bother me so much. The key elements are all still there, and most of the changes are justified either by common sense (Legolas), the appendices (The White Council/Necromancer), or don't really detract from or replace anything from the book (Tauriel/Alfred/Azog).

I'd also add that, had the book been stuck to as rigorously as LotR, there would have been a tremendously wasted opportunity. For better or worse, The Hobbit is the last set of Middle Earthfilms we're likely to see, and to do anything less than match the grandeur of LotR would have been a missed opportunity, so I'll take the odd addition and alteration if it ties the Hobbit in closer with the mythos of LotR and ME as a whole.

On Legolas, I honestly don't think any of his 'stunts' are really out of line with what a well-trained, ancient Sindar elf could actually achieve. While I don't like him standing on Dwalin's head (mostly for Dwalin's sake), I think it is within the realm of 'reality' that that and other feats would be possible. Sindar Elves are basically the superheroes of Middle Earth, after all.

My only real issues with the Hobbit, which only slightly dampen my enthusiasm, are the overuse of CGI Orcs (Azog won't ever look as great as Gothmog while he's CGI), and the Melt-The-Statue-On-Smaug finale of DoS (about 6 seconds of footage in a 3-hour film is rather forgivable, I think).

If I were forced to choose, then I'd probably take LotR, but I would also say The Hobbit sits firmly alongside the original trilogy and is still better than the huge a majority of films out there.
Author:  Elladan & Elrohir [ Sat Mar 28, 2015 12:58 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: peter jackson lost his touch
Moj wrote:
Pj's full of gimmicks now. And yes, there could be a whole forum topic about what's wrong with radagast.
The bunnies. The insect in his mouth. The bird stains.

"hey, radagast, did something crawl out of your mouth and die?"

Radagast: "it didn't die!"


There could also be a topic just on Alfrid. He is one of PJ's worst creations.

Alfrid does make you laugh, but the jokes are cheap and often vulgar. There is quite a bit of shallow (and mildly crude) humour in the Hobbit films. The Lord of the Rings was never like that. Moreover Alfrid is idolized and shown in an almost "heroic" light, if you understand what we mean. True, everyone make fun of him and scorn his cowardice, but everyone also trusts him and helps him out. Gandalf and Bard intrust him with important jobs, and Bard even helps him to escape with his stolen gold! Since when does a bad guy get away unpunished by Providence and helped out by the good guys? This is against Tolkein's philosophy, and never happened in the Lord of the Rings films.

This brings us to a slightly hidden but important change. In Tolkein's world and the Lord of the Rings films there is a stark contrast between good and evil. PJ subtlety plays with this in the Hobbit. Example: Galadriel turns bad on Sauron in Dol Guldor, and looks like a female Gollum. She uses anger and evil to banish the Dark Lord. Is not Galadriel described as a The Lady of Light? Since when does evil fight evil? Or good help bad? These are slight but important changes to Middle-earth's background.
Author:  Paradigm [ Sat Mar 28, 2015 1:14 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: peter jackson lost his touch
It may be a small spoiler for the EE, but

Click to: Show
the last Chronicles book mentioned that a troll design had been made specifically for Alfrid's death, so we way well see him get his just desserts in the end.
Author:  Elladan & Elrohir [ Sat Mar 28, 2015 1:21 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: peter jackson lost his touch
That would be a good thing! :-) But still Bard and others do help him out in his nonsense.
Author:  GreatKhanArtist [ Sat Mar 28, 2015 4:59 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: peter jackson lost his touch
I saw them for the first time last night. Honestly, I wanted to see the architecture more than the story. I didn't care for the second Hobbit film, but really liked the first one.

My favorite scene was the tower with Bard and son. But I thought Bard's son should've looked more on the verge of wetting himself. I would've been quivering and crying and snotting all over the place. Also, did anyone notice that Thorin had brown eyes for much of the film? I would've also liked to see the ghost of Thror in the golden hall scene and a confrontation of conscience there.
Author:  Moj [ Sat Mar 28, 2015 7:30 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: peter jackson lost his touch
I just wish we couldve seen more of beorn in the films. It would have been really cool to see an unstoppable force of nature like him to just tear into the orc army and rip azog into shreds. that pale orc will just get paler at the mere sight of beorn.
Author:  jericho2597 [ Sat Mar 28, 2015 8:36 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: peter jackson lost his touch
Personally I think a good way to sum it up is: in the Lotr trilogy seeing a normal orc or uruk charging one of the good guys was way more intense or frightening, than Azog at any point in the hobbit, which I think is due to the stupid cgi they went overboard with.
Author:  Shadowandflame [ Sat Mar 28, 2015 10:01 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: peter jackson lost his touch
It was all a mess for me, but I don't really blame PJ at all. We all have to remember one thing; he was never supposed to direct these movies in the first place. Del Toro was supposed to direct with PJ producing, and you can see Del Toro's influence in a lot of aspects, especially goblin town goblins. Right off the bat there's a contrast of styles between the two directors.

If anything I place the majority of my blame on Warner Brothers. With a studio at like WB at the helm no one can honestly expect that PJ had the same freedom he did with LOTR. They took on The Hobbit to make the most money possible. For example look at Tauriel. Too many people blame PJ for how her story went. But there is an interview with Evangeline Lilly where she explains that when she joined the movie PJ promised her that her character wouldn't be involved for the sake of a love story. When she returned for reshoots PJ then explained to her that she was indeed going to be apart of a love story. I honestly believe that whole plot line was cooked up by some WB exec who had that bright idea after watching PJ's initial footage because its a cliche hollywood knows will work. I personally would be really interested to hear what her original purpose was.

To continue on that thought, I feel like the overuse of CGI was because of too many changes having to be made after principal shooting occurred. This again I blame on WB possibly forcing PJ to change things

I feel like PJ is getting the brunt of the displeasure from fans, when most people don't see the Hollywood monolith that is WB working and influencing in the background to make the most amount of money possible. I also blame them for making 3 movies instead of 2. You can tell then end of DoS was rushed. The CGI gold looked like nacho cheese and all the Smaug chase sequences were video games-esque.

anyways thats my view at least. I feel better blaming WB than blaming PJ.
Author:  Harfoot [ Sat Mar 28, 2015 10:11 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: peter jackson lost his touch
Really enjoyed reading the above, my view is i think Tolkien would have approved of the way PJ did the LOTR films as a whole. BUT when it comes to the Hobbit he would have very displeased to say the least. I mean, Billy Connolly getting off a pig and telling Orcs to "Sod off", not the best moment of the 3 films.

Another part of me is pleased the films have been done so we have had more miniatures (especially Samug) to collect and paint.
Author:  Paradigm [ Sat Mar 28, 2015 10:23 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: peter jackson lost his touch
Harfoot wrote:
I mean, Billy Connolly getting off a pig and telling Orcs to "Sod off", not the best moment of the 3 films.

But rather close to it if you ask me! :D
Author:  jdizzy001 [ Sat Mar 28, 2015 10:35 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: peter jackson lost his touch
Actually, tolkein's son indicates that his father would most likely be displeased with the LOTR films as they cheapened the world of middle earth to that of an action movie. Though I strongly disagree (the films got me to read the books), it seems the tolkein's family is very disanamored by the films. To the point that they refused to meet PJ.
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