The Hobbit

[Moe_Syzlak]

What are you talking about? Jackson had been candid about the fact that he had no prep time and had to wing a whole lot of stuff during production since before the release of AUJ. Nobody in this doc is talking about the films' quality or trying to come up with a reason for why the movies were 'bad' as every headline that runs this doc is making it out to seem. They are discussing the rushed schedule of the films and how the lack of planning necessitated a lot of on-the-spot improvisation. That the films had a super-rushed production, without finished scripts and all, was obvious to anyone who followed its development period, interviews, etc.

What am I talking about? I'm talking about the post I quoted. The elements of the Hobbit that most egregiously didn't work were obviously not a result of inadequate time to prepare, but rather a need to go bigger, faster and more intense than previous installments. Those tendencies, as I feel I pretty clearly stated, were present in the LotR trilogy as well. Those elements of THAT trilogy are the most commonly edited elements in fan edits. More time to pre-viz of whatever may have made the sequences a tad more palatable but it wouldn't have changed the obvious poor narrative choices made in the interest of better , faster, more intense. The simple fact that far better movies have been created in mere months by simply trimming fat is testament to that fact.

 

[TMBTM]

So it would have been a lot of unemployed Kiwis if he hadn't.

Good point.

 

[TM2YC]

Can we please be a bit more respectful in the way we express our opinions and respond to others people's opinions. I can sense this thread starting to take a wrong turn and that'd be a shame as the debate is rather interesting. Thanks.

 

[FatherMerrin]

Even though I do appreciatate the pre-production issues, it only baffles me all the more why then they chose to expand the films out.

Surely if they were that stretched from the start the smart thing to do would be tighten things up, not bloat things out? Especially considering the length of the source material.

 

[TM2YC]

Surely if they were that stretched from the start the smart thing to do would be tighten things up

I agree but I'm sure there is a large element of this too ;-)...

"I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead" - Mark Twain

On another point, I will never get the SW prequel comparisons. There have been and will continue to be superb Hobbit fanedits because there are hours of well-crafted movie making in there by people with passion and skill who cared about the project, from the Director down. The best you can hope for in a Prequel fanedit is that it won't be totally awful because the original movies are terrible on every level. You just can't say that about PJs movies.

 

[Aztek463]

On another point, I will never get the SW prequel comparisons. There have been and will continue to be superb Hobbit fanedits because there are hours of well-crafted movie making in there by people with passion and skill who cared about the project, from the Director down. The best you can hope for in a Prequel fanedit is that it won't be totally awful because the original movies are terrible on every level. You just can't say that about PJs movies.

Agreed 100%. I'll also throw in that LOTR was so well received that The Hobbit almost didn't stand a chance even if PJ had had more time.

 

[Moe_Syzlak]

My comparison was purely to point out that, like SW, the problematic elements of the Hobbit were evident in the LotR. In the Hobbit they were just magnified. Same was true when you look at the prequels. The same issues are there in the original trilogy, just not as bad. The recently made SW Honest Trailer does a good job of pointing that out. I've always contended that the Hobbit had a good movie in there and I now have a wonderful companion to the LotR thanks to fan editing. I, like many others, discovered fan editing trying to find a good version of the PT. I've finally concluded it can't be done to my satisfaction.

 

[kellenpure]

Dwarves jumping around on mountainous giants, long goblin chase insanity, arcade barrel ride, dumb chases at Lake Town, horrific dwarf vs Smaug sequence, Legolas defying gravity, orcs coming out of Dune worm holes, etc! My point was regardless of prep time, the decision was clearly made to sacrifice believability for visual stimulus. Truly it looks like it was a crappy situation based on the interviews, so I get some weak storylines. But even shooting on the fly you can CHOOSE TO LEAVE OUT SILLY STUFF. The Return of the King was headed that direction, and it simply continued with the Hobbit movies. Fellowship of the Ring will ALWAYS be my favorite of the six.

 

[TomH1138]

Some bits and pieces from the Appendices in the BOFA EE disc, with various crew members (including PJ) explaining how rushed and sloppy everything was while making these flicks. Kudos to them for not just doing a gushing puff-piece about how great everybody is and how awesome the movies are.

Wow. That is nice. Thanks for sharing, Neg. It is so unusual to hear the filmmakers say bad things, even if everyone knows that things went awry.

Case in point: The creator of the NBC show Heroes went before fans at a convention before Season 3 and said, "I apologize for Season 2." Everyone knew that S2 hadn't lived up to expectations, but NBC was furious, thinking that the creator's statement would cut into DVD sales. So by the time the Heroes stars showed up at Dragon*Con that year (where I was volunteering), NBC had forbade the stars to say anything about Heroes, even though D*C was paying for the actors to be there for that exact purpose.

I wasn't even watching Heroes, but I was volunteering for the programming track that had booked the actors, and it was a very frustrating thing to go through.

I say all this not to sidetrack the issue but to say that I'm impressed that Warner Bros., New Line and MGM let the filmmakers release a documentary where they flatly admitted that not everything went according to plan. Because here's the thing: On every film, not everything goes according to plan. But with most of those documentaries, everyone has to pretend that everything was perfect. I think it's more instructive to learn from the filmmakers talking honestly.

As for PJ having to redo everything because del Toro's visual style is much different: That's probably true, but honestly, I didn't think Pan's Labyrinth was too far off in visuals from the LotR movies. In fact, when del Toro was first hired, I said, "Oh, he's perfect!" I'm sure that someone who's studied art design in school could explain the differences to me, so I wouldn't have thought that it was that far off. PJ saying he ran behind because he couldn't use any of del Toro's work--that's baffling to me. (And I have a huge amount of respect for both filmmakers.)

 

[DominicCobb]

If you've watched any of the appendices material, it's obvious they were rushed, no exaggeration there.

Ultimately, though, I don't know how different the films would've been if he had more time. Obviously I'm sure there are some elements he would've changed. The cuts would of course be different, more refined. But I don't think the silliness would necessarily be gone, and I don't think that's what PJ's implying. The silliness was on purpose. These films were supposed to be different than the LOTR films. If they whereas serious as the LOTR flicks, they would never live up to them - the story's just not as good. So he made it apples and oranges.

 

[ssj]

"I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead" - Mark Twain

this is gold. pure, molten, dragon-coating gold. thanks, tm2yc.

 

[Neosmith]

I'm not saying the Hobbit films are perfect in any way, but it bothers me when people claim it was a fundamental mistake to make three movies based on the brevity of the source novel. We live in an age when a short story can make a for fantasy epic (eg. Benjamin Button). Since when is it that novel-to-film adaptations have a prescribed 1 to 1 ratio, and a running time of 2 hours?

The reason that has been the predominant approach in Hollywood since the feature form became prevalent has much to do with the economic interests of the American film industry - that became the form that was easiest to producce, distribute and commercialize. Yet, it is not a rule, but a convention.

Hence, I find it hard to believe that the movies are "bloated" in relation to the source material, which was itself was prettty sprawling and episodic - you could probably cut half of the adventures the characters go on without losing much of the main plot. Not to mention, that this claim is hard to support when one factors in how the source material itself has changed so much since its inception. The original 1937 edition didn't have a One Ring, nor did it have Gollum cheating the Riddle Game.

Tolkien effectively retconned the classic Hobbit out of existence with LOTR - the opening passages of Fellowship even state that Bilbo's account is non-canon. So, given that Jackson filmed LOTR first, it only makes sense that The Hobbit would have to be retrofitted to fit the parameters of the LOTR canon. And that arguably justifies its expansion into a multi-perspective trilogy.

 

[TM2YC]

There was no problem with 3 movies in principle IMO. The Hobbit was a short book because it's light on detail compared to LOTR, not because little happens in it and huge swathes of LOTR was cut to squeeze it into 3 movies including some of my favourite stuff/people (Tom Bombadil, Barliman Butterbur, Nob, Farmer Maggot, Prince Imrahil, Glorfindel, Sharky etc etc). While brilliant new stuff was added like Arwen being a fully fleshed out character. So in principle it could have worked just as well as with LOTR (LOTR was reluctantly considered for 2 movies at one point).

 

[kellenpure]

There was no problem with 3 movies in principle IMO

Totally agree with this. Three movies would have worked for me, because I am open to some creative license by the writers. But parts of the book were often sacrificed for ridiculous scenes that went on and on ("arcade" scenes I like to call them).

Beorn should have been considerably longer with more of the script writing time dedicated to it (the deleted scenes that were made available are not very good).

I may be alone in this one, but I would have liked to have seen a romantic connection between Legolas and Tariel - if you're going to include him, show us something we don't know about him besides bad-ass combat ability! Maybe scenes where he is not getting along with his father, which helps lead to later volunteering for the Elrond council trip in LOTR. His character was flat and boring in the Hobbit.

I didn't mind the confrontation with Sauron, in fact it was outstanding to see the power of Galadriel unleashed. That could have been a bit longer, the build up maybe, the actual confrontation fleshed out. Tolkien has few powerful women in his books, so use the movie as an opportunity to show their role in resisting the spread of evil (which is why I was OK with Arwen's powers in LOTR).

And by the beard of Odin, a bit less action in BOFA and more storyline. Give us insight into the strong ties of Dwarven kinship, expand on the dwarves of the Iron Hills. There were places to go instead of a handful of dwarves thwarting the most powerful dragon of the age with rivers of gold. Just sayin'.

 

[kellenpure]

I messed up my reference there, the gold scene was the end of DOS. But you get my point. The dragon attack could have been longer too!

 

[TM2YC]

I would have liked to have seen a romantic connection between Legolas and Tariel

Yeah great idea, and if she'd later been killed by the Dwarves that would would have fed nicely into Legolas' anti-Dwarf feelings at the start of LOTR.

Her romance with Kili was always faintly ridiculous. Not because it's love between people of vastly different heights (Tyrion and Shae in GOT was wonderful ) but because it's obviously a man kneeling down pretending to be short like Yogurt out of Spaceballs.

 

[TMBTM]

Yeah great idea, and if she'd later been killed by the Dwarves that would would have fed nicely into Legolas' anti-Dwarf feelings at the start of LOTR.

Legolas is in love with Tauriel. Having your loved one's heart "stole" by a dwarf and then accepting to fight with her to save that dwarf (and fail) is, to me, a great character arc for Legolas. And it sure does not help about his future relationship with the dwarves...
I agree that the Tauriel/Killy romance is not needed and forced (although I find that Evangeline Lilly's acting is great and I like her character), but what I do like is what it does to the character of Legolas. He's always playing "pokerface" but his actions shows what's in his heart.

 

[Neosmith]

I highly recommend everyone who assumes the doc is all about how the Hobbit movies were a tranwreck read this article: http://www.theonering.net/torwp/201...mments-provoke-a-gathering-storm-in-a-teacup/

A spokesman for Jackson said the six-minute YouTube clip was cut from a 45-minute "featurette" from the Battle of the Five Armiesextended DVD, which was called The Gathering Clouds.
"Somebody has decided to create this cut-down, using only the sections of The Gathering Clouds that discuss the difficulties faced, not the positive ways they were addressed and overcome – which are also covered in this and other featurettes.
"Peter has never made a secret of the fact that he took over the Hobbit directing job with very little preparation time remaining before shooting had to begin.
"It was a challenge he willingly took on. His comments are an honest reflection of his own personal feelings at times during the movie's production."

 

[ManicGuy1989]

Just had a chance to watch the Extended Blu-Ray.... Majorly disappointed.... It still feels like so much is missing. Say what you like about LOTR's multiple endings but you can't deny the closure that trilogy offers.

I still think 3 films would have worked had they planned it that way. I don't think the problem was splitting the book into 3 films, it was shooting with 2 films in mind and then in the middle of production trying to break it up even further into 3.

 

[Aztek463]

Since when is it that novel-to-film adaptations have a prescribed 1 to 1 ratio, and a running time of 2 hours?

This. 1000000 times this. And it's not just films. It drives me nuts when people complain that Walking Dead or Game of Thrones isn't following the source EXACTLY. If you want it exactly, read the books/comics. Simple as that.

You raise another good point as well: the original novel was short compared to Lord of the Rings, but there is a LOT that happens. In fact, almost every major scene in the film happens in the book in one form or another. For example: was there a chase between Smaug and the Dwarves inside the mountain? No. That happened (albeit significantly differently with a lot more sneaking around) outside the mountain. The escape from Mirkwood in barrels? That happened too. Again, it happened differently, but it still happened. Being cornered by wolves and rescued by the eagles? By Jove, that happened too!

I feel like most people complaining at a lot of the extra "fluff" in the movies didn't recall or read the novel.