I could go either way on a given day. On the one hand, if I just compare it to the book, I felt more emotion and was much more invested in the characters in the first Hobbit movie than I was in the book (and then less so with each subsequent movie). But to come at it from a different point of view, there’s just so many good shows and movies now, spending 6+ hours on mediocrity is kind of a waste of time. I could have instead caught up on an excellent TV show instead. So just because I enjoyed it more than the book doesn’t mean I should have watched the movie.
So I guess, on the whole, I would say, watch something better instead.
The Hobbit films are full of problems. Another issue being how they use the wrong music during some scenes, like the Nazgul theme when Oakenshield approaches Azog on the tree.
Also Azog. Already dead. Killed during the Battle of Azanulbizar by Dain Ironfoot. His son Bolg should be the main orc boss.
Also the films don’t make it very clear what the five armies are in the Battle of Five Armies.
I can’t recommend fan edits enough. The one I like has most scenes without Bilbo removed. No Radagast or White Council or Dol Guldur. No Dwarf / Elf romance. Taurel and Legolas a cameo only. Same with Azog. The Dwarves escape the woodland realm without incident. Only Bilbo enters the mountain. They have their conversation. Barrel rider? Smaug flies off to attack Laketown. Bard Laketown storyline cut. Bard kills the dragon alone (no stupid kid used as a bow mount). The Masters’ unibrow assistants scenes are purged. Once Bilbo is knocked out during the Battle of Five Armies, it becomes a quick montage. This cut was under 4 hours. Like 3:30 including credits.
There should have been more Beorn mauling goblins though. Jackson decided to not even film those scenes.
So what films would you all recommend watching with Fantasy battles in them (other than of course the obvious “the original LOTR”).
Just finished watching The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Extended Edition (aka the first movie), partly because I’ve been playing WH TW3 and wanted some fantasy and partly to test my new 65” LG OLED (replacing my 40” non HDR TV). While it has some good moments, there’s a surprising amount of clunky dialog and scenes and some just general off moments, which often rather surprisingly involve Ian McKellan’s Gandalf. Some of his scenes just don’t flow very well.
Looks like these videos were linked in 2018, so might be worth linking again. It’s a deep dive on why the Hobbit was terrible. Lots of speculation (but based on research and cast/crew interviews conducted by the YouTuber, not just theory) so I’m skeptical of her overall thesis, but a really fun deep dive on the Hobbit for sure.
Ian McKellan infamously had a hard time acting against empty rooms in this movie due to the way the size differences between his character and others had to be done without on-set camera trickery.
Wrt Fantasy Battles, the final battle in Chronicles of Narnia: Lion, With, Wardrobe is pretty good, given the restrictions of the film’s age group.
If you’re looking past pure fantasy, the Last Kingdom actually portrays some pretty alright Viking vs Saxon set piece battles during its first four seasons.
Interesting. I wonder why they didn’t just use the same techniques they used for LOTR?
How is the Athenian Navy follow on? Also why doesn’t Warhammer Fantasy have a Peloponnesian War Greece analog, it seems like it would fit right in.
Unfortunately Waterloo (1970) doesn’t seem to be available on Streaming anywhere. I suppose I could go old school and get an actual physical copy from Amazon.
I’m a big Patrick O’Brian fan, so already seen several times (including in the theater). I also really liked the Ioan Gruffudd Hornblower series.
They couldn’t use the forced perspective techniques because of the 3D processing they were doing. They had to comp separate performances and use CG to meld them.
This is a shot of McKellan getting frustrated and breaking down into tears during the filming of The Hobbit:
I’m actually impressed he did as well as he did with the forced perspective in the original LOTR. I seem to recall from the documentary from The Fellowship of the Ring, he wasn’t actually facing Elijah Wood across the table when they were talking, it just looked like he was.
lol The Eagles are not counted as one of the armies in the battle of five armies.
Men
Elves
Dwarves
Goblins
Wargs
The goblins and wargs are not one army and come from separate sources just like the men/elves/dwarves.
The Eagles and Beorn also join but don’t count! Beorn in particular though IS an army of one though. He straight up storms the orc high command and kills Bolg and his bodyguards.
