Whew! Thank god that's settled.

Have decided not to hit the midnight showing. Getting home all hyped up at 3am doesn't sound appealing.

The reviews coming in are not so hot. Read two rating it at 2.5 stars. Raises a lot of my fears. Too long for a relatively basic story.

I will likely skip this. Maybe pick up he Bluray.

So the movie isn't good enough to see it as the director intended yet you'll pay money to own it.

With all due respect to Jackson, who is a fine filmmaker, he is the king of bloat. He turned King Kong into a 3 hour plus film. I was amazed that he took the original film, and turned it into a hideously bloated monstrosity. Every movie he makes is bloated. There is absolutely no reason why this story needed to be three movies. It could be told with one three hour movie. This is nothing more than a money grab by the studio.

Jackson just doesn't know how to reign himself in. His films drone on and on and on, and you often wonder when is he going to stop. The multiple faux endings in ROTK were silly. At least LOTR needed three films. But a Hobbit film that's starts off with a 3 hour part 1, and will probably have two more 3 hour films is ridiculous.

The bloat criticism is right on the money. This story is much simpler and doesn't need it. Jackson has a right to make whatever he wants. People also have a right to criticize said work.

That always happens over time with things that are popular.

So, this isn't opening Thurs night? Heading to a company showing at 6...2D, looking forward to it!

Watching it Saturday IMAX 3D hfr

He didn't used to be a bloated filmmaker. His early films were lean and mean. It wasn't until LOTR that he expanded his runtimes. And I'll say that LOTR deserved it. It was an epic tale and as we saw from the Bakshi attempts, truncating it into a reader's digest version would have sucked. Also, in comparison to the books, he made a lot of judicious edits (just imagine how interminable Fellowship would have been with Tom Bombadil).

But when it came to King Kong and now this, I'm with you. He's lost the ability to tell stories economically. There is NO way that The Hobbit, a kid's book, needs to be a trio of three hour movies. That's the same runtime as the theatrical cuts of the LOTR trilogy, and those books are way longer and more complex than The Hobbit.

Will I still see the movies? Of course. Will I enjoy them? Most likely. But just from the trailer you can see scenes of the dwarves singing and such. Cut that shit out. It's fine for a book, but it'll bring the movie to a complete halt. I thought splitting The Hobbit in two was a bit excessive, but splitting it in three is complete overkill.

Well, my son who is 8, hadn't seen any of the LOTR movies and we did a marathon of the extended cuts over the last week. What's funny is he got interested in seeing them because of the Lego tie-ins to LOTR (the Xbox game and the playsets).

He loved the films and watching them with him helped me turn my critical eye away and enjoy them even more than the first time I saw them. He is so ready that he wants to go see The Hobbit as soon as my wife and I get off work on Friday evening (though we will wait until the first showing on Sunday as I hate crowds at movies. It is enough for me to see it the first weekend which I try to stay away from for almost every film.).

The big question is how to see it which I [was discussing with my wife this morning. I am not a 3D fan and the fake IMAX we have nearby looks nice but they crank the sound up so loud that your eyes and ringing and bleeding by the end of every movie. 3D movies always look less colorful to me and I am ALWAYS disappointed with the actual 3D (the only exception being the recent Tron flick). So he may take some shit at school from friends but we will probably go see it in the regular 2D.

As far as the book being 3 bloated movies...I don't give a shit as long as they are enjoyable. I never got tired of watching the extended versions of LOTR the other day (though Two Towers does drag a little more than I remembered it doing). I haven't read any of the books (though I tried to read The Hobbit a few years ago, got bored and never finished it) so I don't have an allegiance to the way the story is told.

As long as my kid enjoys, I am happy. Wait...I take that back. He really liked Wreck-It Ralph the other day and I feel asleep in it. The kid doesn't have the best taste right now. Here's hoping for a winner.

It'll take you a few moments to get used to HFR, but my god, is it really something amazing to see. The Hobbit: Brought to you by the New Zealand tourism board.

As many folks complain about the padding out of the story, I actually loved how they fleshed out and incorporated the appendices material in there. I plan on hitting it up again once more on Friday at the very least. Visually it's stunning and I didn't feel like it was dragging at all.

I mean, shit. 2 hours and 40 minutes in and we're only on chapter - while I can see people complaining about turning this book into three films, i'm enjoying every minute of it.

This film shows you a far bigger picture of middle-earth in one film than the entirety of LOTR.

utterly breathtaking.

^ Where has this guy been? '

Glad to see a positive review about the HFR for once.


FWIW, if you type "Bloated Movie" into google, the first thing that comes up is a review of The Hobbit.

Maybe all of this will convince the filmmakers and studio to eliminate the third movie idea, it's not too late. I know this one will be a hit, but I want to have some quality movies out of all this, and if they stick with this format, the sequels might not be hits.

There is absolutely no chance they eliminate the third movie IMO. Even with diminishing returns these films will certainly be profitable given worldwide ticket sales. All we can hope for really is a cut on home video that actually reduces the runtime.

Did they change the title of the third movie now?

Nope. It will actually be increased by at least 25 minutes.

I know that. What I meant was maybe they'd try it as some kind of extra feature - like an abridged version down the line. I'm sure they'll be looking for ways to sell the movie as many times as possible.

The costs of going to the movies these days is fucking outrageous. $20 for a BluRay is a bargain in comparison. I'll wait to see what other reviews say.

Making shorter versions of a film typically isn't a way to sell a movie on home video.

That said, there will likely be fan edits that will attempt to trim this trilogy down to 2 films, or possibly even just 1 film.

Bolding the pertinent part...

You know, like the original trilogy cuts?

I'm fine with the epicness of these films. Pacing be damned, I know what I'm getting into (and when to go get a drink or snack).

The Hobbit: Just THE HOBBIT Edition

Which original trilogy are you referring to? Star Wars or LOTR? In either case, the original cuts were what was originally screened theatrically. I've never heard of a studio pushing for cuts shorter than the theatrical for a home video release, even as a special feature.

The only shorter-than-theatrical cut I can think of is for Blood Simple, and that was done at the behest of the directors.

The Hobbit has already been confirmed as having an extended edition of the first film planned for home video. That's the direction the studio is going to go for home video releases: longer, not shorter.

First, there's only one original trilogy. And in the case of the LE DVD editions of that trilogy, the original cuts were used as a selling point.

Second, as I've said before, I am aware of the plans for the extended edition. I don't believe I at any point stated a shorter version should be a replacement for the extended edition they've already planned.

This could present a unique situation for a shorter cut if there is negative backlash for the length. Note I said *could*. I don't think it will happen, but it would be an interesting feature to add since it could probably be done fairly easily through branching.

The Hobbit: Condensed Version

I think we saw that one already!