BOTFA Day - how was your experience (No Spoilers)

Sacrilege83 · **Posted:** Thu Dec 18, 2014 6:43 pm

^Exactly. I was always so impressed by Lurtz being a guy in make-up and costume interacting live. Azog looks nice but imagine if he was a real live actor in prosthetics, yeah you'll lose some emotion but it beats interacting with a cartoon anyday. The difference is like between resin and metal :lol:

Draugluin · **Posted:** Thu Dec 18, 2014 6:51 pm

I don't think I'll ever understand why people are so against CGI. I thought it looked great. I loved Lurtz, don't get me wrong. The main reason why he's CG is because of the last minute designs, Azog was an actor in makeup until 3 months before release. If they had finished all three movies before any of them were released, we probably would have gotten more practical effects.

Sacrilege83 · **Posted:** Thu Dec 18, 2014 7:12 pm

Don't get me wrong; it's very unlikely to find an actor to play a live version of Gollum, cgi Smaug would tromp a stop animation "Jason & the Argonauts" version of him, even Azog you need a huge actor that has acting chops which I'm not sure Conan "the original Mountain that Rides" has. There just are cases where you need (emphasis) cgi and can't skate around it. It's just when they overdo it where it is unnecessary because the film is suppose to be live action, and your eye most of the time can spot the difference if the cgi pops too much instead of being subtle, then there's a clash and then you are left with a painting that is half Leonardo DaVinci and half Picasso. The two don't mix, doesn't give a good feeling because immersion is breaking.

That being said I liked Azog and Bolg as antagonists, the motion capture did help express emotions just like Gollum. They've done an incredible job where that is concerned.

River Zora · **Joined:** Mon Dec 10, 2012 7:57 pm **Posts:** 224

Hobbit News:
-Why was Billy Connolly CGI in all but one scene?
-Bard and Legolas not only have an unspoken 'who's the best shot' competition, but also a 'who can surf on the most ridiculous thing' and 'who can counter-productively endanger our loved ones the most' competitions.
-Also Legolas is simply Exposition: the character.
-What's wrong with horses? Stags, sheep, pigs, wolves... Horses are okay too, sometimes.
-Where the heck did all the Wargs go? They are one of the Five Armies. And they're all there and snarly, then the fighting starts and bye bye.
-Pretty sure it was daylight and none of those trolls were turned to stone.
-Needed more Beorn.
-Good job there are so many kindly old people who know everything to tell the main characters where their children/friends are when they're looking.

Overall though, enjoyed it. I look forward to shaving two hours off it in Movie Maker.

polywags · **Posted:** Sat Dec 20, 2014 8:23 pm

I was someone who really hadn't enjoyed the first two movies and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by this final installment. I am on board with everyone else though. I had big problems with the lack of real actors and the lack of Beorn but I gotta say my biggest problem was with the handling of the Raven Hill duels. It was pretty disappointing to see the Battle of Five Armies boiled down to several awkwardly long duels. Honestly, it has been a while since I've read the Hobbit but the depiction of these final confrontations I found very unsatisfying and not I had read it or how I pictured it. I really wanted to see that final confrontation in the midst of the battle, with heaps of slain orcs around them, with all of the characters participating, beorn, and not out in barren cgi landscape with no landscape elements other then ones that were needed for the action sequences. While I over all did enjoy the movie, it didn't really feel like the battle of five armies I ever imagined but I guess neither did much of the earlier movies so maybe I shouldn't be surprised. I think one of the earlier posters hit the nail on the head when they said PJ and crew shouldn't have thought they were better writers then Tolkien. Whoopies.

Thurin · **Joined:** Thu Oct 24, 2013 12:10 am **Posts:** 40

I had a good time. I think jackson deserves credit for finding time for enough quiet moments of Bilbo in a big action flick.

BOTFA Day - how was your experience (No Spoilers)

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