Why The Hobbit Trilogy Failed To Equal Lord Of The Rings
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- čas přidán 14. 05. 2024
- The Hobbit trilogy is one of the most disappointing things since... well, most of modern entertainment. And I think it's about time I explained why these movies are so terrible.
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How many of you guys want to see the Drinker review Anime every Wedenesday and which anime do you want to see the Drinker review?
keep up your work man, one of the few honest people left here it seems.
I like the dragoon
Drinker I think Hobbit is another great idea for production hell, what do you think?
@@vinzingerakaelotakuakatheweebp Cowboy Bebop is perect type of anime for Drinker and he would have lot of fun with it. Fairy Tail on the other hand would be excellent choice for roasting something.
The only movie adaptation, where it's quicker to just read the book.
More fun too
Is it really? I wouldn't doubt it, but if this is a true fact then it is amazing.
@@ZapDash I've read the Hobbit twice, and if anything it'll keep your interest more often than all 3 movies will combined.
Audiobook is on CZcams and actually is faster and better written
Also the only book with talking purses and dog servants who walk on two legs. Silly as the movies were, they could have been even sillier.
Well, in Peter Jackson's defense, he didn't even want to direct those films, and fought for it to be one movie instead of a trilogy.
Yep
After 6 years and the extensive documentary by Lindsay Ellis, I can't believe there are some idiots who blame Jackson for this.
Aye, almost everything that people hate about the films can be laid solidly at the feet of the producers, and almost all of them were fought tooth and nail by Jackson.
Guillermo De Toro is to blame because the fat oaf cant just stick to a project.. Most the dumb things thrown in were his doing, back when he was supposed to direct he thought of multiple movies .. I hope someone takes a book of all the movies GDT has abandoned and smacks him across the head with it
Didn’t know that
The only disagreement I have is that Bilbo DOES have an Arc, in the beginning he is terrified of everything, by the end he is getting down in the melee, putting himself in huge amounts of danger in an attempt to save his friends. The line where he ALMOST confesses to Gandalf that he found the one ring, but then says "I found my courage" isn't really a lie, he DID find that through the adventure. Its like... The point of The Hobbit.
Dude actually seen ppl dying whirl it's full plot armor and no stacks for last two parts of lotr
That’s true, he was afraid of everything to begin with, in the end he also became very afraid for and of Thorin as he became sick with greed, so he was willing to risk the anger of thorin in order to save him from destroying himself. An act of true friendship and care that really does mean something.
That's true. That's the whole point of the story to begin with. It's about "learing from your expériences" and "don't be too afraid of trying new things".
@@Hannah-fe4yf Yeah I forgot about that part. And what you said is very true.
The arc doesn't end in him resembling the character of Bilbo in LotR, however. He is like a totally different character and lacks the personality of the actual character of Bilbo: rebellious, hedonistic, cantankerous, mischevious, etc. Other than becoming brave, there's no real character transformation.
I think The Hobbit Trilogy had the same problem as the Narnia movies. They took a book that was meant to be simplistic and a bit silly (because its for children) and tried to pad it out into an epic fantasy story like LOTR which is a much deeper, darker and more complex story for adults. In other words, they tried to make it something it was not.
Batman managed to do it, maybe they thought they could too
@@mrackelito1 batman didn’t adopt any preexisting material like a book, they took a basic concept and created a whole new story out of it for film. There’s really no comparison here. Also it’s not like there wasn’t a dark and gritty, more serious and adult version of batman in some of the comics before the dark knight etc. were made
Yep. Jackson wanted to make both stories into splatter/monster action movies.
I really liked the first Narnia movie, I think it was really good. It did kind of follow the book too. I know I was disappointed that they stopped making them. I know other people who wanted to see more as well. The White Witch is a pretty dark character for a children's book. If you have ever read the Magician's Nephew, you know what an evil person she is. I think they did a good job balancing things out. The studio really ruined the Hobbit movies by making Jackson make three of them
Exactly.
“What inspired you to make the hobbit a trilogy instead of a stand alone film?”
Warner brothers: “money.”
Three films that each grossed over $950 million just at the box office, I believe?
Unfortunately thats true. Its even more funny when you realize that whole point of Hobbit is not to be greedy asshole.
I think two solid 2 1/2 hour movies would´ve worked
@@omarnavarro9690 While I enjoyed the trilogy as whole I agree that third one was definetly prolonging battle too much.
...and it was super easy, barely an inconvenience....
“I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.” - the Hobbit.
☝The perfect quote for that movie!
Reading that line in the book was chilling, such an oddly specific take on the idea of immortality
Well done, David. 👍
Hahaha haha perfection
You got the second part wrong. It should be "..., like bread scraped over too much butter ".
You'll need to revisit this, as we now know the Hobbit trilogy is now a work of art compared to Rings of powet
Isn't this sad? That we accept crap because there's something crappier? I for one would prefer quality, but that's just me.
@@technojack3719It's a common occurrence. Halo 4 now gets similar treatment. Gets praise for simply not being as bad as halo 5. 😂
@@technojack3719 Hobbit wasn't crap tbh
Yep. 1 wasn't totally crap though, just needed some editing to take out the drivel..2 and 3 is where they dropped the ball.
I only watch the 2 hour fanedit of the 3 films and it's waay better
@@technojack3719 saw it again for the fifth or sixth time yesterday, and it is NOT crap. It is full of heart. Also , even the worse CG in it are miles above some of the stuff produced today in any Disney produced feature. And the best CG in it remains absolutely stellar today. The character animation of Azog is incredible, that character has so much expression, you can feel the hate. The entire scene in the Goblin cave has some fantastic character animation. The worse fx in the first movie has to be Radagast and his rabbits being chased by the Wargs, and yet it does not bother me like most of today’s MCU shit fx. Smaug was awesome. The introduction of Gollum was awesome. Tauriel is a great character and you feel for her when she mourns Kili at the end of the last movie. I could go on and on, this trilogy might not be LOTR, but it’s faithfull in spirit, and it’s worthy of it as a nice extension of the "Peter Jackson universe" imo. Like a cartoon version of it almost
The things you hated about the dwarfs is actually how theyre described in the book. Bombur, for example, was described as ridiculously fat. Same with the dragon. His motivation IS just gold hoarding in the book. He is an architype of people in power. I agree with you on most of your rants, Drinker, but not on this one.
Agreed, seems like some of his criticism is of the Tolkien story, as opposed to the movie itself.
They could have actually dig a bit deeper in the lore, and without much drifting make Smaug an agent for Sauron to conquest all the Northern part of Middle Earth. With the Nigromancer in the forest and the goblins in the mountains, Smaug destruction of the Dwarf Kingdom is instrumental to take control of that Northeast quadrant. And with Arthedain long gone, only Rivendel stood up against them at that moment. Put a bit of that into the story and, although not faithful to the letter ti the book, you have a much more compelling story that is strongly tied to the lore
That's why some books just don't make for good movies. They should have left the Hobbit alone.
i think the main problem is that the films are trying to be LoTR. You can have simply motivated antagonists which drive the protagonists in a certain way, to contrast and frame them rather than defining the antagonist. The simple concept of the dwarves being ruined by their greed personified as a dragon that results in losing it all, only for the dragon (greed) to then be defeated by the characters exhibiting the virtues contrary to that, Dont even need Smaug to even have any lines of dialogue.
Yeah, dragons are just dragons. They dont need a reason to want to sleep on a pile of gold.
I remember chatting with my mate about this film and we were like "The Gollum scene was amazing" and "the scene with Bilbo and Smaug was great" and "the scene with the trolls was awesome" and then eventually we realized "so basically all the scenes that were actually IN the Fucking book were the best scenes???"
Yea, they literally could have (and should have) made just one movie with just those scenes from the book.
@@soccerchamp0511 exactly. Two at an absolute push but three was just milking it unnecessarily
@@JimmyC1994 a duo-logy of 2 hour movies would work way better than what they had to fill out, and this is coming from someone who likes the hobbit movies
I saw Desolation of Smaug when it premiered at the movie theater I worked at. Saw it Midnight Release and I fell asleep about half way through the movie. It was so damn dry and long.
@@xymos7807 I didn't even bother seeing Battle of the Five Armies
"I'm old, Gandalf... I feel stretched somehow.. like...like a single book stretched over 3 movies each with a 2 hour run time and random Dwarf x Elf fanfiction thrown in"
"that's oddly specific Bilbo"
Haha
Underrated comment
Be frank with you, if this trilogy had merely been two flicks without all the extra nonTolkein written scenes, I would have bought the fancy pants version and cherished it. As it is, I wouldn't touch this trilogy with a cattle prod.
Boy that’s a mouthful.
I actually really like the hobbit, especially as a kid. While lotr was darker, and raw, this feels more dreamy and light. It's a gateway for me to discover and love the whole lore
Agreed! Finally someone who’s not bashing these movies to bits
@@timothygamble5565honestly i think they get unfair hate. I dont think they are good but they’re definitely not bad. I would use the term messy but given all the background bs jackson and company dealt with we got decent movies given the circumstances
@@kevinluna3257If I had to rate it it’s like mid -1, The parts with Smaug is really the only ones worth watching imo and is some of my favorites but it’s only because of his appearance and voice. Nothing much about his insides appeal to me. Everything else just seems so stretched out or useless, such as the spiders and orcs. The spiders were a small part only there to build tension, and the whole thing went for like a long time for no reason. The orcs don’t need to be there. I don’t think there’s a reason for them to be there, and I never liked them being there. The goblin king’s death was never used in the end, and while I understood that the path of The Necromancer as Sauron was to build for LOTR, but that could’ve easily been a short film or something. It’s a pretty bad film, and its biggest flaw is its runtime.
@@You-vv1xv yeah but all of those problems came from studio interference which is why i said that given all the bs jsckson dealt with these arent as bad as what they could have been
One of my favorite moments in LOTR is when Gimli finds the tomb in Moria.
Then the orcs start coming.
Everyone else gets ready, but they're all clearly afraid. But not Gimli.
"Let them come, and they shall see that there is yet one dwarf in Moria who still draws breath."
The Hobbit is not "basically" a children's book: it is explicitly a children's book.
It's specifically Tolkien's children's book.
Each chapter is designed as a bedtime story, which is why it is so episodic. In my opinion, the 70s animated version is better than the Jackson version, even with the 70s Folk soundtrack
A nice easy to follow adventure narrated in a more simpler and linear way very enjoyable but those movies sucks balls.
@@adamrawn2063 the soundtrack was awesome!
Kinda brings to light how far modern children's books have fallen in comparison. I remember reading The Hobbit in the third grade. I'm not entirely convinced today's third graders are literate.
This trilogy is exactly what Tolkin feared would happen when he said Hollywood will butcher his work.
What’s funny is the same director who did the lord of the rings books justice, screwed up the hobbit.
@@BaronVonBielski Except A. Guillermo Del Toro was the Original Director and a lot of the unnecessary changes were his ideas
B. Jackson wanted it to just be one movie or a 2-parter at best
C. It was still the studio's idea to keep and make a lot of these changes to the script and stretch it out to a trilogy.
This is a classic case of studios getting too involved and making things worse. It's funny how video games do Tolkien's work justice more.
@@BaronVonBielski because he had an entirely different production studio and due to the fact that Warner Bros took over instead of New Line Cinema and all that company makes is cartoons.
@@HenryAvery-qg1hd those two games are even worse from a lore standpoint. Not denying that they’re good games, but Tolkien would probably not like those games
I think a better treatment for this movie would have been framing it as Bilbo telling the story to Frodo, so there are more fanciful elements; the singing, the talking spiders, the over-the-top action, and maybe even the ethereal nature of the glut of CGI would have all felt more organic--elements of a tale being spun by a storyteller. It's kind of inherent anyway in the fact that it was a children's book. I mean, the dwarves' names rhyme, for crying out loud. :) And of course also get rid of all the nonsense that tries super hard to make this an official prequel rather its own tale.
Sort of like "Princess Bride"
@@pattmundy1770 Totally!
if it was made to not be an epic like LoTR it would have been better. Del Toro staying to direct it was probably the right call
I love that idea.
The intro to the first movie is Bilbo starting to write the story down in his book, which he plans to give to Frodo. You're basically saying the story would be better if it was framed the way it's already framed.
The eagles arent really a cab service. They help Gandalf out from time to time, but they dont serve him. Its like a friend doing you a favor and dropping you off along their route to work; you’ll get closer to your destination but you cant really expect him to inconvenience himself just to drive you all the way because its easier for you.
Well, if u were in danger of getting attacked and maybe killed on your way to work I assume your friends would have driven you all the way.
Yes, the eagles are their own race and do as they want, whenever they want. They are conscious, intelligent beings just the same as Smaug or Beorn. They tolerate humans and don't eat them, even though they could. They are literally and figuratively above the drama of Middle Earth - far from a taxi service.
The Eagles are the messengers of Manwe, who is more or less the “archangel” in charge of the other angels (the Valar) who supervise Middle-Earth. For complicated reasons, the Valar don’t understand the destiny of humans or dwarves and are reluctant to interfere in the matter of Sauron and the ring. Whenever the Eagles show up, it’s the Valar giving events a nudge in the direction they think, but aren’t certain, they are meant to go.
Yes.
Drinker was being way too cynical and missed the mark with this one.
The sheer ammount of prey a massive bird of prey that size would have to consume to maintain their metabolism would limit how long and far they could assist Gandalf & co.
Wonder if orc was back on the menu for those birds.
The main problem with the eagles was that the movies made them out to be extremly powerful which they just weren't. The reason why they didnt do the "cab service" in the book was because they were afraid of getting to close to any humans who might shoot arrows at them. Let that sink in and then compare it to the scene where they single handed and as it seems untouchably dismantle borgs army in the last part of the movies. Yes they were part of the battle of the five armys however it wasn't like the battle was won the moment they showed up the like its portrayed on screen.
Smaug and his gold: still a better love story than Twilight!
Amen also Smaug was the only good thing in this trilogy
Lmao!
I glad these jokes haven’t died yet
But Luffy and Boa is the greatest of all time.
@@kaiju115 no
The Second Movie ending with Smaug flying out of the Lonely Mountain only to be killed in the first 5 minutes of the Third Movie was a complete waste.
Smaug got Snoke'd.
Smaug was inspiration for Dark Raiden in New Timeline of Mortal Kombat games :).
I missed the first 5 minutes cuz i got to the theater late. I missed it completely. Like wtf
@@Stresslvls99 shouldn't it be the other way around? Ha.
Well, if they had made the hobbit into a single movie, they probably would have had to shorten it even more to fit in all the other events of the book. + It really was that abrupt in the book, in a purposeful way that would set up the plot twist of the battle of the five armies.
3:55 to be fair they also did this in the book, and the reason if i recal is that they did not want to travel near the anduin, which was inhabited by men who often tried to shot the eagles with arrows
Most of the stuff he complained about was the same in the books
I think your strongest point was when you said it tried to be epic and lighthearted and fun at the same time. They needed to pick a direction, and I think they should have stayed true to the books and kept the hobbit more like a children's book. It would have been a great opportunity for a younger generation to get into this genre
To Smaug's defense dragons of Middle Earth are canonicaly opsessed with gold. He doesn't need another motivation.
Yeah there’s a few other points in this video like that one, where it’s just a criticism of the book. And him saying Smaug wasn’t menacing and charismatic is 1000% wrong. Him and Gollum were the few things they got right.
A lot that was described as filler had book basing. Gandalf exposing the witchking is one that comes to mind. Beating that with a stick while giving only passing mention to (minor character) dwarf on (made up character) elf action seems like reaching for high fruit when there was so much lower fruit.
@Simp Zilla The thing i dont like about how they handled Smaug is how they had the archer just see its weakness from a distance, the missing scale. I feel using the invisibility with the ring to get up close to find that missing scale and then tell the archer about it is like Bilbo's biggest contribution to the entire story and they took that away from him.
I think it's possible to change and improve on a character's shallow motivation in an adaptation; just look at Thanos, a villain trying to donate half the Universe to Lady Death's OnlyFans, who was converted by the MCU into a complex anti-villain who comitted genocide because his radical Malthusian views made him believe he was doing the right thing.
In Smaug's case, they could take a hint from the power and corruption theme of LoTR and explore the concept of greed in a nuanced way, perhaps by exploring what kind of hole was the dragon trying to fill in his life with all the gold he's hoarded. Or give it a different goal; after all, money is power.
@@starkillersneed it's a dragon. He doesn't need complex background. He is greed incarnated based on Fafnir from Norse mythology.
Why does todays audience require everything to be explained? Dragon hates dwarves and is obsessed by gold. We don't need to know if his mommy dragon was abusing him as a child or something. And we 500% don't need some political commentary or other things.
As Bilbo said once, the Hobbit was like too little butter spread over too much bread. Thin and burnt out.
Nice analogy !
I still like the puddle of piss metaphor.
Doesn't even make sense, bread isn't generally burnt.
You good sir win the internet today
Holy Smaug shit, the Drinker approves me! Best Friday ever!
I only ever watched the first of these films, because I was so put off by the use of CGI. The LotR trilogy made its world look truly real and lived in with a thoughtful blend of CGI and practical effects, and seeing that thrown away in favor of the same unreal video game look every other movie today goes for hurt my heart.
@12:30
"he's basically the same person at the end as he was at the beginning"
i would disagree w that rather strongly...
Bilbo went thru much hell, saved the day on numerous occasions, and "discovered his courage" as he said.
even Gandalf warned him, that he won't come back the same
Basically, they took a short children's book and tried to stretch it into a three part epic like LOTR. Like butter stretched over too much bread.
No, like butter spread thin over a loaf of bread
I see what you did there.
you didn't read all of his literature did you?
@Charisma Girl Female dwarfs? …Why?
It could have been a 5 or 4 hour movie, but still very good films
The action sequences destroyed the movie for me. Like they had to outdo the LotR trilogy.... it was ridiculously overdone.
also most of the fan service just made me hate this more. It felt unnecessary
For me, it was the horrible, artificial and lore-shattering Elf-Dwarf romance
That is why I think the first movie is actually pretty good. It was goofy, yes, but it had far less action sequences than the other two. The second movie was a disappointment, and the third movie was just horrible on every level.
The barrel scene encapsulates the whole problem of the action scenes in this trilogy.
Legolas was totally unnecessary and probably the worst part of the films. His action scenes were ridiculous.
I personally really enjoyed the hobbit trilogy. Not as much as LOTR, but still found it entertaining and captivating.
Me too. I'm sure everyone knows the back story on making The Hobbit Movies. Definitely will never live up to LOTR but I still enjoyed it for what it was. Especially seeing Thandruil ❤❤❤
@@robyn3590not sure what his point was in the villains complaint cuz both Smaug and gollum are very intimidating foes
Tbf Samug's character was the only thing I liked about those movies, was waiting to see a dragon like that on the big screen for decades. They're aholes, they're full of themselves and they like gold, that's what a dragon is. They don't want world domination, they just want to fuck you and everyone you love up if you try to take their shit lol
“A politician who’s only there because the people are too dumb to get rid of him” - sorry mate, that sounds like real life.
Creepy stealy uncle Joe?
@@sgt.lincolnosiris5028 no.
It's 100% real life.
@@sgt.lincolnosiris5028 Or Pelosi. Or Cortez. Or...
@@sgt.lincolnosiris5028
Nah
Compared to "The Rings of Power", The Hobbit trilogy is a masterpiece right up there with Lord of the Rings itself.
Nah, Rings of Power is better than the LotR trilogy
@@reek4062 🤡
@Reek nice troll
I don’t know why people are hating on Rings of Power I’m enjoying the show
Rings of Power isn't as good as LotR but I say it's definitely better than these.
Thank you sir for mentioning that higher frame rates make movies not look like movies anymore! A lot of times people pretend they don’t see/notice it! I think it’s also called “soap opera effect”. A lot of TVs have an option that causes a similar effect. Often called something like “motion plus” or some nonsense! I hate it!
I saw the 2nd Hobbit movie in HFR, never again as it looked awful.Made sure I saw Battle of the 5 Armies in regular free rate
I can’t believe this movie doesn’t represent THE WORLD WE LIVE IN TODAY.
Not enough BAME, disabled, trans gender dwarves….. sorry, horizontally compromised peoples.
Because “THE MESSAGE”
And doesn't cater to...
*MODERN AUDIENCES*
but that elf woman surely is badass, BELIEVE THAT!
As someone who really loves the book: The problem is not that Smaug is a bad main villain, the problem is that the movies focus too much on him and tries to make more out of him than there really is. The book is not really about Smaug, it's really about the journey and about Bilbo as a character being on his first adventure. Smaug doesn't need to have any big motives or plans, he just needs to be there as the final obstacle for Bilbo and the dwarves.
Exactly. Smaug almost doesn't need to be a character at all
Exactly
And that is all the Big Bad you need for a 300-page kids' book.
He's like a laser grid in a heist movie which presents the final obstacle to the heroes. There's no point trying to give him a complex character. Instead they should've focused more on the dwarves. You don't have to give them all complex arcs, but pick a handful and develop them well. And don't make the others so goofy.
The thing is books and movies aren’t the same
Honestly, Smaug being a rather shallow and simple villain I can forgive. He was never really meant to be anything but a foul monster whose greed and lust for gold was meant to mirror the darkest and flawed nature of Dwarfkind.
I liked Smaug. He was a true evil, one that is just a force of nature.
Yeah, his motivations in the book are not very complex, but even shallow villains can be played skillfully- here Cumberbatch just hams it up, helped by slightly goofy cgi - IMHO the most menacing movie Dragon ever is still Vermithrax, from Dragonslayer (1981), a combination of giant puppetry and stop motion animation, but that dragon is nasty and scary despite never speaking. Cheers.
Right, the Dragon Sickness. He could have been at least intimidating, but the unrealistic action, and the dumb shit every 5 seconds meant you just could not take him seriously enough for that to happen. The Hobbit should ae been its own thing, really. No expectation to be like LOTR. IT could have been awesome in a different way.
I felt like the real villain in the first one was Thorins grandfather or something because of the corruption he allowed get to him. But I mean that was probably what I liked most.
Smaug is cool. Best part of these movies
The Hobbit trilogy doesn't come close to LOTR there is no doubt about that, but I would never say it was bad(except the 3rd part maybe). I particularly enjoyed the 1st movie and I didn't mind the slow build-up, it gave the story meaning and I personally found it compelling (as well as the side-arc of Radagast and Azog although they screwed that up later on in the trilogy). Part two was still quiet good, they did an amazing job with Smaug. And about part 3 well all the critique you say applies for part 3 in full extent for the first two movies not as much as you imply I think.
The first part was without a doubt the best one. Not without flaws but nothing really eggregious and the flaws are very much balanced out by the genuinly great parts.
The Hobbit movies are a more arcuate translation from the book. The Lord Of the Rings adaption from the 1980's is a better adaptation than the criminal abomination that Jackson created.
@matthewsmc I thought trolls only lived in Middle Earth, good one though got a giggle outta me
The third film is a bad film I'd argue. Forgettable with few redeeming features and almost nothing to do with the books whatever.
@@FuuuckOffffI think the best part of the third film was the battle of the five armies and even that felt bad, but of course that's me watching LOTR, reading the books (including the hobbit) and then watching the hobbit films
I agree with everything you said, except for Bilbo and Smaug. The Dragon, although I admit not a very complex character was actually a very faithfully adapted from the book, because that’s what the professor wrote. He wasn’t so much intelligent with ambition he was mostly just driven by his own desires. A villain can be powerful, but doesn’t have to be motivated by grand plans of conquest.
as for Bilbo, well that again is very much how the professor wrote him.
He did learn a lot more self-confidence, and when he went home, he more or less carried on his happy life.
well, carried on with his life with some minor resentment of some cousins that he believed stole some of his silverware....damned sacksville-baggins'
Legolas running on a collapsing bridge is a perfect metaphor for literally the entire thing.
How did they expect that to make sense? Because he can walk on top of snow? Yeah elves are light footed, but I don't think they can slow down time or push themselves off of rapidly falling objects. But yeah, pushing off of a rapidly falling object doomed to plummet does sum up the whole thing pretty great.
lol
He ran across a collapsing bridge?
"I have no memory of this place." 😉
That was the gayest scene in the film
When I saw that scene, I imagined him hopping off of paratroopas from Mario and getting a 1 up at the end.
Legolas and Gimli mending the relationship between Elves and Dwarves by becoming brothers in arms was handled a million times better than the forced relationship between Kili and Tariel.
Nice BIONICLE dude
But they were both so pretty! How could you not have a love story between such pretty people, even if it makes no sense at all?
You know their names? Wow, I only remembered them as Hobbit-dwarf and the "Lost" woman.
Wasn't it Tauriel?
@@Frosty1979 Funnily enough Evangeline Lilly dated Dominic Monaghan for awhile. A hobbit and an elf Lost on an island.
"The only thing more powerful than the one ring is Hollywood's desire to milk a popular franchise dry"
This line perfectly described what hollywood's greed has done to every sequel, prequel and remake it produced in the latest years
They had enough material for one 3-hour extended cut DVD and a 2h30m film. And they spun it out into a trilogy.
This trilogy is the film equivalent of a phrase “I survived another meeting that should have been an e-mail”.
It had its moments, but not enough to justify the effort.
@@elock1277 That, as well as Bilbos dialogues with Gollum and Smaug. That's about as much as you can call "good" in these films.
Some other parts reach "passable", but nothing better than that.
@@elock1277 only they skipped half the fucking verses because they wanted more unnecessary landscape shots
The hobbit was decent enough IMO..it just failed to recapture the LOTR magic..what i dont like is Tauriel and Kilis interracial romance..the excessive use of CGI..the Witch King being buried and not retreated to Mordor..the under utilization of Beor and Radagast..and that horrible depiction of the Battle of Five Armies. And Alfrid like wtf!
The Singing is ok..in the LoTR books they sing A LOT..Songs have power Middlearth..The Eagles 🦅 are okay..they are servants of Manwe Sulimo the Elder King and they are the living proof except from the Istari and Glorfindel that the Valar are not blind to the suffering of Middlearth..and Smaug..why the fuck does everything need to have a complex goal..Smaug is the last of the Uruloki the fire breathing Dragons personally bred my Morgoth himself of course it makes sense that he will be an agent of Chaos and greed..remember Melkor the Morgoth poured his essence to the world and it is weakest in water and strongest in gold so dragons being attracted to gold makes sense..Legolas being there is okay tbh he is afterall the prince of Mirkwood and it does make sense for him to be there..Thranduil being a pragmatic asshole but ultimately reasonable because its a relief from the uber goody good elves and also his realm is the only Elven Kingdom left in ME and one without an Elven ring..Radagast being fleshed out a bit is ok too because he is an interesting character just underutilized both in books and film..and do orc really need a complex motivation? Dude they are literally servants of evil what more motivation can you ask from that?
Not nearly enough frankly. and all the poor connecting and aping of LOTR in the Hobbit made the original moments weaker through inappropriate usage. It made the universe feel like just another "hollyweird" production, specially with the last movie.
@@nillynush4899 yeah agreed its okay but not enough..my eyes hurt withr he cgi tbh..back then cgi was only ever used if all practical effects were exhausted now its just all over the place
I hated how un-dwarfy the dwarves were. Especially the “cute/hot” ones. And the romance with the elf.
WE HATES IT, PRECIOUS
Exactly! Thorin and the loverboy didn't even look like dwarves.
Women dwarves were supposed to look like their male counterparts, full beards and all, as mentioned in the original LOTR trilogy. Why then lover boy dwarf had barley any stubble. Was he an inferior male dwarf? Even the women dwarves have more testosterone then he does.
You could tell they were trying to recapture the young heartthrob Orlando Bloom with them, and tried to make Thorin Aragorn 2.0 on top of that.
@@LewisChristisonVids I mean technically he is the young king driven from his homeland set to reclaim the throne that's the book
it always bothered me, because 3/4s of the dwarves looked like court jester caricatures of dwarves, and the other 4th just looked like rugged adventurer humans.
I actually enjoyed the Hobbit films; but then, I thought that the LOTR films were much too short, and that there were too few of them. I could easily have watched 20~25 hours of LOTR. IMVHO, the Hobbit film was an attempt to give the story a similar gravitas to LOTR, while also trying not to deviate too far from the original. But what the hell do I know? Millions of viewers - millions of opinions. Mine is just another.
I’m so tired of seeing Hollywood make billions of dollars by taking good books, comics, etc and fucking them all up.
When you include Legolas, Galadriel and Radagast in a movie regarding a book that didn’t even include them
*Sad Tom Bombadil noises*
They probably should have thrown Tom in there for the fan service. They milked everything else. 🙄
That birdsheet beard sled scene, I would have walked out but my kids were there.
Lady Goldberry likes this post
Bombadil, the barrow downs, the scouring of the shire.
One of these days we'll have him... One of these days...
"The only thing more powerful than the one ring is Hollywoods desire to milk a franchise dry" still true to this day with Amazon making the rings of power.🤣🤣
According to the creators, the rings of power will be the most expensive TV show ever.
If that's true, I will find it hard to contain my laughter as it tanks worse than Titanic
😆
@@carljohan9265 Tanks worse than Titanic?
@@moonbeeps Yes. Hyped AF, expensive to make, most disappointing debut imaginable.
Just like Titanic.
@@carljohan9265 I agree on The Hobbit but Titanic is literally iconic and a classic. I don't see the relation between the two. I was 9 or 10 when Titanic came out. I'm 33 now and I'm guessing you're older since you're talking about the hype and "disappointing premiere" that there was in 97, but "hyped AF" coming out of a 40 year old is extremely cringy to me. Also, Titanic was the highest-grossing film of all time only being surpassed by a movie made by the same director. So, "disappointing debut imaginable" is far from reality.
Unless you're trolling, it makes absolutely no sense comparing the worldwide success of Titanic to a fantasy trilogy that flopped enormously.
@@carljohan9265 Also, it costed $200 million and gained a worldwide total of $2.195 billion. I'm lost here so you gotta help me where you went wrong.
Everyone now: "Perhaps I judged you too harshly".
I traveled to New Zealand and there are two HUGE things of note there related to LoTR. The Locals bring it up WHENEVER they can, and the sheer amount of effort peter Jackson put to filming it there is INCREDIBLE. (Just look up how Edoras was filmed this shit's wild)
Peter Jackson went to some INSANE levels to make the movie as true to the books as he could.
Recently been to the edoras location and it is simply breathtaking scenery
To be fair, Smaug was a badass, and his scene with Bilbo is great. Too bad he was built up so much only to die 5 mins into the third movie.
I found it jarring to end the 2nd movie at the climax and start the third with it only the end it in the first 5 minutes. One wonders why they made that decision. Did they think people wouldn't come back for the 3rd movie if Smaug was dead?
Honestly my favorite part about the whole trilogy. Cumberbatch killed it and it really did suck that he barely got any screen time
Yeah, Smaug was great.
Reminded me of cliffhanger endings in many of those old TV shows. 90% of time, the resolve in the following episode would be anticlimactic.
Would have made so much more sense to have Smaug killed at the end of movie 2.
Then start 3 with the Lake Town refugees and everyone gathering to claim the gold.
In the book Smaug is the personification of greed. He’s meant to be a warning of what someone becomes when they get their hands on the treasure under the mountain. Tolkien’s biggest influence was Nordic mythology, where dragons hoard gold under a similar context.
This, I think Drinker missed that.
Dragons were also created by Morgoth, so are very much bred for committing war crimes. It’s why he foreshadows wanting to align with Sauron (Morgoth’s servant). Also the film stays very true to the book with the dragon been under the mountain for so long. I don’t think it’s source of Sustenance was ever mentioned.
Yes, and he's also more of a force of nature than a character. The important characters are the dwarves, men, and elves, and Bilbo. The novel doesn't really have a villain in the traditional sense, that's not its point.
Yeah, he isn’t supposed to be an ultra complex character in fact he’s more of an obstacle or plot device than a character.
@@GG-ir1hw It's mentioned in the book. He's like a snake. He eats a literal fuckload of dwarves and then hibernates on his gold 100 years.
Also, smaug is basically a baby. If you want a real kick in the pants, google an estimated size chart of Tolkien dragons
The Hobbit trilogy sure seems a lot better now since the Rings of Power came out. In fact I watched it again (with extended versions) after suffering through the abomination that was the Rings of Power, and while it’s not the original trilogy it’s still a Peter Jackson film that I’ve grown fond of.
That exchange when Gimli and Legolas are on top of the wall STILL gives me chills and makes me tear up a bit. Those movies had such amazing impact on every level, and I knew it would be hard to live up to that for the Hobbit. The farce it turned out to be is still beyond my comprehension. We read that in sixth grade if I remember correctly. It's a children's book, not a labyrinth world for teenagers. Maybe two movies, two hours MAX and it could've been much better...
Best description I’ve heard about this is “The Hobbit feels like having your appetizer after you already had the main course.”
They came in wrong order, that is true.
One plate of prawn cocktail is nice. Three plates of prawn cocktail will make you sick. Three plates of prawn cocktail advertised as three plates of prawn cocktail is fair enough. But three plates of prawn cocktail advertised as a three course meal will make you angry. And sick. And so it’s no wonder that these films make me angry and sick. EDIT - these were BIG plates of prawn cocktail btw.
in this analogy, id rather say that LOTR is like a 3 course meal in a good italian restaurant and the hobbit is the mars bar thats been stuck in your jacket pocket for 3 years. its stale and after you take one bite, immediate regret follows.
Nah. For me the trilogy is a pretty good appetizer to the three course meal of LOTR.
And the Rings of Power was the dessert that looked good on the menu but was substandard when it hit the table...
Not even a mention of the horrible CGI? LoTR looks so much fresher.
I watched Lotr a couple months ago and it ages so well, even by today's standards it's still pretty good imo
The very few & very small CGI flaws can be seen better in the 4k remaster, but like I said, they are few & far between. And are usually things out in the distance or weird shadowing. Still better CG than 95% of modern movies
Really for the early 2000s the CGI was incredible. It was used lightly enough that it wasn’t distracting and the post processing really sells it
well like the original jurassic park lotr used a metric fuckton of practical effect
Video game cutscenes
I just watched m4 book edit of these movies (fan edit). The trilogy cut down to a 4 hour movie and keeping to the book as much as possible. It's really well done. Going to be my go to when I do a Lord of the Rings rewatch, will start with the single Hobbit movie now. It should never have been made into 3 long movies, so much crap is cut with this edit makes it so much better. And I love Bilbo!
Where can I watch such an edit?
I like to think that the hobbit trilogy is how bilbo tells the story to the young Hobbits in the beginning of the fellowship of the ring
My dad used to read The Hobbit to me before bed when I was 3. When the movies where announced to be a trilogy my initial reaction was "You need three movies for that?"
For me even 2 movies is going too far. The animated was only one movir
It was my first fantasy book which my mother read me in childhood. So yes.
It was a clear money grab. They were banking on peoples nostalgia for the original LOTR trilogy. Just like they did with the Star Wars sequels.
@@roryslaine7896 The sequels are worse
@@Wade_Fucking_Wilson That's what I meant lol.
Edit: Wait, did you mean the Star Wars sequels were worse than the Hobbit movies? If so, my bad, because I'd agree with you there. At least the Hobbit movies were loyal to the already established lore and source material. The Star Wars sequels just pissed in the face of the originals.
In Peter Jackson's defense, he didn't want to direct this. He was told that if he didn't they'd get someone else who would. Perhaps he could have told them to stuff it and hire a lesser replacement, but I give him props for believing that he had a stake in the making of Middle Earth and would rather blame fall on him then taking the easy route to have the movies be blamed on someone else.
I think it was also that if he didn't direct it they weren't going to film it in New Zealand. And Jackson felt like that would be a massive insult to the people in New Zealand who helped with the first trilogy, so he took it on kind of as a favor for them.
Actually, someone else WAS set to direct, Guillermo Del Toro (with Peter Jackson producing). Del Toro spent over a year during pre-production on the film and before principal photography was set to begin, he left. I don't know if he quit (as the press releases would say) or if he was fired. After that, there was no time to look for another director so Peter Jackson had to step in and take over.
Yep, and they had the movie rights, and the property was essentially guaranteed to make money, it was really just a question of how big a hit they could produce...
I mean someone was going to make the movie(s), so they might as well have been done by Peter Jackson!
It's even more complex than that though. They had originally hired Guillermo del Toro to direct and he had been working on it in various aspects for years. However he finally bailed when they kept increasing the number of films they wanted from the 300pg book. They then turned to Jackson, begging him to come back and sent a dump truck of $$$ to his house. But they also gave him almost no pre-production time and threw out most of del Toro's work. As such Jackson had little time to plan and with each movie he fell further and further behind. A making of documentary I saw showed that by the third movie he had to completely abandon story boarding and had resorted to taking extra long lunch breaks where he would literally spend time setting up elements and camera shots for the scene that they were shooting that afternoon. It said that at the end he was pulling 18-20hr days just to get the film finished by the studio's intractable timeline.
He used The Hobbit and some of The Silmarillion novels in order to make this trilogy.
I do actually enjoy (re)watching Hobbit a bit more than LotR. Hobbit feels like a lighthearted Adventure Fantasy while LotR feels heavier and maybe historical/"realistic" Fantasy. I don't feel like I'm losing anything from LotR by enjoying the Hobbit and merging the worlds in my head. Btw, I believe only 4 or 5 of the dwarves were actually warriors before taking part in that journey, rest were craftsmen and "neither the strongest nor the brightest" or smth like that. Who knows, honestly, maybe I'm not smart enough to see those important world breaking flaws
Same, The Hobbit is the kind of movie you don't have to take very seriously, you order a burger and simply enjoy the movie.
Hobit was never meant to rival lord of the rings. It was a kids book much less serious that got forced to be a trilogy. It was fun to watch tho in all honesty I only remember the most the Smaug. I fucking love scenes with that dragon. Everything else is okay. It was entertaining to watch. Not even close to LOTR but it was fine. People are just shitting to much on it. Creating another movie series ain't that easy. If it was then LOTR would not have been that well regarded.
To be fair the "singing part" is actually a pretty big part in the book, as I remember it.
It is he clearly didn’t read the book
@@TheVioletBunny i agree. The move is very close to the book for the most part.
@@fritzmeier3573 He's not being realistic at all. There were things that were forcefully added in the movies to make them much longer, it's true, but singing, that's part of the story and for me, it was done right. I enjoyed it.
The singing is fine but it IS used as filler. Like we don't need 3 verses and a montage of potwashing at the outset of a trilogy.
The fact that 13, rough warrior dwarfs all have voices of an angle had me floored
I've never understood why the dwarf leader and the "relationship dwarf" didn't even look like dwarves. They didn't have any dwarf characteristics. They seemed taller and more human-like than the other dwarves. And they seemed to be the only 2 to get any real screen time. Such wasted potential.
From the making-of content:
They originally intended the dwarves to have more facial make-up like Gimli in TLotR but gradually pulled it back on most of the dwarves, with Thorin, Fili, and Kili being done the most. The explanation for Thorin's short beard was that he intentionally kept it short to honor the dwarves who lost their beards from dragon fire in the assault on Erebor by Smaug. In reality, it was probably to bring out the actor's face more. As for Fili and Kili, it was hand waved away as them being young. They also wanted to make Kili more attractive, so as to make the love triangle with Tauriel more believable, which is still pretty stupid in my opinion. Interestingly, Evangeline Lilly specifically requested that her character not be put into a love triangle like this when she accepted the role as Tauriel. For some reason, unknown to me, they reversed that decision and did reshoots to include it. There was clearly outside influence on the films, because if I remember correctly Peter Jackson only wanted to make 2 movies, not 3, and the reasoning for more money and greed is probably true.
Yeah, go figure a Longbeard without a beard. The book talks of how long Thorin's beard was and how proud he was of it.
like they should be casted as human not dwarfs.
@@eamonnholland5343 Odd that she would have predicted the love triangle thing. I wonder what made her make that specific stipulation
@@matthiasthulman4058 She knows Hollywood
*Man, everytime I see that scene of the ring being picked up out of the snow, such a super up close shot of the ring and Frodo in the background, I get a lil choad chub. It’s wild how such a tiny little snippet of a scene can just turn my cinematic mind on so hard. I haven’t seen lord of the rings in maybe a decade and maybe once or twice a month I feel compelled to say aloud “a great eye, lidless, wreathed in flame” rolling the Rs like he does in the film. Cause it’s the most fucking metal shit I’ve ever heard. That’s what Lord Of The Rings is to me. The Hobbit has nothing comparable in my daily life. Denny’s Hobbit Holes!*
Denny's Hobbit Holes..yet another failed movie/restaurant tie-in.
Doctor Watson runs around with sword waving midgets, gets chased by dogs, occasionally helped by a hippy, and gets “gold” addicted Sherlock Holmes killed before creating a five way turf war between rival gangs
get Edgar Wright on this
Now I want to watch this
@@baileylanore it sounds better than it really is
Epic synopsis.
@@baileylanore May I strongly recommend ‘Time Bandits’ in that case. Cameos by Sean Connery, assorted Monty Python actors and Ian Holm
One criticism I disagree with is smaugs motivations not being complex enough, Tolkien did not expand very much on his motivations either, however the implications in the lore are that he had come down from the north after the dwarves had become so rich they gained his attention, and he just came to murder and pillage and steal because that’s basically just how dragons be, Morgoth created dragons in angband to use in the war against elves and they’re supposed to be intelligent but greedy beyond measure, all that being said I don’t think smaug really needed a backstory beyond what he got, and in fact I felt besides the goofy action sequences he was involved in he was handled quite well, his voice and size were very well represented as well as his cunning and discerning mind, that’s just how I felt
In the Hobbit 2 when Thorin meets with Thranduil after he took them prisoner, Thranduil says "I warned your father of what forces his greed will summon" Considering Thranduil fought dragons before he probably knew that too much wealth attracts them
Yeah and at least in the book he left the mountain to hunt.
Also stop blameing me, all i wantet was a talking pet lizzard. Im not responsible for Glaurungs offspring.
I'm guessing that Smaug is supposed to be a comparison to the Dwarfs especially Thorin who are completely focused on the treasure and the Oakenshield rather than their companionship.
I agree, I do feel that calling Smaug overly simplistic is a bit much. It's like saying the Balrog was bland and uninteresting because "the dwarves woke it up one day so it decided to kill all of them for some reason". I do feel that his motivation in destroying Laketown was better explained in the books, with him being frustrated with Bilbo and the Dwarves' repeated escapes and seeking somewhere to direct his anger, he decided that the people of the town were somehow behind the scheme to invade his mountain and take his treasure and that they had defied him as the "true king under the mountain".
Lets not forget this was a childrens book. It wasnt meant as a complex story like LOTR but a book children can relate. He just needed a big baddie that wasnt too frightening.
I can't even dislike the Hobbit now that RoP has graped the world with its existence
You forgot about that shiney stone that the dwarf obsessed over. It was like a poor man's ring.
Boromir's death was one of those movie scenes that breaks my heart to this day. It was just so well done. The man was turned into a pincushion, and still manage to focus the last ounces of his remaining strength to kill a few Uruks, redeem himself in the process, and hold out until Aragorn relieved him of his duty.
I wish my death would be half as honorable as his.
It's best that he died the way he did or he just may have just ended up stealing the ring and taking off.
He got to die with his legacy preserved. Any longer and there likely wouldn't have been much of that man that remained.
Boromir is possibly my favorite character in LOTR because he's relatable and flawed. Out of the fellowship Boromir is the most human, he shows how men can be corrupted by power and turned from their goals. But he also redeems himself, Boromir is able to die a hero by overcoming his desires. Welp that's all I have to say, have a nice day👍
Well framed.
@@chatyxd6078 Since Aragorn's bloodline is mixed with elvish, Boromir is the only actual human in the company,
@@anthony8041 well who would've thought that the most human character is the most human😎
After over 16 minutes of ripping this trilogy to shreds, and rightfully so, the very last thing you said will probably be true; the hobbit will still be better than whatever amazon decides to give us
Yea this is the pathetic truth.
The Amazon series will make The Hobbit trilogy look like a masterpiece to rival LOTR.
So like star wars all over again
@@owyemen9367 Prequel trilogy is way better than Hobbit and original trilogy isn't as good as LOTR.
@@user-xx6vy9ri8p balanced
I know this is leaping into this kinda vid's comment section is like falling into a pit of barbed wire but here I go:
I actually really enjoyed the hobbit.
I thought that it was a wonderful prequel series that moved seamlessly into LOTR.
Maybe that helps that I watched them in order from my dad's movie collection, but I felt really engrossed in the world and got to see more of characters I love while also looking at new ones.
As a fan of dnd I played with more large parties that resemble the diologue in the film so I had a lot of "That's just like ____" moments XD
I understand why people like LOTR more and for emotional moments return ROTK is a tear jerker. But I still think there is some good acting and drama to be found.
The villian more being their obsession after being overwhelmed by the Golden waves of the Mines was interesting and gave some interesting foreshadowing as Bilbo sees how obsessions can lead to a downfall, only for himself to become obsessed with the ring in the future.
And before anyone says anything yes:
My favorite character was Gimli in the original unsurprisingly
I'll take it further I like the hobbit more than lord of the rings the dialogue is better and the characters had better chemistry. I don't understand why it gets the hate 😂
I enjoyed it too, but the critical drinker makes a few valid points about the story trying to be epic and humorous at the same time. Also the fact that it was too long, and the fight scenes didn't feel important at all.
But I really liked the dwarves and the lighthearted scenes, the music and singing added to it too in my opinion
Just curious, did you read the original book before or after watching the movies? Because i did read the book before the movies were even conceived of and what pissed me off the most was actually how the movies unerringly went in the wrong most direction whenever they deviated from the original book. The only deviation from the book that i actually found interesting was that the dwarves at least tried to fight smaug because that didn't happen in the book. But then the fight against smaug was executed so horribly that it killed all the enjoyment i found in the dwarves attempting to fight smaug. Maybe the most infuriating thing about the fight in my opinion was that there were actually other ways the fight could have made much more sense. Like for example have the dwarves find an old "windballista" (something that by the way didn't exist in the book) and some black arrows, have them fix it and then bait smaug into it's shooting range. Sure, the dwarves couldn't actually kill smaug, that needs to be ultimatly achieved by bard, but they at least could have made an attempt that makes even a ounce of sense.
@@tranquilthoughts7233 I admittedly did not read the books (damn bookstore didn't sell that stuff) but the way I see it is that the changes helped from a film standpoint to help us better connect with the people of Rivertown by having Bard do the deed, helping us root for both sides at the final battle.
As far as the movie goes, I felt that the dwarves fight with smaug was still enough to not have them make no contribution and helped present how strong he was.
Valid interpretation for sure tho!
@@tranquilthoughts7233 This is pretty common with film adaptations of books. They try to make bits and pieces of it 'cooler' not factoring in that the reason the book was popular was because it was the sum of all its parts in unison. Sometimes that's not exactly hard to dissect.
As for your first question, I read the lord of the rings trilogy first then attempted the hobbit afterwards. I got bored about halfway through and couldn't take it anymore
I agree with all your points btw, I feel like this movie was very lazy. Even not knowing the ending it felt like so many scenes were an absolute stretch.
The part where the elves jumped over the dwarves to take the brunt of the attack was just so stupid I almost shut it off there
Watching this today.
Rings of Power made The Hobbit look like the book version of the LOTR triology.
I seriously cant believe that Viggo Mortensen is now as old as Ian McKellen was when he was Gandalf. damn, time flies
Aragon was 87 in LOTR.
@@johnfoggjr2458 , i know...but..that has nothing to do w my comment. Im talking about the actors and how time flies. not how old the characters were in the books
@@johnfoggjr2458 yeah and Taft was the fattest president, so what?
@@PowerfulSniff Representation matters! /s
@@PowerfulSniff And little donald was the daftest, so what?
The irony of the Hobbit being a tale to ward against greed then being chopped in three to make more money is hilarious
I thought the original trilogy was already absurd enough. Everybody seemed to like it but my family ain't stupid and after each 3-4 hour long episode of the trilogy everyone was wondering wtf we had been watching.
It failed because some one thought dwarves were comic figures and that they were making a comedy.
The reason this trilogy fails is because they tried to make a book long enough for one movie into a trilogy, while cutting a huge amount of the original book.
That romance side story was so unbelievable and contrived and apparently he sparked her interest by making some vulgar reference to his junk, after that she was hooked 🙄🤢
Well elves in Middlearth are immortal by age, so she can be like 500 years old, by that time youl probably already f*ck anything, so one dwarf is nothing but amusement :D
@@Yolo_Swagins Good point I'll admit LOL XD
You know why that was? Because originally there was no love story, but the studio said "Nah, we need a romance subplot"
@@JMoney_3000 It’s a shit point and highlights the shallow thought process behind it.
@@asmahasmalaria8596 because no movie is ever complete without a love triangle... Something the actress playing Tauriel explicitly told the writers she wanted no part in... Yet err we are, and the most u remarkable romance with no point or payoff in the history of big budget films...
You know you've failed when the CG looks worse than that in the previous trilogy, which was made 10 years prior.
Primarily because:
a) The new movies have higher resolution, so all the sets and CGI that passed mustard last time just look like tacky plastic sets and laughable cartoon characters.
b) LOTR mainly focused on hundreds of extras garbed up in hours worth of makeup and costumes to sell it, mixed in with careful use of CGI in the background and where the extras/set pieces were weakest to create a truly breath taking battle, landscape etc. that seemed like a sea of thousands of Urak-Hai instead of the 200 it actually was.
c) the use of extras in makeup gave the orcs a menace and realism the Hobbit can only dream of. You never felt any uncanny valley effect because they were real faces supposedly tortured for hundreds of years by Sauron, into the horrific beings in front of you, blemishes and all. The hobbit's CGI just looks flat and too clean, like playing a badly designed computer game rather than a high budget film trilogy.
@@greypilgrim228 Watching the behind the scenes of the Hobbit was a calvacade of horrors. 😆 Wanting to push ultra HD film at higher frame rates just crippled the special effects department.
When the Drinker talks, Hollywood flees in fear.
"Go away now!"
Just to clarify here, the hobbit wasn’t exactly just a cash grab, there was websites and petitions and such from fans begging for it to happen
Smaug is pretty book accurate from what I hear ,the whole reason he took the mountain wasn't out of some complex motivation ,he took the mountain for the gold ,thats it really
It’s a dragon thing iirc.
You've got to take into account that originally Peter Jackson wasn't going to be the director. He had just over 4 months to prepare for the hobbit, whereas he had 4 years to prepare for LOTR.
And after watching the new TV series "rings of power" I truely understand how important Peter Jackson was to the LOTR franchise.
Have you watched The behind the scenes, on the extended editions? PJ actively trolls all teh dwarf actors, he was being a straight up beligerant dick and had a demeanor of sum1 who held no reverence whatsoever of the masterpiece which was created just 10yrs prior - by himself!
I honestly think he was addicted to opiates during filming of The Hobbit.
@@d3sc3nding my guy I watched the behind the scenes and the Peter Jackson diaries.
What your describing is called "banter" that's what friends and co workers do they tease they prod it's funny, you must be American since you take offence to that.
Brits, kiwis, SA and Aussies know what banter is.
🥱
I guess I enjoy a little banter moar when the ppl doing their job, do it well
But why did he have only 4 months? Because hollywood creates artificial deadlines and creates urgency where none need exist. Make the movie right. Once production starts - yes, you're on a timeline. But before that, get the story right or don't bother.
Even with their problems, I can't call the Hobbit trilogy bad, especially given what came after. I think two movies would have been more reasonable and got rid of alot of the padding. That said, Jackson tried tying the movies into Lord of the Ring with the White Council side plot, which occurred at the same time based on the LOTR appendices. Ironically Azog took the role of Bolg from the book, with the movie Bolg becoming closer to a generic henchman. The fight scenes were overblown, the romance came out of nowhere, and the characters bordered on caricatures, however, i think all of this was done to add weight to the movie. The book had caricatures too, with only Thorin and Bilbo being fleshed out of the company, and the writers relied on these to stand in for the characters; the romance i think was designed to tug on the heartstringsof the audience, making the deaths of Fili and Kili more poignant instead of the book where they just died; and the fight scense were for kids, which the book was made for. I would blame this movie on the studio's need for more money, but I think Jackson did what he could. This movie was to attract families, the writers and cast did what they could with the paper thin characters. Showing the shole Battle of Five Armies instead of Bilbo being knocked out at the mid point, focusing more on Thorin overcoming this than Beorn dropping in and destroying the armies, the hunt of the dwarfs adding a reason to be pushed ahead were actually decent additions.
LOTR was a trilogy based on a trilogy of books, and crafted with love and care by a director that respected the source material. The Hobbit was a trilogy based on one single book-and a childrens book at that-made by a director that had no real preproduction time to craft 3 quality films. To quote Bilbo, The Hobbit "is stretched thin, like butter spread over too much toast".
It seems to me like the movies added so much padding that the actual point of the book was lost on people.
The point of the book isn't that Bilbo grows, because Bilbo is fine how he is. There's a reason why Gandalf admires and at times seems even envious of Bilbo. Bilbo understands the simple pleasures of life, and he's able to solve complicated and daunting problems with simple solutions. This is all to extrapolate the point that the Hobbits and their simple life is actually ideal compared to the Elves, Dwarves, and Humans, who each get caught up in their greed and racial tension between each other and are ultimately defeated by it. Even Thorin, the dwarf who seemed the wisest and strongest, was killed by his own greed. They couldn't agree on splitting the money evenly among each other, so they took too long arguing and preparing to fight each other that the unnegotiable Goblins and Orcs were able to catch wind of it and show up. The entire final battle of the five armies is MEANT to be interpreted as pointless, unnecessary, and needless bloodshed fueled by greed! So the fact that they dedicated an entire movie to it GREATLY distracts from the point!
The book is a cautionary tale about the pointlessness of warfare fueled by greed, the pointlessness of divisiveness and hostility between races. Through the journey you get to know the dwarves, especially Thorin, and you get to learn of him as a wise leader and powerful warrior. Someone dependable. So when he dies in the final battle, you're left wishing that things could have ended differently.
I love The Hobbit book deeply, and the fact that the three movies don't do this narrative justice, to the point where it completely flies over people's heads, is enragingly tragic. They couldn't do in three movies what a 70s cartoon did in one.
It's also not a book that is carried by it's villains/antagonists. There are antagonists in the story, but they each exist to embody the flaws that the narrative is criticizing. The mountain trolls are defeated by their own greed. Smaug, in his conquests, believing himself to be invincible and beyond consequence, is brought to ruination by his insatiable greed. None of the characters, save for Gandalf and Bilbo, are ultimately any *better* than Smaug and that's the *point*. It's not a villain driven narrative, it's a cautionary tale.
And even to a point, I would argue that Smaug, in the book, is a brilliant villain in that he serves to *represent* the ambition and greed that resides in all men, dwarves, and elves. Everyone wants to be the invincible force that hordes all the gold. They don't just want to simply destroy Smaug, deep inside they all want to BE Smaug. *That* is what makes Smaug compelling in the book.
"I kill where I wish and none dare resist. I laid low the warriors of old and their like is not in the world today." - Smaug
“in LOTR when you fall off of a 500 foot cliff you die”
Aragorn: nah fam
At least they tried to make it slightly realistic.
He fell on top of a giant worg, into a river. They even kind of imply Arwen might have done something to help him.
Then Brego finds him, and they have to trek back to Helm's Deep by themselves (and see the Uruk-hai army, I think that was most of the reason for that series of events).
In The Hobbit trilogy, Aragorn would have just bounced right back up from that fall, "Hey guys, s'up?"
@@StarWarsomania haha true im not gonna question lotr i just thought it was funny
in fairness he landed in water and barely survived... in The Hobbit they're just dusting themselves off and right back to fighting...
Yeah, I lol'ed here too... also, good thing those Númenorians float on their backs or not at all!
Iol I was thinking about that. Falling with armour into water from 120 feet to a cliff. Wake up not even spiting water a couple miles away.
I disagree with his point on Smaug. I thought he was rendered perfectly as described in the book. Dragons are, at their heart, often motivated by an animalistic greed for gold (hence lust for gold is described as "dragon fever"). I also enjoyed how he was somewhat hypnotic with his words and speeches, just like Glaurung against Túrin in the Silmarillion.
I had no issues with how Smaug and the dwarves were portrayed. That was well done. The explanation for changing the black arrow from a regular arrow to a large crossbow bolt made sense. It was all the other excessive padding that ruined the movies - the extended chase scenes, the dwarf-elf romance, the prolonged battle scenes containing impossible stunts and combat action. Cutting these down to manageable lengths would have gone a long way to making these movies a memorable experience, rather than a somewhat tiresome marathon.
I agree, Drinker doesn't get it.
I think so too. Dragons themselves are not humanlike creatures with complex motivations and have to have reasons to destroy an entire town. Their love for Gold drives them and, because of their immense strenght, they see everything that stands against them as just a nuicance.
I also liked how in the book Smaug didnt have scales on his Stomach, but penetrable Skin, that was covered up by the gems he had been lying on for a century. Drives home his Greed and directly gives him a good weakness, normally a dragons share.
Not disagreeing with your point, but that’s mainly western dragons
@@nicholasconder4703 basically comes down to making 2 movies instead of 3. Part 1 should have ended at the barrel sequence and part 2 onwards to the final battle
BAHA the cheeky prediction for the Amazon Tv series at the end of the video… Drinker is never wrong 🤣
"But hey it'll probably be better than the Amazon TV series"... Prescient Lord Drinker, very prescient indeed!
There are fan recuts that makes this a 3h movie. "There And Back Again, A Hobbit's Tale Recut by David Killstein" It's called. It follows the books more closely and removes all filler. Movie gets pretty good then, there is good shit here just the greed stretching it out to 3 movies, and the message of the movie is greed is bad xD.
While i was typing my reply. Lol
Got a link for Killstein's movie?
A polished turd is still shit
Does it remove Legolas, Tauriel and shit?
it would still be shit. You need the scene with the trolls and you can never fix that goofy bullshit
Honest, this movie never felt like a Lords of the Rings movie at all, it felt more like one from Asterix and Obelix instead.
The adventures of Asterix and Obelix would make an awesme tv series if done faithfully.
czcams.com/video/lRgx6gQ-kh0/video.html
@@JasonAdank there are some animated movies out there. But they were released in Europe. Not sure about the USA. I can tell you. I have the DVDs and I am planning to preserve them for my relatives
If you were watching high, sure
@@TSPH1992
you can find most of the animated movies on youtube. some of the 3d animated ones are pretty great as well.
Love the drinker but I disagree with him about smaug. Smaug is a dragon who loves gold. That's really all he cares about. I do like his mannerisms though. He's like an English gentleman who is upset he hasn't had the honor of meeting you but goes on to describe the taste of dwarves and humans.
Drinker doesn't understand the character so therefore its a bad character.
I thought the actor for Bilbo did good, the scared, quiet type is good for portraying a hobbit out of his place and thrust into a larger situation.
He wasn’t Bilbo. Bilbo was whimsical, lovable, with a heart and courage that made his size almost irrelevant. He was not the down-trodden Everyman that this dude plays in every single role he has ever played. Bilbo is special. Played to perfection by Ian Holmes in TLOTR, but much too briefly. He has a wide-eyed, child-like excitement. I think the Hobbit could have been fun with the right Bilbo and the right Thorin, even with all the other nonsense they put in there.
@@circedelune Martin Freeman is not the issue with the Hobbit lmao, to say the he plays an “everyman” in everything he’s ever done shows you really haven’t seen much of his work.
@@tonyfandango8182 to be honest, I haven’t seen that much with him in it, and I’m not really interested. He wasn’t the only problem with The Hobbit, by far. I’m just saying that a better Bilbo could have made these movies at least watchable.
@@circedelune I see what you’re saying, I do however think it wasn’t just a casting issue and Bilbo was written to be skittish, as opposed to adventurous like in the books. I think Martin Freeman could have done a better job with a better script and better direction.
@@tonyfandango8182 it’s possible.
Jackson was thrown into the Hobbit last second and was told to make three films... he had years to prep LOTR, and literally months for The Hobbit (with most of the prep already completed by people who had a very different vision).
Not an easy task.
By "other people" we mean Guillermo del Toro whose vision of a kind of fever dream/Pan's Labyrinth Hobbit I'd have been down with. The studios decided they wanted more Lord of the Rings instead and canned him.
@@flatline42 Yes, they fucking did. Truthfully, if Guillermo had been able to do it, it might've felt closer in tone to the LOTR. But of course the studio did their usual stupidness when they remembered all the dollars they have made on the LOTR. Peter Jackson could only stem the loss of either having someone heading up the series that he DIDN'T want as director, or do the series himself, and suffer sleeplessness again, and give some of what the studio wanted while trying to maintain tone. It was an impossible task for him, when everything he did up to that point was in the line of duty as producer.
Don't use that shitty excuse. You know he didn't have to accept that contract?? Or imagine this, the studio picking one good director and sticking with him and giving him time to do his job??
@@filipgasic2642 still a very valid excuse
I still liked the movies read the books to and to be honest they are good, yes, not LOTR but they are still good. And by todays standrds they are a Master piece compared to rings of power
And yet, compared to Rings of Power, this looks like a masterpiece.
“But hey, at least it will probably be better than the Amazon TV series.” ..prophetic words
In the book, Bilbo does have a proper arc. He starts as somebody happy to sit at home doing nothing, afraid of the larger world, and who lets people walk all over him. But by the end, he's brave, willing to face any odds to save his friends, and who in the end is willing to stand firm againt anything - even his friends' hatred in order to save them. After the events of The Hobbit, he goes on to become an adventurer.
And the book does actually do an ok job of giving all the Dwarves some development.
But this should never have been three films, everything they added was garbage.
In the movies, too, you can see hints of what could be PTSD in Bilbo at the end, or at least the heavy toll on him of losing some of his friends. In full disagreement with Drinker on this one, I think Martin Freeman did an awesome job as Bilbo.
Well, he isn't really a combat character anyway. More a sort of diplomat who gets bonked on the head when the fighting starts. Very hard to shoot this movie according to the book just because of that. Super exciting fight scene incoming, PoV character gets clubbed and wakes up afterwards so we can't show you any of it!
Anyway, not everything added was garbage. The Council and the stuff with Sauron happened at this time and is why Gandalf left the dwarves. It just wasn't in the Hobbit, but in LotR appendices. And since Radagast was the person in Middle Earth who lived closest to Dol Guldur it made sense that he went to warn Gandalf. It's not all wonderfully done, but let's not pretend it wasn't give some thought or that it was all trash either.
Imagine if Del Torro wasnt rob of directing the movie.
The other thing was that Peter Jackson clearly missed the change in tone. The Hobbit was always written in the style of a children's story (as the Drinker said), not the more serious, darker tone of The Lord of the Rings. The story would've been better served in two parts (a duology rather than a trilogy).
I think the films actually handled Bilbo's arc reasonably well. But the whole thing could have been done in single 4 hour extended cut film or 2 films. Stretching it into 3 ruined it with entirely too much fanfiction filler.
Legolas and Gilmli's friendship is one of the most pure examples of friendship in all of fiction.
In the books they're nice. I don't care so much for them in the movies, but they're alright. Everyone else in the fellowship is more accurately and better represented than them in the adaptation, in my opinion.
@@WR3ND It's still kind of cool of their friendship if you think about it. Their races, supposedly from the movies, are in hostile with one another and going through everything they became friends in the end. It's beautiful tbh
It also sends a powerful message of over coming racism without forcing wokism. Has the right amount of seriousness, humor, and camaraderie
If this is a failure, what can we say about rings of power . . .
I thought Hobbit was a pile of hot sh!t.
Then Rings Of Power *_came_* on us.
Now I think it was gold all along.
Warner Bros: make this movie
Peter Jackson: ok I'll need about 3 years to get all the sets and costumes ready for shooting and it would make more sense as 2 films so it isn't bloated
Warner Bros: you've got 3 months it's a trilogy and you start now, go
Well Guillermo del Toro was going to direct it and he already has about a year's worth of prep... then the execs threw out those prep and got Peter Jackson to direct.
To be fair it started out as a duology and was turned into a trilogy after the first part was released
czcams.com/video/lRgx6gQ-kh0/video.html
@@Lakhshamana that really hurts my heart. I had no clue Guillermo was supposed to direct... would’ve been so good.
Yeah the rapid changes in leadership and utter lack of planning made everything worse. Its similar to the new star wars movies having no script even when shooting. I dont know how good it could have been but this was built to fail.