The Hall of Fire DoS Review Thread

[Smaug's voice]

oh. Apologies.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Lusitano, great to see you! That sounds very intriguing indeed. I will look forward to hearing more of what you have to say!

SV, that was actually John's third blog post about the film.

His main review:

http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2013/12/th ... ation.html

His post about the Smithsonian article that quotes him and Mike Drout:

http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2013/12/smithsonian.html

And then the one that you posted, about some of the new characters.

[Passdagas the Brown]

This one's for yovargas.

I had my worst experience with DOS on the 23rd, when I brought my sister's son (age 13) to see it. This was my fourth viewing.

This time (perhaps because I was very conscious of the young person I was watching it with, and because I've seen it too many times), the sheer amount of fighting/ violence was more mind-numbing than previously, and the intercutting between high-intensity scenes at the end was especially jarring. I counted almost 40 on-screen orc kills during the Laketown/elf sequence alone, which is extraordinarily excessive (especially when you consider that there were no orcs at all by this point in the book!).

My nephew said, upon emerging from the cinema:

"I liked it, but there was a lot of repetitive fighting. And Bilbo didn't really talk that much in it. The first one was better, I think."

While I still think DOS is the best film of the 5, I do hope the EE irons out the all-out action assault of the film. Based on precedent, PJ will not likely cut any of the orc kills, but lighter and quieter scenes interspersed throughout could dramatically improve it.

[yovargas]

40...wow......fan edit to cut that down a good 80 or 90%, please?

[Passdagas the Brown]

Also, I feel that the worst design choice PJ made with these films are the fat prosthetic hands for the dwarves. They look so ridiculous and fake. For example, what should be a tense moment as Thorin pushes open the secret door is rendered a bit silly when you focus on his swollen cartoon fingers!

I think I need to not watch the film again until the EE is released. I mean, I'm focusing on hands for Eru's sake!

[Elentári]

Not surprisingly they abandoned the fake hands for the Tauriel-Kili tender moment...


I remember JRD talking about the problem with Dwarf hands when they made the wise decision not to show Gimli receiving the 3 golden hairs from Galadriel - talking of which...

[yovargas]

[axordil]

The fake hands bug me too. Hands are HARD to do right. They'd have been better off with gloves/gauntlets for scenes where they're featured...and in a quasi-medieval setting no one would have given them two looks.

[sauronsfinger]

WOW!!!! I have seen these movies at least 60 times and never noticed anything different about hands that made me say...... what was that?!?!

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Ironically, the only time I noticed anything about hands was during the healing scene, and I was sure that it was the prosthetic hand because it was so much bigger than Tauriel's.

[JewelSong]

What I noticed about that scene (besides thinking it was stooooopid) was that Kili's hands seemed huge next to Tauriels and shouldn't they be smaller, since he was a DWARF and smaller than she was?

I never noticed any fake big hands on the dwarves at all. Are they supposed to have big hands?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I like the scene more and more, particularly in comparison to the equivalent scene in FOTR, which has always been one of my least favorite in any of the films. Arwen, the centuries old daughter of Lord Elrond and future queen of Gondor, blubbering over a hobbit that she has never met before like a love-sick teenager. It makes me angry just to think about it. Tauriel, on the other hand is compassionate but cool, in response to Kili's delirious but sweet ramblings. And the subtle touch of his reaching out for her hand and her touching his but not holding hands is very well done, regardless of the size of the hands.

[Passdagas the Brown]

The best option would have been no prosthetics on their hands. Not sure why it was important to give them big hands, apart from some misguided notion that dwarves should have strange proportions compared to humans.

But if they felt it important to maintain such proportions, gloves (ala Gimli and Balin) would have been preferable.

ETA: No prothetics at all would have been the best route. I think audiences and critics alike would have taken these films far more seriously if the dwarves didn't generally look like cartoon characters.

[Passdagas the Brown]

I like the scene more and more, particularly in comparison to the equivalent scene in FOTR, which has always been one of my least favorite in any of the films. Arwen, the centuries old daughter of Lord Elrond and future queen of Gondor, blubbering over a hobbit that she has never met before like a love-sick teenager. It makes me angry just to think about it. Tauriel, on the other hand is compassionate but cool, in response to Kili's delirious but sweet ramblings. And the subtle touch of his reaching out for her hand and her touching his but not holding hands is very well done, regardless of the size of the hands.

Agreed. While I don't like the "chanting" bit of the scene, where Tauriel creepily sways back and forth while illuminated, I find the whole thing to be vastly superior to the Arwen/ Frodo moment, which is one of the worst scenes in LOTR (behind Weathertop and a few others).

Frankly, I have no idea why so many Tolkien fans love the LOTR films, and wish they got something similar with the Hobbit.

[Passdagas the Brown]

WOW!!!! I have seen these movies at least 60 times and never noticed anything different about hands that made me say...... what was that?!?!

I believe you, but find it baffling because of how obvious it seems to me. Their hands are incredibly fat and swollen. Even the hands of the thinner dwarves, such as Thorin, Fili and Kili. Though as has been mentioned, they drop the prosthetics for Kili's hand-holding scene with Tauriel.

[narya]

I just finished the appendices for the first film. (3 full DVDs! And then, of course, I had to watch the movie again to appreciate all the new found details. ) When creating the dwarven "look" they wanted to have a larger head in proportion to the body, and very thick bodies, which meant they all had head caps under the wigs and fat suits. That made their hands look way too small. I saw the fully made up actors with and without the gloves, and without, the hands looked like they belonged to young girls, because of the changed proportions. I didn't actually notice the "fat" hands until I saw the appendices, and I must say that both before and after, they looked "right" to me.

I don't know where to put this - I'd hate to start a new thread and be the only one in it - but I am very glad I got the EE of AUJ, and intend to get the EEs of the subsequent movies. I find the behind the scenes material to be fascinating. I like to see how the creative process evolves, sometimes down dead ends, sometimes taking odd turns, but always impressive. And they are saturated throughout with bits of familiar and new music. I take that music with me through the day, weaving thru my head.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

narya, there's a whole thread for the AUJ EE! (I feel the same way you do about the appendices, however.) [Edot" which I see you were the last one to post in!]

[narya]

Yes, I saw that, but I don't want to carry on a conversation with myself there.

[Passdagas the Brown]

I just finished the appendices for the first film. (3 full DVDs! And then, of course, I had to watch the movie again to appreciate all the new found details. ) When creating the dwarven "look" they wanted to have a larger head in proportion to the body, and very thick bodies, which meant they all had head caps under the wigs and fat suits. That made their hands look way too small. I saw the fully made up actors with and without the gloves, and without, the hands looked like they belonged to young girls, because of the changed proportions. I didn't actually notice the "fat" hands until I saw the appendices, and I must say that both before and after, they looked "right" to me.

I don't know where to put this - I'd hate to start a new thread and be the only one in it - but I am very glad I got the EE of AUJ, and intend to get the EEs of the subsequent movies. I find the behind the scenes material to be fascinating. I like to see how the creative process evolves, sometimes down dead ends, sometimes taking odd turns, but always impressive. And they are saturated throughout with bits of familiar and new music. I take that music with me through the day, weaving thru my head.

Right - but I also think it was a mistake to go with larger heads in proportion to the body, (and unusual proportions in general) as IMO it led to some silly-looking faces and head shapes (such as Dwalin's and Nori's), and as we've been discussing, some very strange hands.

On both a dramatic and visual level, the benefits of simply making the dwarves look like short humans vastly outweigh the negatives, IMO. While the benefits of creating "dwarvish" proportions, with excessive prosthetics, do not.

[Pearly Di]

Agreed. While I don't like the "chanting" bit of the scene, where Tauriel creepily sways back and forth while illuminated, I find the whole thing to be vastly superior to the Arwen/ Frodo moment, which is one of the worst scenes in LOTR (behind Weathertop and a few others).

Frankly, I have no idea why so many Tolkien fans love the LOTR films, and wish they got something similar with the Hobbit.

And I have no idea why some folk hate PJ's LotR films yet like his Hobbit ones. .

PJ's LotR, for all its crimes against canon and stylistic flaws, never feels cartoony in the way that PJ's Hobbit sometimes feels, especially in the bonkers Erebor sequences. PJ's LotR has far more gravitas - and it doesn't commit as many blatant crimes against the natural laws of physics.

As is clear from my posts, I am far from being a Hobbit movie hater - PJ's film faults to me are all of a piece, the faults of non-subtle interpretation of characters and unnecessary embroidering of plotlines are the same in The Hobbit as they were in his LotR. The virtues are also the same, e.g. the utterly immersive feel of filmic Middle-earth and PJ's wonderful ability to cast well (99% of the time, anyway!)

I do agree that Arwen blubbing over Frodo is a terrible, terrible scene - fake and unconvincing. It made me cringe the first time I saw it and it still does. I also hate Sam's annoying, saccharine 'United Nations' speech in TTT in Osgiliath. Oh, how I hate that speech. Yet there is also much in PJ's LotR I love. I suppose that my likes and dislikes re: PJ's LotR are more intense, whereas my reaction to PJ's Hobbit is more muted (and tolerant).

I think this is because my relationship with the source material is different. I recently re-read The Hobbit, and fell in love again with Tolkien's beautiful storytelling and meticulous world-building. And with his characters, especially Bilbo and Thorin. The psychology of Tolkien's characters always makes sense, too. But my relationship with LotR, the long-awaited and hugely expanded sequel, is far more intense. The passion which was evident in PJ's LotR project mirrored the passion of Tolkien fans for the book and even when we found PJ's passion mis-directed (e.g. his blatant favouring of Sam over Frodo as a heroic figure, his thwarted attempts to turn Arwen into a warrior princess, etc.), we still responded to that passion on screen and that is why, I am sure, Tolkien fans overall are so remarkably forgiving and enthusiastic about PJ's LotR - which does have some truly transcendent moments - moments I've not seen or experienced the likes of before or since.

ETA: I have never, ever, noticed anything unusual about the Dwarves' hands! I did wonder though at the similar size of Kili's hand with Tauriel's!