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The Hobbit Part 3: TBOFA What was the worst part? Of this god awful film. *Spoilers*

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Movie was awesome, the only awful thing is the critisicm it gets.

Yet again another insightful and detailed bit of praise, with lots of attention paid to why explicitly the criticism is invalid, as well as comprehensive critical analysis of why you liked it so much.

"It's awesome, you guys are being too critical". That's fun. WHY?
 

ramparter

Banned
OK you go me, I have nothing to say, actually it wasn't awesome just very enjoyable but I don't get all the hate. I mean I would get it if it was the first but after the other two films I didn't expect anything better. If I had to rate them it would be 5/10, 7/10, 7/10 respectively.
 

Turin

Banned
I'll do my personal ratings just for fun.....

An Unexpected Journey - 6/10

Desolation of Smaug - 7/10

Battle of Five Army's - 5/10

I don't consider a 5/10 to be terrible.
 
I thought it was decent. Bilbo and Thorin's scenes were great but I would have liked more of them. The battle got a bit tiring by the end and I thought Thorin's death was a little stupid but I think I probably enjoyed it more than Desolation. An Unexpected Journey is still my favourite of the three though.
 

Korey

Member
Thorin, Fili and Kili are no one?

They should have killed off Tauriel though.
I was talking about the actual battle, not the one off duels that happen in the last 15 minutes. The main battle is 2 hours of swords clanging and not much else and then it just ends off-screen.
 

Turin

Banned
Bilbo and Thranduil were the best thing about the trilogy for me.

Gollum, Smaug and Gandalf shouldn't be forgotten though.
 

DeathyBoy

Banned
It's a shame they forced evangeline Lilly into this love drama with the reshoots after she only accepted the role under the condition that there would be no such thing.

It is jarring because the idea that she's friends with Legolas and extolling him into the 'we can't stay isolated' mindset is pretty powerful. Then when she's exiled at the end, he chooses to go with her and defy his father permanently - which is ACTUAL character development for Legolas, and at the same time works thematically for Thandruil to finally be proud of Legolas.
 

WanderingWind

Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
The whole thing with Legolas is just pretty dumb anyway. He's probably 2,900 years old. A bit too seasoned to have the same daddy issues of a 16 year old.
 

Peru

Member
It's amazing, really amazing, how much I can care about the LOTR trilogy and how little I've cared about the Hobbit movies. To the point where I was having dreams days and weeks in advance of each LOTR premiere about finally seeing it, waking up disappointed the day had not come yet. Admittedly I was younger, and more deeply into Tolkien, but I still love those movies, flaws and all. They told a real epic story with heart and character. Music, visuals, effects all came together to create magic.

So the same people making more movies in the same universe. How bad could it be? Well, it's not that Peter Jackson and his team is suddenly shit. All of it goes back to his terrible, horrible, no good, very bad explicitly stated decision to make The Hobbit story more like LOTR in theme and scope. I know Peter Jackson could've pulled off a brief, charming, off-beat adventure film based on the Hobbit. The screenwriter team's sense of wit is on display in his comedy classics like Braindead. Sharp writing that holds up today. But he simply made the very wrong decision to go full epic on The Hobbit, giant battles, self-serious speeches, pompousness and all. The result is trite pastiche and nothing but pastiche, in TBOFA every single scene feels like it's trying to emulate one from the LOTR, but with none of the significance and actual emotional motivation of those films.

It's sad, Peter Jackson, because I know it could've been different, even under your direction. I have a feeling you realize it to be a mistake now. I imagine PJ is tired of Tolkien. It's a shame. This trilogy shouldn't have happened the way it did. I haven't even bothered buying the dvd boxes yet, and I love the kind of high quality extra content from bts production I know they put in there. The stuff on LOTR was worth the price alone.

Anyway, that's the worst part about this trilogy. That scenes ended predictably is not that important.
 
The movie'y design decisions in terms of armor, landscape, etc... is great.

The CGI, the color grading and composition were garbage. Also, these elements were over used. Why does every shot look unnatural almost? The two times REAL ORCS shows up (2 scenes about 3.5 seconds each) it looked great, then it goes back to useless CGI and overblown colourgrading for character dialogue sequences.
 

cajunator

Banned
I havent read the books so I approach this from purely a moviegoers viewpoint. That said, I really enjoyed all the movies. I know Peter Jackson took immense liberties with these films and my friend I watched most of the movies with is an enormous JRR Tolkien/LOTR/sci fi/fantasy fan so I was able to get insight into what they did right and what they apparently got wrong. My friend still managed to enjoy all these films despite the liberties and I really think most people should. Its true that some things were hamfisted and really didnt seem to fit into that world or looked downright made up on the spot, but overall I really enjoy this level of world building and at least pertaining to the physics of this world..well its a land inhabited by magical creatures, wizards, wraiths, all manner of creature races both human and non, and really just a place that seems like anything can happen. Its not out of the realm of possibility that a skilled Elven warrior like Legolas could hop from crumbling brick to brick or that an orc might really be as stupid in battle as they were. This is a world that plays by its own rules, and real life physics or logic dont really seem to have a place there.
Taken in that state of mind these films were extraordinarily fun, at least from this outside observer. Ive seen much, much worse.
 

wmlk

Member
The second one is still the absolute worst. GoPro barrel scene.

For those who were upset about Legolas doing crazy stuff in this movie, that movie had everyone doing crazy things for the barrel scene, and it just kept going.

Not only that, Tauriel came off as an extremely forced character in the second, but that was rectified in the BOTFA where she was as much of a character as everyone else and not some showcase.
 

aerts1js

Member
An Unexpected Journey - 8.5 (Loved the first half of it)

Desolation of Smaug - 5 (Just really dull and hated the cliff hanger ending)

Battle of Five Armies - 1 (Am I watching a video game?)
 
Three years later, people still can't get over the fact that it's three films.

It was fine to harp on that for awhile in like... 2011, but come on. Let it go. Besides The Raid 2, the most creative action set pieces of the last three years were in these films.

I'm constantly blown away by the little creative touches in the battles. Stuff like Legolas providing sniper cover for Thorin on the ice in Five Armies, the constant escalation during the barrel scene in escalation, the unparalleled use of the environment in the Goblin Town escape scene in AUJ. No one has done it better than Jackson in the last few years.
 
indeed, it's a fine, fine

video game.

Units crapped out from nowhere, unit deaths from nothing, clone units everywhere, and no story anywhere to be found. I literally saw Nydus Worms in action, six piece mouths and everything, and the only legendary unit worth mentioning dies within ten minutes of the movie's opening. And the graphics suck! (this last one is for reference purposes only)

It's probably the worst movie I've seen from 2014 (wow, let's not get carried away there, surely Interbwaap was wo- Nope, that was better). No structure, no plot, no characters, no story. When side character Tauriel basically carries the entire thing (no offense to Lilly, her performance stands out like a sore thumb when everyone else is seemingly just doing the motions -or perhaps replaced with CGI podpeople..) and you're really just hoping Smaug is not dead (please! ), then spending two more hours to get to the credits, is two hours too. damn. many. They could literally have made the previous movie ten minutes longer and dealt with everything that was worth actually showing.

I still have to endure the other 'big 'un', that being The Boring Games, but I don't think I'm even going to bother after... whatever this waste of time was.
 

Toxi

Banned
Somehow, CGI Andy Serkis and Benedict Cumberbatch had the best performances in the entire trilogy.
I still have to endure the other 'big 'un', that being The Boring Games, but I don't think I'm even going to bother after... whatever this waste of time was.
Mockingjay part 1 is basically half of a really badly-paced movie. It's horrendously boring.

I still somehow enjoyed it more than TBOFA.
 

Grinchy

Banned
Lots of people seem to have hated the 2nd movie. It was my favorite. Now I feel weird.


I think what I would have preferred from the 3rd movie is actually a scaling down. The battles that take place would have more impact if they were smaller and you could actually follow what was happening. A smaller number of orcs could have been portrayed to have an actual ability to fight, so each time one was killed it would feel like a massive achievement for the good guys. More "slow" scenes with well-written dialog could have given us an insight into the characters' feelings and motivations instead of the entire movie being a giant CG fight scene with no substance.
 
This thread is a false flag operation. The title ensures you're getting a disproportionate percentage of haters. The majority of audiences liked the film.
 

Grinchy

Banned
It makes them entertaining which a movie is supposed to be.

But isn't it valid for people to say that those movies are terrible?

I mean, the majority of the people who go see Adam Sandler movies enjoy those too. But I doubt you'll come to its defense if I said they are terrible movies.
 

Moppeh

Banned
It makes them entertaining which a movie is supposed to be.

That's a statement I entirely disagree with. A film doesn't have to be entertaining. A film's goals can be anything; entertainment doesn't even need to enter the equation if the film has another purpose in mind. And I personally don't find the Transformers films or the Hobbit films to be very entertaining either. They may be thrill rides, but they are unsatisfactory ones. If the goals of these films were to entertain me, then they have failed.

Now for the OP's question: That's a fucking toughie. The Smaug sequence was okay but the fact that is was so short made its inclusion in the third film extremely stupid. I really hated the love triangle, especially when it proved completely unnecessary in the story of the film. Alfrid was unfunny, ruined the movie's pacing, and was basically cinematic cancer. My answer would be anything that felt like filler, which was most of it. There were some good things about it, mostly Freeman and Pace but the rest of the film was a major bummer.
 

Cheebo

Banned
I have enjoyed bad movies and have seen boring good movies. A bad movie can be very enjoyable in the right context.
 
It's amazing, really amazing, how much I can care about the LOTR trilogy and how little I've cared about the Hobbit movies. To the point where I was having dreams days and weeks in advance of each LOTR premiere about finally seeing it, waking up disappointed the day had not come yet. Admittedly I was younger, and more deeply into Tolkien, but I still love those movies, flaws and all. They told a real epic story with heart and character. Music, visuals, effects all came together to create magic.

So the same people making more movies in the same universe. How bad could it be? Well, it's not that Peter Jackson and his team is suddenly shit. All of it goes back to his terrible, horrible, no good, very bad explicitly stated decision to make The Hobbit story more like LOTR in theme and scope. I know Peter Jackson could've pulled off a brief, charming, off-beat adventure film based on the Hobbit. The screenwriter team's sense of wit is on display in his comedy classics like Braindead. Sharp writing that holds up today. But he simply made the very wrong decision to go full epic on The Hobbit, giant battles, self-serious speeches, pompousness and all. The result is trite pastiche and nothing but pastiche, in TBOFA every single scene feels like it's trying to emulate one from the LOTR, but with none of the significance and actual emotional motivation of those films.

It's sad, Peter Jackson, because I know it could've been different, even under your direction. I have a feeling you realize it to be a mistake now. I imagine PJ is tired of Tolkien. It's a shame. This trilogy shouldn't have happened the way it did. I haven't even bothered buying the dvd boxes yet, and I love the kind of high quality extra content from bts production I know they put in there. The stuff on LOTR was worth the price alone.

Anyway, that's the worst part about this trilogy. That scenes ended predictably is not that important.

church-baby-o.gif
 

Abounder

Banned
I had a lot of fun but yea as a movie and a trilogy The Hobbit deserves its criticism. The storytelling like Alfrid, the love story, the hobbit's lack of screentime, and strange closures for all characters except Bilbo made it seem rushed
 
People ripping on the GoPro section. Watch the damn appendices. It's used very sparingly and yet you would think it took up the entire film.
 

Leatherface

Member
I thought this last film was an absolute blast and I love the way it ties right into the LoTR. Some of you need to realize that The Hobbit book, as charming as it was, wasn't anywhere near as detailed as LoTR. It was short and very basic. The Dwarves may as well have been called dwarf 1,2 3, 4, 5 etc.. because they had no character development at all. I can go on and on really. The point is it seems a lot of people were either furious at how Jackson didn't follow the book exactly or it wasn't as "EPIC" and detailed as LoTR. The Hobbit never had a damn chance of ever being LoTR, so why not have some fun and build upon the original story for the big screen? I felt The Hobbit was more of a fan service than anything else and gave us all a chance to go to Tolkien's world for one last run. To see some familiar faces and go on the adventure that started it all. It was more fun and fluff than the ultra serious and detailed LoTR movies. Why? because it was a 300 basic children's fantasy book, not a book epic fantasy story.

Look, I don't think these films were anywhere near perfect, in fact, I feel the second was (mostly) a waste of time. However, (IMO) the first film was absolutely fantastic (and stuck to the book pretty well) and the last was a great, action packed finale to close out the adventure. I don't see the problem here except that you'd probably enjoy it more if you simply lowered your obnoxiously high expectations. ;)
 

y2dvd

Member
Ratings? Oh gosh, I would have to see all 3 movies again but I don't even want to ever do so again so off the top of my head.

Hobbit1 - 3/10
Hobbit2 - 5/10
Hobbit3 - 4/10

And that's me being generous. For context:

LotR1 - 10/10
LotR2 - 10/10
LotR3 - 9/10

I think plenty have given detailed explanations on why they didn't like the Hobbit movies, so jabbing at people who didn't like it really isn't fair. I'll give an overall review of the Hobbit movies.

-The movies drags, which is saying something because I could watch the LotR:EE's just fine.
-Which leads to the trilogy not having to be a trilogy. They could've totally condensed it to two movies. Smaug's arc could've concluded in the 2nd movie.
-Forced love triangle that didn't feel genuine in the slightest.
-Too many side characters I didn't care for.
-Bilbo was sidelined. The LotR movies did a great job balancing out different groups' screen time. I barely felt Bilbo's presence in the Hobbit movies.
-I didn't like Bilbo's portrayal at all, but that's more due to direction and not Freeman's fault. He should've been spunky but I never bought into this hobbit that would tell Frodo in the future all these crazy enjoyable adventures he've had.
-Tone was trying to be LotR serious when it should've been a fun romp. I think that's why Hobbit 2 scored the highest for me. The barrel scene was actually fun.
-Prosthetics looks terrible. How does Gimli look better than how the dwarves in the way more recent films?
-The dwarves and the orcs armors were too similar. Sure, there was the height difference, but why couldn't they make the armors more unique? It reminded me of Transformers. Everything looked similar.
-Thorin's turns from evil to good wasn't earned. He just had some nightmare after a chat with another dwarf and he sees the wrongness of his ways? Didn't buy it.
-Alfrid or whatever that character's name was got way too much screentime. Doesn't compare to Wurmtongue
-They made Legolas a pouty loser. He was probably my favorite character in the LotR movies.

They get some points for effort and some parts being fun I guess but I can't think of that many positives to give it.
 

DeathyBoy

Banned
No way is ROTK better than BOTFA.

At least BOTFA ends. ROTK dragged for an eternity. One of the most drawn out and ridiculous theatrical endings ever. On the couch? Kinda works. In a cinema? Jesus, that was fucking horrible. You could hear people cringing at each fade out and fade in.
 
The one mildly interesting thing I found in the movie was the politics of who gets what as far as the necklace and amulet and whatever.

Of course, none of this gets resolved at all by the end.

I also didn't understand some of the character motivations. A bunch of elves come to the mountain planning on slaughtering all the dwarves, and then a half an hour later the annoying elf girl was like "We have to save the dwarves!"
 
I thought this last film was an absolute blast and I love the way it ties right into the LoTR. Some of you need to realize that The Hobbit book, as charming as it was, wasn't anywhere near as detailed as LoTR. It was short and very basic. The Dwarves may as well have been called dwarf 1,2 3, 4, 5 etc.. because they had no character development at all. I can go on and on really. The point is it seems a lot of people were either furious at how Jackson didn't follow the book exactly or it wasn't as "EPIC" and detailed as LoTR. The Hobbit never had a damn chance of ever being LoTR, so why not have some fun and build upon the original story for the big screen? I felt The Hobbit was more of a fan service than anything else and gave us all a chance to go to Tolkien's world for one last run. To see some familiar faces and go on the adventure that started it all. It was more fun and fluff than the ultra serious and detailed LoTR movies. Why? because it was a 300 basic children's fantasy book, not a book epic fantasy story.

Look, I don't think these films were anywhere near perfect, in fact, I feel the second was (mostly) a waste of time. However, (IMO) the first film was absolutely fantastic (and stuck to the book pretty well) and the last was a great, action packed finale to close out the adventure. I don't see the problem here except that you'd probably enjoy it more if you simply lowered your obnoxiously high expectations. ;)

The problem was that Jackson attempted to turn a simple fantasy adventure into an epic fantasy. I never wanted it to be as epic or grand as LotR, but the movie's many attempts to do exactly that really hurt my enjoyment of it.
 

-griffy-

Banned
No way is ROTK better than BOTFA.

At least BOTFA ends. ROTK dragged for an eternity. One of the most drawn out and ridiculous theatrical endings ever. On the couch? Kinda works. In a cinema? Jesus, that was fucking horrible. You could hear people cringing at each fade out and fade in.

What the fuck.
 
This is debatable, I don't know for a fact whether the studio forced his hand or not. In the end, the only rational reason for the third movie was greed, good and true.

The original plan was for two movies and in retrospect, that would have worked a lot better.
When I watched the first two movies, I thought it was two movies (this was after they came out in theaters). At the end of Desolation, I was like, "WTF? There's more?" Having not read the book, I thought Bilbo was just going to kill Smaug in the cave. There didn't seem to be any need for three movies at all to me.

This prequel trilogy seems to have suffered just like Star Wars. The director's heart wasn't truly in it, and he was surrounded by 'yes men' and corporate types that just wanted to see the movie made.
 
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