The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies (2014)
07-28-14 | 05:02 PM
#226
DVD Talk Hall of Fame
Given Christopher Tolkien's feelings about it, I'm sure hell will freeze over first. At the very least, I wish they'd has those bits to pad out this trilogy so at least more of it would've been out of Tolkien. I still would've like it if it was one movie based on the book, but at least then the padding would've been a bit more justified.
07-28-14 | 05:31 PM
#227
DVD Talk Legend
Re: The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies (2014)
It looks good and might very well be the best of the three. Problem is I just want it over with at this point. It's not that I don't enjoy them, it's just that unlike the LOTR films, which do a pretty good job of standing on their own as individual movies, these seem to require one another to feel complete.
This might sound weird, but the first Hobbit actually gets better with repeat viewings while the second one doesn't seem to do such. I like the second one fine, but damn do I hate that love story they injected! Seeing Tauriel/Evengeline Lily act like she's about to have the big "O" whenever Kili speaks is cringe worthy.
This might sound weird, but the first Hobbit actually gets better with repeat viewings while the second one doesn't seem to do such. I like the second one fine, but damn do I hate that love story they injected! Seeing Tauriel/Evengeline Lily act like she's about to have the big "O" whenever Kili speaks is cringe worthy.
07-28-14 | 05:38 PM
#228
DVD Talk Hero
Re: The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies (2014)
Seeing Tauriel/Evengeline Lily act like she's about to have the big "O" whenever Kili speaks is cringe worthy.
07-28-14 | 08:06 PM
#229
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Re: The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies (2014)
Anyone know where Aragon could've possibly be put in this Hobbit trilogy if Viggo Mortensen hadn't turned it down?
07-28-14 | 08:22 PM
#230
DVD Talk Hero
Re: The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies (2014)
Aragorn would have only been about thirty in The Hobbit, so Mortensen would have been too old to reprise the role; I'd think they would have to recast with someone in his teens or twenties if they were going to include Aragorn. Numenoreans age more slowly than regular humans, but not that slowly, and certainly not backwards.
07-28-14 | 09:56 PM
#231
DVD Talk Hall of Fame
If it'd just be a cameo, they could slap some makeup on him to make him look younger and no one would be any the wiser. He's pretty much the last one who hasn't had a cameo at this point, seeing somebody else would feel wrong 
.
.
07-28-14 | 10:13 PM
#232
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Re: The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies (2014)
With makeup the filmmakers have been able to include Gandalf, Legolas, Galadriel, and even Saruman, despite all of those actors being ten years older. There is no reason Aragorn couldn't have appeared in some small role.
Worst case, they could have "digitally de-aged" him the way they did Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian in one of the X-Men movies.
07-28-14 | 10:38 PM
#233
DVD Talk Hero
Re: The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies (2014)
I wasn't aware that Mortensen turned down the cameo. I was expecting him to show up in this one.
07-28-14 | 10:49 PM
#234
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Re: The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies (2014)
I don't think Peter Jackson would even allow Viggo on set after he ripped the LOTR and Hobbit movies a new asshole in a recent interview.
07-28-14 | 11:13 PM
#235
DVD Talk Hall of Fame
07-28-14 | 11:17 PM
#236
DVD Talk Hero
Re: The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies (2014)
Ah, they had recently asked him what he thought about The Hobbit films and he said that Jackson jumped the shark years ago with his self-indulgent streak.
07-29-14 | 09:50 AM
#238
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From: Formerly known as "12thmonkey"/Frankfort, IL
Re: The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies (2014)
For all their sprawling excess (on many levels) I will genuinely be a bit sad not having a new Peter Jackson/Middle Earth movie to look forward to...
07-29-14 | 09:54 AM
#239
DVD Talk Hero
07-29-14 | 10:35 AM
#240
DVD Talk Hero
Re: The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies (2014)
Here's the portion of the interview where he talks about Jackson and the LOTR/Hobbit movies:
He also talks about how he and Cronenberg both hated the script for A History of Violence (and how Viggo originally passed on the movie). Apparently Cronenberg whittled down the 120 page script to 72 pages before shooting began (Mortensen believes Cronenberg should have received a screenwriting credit due to all the changes he made).
Aragorn was a life-changing role for him – the one that made him world-famous, and a bankable star. But he was cast very late, replacing original choice Stuart Townsend, who was fired by an unsatisfied Peter Jackson a day before filming started. Mortensen’s 26-year-old son Henry – from his ex-wife, the American punk rock singer Exene Cervenka – who was a Tolkien fan, egged him on to do it, and even took a couple of uncredited roles on the shoot, turning up as an Orc in The Return of the King. But it took some persuasion. Now, 14 years on, Mortensen has enough distance from the series to admit that the process of making it was more or less complete chaos.
“Anybody who says they knew it was going to be the success it was, I don’t think it’s really true,” he says. “They didn’t have an inkling until they showed 20 minutes in Cannes, in May of 2001. They were in a lot of trouble, and Peter had spent a lot. Officially, he could say that he was finished in December 2000 – he’d shot all three films in the trilogy – but really the second and third ones were a mess. It was very sloppy – it just wasn’t done at all. It needed massive reshoots, which we did, year after year. But he would have never been given the extra money to do those if the first one hadn’t been a huge success. The second and third ones would have been straight to video.”
Mortensen thinks – rightly – that The Fellowship of the Ring turned out the best of the three, perhaps largely because it was shot in one go. “It was very confusing, we were going at such a pace, and they had so many units shooting, it was really insane. But it’s true that the first script was better organised,” he says. “Also, Peter was always a geek in terms of technology but, once he had the means to do it, and the evolution of the technology really took off, he never looked back. In the first movie, yes, there’s Rivendell, and Mordor, but there’s sort of an organic quality to it, actors acting with each other, and real landscapes; it’s grittier. The second movie already started ballooning, for my taste, and then by the third one, there were a lot of special effects. It was grandiose, and all that, but whatever was subtle, in the first movie, gradually got lost in the second and third. Now with The Hobbit, one and two, it’s like that to the power of 10.
“I guess Peter became like Ridley Scott – this one-man industry now, with all these people depending on him,” Mortensen adds. “But you can make a choice, I think. I asked Ridley when I worked with him (on 1997’s GI Jane), 'Why don’t you do another film like The Duellists [Scott’s 1977 debut, from a Joseph Conrad short story]?’ And Peter, I was sure he would do another intimately scaled film like Heavenly Creatures, maybe with this project about New Zealanders in the First World War he wanted to make. But then he did King Kong. And then he did The Lovely Bones – and I thought that would be his smaller movie. But the problem is, he did it on a $90 million budget. That should have been a $15 million movie. The special effects thing, the genie, was out of the bottle, and it has him. And he’s happy, I think…”
“Anybody who says they knew it was going to be the success it was, I don’t think it’s really true,” he says. “They didn’t have an inkling until they showed 20 minutes in Cannes, in May of 2001. They were in a lot of trouble, and Peter had spent a lot. Officially, he could say that he was finished in December 2000 – he’d shot all three films in the trilogy – but really the second and third ones were a mess. It was very sloppy – it just wasn’t done at all. It needed massive reshoots, which we did, year after year. But he would have never been given the extra money to do those if the first one hadn’t been a huge success. The second and third ones would have been straight to video.”
Mortensen thinks – rightly – that The Fellowship of the Ring turned out the best of the three, perhaps largely because it was shot in one go. “It was very confusing, we were going at such a pace, and they had so many units shooting, it was really insane. But it’s true that the first script was better organised,” he says. “Also, Peter was always a geek in terms of technology but, once he had the means to do it, and the evolution of the technology really took off, he never looked back. In the first movie, yes, there’s Rivendell, and Mordor, but there’s sort of an organic quality to it, actors acting with each other, and real landscapes; it’s grittier. The second movie already started ballooning, for my taste, and then by the third one, there were a lot of special effects. It was grandiose, and all that, but whatever was subtle, in the first movie, gradually got lost in the second and third. Now with The Hobbit, one and two, it’s like that to the power of 10.
“I guess Peter became like Ridley Scott – this one-man industry now, with all these people depending on him,” Mortensen adds. “But you can make a choice, I think. I asked Ridley when I worked with him (on 1997’s GI Jane), 'Why don’t you do another film like The Duellists [Scott’s 1977 debut, from a Joseph Conrad short story]?’ And Peter, I was sure he would do another intimately scaled film like Heavenly Creatures, maybe with this project about New Zealanders in the First World War he wanted to make. But then he did King Kong. And then he did The Lovely Bones – and I thought that would be his smaller movie. But the problem is, he did it on a $90 million budget. That should have been a $15 million movie. The special effects thing, the genie, was out of the bottle, and it has him. And he’s happy, I think…”
07-29-14 | 10:39 AM
#241
DVD Talk Hero
Re: The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies (2014)
That's the interview!
07-29-14 | 01:14 PM
#242
Re: The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies (2014)
Here's the portion of the interview where he talks about Jackson and the LOTR/Hobbit movies:
Aragorn was a life-changing role for him – the one that made him world-famous, and a bankable star. But he was cast very late, replacing original choice Stuart Townsend, who was fired by an unsatisfied Peter Jackson a day before filming started. Mortensen’s 26-year-old son Henry – from his ex-wife, the American punk rock singer Exene Cervenka – who was a Tolkien fan, egged him on to do it, and even took a couple of uncredited roles on the shoot, turning up as an Orc in The Return of the King. But it took some persuasion. Now, 14 years on, Mortensen has enough distance from the series to admit that the process of making it was more or less complete chaos.
“Anybody who says they knew it was going to be the success it was, I don’t think it’s really true,” he says. “They didn’t have an inkling until they showed 20 minutes in Cannes, in May of 2001. They were in a lot of trouble, and Peter had spent a lot. Officially, he could say that he was finished in December 2000 – he’d shot all three films in the trilogy – but really the second and third ones were a mess. It was very sloppy – it just wasn’t done at all. It needed massive reshoots, which we did, year after year. But he would have never been given the extra money to do those if the first one hadn’t been a huge success. The second and third ones would have been straight to video.”
Mortensen thinks – rightly – that The Fellowship of the Ring turned out the best of the three, perhaps largely because it was shot in one go. “It was very confusing, we were going at such a pace, and they had so many units shooting, it was really insane. But it’s true that the first script was better organised,” he says. “Also, Peter was always a geek in terms of technology but, once he had the means to do it, and the evolution of the technology really took off, he never looked back. In the first movie, yes, there’s Rivendell, and Mordor, but there’s sort of an organic quality to it, actors acting with each other, and real landscapes; it’s grittier. The second movie already started ballooning, for my taste, and then by the third one, there were a lot of special effects. It was grandiose, and all that, but whatever was subtle, in the first movie, gradually got lost in the second and third. Now with The Hobbit, one and two, it’s like that to the power of 10.
“I guess Peter became like Ridley Scott – this one-man industry now, with all these people depending on him,” Mortensen adds. “But you can make a choice, I think. I asked Ridley when I worked with him (on 1997’s GI Jane), 'Why don’t you do another film like The Duellists [Scott’s 1977 debut, from a Joseph Conrad short story]?’ And Peter, I was sure he would do another intimately scaled film like Heavenly Creatures, maybe with this project about New Zealanders in the First World War he wanted to make. But then he did King Kong. And then he did The Lovely Bones – and I thought that would be his smaller movie. But the problem is, he did it on a $90 million budget. That should have been a $15 million movie. The special effects thing, the genie, was out of the bottle, and it has him. And he’s happy, I think…”
Aragorn was a life-changing role for him – the one that made him world-famous, and a bankable star. But he was cast very late, replacing original choice Stuart Townsend, who was fired by an unsatisfied Peter Jackson a day before filming started. Mortensen’s 26-year-old son Henry – from his ex-wife, the American punk rock singer Exene Cervenka – who was a Tolkien fan, egged him on to do it, and even took a couple of uncredited roles on the shoot, turning up as an Orc in The Return of the King. But it took some persuasion. Now, 14 years on, Mortensen has enough distance from the series to admit that the process of making it was more or less complete chaos.
“Anybody who says they knew it was going to be the success it was, I don’t think it’s really true,” he says. “They didn’t have an inkling until they showed 20 minutes in Cannes, in May of 2001. They were in a lot of trouble, and Peter had spent a lot. Officially, he could say that he was finished in December 2000 – he’d shot all three films in the trilogy – but really the second and third ones were a mess. It was very sloppy – it just wasn’t done at all. It needed massive reshoots, which we did, year after year. But he would have never been given the extra money to do those if the first one hadn’t been a huge success. The second and third ones would have been straight to video.”
Mortensen thinks – rightly – that The Fellowship of the Ring turned out the best of the three, perhaps largely because it was shot in one go. “It was very confusing, we were going at such a pace, and they had so many units shooting, it was really insane. But it’s true that the first script was better organised,” he says. “Also, Peter was always a geek in terms of technology but, once he had the means to do it, and the evolution of the technology really took off, he never looked back. In the first movie, yes, there’s Rivendell, and Mordor, but there’s sort of an organic quality to it, actors acting with each other, and real landscapes; it’s grittier. The second movie already started ballooning, for my taste, and then by the third one, there were a lot of special effects. It was grandiose, and all that, but whatever was subtle, in the first movie, gradually got lost in the second and third. Now with The Hobbit, one and two, it’s like that to the power of 10.
“I guess Peter became like Ridley Scott – this one-man industry now, with all these people depending on him,” Mortensen adds. “But you can make a choice, I think. I asked Ridley when I worked with him (on 1997’s GI Jane), 'Why don’t you do another film like The Duellists [Scott’s 1977 debut, from a Joseph Conrad short story]?’ And Peter, I was sure he would do another intimately scaled film like Heavenly Creatures, maybe with this project about New Zealanders in the First World War he wanted to make. But then he did King Kong. And then he did The Lovely Bones – and I thought that would be his smaller movie. But the problem is, he did it on a $90 million budget. That should have been a $15 million movie. The special effects thing, the genie, was out of the bottle, and it has him. And he’s happy, I think…”
07-29-14 | 04:28 PM
#243
DVD Talk Legend
07-29-14 | 09:00 PM
#244
DVD Talk Legend
Re: The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies (2014)
While he isn't exactly ripping them, he does make a good point about how everything seemed to get more glitzy after FOTR. The first one seems to have this relentless desire to be a good movie and doesn't do anything typical of a major blockbuster. The other two were obviously finished with the knowledge they would be hits , and thus PJ didn't really do as much to keep the LOTR fans happy as he did the first time and tried to reach a larger audience.
07-29-14 | 09:20 PM
#245
DVD Talk Legend
Re: The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies (2014)
Vigo's pretty spot on in his assessment... I don't think it's overly negative...just describing the differences between his and PJ's preferences in style. The Hobbit films are a clear step down, but I still enjoy them for sure.
07-29-14 | 09:26 PM
#246
DVD Talk Hero
07-29-14 | 10:19 PM
#247
DVD Talk Hall of Fame
A perfectly phrased and polite and legitimate criticism which many people agree with, Mortenson seems classy and wasn't disrespectful or anything, simply honest. Hopefully Jackson isn't thin-skinned enough to hold a grudge over that 
.
.
09-15-14 | 03:28 PM
#248
Re: The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies (2014)
New poster banner in high res: http://i2.cdnds.net/14/38/movies-the...ry-artwork.jpg
09-15-14 | 04:52 PM
#249
DVD Talk Hall of Fame
Re: The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies (2014)
New poster banner in high res: http://i2.cdnds.net/14/38/movies-the...ry-artwork.jpg
09-16-14 | 07:56 PM
#250
DVD Talk Legend
Re: The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies (2014)
This series looks like it will work better as a whole, whereas LOTR had strong individual installments. Then again, Hobbit was originally one installment as a book, so maybe that's the reason.