movies/tv Opinions on Jackson's "The Hobbit" trilogy

[Ashen Pathfinder 16,161]

I've been wanting to make a topic on this for a while now; considering I've sort of been on a Hobbit binge recently.

 

When I look at various opinion pieces and general thoughts on these three films, the general opinion seems mixed. Some hate them, some love them, and plenty are in the middle. This is in stark contrast to Jackson's earlier "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, and I can see why. Compared to the LotR films, the Hobbit trilogy was lacking in a variety of places; including faithfulness to the original sources material, use of CGI over practical effects, pacing problems, issues with characterization, and so one. Of course a lot of these can be seen as subjective, so take it for what you will.

 

My question is what do you think of "The Hobbit" trilogy as a whole?

 

Personally I not only enjoyed each of the three films, but I would go on to say that I loved them. Now, I won't say that they are perfect. There are obvious problems and I would be foolish to ignore them. Of course this is coming from someone who never read the book, so that may affect my view on things, but I try not to let faithfulness to original source material affect my enjoyment of an adaptation (Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time movie, for instance). I want the movie or what-not to stand on it's own.

 

That said, I recognize that there are issues with how some story lines are resolved, that some additions to the story can be seen as filler, and that the trilogy is missing that certain spark that the LotR films had in spades. There were issues in regards to scheduling as they didn't have the preproduction time the team had with LotR so I try not to put the full blame on Jackson.

 

As for what I liked I enjoyed seeing more of Middle Earth outside of Gondor and Rohan. The cities of Dale and Laketown are beautifully crafted, but the Kingdom of Erebor especially looks bit and grand. I also appreciate the focus on the dwarves themselves as they felt missing from LotR; Gimli aside. I also appreciated the general tone of the series, and felt the acting was great. Martin Freeman as Bilbo is quite possibly my favorite movie hobbit to this day.

 

Of course there's Radagast; whom I actually enjoyed. I know people were mixed on him, but I enjoyed seeing another wizard. I also really enjoyed the moments in Dul Goldur and the tomb of the Nine as the atmosphere was REALLy effective in those scenes. And then there's Smaug...my god, what a dragon. <3

 

It may seem like I gush, but I have a certain love for these films; despite their obvious issues. Again, I reiterate, what are you thoughts on this trilogy?

[Ziggy + Angel + Rain 11,302]

Compared to the LotR films, the Hobbit trilogy was lacking in a variety of places; including faithfulness to the original sources material, use of CGI over practical effects, pacing problems, issues with characterization, and so one.

As great as the LotR film trilogy was (and still is), it too suffered from some of the exact same issues you associated with The Hobbit trilogy; particularly where faithfulness to the source material and characterization were concerned.  Gimli barely resembled his literary counterpart in many ways and instances (I'm pretty sure they totally omitted how smitten he was with Galadriel).  He, Pippin, and Merry were oftentimes reduced to mere comedy relief in the films; there was a good deal more to these characters in the books.  And, while the films obviously couldn't cover everything that happened in the books, there was a pretty significant chunk left out completely that occurred when Frodo and company returned to The Shire.  If you haven't read the book trilogy: Some serious s*** went down.  This is in direct contrast to The Hobbit book and films.  The Battle of the Five Armies added a hell of a lot more content; whereas the book just kind of dropped off and ended (especially if you consider how teeny-tiny a part Bilbo played in the tail end of the novel).

 

I'm gonna say it: I think The Hobbit film trilogy, at least - and especially - during its climax, improved upon Tolkien's book.  It's a great book, Bilbo is a wonderful character, and I've enjoyed everything I've read by Tolkien.  But the third film was more fun to watch than the last bit of The Hobbit was to read.  Martin Freeman was perfectly cast as Bilbo; much better pick than Elijah Wood was for Frodo (another somewhat distorted / watered-down character in some ways; though Bilbo > Frodo regardless of whether you're talking movie or book).  And Radagast?  I believe he was, at most, mentioned in The Hobbit novel.  If you loved Radagast (and who could dislike the guy?), there's a big fat inconsistency from book to film for which you can actually thank Jackson.

 

And I don't care how much CG is used.  Use all the CG in the world; just make it fun to watch. xD

[VengefulStrudel 1,486]

Interesting points. Personally, I like the films, might not be the same kind of love I have for the LotR trilogy, but still. I really, really liked Bilbo, definitely my favorite character! The spotlight on dwarves was also really nice, and I agree that the locations looked great.

 

My biggest problems with the movie were the pacing and forget-ability of most dwarves. By the end of the third movie, I only remembered about 3 of 'em, and only the name of 2. I don't think I'd watch 'em again anytime soon, due to the length, I'd rather see the original trilogy instead. Though, I do think it would've worked out much better as a single movie instead of a trilogy.

[Riganthor 484]

I kinda liked the hobbit movie's, yes the first one was verry slow but I really enjoyed seeing middle earth in such detail. The same with all the other movies I enjoyed them, now they weren't the best movies in the middle earth universe no, but they where entertaining and at times managed to really grab me. So overal good movies and I don't regret going to the theaters for them,.

[GeekySonic 1,150]

I liked the Hobbit trilogy. Personally, I thought the CGI was underwhelming to me. I remember watching LotR as a little kid, and the live-action orcs looked so bad-ass.

 

I actually watched one of the cartoon versions of the Hobbit, and wished someone would make a live-action version. And now that there is, I just felt a little disappointed.

 

I don't mind the length of the films, but all the CGI just left it feeling... cartoony to me. I would have preferred the approach they used in the original trilogy; that makeup work was amazing.

 

But overall, I have no bad feelings. I really loved seeing Gollum again. I re-enacted the riddle scene, adding some parts from the book, for my serious prose entry in speech class about two years ago. I don't know why, but Andy Serkis' Gollum voice is easy for me to do.

[Concerned Bystander 2,902]

Stretching the Hobbit out to three films was nothing more than cashing in on a popular franchise, they could easily have told the story in two films.  There was the familiar and unnecessary emphasis on having a romantic interest shoehorned into the story because reasons that we also saw in LoTR.  Additionally, they massively over-egged the whole 'Necromancer' side story, largely I suspect, to pad out the series to three films.

 

All that bashing aside, I did enjoy them for the greater part, but I would have enjoyed them just as much if they had kept it down to two films.

Edited March 12, 2016 by Concerned Bystander

[El Duderino 879]

I really like the hobbit films.

 

They are not nearly as good as the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but they are still good.

I do wish they used more practical effects, but the CGI is very good CGI and doesn't distract from the films too much.

They didn't need to drag it out over three movies, but that isn't really one of my major complaints. I'm always down for more Tolkien in film form, even if it isn't all from the actual books. The whole necromancer part wasn't really a big deal in the books, but I actually think it was a good move to add more of that to tie it in with the LOTR movies a little more.

My only real complaint with the films is the romance between Tauriel  and Kili. That was completely unnecessary, and I think the film would be better without it.

 

Really, it's a miracle that the LOTR films and the Hobbit films are any good at all. It is extremely hard to pull of fantasy films and make them as good as Jackson did. Also considering that Jackson has never made a decent film other than the LOTR and Hobbit. He really isn't a very good director. When LOTR was released, everyone was like "When did he suddenly become good at directing?!".

Edited March 12, 2016 by El Duderino

[Denim&Venöm 19,023]

The first two movies were fine. That new 60fps thing really added a certain touch. MY issue is with the third film. It looked and felt very rushed. Spoilers for a 15 month old film, but Smaug gets killed right at the start? And the whole thing gets rushed into one long battle with no build up? And the characters who seemed to survive everything, suddenly get killed left and right?

 

And is it just me, or were the designs and monsters of the orc army in that film total rip offs of the Locust from Gears of War? 

 

[Steel Accord 6,660]

Well while they weren't exactly accurate to the book, I do have to admit that I enjoyed the trilogy as a whole as just a fan of Tolkien and action fantasy.

 

One of the few things that both Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire have in common is that magic and outright supernatural phenomenon happen but are kept very restrictive, more serving as the will or presence of forces greater than the characters playing through the events. (Divine Providence assisting mortals when faced with beings or powers they cannot overcome through strength or will for the former and the entropic slide of civilization closer and closer to a darker and more brutal older era for the latter.)

 

The Hobbit Trilogy though has much more blatantly magical and fantastical things happening in it. Smaug is on the scale of a Kaiju, Erebor is clearly a more technologically advanced city than say Moria was, Sting glows in the dark, the Ring itself is used as a stealth tool rather than the bane of all things good and holy, there's a shapeshifter, guys riding beasts other than horses, Radaghast having a sled pulled by rabbits and getting high on shrooms, Elrond and Saruman engaging in direct combat with the Nazgul now in non-corporeal flavor, the whole thing is not nearly as majestic and far more silly than the original trilogy.

 

You know what though? That itself is almost in keeping with the book. While the movies get more ostensibly "serious" with the growing power of Sauron and Thorin's desire to see his people restored, the book was simply a treasure hunt with lots of weird magical obstacles and side stories along the way. While I love me some of that naturalistic "magic is everywhere so we don't need to make it obvious" approach, I also enjoy when fantasy is allowed to BE fantastical and just go nuts with what could be done with the material.

 

The Hobbit movies are more Tolkien fan film than true adaptations of the book, but you know what? I like a lot of fan films and I like to see what people with real talent can do when given a box of toys from someone else's imagination and given permission to smash them together however they please.

 

There is one moment though in the first movie where I do feel that the film proved it was more than a larf and had some heart to it. Bilbo's soliloquy to Thorin.

 

"You're right, I often think of Bag End. I miss my books, my armchair, my garden. See that's where I belong. That's home. That's why I came back. You don't have one, a home, it was taken from you. And I will help you take it back if I can."

 

That really stuck with me because it showed something I always treasure in film and art in general; empathy. Here is a humble hobbit comparing his hole in the ground to an exiled would be king's entire mountainous realm, and yet Thorin actually connects with Bilbo for the first time then and feels that the hobbit actually understands at least a little bit of Thorin's pain. Pain he is unable to fully express and share both due to his own stoic nature and the responsibility of setting the example for his followers.

 

So yeah, I had a great time with them, and I still have a lot of the songs on my ipod. That's one thing the originals can't claim.

Edited March 12, 2016 by Steel Accord

[Plume 922]

I enjoyed them! I wouldn't say more than the books, or less than the book - I treat them as two entirely different parties, since they end up branching off into things so different.

The CG just felt natural to me, I guess. I mean, it's a fantasy film - it's going to need to have CG at some point or another. "

It did feel like it dragged on slightly long, but I grew to love many of the characters more than I expected to.

[Castle Bleck 19,361]

All I know is that I can't get Smaug's voice out of my head:

 

 

^It sounds just like Sombra if he was more talkative.

Edited March 12, 2016 by A.V.

[Justin_Case001 4,891]

I thought they were truly excellent, though not as good as LOTR.  But that's kind of obvious, I guess.

 

A lot of people complained that the movies were bloated, too long, and dragged on, etc.  I thought they were fine.  I appreciated Jackson's decision to use all of Tolkein's unfinished and unpublished notes to lengthen the movies.  The Hobbit, after all, was targeted towards a younger audience than LOTR.  The book, I mean.  In order to make the movies feel up to par with LOTR, they needed to flesh them out a bit, add more, and just up the scale in general.  I thought it worked fine.

 

I only have a couple of specific complaints.  And before I get into them, just let me state that while it may seem like a very angry rant, it's really not that big of a deal.  I really loved the movies.  Okay, so my first issue was the penis joke between Kili and Tauriel.  Really?  Seriously?  A penis joke had no place in Middle Earth.  It was beneath Tolkein lore.  Another quibble was the barrel river escape scene.  It was just too over the top, and not believable, particularly Bombur's little stunt, where he bounced and rolled and took out every single baddie.  It was way too perfect.  And when he popped his arms and legs out and became the fighting barrel, that was just dumb and cartoonish.  It felt like a gag, and gags are also beneath Tolkein lore.  But my biggest quibble was frigging Legolas, or should I say The One, or Neo.  Good f*cking god, some of his stunts were so over the top.  It was ridiculous.  The hanging upside down from the bat thing?  That was dumb.  The worst was his gravity defiance trick.  Y'know, running up the falling stones.  If they wanted to make a joke out of his skills, they should have just had him stop a massive volley of arrows with his mind.  Here's the problem: in LOTR, Legolas gained a reputation with the audience for being super-skilled to the point of invincibility and internet memes.  They played this up a little in Return of the King with his Oliphant stunt.  Y'know, "That still only counts as one!"  But it was okay, as it was still pretty believable, for a super-skilled elf, anyway.  But I feel like in The Hobbit, the makers were sitting around in a room collaborating, and saying, "Okay, the audience is going to be waiting for Legolas's 'big stunt', so we need to pull out all the stops and out-do ourselves in every way."  That's bad.  That's not at all what you want in a serious story like this.  You don't want the audience affecting the story in any way.  (It works with FIM, imo, but not here.)  I almost felt like Legolas's stunts were borderlined fourth wall breaking, as if the filmmakers were looking at us with a grin and going, "HUH?!  HUH?!  Wasn't that awesome?!"  It broke the immersion for me.

 

Other than that, no complaints.  Still a great series.  Martin Freeman was transcendent.  And Smaug was so frigging awesome.  Ever since I saw him I've been entertaining fantasies about adult Spike looking and sounding like Smaug, as he serves as Twilight's emissary or something.

[EpicEnergy 23,218]

I love The Lord of The Rings, and The Hobbit was almost just as good! My favorite episode in The Hobbit trilogy is The Battle of Five Armies, I've always loved epic battles!

[Dreambiscuit 9,794]

I liked the Hobbit trilogy better than the LOTR movies, but they share a lot of the same flaws. The Hobbit was never meant to be a long, drawn-out epic the way LOTR was. It may be inherently epic in the scope and style of the Middle Earth setting but didn’t need three bloated movies to tell its story. Too much filler for the sake of dragging one movie into three is bad filmmaking and just another way to wring even more money out of the franchise. On the plus side, I liked the first movie because it seems to capture some of the feeling of the original book, and I think Desolation of Smaug is really good despite trying to force more LOTR subplots into it and adding characters that don’t belong. Battle of the Five Armies was not a good wrap-up and left me feeling more depressed than anything. Carrying Smaug’s final showdown into the third movie was a strategic attempt to draw viewers in but the fun was over all too soon. The rest of the movie gets bogged down and boring. Let’s face it, endless CG armies clashing on the battlefield aren’t exactly dazzling anymore, and it’s going to take more than special effects to keep me interested.

[Megas 27,652]

I don't think they're very good, but my issue is that it really didn't need to be 3 movies. With Lord of the Rings you're making 3 long movies, but 3 movies based on 3 different books, with The Hobbit, you're making 3 long movies based off a single book. It was really obvious they wanted another Trilogy that they could milk. Due to it being just one book, they had to fill all the extra time they had, make up new stuff, stretch out plot points, to where the quality suffered as a result. Like if they wanted to split the book into 2 different movies, fine, a lot of book adaptations at that point were doing it anyway(though a lot of the time they felt just as unnecessary, especially Breaking Dawn, and were only doing it because it worked for Harry Potter), there's probably enough in the book to warrant making 2 films, but 3 was just taking it too far