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Author Topic: The Hobbit (movie)
Lyrhawn
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But why not make it Bolg and at least say that Thorin killed Azog? That's better revenge than the arm being cut off.
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SteveRogers
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quote:
Originally posted by Lyrhawn:
But why not make it Bolg and at least say that Thorin killed Azog? That's better revenge than the arm being cut off.

I don't know, man. I have no explanation for it.
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ak
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Lyrhawn, can you direct me to Tolkien's writings on how to make and cook lembas? Google is only showing me different people's recipes, not the original source material.
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ak
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And I'm a Tolkien maniac too, though slightly less so than you, I think. I've read The Hobbit and the trilogy probably a dozen times each, and the Silmarillion twice, Tolkien's letters once, and his other stories about once each. I got a book once on the languages, and tried to learn Quenya and Sindarin, and the runes and letters for a while.

But the 12 volume history of middle earth I've only dipped into here and there. It sort of upset me, for some odd reason. Some of the early drafts were so bad they seemed like fanfic or something, and that took away from the majesty and wholeness of the finished product, for me. So I realized I'd hit my limit of desire to know about middle earth there. It was encouraging that something that started out so mediocre could end up so good in the end. It made me feel that I could perhaps be a writer too. But the canon has become sacred scripture to me in many ways, and I didn't want it disturbed in my mind by earlier takes.

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Blayne Bradley
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I think the point of giving more of the credit to Thorin is that much of the heroics in Tolkien's works tends to be subtle so they embellish it to make a point for today's audience. Additionally by making Thorin a little nicer to Bilbo to make the end more tragic.
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Lyrhawn
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quote:
Originally posted by ak:
Lyrhawn, can you direct me to Tolkien's writings on how to make and cook lembas? Google is only showing me different people's recipes, not the original source material.

It's in the Histories. I can't remember exactly which volume off the top of my head, but I know it's toward the end, something like Vol. 10-12. But it's a brief blurb titled something like "On Lembas Bread."

I've only read the Histories once. The first few are interesting as background notes for the actual writing of LOTR. It's the last three or four that have all the fun hidden stuff, like the first chapter or two of the unfinished sequel to LOTR about Eldarion, and some of the stuff that happened after LOTR.

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manji
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Here's my guess:

They don't want to sustain Azog as a villain for the entire trilogy. As it is, he already has more scenes than both Smaug and the Necromancer combined. Like Lurtz in Fellowship of the Ring and Gothmog in Return of the King, these orc villains are there to drive the action forward, in parallel with the main Company.

Thus, Azog will die in the next film, and Bolg will avenge himself on Thorin in the Battle of the Five Armies, in the last film, who will in turn be killed by Bilbo, if we want to follow the father-son themes through to the end. Yes, that's not exactly how it happened in the book, but when has Peter Jackson ever let a little thing like canon get in the way of telling a "good" story.

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Lyrhawn
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That may very well be what happens. And if it is...I guess I wouldn't hate it, except for Bilbo killing Bolg, that wound fundamentally change the spirit of the battle and Bilbo himself. I would throw an outright hissy fit.
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SteveRogers
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They're definitely going to make Bilbo an active element in the Battle of Five Armies. There's no way they'd keep the getting-knocked-out-and-waking-up-when-it's-over thing.
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Lyrhawn
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Out. Right. Hissy. Fit.
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manji
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Some proposed candidates for Azog's death in descending order of likelihood:
  • Thorin (to continue the father-son themes and revenge cycle)
  • Beorn (because the orcs will be trespassing on his land)
  • Elves of Mirkwood (either Legolas or this new character Tauriel, played by Evangeline Lilly, will have this honor)
  • Spiders of Mirkwood (because spiders are hungry)

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SteveRogers
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quote:
Originally posted by Lyrhawn:
Out. Right. Hissy. Fit.

I would prepare for it now then. Because there's no way they would allow the protagonist of their blockbuster fantasy adventure trilogy to be absent from the climactic battle scene.

In fact, prepare for Bilbo to single handedly slay a giant elephant. Wait. . .

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Lyrhawn
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quote:
Originally posted by SteveRogers:
quote:
Originally posted by Lyrhawn:
Out. Right. Hissy. Fit.

I would prepare for it now then. Because there's no way they would allow the protagonist of their blockbuster fantasy adventure trilogy to be absent from the climactic battle scene.

In fact, prepare for Bilbo to single handedly slay a giant elephant. Wait. . .

I already have lengthy, angry diatribes in the early drafting stages.
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Dan_Frank
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Manji, if they were going to kill Azog before the battle of 5 armies and bring in another orc leader for that battle, I think they would have done so already, in the final scene of An Unexpected Journey.

I'm betting Bolg never shows up and it's Azog all the way through.

Doesn't bother me the way it does the more die-hard Tolkien fans, though. Besides, Azog is hands down the prettiest orc ever to grace the big screen, so, you know. Silver lining.

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SteveRogers
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I'm trying to figure out what content they're going to include in which of the next two movies. It would be poor writing to make the 3rd movie JUST the Battle of Five Armies content. There's no way they could justify a 3 hour movie based on that.

But I say that after having watched a nearly 3 hour movie which only accounted for the first handful of chapters of the book.

I suppose anything is possible.

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SteveRogers
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quote:
Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
Besides, Azog is hands down the prettiest orc ever to grace the big screen, so, you know. Silver lining.

The CGI for him actually really bothered me. I thought he was one of the most clearly fake elements in the movie.
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Lyrhawn
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quote:
Originally posted by SteveRogers:
I'm trying to figure out what content they're going to include in which of the next two movies. It would be poor writing to make the 3rd movie JUST the Battle of Five Armies content. There's no way they could justify a 3 hour movie based on that.

But I say that after having watched a nearly 3 hour movie which only accounted for the first handful of chapters of the book.

I suppose anything is possible.

Chronologically, the assault on Dol Goldur and all that with the White Council happens while the dwarves are making their way up the mountain, so I would imagine the movie stops after one of the major events, like, Thorin's arrival in Laketown, or maybe just after Bard slays Smaug, and then the bulk of the movie is really just Beorn, Mirkwood spiders, Thranduil and Laketown, while the White Council assault makes up the other half. Then the last movie is the battle of five armies, dealing with the arkenstone, and the aftermath. That doesn't really feel like enough material for a full 3 hour movie at the tail end, but the only other thing I can think of is for them to cut things off earlier than Laketown, and maybe really, really play up the White Council stuff.

Or, they make the third movie half about connecting to LOTR, bring in Aragorn, more Gollum, and some of the intervening years.

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SteveRogers
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I have the unpleasant feeling they'll further expand the Mirkwood spider scene. As little as that which is necessary would be fine for me. But it would be a good action set piece and an opportunity to show off the special effects again, so they'll likely add more of it if anything.
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Lyrhawn
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The special effects in the first one were cartoonishly over the top at many, many places. The more I think about it the more visually overwrought I think a great deal of it is. It's disappointing given how simplistic the story is, they really overcompensated.
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SteveRogers
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I expect the overcompensation to continue. In spades.
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Tarrsk
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quote:
Originally posted by SteveRogers:
quote:
Originally posted by Lyrhawn:
Out. Right. Hissy. Fit.

I would prepare for it now then. Because there's no way they would allow the protagonist of their blockbuster fantasy adventure trilogy to be absent from the climactic battle scene.
Yeah, because Frodo played such a huge role at Helm's Deep and Pelennor Fields.

[Roll Eyes]

Let's please at least watch the movie before we start beating up on Jackson for changing the holy text.

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SteveRogers
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Frodo wasn't in those scenes in the book, so that comparison is hardly relevant. Bilbo is present at the Battle of Five Armies. He just doesn't participate.

It would require a much more significant change in the text to make Frodo (who is on his own journey) make an appearance at those battles. It would be a relatively simple yet still aggravating change to make Bilbo participate in the battle in The Hobbit.

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Tarrsk
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That comparison is perfectly relevant, with regards to what you wrote:

quote:
Because there's no way they would allow the protagonist of their blockbuster fantasy adventure trilogy to be absent from the climactic battle scene.
Nothing there about how "significant" a change would be necessary. Just a blanket statement that was proven wrong by a movie released nine years ago.

I probably shouldn't step too much further into this discussion, anyway, given that I prefer Jackson's LOTR over Tolkien's. Hell, I liked seeing the elves at Helm's Deep. So feel free to ignore me as a heathen non-purist and move on. [Razz]

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SteveRogers
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Even if you choose to stubbornly take my original comment as literally as possible ( [Razz] ), they didn't really allow the protagonist to be absent from those battles though regardless. In Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship is essentially the protagonist, and members of the Fellowship were most definitely present at those battles.
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Dan_Frank
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quote:
Originally posted by Lyrhawn:
The special effects in the first one were cartoonishly over the top at many, many places. The more I think about it the more visually overwrought I think a great deal of it is. It's disappointing given how simplistic the story is, they really overcompensated.

In general I'm with Tarrsk about this stuff, but I agree with you about the overwrought nature of some of the CGI and FX. The escape from the Goblin caves is the most egregious, I think.

And I hated the way the goblin king died. Hate hate hate.

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Dan_Frank
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quote:
Originally posted by SteveRogers:
Even if you choose to stubbornly take my original comment as literally as possible ( [Razz] ), they didn't really allow the protagonist to be absent from those battles though regardless. In Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship is essentially the protagonist, and members of the Fellowship were most definitely present at those battles.

Eh, and Thorin and Gandalf at minimum are as much protagonists of this as Bilbo.

My prediction is Bilbo isn't knocked out for the whole fight, but neither will he rise up and be an amazing warrior either. I suspect he may even be knocked out at some point, just not for the entirety.

But killing Bolg/Azog/etc.? Being a super amazing warrior? Nah. They have the dwarves, Gandalf, Bard, etc. to do that.

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Lyrhawn
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quote:
Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
quote:
Originally posted by Lyrhawn:
The special effects in the first one were cartoonishly over the top at many, many places. The more I think about it the more visually overwrought I think a great deal of it is. It's disappointing given how simplistic the story is, they really overcompensated.

In general I'm with Tarrsk about this stuff, but I agree with you about the overwrought nature of some of the CGI and FX. The escape from the Goblin caves is the most egregious, I think.

And I hated the way the goblin king died. Hate hate hate.

Agreed. The entire escape was just so incredibly too much. I believed a lot of their escapes, but that they all managed to survive that? No thanks.

And yeah, his death was just bizarre...

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Shan
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Did the Goblin King remind anyone else of "Where the Wild Things Are"?
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Blayne Bradley
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Honestly all of that heavily reminded me of Del Toro's influence and I was happy.
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SteveRogers
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quote:
Originally posted by Blayne Bradley:
Honestly all of that heavily reminded me of Del Toro's influence and I was happy.

I really mostly just saw del Toro's fingerprints in the stone giant sequence. That was very much in his style.
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BlackBlade
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quote:
Originally posted by SteveRogers:
quote:
Originally posted by Blayne Bradley:
Honestly all of that heavily reminded me of Del Toro's influence and I was happy.

I really mostly just saw del Toro's fingerprints in the stone giant sequence. That was very much in his style.
The goblin messenger, and the way the goblins hoarded and passed the dwarves between them, along with a few more small touches like that screamed Del Toro to me.

I bought the escape from the goblins all the way to the falling wood planking at the end. Either the planking is made out of some incrediwood that wouldn't disintegrate under the friction and impacts, in which case all of them die from being crushed, or it's made out incredibly soft mattress wood, and shouldn't survive.

The moment with the stone giants felt similar. There are freaking mountains moving, and somehow in all that fighting nobody is injured.

Other than that, loved the whole damn thing.

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Lyrhawn
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It was difficult to suspend disbelief that they survive some of what was happening. I mean I believe Elves can get out of most of those situations because they're quite literally superhuman. But dwarves don't really have those same attributes. They're fire resistant, but they're not crush proof.
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Ron Lambert
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Maybe in future movie installments Jackson will create more of a subplot focusing on the Necromancer. He was set up as something terribly sinister and evil, but then he seemed to have no more impact other than to upset the nature-lover, Radagast the Brown. According to Wickipedia, in the Ring Trilogy Sauron is said to have been the same person known as the Necromancer in The Hobbit. I didn't remember that part, but if it is true, then that would seem to give Jackson license to do something further with the Necromancer to reveal him as a buildup to Sauron. In the Ring Trilogy, Sauron still has not taken bodily form, but he exerts all kinds of influence, especially on those people who possessed a palantir (seing stone). The events of The Hobbit are said to take place about 60 years earlier. So Sauron should have a considerable influence already. Arguably, this is why the one ring "decided" to abandon Gollum and start to find its way back to its master. As was said in the narrative, it sensed "the evil rising in the east."
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Lyrhawn
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The timeline is being significantly compressed in The Hobbit movies that PJ is making. In reality, the Necromancer had set up shop in Dol Guldur some years before. It was in the Necromancer's dungeons long before the adventure east that Gandalf found the half mad Thrain and got from him the key and map of Erebor. He was the last of the Dwarf kings with a ring to be captured.

So when the adventure east gets going and Gandalf slips away after the Eagle rescue, they were already well aware of the Necromancer and the need to drive him out, but I don't think at that point they knew it was Sauron. I still think that came much later when he started secretly rebuilding Barad-dur and openly proclaimed himself.

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SteveRogers
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Minor spoilers?:

One minor question I just realized. In the scene in which Gandalf and Galadriel discuss at length his plans, how does Galadriel disappear? Is this an ability detailed in the books somewhere?

END SPOILERS

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BlackBlade
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I think it's more like what Batman does. He's/she's just that ethereal.
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SteveRogers
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Then that bothers me in retrospect a little.
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Lyrhawn
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quote:
Originally posted by SteveRogers:
Minor spoilers?:

One minor question I just realized. In the scene in which Gandalf and Galadriel discuss at length his plans, how does Galadriel disappear? Is this an ability detailed in the books somewhere?

END SPOILERS

I don't remember her disappearing. Is this in the scene where they're speaking alone outside the Council?
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SteveRogers
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It is indeed. Gandalf turns around, and she's no longer there.
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Jeff C.
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Hm...I just took it that she has that ability, like a super power, maybe because of her ring and the fact that she's super old and powerful.

But if not, then that's stupid. Giving characters insane and unexplainable abilities for no reason (other than for dramatic effect) is kind of dumb.

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Lyrhawn
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She doesn't have the power of invisibility or transportation.

She does have a number of passive powers that keep Lothlorien alive. Being an ancient Noldorin Elf gives her some powers akin to the Bene Gesserit Voice, in a sense, and wielding Nenya gives her the power to sort of make things around her alive and powerful, the power to ensure and thrive against decay. It's why Lothlorien falls apart almost as soon as she goes across the water. It also gives her some outright sheer power, which is why Tolkien said none could destroy Lorien with her there, lest Sauron himself come, and why she was able to single handedly lay bare the pits of Dol Guldur.

I probably assumed that she didn't disappear, but rather she was doing that telepathy chat thing with Gandalf, and simply walked away during the conversation. So she's not magical. She's rude.

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Aris Katsaris
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Though, to play the devil's (Peter Jackson's) advocate, it wouldn't seem *that* far beyond canonical powers for Galadriel to project a image of herself from Lorien all the way to Rivendell - in which case the magic wouldn't be in her disappearance, but in her presence in the first place. :-)
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Lyrhawn
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I think we can safely say she was actually there, she was just especially ethereal.
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T:man
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quote:
Originally posted by Lyrhawn:
I probably assumed that she didn't disappear, but rather she was doing that telepathy chat thing with Gandalf, and simply walked away during the conversation. So she's not magical. She's rude.

That's what I thought. Or that it was to enhance the effect of him closing his eyes, have him resting in her presence for longer than was shown on screen. I don't know.

I've seen it twice now and I really really enjoyed it. The Hobbit is one of the only two Tolkien books I've read, but to be honest I don't remember it all that well. The movie didn't feel padded to me at all, I definitely was in the mood for more, my girlfriend even more so. She yelled out a huge "WHAT?!" when it ended, because she didn't know it was going to be a trilogy.

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Graeme
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Enjoyed it for the most part. It's been years since I read the Hobbit, so the discrepancies Lyrhawn mentioned didn't bother as did many of the ones in LOTR. I didn't mind the addition in the beginning, to link the two movie sequences, nor the business with the white council. I like the difference in McKellan's performance in the movie, altogether more understated, more unsure , more gray. PJ did a pretty good job differentiating the dwarves too, even if I can't remember names to faces.

Favorite scene: The Dwarf chant/song at Bilbo's house. The inclusion of a fragment of this scene in the preview had enticed me the most.

Least favorite scene: every time we heard "Bilbo you are much more valuable than we thought/you seem." It's true that Gandalf states the point, but then Bilbo proves it throughout the book -- in fact, it's the major story arc of the novel, and it happens gradually. IIRC, The dwarves' respect for Bilbo is more gradual throughout the tale, and I can't remember a hug from Thorin Oakenshield at all. In the movie, the sentiment was overexpressed and underjustified, and altogether too treacly.

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Lyrhawn
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One thing I've always highly respected about PJ is that he keeps slipping Tolkien's music into the actual movie. It's actually a pretty incredibly thing, and I've always appreciated how artfully and deftly he does so.
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Shan
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My first time seeing it, both the people I was with were terribly disappointed when the movie ended and I had to break the news to them that it was a 3-parter. *grin*

The "Misty Mountains"/dwarven theme song has created an ear-worm that won't die, so I've been back twice more now. Wait . . . it's not ringing in my head this a.m. Third time must be the charm.

The Goblin King still looks like he came out of "Where the Wild Things Are" . . .

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Jeff C.
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quote:
Originally posted by Lyrhawn:

She does have a number of passive powers that keep Lothlorien alive. Being an ancient Noldorin Elf gives her some powers akin to the Bene Gesserit Voice, in a sense, and wielding Nenya gives her the power to sort of make things around her alive and powerful, the power to ensure and thrive against decay. It's why Lothlorien falls apart almost as soon as she goes across the water. It also gives her some outright sheer power, which is why Tolkien said none could destroy Lorien with her there, lest Sauron himself come, and why she was able to single handedly lay bare the pits of Dol Guldur.

I don't know what half of what you just said means, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.
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Jeff C.
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quote:
Originally posted by Shan:

The Goblin King still looks like he came out of "Where the Wild Things Are" . . .

You know, that was another thing I was wondering about. All the goblins (who look exactly like orcs, by the way) look more or less the same size, so how did this one get so big? Okay, you can say he got fat from being the king, but how is he so tall? And not just tall, but huge. This guy is like nine feet tall and all the other goblins are like 5 feet tall. That just felt kinda strange to me.

I really wish Jackson had gone with live action bad guys instead of CGI. It all looked so artificial, although as always I enjoyed Gollum. The part where Radagast is riding around with his rabbits was especially bad and fake-looking. Hopefully technology catches up soon.

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Lyrhawn
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quote:
Originally posted by Jeff C.:
quote:
Originally posted by Lyrhawn:

She does have a number of passive powers that keep Lothlorien alive. Being an ancient Noldorin Elf gives her some powers akin to the Bene Gesserit Voice, in a sense, and wielding Nenya gives her the power to sort of make things around her alive and powerful, the power to ensure and thrive against decay. It's why Lothlorien falls apart almost as soon as she goes across the water. It also gives her some outright sheer power, which is why Tolkien said none could destroy Lorien with her there, lest Sauron himself come, and why she was able to single handedly lay bare the pits of Dol Guldur.

I don't know what half of what you just said means, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.
It's okay, most of it wasn't English anyway.
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