CG chariot chase scene confirmed!
-Tom
Its like a rerun of the rabbit sledge chase from the first movie. Apparently movie goers couldn’t have enough of that stuff.
Teiman
1803
For a really bad movie, I remember the “Conan the Barbarian” reboot.
The bad guy (Zym) move around in a boat with wheels in the desert. His persecution of conan is frustrated when conan enters the sea and pick a pirates boat.
After watching that disaster of a movie, my tastes are rebalanced and all movies look to me like masterpieces.
“Look at dat ass”
I saw the Desolation of Smaug last night.
Once again, I’m very surprised at how much I enjoyed it. Running from the orcs and the Beast. The mirkwood forest and the spiders. The wood elves imprisonment and barrel escape. Bard and smuggling dwarves into the town. All of that was well done and much more entertaining than what I remember from the book. But the best scenes were with Bilbo and Smaug. The dragon was just so well done. Whenever something so big fights something so small, my mind always draws a blank on what to picture and how much something so big is able to spot everything that the small creature does, and how much it doesn’t notice. Well, all that was really very clear the way they did Smaug in this movie. And his voice acting and body language are just masterful. So good.
Well done Peter Jackson. I didn’t like RoTK or King Kong or Lonely Bones, but the two Hobbit movies so far have been very surprisingly well done and entertaining. The first one particularly because of the depth added to the Dwarves compared to the book, and this one because of how it handled the wood elves and smaug.
I wrote this a month ago on another forum:
OK, so the Desolation of the Hobbit is on HBO now and I tried, I really, really tried, sitting through this soulless, heartless, brainless piece of fucking shit someone, somewhere, had the temerity to label as a movie, but around Laketown my subconscious wisely took over and I nodded off. If this sounds overly harsh, it’s not. . .it’s late, I’m tired, and I really don’t feel like throwing words at the blindingly obvious negative aspects of this juvenile train wreck. I never knew there was an Ed Wood film school, but now I know it not only exists but that Peter “the fucking hack” Jackson graduated valedictorian and now sits on its board of directors. This series of frames artlessly strung together (I refuse to call it a movie) has far more in common with Gauntlet (yes, the old arcade game) than Tolkien’s writings.
Everything else you wrote is hyperbolic, but this is a great comparison.
Cormac
1807
I was just watching a TV series about Tolkien’s various mythical inspirations where the show basically follows John Howe around the world as he looks at various locations and talks to academics. Not a bad show, but it didn’t really reveal anything I hadn’t heard of before.
One thing that did kinda surprise me, was that Alan Lee was apparently John Howe’s assistant while working for Peter Jackson. My impression had always been that they were both “artistic consultants” on equal terms and not that Alan worked for John. I know its a pretty insignificant distinction, but I thought it was interesting.
The sense I get from the various special features and art books I’ve seen is that Howe was pretty intimately involved in a lot more of the prop and set design while Alan Lee did more of what I think of as tone pieces. Howe is an expert in medieval weapons and armor as well so the Weta guys often relied of his knowledge in that area so in terms of organization he was more involved in directing the design team. It may be that he spent more time in New Zealand as well.
corsair
1809
As I recall it, it’s Lee that is the guy who understands real arms and armor. Perhaps I’m misremembering, but I could certainly see such in his illustrations before the movies came out. not to say that Howe didn’t, also.
Cormac
1811
Cool, thanks for the info! Wasn’t aware of that…
I wonder if they ever gave Ted Nasmith a call!
mok
1812
Don’t hold back, John. Let it all flow.
I had hopes that the last one might have some redemption in it until I saw they are going to have another corny chase scene in the trailer.
I hope at the end when Thranduil is getting all nuts, Bilbo jumps up and challenges him to a dance-off.
Meh. I’ll watch the Two Towers again to get my CGI-army fix, and wait until they release the extended DVDs of the whole Hobbit trilogy to watch this one. (More to fulfill my Tolkien-fanboy cravings than with any expectation that extended cuts will make it better.)
How can you say that? No one fell from a great height only to come out of it perfectly intact.
This is no Peter Jackson Hobbit film, that’s for sure.
JonRowe
1818
Looking forward to this. Man I love these movies, and I know they are flawed. I still love them though.
Istari6
1819
and the Extended Edition of Desolation of Smaug is a better film for the additions.
Can you elaborate? I loved the extended version of the LotR trilogy (think the non-ee versions of RotK and TT are dreadfully broken by comparison), but the Hobbitt EEs seemed like less essential viewing (for movies I enjoy far less) so I haven’t bothered. But if they’re notable improvements I’d like to check them out
