The Hobbit Reviews Are Unjustified

[M-E-D The Poet]

Now for days I've been wondering why reviewers have been so stuck up their behinds about the hobbit.

Amongst several reasons :
- They named excessive padding and story addition (as a contrary remark to The Lord Of The Rings being bad for cutting too much things out)
- They thought movie was supposedly too long (As a contrary remark to The Lord Of The Rings being too short)
- Too little action (It's nowhere near the scale of the lord of the rings they say)
- Too much action elsewhere (That wasn't an action scene in the book!)
- Too much hollywood moments (The Azog/Bilbo stare off given as an example)

Then I realized a few things

1. People seem to be forgetting that these are 3 movies based on one book and even that one book was a lot shorter than each of the Lord Of The Rings books.
The fact that we are getting 3 movies that tell the tale would equate into The Lord of the rings having been released as a series much like George R.R Martin's A Song of Fire and Ice is being released as the Game Of Thrones series.

So when people call it excessive padding, wait it out till all three movies have been released, than watch them in a marathon as part of one whole story and then see if you still think it was excessive padding.

2. People are comparing The Hobbit too much to The Lord Of The Rings and are forgetting that it is and always has been a book for children originally so in many ways it really should differ from the Lord Of the Rings.

Where in some spots it lacks for action it makes up with good storytelling a few life lessons and in between a constructed view Tolkien had of the world (One must remember that both The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings were born in one of the World Wars and that there are many parallels to be drawn between them)

3. When people complain there is too much action it is because the views that are explained in 2 are tried to be squared out in meaningful story moments.
So for the lack of a great battle the small encounters with for example Azog are emphasized on more thoroughly.

This also explains why Azog was even brought in to the movies in the first place, he is indeed a torchbearer as a secondary antagonist because the first part of the story/movie would have otherwise dearly lacked the antagonist so usual in movies today.



What are your views about the movie and do you think it will look good as a whole tale when tied up in those 3 movies in the end?

 

[Psykoma]

I loved the movie, and I think a lot of people are forgetting how divisive the LoTR movies were when they first came out, with any thread about them on the internet including a lot of people who hated the movie/they weren't true to the books/etc (Still happens).

 

[Terminal Blue]

My two cents.

1) If you're going to release a series of films with about a year between each release, then it is kind of important that each film stands up, not just as part of a larger series, but on its own. This is especially true of the first film in a series, because it's the one which has to make the big impression and lure people in for the subsequent ones. As a reviewer (or as a consumer at this point) I don't care if it's all setting up for a much better second act, I care about being entertained by what I have seen.

I don't think anyone seriously complained about Lord of the Rings being too short. I think the worst criticism you'll find in this regard is the general perception that the extended cut was better, and I agree, the extra scenes did add some depth and occasionally added something really cool, but I don't think anyone would say that the theatre release was bad because it didn't have Tom Bombadil in it.

I think my major criticism of the hobbit is not so much that it's padded out, but that the padding doesn't do anything except to signpost that the film is a prequel. Worse, in some cases it detracts from the main story. Like when

Spoiler

Gandalf attends the meeting in Rivendell and we get a whole bunch of spoken exposition and elven telepathic foo which takes ages and then suddenly someone comes in to tell us that the dwarves have made an escape. I'd have liked to see them plan that escape, thanks. Seriously, that would have been way more interesting than some expositional waffle which anyone with a brain could have worked out already.

2) and 3) I think indirectly you've actually hit on the problem here. The book is very different to The Lord of the Rings, but the film plays like a carbon copy of the Lord of the Rings movies with a Hobbit themed paintjob, and the result is tonally inconsistent. I really liked that they kept some of the songs in, for example, it gives it a slightly more whimsical feel which is then thoroughly destroyed when a few scenes later we've got flashbacks to epic gritty battles and dwarves being decapitated.

I personally would have been disappointed if the film had kept the slicker, grittier, more action-oriented tone of the Lord of the Rings movies consistently throughout because personally I would have liked to see a lower key, more innocent adaptation. It would have felt truer to the book I enjoyed at an age when I would have found this movie terrifying. But at least if it had gone full action all the way it would have been a consistent vision. The problem is the attempt to have both, to shoehorn in all these big fights and action scenes and complicated plot points alongside all the whimsical stuff. It doesn't work because it isn't consistent.

The more I think about it, the more I think this is all part of the same problem, the problem being that the film feels like it's been designed by committee. It's like someone sat down and tried to isolate all the things which made the Lord of the Rings films successful and then tack on a bunch of random scenes from the Hobbit. The movie feels padded because it's trying to include a little of everything to cater to all audiences.

That's not to say I didn't enjoy it, but I wouldn't say I really got into it. You might say I should reserve judgement until the other films come out but this was meant to get me psyched up for the other films, and it hasn't. That in and of itself is a problem with the film.

 

[M-E-D The Poet]

My two cents.

1) If you're going to release a series of films with about a year between each release, then it is kind of important that each film stands up, not just as part of a larger series, but on its own. This is especially true of the first film in a series, because it's the one which has to make the big impression and lure people in for the subsequent ones. As a reviewer (or as a consumer at this point) I don't care if it's all setting up for a much better second act, I care about being entertained by what I have seen.

I don't think anyone seriously complained about Lord of the Rings being too short. I think the worst criticism you'll find in this regard is the general perception that the extended cut was better, and I agree, the extra scenes did add some depth and occasionally added something really cool, but I don't think anyone would say that the theatre release was bad because it didn't have Tom Bombadil in it.

I think my major criticism of the hobbit is not so much that it's padded out, but that the padding doesn't do anything except to signpost that the film is a prequel. Worse, in some cases it detracts from the main story. Like when

Spoiler

Gandalf attends the meeting in Rivendell and we get a whole bunch of spoken exposition and elven telepathic foo which takes ages and then suddenly someone comes in to tell us that the dwarves have made an escape. I'd have liked to see them plan that escape, thanks. Seriously, that would have been way more interesting than some expositional waffle which anyone with a brain could have worked out already.

2) and 3) I think indirectly you've actually hit on the problem here. The book is very different to The Lord of the Rings, but the film plays like a carbon copy of the Lord of the Rings movies with a Hobbit themed paintjob, and the result is tonally inconsistent. I really liked that they kept some of the songs in, for example, it gives it a slightly more whimsical feel which is then thoroughly destroyed when a few scenes later we've got flashbacks to epic gritty battles and dwarves being decapitated.

I personally would have been disappointed if the film had kept the slicker, grittier, more action-oriented tone of the Lord of the Rings movies consistently throughout because personally I would have liked to see a lower key, more innocent adaptation. It would have felt truer to the book I enjoyed at an age when I would have found this movie terrifying. But at least if it had gone full action all the way it would have been a consistent vision. The problem is the attempt to have both, to shoehorn in all these big fights and action scenes and complicated plot points alongside all the whimsical stuff. It doesn't work because it isn't consistent.

The more I think about it, the more I think this is all part of the same problem, the problem being that the film feels like it's been designed by committee. It's like someone sat down and tried to isolate all the things which made the Lord of the Rings films successful and then tack on a bunch of random scenes from the Hobbit. The movie feels padded because it's trying to include a little of everything to cater to all audiences.

That's not to say I didn't enjoy it, but I wouldn't say I really got into it. You might say I should reserve judgement until the other films come out but this was meant to get me psyched up for the other films, and it hasn't. That in and of itself is a problem with the film.

I think very quickly we've come to a gathered conclusion here because I fully concur, although I must say I personally did enjoy the movie as it was with the added quest for erebor scenes (those are what most of the padding is meant to be although not completely true to the book itself for we've not seen Gandalf meet thorin in the pub but that may be in the extended cut)

 

[tippy2k2]

I did not care for the movie for none of those reasons listed (note, that does not mean I hated the movies, they were just alright at best)...

WARNING: MILD SPOILERS INCOMING!

This feels George Lucased (I'm making that a verb now)

Sprinkle in a bunch of jokes. I swear to God I was waiting for one of those trolls to go "OH! A wise Guy!" and then poke the other one in the eye. These types of jokes were sprinkled in everywhere in the damn movie, which I'm sure is wonderful when you're 10 but I found them really stupid and distracting (Oh my! I just got disembowelment...well, might as well whip that wise-crack out now since I'm dying).

Then there's the CGI. Holy shit, am I the only person who thought that the CGI in this was TERRIBLE? Maybe it would look better in 3D but the characters were absolutely terrible looking with the lone exception being Gollum. The run from the goblins especially had some terrible moments in CGI...

Make it more "family friendly". All of the creatures looked like they were changed make them far less scary. All of the bad guys were an absolute joke and they all looked like they were re-designed to be less intimidating. I would find it a minor inconvenience to run into the Orcs in this movie versus the ones that showed up in LOTRs. Yes, it was originally a children's book but Peter Jackson needs to decide which one he wants; children to watch it or for a PG-13 movie with a handful of decapitations. Putting both in makes this movie feel schizophrenic.

Lastly, it's a prequel. This is my own personal gripe but I'm confident that there is no such thing as a good prequel and The Hobbit did nothing to change my mind on that.

So there ya go. I don't regret watching the movie but I don't see myself spending hard earned cash to see the sequels in the theater.

 

[Terminal Blue]

although I must say I personally did enjoy the movie as it was with the added quest for erebor scenes (those are what most of the padding is meant to be although not completely true to the book itself for we've not seen Gandalf meet thorin in the pub but that may be in the extended cut)

You know, I'm just going to SPOILER ALERT this whole post rather than putting the whole thing in tags.

The opening sequence about Smaug's arrival at the lonely mountain was great. It was something the book lacked, in fact, in that it immediately established a motivation for Thorin and his company. Better, it did so visually rather than simply explaining it through expositional dialogue or a voiceover. That was a very welcome addition and I wouldn't consider it padding.

The whole reference to Moria and the conflict between Thorin and Azog was entirely unnecessary, in my opinion. The flashback is completely out of kilter with any of the previous scenes and clearly there to tick off a battle scene. I get that he's there to provide a named antagonist, but he's not interesting enough to pull it off.

In the book, it was the goblins who chased the dwarves with the wargs after they escaped goblin town. In the film, it's Azog. Last time we saw Azog was in the lone lands, so somehow he's crossed the Misty Mountains and perfectly located Thorin and company minutes after they hit the surface. That's.. weird, when you think about it. It would have made much more sense to use the goblins.

Additionally, I spent the entire movie waiting for him to die off at the end only to find he didn't. I assumed that he was there to provide a clear arc which would help the movie stand on its own as a story (which is cool, it kind of needed that) only the story wasn't resolved.

His role could have been entirely replaced by adding more scenes with the Goblin King and fleshing him out as a more credible threat, perhaps adding a few goblin lieutenants and and you would have lost nothing, stayed truer to the book and made a shorter movie.

Finally, the Necromancer/Radagast plot. Okay, the Necromancer is simply there to tie the events of the hobbit in with those of Lord of the Rings, but it's entirely non-essential to the plot. The plot has an overarching antagonist, it's a big-ass dragon (and a goblin army), we don't need to somehow tie everything back to Sauron. Now, I can see how it could result in some interesting scenes and I like Benedict Cumberbatch and am certain he will do a good job, but even assuming the pay-off is incredible there is simply too much exposition and foreshadowing in the first movie and it never really connects to the main story. It could have been cut down substantially to just a few establishing scenes and we would have lost very little.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

I liked the movie a lot. I'll give my two cents if that's ok.

-I didn't think the CGI was bad, just stylized.
-I think the addition of Azog was a good choice, but it hurts that they had to make him so utterly generic. The Goblin King was a lot more memorable.
-Speaking of the goblins, it's important to note that Tolkien in fact did not differentiate between Orcs and Goblins. But considering that modern fantasy interpretations DO differentiate them, I think having them with distinctly different designs was a welcome change.
-There was not a lot of characterization of the dwarves (outside Thorin), but this is understandable considering how much the movie had in it. And two more movies is plenty of time to add more.
-Other than the opening sequences and the Gollum scenes, I felt that the movie lacked anything that stood out in particular. But regardless, there was never a moment I was bored.

 

[Sewer Rat]

1. The thing is though, this DID NOT have to be 3 movies by any means, it is a book that is shorter than each of the three individual LotR stories. The padding is just that: Padding to stretch the movie into this unnecessary length. And don't try telling me about the "appendices" because I read those too and I feel they could have been done in 2 movies.

2. The issue is though is that they were trying to appeal to the same audience for LotR with this movie through its advertising and its grand scale. Of course those people are going to be disappointed when it fails to be like what they were told.

3. These scenes are not discussed "More thoroughly", they were never there in the first place, and they were simply added on to the story to increase its length. Yes, Azog was part of Thorin's backstory, but he did not harass the party on their way to the Lonely Mountain, perhaps he appeared at the Battle of Five armies but not every other day.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the Hobbit and will go see the other 2, but it was padded to the point where there was very little substance and I was afraid they would try to turn it into an action film and that is exactly what they did.

 

[Blow_Pop]

I'm still not sure how much I like that most of the padding that isn't from The Hobbit book(which I am again re-reading after seeing the film twice) is from the Silmarillion. On the one hand, it IS explaining quite a bit that wasn't really explained too much in the book and could possibly confuse people who have never read the book. On the other hand, those of us (like me) who haven't yet read The Silmarillion (though it IS right next to my bed cause I just checked it out from my public library to read) can get a bit confused with the additions and going "wait was that in there?" or "that wasn't in there" and then the film becomes like every other book adaptation going "let's compare and contrast what is/isn't in the book/film and is in the other" and then becomes not as good. Also, I definitely DON'T like that a 300 (approx depending on the version of the book you have) page book is a 3 part film. Especially with where they end it being about halfway through the damn book. I have a lot of emotions and feelings about the film but that's coming from a very biased "The Hobbit got me into Fantasy books in middle school and thus started my obsession with The Hobbit/LOTR books and still remains to this day one of my favourite books" standpoint.

 

[alexwbyrd]

Hey man it's a good movie for me and my friends so that'll be enough for me. I'm not even gonna try to deconstruct the logic of people that are displeased with the movie. *shrugs* Haters gonna hate.

 

[Jrtlaktalk]

I don't think anyone would say that the theatre release was bad because it didn't have Tom Bombadil in it.

I dont know hey, I for one was terribly disappointed that Tom Bombadil was not in the movie. Now the fact that I basically skipped all the pages where he was in... is besides the point.

In essence, Peter Jackson's directing reminds me quite alot of George Lucas' directing. Both their respective movies (all of them, including King Kong) would have been amazing had there not been a chop involved at several key stages in the process, ie. the directing.

 

[TotallyNotABot]

If that's their opinion, so be it. I personally loved The Hobbit, but if the critics hated it, why should I care? The fact that they dislike the movie does not affect my enjoyment of the movie, nor yours. For that matter, it didn't really affect the sale of tickets either, as the film has already grossed $759,695,000 worldwide. Seems like a success to me, even if the reviews are sub-par.

EDIT: I should also go on the record and say that the people who said that LotR was too short and that The Hobbit was too long may be completely different people. Just felt like pointing that out.

 

[KeyMaster45]

I've seen the movie twice, once in 24fps 2D and 48fps 3D. (I preferred the 24fps but the 48fps I found really did fix some of the glaring problems with 3D) I got exactly what I expected from this movie and I'm looking forward to the next two; though I am interested in seeing the hat trick Jackson will use to make it work. Critics be damned, I think the movie was a rousing success.

 

[Cookiegerard]

I went to see this with my brother who has never read the books, and is actually an english teacher. Let's put it this way, when the movie ended, I leant over to him and whispered "there's still two more films", you should have heard his moan of pain.

When I was younger, I did read the book. I can't remember all of the details, but I can remember the general plot. I thought they explained everything, but maybe too much. It just felt like they were just constantly throwing information at you. Having read the book, I had a rough idea already, but for my brother. To quote him "I felt like there was going to be an exam after the film ended".

I thought it was an alright movie, not terrible, but not this masterpiece.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Honestly I don't see the big deal with the CGI being bad as it nowhere as bad as it made it out to be (when people complain about it, I assume it was Geouge Lucas CGI bad) and I felt they were justify for using it as oppose to having actors in heavy makeup.

Spoiler

That pale Orc is huge, really huge. We all know how hard they have to pull off getting the Hobbit characters on screen with the human/ elf characters (remember the Hobbits are smaller than the dwarf) so having an actor playing as that huge orc would of been difficult.
Also there is no way that Goblins King can be played by an actor in makeup at all due to that character proportion and I was under the impression those goblins minions are suppose to be human like at all due to their boney like limbs.
I can assume another reasons to use CGI is that they didn't want to affiliate those Orc to be in league with Sauron seeing the film is a preclude and they were an independant group.

 

[King Billi]

I thought this film was excellent and way better than I would ever have expected it to be.

I am curious how they're going to manage stretching the remaining half of the story into two more films as it honestly does seem excessive but you know what? If they're half as good as this first installment was then I'm happy to se them and actually glad that I've got more films to look forward to from Middle Earth.

To address some of the more prevalent criticisms however...

The CGI in this film was NOT bad... There was just alot more of it and as a result it became much more noticable. I don't see why all the Orcs needed to be done CGI but it's not a dealbreaker.

The Hobbit was a book intended for children so the film understandably has taken a much lighter tone and there's nothing wrong with that. If you have a problem with the tone or humour appearing too juvenile then just GET OVER IT! Kids should be allowed to enjoy this film as much as you do.

 

[lechat]

how many peter jacksons does it take to change a light bulb?

only 1 but first he needs to do 40 minuets of slow scenic camera pans

 

[JoJo]

I thought the movie was fine, a bit stretched out in places but overall worth seeing. I just hope this isn't another Star Wars prequel situation where people will be still be whining about it online in a decade's time.