Ha!
Originally shared by +Kee Hinckley:
#21 – Emperor Palpatine and Sauron in the Afterlife
This crazy comic sprung from a Twitter conversation I was having with Scott King. He said he was considering writing an essay, the events of Star Wars as seen from Emperor Palpatine’s point o…
Who would have ever thought that Sean Bean would be in yet another Council of Elrond?
I have no idea if the casting director was laughing his/her ass off, or if it was just a marvelous coincidence, but … well (and subtly) played.
Yeah, that ends well. Twice. Though, when you think about it — not really.
(h/t +Kay Hill)
We finally went to see the final Hobbit movie, as a combo Holiday Season Wrap-Up and Early Birthday Indulgence. Aaaand?
I stand by my initial tweet on leaving the theater: "Third Hobbit movie was great extended edition finale to the Second Hobbit movie."
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(Keep it secret. Keep it safe.)
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Peter Jackson (infamously, in some quarters) expanded his Hobbit adaptation from two to three movies, and this movie proves why, as we get an extended action sequence — well, for most of the movie — that pays off a lot of the stuff that was set up in the first and second films. And, frankly, pays it off pretty well. Nobody (except a fantasy wargamer) is going to watch just the third movie by itself, but matched up with the other two, it's really pretty good — arguably better than the second, which actually paid off pretty much nothing.
The Bad
– The movie is very much just an extension of the second, with memory of key elements (Tauriel/Kili, Bilbo/Arkenstone) being taken for granted. It will read fine when watched in marathon, but being watched on its own took more than a few forced recollections of What Had Gone Before.
– I'm still annoyed that some of the dwarves look dwarvish, while others (Thorin, Kili, arguably the main protags) look far too human.
– Bard's perception of Smaug's weak spot was … weak. We have talking birds elsewhere in the movies. Bard getting the secret to Smaug's vulnerability from a chatty bird is perhaps a bit to fairy-tale-ish, but conveniently spotting it seems a bit … weak. (And using the convenient cross-bow bolt mechanism from the second movie seems way too crude, too.)
– Screwing around with both the Black Arrow speech …
'Arrow! Black arrow! I have saved you to the last. You have never failed me and always I have recovered you. I had you from my father and he from of old. If ever you came from the forges of the true king under the Mountain, go now and speed well!'
… and with Thorin's farewell speech
'Child of the kindly West, I have come to know, if more of us valued your ways — food and cheer above hoarded gold — it would be a merrier world. But sad or merry, I must leave it now. Farewell.'
… was … disappointing. Elements (especially of the last) were used, but in a seriously edited form. Yes, both are stilted and/or monologuish, but, damn …
– I was vaguely irked that we got emphasis on Galadrial being a bearer of one of the Three Rings for the Elven Kings Under the Sky … but that Gandalf and Elrond, fellow bearers of same, got no call-out.
– Too many Orcs. Azog. Bolg. Lots of other CG Orcs of Various Levels of Threat. Hard to keep track of who's who, or if we should recognize one CG orc from another.
– Too many Dwarves. Kudos to the films for giving the various dwarves personalities. But it's still spread too thinly. Quick, who went off with Thorin besides Fili and Kili. What did Fili do before he went off to die in front of Kili? Who was the gray-haired one? Who was the one with the funny hairdo? Who wore the funny Radagast-style hat?
"Too many dwarves, Marty."
– Too many comic relief human bad guys, both Stephen Fry's (brief) Master of the Town and Ryan Gage's (overly-long) Alfrid. While I understand the desire to include some levity amongst the proceedings, Peter Jackson's attempts at same almost always fall flat.
– Too many kids. Bard's character is diluted by constant reference to wanting to protect his brood. Plus his inability to give Alrid the good kick in the ass he deserves from Scene 1.
– Sure, it's cool that Bard is against war. But his general pacifism felt a bit contrived.
– Thranduil's motivation went from being a PTSD nut, driven mad by wounds within and without, to being sort of a lame combo of greed and vague lameness.
– Why did we spend all that screen time on Mt. Gundabad? Did that really tell us anything, or give us some not-terribly-effective Tauriel/Legolas time?
– Did we actually see any of those Elvish archers shooting any arrows? That might have come in handy.
– Thorin's crucial character-reforming moment both goes on for way too long and is way too cliched. (A melange of voices from the rest of the movies echoing in his head? Really?)
– The bad guys have sand worms, but they somehow value an underground fastness like Erebor? Really? Why?
– War Bats? Really?
– The Charge of the 13 Dwarves was … dumb. Bold solidarity with kinfolk, sure. But the flying wedge into the face of the enemy seemed just tactically silly.
– War Rams? Really? Well, okay, they were kind of cool, but … where did they come from?
– War? What's it for? Apparently for lots of folk to get their heads cut off or else otherwise fall when sliced across the belly. Lots and lots of folk. An inordinate number of folk, for many, many, many screen minutes.
– Sting's "goblin-sensing glow" power must have gotten overloaded, because it sure doesn't show up during the battle with a zillion orcs.
– The Tauriel / Legolas / Kili triangle gets short shrift. The bits there are good, but it's never truly faced up to, and the mystery of Tauriel's final fate remains just that (I expect there will be more in the Extended Edition, most likely her decision to go into the Uttermost West). Similarly, the Legolas / Thranduil rift rushes past a bit too quickly.
– What happened to Dwalin, who was up there fighting with Bilbo and covering Thorin's tail until Bilbo got belatedly knocked out? (I'm guessing this will show up in the Extended Edition, but it was an odd plot hole.)
– Legolas with the DEX of 35 is, net, marginally less unbelievable than he was by the time Return of the King was over, but it still verged on the laughable watching him run up the falling rubble.
– Bilbo's Hobbit size plays unevenly (and awkwardly) in more than a couple of scenes — the meeting with Bard, Thranduil, and Gandalf in particular.
– Thranduil's final suggestion that Legolas go seek out Aragorn as a cool dude to hang out with felt … contrived. It was out of keeping for Thranduil, if nothing else. (It might have worked if Gandalf had done it.)
– The rhythm of Bilbo's departure from Erebor feels rushed. It's a shame we didn't get to see Thorin laid to rest with both the Arkenstone and the sword Orcrist he recovered from the troll horde. Along with Fili and Kili. Yeah, that's probably best left elided over, along with Bilbo's "and back again," but …
– This is not a movie about Bilbo Baggins. He appears in it. Arguably, he is in a supporting role. He shows up in a fair number of scenes, some of them crucial, many of them not. If you called this movie (in particular, or perhaps the series in general) The Dwarven King trilogy, or even Bard, the Dragon-Slayer, you'd have a pretty decent argument for it.
The Good
– I thought the additional speaking moments for Smaug were well-handled (for purposes of making a movie out of it_. Actually, except as noted, I thought the "introductory" Smaug wrap-up was pretty cool.
– The Cleansing of Dol Guldur was delightful. Yeah, it's all extrapolation from the appendices, and, yeah, it doesn't matter much in the overall plot of the movie, but seeing Elrond, Saruman, and Galadriel kick Nazgul/Sauron butt is … High Geekiness of the First Water of Coolness.
– The Dragon Sickness bit was (per se) non-canonical, but an effective and workable plot device. It was vague as to the extent that it was just a dwarvish ailment, or something actually mystical related to dragon hordes, but it motivated things well. And the Thorin/Bilbo plot cycle from the book was nicely fleshed out.
– While Thorin's reformation scene is hackneyed, I loved that they did it on the gold swimming pool from the previous movie.
– Thranduil's war moose was fun (even when it got silly).
– The general CGness of the armies was … pretty effective, actually. There was enough blending with reality, especially amongst the elves, to be effective. And, frankly, it played better than the Battle of Pelennor Fields in Return of the King did.
– For that matter, Azog as a CG character was pretty well portrayed, even in CG. Some good facial expressions there, worthy of Cameron's Avatar.
– Bilbo gets to do a lot more in the movie than in the book (even if he's not clearly the protagonist, title notwithstanding). In the book, he gets knocked out pretty early on, and wakes up to the aftermath. Some folk might prefer that, but (for mostly better but occasionally worse) this lets Jackson play with the actual course of the battle, as well as the deaths of the dwarves who die.
– We get some appropriate Ring-o-Vision, though fortunately Sauron is busy licking his wounds and doesn't detect it. Yet.
– Because of course high-level dwarves would, overnight, be able to craft a attractive and effective barrier in front of the gate, complete with stairs behind, parapet, speaking hole at the base, and a quick way to demolish it. Nicely done.
– The overall battle was handled fairly decently, though Vast Hordes seemed to diminish into Manageable Platoons far too quickly.
– Radagast gets a reasonable role (summoning the Eagles). Plus, Beorn.
– The wrap-up with Bilbo and his return home was nicely done, as was tying it to the intro of the LotR movies.
The Othernotely
– Jackson took a fair amount of heat for changing the final title from "There and Back Again" to "The Battle of the Five Armies," but it was in fact more appropriate for the movie was developed.
– We saw the movie in 3D. While I don't think it was required, I thought it generally worked pretty well.
– The movie, as such, doesn't stand up as a movie alone. But as an extension of the second movie, it works quite nicely (thus that tweet).
– A number of the plot holes above might get patched in the Extended Edition. Jackson was under pressure, I understand, to turn in a shorter-than-usual film, and that almost certainly led to some continuity glitches.
– Poor Balin. After being the kindly, white-bearded dwarf who seemed the voice of reason and a reasonable guy to manage Erebor post-Thorin, he heads off to Khazad-dum to reclaim it, and gets gacked by Orcs. Also, Ori and Oin, whichever ones they were.
On the other hand, he didn't have to oversee the rebuilding of the ruins of Erebor, where pretty much nothing is fully intact. Maybe he knew what he was doing.
In Sum
So, to take on the Hobbit series as a whole …
1. This was not Tolkien's Hobbit. That job is left for another movie-maker a few decades from now. Until then, the Rankin/Bass version is a better approximation.
2. This was, on the other hand, a fitting prelude to Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. It will take a full marathon to really make that judgment, but the Hobbit trilogy used the same visual language, the same actors, and was intentionally crafted to tie into the original. As such, I think it does a pretty decent job. (http://theweek.com/article/index/273792/the-hobbit-a-disappointing-set-of-movies-but-a-worthy-set-of-prequels makes a more thorough argument in this direction, enough so to serve as the link shared with this post.)
3. Return of the King won Best Picture at the Oscars, and justifiably so. Nobody would legitimately argue that any of the Hobbit films should get so nominated. But taken on their own and as intros to LotR, they succeed pretty darned well.
4. I'm now waiting both for that Extended Edition Hobbit/LotR Marathon and that remake of The Hobbit that plays true to the original. Both should be a blast.
The Hobbit: A disappointing set of movies, but a worthy set of prequels
Peter Jackson’s underwhelming return to Middle-earth improves significantly when you view it as part of a larger story
Now that's comedy.
Originally shared by +Jay Gischer:
I loved this whole piece. But the sentence that made me whoop so loudly that the crows outside my office (which may or may not be from Dunland) fluttered and squawked was this:
The only similar case I found was The Estate of S. Morgenstern v. William Goldman over the latter’s abridged version of The Princess Bride.
I'm not going to explain this, if you don't get it, I highly recommend that you read the book.
How I Defeated the Tolkien Estate
The story of how one brave soul defended his right to translate the Red Book of Westmarch in court against the powers of the Tolkien estate.
I've enjoyed Peter Jackson's Tolkien adaptations all down the line — but one can make a solid case that they have dropped in quality over the years, largely as Jackson's own content or story changes have taken up more of the story. I still like them, but I'd say this first was the best of the best.
A ★★★★★ review of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
This is a review for the Extended Edition FotR is a darned fine movie, a great adaptation of the source material, and arguably the best of the original trilogy. The cast is solid across the board, the crafted landscape of Middle Earth is gorgeous and coherent, and the creative decisions around the adaptation to the screen are better than they have any right to be. It’s difficult to imagine how some future remake of this film will substantially im…
And, yeah, it's going for all the Big Battle Gold (figuratively as well as literally). And, yeah, all the non-canonical and peripheral characters are there, too, but … what the hell, it's going to be pretty damned epic.
Yet another Air New Zealand safety video, Hobbit style.
Originally shared by +Isaac Sher:
I'm sure there are many in New Zealand who are sick of anything Tolkien-related, but you can't fault the NZ tourism and travel industry for capitalizing on said films with some wonderfully tongue-in-cheek travel videos.
‘The Hobbit’ Cast Star in ‘The Most Epic Safety Video Ever Made’
Attention, airlines of the world: Air New Zealand wants you to know that it’s time to step up the game on your airline safety videos, a message delivered via the subtly-named The Most Epic Safety Video Ever Made. Spoilers: It lives up to that title.
Lego Hobbit for the win. Though, if you've only ever gone through the story with the current Peter Jackson movies, then … spoilers.
Okay, I have to admit, that's one kick-ass Galadriel poster. Sort of make me think of her more rebellious years in The Silmarillion.
Originally shared by +The Hobbit:
The fans have chosen. Today we reveal the exclusive new character banner for our Lady of Lothlórien, Galadriel.
Will Legolas or Thranduil be next? Comment below with your vote.
Reshared post from +Les Jenkins
Looking pretty good.
I've generally been avoiding leak / commentary / photo sites elated to the third-and-sixth-and-final Peter Jackson Middle-Earth epic (that has, at least, been announced), but this was a cool enough thing to want to share.
(via http://collider.com/the-hobbit-the-battle-of-the-five-armies-poster/, which has a bigger version)
This is actually some pretty cool physics.
Reshared post from +Les Jenkins
Reshared post from +Kee Hinckley
MTA Unamused By Lord Of The Rings Service Advisory Sign
As you no doubt know, Lord Aragorn will at last be crowned King of Gondor tomorrow!
Spoilers! Spoileriffic Spoilers!
If you haven’t seen Captain America: The Winter Soldier or the 8 April episode of “Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD” (“Turn, Turn, Turn”), major spoilers lurk below.
Continue reading ““Winter Soldier,” “Agents of SHIELD,” and Everything Changing”
Honestly, the scene did very little for me, but it's certainly fascinating how they went about doing it.
Reshared post from +Les Jenkins
Holy crap! 98 hours of footage for a 7 minute sequence.
Here’s How They Made The Hobbit’s Amazing Barrel Escape Scene | Underwire | Wired.com
That awesome seven-minute barrel-enabled escape from the elves in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug? Here’s how it was made.
The Silmarillion Project
Every chapter of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Silmarillion, as illustrated by Dresden Codak author Aaron Diaz
3 of 5 stars to The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien http://t.co/KrTHY7ihpS
Of course, Elrond is also Aragorn's great-great-great-great-etc. grand-uncle. And, after the wedding, father-in-law.
Myths meet royal families …
