Boba Fett

The good and the bad of The Hobbit.

GOOD: Ian McKellan and Martin Freeman. Balin and Bofur seizing the spotlight and becoming endearing or at least compelling characters. Howard Shore's score. The Stone Trolls. The "Riddles in the Dark" sequence...in fact the entire Goblin mountain sequence; the design/influence of del Toro was quite evident. The Stone Giants sequence; it made me laugh, possibly unintentionally but was quite thrilling. Well, to be quite honest everything from Rivendell on was firing on all cylinders.

BAD: A lot of wasted time in the first act as well as quite a bit in the second act. Bloated prologue; didn't need to see Frodo at all. Radagast, who quite frankly brings the whole movie to a screeching halt. At most all we needed was a scene of him passing on the Morgul blade; everything else was juvenile slapstick or pointless time padding. The dinner sequence could have been cut in half and not a single bit of exposition lost. Thorin; I know what eventually happens, but a miserably unlikable character. One too many low-brow/pandering moments of comedy.

All done and said, the movie's a strong "B" in my book. Not sure I could sit through it again to see HFR for myself, but I'll most assuredly pick it up on Blu.

Supermallet

I'll agree about Freeman. He totally sold it as Bilbo.

I think there's something off about the tone of the film. It's too light to be as weighty as LOTR, but too dark to be as jolly as it should be.

Why So Blu?

The Mountain Rock Giants is all del Toro right there. It was pretty random, too.

It'll get even darker in the second installment for sure.

Artman

Copied from the previous topic:
Definitely a step down, but a solid B I thought. I didn't mind any of the narrative decisions - the first 20min was exactly what I hoped it would be - same title style, prologue, etc. - awesome stuff. It's unfortunate that Ian Holm looks so different (understandably) from 11+ yrs ago... I would've cut it for that reason alone, but I still enjoyed the opening.

I wasn't expecting the additional orc hunt storyline....it works narratively, I just wish they would've used more real actors vs CG.

Thorin exceeded my expectations - he's really the Aragorn of this story....great stuff from him.

Unfortunately what really undermines a lot of the scenes is the forced humor and elaborate shots that are just taken well past where they should've been. This worried me seeing the last production video which showed this 'process'. This is definitely LOTR 'light', it isn't necessarily bad.... but we won't be getting another LOTR trilogy I'm afraid. Adjust expectations accordingly.

Got tired of the sunrise/sunset lighting every other scene.... I wish he'd keep some of the lighting more neutral.(look at the Galadriel shot in the first trailer vs what they went with in the final film) It's a very heavily filtered film....maybe that was to benefit the aging actors, I don't know. That's partially why Fellowship will remain the best for me, it struck the perfect balance between the rough, earthy look with the more stylized type of scenes every now and then.

Anubis2005X

Saw it in 48fps, and while I found the style interesting, I'm not planning on seeing movies in this format again. I feel like some of the magic is lost when the look of film is taken away. Often times it looked like a very high budget stage production. Which is fine for some people, but not my thing...

GatorDeb

Is IMAX 3D HFR worth $9 over regular 3D?

Solid Snake

Alright. This wasn't on film though was it? I thought this was all a digitally composed film? That's how the 3D works right? When it's filmed in such a manner?

Anubis2005X

Yeah, I believe you're right. Didn't they use those RED cameras or something like that? I'm not hating on the tech as it was an interesting experience. I'd just rather stick with 24fps in the future.

dhmac

$9 more! Ouch! Where are they charging that? And is it "true" IMAX or is it really just lie-MAX?

(BTW, here in the Atlanta area, tickets for the only theater with "true" IMAX 3D at 24fps actually cost more than the tickets for HFR 3D showings)

GatorDeb

IMAX 3D, though. Regular IMAX is $6.50 more. And it's the HFR one, the one for $9 extra.

GoldenJCJ

I thought the HFR 3D looked very good. HD 3D is about as well as I can describe it. The picture was incredibly smooth and detailed. I personally only noticed minimal amoints of blurring which I chalked up more to the CGI than the HFR. I could see every 3D blade of grass in some of the field scenes. Absolutely beautiful!

I did notice a lot of the TV feel that has been previously mentioned. The shire/ Bilbo's house scenes made me feel like I was watching Masterpiece Theater on PBS. Once they left the shire, however, it wasn't quite so apparent.

As for the movie itself, I enjoyed it very much. I kept my expectations in check going in so I wasn't completely disappointed nor was I blown away. I'm far from a Tolkien fanatic, I read the Hobbit when I was a kid so I only remembered a few things here and there. I'm not sure what was added but the film could have been 15 minutes shorter.

The Frodo stuff seemed unnecessary and I had a little bit of trouble trying to place where exactly in the timeline those opening scenes were supposed to be (from the best I can figure they were supposed to take place just before Fellowship started).

I was expecting this to be a lot lighter in tone than the LOTR trilogy and I was pleasantly surprised to see that with a few lighter moments it was just about as dark as Fellowship. Certainly lighter than TTT or Return of the King, however.

And while I'm guessing it's the fault of the source material rather than Jackson I felt a bit of deja vu when the giant birds showed up to save the day again. Seemed like a cop out in the LOTR trilogy and even moreso in this considering we've already seen it before.

Supermallet

If it's HFR it's going to be digital IMAX. This is the first instance where I would not recommend it seeing in 70mm IMAX, because it looks way better in HFR.

lopper

Saw this yesterday. While the HFR had an image clarity and quality I've never seen in a theater, it was remarkably distracting and I'm very disappointed I saw it in that format first. It's been said before and I can't help but agree, but it really made the movie look somehow cheaper, smaller. Like a tv show or even a stage play.

Solid Snake

Question: How do you feel about 3D? Not it's quality but the way it looks to you. Post conversion and those films filmed in 3D.

lopper

I dislike 3D quite a bit, but I thought the 3D on the Hobbit actually wasn't bad. The picture wasn't too dark and I didn't leave the theater with a headache.

The 3D wasn't the problem, it was the crispness of the picture. I never thought that would be a issue for me but it was really jarring. Not something that I ever got used to. And it made the occasionally (and surprisingly) shitty CGI very noticeable.

dex14

This was something I was wondering too.

Why So Blu?

That's exactly right. Frodo even mentions that he's going to wait for Gandalf outside.

PJ is segueing The Hobbit right LOTR.

dhmac

It just blows my mind that the exact same theater here is charging $18 to see the film in "true" IMAX 3D (projected at 24fps) but $15.50 to see it in 48fps HFR 3D in a different auditorium.

(I think it just shows how most people know what IMAX is, but not what HFR is.)

Supermallet

Also, 70mm IMAX 3D is expensive to run. We use two prints and two lamps.

Neil M.

I enjoyed the movie a lot. It's not LOTR but I never expected it to be. The HFR looked really good and the Dolby Atmos really added to a lot of scenes. I was really worried that PJ was going to go all Lucas on us but he managed to at least capture the magic of the first trilogy. I agree with some that the film could be trimmed a bit but I'm sort of glad he didn't.

I went in thinking that 3 films would be too much, but I'm willing to give PJ the benefit of the doubt after seeing this.

Shannon Nutt

I thought it was a good movie. I actually ENJOYED the pre-journey stuff a lot more than the second half of the film, which just seemed to jump from action scene (trolls) to action scene (orcs) to action scene (rock giants) to action scene (goblins) to action scene (orcs, part deux!). I actually got restless with those bits more than the early stuff introducing the dwarves and the big dinner party at Bilbo's - which I thought was the best part of the movie.

I saw it it IMAX 3D 24fps, and think the 3D was probably unnecessary - I think the movie probably plays just as well, if not better, in standard 2D 24fps. I don't know if I'll see the 48fps version or not before it's out of theaters, but I don't feel like I "missed" anything by seeing it 24fps. In fact, it may be the better way to see it, as the sets, makeup and effects all looked great to me (people who see it in 48fps have said otherwise).

johnnysd

I thought the HFR looked awesome and did not miss hte "film: quality at all. It just looks much more real, but we are so used to film that some react negatively towards it. I would rather see it in non-3D HFR which I think might be special.

I differ some previous reviewers as I looked a lot of the earlier stuff and the LOTR foreshadowing. The second hand sort of missed for me, because while cool, it seemed that it took the danger out of Middle Earth. Yes I know they were children's books but tbh I think I would rather have seen something that used the Hobbit as a loose structure but was closer in tone to LOTR, I will see it again (in HFR again) to get a better feel.

I hated the huge falls they took without getting hurt. They didnt belong in this movie, The magic of the LOTR movies were that they were magical fantasy but grounded in a real and truly dangerous world.

johnnysd

Some of the sets in 48fps looked pretty much like sets. I think that to advance this standard they will have to rethink some of the ways they film things. I think non 3D HFR at 5K resolution could be awesome for just normal drama movies.

Supermallet

I enjoyed a lot of the stuff at Bilbo's house, too, but not the dishwashing sequence with the stupid song.

GoldenJCJ

Yeah, that's what I figured. The sign Frodo hung on the gate near the end of that sequence is what finally clued me in to when it was supposed to take place.

Also, unless I missed it they should have had Frodo carrying a book with him down the path to meet Gandalf considering he was reading one at the beginning of Fellowship. Would have been a nice little detail.