Long time Tolkien fan: Just watched the Hobbit & Desolation for the 1st time

[Corvinus85]

Ugh. That second movie was probably one of the worst adaption I ever saw.

I was so excited to see the company coming to Beorns house, one after another and they ruined that. The barrel scene and the smaug scene were just ridiculous. I have no problem with adding some jokes and funny things, but those two scenes were just ridiculous to no end.

But the worst part of the movie: Mirkwood. In the books: The company travels for weeks through the mirkwood, suffers from hunger and the nonexistence of daylight. Bilbo increases their despair, because when he climbs the treas, he doesn't see an end of the forest. He sees trees everywhere. Finally their hunger leads them to leave their path and to follow the fires of dancing elves, hoping to get some food. After their imprisonment they spend weeks in their cells until they are finally freed.

In the movie: The company travels a few hours through the mirkwood, gets lost because of some supernatural illusions and stuff. Bilbo climbs the tree and sees that it's just a small way to the end of the forest. The dwarfs are captured by spiders, some truly overpowered elves save them. They spend a few days in their cells, before they are freed.

I really wanted to see the slowly growing despair, the fires in the night, BOMBUR FALLING INTO THE RIVER!!! Why the hell did they cut those scenes out?

And what's up with that stupid love triangle? In the battle of the five armies, does anyone else see Tauriel being attacked by an orc, Kili ridiculously dying when he tries to save her (in slowmotion of course) and Fili dying to avenge his brother?

Watch the extended edition. Though IMO this is the worst extended edition of all, the added scenes in Mirkwood are the best parts of it.

[Veltigar]

Oh absolutely, although it could be Tauriel dies for Kili instead. Either way, the killer will be that stupid big Orc they are trying to build up as threatening but actually isn't important enough for me to even remember his name. Assuming he has one.

Isn't he supposed to be Bolg?

[Ulthosian Stark]

Since you call yourself a long time Tolkien fan I have to criticize you on a couple of things.

It's Kili not Killie. I'm pretty sure the names were not changed in whatever language the book was published.

Regarding the introduction of a new badass elf, they did that - Tauriel. And since Thranduil was in the book, it does make sense to have his badass son in it, too. It's certainly not the worst thing about all the added material.

I agree with you on Bard being just a lowly bargeman, though he is not quite so lowly in the eyes of the people of Laketown. His care for the common people and being the descendant of Girion of Dale do clearly pave the way to his kingship.

Spelling? I'm a huge fan of many a complex series, remembering how to spell everything correctly is low on the list of priority. Yes there's Tauriel, but what about the rest of the elven population of mirkwood, other then Legolas? Hell, I think it'd of been better if they invented an older brother for Tauriel, that way he can still pout at Kili without a love triangle. Then have Legolas passing by in a scene or 2 so we could be like oh shit there's Legolas!

Yeah, at least they made that, important to the people of Lake Town and not a complete nobody. I just can't get my head around the descendant of the Lord of Dale falling so low, to the point that he needs money badly. He's still nobility, technically, and would have inherited a bunch of money and a nice house at least.

Ugh. That second movie was probably one of the worst adaption I ever saw.

I was so excited to see the company coming to Beorns house, one after another and they ruined that. The barrel scene and the smaug scene were just ridiculous. I have no problem with adding some jokes and funny things, but those two scenes were just ridiculous to no end.

But the worst part of the movie: Mirkwood. In the books: The company travels for weeks through the mirkwood, suffers from hunger and the nonexistence of daylight. Bilbo increases their despair, because when he climbs the treas, he doesn't see an end of the forest. He sees trees everywhere. Finally their hunger leads them to leave their path and to follow the fires of dancing elves, hoping to get some food. After their imprisonment they spend weeks in their cells until they are finally freed.

In the movie: The company travels a few hours through the mirkwood, gets lost because of some supernatural illusions and stuff. Bilbo climbs the tree and sees that it's just a small way to the end of the forest. The dwarfs are captured by spiders, some truly overpowered elves save them. They spend a few days in their cells, before they are freed.

I really wanted to see the slowly growing despair, the fires in the night, BOMBUR FALLING INTO THE RIVER!!! Why the hell did they cut those scenes out?

And what's up with that stupid love triangle? In the battle of the five armies, does anyone else see Tauriel being attacked by an orc, Kili ridiculously dying when he tries to save her (in slowmotion of course) and Fili dying to avenge his brother?

I agree with you on all of that, I was expecting the mirkwood walk to last longer, as soon as I saw Legolas pop out and kill some spiders I was like d'awwww wtf. I was hoping they'd make the Elves of Mirkwood seem a bit darker, like they pictured them in the cartoon. And the book. The team sneaking up to an Elven party was an awesome read.

Isn't he supposed to be Bolg?

He needs to be a bit more specific, he could be talking about Bolg or Azog. It seems like one of the first things in the 3rd movie is going to be Legolas running Bolg Moth-Eaten down, so he might be talking about Azog being set up as the threat. Azog is a scary brute in the movies, every time I see him I picture his hand being sliced off fighting an Elf or some shit then some goblin buddies ramming that Iron Claw thing up his stump and out his elbow. Br00tal. Just as the Orcs should be.

I am sort of pissed they made the Orcs look like Uruk-Hai, the army marching out of Dol Guldur under Gandalf. They are way too tall and straight legged. Normal Orcs are supposed to be like Grishnakh from LOTR, squat, bow legged, twisted. Not able to stand up straight. I even noticed that some of the helmets are the same as Sarumans Uruks, and some still have a bit of white paint it looked like they didn't manage to completely clear to re-use them.

The army of Wargs is also already with the army of goblins, when IIRC they came to Erebor separately. Hence the 5 armies. Men, Elves, Dwarves, Goblins, and Wargs. Although now they can easily just count the Eagles as the 5th army.

Azogs warg is supposed to be larger then the rest and white, that would have been a bit of canon material not hard to reproduce.

And the Orcs sneaking over the roofs of Lake Town, since when are orcs that light footed and coordinated?!?! No city guard or anything seeing them, yeah right. They should have had some city guard coming upon them and being scared shitless.

The changes they made

[Freshwater Spartan]

I'll catch the third one when it comes out on VHS.

[Ulthosian Stark]

I'll catch the third one when it comes out on VHS.

That'd just be missing out, they might not follow the book to a t but I feel they are WAY better then the LOTR series. Since its 3 movies the book is way more fleshed out.

Makes me wonder how incredible it would have been if the LOTR series got 6 movies instead of 3. Would have been so epic.

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

That'd just be missing out, they might not follow the book to a t but I feel they are WAY better then the LOTR series. Since its 3 movies the book is way more fleshed out.

Makes me wonder how incredible it would have been if the LOTR series got 6 movies instead of 3. Would have been so epic.

:shocked: Dude, what?

[baxus]

:shocked: Dude, what?

Don't bother...

[HexMachina]

That'd just be missing out, they might not follow the book to a t but I feel they are WAY better then the LOTR series. Since its 3 movies the book is way more fleshed out.

Makes me wonder how incredible it would have been if the LOTR series got 6 movies instead of 3. Would have been so epic.

This post makes me want to cry.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

US,

That'd just be missing out, they might not follow the book to a t but I feel they are WAY better then the LOTR series. Since its 3 movies the book is way more fleshed out.

Makes me wonder how incredible it would have been if the LOTR series got 6 movies instead of 3. Would have been so epic.

Hey, you think too small. Imagine if each chapter had a film. 62 LotR films wouldn't that be awesome and not milking the fans for money at all?

[AndyBaelish]

That'd just be missing out, they might not follow the book to a t but I feel they are WAY better then the LOTR series. Since its 3 movies the book is way more fleshed out.

Makes me wonder how incredible it would have been if the LOTR series got 6 movies instead of 3. Would have been so epic.

I was with you until here.

Whaaaaat?

I'm a fan of these new movies, but they are overlong, bloated, and somehow still lack character development. Outside of three dwarves, Bilbo, and Gandalf I don't care about any of the characters.

I mean, I did enjoy watching the movies, but where the hell did this come from?

[Maithanet]

Well, it's hard to look at anything the film industry does without viewing it as money-grabbing - for good reason.

That said, don't you think a visual/auditory representation of each chapter line for line would be, if implausible, in some ways an improvement over the standard selective cut + paste method that adapters use now? It might not be the most easy thing to watch, but it would be more akin to reading the book than any t.v. show or film has ever done before. So yes, money-grabbing, but also at least in some sense, a huge artistic achievement.

Not really, they've done it for plenty of Charles Dickens books, for example. Immaculately recreating every element of the book on screen generally just makes for a very boring movie. We are talking about a different medium, and what works on the page isn't necessarily what works on screen.

[Ulthosian Stark]

It makes me think they would have put in Bombadil, the Wights, the Shire being under enemy control etc (not saruman though I like how he died haha)

LOTR is my favorite series ever, and the first any that had challenge or value I've read. I'd love to see the book put to screen. Jumping from 6-62 is madness BTW haha

Put it this way, say in a decade... Or 2... Or 3.... they come out with a Song of Ice and Fire MOVIE series. Which I'm sure they will. And each book only gets 3 he's of screen time. That would be intensely disappointing