[Rant] The Hobbit Movies are an Abomination

[Ryujin]

I realise that some purists hate the movies for not being identical to the books, but I like them. They tell the same story, but updated for a new medium and a new audience 75 years later. The Extended Editions are much more balanced than the cinema releases, and much more enjoyable. The EE of The Battle of the Five Armies is out now, and I'm inviting some friends round for a Hobbit marathon.

For me, at least, it's a little more nuanced than them just being 'different' from the books. I wouldn't refer to them as being updated for a new time, for example. If they were then they would have been altered to pass a Bechdel Test. There clearly weren't enough female characters to even come close and the only one of any substance was the target in a love triangle. Given that "The Hobbit" is a nice, relatively brief story it could have been told in a single one of Jackson's 3 hour long versions.

My problems with the movie are with the unnecessary padding of the story. We were given extraneous action-adventure elements, that were unconnected to the original story. The existing story elements were amplified to mythic proportions well beyond what the original story contained or what was required to tell the basic story, even given an "updating" had taken place. I would categorize it as 'splosions over story. In other words, at least from my point of view, there wasn't really enough substance to fill three almost 3 hour long movies. They were bad.

 

[megamania]

The series could have been worse..... Michael Bay could have directed it

 

[Kramodlog]

Exploding orcs, exploding dragons, exploding elves, exploding Gollums, exploding Gandalf...

 

[Ryujin]

The series could have been worse..... Michael Bay could have directed it

Given the fight in the goblin "tunnels" I could easily believe that he was an uncredited 'creative consultant.'

 

[Maxperson]

About 95% of the second move either never happened or happened differently than was put forth. I almost poked my eyes out during it. Hated that one. The first one was just kinda sorta bad. It didn't fabricate nearly as much as the second movie did. The third a kinda sorta liked. It changed a lot, but it was fun. It reminded me of the LotR movies. Not really Tolkien, but a good fantasy movie.

As an interesting note, my wife who had never read Tolkien and didn't know the story, came out of the second move and said, "This movie seemed like it had a whole lot of filler that really didn't make sense with the story." Even she recognized what had happened and she didn't have a clue how much had been borked by it.

 

[PurpleDragonKnight]

Sorry new to this thread, but the more I read it, and based on my in-cinema experience of the films, the more I'm starting to think that these should be remastered as seasons 1 through 3 of a Netflix release (6 episodes per season)

I mean, add more slow scenes, wax a bit more philosophical and sprinkle a few more landscapes and setting-oriented sequences and you've got a TV show... (instead of a frantic, 3-movie out of breath marathon...)

 

[PurpleDragonKnight]

(for instance, I thought for sure there would have been several discussions / temptations between Gandalf and Sauron, etc.)

 

[delericho]

"Battle of the Five Armies" is the first of the trilogy, indeed the only one of the six films, that isn't improved in the Extended Edition. It does have one key improvements, in that Dain gets quite a few more lines, but other than that it's mostly Baysplosions in that already far too long battle scene.

 

[Ryujin]

Seems an appropriate place to drop this little three part audio play courtesy of Brian Lewis, Scott C. Brown, Andy Dopieralski, Tiffani Pike Schmidt, and Steven Wolbrecht: "Bilbo's Quest for Clarity."

Part 1: https://soundcloud.com/briantothelewis/bilbos-quest-for-clarity-part1

Part 2: https://soundcloud.com/briantothelewis/bilbo-quest-for-clarity-part2

Part 3: https://soundcloud.com/briantothelewis/bilbos-quest-for-clarity-part3