The Special Effects of the Hobbit
There's a lot of uncertainity about the Hobbit film(s), but the one thing we know for sure is that the Special Effects will be great(with Weta doing it and all). But will they seem as spectacular as the LOTR FX were in their time? There are plenty of good SFX houses nowadays, and other films have raised the bar even higher since Return of the King was released. For instance:
1.Beowulf set the standard for Dragon battles. The slaying of Smaug will have to surpass that. 2.Sadly, the battle scenes in 300 have supplanted the Battle of Pelennor Fields in my mind as the greatest battle ever filmed. Hopefully the Battle of Five Armies will have similar levels of gore(it's only Orc blood, so it should stll be possible to get a PG-13 rating). 3.If there's any wizardry from Gandalf, Saruman and Radagast in the Dol Guldur scene it should take a leaf from the Harry Potter films. Like the wizard battle in Order of the Phoenix, Dol Guldur should really show the White Council's true power! Does anybody else have any opinions about how the Special Effects should be? |
With the LOTR films, WETA replaced Industrial Light and Magic as the best in the business. Of course, that only forces others to up their game as well. I have no doubt that when HOBBIT is filmed and WETA does the effects, that they will push the envelope even further and make 300 look like yesterdays news.
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...with the caveat that the special effects hopefully won't overtake the story, as you can view ruby lipstick on a virtual dwarf in high definition, but that doesn't change the fact that it's still a dwarf. ;)
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The biggest danger IMO is that the special effects take center stage. It seems many special effects teams nowadays produce spectacular computer-animated scenes just because they can and not because the effects are nessesary for telling a story. I would hate it if Gandalf and company fights Sauron in Dol Guldur with Harry Potter-style magic.
Edit: Cross posted with alatar. |
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Can you imagine it? Gandalf using a sword and blasts of fire and lightning, Saruman using mind control and explosive devices from the sidelines, Radagast guiding wild animals and Huorns/encasing vines, Sauron covering everything in Shadow etc. |
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The barrel scene, for one. No amusement park water park slide/ride has ever matched it for fun, terror, thrills, excitement. The giant spiders in Mirkwood. eeeeewwww! Lots of neat Sting-work, too. Actually, just the forest scenes themselves. Remember the eerie forest scenes in Terry Gilliam's The Brothers Grimm? The Battle of Lake-town. Okay, I said no battles. But a town built on stilts! Cooler than Cloud City--and dragon fire. wargs, too. brrr. If the special effects are used to enhance Tolkien's story elements and not merely to show off computer animation techniques, it could be awesome. |
The crowning moment for the SFX team will of course be Smaug. A great, scary dragon that can fly, speak and breath fire will be a very difficult task to visualise. Will they do a Gollum and pull it off? Only time can tell...
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I think they moved too fast, and their fur did not ripple, but I'm partial to any depiction of northern themes. (Blinded by the light on the snow I suppose. :D ) Bear mythology has rarely been seen in movies, so now might be the time to develop Beorn well. |
Alas
there are some great moments to be had for sure in the film . . . the trolls, Beorn (if he is not cut out), Smaug, the spiders, etc but one thing is for sure. There will be some things that will disappoint some and others that will excite.
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^I'm fairly certain Beorn will get cut out and thinking about it I'd welcome it too.
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Also if they changed the magic level in the Hobbit way above what they did before it would look kind of stupid. All I ask is that they give Beorn the skin changer a scene or two, especially at the end battle scene. |
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Also Beorn will probably end up like Tom Bombadil in LOTR. About magic: If they missed out all the fire that Gandalf made in FOTR, then they'll probably do the same in the Hobbit. They tried to keep it combat-magic free (except for the fire that Saruman uses at Orthanc in EE, but thats probably why they got rif of it) and I like that, because with that style of movie (not book) it doesn't work. |
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Now back on topic. What in your opinion are good special effects? For me, its when you cannot discern them from reality. Thus, in my opinion, the movie with the best special effects up to now is Jurassic Park. 300 has horrible special effects and so does Beowulf. |
Jurassic Park! Ahh. The special effects in that amazed me for ages.
Yes, I think too much fire and somoke and flashes of light would not work for such a wizard, though I wonder how Gandalf fought the Nazgûl at Weathertop (is that Amon Sûl?) in LOTR, that might have been a spectacular display of the kind zxcvbn was talking about, only I agree with Groin Redbeard Entirely Quote:
And as for 300, that did not even make an attempt to be real. *edit: I still haven't found a word, and spellcaster just won't do the trick, as that gives an image of knowledge and power, of which young (even though he might be older than me in over half of the books) Harry has none. |
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What special effect are you looking forward to the most?
I don't know about you but Gandalf's disappearance in the goblin cave always amazed me. Especially when he appeared again!:D
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It is different. Gandalf uses more sort of "power", or uses the "music" a bit, and he is a Maia! Not some human! In Harry Potter pretty much any stupid person (I'm not actually saying that anyone actually mentioned in Harry Potter is stupid, just that magic in Harry Potter is not limited to the wise... or is that Wise?) can use magic. In LOTR it is only used by very few, and only when they really need it, and even then Gandalf regretted it a bit.
But more importantly, it doesn't play as much of a part in the story. True, it got them out of hard spots but that was just so that they could escape to carry on, whereas in Harry Potter a lot is focused on the spells themselves, which makes it a different type of story. I'm not saying that any is better or worse, that depends on your opinion (though I preferr LOTR), but you can'tmix the magic of great saga-and-myths with spells that anyone can use, if they just know how. |
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