The most amazing thing to me about the new Hobbit movie was

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I greatly appreciate the addition of non Hobbit material that is found in other Tolkien writings, but I agree that the totally fabricated things are not necessary.
 
I think I'm one of three guys in my age group that didn't read any Hobbit or Lord of the Ring books in the 1970's. I read enough Tolkien to know I'm not spending money on the movies. To be fair, I must disclose that all three of my sons read the books (Their mother still has her copies) and they were wild about the "Ring" movies. Ivan
 
We saw it Sunday. I thought it was excellent, actually, and well worth watching.

The only thing I can recall I didn't much care for was some of the acrobatic fight sequences were over long.

But, yes, we really enjoyed it.
 
Diverging from the book really turned me off, and pretty much lost me in this installment. I don't think I'll see the third film in the theater, may end up renting it at watch, but I just can't get over how wrong the encounter with Smaug went. The barrel escape from the elves in Mirkwood was also unnecessarily "enhanced". I can appreciate that an escape in *closed* barrels and an invisible Bilbo would be rather uninteresting to film, but the book is what it is, and I wanted to see what Tolkien wrote, not a bunch of made up BS. At least there's still the animated version from the early 80's.
 
In the book there were references to some of the backround events.

Mr. Jackson chose to elaborate on these events. I agree they were not in the book to the degree he has taken poetic license, but I recall thinking there was more to the story than was written.

I could have done without the river fight scene, a little over the top for certain. I do not recall Legolas in the book either.

Overall, I enjoyed the movie.

I can see where walnutred is coming from.

They all have huge ego's.
 
There's plenty enough in the book to make three movies if they tell the whole story and don't add anything. The fist was bad enough, but this one was just horrible.
 
clevolver said:
Diverging from the book really turned me off, and pretty much lost me in this installment. I don't think I'll see the third film in the theater, may end up renting it at watch, but I just can't get over how wrong the encounter with Smaug went. The barrel escape from the elves in Mirkwood was also unnecessarily "enhanced". I can appreciate that an escape in *closed* barrels and an invisible Bilbo would be rather uninteresting to film, but the book is what it is, and I wanted to see what Tolkien wrote, not a bunch of made up BS. At least there's still the animated version from the early 80's.
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Sorry, but what Tolkien wrote was a bunch of made up BS. :p These ain't history books.

That said, I read The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings books back in high school and loved 'em, and have re-read them throughout the years. I haven't seen the second film yet but intend to. The first was too long, mainly due to too much added action/battle scenes. Sounds like the second is similar. Oh well.

I was overall pleased with the Lord of the Rings films, and thought that Jackson made a couple of smart decisions. First, the omission of that hippy Tom Bombadil was a good idea. He did nothing to advance the story.

Second, I approve the deletion of the Scouring of The Shire. A lot of fanboys decry this, but I thought the Hobbits' return to the untouched Shire was a nice touch. The scene where they are sitting in the pub, merriment going on all around them, exchanging knowing looks that meant, "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough Hobbits stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

In my opinion, Tolkien added the Scouring of The Shire because he wanted the Hobbits to be known as Heroes in their own land. It didn't matter what they accomplished by casting the Ring into Mount Doom and vanquishing Sauron. Unless they accomplished great deeds in The Shire itself, who would ever know? How many vets came back from The War (whichever one that might be) and lived out their lives with nobody aware of what they had done? So Tolkien arranged it so his characters could be recognized as Heroes by their own people, something that rarely happens.
 
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I think the editing of the story in the first three movies was more about time than enhancing the story. The first Hobbit movie was along the same lines, and successful IMHO. This one, however, I had a real hard time with, starting with Legolas' first appearance and ending, well, at the end. I think the dragon was outstanding though.....
 
Do Elf quivers automatically restock themselves? Ol' Legolus sure shot off a lot of arrows and his quiver wasn't exactly over-flowing before he decided to step out of Elf-haven to pick up a newspaper.

Did you ever see that South Park episode where the Pentagon was asking Pearl Harbor Director Michael Bay for ideas on how to combat terrorism and Michael Bay went off on a tangent about exploding buildings, motorcycles jumping over fire, explosions and more explosions... ?

and the Pentagon General said:

"Those aren't ideas, those are special effects."

And Michael Bay replies:

"Uh, I don't understand the difference."

That sort of applies to the way I felt about the movie.
 
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The Hobbit/ LOTR is my second favorite book of all time.

I’ve told this story before but very briefly I had no interest in The Hobbit until I had to read it for an English class in the 9th or 10th grade. I took the book home, decided that I would force myself through one chapter just to keep up with the class and ended up reading till I fell asleep.

I ended up finishing the book well before the end of the class and I even argued a couple of points with the teacher. She was very surprised because I rarely participated in her class.

I said all that to say this,

When I go to see The Hobbit movie (I won’t) I don’t want to see Peter Jackson’s interpretation I want to see J.R.R. Tolkien’s vision.

I don’t want Bilbo (Or Frodo) to be in his late 20’s and thin, I want him fat and 50. I don’t want The Shire to look like New Zealand I want it to look like the English countryside. (I'm OK with the rest of Arda looking like New Zealand though.)

And at the end of LOTR I want to see The Scouring of The Shire because that was a big part of Tolkien’s story showing how the Hobbits had changed and became more confident in themselves and No Longer needed Gandalf to look after them.
 
I think the scouring of the Shire was an important segment of the story and what made a couple generations of Veterans identify with the tale. How many came back feeling that not only they had changed but home had changed also. While Tolkien denied it many think the Scouring of the Shire was a political commentary on Socialism.
 
I have read and re-read Tolkien's books for many years...even the Silmarillion. I have cherished reading and discussing these books with my sons as well. I'm sure like many here I had visualized the scenes, characters, and events in my mind. I doubt that any of us would have the exact same concepts and so Peter Jackson's vision is different than ours.

I must say, I really loved the LOTR movies. Yes, there were a few things that were changed, added, or omitted, but all in all, I can't imagine a better translation of the books into movies. In fact, in almost every case, the characters and scenery were so much better and more detailed than I had imagined in my own mind. Like Moria, for example! The complexity and attention to detail astounded me.

I equally enjoyed the first two installments of "The Hobbit" and I'm eagerly awaiting the third. Did Mr. Jackson take more artistic license with these two movies than he did with the three LOTR movies? Yes, he did. Even so, I very much enjoyed the movies. They are an interpretation of the story, and not a word-for-word usage of the book as the script. I've rarely seen a movie made from a book that was totally (or even close) faithful to the book. In some cases, like "The Hobbit", it works for me since I didn't find the main characters and main events changed, and again, the visuals were so well done in my opinion. (I could quibble a bit about Beorn's appearance in human form...I had pictured him as more like Paul Bunyan and in the movie he looks more like Wolverine.) I've seen some movies based on books that you couldn't even recognize the relationship between the two.

A note about the quivers that never run short of arrows: it's a Hollywood touch equal to the good guy's gun. For example, in "Open Range" there is one gunfight scene where Kevin Costner's character shoots 14 times without reloading from one of his 6 shot revolvers...quite the achievement! (When asked about it, Costner admitted that he knew it was incorrect, but didn't want to interrupt the flow of the scene with a reload...or two.) Sometimes we just have to suspend disbelief in the interest of the bigger issue: the story.
 
I really enjoyed all three movie episodes of The Lord of the Rings.

I've read and enjoyed it as a book and I especially loved Tolken's Hobbit.

However I didn't enjoy the first Hobbit movie... and really did not like the second which I saw last night with my grandson. To me, there was zero character development. There could have been so much interaction (even if embellished) between Bilbo and the dwarfs. I couldn't give a flip about any character in the entire movie. It was like watching three hours (seemed like six) of a video game running in a continuous loop.
 
Best thing I liked about it was I didn't go, I babyset grandkids while wife and kids went.
 
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