A Middle-earth Movie Marathon

[Boromir88]

Originally Posted by Formendacil

I'm going to make the polemical argument that this thread is lacking in replies not because the forum is very tree-ish these days, but because Boro made the mistake of starting with TH:AUJ, which is the most boring entry in the PJ-canon.

Well, what did you expect...I have to start with chronologically the first one! Star Wars fandom know where I'm coming from. You have to start with Episode I even though I would argue that's probably the most boring. I think though you mentioned elsewhere you have no watched Battle of the Five Armies and that one is the most boring, in my opinion.

I agree that the expansion of a medium sized book into three movies was ill-advised, at best, and naked profiteering at worst. I also agree that PJ seems to have attempted to maintain the different tones presented by The Hobbit and LOTR; children's story vs. adult myth. But PJ's depictions of the characters and the story seemed simultaneously too juvenile generally and overly exaggerated where action scenes were shown. For example, I thought that the Dwarves were too buffoonish and the Goblin Town escape overblown. - Mithadan

Indeed. I was going to expand on this for the 2nd and 3rd Hobbit films, because I think that's where it really shows that they were stretching the story out. While AUJ pretty much stuck with the company's journey from Bag End to the eagles' rescue. They did add the White Council scenes (and Azog into the story), it made sense they were at least in Rivendell. It's a minor detail, but I'm glad PJ didn't add any, or create any characters to the White Council. The only confirmed members (from the Silm) were Elrond, Galadriel, Cirdan, and Gandalf and Saruman. Cirdan is excluded entirely, but they kept the White Council to the known confirmed. I got the distinct impression, based on Saruman's reactions that Radagast was not a member.

[Galadriel55]

I watched AUJ and DOS, but not B5A. I recall that the first time I watched AUJ, in theatre, it made a good enough impression to make me invested in the movie. However, A few weeks later I tried watching it again with some friends on DVD, and we all got so bored that somewhere in Rivendell we've fully stopped paying attention to the movie and shortly after stopped it and switched to other forms of entertainment. Whatever value it had initially, it didn't hold on a repeat viewing. As for DOS, I didn't find it gripping even in the theatre. I have very little to say about the specific pros and cons, and don't want to party poop on the discussion, but I'm afraid my only contribution can be that the movies had neither enough emotion, nor philosophy, nor adventure to captivate me, despite all the attempts at deep moments and action scenes.

As for B5A, I enjoyed immensely reading everyone else's takes on that, and I believe at some point was joking about a new themed WW game, CGI: The Attack of the Wereworms. That's probably my fondest memory.

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Boromir88

Star Wars fandom know where I'm coming from. You have to start with Episode I even though I would argue that's probably the most boring.

Heh do you though? My attitude is to just watch the original trilogy and stop! And by Original Trilogy I'm talking about fan-produced versions with the Special Edition changes removed; that's my Star Wars equivalent of Tolkien book purism

Interesting to see people saying B5A is the worst as at the time I thought it was the best, before the battle at least; it seemed to have the most "heart" out of the three to me, but I could be misremembering.

As I said in another thread I tried to watch the "Bilbo Edition" of the Hobbit films last year and got so bored I stopped watching! I'm not sure I could ever watch any of the films again.

That being said as I get older and mellow out a bit I think the Lord of the Rings trilogy is interesting from a technical perspective, when utterly divorced from the question of its nature as an adaptation of the book. I don't like it and don't want to watch it, but I think they're interesting to discuss from a technical and production standpoint, if that makes sense.

[Snowdog]

I watched part of Fellowship of the Ring the other night because it was on free-to-air TV and I was channel-surfing. I caught the Councol of Elrond scene before it went to commercial. It looked like 20 year old tech, and the lines seemed so... contrived. There is a reason the EE DVD set has enough dust on them to grow taters.

As for the Hobbitt films... I thinkI saw each one once... and that was at a premiere screening so I didn't pay a cent for the privelege. I deemed then unwatchable as they seemed like a PJ comedy festival, and had no interest in ever buying them.

[Soriman the Whide]

Maybe slightly off topic but I very recently watched the Cardinal cut of the Hobbit films.

It cuts the 3 films down to about four hours and imo is the best way to try and enjoy these films.
Here's a link with downloads and information about the edit.

https://thehobbitthecardinalcut.wordpress.com/

[harrykane]

I think that if Peter made The Hobbit first and then the LoTR trilogy that people may have liked this movie more. Yes I read the book but we just gave Peter such a high expectation to meet that we were disappointed with what we saw in the movie. Yes he didn't include some big parts but it's still a great film and I give props to Jackson for attempting not only the trilogy but also The Hobbit.