DUH! I was scratching my head over the review until I scrolled up to find out just WHICH 'revered publication' it was from!Lalaith wrote:Voronwë the Faithful wrote:Major spoilers in this review in one of American's most revered publications:
'The Hobbit' To Feature 53-Minute-Long Scene Of Bilbo Baggins Trying To Figure Out What To Pack
I don't think that's behind the bad reviews, SirD. IMO, the film is mediocre-to-really bad, no matter how you see it.SirDennis wrote:Rot into my toes dot com update: All 65% Top 42% Fan 81%
All and Top continue a leisurely decline while Fan holds fast. Yesterday was the official release in Canada. More and more are having trouble with the HFR 3D, which is a shame if they only intended to see "this thing" once and chose that format.
In other news, I'll be away for a few days so please feel free to add updates as you are moved to do so, or not.
“The Lord of the Rings” trilogy was close to perfect, and it has the Oscars and diehard fans to prove it. In “The Hobbit” Mr Jackson seems to have let his love for the material blind him to the merits of a simpler story. The result is more an instalment of a franchise than a compelling film.
Word. IMO, of course...Jackson had the opportunity to make a great film but missed it—in part because of the lowest-common-denominator needs of global Hollywood, but also in part because he and screenwriter Philippa Boyens didn’t entirely understand their material or trust their audience...
...a script with a fair number of false notes, missed opportunities and unnecessary changes.
That just about sums it up...Too many times we see something that is visually cool but emotionally empty...
Goodness, I missed that "ruled as if by divine right" line in the prologue...Typical PJ embellishment, I suppose.Voronwë the Faithful wrote:A superb review by Michael Drout:
http://wormtalk.blogspot.se/2012/12/the ... ughts.html
While the scripts have never been my favorite aspect of the movies, I don't think that's a fair statement.AND he does so immediately after some of the worst forced dialogue in the film, where Gandalf describes the other wizards, specifically singling out Radagast! Has there been, in the past decade, a bit of script-writing this bad? If so, I haven't seen it.
Its not so much the timing, as it is the implausibility of Radagast just popping up in the middle of the company. THAT reduces scale big time. Sorry, but it was sloppy and ham-handed. The question leading to Gandalf's answer about the other wizards, which then cuts to Radagast, and then later leads to his arrival by bunny express, is an indication of how horribly forced the Radagast-Dol Guldur-White Council storyline is. It's a tiresome contrivance, and puts Bilbo and Thorin on a back-burner. IMO, it is the worst decision Peter Jackson has made thus far in his half-baked Middle Earth endeavors.axordil wrote:While the scripts have never been my favorite aspect of the movies, I don't think that's a fair statement.AND he does so immediately after some of the worst forced dialogue in the film, where Gandalf describes the other wizards, specifically singling out Radagast! Has there been, in the past decade, a bit of script-writing this bad? If so, I haven't seen it.
Gandalf mentioned Radagast before the trolls, which leads into the Rhosgobel sequence--that's a pretty standard transition. The Rhosgobel and Troll sequences separate the reference and Radagast showing up, so it's separated by between twenty and thirty minutes of film. Calling that immediate is a bit of a stretch.
Even in story terms, since there's no clear establishment that Rhosgobel takes place in real time relative to the dwarves approaching the trolls--no "meanwhile in the south of Mirkwood"--one can assume (if one knows the distances and is so inclined) that the Rhosgobel scene took place, say, a couple of weeks before. If one is clueless about the scale, the timing matters less. Either way, it's not an issue.
*shrugs* They're Istari. Radagast was looking for Gandalf. If one really wants to find another one, and the second doesn't mind being found, it's no longer a chance meeting in Middle-earth.Shelob'sAppetite wrote:Its not so much the timing, as it is the implausibility of Radagast just popping up in the middle of the company. THAT reduces scale big time. Sorry, but it was sloppy and ham-handed. The question leading to Gandalf's answer about the other wizards, which then cuts to Radagast, and then later leads to his arrival by bunny express, is an indication of how horribly forced the Radagast-Dol Guldur-White Council storyline is. It's a tiresome contrivance, and puts Bilbo and Thorin on a back-burner. IMO, it is the worst decision Peter Jackson has made thus far in his half-baked Middle Earth endeavors.axordil wrote:While the scripts have never been my favorite aspect of the movies, I don't think that's a fair statement.AND he does so immediately after some of the worst forced dialogue in the film, where Gandalf describes the other wizards, specifically singling out Radagast! Has there been, in the past decade, a bit of script-writing this bad? If so, I haven't seen it.
Gandalf mentioned Radagast before the trolls, which leads into the Rhosgobel sequence--that's a pretty standard transition. The Rhosgobel and Troll sequences separate the reference and Radagast showing up, so it's separated by between twenty and thirty minutes of film. Calling that immediate is a bit of a stretch.
Even in story terms, since there's no clear establishment that Rhosgobel takes place in real time relative to the dwarves approaching the trolls--no "meanwhile in the south of Mirkwood"--one can assume (if one knows the distances and is so inclined) that the Rhosgobel scene took place, say, a couple of weeks before. If one is clueless about the scale, the timing matters less. Either way, it's not an issue.
I do not see the problem there. It's not a quantum leap in logic. It allows Gandalf to remind the audience of Saruman, to make an in-joke about not having rights to Unfinished Tales ("I've forgotten their names"), and sets up Bilbo's crack at Gandalf's expense...and slides into Rhosgobel.(after being asked to do something about the rain)
G: If you want someone to mess with the weather, you need another wizard.
B: So how many wizards are there exactly?
That bit was so stupid, it nearly destroyed my mind.yovargas wrote:IAWA on this point. It was a natural and smooth setup. And that Radagast goes looking for Gandalf and, you know, finds him, doesn't strike me as odd.
A far more awkward contrivance, IMO, was a the stupid giant mountain canyon just underneath this rock in an open field. "Oh, sorry Thorin, I thought you realized we were a few yards away from the huge landmark you said you didn't want to go to. My bad!"
