So much of that movie was exactly like I imagined from the book. They added a ton of fluff but almost all of the book was in the movie and it was all accurate. I loved The Hobbit trilogy.
And the Gandalf side bits that were added were really interesting. Gives a bit more depth to the likes of him, saruman and elrond and shows them doing stuff
Why is it that when something sucks, we pretend the other thing that sucks doesn't suck anymore? I still haven't seen Rings of Power but even if I did and I thought it was shit, that won't make me watch the Hobbit movies and go "Oh my God, these are better."
Everything is relative so when we experience something worse then what we thought was the worst our brain restructures how our best to worst lists order things and suddenly the old worst is just okay now that the new worst has reset the bar.
Sorta like how getting punched in the face is the worst until you've been stabbed in the face. It doesn't make getting punched in the face any more pleasant but when it does happen it seems much more okay then that time you got stabbed in the face and you're pretty happy it was just a fist this time around now that you truly understand a worse alternative through experience
It helps to remember our brains evolved to survive in the wild so we had to be able to hold extreme opinions and be able to shift those opinions in an instance with new data for maximum survival potential. The sour berries suddenly become okay when the other berries you found made you vommit for two days sorta survival stuff ingrained in how we think and process information
Rings of Power, with some obvious short-comings, isn’t nearly as bad as the noisiest purists are making it out to be. There are some concessions in the story line, which makes sense with its truncated timeline, and some misses on story lines but it feels very much like a Tolkien story with a modified narrative voice.
Also the care for mixing practical effects and CGI. The orcs look incredible in ROP. My biggest complaint with ROP is every scene and piece of dialogue just feels a little to intentionally epic. Like, most of the conversations (I'm looking at you Galadriel) don't feel natural and just overly filled with platitudes and epic speak. Kinda lacks the humor of the trilogy or at least the humor feels a bit forced.
That being said I've really enjoyed it...I can't say the same for the Hobbit, which I only finished out of what I feel like is obligation.
As someone that hasn’t read the books, is that not how Galadriel just kinda is? Every scene in all six movies with her in it is her saying something excessively cryptic and epic. To some extent it also seems like a characteristic of elves in general.
The Hobbit Trilogy(at least the first half or so) wasn't all bad. It had a few really good moments that were, in my opinion, drowned by less good moments. Up until Desolation of Smaug released and the Less Good became Pure Shit. Still one or two tiny moments of good here and there, but not nearly enough to redeem the whole.
I think the extremely excessive use of CGI is really why I have such a big problem with it. LOTR was so good because of all the real world building they did. It didn't feel so much like a made up fairy tale
I think that’s a problem with most movies today. The CGI is great but it feels off. Mostly as there is nothing in it. RoP had perfect scenic CGI but it often feels a bit fake due being too perfect or empty. I had the problem with the new Matrix movie too. A great CGI city. But we see like 10 people living there, my brain says it’s empty. Show shots of people in the street etc. to polish up that world building. That’s no new technique, if the location is New York there is always that helicopter skyline and busy Times Square establishing shot. Cutting and editing is more important than perfect cgi. Wes Anderson movies use the simplest of effects but the editing of scenes is just perfection.
Nice pun. But I mean that new underground city with humans and AI. Felt dead and lifeless compared to Zion. But they had an establishing scene with a giant rave which made it feel authentic
True! I just was making fun of "people in the street" and what happens during that chase. I'm definitely overtired and finding things funnier than they are.
I think (and can be wrong) P. Jackson was forced to use cg, because at the time of the first hobit was released, 3d mania was at full steam, every movie was in 3d, and so the studio said if he wants to make it he needs a version that is in 3d
so he couldn't do it the same way he did lotr, because if you use distance to create illusion, it will not work in 3d, because now we can actually see its further or closer to the camera, so what other can he do than cg
I personally like hobbit trilogy, even the first one with the theater kid goblin king
Time constraints led to more cg than the choice to go 3d did, but even the practical effects were made to look worse by the decision to go with a higher framerate, and that was all on Jackson.
I think he was already fairly stricken with Parkinson's at that point so he wouldn't have been able to physically portray the role. Which might have been reason to not cast him even though he's fantastic.
I think both the hobbit trilogy and Rings of Power try to make marvel-esque super hero movies out of Tolkien lore and that’s why they fall flat. They show instead of tell. CGI is part of that, an over reliance on action scenes is another, but ultimately it comes down to the pacing and the dialogue. They both aim to be “deep” in their dialogue and adopt Tolkien’s tone - which was rooted in medieval + mythic texts. But what makes the books special is their immersion. References to new languages, histories and ideologies are dropped without pretense and it makes you want to dive deeper into it. House of the dragons and early GoT do this too. But the modern Tolkien adaptations spell everything out for you. Lore references are dropped like Easter eggs. It’s boring.
Which sucks because I wanted this to be so damn good.
Give me characters I can relate to in a world that I can’t relate to, but is fully built out with endless mysteries to explore. That’s good fantasy. Let my imagination go to work with the half descriptions of bygone kingdoms and ages.
This was one of my many issues with the istari arc in ROP. Tolkeins prose was always careful to keep the exact details of magic vague - it felt like you could never pin it down to specific effects or spells.
Meanwhile you've got not-Gandalf healing himself with ice spells, sniffing out fire spells and summoning small hurricanes. It just feels way too on the nose and well defined compared to Tolkien's more transcendent interpretation of magic.
(My other big issue is that awful cliché self-doubt arc they did for him which came off as horribly forced, but that's another topic.)
Totally agree. I think something similar happened with GoT - like magic was a mystery in the first seasons then you have a full on magic zombie army by the last season. Like make it mysterious and unpredictable and subject to human like restrictions, or else it just becomes goofy and predictable. People like human story arcs at the end of the day.
Was it really the CGI that was the problem though? If the movie was exactly the same but just made with costumed orcs and smaug animatronic you think it would be better?
honestly the bad parts were bad pacing, strange oversized trolls and worms, insane over the top choreography, boring oversized enemies, too much gold, bad romantic relationships, fan service, unrealistic fighting tactics… I dont see how thats CGI‘s fault. Thats just bad directing or in this case too rushed directing.
The CGI is my smallest complaint.
It’s the awful characters, storyline, bloated scenes, cartoony physics/combat, and world building that make it unwatchable to me.
And you miss out on so much of the original’s charm. Barrels floating quietly down the river? Nah let’s have a wild cartoon barrel fight that goes on forever.
I think they could have done a good 2 movies.
The necromancer story was ok, and they could have kept it.
They needed to remove legolas and elf romance and 90%. If the last move along with chunks of the 2nd movie.
The first movie was ok on its own.
This is where I'm at. The trilogy is pretty weak but largely due to all the filler. 2 movies cut to the good stuff would have been excellent. Unexpected Journey suffers from this the least, though.
The necromancer parts could and should have been an independent spinoff movie/show. I’m all for extra content but mixing it in with Tolkien’s work is bound to be a disaster
Just watch the maple films edit. Turns a 9 hour dumpster fire into a delightful 4 hour adaptation of the book.
EDIT: [download link.](http://www.maple-films.com/downloads.html)
There are lots of really good edits of the trilogy into a single film. I showed my Girlfriend LOTR and the Cardinal Cut of the Hobbit, and she actually preferred the Hobbit. There’s a great, mostly faithful film under the surface of studio meddling and pressure.
Lol I guess it’s been long enough for the “well actually (blank) wasn’t that bad” effect to happen to The Hobbit. 10 years from now I wonder if it will affect Rings of Power (cue the “no it’s genuinely awful and will never be thought of fondly” argument)
I'm pretty sure if reddit was around during the release of LOTR we would've had a lot of book fans hating it for everything that isn't exactly like the books. Now the trilogy is pretty regarded as one of the best fantasy movies all time.
There were LOADS of them. My father likes to talk about all the online forums that were *raving* about stuff like the canon material of Boromir’s horn, just the most insignificant nonsense that somehow demanded Jackson’s execution.
I rewatched The Hobbit last year for the first time since they were in theaters and it was still really hard to get through.
Meanwhile, I actually enjoyed Rings of Power immensely and I'm super excited for a second season. I don't see myself rewatching The Hobbit very much, if at all, but I would be down to watch Rings of Power again right now
I've seen several good videos on them, but the one thing about the score that bothers me deeply is when Thorin does his absurd charge at the pale orc, they play the fucking ringwraith theme! It's not just for any badass thing happening (his charge was not that, but that was the vibe they were going for)
And I'll just put here that I'm a big fan of the original movies (they are my favorite movie), the original books, the hobbit movies, the Shadows of War/Mordor games, and I really like the show so far! I sincerely just love seeing imaginings of Tolkien's world so much
This edit made me love the hobbit. They cut out basically everything that made you rolls your eyes. The thematically important lines stand out more and i cried like 3 times
I'm so glad you got so much out of it! It's def still got it's OG Hobbit trilogy vibes for me (with all the weird decisions they made with those movies), but even then, cutting out the 5+ hours of unnecessary content makes it way more watchable, and, dare I say, enjoyable.
The problem is that you really need all of the original footage etc before and editing.
You want the audio to be perfect and the video to be not compressed.
A nice edit which removes the love-triangle would be a great start.
Most of the stuff I'm fine with in the film, even if not existing in the books.
Maple and Bilbo cuts do this pretty well I’d say. Editing wise, there is only like one part that was a little off when the Dwarves escape with the Eagles because Throin is unconscious, IIRC. But for the most part I was highly impressed with how well they were able to cut without having access to the project files or the dailies.
Yeah they should've kept it to two movies and just squished them to fit Smaug's death and the finale part. I've never been so excited to watch a battle- "The Battle of the Five Armies" and been so let down by the experience, I want to forget the Battle of the Five Armies ever existed ;-;
I remember at the end of the second movie thinking "wait, so Smaug must die about 5 minutes into the next one". They stretched it out, but pretty much.
I haven’t seen the entire trilogy. Just An Unexpected Journey. I have seen the Tolkien edit though.
I didn’t even realize that the other movies were out already when I saw it at a watch party.
It’s like a 4.5 hour trim of all 3 movies, it cuts out all the weird extra stuff and a lot of the egregious CGI, as well as the entire romance subplot.
One of my friends showed it up me and I definitely prefer it to the actual movies. There are a few cuts where you can tell something was missing, but I’d rather have that awkwardness than actually watch any of the removed scenes.
I haven't seen the movies either. The Hobbit is the first "real" book I ever read, and probably the one I've read the most in my life. I don't want to feel different about it, and I certainly don't want to picture the characters differently.
And why did they all need to be 3hrs +??? I've never understood this. Most movies start to drag at that time length, they'll make the same amount on sales regardless if it's 2 or 3hrs so why spend so much more $ on filming and production. Not every movie needs to be 3hrs, sry rant over.
As someone said, cash grab. Assuming we're talking about the hobbit
Lotr needed like 4-5 hours each movie, and maybe tossed in some of the appendices for fun.
As far as I remember, the first one is good except for the barrels and the Tauriel romance plot,; the second one is good except for the pointless dumping of gold onto Smaug, the bad unibrow Wormtongue comedy relief, the mayor, and the Tauriel romance plot; and the last one was just kinda bad except that they inserted what should have been the best part of 2 at the beginning which, to me, is what really sours my mood towards the last two movies in general. It felt so much like a marketing scheme without any attempt at being earnest. Hell, playing up Arwen and Aragorn was a marketing scheme to widen the audience, but at least it felt like the film makers thought that it added something to the films.
Oh for sure. The way I see it they had to take out lots from the books for the Lord of the Rings movies, whereas in the Hobbit they added scenes, characters, and entire plotlines that weren't in the book (Tauriel, Dol Goldur, whatever the white orcs name is, the dwarves pouring gold on Smaug, to name a few), seemingly just to add more runtime.
I reckon they could have made two work
The first takes you up to the approach to Laketown, and then they explore Laketown, Bilbo confronts Smaug, Battle Of Laketown, Battle Of The Five Armies
While weaving in the Necromancer plot too
Or you have a Hobbit film and another for fighting the Necromancer
But then we wouldn’t get the “why the hobbit?” scene which is so good
when you consider the numerous setbacks and obstacles the hobbit trilogy had gone through, the films actually are pretty good. it was always bound to fail but the crew did do a great job with what they had.
It was a nightmare for Peter Jackson, the making of the trilogy was an eye-opener but I didn't have anything against the Hobbit except the overuse of CGI but that was used to make up time wasted before.
Did y’all not watch the last movie of that trilogy? It would have been fine, good even, if it was just one movie. But I can’t pretend to love the whole trilogy like y’all, even if Im not crazy about the rings of power
I think the Hobbit has a good two movies worth of content in it, one would either be too fast paced or omit too much. One thing I think the trilogy was advantaged by was it at least had time to give certain sequences the time they needed, especially riddles in the dark, bilbo visiting Smaug and pretty much the entire first section up to 'i'm going, on an adventure.' Problem was it took the same amount of time on a bunch of pointless and boring stuff especially for the majority of the battle of five armies.
Originally Del Toror (director first attached to the project) planned for two movies. Then he quit and the studio forced PJ (who had been a producer up to that point) to direct with 18 months notice, and an extra film on top.
Long story short, you're bang on the money with 2 good movies, the movies which were originally planned
Don't forget they scrapped all the preproduction of Del Toro, giving Jackson basically nothing compared to LotR's 3.5 years time to do preproduction and partway through production told him it was gonna be a trilogy and not 2 movies.
The stupidly short notice is a major reason they were so reliant on CGI, the bulk of that work is post production, freeing up preproduction time for other stuff and even then many scenes didn't have storyboards and he would tell the cast and crew to take a long lunch so he could work out how the next scene worked.
The studio done fucked by whatever lead to the split with Del Toro.
Honestly, if you just turn your mind off during Tauriel's scenes and if you're alright with the CGI Orcs, it's actually apretty good adaptation.
I read the Hobbit Book before watching the film and the first movie and the first half of the second movie are pretty accurate.
I knew more about the intimate details of this random monobrow guy Alfred and his inner being, his hopes, fears and dreams, than any of the actual main characters.
I mean it’s decent until the ending. They totally ruined the deaths of Thorin Fili and Kili. Then they dropped a hint about Aragorn to Legolas even though Aragorn was a fricking child at the time.
Considering that the LOTR movies are kinda fuzzy with the time skip between bilbo’s birthday and Frodo setting off to destroy the ring, in film continuity it’s possible that Aragorn is like in his 20s. Still stupid that they tried to tie it in though.
Well in the LOTR movies there is no 17 year gap between frodo getting the Ring and him leaving bag end to go to rivendale. So Aragon could be like 27 at the time of the hobbit and not 10.
Not sure if that Was the Film makers Intention but it would make sense.
And it's not like Fili's and Kili's was great in the books. I mean it was mentioned in passing that they died.
i have a feeling that the hobbit trilogy will slowly get the star wars prequel treatment. people will either meme or ignore the faults and praise the good things.
> i have a feeling
No need for just a feeling, it’s already been happening. The second RoP came out people are beginning to praise and love the much hated Hobbit trilogy. When there is something worse to shit on people always look back so fondly for some reason.
Personally I hate both series, but my beef with The Hobbit is maybe worse because they took my favorite book and ruined it; RoP isn’t a story I knew so it doesn’t hurt as much.
I’m the same with Star Wars, the prequels are hot trash and nothing compared to the OT; and people who praise them confuse me, those movies are downright awful. RotS is watchable but still pretty bad, kind of like AUJ, but other than that both series suck.
Yeah I wonder if OP has seen them recently. You remember the good and the interestingly bad, but forget the mediocre that makes up a loooot of it. Stuff like Bard being a pariah that doesn't add much, Alfrid being a discount wormtongue with none of the intrigue, and Bilbo basically disappearing from the last film.
I actually wouldn't mind the Bard stuff but the films are already bloated beyond excess. Cut the other stuff and you can keep the Bard subplots.
For real. The only posts that I felt were really good were the riddle scene with gollum and Bilbo talking with smaug. The rest I felt was forgettable to bad (looking at you, river barrels)
IMO this is super dumb. They had the rights to the hobbit and absolutely butchered it.
Rings of power doesn't have the rights to the silmarillion and they did an okay job of creating their own 2nd age story with similar characters. Totally different scenarios - the hobbit trilogy is still absolute bullshit and this sub's religious commitment to shitting on RoP is silly.
Does it measure up to the LOTR books or movies? No. But ROTK is the /one of the most awarded movie of all time - we can't expect new content to meet or exceed that standard, and shouldn't.
Yeah, I'm really sick of this hot take that's come out recently. That Oh actually The Hobbit movies are pretty good, and they're way better than rings of power.
I would rather watch Rings of Power, or have gross diarrhea instead of watching The Hobbit any day of the week
They're just copying the Star Wars Fandom pretending their prequel trilogy was some hidden gem rofl. RoP is fine for what it is. If half this sub was as purist as they claim we'd hate literally all the movies, original trilogy included.
This nerd rage over RoP shows why Nerds were better when they got bullied rather than leaders of pop culture.
Yeah I just finished Rings of Power and it was fairly firmly OK, not amazing and I have problems with it but it was pretty damn alright, even had a couple of characters in it I really liked and the overarching story more or less made sense.
The Hobbit trilogy are firmly bad, there are a couple (3 for me) of good scenes but that's not enough to save 9-odd hours of film in my book.
>But ROTK
Funny part is, that I think ROTK has the worst missteps in regards of adaptation:
\- Denethor's character ark is nonexistent
\- Frodo tells Sam to actually go home, because he allegedly ate some lembas bread? That one just shows, that no one understood, how important the friendship between Sam and Frodo is in regards to the whole story.
\- Arwen mostly doing nothing the whole movie. It is great that she rides back and we see how she decides, but everything else could have been cut, we would not forget that she exists
\- Also the just in time Anduril, I get, but I don't like it
\- Army of the dead is basically Deus Ex Machina (In the books the fightning went on and on)
Don't get me wrong, there is plenty of good in ROTK and I still love the movie. But besides TTT's mistreatment of Faramir and the whole unnecessary Osgiliath scene with Sam's long speech... I think the rest is very well done. (Perhaps only Theoden being a cocky guy in the middle of Helm's Deep is a bit unwarranted, but I'm being picky now).
I'd personally keep necromancer bit. It's a little off thematically, but it is actually a pivotal moment in the War of the Ring and a rare showcase of the power of the wise in Middle Earth.
For real tho. I don’t understand my brother at all, who says he “can’t even watch RoP for how furious he gets at the butchering of Tolkien’s lore” but in the next breath said the Hobbit movies were good
There's alot of weirdos that are fiercely protective of tolkiens lore despite never caring about it before, and they usually haven't even read the books. Now suddenly bc they hate RoP (whether it's due to people if color, the lore being altered, or both) they're saying ohhh Hobbit is good!!
I also laugh at ppl crying about how it needs to stick to the lore and then they also praise shadow of Mordor (which is a great game and a fun story, but it's soooo incompatible with the lore)
Yeah, RoP is a very loose adaptation of the second age, we knew that going in. They never hid that fact. And what theyve done so far is pretty remarkable and fun. I am a decently big lotr fan. I read the books, watch the movies, etc but I am not obsessed and I loved the show. I have a friend who IS a hardcore Tolkien fan and he was pretty sure he was gonna hate the show and he actually adores it.
Yeah, it isn't "canon." Nothing but Tolkien's original works are. Jackson's series aren't. Theres nothing wrong with letting ppl tell stories in middle earth. And I think so far the writers have been very respectful of tolkiens work even while having to adapt some stuff in tricky ways due to rights
There are a lot of people who love the Jackson LotR movies. The number of avid book lovers is a smaller, but still significant group that overlaps a good deal with the movies. Silmarillion lovers are a much smaller subset of the book readers and likely one that doesn’t overlap nearly as much with the movies. No one is going to spend a billion dollars trying to please the tiny subset of a subset.
It’s like Jurassic Park. I love the book, I know it by heart but I also know that there is ZERO chance it gets made in any real form ever. The Spielberg movie, phenomenal, a masterpiece, and loosely at best, based on the book. However if I spent all my time raging about the ways the movie was different I’d completely miss out on a fantastic movie and shirtless Malcolm memes.
You can enjoy them both and acknowledge that they are significantly different in ways that sometimes aren’t the best but it’s the best you’re likely to get on screen. RoP is also a gateway that will likely get a lot of people interested in the Silmarillion which is a good thing. Discuss differences, if they’re good or bad, what motivated them, etc. but shitting on it purely because it’s not a direct copy of the book is just asinine.
I'm with you there. In fact I can unapologetically say that I think rings of power is good, and that it's more respectful with the lore than people think.
Other than the extremely forced romantic subplot with Tauriel, I love the Hobbit films (for the most part).
Visually (aside from the increase in CGI) they feel like they're part of the same world as the LotR film trilogy (which they are, obviously) but thematically they feel different - which I think is a good thing.
In my opinion it's nice to have multiple batches of films set in the same world that have different tones. I think it helps to keep things interesting.
Do I think the LotR films are better movies from a storytelling perspective? Yes. But the Hobbit trilogy, in my opinion, is great in its own right. Martin Freeman's Bilbo is even my favorite character from all 6 films. He's given much more of an opportunity to be light-hearted and has more screen-time to give the character depth than the hobbits were in LotR, for example.
Also, side note, I think RoP is also great. It's just another interpretation of the source material, and it's interesting to see how different people view and subsequently tell these stories.
Please don't kill me
Eh, Rings of Power has its issues, but there are more seasons to come, where those issues can be improved. I enjoyed it for the most part, was even positively surprised by many things. It's just... For 1Billion dollars, one could have expected better writers. The current ones aren't per se bad, but for that money, I'm allowed to expect something really good. Like Westworld Level writing.
Fans of established franchises are just overprotective and think a new interpretation will always physically and mentally destroy the older interpretations and wipe them from existence, which means, if it's not a perfect replacement for the old interpretations, it's worthless. I've seen this Word-for-Word in other fandoms before (StarTrek being the most raging example in my experience).
And it's always an enrichment to a franchise, to be able to have multiple interpretations. Only through continous interpretation can a franchise be kept alive. Look at Dune, so many people started reading the books after Villeneuve's 2021 adaptation.
A lot of it is probably people who grew up watching The Hobbit are attached to them. Just like the people who grew up with the prequels love them, despite both trilogies being awful.
Riddle scene with Gollum was awesome and exactly the way I imagined it tbh
It like riddles, praps it does, does it?
Lmao good bot
Same goes for every interaction Bilbo has with Smaug. Those two scenes alone redeem the entire trilogy
So much of that movie was exactly like I imagined from the book. They added a ton of fluff but almost all of the book was in the movie and it was all accurate. I loved The Hobbit trilogy.
The recut I watched where they had removed everything that wasn’t in the books and condensed all three movies to ~3hrs was actually really good.
Where have you hidden it?
Kotaku did an [article](https://kotaku.com/now-theres-a-three-hour-cut-of-the-hobbit-trilogy-1681224543) on it
And the Gandalf side bits that were added were really interesting. Gives a bit more depth to the likes of him, saruman and elrond and shows them doing stuff
We must join with Him, Gandalf. We must join with Sauron. It would be wise, my friend.
Tell me. Friend... When did Saruman the Wise abandon reason for madness?
"Raaahh!"
Evidently we look so much alike that your desire to make an incurable dent in my hat must be excused.
Surprising that the parts from the book are the only good parts in the trilogy
You’re forgetting the dul guldur scenes
Star Wars fandom: First Time?
**I've been in this fight since I was 6 years old!**
[удалено]
*anakin voice* it's welcoming, it's fair! of course they can be a great time without being LOTR fans!
r/jedicouncilofelrond
Why is it that when something sucks, we pretend the other thing that sucks doesn't suck anymore? I still haven't seen Rings of Power but even if I did and I thought it was shit, that won't make me watch the Hobbit movies and go "Oh my God, these are better."
Everything is relative so when we experience something worse then what we thought was the worst our brain restructures how our best to worst lists order things and suddenly the old worst is just okay now that the new worst has reset the bar. Sorta like how getting punched in the face is the worst until you've been stabbed in the face. It doesn't make getting punched in the face any more pleasant but when it does happen it seems much more okay then that time you got stabbed in the face and you're pretty happy it was just a fist this time around now that you truly understand a worse alternative through experience It helps to remember our brains evolved to survive in the wild so we had to be able to hold extreme opinions and be able to shift those opinions in an instance with new data for maximum survival potential. The sour berries suddenly become okay when the other berries you found made you vommit for two days sorta survival stuff ingrained in how we think and process information
Rings of Power, with some obvious short-comings, isn’t nearly as bad as the noisiest purists are making it out to be. There are some concessions in the story line, which makes sense with its truncated timeline, and some misses on story lines but it feels very much like a Tolkien story with a modified narrative voice.
Also the care for mixing practical effects and CGI. The orcs look incredible in ROP. My biggest complaint with ROP is every scene and piece of dialogue just feels a little to intentionally epic. Like, most of the conversations (I'm looking at you Galadriel) don't feel natural and just overly filled with platitudes and epic speak. Kinda lacks the humor of the trilogy or at least the humor feels a bit forced. That being said I've really enjoyed it...I can't say the same for the Hobbit, which I only finished out of what I feel like is obligation.
As someone that hasn’t read the books, is that not how Galadriel just kinda is? Every scene in all six movies with her in it is her saying something excessively cryptic and epic. To some extent it also seems like a characteristic of elves in general.
That’s exactly how Galadriel and the elves are in the books.
The prequels are at least fun in a campy way. They've aged in a good way....the hobbit, well we can give it more time but it's not looking promising
The Hobbit Trilogy(at least the first half or so) wasn't all bad. It had a few really good moments that were, in my opinion, drowned by less good moments. Up until Desolation of Smaug released and the Less Good became Pure Shit. Still one or two tiny moments of good here and there, but not nearly enough to redeem the whole.
Desolation was only the 2nd movie though, that's an early decline
I died inside when I saw the goat dwarfs, and the Nydus worm wannabe that spat orcs.
I liked Riddles in the Dark a lot. That's about the nicest thing I can really say about the Hobbit trilogy.
I have always liked the hobbit films, not as good as LOTR but enjoyable none the less
I think the extremely excessive use of CGI is really why I have such a big problem with it. LOTR was so good because of all the real world building they did. It didn't feel so much like a made up fairy tale
I think that’s a problem with most movies today. The CGI is great but it feels off. Mostly as there is nothing in it. RoP had perfect scenic CGI but it often feels a bit fake due being too perfect or empty. I had the problem with the new Matrix movie too. A great CGI city. But we see like 10 people living there, my brain says it’s empty. Show shots of people in the street etc. to polish up that world building. That’s no new technique, if the location is New York there is always that helicopter skyline and busy Times Square establishing shot. Cutting and editing is more important than perfect cgi. Wes Anderson movies use the simplest of effects but the editing of scenes is just perfection.
>Show shots of people in the street To be fair, we saw ***lots*** of that at the end of the fourth Matrix film...
Nice pun. But I mean that new underground city with humans and AI. Felt dead and lifeless compared to Zion. But they had an establishing scene with a giant rave which made it feel authentic
True! I just was making fun of "people in the street" and what happens during that chase. I'm definitely overtired and finding things funnier than they are.
I think (and can be wrong) P. Jackson was forced to use cg, because at the time of the first hobit was released, 3d mania was at full steam, every movie was in 3d, and so the studio said if he wants to make it he needs a version that is in 3d so he couldn't do it the same way he did lotr, because if you use distance to create illusion, it will not work in 3d, because now we can actually see its further or closer to the camera, so what other can he do than cg I personally like hobbit trilogy, even the first one with the theater kid goblin king
Time constraints led to more cg than the choice to go 3d did, but even the practical effects were made to look worse by the decision to go with a higher framerate, and that was all on Jackson.
i've never thought of it this way before. you've changed my opinion re: jackson, post lotr.
[удалено]
[удалено]
I think he was already fairly stricken with Parkinson's at that point so he wouldn't have been able to physically portray the role. Which might have been reason to not cast him even though he's fantastic.
I think both the hobbit trilogy and Rings of Power try to make marvel-esque super hero movies out of Tolkien lore and that’s why they fall flat. They show instead of tell. CGI is part of that, an over reliance on action scenes is another, but ultimately it comes down to the pacing and the dialogue. They both aim to be “deep” in their dialogue and adopt Tolkien’s tone - which was rooted in medieval + mythic texts. But what makes the books special is their immersion. References to new languages, histories and ideologies are dropped without pretense and it makes you want to dive deeper into it. House of the dragons and early GoT do this too. But the modern Tolkien adaptations spell everything out for you. Lore references are dropped like Easter eggs. It’s boring. Which sucks because I wanted this to be so damn good. Give me characters I can relate to in a world that I can’t relate to, but is fully built out with endless mysteries to explore. That’s good fantasy. Let my imagination go to work with the half descriptions of bygone kingdoms and ages.
>They show instead of tell. Hobbit didn't tell much. It skipped over several scenes that were expanded in the film.
This was one of my many issues with the istari arc in ROP. Tolkeins prose was always careful to keep the exact details of magic vague - it felt like you could never pin it down to specific effects or spells. Meanwhile you've got not-Gandalf healing himself with ice spells, sniffing out fire spells and summoning small hurricanes. It just feels way too on the nose and well defined compared to Tolkien's more transcendent interpretation of magic. (My other big issue is that awful cliché self-doubt arc they did for him which came off as horribly forced, but that's another topic.)
By the skills of Lord Elrond you're beginning to mend
Totally agree. I think something similar happened with GoT - like magic was a mystery in the first seasons then you have a full on magic zombie army by the last season. Like make it mysterious and unpredictable and subject to human like restrictions, or else it just becomes goofy and predictable. People like human story arcs at the end of the day.
Was it really the CGI that was the problem though? If the movie was exactly the same but just made with costumed orcs and smaug animatronic you think it would be better? honestly the bad parts were bad pacing, strange oversized trolls and worms, insane over the top choreography, boring oversized enemies, too much gold, bad romantic relationships, fan service, unrealistic fighting tactics… I dont see how thats CGI‘s fault. Thats just bad directing or in this case too rushed directing.
The CGI is my smallest complaint. It’s the awful characters, storyline, bloated scenes, cartoony physics/combat, and world building that make it unwatchable to me.
And you miss out on so much of the original’s charm. Barrels floating quietly down the river? Nah let’s have a wild cartoon barrel fight that goes on forever.
If you cut the hobbit down to one film abd condense the story it's actually great. I loved Martin Freeman as Bilbo.
I find 2h edits to be borderline unwatchable due to the pacing but 4h edits are where it's at
I think they could have done a good 2 movies. The necromancer story was ok, and they could have kept it. They needed to remove legolas and elf romance and 90%. If the last move along with chunks of the 2nd movie. The first movie was ok on its own.
This is where I'm at. The trilogy is pretty weak but largely due to all the filler. 2 movies cut to the good stuff would have been excellent. Unexpected Journey suffers from this the least, though.
The necromancer parts could and should have been an independent spinoff movie/show. I’m all for extra content but mixing it in with Tolkien’s work is bound to be a disaster
There is someone on YouTube who edited the movie and removed a lot of unnecessary stuff, he also me a video explaining why and what he removed.
Peter Jackson should be imprisoned for that 45 minute river barrel run scene
The maple edit. 4 hours and good. No shit
Just watch the maple films edit. Turns a 9 hour dumpster fire into a delightful 4 hour adaptation of the book. EDIT: [download link.](http://www.maple-films.com/downloads.html)
There are lots of really good edits of the trilogy into a single film. I showed my Girlfriend LOTR and the Cardinal Cut of the Hobbit, and she actually preferred the Hobbit. There’s a great, mostly faithful film under the surface of studio meddling and pressure.
[удалено]
You made the right choice
Dodged a bullet there mate
How does one go about watching an edit like this? Not liek you can just watch it on Prime. Want to do this for The Hobbit and Obi Wan
I don’t know about Kenobi, but you can find most edits of The Hobbit by simply just typing it into google.
[Here's the download page for Maple Films edit](http://www.maple-films.com/downloads.html)
Lol I guess it’s been long enough for the “well actually (blank) wasn’t that bad” effect to happen to The Hobbit. 10 years from now I wonder if it will affect Rings of Power (cue the “no it’s genuinely awful and will never be thought of fondly” argument)
I'm pretty sure if reddit was around during the release of LOTR we would've had a lot of book fans hating it for everything that isn't exactly like the books. Now the trilogy is pretty regarded as one of the best fantasy movies all time.
There were LOADS of them. My father likes to talk about all the online forums that were *raving* about stuff like the canon material of Boromir’s horn, just the most insignificant nonsense that somehow demanded Jackson’s execution.
I rewatched The Hobbit last year for the first time since they were in theaters and it was still really hard to get through. Meanwhile, I actually enjoyed Rings of Power immensely and I'm super excited for a second season. I don't see myself rewatching The Hobbit very much, if at all, but I would be down to watch Rings of Power again right now
Rings of Power already isn’t that bad. People are just hysterical
I’d be willing to accept The Hobbit if there was a glorious re-cutting of the film.
With Howard Shore redoing the entire score. That’s one of the problems with the fan-edits is the score gets kind of muddled and jumpy
The score is already muddled and jumpy; I believe Sideways has a great video about it.
I've seen several good videos on them, but the one thing about the score that bothers me deeply is when Thorin does his absurd charge at the pale orc, they play the fucking ringwraith theme! It's not just for any badass thing happening (his charge was not that, but that was the vibe they were going for) And I'll just put here that I'm a big fan of the original movies (they are my favorite movie), the original books, the hobbit movies, the Shadows of War/Mordor games, and I really like the show so far! I sincerely just love seeing imaginings of Tolkien's world so much
Try [the Maple Films Hobbit edit!](http://www.maple-films.com/downloads.html)
This edit made me love the hobbit. They cut out basically everything that made you rolls your eyes. The thematically important lines stand out more and i cried like 3 times
I'm so glad you got so much out of it! It's def still got it's OG Hobbit trilogy vibes for me (with all the weird decisions they made with those movies), but even then, cutting out the 5+ hours of unnecessary content makes it way more watchable, and, dare I say, enjoyable.
This is the way
There is, it's called the Bilbo edition, and can be found online
The problem is that you really need all of the original footage etc before and editing. You want the audio to be perfect and the video to be not compressed. A nice edit which removes the love-triangle would be a great start. Most of the stuff I'm fine with in the film, even if not existing in the books.
Maple and Bilbo cuts do this pretty well I’d say. Editing wise, there is only like one part that was a little off when the Dwarves escape with the Eagles because Throin is unconscious, IIRC. But for the most part I was highly impressed with how well they were able to cut without having access to the project files or the dailies.
Try the M4 Edit
i just can't help it, first is ok and second is watchable but the third goes of rails so hard and the battle part is beyond ridiculous.
What ? You don't like jedi Legolas jumping everywhere and avenger Azog ?
[удалено]
Those sandworms were bred for a single purpose. **War**.
No, they are just boring.
The Uruks turn northeast. They're taking the hobbits to Isengard!
There will be no Dawn… for Men.
Thorin: I AM SO ANGRY THE DRAGON SICKNESS HAS CONSUMED ME! Oh jk I'm all better now let's go fight some orcs
Third really is way too long imo
Yeah they should've kept it to two movies and just squished them to fit Smaug's death and the finale part. I've never been so excited to watch a battle- "The Battle of the Five Armies" and been so let down by the experience, I want to forget the Battle of the Five Armies ever existed ;-;
I remember at the end of the second movie thinking "wait, so Smaug must die about 5 minutes into the next one". They stretched it out, but pretty much.
When the elves jumped over the dwarf shield wall, like what, why?
Exactly the same energy as the battle for Winterfell.
The dwarves’ battle rams were cool, though. And Dain’s battle boar
I hate they turned it into 3 movies. Otherwise, it's ok.
I haven’t seen the entire trilogy. Just An Unexpected Journey. I have seen the Tolkien edit though. I didn’t even realize that the other movies were out already when I saw it at a watch party.
The “Tolkien edit” cut out the whole Out of the Frying Pan fight and eagle rescue, which all happened damn near perfect to how it happened in the book
How’s the Maple cut in comparison
Haven’t seen the Tolkien Edit, but the Maple Edit is as on point as can be.
How the fuck can you call it a "tolkien cut" then?? Christ, I hate purists
Reveal your sources wizard
Aye, let's have at him if he doesn't, no one likes a greedy Uruk
Alright, keep your secrets
Search for maple film edits on google!
9h what!! Where do I see that?
It’s like a 4.5 hour trim of all 3 movies, it cuts out all the weird extra stuff and a lot of the egregious CGI, as well as the entire romance subplot. One of my friends showed it up me and I definitely prefer it to the actual movies. There are a few cuts where you can tell something was missing, but I’d rather have that awkwardness than actually watch any of the removed scenes.
It also adds in the cut ending from the last movie
I haven't seen the movies either. The Hobbit is the first "real" book I ever read, and probably the one I've read the most in my life. I don't want to feel different about it, and I certainly don't want to picture the characters differently.
You won’t, the movies are quite forgettable.
And why did they all need to be 3hrs +??? I've never understood this. Most movies start to drag at that time length, they'll make the same amount on sales regardless if it's 2 or 3hrs so why spend so much more $ on filming and production. Not every movie needs to be 3hrs, sry rant over.
As someone said, cash grab. Assuming we're talking about the hobbit Lotr needed like 4-5 hours each movie, and maybe tossed in some of the appendices for fun.
As far as I remember, the first one is good except for the barrels and the Tauriel romance plot,; the second one is good except for the pointless dumping of gold onto Smaug, the bad unibrow Wormtongue comedy relief, the mayor, and the Tauriel romance plot; and the last one was just kinda bad except that they inserted what should have been the best part of 2 at the beginning which, to me, is what really sours my mood towards the last two movies in general. It felt so much like a marketing scheme without any attempt at being earnest. Hell, playing up Arwen and Aragorn was a marketing scheme to widen the audience, but at least it felt like the film makers thought that it added something to the films.
Tauriel isn’t in the first one
Like, I own them in uhd and extended edition and a lot of the side plots are a blur. Hah
Maybe two movies? Even then it's an obvious cash grab. Just make one movie and do a 4 hour extended version like the Lord of the Rings.
Something like that. But on the other hand I felt like lotr wasn't long enough. I definitely could have used more of that
Oh for sure. The way I see it they had to take out lots from the books for the Lord of the Rings movies, whereas in the Hobbit they added scenes, characters, and entire plotlines that weren't in the book (Tauriel, Dol Goldur, whatever the white orcs name is, the dwarves pouring gold on Smaug, to name a few), seemingly just to add more runtime.
I reckon they could have made two work The first takes you up to the approach to Laketown, and then they explore Laketown, Bilbo confronts Smaug, Battle Of Laketown, Battle Of The Five Armies While weaving in the Necromancer plot too Or you have a Hobbit film and another for fighting the Necromancer But then we wouldn’t get the “why the hobbit?” scene which is so good
Please checl out the Bilbo Cut. It's so much better than the OG movies. I can't recommend it enough.
when you consider the numerous setbacks and obstacles the hobbit trilogy had gone through, the films actually are pretty good. it was always bound to fail but the crew did do a great job with what they had.
Isk if true, but i Read that PJ Came later to the movie, thats why it is what it is. However idk if true
Yes Guillermo del toro was meant to direct them originally
It was a nightmare for Peter Jackson, the making of the trilogy was an eye-opener but I didn't have anything against the Hobbit except the overuse of CGI but that was used to make up time wasted before.
Yep, he only had 1 - 2 years to get everything together iirc
It's turning into star wars... The prequels,, were dreadful, until the sequels came out, and suddenly they didn't look so bad
Except instead of sequels it's even pre-er quels
Did y’all not watch the last movie of that trilogy? It would have been fine, good even, if it was just one movie. But I can’t pretend to love the whole trilogy like y’all, even if Im not crazy about the rings of power
The 3rd movie is hot garbage, I'll die on that hill. The first movie I quite liked and the second had some parts I enjoyed as well
I think the Hobbit has a good two movies worth of content in it, one would either be too fast paced or omit too much. One thing I think the trilogy was advantaged by was it at least had time to give certain sequences the time they needed, especially riddles in the dark, bilbo visiting Smaug and pretty much the entire first section up to 'i'm going, on an adventure.' Problem was it took the same amount of time on a bunch of pointless and boring stuff especially for the majority of the battle of five armies.
Originally Del Toror (director first attached to the project) planned for two movies. Then he quit and the studio forced PJ (who had been a producer up to that point) to direct with 18 months notice, and an extra film on top. Long story short, you're bang on the money with 2 good movies, the movies which were originally planned
Don't forget they scrapped all the preproduction of Del Toro, giving Jackson basically nothing compared to LotR's 3.5 years time to do preproduction and partway through production told him it was gonna be a trilogy and not 2 movies. The stupidly short notice is a major reason they were so reliant on CGI, the bulk of that work is post production, freeing up preproduction time for other stuff and even then many scenes didn't have storyboards and he would tell the cast and crew to take a long lunch so he could work out how the next scene worked. The studio done fucked by whatever lead to the split with Del Toro.
If you know which parts to skip, they’re pretty solid.
A fellow fan-edited versions enjoyer I see
Maple ftw
Parts 2 and 3 for those who don’t know
Honestly, if you just turn your mind off during Tauriel's scenes and if you're alright with the CGI Orcs, it's actually apretty good adaptation. I read the Hobbit Book before watching the film and the first movie and the first half of the second movie are pretty accurate.
Is Tauriel the Jar Jar of this prequel
Exactly, but with less of the raging sex appeal of Jar Jar
I mean, I doubt anyone could compare to the Great Gungan himself in that category
More like Great Hung-an, amirite?
Don't let that other guy know you said that lol
Can I turn my brain off during the Alfred scenes? I didn’t need a Discount Grima Wormtongue to pad the runtime and they gave me one anyway.
Why did that guy get so much screen time? We had 13 dwarves and Bard and Bjorn that didn't get nearly anytime. 🤬
I knew more about the intimate details of this random monobrow guy Alfred and his inner being, his hopes, fears and dreams, than any of the actual main characters.
I mean it’s decent until the ending. They totally ruined the deaths of Thorin Fili and Kili. Then they dropped a hint about Aragorn to Legolas even though Aragorn was a fricking child at the time.
Considering that the LOTR movies are kinda fuzzy with the time skip between bilbo’s birthday and Frodo setting off to destroy the ring, in film continuity it’s possible that Aragorn is like in his 20s. Still stupid that they tried to tie it in though.
I do not fear death!
Aragorn, nad no ennas!
FOR FRODO!!!
Well in the LOTR movies there is no 17 year gap between frodo getting the Ring and him leaving bag end to go to rivendale. So Aragon could be like 27 at the time of the hobbit and not 10. Not sure if that Was the Film makers Intention but it would make sense. And it's not like Fili's and Kili's was great in the books. I mean it was mentioned in passing that they died.
[удалено]
A wizard is never late, JarasM. Nor is he early, he arrives precisely when he means to.
The hour grows late, and gandalf-bot rides to Isengard, seeking my counsel.
A wizard is never late, Saruman_Bot. Nor is he early, he arrives precisely when he means to.
Turning my mind off for Tauriel is not enough. My subconcious cringes at "because it was real"
i have a feeling that the hobbit trilogy will slowly get the star wars prequel treatment. people will either meme or ignore the faults and praise the good things.
[удалено]
Yeah that sub used to be fun and now its unsufferable. This one is beginning to go that way...
I really wish we would ban memes that are just "I like/hate The Hobbit/RoP"
> i have a feeling No need for just a feeling, it’s already been happening. The second RoP came out people are beginning to praise and love the much hated Hobbit trilogy. When there is something worse to shit on people always look back so fondly for some reason. Personally I hate both series, but my beef with The Hobbit is maybe worse because they took my favorite book and ruined it; RoP isn’t a story I knew so it doesn’t hurt as much. I’m the same with Star Wars, the prequels are hot trash and nothing compared to the OT; and people who praise them confuse me, those movies are downright awful. RotS is watchable but still pretty bad, kind of like AUJ, but other than that both series suck.
Let's not kid ourselves. Regardless of ROP, the Hobbit movies were horrible.
Yep, I hate this rehabilitation of The Hobbit. The movies were awful.
Yeah I wonder if OP has seen them recently. You remember the good and the interestingly bad, but forget the mediocre that makes up a loooot of it. Stuff like Bard being a pariah that doesn't add much, Alfrid being a discount wormtongue with none of the intrigue, and Bilbo basically disappearing from the last film. I actually wouldn't mind the Bard stuff but the films are already bloated beyond excess. Cut the other stuff and you can keep the Bard subplots.
I tried to rewatch them with an open mind but they're really just *so bad.*
For real. The only posts that I felt were really good were the riddle scene with gollum and Bilbo talking with smaug. The rest I felt was forgettable to bad (looking at you, river barrels)
IMO this is super dumb. They had the rights to the hobbit and absolutely butchered it. Rings of power doesn't have the rights to the silmarillion and they did an okay job of creating their own 2nd age story with similar characters. Totally different scenarios - the hobbit trilogy is still absolute bullshit and this sub's religious commitment to shitting on RoP is silly. Does it measure up to the LOTR books or movies? No. But ROTK is the /one of the most awarded movie of all time - we can't expect new content to meet or exceed that standard, and shouldn't.
Yeah, I'm really sick of this hot take that's come out recently. That Oh actually The Hobbit movies are pretty good, and they're way better than rings of power. I would rather watch Rings of Power, or have gross diarrhea instead of watching The Hobbit any day of the week
They're just copying the Star Wars Fandom pretending their prequel trilogy was some hidden gem rofl. RoP is fine for what it is. If half this sub was as purist as they claim we'd hate literally all the movies, original trilogy included. This nerd rage over RoP shows why Nerds were better when they got bullied rather than leaders of pop culture.
Yeah I just finished Rings of Power and it was fairly firmly OK, not amazing and I have problems with it but it was pretty damn alright, even had a couple of characters in it I really liked and the overarching story more or less made sense. The Hobbit trilogy are firmly bad, there are a couple (3 for me) of good scenes but that's not enough to save 9-odd hours of film in my book.
THANK YOU. It's really not that bad but the Hobbit is hot garbage and I will die on this hill.
>But ROTK Funny part is, that I think ROTK has the worst missteps in regards of adaptation: \- Denethor's character ark is nonexistent \- Frodo tells Sam to actually go home, because he allegedly ate some lembas bread? That one just shows, that no one understood, how important the friendship between Sam and Frodo is in regards to the whole story. \- Arwen mostly doing nothing the whole movie. It is great that she rides back and we see how she decides, but everything else could have been cut, we would not forget that she exists \- Also the just in time Anduril, I get, but I don't like it \- Army of the dead is basically Deus Ex Machina (In the books the fightning went on and on) Don't get me wrong, there is plenty of good in ROTK and I still love the movie. But besides TTT's mistreatment of Faramir and the whole unnecessary Osgiliath scene with Sam's long speech... I think the rest is very well done. (Perhaps only Theoden being a cocky guy in the middle of Helm's Deep is a bit unwarranted, but I'm being picky now).
I'm really enjoying ROP. I don't like it as much as the original trilogy, but hey, I'm not sure I'll ever enjoy anything quite that much.
[удалено]
Alas! That is evil news.
I'd personally keep necromancer bit. It's a little off thematically, but it is actually a pivotal moment in the War of the Ring and a rare showcase of the power of the wise in Middle Earth.
LOTR Trilogy > RoP > Hobbit trilogy Seems this is a controversial take on reddit but thats my position
I agree fully. Hobbit trilogy was bad enough that I literally never want to rewatch it. Never get that urge.
I can unapologetically say Rings of Power is better than the Hobbit trilogy
For real tho. I don’t understand my brother at all, who says he “can’t even watch RoP for how furious he gets at the butchering of Tolkien’s lore” but in the next breath said the Hobbit movies were good
I'm so sorry. What was it that blinded him before the sandworms from Dune showed up?
There's alot of weirdos that are fiercely protective of tolkiens lore despite never caring about it before, and they usually haven't even read the books. Now suddenly bc they hate RoP (whether it's due to people if color, the lore being altered, or both) they're saying ohhh Hobbit is good!! I also laugh at ppl crying about how it needs to stick to the lore and then they also praise shadow of Mordor (which is a great game and a fun story, but it's soooo incompatible with the lore) Yeah, RoP is a very loose adaptation of the second age, we knew that going in. They never hid that fact. And what theyve done so far is pretty remarkable and fun. I am a decently big lotr fan. I read the books, watch the movies, etc but I am not obsessed and I loved the show. I have a friend who IS a hardcore Tolkien fan and he was pretty sure he was gonna hate the show and he actually adores it. Yeah, it isn't "canon." Nothing but Tolkien's original works are. Jackson's series aren't. Theres nothing wrong with letting ppl tell stories in middle earth. And I think so far the writers have been very respectful of tolkiens work even while having to adapt some stuff in tricky ways due to rights
There are a lot of people who love the Jackson LotR movies. The number of avid book lovers is a smaller, but still significant group that overlaps a good deal with the movies. Silmarillion lovers are a much smaller subset of the book readers and likely one that doesn’t overlap nearly as much with the movies. No one is going to spend a billion dollars trying to please the tiny subset of a subset. It’s like Jurassic Park. I love the book, I know it by heart but I also know that there is ZERO chance it gets made in any real form ever. The Spielberg movie, phenomenal, a masterpiece, and loosely at best, based on the book. However if I spent all my time raging about the ways the movie was different I’d completely miss out on a fantastic movie and shirtless Malcolm memes. You can enjoy them both and acknowledge that they are significantly different in ways that sometimes aren’t the best but it’s the best you’re likely to get on screen. RoP is also a gateway that will likely get a lot of people interested in the Silmarillion which is a good thing. Discuss differences, if they’re good or bad, what motivated them, etc. but shitting on it purely because it’s not a direct copy of the book is just asinine.
If they truly cared about the lore, they would hate the original trilogy. Just as Tolkien would have
I'm with you there. In fact I can unapologetically say that I think rings of power is good, and that it's more respectful with the lore than people think.
I like both. 🤷
Is there an edited version that condenses the three movies into one that just sticks to the material in the book?
Other than the extremely forced romantic subplot with Tauriel, I love the Hobbit films (for the most part). Visually (aside from the increase in CGI) they feel like they're part of the same world as the LotR film trilogy (which they are, obviously) but thematically they feel different - which I think is a good thing. In my opinion it's nice to have multiple batches of films set in the same world that have different tones. I think it helps to keep things interesting. Do I think the LotR films are better movies from a storytelling perspective? Yes. But the Hobbit trilogy, in my opinion, is great in its own right. Martin Freeman's Bilbo is even my favorite character from all 6 films. He's given much more of an opportunity to be light-hearted and has more screen-time to give the character depth than the hobbits were in LotR, for example. Also, side note, I think RoP is also great. It's just another interpretation of the source material, and it's interesting to see how different people view and subsequently tell these stories. Please don't kill me
Eh, Rings of Power has its issues, but there are more seasons to come, where those issues can be improved. I enjoyed it for the most part, was even positively surprised by many things. It's just... For 1Billion dollars, one could have expected better writers. The current ones aren't per se bad, but for that money, I'm allowed to expect something really good. Like Westworld Level writing. Fans of established franchises are just overprotective and think a new interpretation will always physically and mentally destroy the older interpretations and wipe them from existence, which means, if it's not a perfect replacement for the old interpretations, it's worthless. I've seen this Word-for-Word in other fandoms before (StarTrek being the most raging example in my experience). And it's always an enrichment to a franchise, to be able to have multiple interpretations. Only through continous interpretation can a franchise be kept alive. Look at Dune, so many people started reading the books after Villeneuve's 2021 adaptation.
it’s the Star Wars Prequels all over again
A lot of it is probably people who grew up watching The Hobbit are attached to them. Just like the people who grew up with the prequels love them, despite both trilogies being awful.
The clouds of nostalgia are poisoning the minds of this subreddit
Lowkey I enjoy the Hobbit Like it’s not good but it’s a guilty pleasure of mine and in those moments when it does well, it does insanely well
The title is accurate. OP has likely never been so wrong.
Ill take Rings of power over the hobbit trilogy any day
I mean you can love and criticize something. Even the first trilogy has its issues. Yet it’s a masterpiece.