Three Times The Hobbit?

[Inziladun]

This is to me the most interesting:

This film is so stuffed with extraneous faff and flummery that it often barely feels like Tolkien at all – more a dire, fan-written internet tribute. The book begins with the unimprovable ten-word opening sentence: “In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit.” Jackson, by contrast, starts with an interminable narrative detour about a mining operation run by a team of dwarfs, involving magic crystals, orc armies and details of dwarf family trees that are of interest, at this early stage in what is supposed to be a family film, to almost nobody.

The first sentence could well apply to Jackson's previous efforts at Tolkien.

As for the rest, it's pretty much what we "unjust" critics here have been ruminating about for some time.
At any rate, I may end up seeing it despite my misgivings. I am matched against a power too great for me (my wife), who has said she wants to go.

[davem]

Guardian bit more positive http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/...journey-review

So Tolkien's gentle tale is going to be a triple box-office bonanza, occupying the same amount of space as the mighty Rings epic, an effect achieved by pumping up the confrontations, opening out the backstory and amplifying the ambient details, like zooming in on a Google Middle Earth.

They also have five-odd minutes of clips http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/video...ix-clips-video which, for me, show the problem with the movie - it starts out nicely, apparently quite faithful to the book, but by the final couple of clips - the Warg attack & particularly the fight in the mines, it seems to have lost the plot completely & to be letting the technology lead & to just be putting stuff in there because they can. Oh, it looks exciting enough, but its all been done before (principally by Jackson himself in LotR) so it looks familiar as well.

Its odd that they justify extending the story over three films by claiming that there was too much material for just two films, when all the extra material is stuff they've just (unnecessarily) made up. Its like a cook serving up a 15 course banquet when you only asked for a nice 3 course meal & justifying it by claiming that he had LOADS of food there which would have gone to waste otherwise, & your first thought is 'Well, why did you make so much then? Nobody asked you to.' You get the feeling that Jackson & his writers are incapable of any kind of discrimination when it comes to their ideas - if they think of something they just film it & stick it in there. Got the same feeling about their King Kong.

Interestingly I just finished listening to Nicol Williamson's reading of TH on You Tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggm7XM-3dF8 & while its an abridged version it is an absolutely beautiful & faithful re-telling, which comes in around the same length as this first movie.

[Tuor in Gondolin]

Han Solo doesn't think much of PJ's Hobbit:

"I've got a bad feeling about this."
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[Kuruharan]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

At any rate, I may end up seeing it despite my misgivings. I am matched against a power too great for me (my wife), who has said she wants to go.

Same boat I'm in...except its a bit worse for me as my wife's vessel the good ship Drag Kuru into going to The Hobbit has as its First Mate my Mom and the engineer is my Dad.

Oh well.

I found this line from the Guardian review utterly hilarious...

a seraphic and almost immobile Cate Blanchett

[davem]

Metro a bit noncommittal http://metro.co.uk/2012/12/10/the-ho...rings-3310069/

* my favourite line from the movie so far - I hope the reviewer isn't joking about it being in the film. I want it on a tshirt.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by davem

Metro a bit noncommittal http://metro.co.uk/2012/12/10/the-ho...rings-3310069/

* my favourite line from the movie so far - I hope the reviewer isn't joking about it being in the film. I want it on a tshirt.

While the Tolkien lover in me screams in outrage, my sense of humor also demands a t-shirt.

[Mithalwen]

"the rubber noses look a great deal more rubbery than nosey. " snork...

[davem]

We are off to see it (in 3D) on Friday aft. Personally I'd have preferred to wait for the DVD and take the edges off it with a couple or five glasses of madeira ...... Noticed the reviews on the sfx and Mail sites are a bit half hearted as well.

[Galadriel55]

I decided I am going to see it, but at least a couple weeks after the 14th. I'm not the one to go stand all day in line waiting to get the tickets, just to spend the next couple hours in an overcrowded room full of overexcited fans.