Bilbo and Elrond chat in an Extended Edition scene
 

I was going to post this in the ongoing film thread but I thought I'd start a new one so that people don't think it's just me moaning about the film (although I'll still do that a bit anyway). So for anyone interested, here's a scene to be included in the Extended Edition of the film, featuring a brief conversation between Bilbo and Elrond:
http://uk.movies.yahoo.com/the-hobbi...065952595.html
We can see a small reference to Frodo's conversation with Gildor from The Lord of the Rings, perpetuating the filmmakers' apparent belief that bits from Tolkien can be rearranged in any order and still make sense.

While this scene is still, in my opinion, far from perfect (even in more dignified moments I find Boyens and Walsh to be clumsy scriptwriters) I still think I would have appreciated more quiet scenes like this rather than all the breathless action that made the Theatrical Cut. The fact that we saw so little of Bilbo in Rivendell was, in my opinion, one of the film's more serious flaws (along with, of course, the characterisation of Thorin, the pointlessness of the White Council plot, including Radagast and, put simply, Azog).

Eh...I realize that scene is supposed to take place in the middle of a conversation but it feels kind of awkward (strange pauses and a lot of glancing around). It's too bad because it could have been a really heart-felt character moment. Maybe in context it is?

Looking at the details for the extended edition: http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=11784

One thing really stands out to me as blatantly missing (in terms of the special features) besides only including ONE (1) commentary. There is no "From Book to Script" feature. I think each LOTR EE release had a good 20 min(?) or so dedicated to detailing their choices in adaptation. Maybe this is included in "The Journey Back to Middle-Earth", as that's a pretty vague title and could detail just about anything. Or maybe they don't even want to talk about adapting it? Perhaps it's talked about in their commentary? But I don't think I could sit through three hours of Jackson and Boyens rambling back and forth. ;)

Looking at the rest of the special features I can kind of see each in my mind's eye. Oh and look, Azog get's his own little featurette, how quaint.

Overall personal verdict: Skip. I guess I could give them points for not adding too much additional footage as one of the main complaints about the film was its bloated length.

Oh, and that cover art. *vomits* :p

Perhaps a feature about how they expanded a fairly short book into three lengthy films would have stretched credibility beyond breaking-point.

I agree with the point about Boyens and Walsh being clumsy writers. I find an awful lot of their dialogue unnatural, and it just sounds like modern conversational English shoehorned into Middle Earth, which to me jars horribly.

It's more then clumsy writing. Even the LotR movies (after the Fellowship) made the foolish decision to way exaggerate characters, 2 examples being the GIANT! wolves and the Green Slime. The wolves should have been shown perhaps double or maybe triple the size of wolves nowadays, just about able to carry an orc. And the Green Slime understated, with terror being their basic method of taking out their enemies. PJ and friends, as always, opt for overstatement.

This tendency sometimes approaches the level of farce in their "Hobbit" movie, with the absurd improbability of Thorin and Co. escaping from the Great Goblin---and that person is way exaggerated to the point of absurdity. Of course, the whole part 1 movie (2 more to come!) had none of the charm of the book or even the 1977 John Huston, Orson Bean movie. Disapponting devolution by PJ and Co. since on balance I quite liked their FotR (with some quibbles).

And when it's not like this, it's usually trite fantasy purple prose which completely conflicts with Professor Tolkien's highly considered style. Professor Tolkien writes archaic English as an expert, whereas Boyens and Walsh virtually come off as parody.

I've mentioned this elsewhere, but consider, say, the deleted scene featuring the death of Saruman in the Extended Edition of "The Return of the King." The dialogue about "gibbets and crows" is adapted, but then Saruman horribly segues into "something festers in the heart of Middle-earth." It's meaningless pseudo-medieval language which sounds like something from a Dungeons and Dragons manual, as if Tolkien was some author of motel-room paperbacks. It's pulpy pastiche like this which always spoils things for me.

I like this scene and if I thought that it was typical I might be more enthusiastic. The scaling still looks off to me but it showsm genuine affection between Elrond and Bilbo and contains some proper Tolkien.

I find it hilarious that Saruman's description of Edoras being a 'Thatched Barn' is actually made true in the films :D, another butchery from Jackson.

Well, that was quite silly, as in, the dialogue didn't make very much sense, but I liked it. Apart from pulling off epic stuff very well, the thing I like about Jackson&co are this kind of scenes where affection or goodwill between characters is shown. (One of the things I genuinely enjoy about the movies is that PJ seems to be propagating that guys can talk about their feelings or hug or even kiss without it being gay/weak/girly. There was even a thread about that once, I think.)

I'm kind of thinking that if someone could take all the material from all the LotR (and apparently Hobbit) movies and the extended editions and liberally cut them, they would actually make surprisingly good adaptations of the books.

edit: The thread is here and it was actually started by me. There are quite good posts there, I recommend checking it out.