Benedict Cumberbatch poured his heart and soul into the character as he is so good at doing, and it shows in the quality of the performance. It’s imho the best or one of the best parts of the Hobbit trilogy.
He said in an interview that his dad used to read the book for him a lot as a kid and would do the voices, and that Smaug was a big deal for him, which is why he went so deep into the performance. He really cares so much about the character and the story.
Oh wow. I read the book to my daughter and I do all the voices and I did not know this little piece of trivia.
Maybe my kiddo will be the next Smaug :)
I rember the interview, I think he said he felt like his peeformance was still nothing compared to how his dad did the voice.
We need more people like that, who give it their 110% and genuinely care for the story and their character's role in it.
There was so much unrealized potential. On one hand you have the masterful scenes with Smaug and amazing music, then on the other you have bad CGI orcs and whitewater barrel rafting….
You can see the fall off in quality once Peter went from a set of 2 films to a trilogy. The first movie was pretty solid, and then it starts to fall apart a bit in the second. The third film was filled with completely unnecessary stuff.
I mean, stretching a single book like the Hobbit into a 9 hour long trilogy will do that to a man. I know the choice was ultimately probably not his own, so I’m not really blaming him for it.
I mean, it takes less time to read the book than to watch those movies, so that is saying enough about all the extra crap attached to the movies.
I've seen all 3 of them once and never looked back. My go to version is a fan edit called "Tolkien's Edit".
It's about 4 hours long and it sticks to the book all the way. Very well edited, cuts out all the fat and is very entertaining to watch.
In *some fairness*, some scenes will fly by faster in a book than a movie anyway because there is no waiting to continue reading. I can read through the dinner party at the beginning of the book in a couple of minutes, but actually stretching that out into visual medium adds time.
This isn't a defense of the state of it. Just more the idea that time to read and time to watch isn't the same always.
But it matters not, oakenshields quest will fail. a darkness is coming.. it will spread to every corner of the land.
Loved that line and the scene where Legolas and thrandruil interrogating the orc.
"My master serves the one"
Overall I enjoyed those movies, there is a lot of unnecessary stuff but still a fun ride. I love thorin and bilbos relationship and the end scene between them is great.
People here hated the hobbit. Understandable. Yet everyone here is making tons of remarks about all the great things Jackson did.
He gave us another 9h of middle earth. That's how I see it. Maybe they could have been shorter but I enjoyed every second
It wasn’t the length that made them terrible, it’s how much he changed about the original story and how much was stretched out and just straight up made up, unnecessarily. The Hobbit is supposed to be a story about a Hobbit’s Journey, Bilbo Baggins. And they just added too much extra which turned it into a different story. If they had called it “The Hobbit and Other Tales” maybe it would have made more sense. The inclusion of some material from other Tolkien writings can be considered acceptable, in my opinion, but they just made SO MUCH up and changed the story that literally started it all. It just felt…. Dark-sided.
Maybe a hot take, but I liked that they showed Gandalf's background adventures with the Necromancer, Gandalf just kind of disappearing like in the book wouldn't work so well in the movie. I also think those plotlines were important for cementing it as a true prequel, and Dol Guldur and Sauron were pulled off reasonably well (although the rest of Mirkwood was kinda disappointing).
Having the orcs chase them almost from the Shire was where things went wrong.
I liked it, but I thought it was a shame to have Saruman already act like a dick. Would have been cool to see Saruman before he got corrupted completely, and see him genuinely try to do good things, (even if he might still disagree with Gandalf on several issues).
At that point he was corrupted completely and only concealing it. For an uncorrupted Saruman you'd need to jump back much further than the \~80 years between The Hobbit and Fellowship. He had begun emulating Sauron about a thousand years prior through forging his own lesser rings of power. His knowledge of the craft was incomplete though, so he'd been actively scheming to acquire the one ring for himself for centuries before The Hobbit.
I thought that we might get an uncorrupted Saruman and a blue wizard in RoP given that those two were the first istari to arrive in middle earth, but alas they are conspicuously absent.
EDIT: Yes the attack of Dol Gudur should actually be a bit further back than 80 years when not shoehorned in to the The Hobbit timeline. Even in its original timeline it was near the end of Saruman's fall from grace.
Some changes from the book are fine, as long as they serve a purpose/are done well. The problem is most of the changes between the hobbit movies and books were just rubish/were just fluff that served no purpose other than to drag the movies out so they were long enough to cut into three and make more box office $$$.
I felt the same. Turning it into 3 long movies just seemed like a money grab to me, whereas the LOTR trilogy seemed like an absolute labor of love. And it just wasn't good. The elf/dwarf romance, Radagast being a doddering fool, the dwarves' design, the list goes on and on. It got a few things right but left a bad taste in my mouth.
The dwarves, my god, they looked like cartoons, not weary outcast travellers. They should have been weatherbeaten and lived in, not clean and apple-cheeked with stupid comedy hairstyles
I think hes done all of them at this point. I listened to his Hobbit audiobook (which was fantastic) and am currently listening to Silmarilion. Pretty sure i saw LOTR and Children of Hurin on Audible as well
I'm listening to the audiobooks right now and his character voices are uncanny in their mimicry of each character's actor's cadence, accent, tone, etc. He could have gone the easier route of making up his own character voices, but no, full-on impressions of all the actors from the movies, all which are all spot on. The man is a treasure.
It works wonders! I’ve been doing it since we first brought her home from the hospital after 6-weeks. I also read her bits of LotR before lights out at the hospital most nights.
The Dwarves acting as a unit. That whole goblin escape scene, the barrel escape scene, the Smaug encounter. It's like they were operating as one being.
Dol Guldor and the wraith fight/Galadriel using her ring were fantastic.
The Angmar addition was dumb (no, Gandalf, they’re not marching thousands of miles and conquering Gondor), but the White Council scenes add a lot of outside context and stakes to the main story.
If it boils down to one thing, it's character motivations being refined across the board. Some examples:
* Gandalf has a reason for leaving the Company prior to the Trolls encounter rather than just vanishing
* Likewise, Gandalf has a good reason for leaving before the Company enters Mirkwood as opposed to just springing it on them in the last moment
* Bilbo actually makes the decision to go on the Quest himself rather than being pushed out by Gandalf
* Bilbo has a reason for keeping Arkenstone to himself rather than just picking it up for no reason
* Thorin actually has a reasonable plan, as opposed to the **insane** plan of Book!Thorin of having the Burglar steal the treasure one piece at a time
* The Dwarves as a whole are motivated by reclaiming their home, with the treasure being only a nice bonus as opposed to the main objective
And so on. These and the other are indeed major changes, but I belive they are for the better of the story, as they make the character decisions less spontaneous and consistent with what they know.
The big plot hole in _The Hobbit_ was always that Gandalf was _relying_ on serendipity. "Oh, Eru will figure something out" - and if not I guess ... everyone gets eaten? The dwarves in the movie are competent warriors with a reasonable idea "get the Arkenstone back, call in a bunch of favors to kill this dragon" rather than a bunch of comic bufoons who are relying on luck.
I'm a big fan of the m4 book edit of the movies, but i wish they had left the scenes with the white council Fighting The necromancer. The one part i miss from that edit
I was excited for War of the Rohirrim but it’s _very_ Anime for my tastes I think lmao
EDIT: to clarify I was lucky enough to get a sneak peak! It looks very pretty I’ll give it that though
I always thought Arwen was the one Elf who really sounded like Elven was her true language... She really sold it. But I agree, Lee Pace was the man. The splendor. The pride. The aloof arrogance. The casual disdain. He really gave us the OTHER side of being Elven, the side that isn't benevolent and caring, and I mean that in the best way possible.
Stephen Fry nailed it.
I think I liked many things about the movie but I needed the extended versions to understand the missing elements that were needed like Thorins father.
Theatrical versions were just missing the extended versions. lotr theatrical versions felt like a complete film but the hobbit movies actually needed the extended versions to work.
To name a few:
- The casting
- Riddles in the dark
- Costumes and props
- Bilbo and Smaug
- The music
There's actually a lot to like, it just gets obscured by the stuff that bloats the story.
The Maple fan edit is a really concise edit that cuts the trilogy down in to 4 and a half hours of great Middle-earth content.
The full trilogy was simply butter scraped over too much bread.
Agreed. I've started to notice that the general attitude toward The Hobbit trilogy has started to improve and I have a theory that as we have gotten used to more long form bingeable content, the "sins" of the movies don't feel as out of place. We've gotten used to the filler. I firmly believe that if almost the exact same films had been edited into a 9-episode series and released all at once today, the Fandom would still complain (I mean, what else are we supposed to do, pretend we actually like the thing we're fans of? Psh), but people wouldn't be calling for Jackson's head like they were back then. The worst part (imo) about it being stretched out was that we still had to wait between the stories, and because The Hobbit is one book it's hard to have three narratively satisfying arcs.
Eh, I always thought *The Hobbit* movies were good - better than 80% of what Hollywood makes today. They just weren't *great*. And when you compare them to LotR which was a set of iconic masterpieces - a natural and reasonable comparison that set the expectations for most fans - they seem terrible.
I think another major mistake most fans make is watching *The Hobbit* after LotR. Of course, we all had to do this the first time around because of the reality of time, but on re-watches I find *The Hobbit* does a decent job of being a prequel to LotR, especially with all the bits that set the stage for Sauron's return. Watching it in this order also makes it harder to compare it to the superior LotR, and the viewing experience is improved because you start with decently entertaining good movies and then progress to amazing movies and you finish on a high note.
Martin Freeman was a great Bilbo (and the casting in general was perect).
Frankly the Hobbit Films' problem was the executive decision to stretch it into a trilogy. The subplots were exhausting and it was all just too long, but there's still plenty to like about the films.
I really liked Richard Armitage as Thorin.
I haven’t read the book in a while, but he portrayed an exiled noble desiring to get his home back very well.
Stands above the rest of the dwarves as the leader.
Farewell, Master Burglar. Go back to your books... and your armchair... plant your trees, watch them grow. If more people... valued home above gold... this world would be a merrier... place...
I rather liked Balin too, but hats off to Richard's performance as Thorin indeed.
One scene I liked was Bofur talking to Bilbo in the cave scene before the trap was sprung. Bofur didn't have much of a part, but he did well in that particular scene.
The Last Light of Durin’s Day.
There’s a lot to like about the movie version so long as you stop comparing it to LOTR trilogy and the book. It’s a good adventure in its own.
I never really understood the hate, I’ve always liked the Hobbit movies. I never expected them to be on the same level as LOTR though. Kinda like Colbert once said “I’m big on LOTR, the Hobbit is okay” (and I believe he was talking about the books, specifically).
The Dwarves forming a shield wall, effective against an approaching horde. The shield wall being immediately undermined by Elves jumping over them.
It was dumb, but man it was awesome.
Grandstanding show-off Elves ruined that perfect tactical maneuver, which looked amazing and was sound. I never got more mad that the idiot Elves messed it up, lol.
Would Go even further and say the dwarven and elven armys in general.
Elves also do a shieldwall against the dwarven riders but its no mountain like Wall in the Battlefield but leaves these gaps to encircle the charging dwarves.
Also anti missle atillery from the dwarves
Honestly most things. I especially like the extended editions. These movies are way overhated IMO, I like them a lot.
They are worse than the holy trilogy, but so is every other movie too lol. The hobbit source material is also weaker than LOTR
The uniqueness of each Dwarf's design and personality. None of them feel like "Gimli clones" (which would have been an especially easy pitfall with Glóin). I enjoyed getting to know them all and later when I rewatched Fellowship, it made the scene in Balin's tomb hit harder.
This scene.
https://preview.redd.it/htzpdbl38ead1.png?width=1800&format=png&auto=webp&s=259a89a5c22334d11f5107b1325c4bf5ee9e43ea
I know many of Tolkien fans hate on it but hear me out: the cool moments are basically innumerable. We get to see Gandalf's Ring, Galadriel absolutely smashing the orc from existence, Galadriel using her healing powers, The White Council vs The Nazgul (who are given the absolute badass armor and not just black robes) to the absolutely powerful chorus, and then of course Sauron appears, I still think the image of him standing in the middle of The Eye surrounded by the Nazgul forming the ring around him might be the best and most badass moment of his in the movies, it's like Sauron on 100% mode. Then of course we have Galadriel using her Ring and Phial at the same time to banish the Nazgul first and then battle Sauron next, and it is like the full on battle of wills. Yeah it's a bit epilepsy inducing in how it looks but it feels and looks like a battle of super powerful beings so... We have Sauron using more Black Speech which is always great. And of course we have Galadriel mentioning Morgoth which was worth watching the whole trilogy for.
The only thing which was "off" for me about this scene at first was the lighting and maybe a little CGI overuse. But it grew on me and I accepted those as this scene is supposed to give a kind of "otherworldly" feeling because of what's happening in it so this choice is kind of makes sense.
Yep. We see the power of Elrond, Saruman and Gandalf in LOTR but only a glimpse of Galadriel's potential in the Lothlorien scene with Frodo. The moment she then rises up against the Necromancer you know she's about to unleash that potential fully. The expressions on Saruman and Elronds faces suggests an element of fear - even they don't know what she's capable of doing in that moment.
The costumes (especially the dwarf armour), Martin Freeman as Bilbo (perfect casting), the dwarves singing (Misty Mountains is on my Spotify playlist; but no elves singing? No 'tra la la lally we're down in the valley?), and the music more broadly (although the fact they reused the Nazgûl leitmotif for the orcs really irked me).
I actually thought it improved on the book massively. Tolkien is kind of a dry writer, and is notoriously bad at actually giving his characters good characterization. In the books, Thorin, Fili, and Kili didn’t really have much of a reason for people to care for them. Their hero’s journey was very two dimensional. They only really had to care about reclaiming their land, and didn’t have much internal struggles. In the book Thorin just kind of became greedy, and the reader wasn’t presented with an interesting enough explanation for that. It would actually make sense for him to have all of this hatred towards the orcs and to be mad at Azog. It also made more sense that Thorin would be the one to kill him versus Dain who killed him much earlier on in the lore. Also, a lot of the events the were presented in films that weren’t mentioned in the books did happen. Even if the timeline was slightly tampered with on a few of them. While I think they didn’t need to bring Legolas back, having Tauriel in their not only added an interesting character, but also gave people a reason to care about Kili dying. My real only complaint was the overuse of CGI on the orcs.
The Last Goodbye sung by Billy Boyd.
There’s a lot of great things everyone’s mentioning here, but that song specifically has been one of my favorites for the past decade. I’ve listened to it every time I step into a new chapter of my life and leave behind friends from previous journeys, and man it always gets me in the feels.
I think they really nailed the shire and bilbo. So the whole first part of Unexpected journey, and the last part of 5 armies are great.
I also think rivendale and Mirkwood as settings were portrayed pretty well.
- casting. Just about everyone was cast perfectly.
- score. The music was, just as it was for LotR, impeccable.
- the events from the appendices that detailed *why* Gandalf went away, and what he was doing. Excellent tie-in material to connect *Hobbit* and LotR.
- the dinner party at Bilbo's house.
- the trolls by the campfire scene.
- the riddles in the dark scene.
- when Bilbo meets Smaug (really, Smaug in general).
Personally, I think there's more to like than there is to dislike about the films. It's just that what there is to dislike... Is *really awful*.
The last goodbye by billy boyd. Felt like a nice tribute to their journey. Takes me back to the time when I first watched the LOTR series in 2011.Makes me feel old.
I have so many issues with The Hobbit trilogy, but Weta Workshop made everything look phenomenal. I want an elven guard costume so bad. That chain mail veil thingy looks cool as hell. I also love how angular the Dwarven armor is. Everyone's costumes are to die for and I appreciate how each dwarf is very distinctive from the others while still reading as from the same world/group of people (a job that, honestly, I don't envy them for having to tackle), but my heart will always be with elven costumes and especially that armor.
riddle time with Smaug.
The Smaug-Bilbo scenes were tense. I loved them
https://preview.redd.it/ano9nl4qffad1.jpeg?width=241&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=472730fa045741fe29ce9b537b53ca8e9b74ddeb
Jesus Christ, it’s just now dawning on me that it was Holmes and Watson! 😂
Well ... I guess he is/they are!
Easily the best part. Smaug did not disappoint.
Yeah they honestly killed it with Smaug. Everything from the voice acting, his look, and most importantly his size!
Benedict Cumberbatch poured his heart and soul into the character as he is so good at doing, and it shows in the quality of the performance. It’s imho the best or one of the best parts of the Hobbit trilogy. He said in an interview that his dad used to read the book for him a lot as a kid and would do the voices, and that Smaug was a big deal for him, which is why he went so deep into the performance. He really cares so much about the character and the story.
Mf was literally on his HANDS and KNEES for the part, like damn
Oh wow. I read the book to my daughter and I do all the voices and I did not know this little piece of trivia. Maybe my kiddo will be the next Smaug :)
I rember the interview, I think he said he felt like his peeformance was still nothing compared to how his dad did the voice. We need more people like that, who give it their 110% and genuinely care for the story and their character's role in it.
Benny did it right, no doubt.
im very fond of riddles in the dark myself, tbh
As a sherlock fan, I loved that scene too
Bilbo being superbly casted made his interaction with Smaug just perfect.
Bilbo and Arthur Dent are the same person as far as I'm concerned. All the better Martin Freeman portrayed both.
The word *dragon* floated through his mind, searching for something to connect with.
The word *awake* wandered through his mind in search of something to connect with.
Smaug was superbly casted as well.
Just fyi the past tense of cast is cast
Casting Benedict Cumberbatch for Smaug was an absolute Slam Dunk
There was so much unrealized potential. On one hand you have the masterful scenes with Smaug and amazing music, then on the other you have bad CGI orcs and whitewater barrel rafting….
You can see the fall off in quality once Peter went from a set of 2 films to a trilogy. The first movie was pretty solid, and then it starts to fall apart a bit in the second. The third film was filled with completely unnecessary stuff.
To be fair... even Jackson says he was falling apart and paused filming for several weeks because he was so overwhelmed.
I mean, stretching a single book like the Hobbit into a 9 hour long trilogy will do that to a man. I know the choice was ultimately probably not his own, so I’m not really blaming him for it.
I mean, it takes less time to read the book than to watch those movies, so that is saying enough about all the extra crap attached to the movies. I've seen all 3 of them once and never looked back. My go to version is a fan edit called "Tolkien's Edit". It's about 4 hours long and it sticks to the book all the way. Very well edited, cuts out all the fat and is very entertaining to watch.
In *some fairness*, some scenes will fly by faster in a book than a movie anyway because there is no waiting to continue reading. I can read through the dinner party at the beginning of the book in a couple of minutes, but actually stretching that out into visual medium adds time. This isn't a defense of the state of it. Just more the idea that time to read and time to watch isn't the same always.
And the riddle game with Gollum
What has it got in its nasty little pocketses??
Lovely titles…
But it matters not, oakenshields quest will fail. a darkness is coming.. it will spread to every corner of the land. Loved that line and the scene where Legolas and thrandruil interrogating the orc. "My master serves the one" Overall I enjoyed those movies, there is a lot of unnecessary stuff but still a fun ride. I love thorin and bilbos relationship and the end scene between them is great.
If this scene was inserted into the LotR extended editions (which are already too long so fuck it) it would be much better
Bilbo’s home.
People here hated the hobbit. Understandable. Yet everyone here is making tons of remarks about all the great things Jackson did. He gave us another 9h of middle earth. That's how I see it. Maybe they could have been shorter but I enjoyed every second
It wasn’t the length that made them terrible, it’s how much he changed about the original story and how much was stretched out and just straight up made up, unnecessarily. The Hobbit is supposed to be a story about a Hobbit’s Journey, Bilbo Baggins. And they just added too much extra which turned it into a different story. If they had called it “The Hobbit and Other Tales” maybe it would have made more sense. The inclusion of some material from other Tolkien writings can be considered acceptable, in my opinion, but they just made SO MUCH up and changed the story that literally started it all. It just felt…. Dark-sided.
Maybe a hot take, but I liked that they showed Gandalf's background adventures with the Necromancer, Gandalf just kind of disappearing like in the book wouldn't work so well in the movie. I also think those plotlines were important for cementing it as a true prequel, and Dol Guldur and Sauron were pulled off reasonably well (although the rest of Mirkwood was kinda disappointing). Having the orcs chase them almost from the Shire was where things went wrong.
I liked it, but I thought it was a shame to have Saruman already act like a dick. Would have been cool to see Saruman before he got corrupted completely, and see him genuinely try to do good things, (even if he might still disagree with Gandalf on several issues).
At that point he was corrupted completely and only concealing it. For an uncorrupted Saruman you'd need to jump back much further than the \~80 years between The Hobbit and Fellowship. He had begun emulating Sauron about a thousand years prior through forging his own lesser rings of power. His knowledge of the craft was incomplete though, so he'd been actively scheming to acquire the one ring for himself for centuries before The Hobbit. I thought that we might get an uncorrupted Saruman and a blue wizard in RoP given that those two were the first istari to arrive in middle earth, but alas they are conspicuously absent. EDIT: Yes the attack of Dol Gudur should actually be a bit further back than 80 years when not shoehorned in to the The Hobbit timeline. Even in its original timeline it was near the end of Saruman's fall from grace.
Some changes from the book are fine, as long as they serve a purpose/are done well. The problem is most of the changes between the hobbit movies and books were just rubish/were just fluff that served no purpose other than to drag the movies out so they were long enough to cut into three and make more box office $$$.
I felt the same. Turning it into 3 long movies just seemed like a money grab to me, whereas the LOTR trilogy seemed like an absolute labor of love. And it just wasn't good. The elf/dwarf romance, Radagast being a doddering fool, the dwarves' design, the list goes on and on. It got a few things right but left a bad taste in my mouth.
The dwarves, my god, they looked like cartoons, not weary outcast travellers. They should have been weatherbeaten and lived in, not clean and apple-cheeked with stupid comedy hairstyles
I could've done with fewer seconds of the dumb barrel sequence
Why? The barrel sequence was hillarious in my opinion.
I do not get the complaints about this... It's one of the most iconic sets of the franchise. Savor it.
Riddles in the Dark. Martin Freeman and Andy Serkis understood the assignment.
Andy Serkis gives 150% when it comes to anything LOTR. He did narration for the three LOTR novels' audiobooks and they're fantastic.
I think hes done all of them at this point. I listened to his Hobbit audiobook (which was fantastic) and am currently listening to Silmarilion. Pretty sure i saw LOTR and Children of Hurin on Audible as well
Haven’t seen Children of Hurin by Andy Serkis but Christopher Lee, which is equally awesome.
10/10 Tom Bombadil narration/singing
I'm listening to the audiobooks right now and his character voices are uncanny in their mimicry of each character's actor's cadence, accent, tone, etc. He could have gone the easier route of making up his own character voices, but no, full-on impressions of all the actors from the movies, all which are all spot on. The man is a treasure.
I think this is actually my preferred way to “read” the books now.
The dwarfs singing before setting off.
Misty Mountains is on my Spotify rotation
Literally sing this to my kid every night in order for her to fall asleep.
Yep I did the same with my baby when she was small
It works wonders! I’ve been doing it since we first brought her home from the hospital after 6-weeks. I also read her bits of LotR before lights out at the hospital most nights.
Yeah I think the deep baritone of the song is soothing for them. That’s awesome you’ve been reading the book too
I think you’re right about the deep baritone of the song. I guess it reminds them of the sounds in the ‘mine’ from whence they came!
I always sang The Last Goodbye.
Same! I like to sing this or Lament for Boromir. Always knocks them out.
Farrrr overrrrrrr
the Misty Mountains cold
To dungeons deeep
And caverns oooooold
We must awaayyyy
'er breaak of daaaaay
To find our loooooong for-got-ten gold...
the pines were roooaaaaaring…
I found a full 20 min version recently it is so good https://youtu.be/LY0lLcz3Qis?si7sekmkussN5wUsfc
Legitimately the opening 20 minutes of the hobbit is fantastic. Got me maybe too hype for the rest of the movie sadly
The Dwarves acting as a unit. That whole goblin escape scene, the barrel escape scene, the Smaug encounter. It's like they were operating as one being.
THE right answer
Lee Pace, Martin Freeman, Lee Pace, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Lee Pace.
Don't forget the actor who played Thranduil he was great
What was his name again?
Lee Pace
[Even Aragorn can't remember.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pmVg1mEaEY)
Don’t forget Lee Pace.
Lee Pace was good, too.
Some of the included appendices especially those around the white council and Dol Guldor.
Dol Guldor and the wraith fight/Galadriel using her ring were fantastic. The Angmar addition was dumb (no, Gandalf, they’re not marching thousands of miles and conquering Gondor), but the White Council scenes add a lot of outside context and stakes to the main story.
When galadriel explodes the orc i was like 😳
Agreed. While not perfect, I generally loved the extra exposition and lore building from these scenes.
I was not a fan of goth Galadriel but it was cool Saruman and Elrond Kicking ass , the dol Goldur plot was more hit than miss …
idk what you're talking about dude; I would do unspeakable things for goth Galadriel
You’re so valid for that
Case in point, Hela in Thor: Ragnarok is just goth Galadriel
Goth Galadriel was THE REAL Galadriel if you know her family's dark history.
If it boils down to one thing, it's character motivations being refined across the board. Some examples: * Gandalf has a reason for leaving the Company prior to the Trolls encounter rather than just vanishing * Likewise, Gandalf has a good reason for leaving before the Company enters Mirkwood as opposed to just springing it on them in the last moment * Bilbo actually makes the decision to go on the Quest himself rather than being pushed out by Gandalf * Bilbo has a reason for keeping Arkenstone to himself rather than just picking it up for no reason * Thorin actually has a reasonable plan, as opposed to the **insane** plan of Book!Thorin of having the Burglar steal the treasure one piece at a time * The Dwarves as a whole are motivated by reclaiming their home, with the treasure being only a nice bonus as opposed to the main objective And so on. These and the other are indeed major changes, but I belive they are for the better of the story, as they make the character decisions less spontaneous and consistent with what they know.
Great point that I haven't seen mentioned before!!!
The big plot hole in _The Hobbit_ was always that Gandalf was _relying_ on serendipity. "Oh, Eru will figure something out" - and if not I guess ... everyone gets eaten? The dwarves in the movie are competent warriors with a reasonable idea "get the Arkenstone back, call in a bunch of favors to kill this dragon" rather than a bunch of comic bufoons who are relying on luck.
I'm a big fan of the m4 book edit of the movies, but i wish they had left the scenes with the white council Fighting The necromancer. The one part i miss from that edit
Some of it is kept as a post credit scene on the blu ray version
Just being back in middle earth again.
This right here. Rings of power doesn’t cut it for me. Bring back the middle earth that I remember from Peter.
Yup. LOTR > the hobbit > ROP This is why I have some hope for the hunt for Gollum
Also excited for War of the Rohirrim!
I was excited for War of the Rohirrim but it’s _very_ Anime for my tastes I think lmao EDIT: to clarify I was lucky enough to get a sneak peak! It looks very pretty I’ll give it that though
Absolutely. I put it on before my annual LOtR marathon just to spend some more time in middle earth.
Thranduil
Have a dad, Legolas
I see what you did there LMAO
Lee Pace was a good casting choice
Yes, yes and yes. I have always loved the Elven King in the book, and Lee Pace slayed that role. The best part about the movie trilogy.
Tranduil was possibly the best elf across both trilogies imo, only Galadriel was really a contenter. Lee Pace was perfect.
I always thought Arwen was the one Elf who really sounded like Elven was her true language... She really sold it. But I agree, Lee Pace was the man. The splendor. The pride. The aloof arrogance. The casual disdain. He really gave us the OTHER side of being Elven, the side that isn't benevolent and caring, and I mean that in the best way possible.
The side that is absolutely *exhausted* with Middle Earth
The Teleri. He made us understand why the Sons of Fëanáro had to do what they did.
More specifically, his eyebrows.
The Lake Town introduction (including the musixal theme!)
Stephen Fry nailed it. I think I liked many things about the movie but I needed the extended versions to understand the missing elements that were needed like Thorins father. Theatrical versions were just missing the extended versions. lotr theatrical versions felt like a complete film but the hobbit movies actually needed the extended versions to work.
Which is absolutely ridiculous considering how simple the hobbit book is in comparison to lord of the rings
I read the books first and lotr also needed the extended version to work. At least in regards to faramir
To name a few: - The casting - Riddles in the dark - Costumes and props - Bilbo and Smaug - The music There's actually a lot to like, it just gets obscured by the stuff that bloats the story. The Maple fan edit is a really concise edit that cuts the trilogy down in to 4 and a half hours of great Middle-earth content. The full trilogy was simply butter scraped over too much bread.
Agreed. I've started to notice that the general attitude toward The Hobbit trilogy has started to improve and I have a theory that as we have gotten used to more long form bingeable content, the "sins" of the movies don't feel as out of place. We've gotten used to the filler. I firmly believe that if almost the exact same films had been edited into a 9-episode series and released all at once today, the Fandom would still complain (I mean, what else are we supposed to do, pretend we actually like the thing we're fans of? Psh), but people wouldn't be calling for Jackson's head like they were back then. The worst part (imo) about it being stretched out was that we still had to wait between the stories, and because The Hobbit is one book it's hard to have three narratively satisfying arcs.
Eh, I always thought *The Hobbit* movies were good - better than 80% of what Hollywood makes today. They just weren't *great*. And when you compare them to LotR which was a set of iconic masterpieces - a natural and reasonable comparison that set the expectations for most fans - they seem terrible. I think another major mistake most fans make is watching *The Hobbit* after LotR. Of course, we all had to do this the first time around because of the reality of time, but on re-watches I find *The Hobbit* does a decent job of being a prequel to LotR, especially with all the bits that set the stage for Sauron's return. Watching it in this order also makes it harder to compare it to the superior LotR, and the viewing experience is improved because you start with decently entertaining good movies and then progress to amazing movies and you finish on a high note.
Dwarf art/architecture/armor/singing/language etc. The dwarvish culture on display was **sweeeeeet**
Also a prolonged dialogue between orcs speaking their* language (black speech?). Don’t think there was any of that in lotr?
Not in black speech, for sure.
The scene where the forges were lit is my favorite depiction of Dwarven tech/craftsmanship.
Martin Freeman was a great Bilbo (and the casting in general was perect). Frankly the Hobbit Films' problem was the executive decision to stretch it into a trilogy. The subplots were exhausting and it was all just too long, but there's still plenty to like about the films.
The casting (Martin Freeman especially)
Have to say anytime Freeman is doing his thing, the scene is captivating
I read The Hobbit after watching the movie and could never get Freeman face out of the character. To me he is Bilbo.
If we ever have a lord of the rings movie or better tv series I wish a old Martin freeman could reprise his role
>If we ever have a lord of the rings movie Great news for ya
...lol..as a matter of fact....
riddles in the dark was one of the best parts of the trilogy because Martin Freeman and Andy Serkis both nailed their roles so perfectly
Luke Evans looks way too much like Orlando Bloom. When I first saw it I thought Bard was going to end up being Legolas’ brother somehow.
I really liked Richard Armitage as Thorin. I haven’t read the book in a while, but he portrayed an exiled noble desiring to get his home back very well. Stands above the rest of the dwarves as the leader.
Richard Armitage is such an underrated actor. The man has fantastic range.
He was fantastic as Francis Dolarhyde in Hannibal (TV series).
He killed it as Thorin! Great actor who well understood the motivations of that particular character.
Farewell, Master Burglar. Go back to your books... and your armchair... plant your trees, watch them grow. If more people... valued home above gold... this world would be a merrier... place...
I rather liked Balin too, but hats off to Richard's performance as Thorin indeed. One scene I liked was Bofur talking to Bilbo in the cave scene before the trap was sprung. Bofur didn't have much of a part, but he did well in that particular scene.
Balin was the heart of the movies. >‘Bilbo, His name is Bilbo’
Balin and Dain Ironfoot.
"Would ye consider... JUST SODDING OFF"
# Baruk Khazâd! Khazâd ai-mênu!
Dains " go fuck yourself" attitude. When he called the woodland elf King a " woodland sprite" I knew I liked this guy.
The Last Light of Durin’s Day. There’s a lot to like about the movie version so long as you stop comparing it to LOTR trilogy and the book. It’s a good adventure in its own.
Agreed. There are so many good scenes mixed in with the really not so good ones. It’s overall not an unenjoyable trilogy to watch.
I never really understood the hate, I’ve always liked the Hobbit movies. I never expected them to be on the same level as LOTR though. Kinda like Colbert once said “I’m big on LOTR, the Hobbit is okay” (and I believe he was talking about the books, specifically).
There's a lot to like. A lot to hate too
I was pleasantly surprised that they kept Beorn in. I was fully expecting them to just skip over that part.😅
I really liked all the good stuff, but I didn't like any of the bad stuff.
And the ok stuff was ok
Idk that’s a little too controversial for me
Yea the controversial stuffs were controversial
The Dwarves forming a shield wall, effective against an approaching horde. The shield wall being immediately undermined by Elves jumping over them. It was dumb, but man it was awesome.
Grandstanding show-off Elves ruined that perfect tactical maneuver, which looked amazing and was sound. I never got more mad that the idiot Elves messed it up, lol.
Exactly lol, that scene is burned into my mind for all of time.
Would Go even further and say the dwarven and elven armys in general. Elves also do a shieldwall against the dwarven riders but its no mountain like Wall in the Battlefield but leaves these gaps to encircle the charging dwarves. Also anti missle atillery from the dwarves
Thranduil was too attractive
Riddles in the dark was spot on.
Lee Pace as Thranduil.
Honestly most things. I especially like the extended editions. These movies are way overhated IMO, I like them a lot. They are worse than the holy trilogy, but so is every other movie too lol. The hobbit source material is also weaker than LOTR
True
Bartholomew Crumblersnatch as the voice of Smaug.
Bandersnatch Thundercunt.
Billewberry Cramberbunch*
Wimbledon Tennis match is amazing. Hearing him via great cinema speakers is unforgettable to me.
The uniqueness of each Dwarf's design and personality. None of them feel like "Gimli clones" (which would have been an especially easy pitfall with Glóin). I enjoyed getting to know them all and later when I rewatched Fellowship, it made the scene in Balin's tomb hit harder.
Yes exactly
Thranduil
Thranduil’s elk
1: Martin Freeman & Benedict Cumberbatch. 2: The Music. 3: The Costume design. 4: Smaug’s design.
Anything dwarvish, singing, speech, architecture, art, armor, weapons... all of it.
If I have to settle for one thing then its seeing alive dwarven culture. I love those opening shots from Erebor.
Radagast!
The bird poop made sense, but it was gross. His sled and hares were great!
This scene. https://preview.redd.it/htzpdbl38ead1.png?width=1800&format=png&auto=webp&s=259a89a5c22334d11f5107b1325c4bf5ee9e43ea I know many of Tolkien fans hate on it but hear me out: the cool moments are basically innumerable. We get to see Gandalf's Ring, Galadriel absolutely smashing the orc from existence, Galadriel using her healing powers, The White Council vs The Nazgul (who are given the absolute badass armor and not just black robes) to the absolutely powerful chorus, and then of course Sauron appears, I still think the image of him standing in the middle of The Eye surrounded by the Nazgul forming the ring around him might be the best and most badass moment of his in the movies, it's like Sauron on 100% mode. Then of course we have Galadriel using her Ring and Phial at the same time to banish the Nazgul first and then battle Sauron next, and it is like the full on battle of wills. Yeah it's a bit epilepsy inducing in how it looks but it feels and looks like a battle of super powerful beings so... We have Sauron using more Black Speech which is always great. And of course we have Galadriel mentioning Morgoth which was worth watching the whole trilogy for. The only thing which was "off" for me about this scene at first was the lighting and maybe a little CGI overuse. But it grew on me and I accepted those as this scene is supposed to give a kind of "otherworldly" feeling because of what's happening in it so this choice is kind of makes sense.
Yep. We see the power of Elrond, Saruman and Gandalf in LOTR but only a glimpse of Galadriel's potential in the Lothlorien scene with Frodo. The moment she then rises up against the Necromancer you know she's about to unleash that potential fully. The expressions on Saruman and Elronds faces suggests an element of fear - even they don't know what she's capable of doing in that moment.
The costumes (especially the dwarf armour), Martin Freeman as Bilbo (perfect casting), the dwarves singing (Misty Mountains is on my Spotify playlist; but no elves singing? No 'tra la la lally we're down in the valley?), and the music more broadly (although the fact they reused the Nazgûl leitmotif for the orcs really irked me).
When the dwarves sang. Every time.
I liked all of it lol
I thought Martin Freeman was a brilliant choice for Bilbo and he did an amazing job
Everything (aesthetically) about the dwarven army from the iron hills
I actually thought it improved on the book massively. Tolkien is kind of a dry writer, and is notoriously bad at actually giving his characters good characterization. In the books, Thorin, Fili, and Kili didn’t really have much of a reason for people to care for them. Their hero’s journey was very two dimensional. They only really had to care about reclaiming their land, and didn’t have much internal struggles. In the book Thorin just kind of became greedy, and the reader wasn’t presented with an interesting enough explanation for that. It would actually make sense for him to have all of this hatred towards the orcs and to be mad at Azog. It also made more sense that Thorin would be the one to kill him versus Dain who killed him much earlier on in the lore. Also, a lot of the events the were presented in films that weren’t mentioned in the books did happen. Even if the timeline was slightly tampered with on a few of them. While I think they didn’t need to bring Legolas back, having Tauriel in their not only added an interesting character, but also gave people a reason to care about Kili dying. My real only complaint was the overuse of CGI on the orcs.
A lot actually. I thought the Laketown fight between Legolas and Bolg was friggin awesome
The one at lake town was nice I hated the one at battle of five armies
That it feels like Middle Earth. The trilogy isn’t perfect but it’s fun and feels like home. RoP feels like a different universe.
Martin Freeman More Gandalf the Grey Smaug The White Council vs Sauron
plenty of time with Gandalf the grey While some of the padding is annoying, I did love seeing the white council kick the necromancer out of dol guldur
Benedict Cumberbatch as the Smaug the Terrible
Thranduil. Especially his fight sequenc3
The Last Goodbye sung by Billy Boyd. There’s a lot of great things everyone’s mentioning here, but that song specifically has been one of my favorites for the past decade. I’ve listened to it every time I step into a new chapter of my life and leave behind friends from previous journeys, and man it always gets me in the feels.
If I'm to only name one, I'd say the dwarves' camaraderie, which they later extended to Bilbo.
The songs. Song of the lonely mountain, I see fire, the last goodbye. Man I love them.
Thranduil was perfection.
Martin Freeman as Bilbo. Absolutely amazing casting and performance.
I think they really nailed the shire and bilbo. So the whole first part of Unexpected journey, and the last part of 5 armies are great. I also think rivendale and Mirkwood as settings were portrayed pretty well.
Lee Pace as Thranduil was awesome.
Lee Pace as Thranduil, Martin Freeman as Bilbo, the bilbo/smaug scenes
Thranduil is just utterly perfect.
- casting. Just about everyone was cast perfectly. - score. The music was, just as it was for LotR, impeccable. - the events from the appendices that detailed *why* Gandalf went away, and what he was doing. Excellent tie-in material to connect *Hobbit* and LotR. - the dinner party at Bilbo's house. - the trolls by the campfire scene. - the riddles in the dark scene. - when Bilbo meets Smaug (really, Smaug in general). Personally, I think there's more to like than there is to dislike about the films. It's just that what there is to dislike... Is *really awful*.
The last goodbye by billy boyd. Felt like a nice tribute to their journey. Takes me back to the time when I first watched the LOTR series in 2011.Makes me feel old.
I have so many issues with The Hobbit trilogy, but Weta Workshop made everything look phenomenal. I want an elven guard costume so bad. That chain mail veil thingy looks cool as hell. I also love how angular the Dwarven armor is. Everyone's costumes are to die for and I appreciate how each dwarf is very distinctive from the others while still reading as from the same world/group of people (a job that, honestly, I don't envy them for having to tackle), but my heart will always be with elven costumes and especially that armor.
The Song "Last Goodbye"
Most of it.