Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dire Bare" data-source="post: 9527785" data-attributes="member: 18182">I disagree that the short assumes the viewer already knows the story . . . or is trying to tell their own story . . . or is trying to improve upon the story . . . what it does, is takes the original story and reimagines it as a more standard fairy tale story. I feel like the creators didn't trust the audience to enjoy the actual story, and so "simplified" it both to make it shorter and to make it "easier" for a general audience to understand and enjoy. It is not a quality adaptation at all, and not really a quality fantasy short either on it's own.Some counters to your observations: It doesn't tell you what a hobbit is, other than they live in comfortable holes. But it does SHOW you what a hobbit is. Our heroes don't need a map back to Dale, they need a map to the Lonely Mountain, Slag's lair. Which in this version of the story, isn't necessarily right next to Dale.Some more observations: There are a lot of elements from the book inexplicably dropped out . . . and other elements included, but seemingly without impact on the story. Why include the guardsman or Thorin? They don't do anything! The princess only serves to shame Bilbo into going, and then marrying him in the end. Gandalf only introduces the Dale folk to Bilbo and weakly tricks or shames Bilbo into going. Bilbo finds the ring, senses it can help him against Slag . . . but doesn't actually use the ring against the dragon. He somehow invents a giant crossbow? And then shoots the sleeping dragon? I like the Arkenstone being the arrowhead of the enormous crossbow bolt, but . . .If you try to ignore that this is an adaptation of the book . . . it's just a rather uninteresting fairy tale. None of the characters are interesting, the story isn't interesting, the animation has a certain charm . . . but it is nerdy fun to discuss the differences, the choices made and wonder, "What?!?!"Although, it would have been fun if Bard's daughter in the movies was named after the princess in this short. I was never able to catch her name though, and don't want to watch it again . . .</blockquote>

Verification