The Hobbit : Battle of the five armies (December 2014)

david75

Couldn't see a thread for this...it's not far away now. I'm not hopeful after the first two being really disappointing, but you never know..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSzeFFsKEt4

MJ23

Borefest

FunLover18

I'm still pissed off about the elf-dwarf romance :mad:

DoYouEvenLift

Gonna rewatch the first two a couple of days before it and then rewatch the lotr trilogy the few days after.

e_e

Relatively enjoyed An Unexpected Journey but after the 3 hours of feck all that was Smaug I really don't know what to expect.

Gbear

I have extremely low expectations.

If you just edited out all the extraneous ****e from the first 2 films what's left would be fairly good, IMO. But there's a lot of extraneous ****e.

david75

Agree completely GBear

but in a twisted irony, I have to say, the extra footage in the extended editions actually did improve the films, for me anyways..if only for adding some stuff more related to the book and adding content that shouldnt have been cut at all..

david75

Brilliant
http://thedailyedge.thejournal.ie/lord-of-the-rings-pub-killarney-1731824-Oct2014/?utm_source=facebook_short

HamsterFace

Did enjoy the first, second was completely unsatisfying.

Peter Jackson is without doubt one of the most self indulgent directors in the business, no one enjoys a story that feels dragged out

Roar

Ugh. Looking forward to seeing it, if only so I can get it over with.

Saw an unexpected journey one and a half times. Smaug once, and no inclination to go back and watch either of them ever again.

And this from a guy who's seen the LOTR trilogy so much I practically know them by heart.

jaykhunter

Hobbit AUJ was pretty average (sadly - I LOVE LOTR) but Smaug was leaps and bounds over it. Hoping they repeat the same for this one. Maybe it's because they feel like they're stretching a small source material rather than squeezing down epic tomes. Although I'm not hyped to see it, I definitely will, in whatever bells & whistles they offer in the cine.

Squeedily Spooch

I thought Desolation was better as well only for the scenes with Smaug, least there's going to be big action in the final part. Totally agree on Jackson being self indulgent, ridiculously so.

david75

someone caught the new trailer on their phone..

Mountainlad

Here is the new trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6Fv5StfAxA

Anyone recognize the song? Really want to know.

Elessar

That trailer is, quite frankly, amazeballs.

BlitzKrieg

The single worse thing about the 2nd one was where they ended it. And it shows in the trailers.

First one heavily pushed smaug

This one he is completely absent

I expect to get whiplash from the pacing of this film

Roar

Saw the trailer before interstellar yesterday.

A big load of meh is just about the best way I could describe it.

Looking toward to getting it over with.

How come they did not split this into two films? I though that was the done thing for film trilogies now.....

david75

Imagine...three was a stretch for such thin source material..splitting the last probably did cross Jacksons mind at some point.

DoYouEvenLift

Best place to watch this? Cineworlds IMAX screen is listed as capable of HFR 3D but I don't think they're actually showing it with HFR

david75

was this a question or a suggestion?
only kidding..

the frame rate wont help the quality of the film..i'm not hopeful

Sonic Death Monkey

Won't bother going to see this, but I'll rent it on iTunes at some stage just do I've seen them all.

The first was pretty good I though. Second one bored the pants off me. Could've been so good as one stand alone movie. The book is one of my favourites.

Scared Hitless 2

I enjoyed the 1st. I saw the 2nd only 2 months ago and I've already forgotten it.
The dragon scene went on way too long and I lost interest.

david75

i'm interested in the legacy cut Jackson has mentioned..All LOTR films and Hobbit films, with even more footage added in a super deluxe boxset..his mission with the Hobbit films was more about matching them to the LOTR films..Being faithful to the books was a close but secondary concern..

in a hundred years you could watch all 6 films, knowing nothing of the source material, and have a wonderful experience maybe

i'll definitely buy this Legacy edition if it happens though.

.ak

It's weird. I hated the 1st one, loved the 2nd one. I'm a massive Tolkien fan and I know its nothing like what's in the book but I really enjoyed the 2nd one as a movie, loved the pace of it, and the direction.

The one thing I hate though is how they portray Radagast. Really OTT childishness.

Bacchus

david75 wrote: »

i'm interested in the legacy cut Jackson has mentioned..All LOTR films and Hobbit films, with even more footage added in a super deluxe boxset..his mission with the Hobbit films was more about matching them to the LOTR films..Being faithful to the books was a close but secondary concern..

in a hundred years you could watch all 6 films, knowing nothing of the source material, and have a wonderful experience maybe

i'll definitely buy this Legacy edition if it happens though.

Nah, virtual reality conversion in post production isn't a patch on having it captured in true virtual reality with 256k orb drone cameras.

jones

.ak wrote: »

It's weird. I hated the 1st one, loved the 2nd one. I'm a massive Tolkien fan and I know its nothing like what's in the book but I really enjoyed the 2nd one as a movie, loved the pace of it, and the direction.

The one thing I hate though is how they portray Radagast. Really OTT childishness.

I agree although I kinda liked the first one, I think moreso because it was an excuse to go back to middle earth. I loved the second one though and I know the end gets a lot of stick but I love how it was done.

I think Jackson is great at action scenes but does seem to get a bit over indulgent since the success of LOTR's maybe its because the extended edition LOTR's went down so well he's decided to just throw the kitchen sink at all his movies. Nearly all his films now seem a little too long to quote Bilbo baggins "like butter spread over too much bread".

Word from this is that he seems to be that he's left a lot of the film on the cutting room floor so it could be a case there will be a massive extended edition on bluray out next year but a slimmer version for the cinema.

Jackson's main flaw, for me, is his Lucas-esque obsession with CGI

LOTR had beautifully married practical and computer effects but from Kong on he just went all show with no substance

Agricola

Deleted User wrote: »

Jackson's main flaw, for me, is his Lucas-esque obsession with CGI

LOTR had beautifully married practical and computer effects but from Kong on he just went all show with no substance

Yes. Was looking at making of documentaries for the original Jurassic Park recently and it reminded me of the same thing. The effort and man hours that went into making animatronic creatures was insane, similar to the workload that went into the original LOTR trilogy when it came to prosthetics and makeup. Something huge has been lost by directors over reliance on CGI.

jones

Totally agree I saw something last year where they had one of the main orcs from DOS (cant remember his name but the one who's hunting the dwarfs) and it showed the actor in prosthetics versus the CGi version and the actor looked FAR better. But for some reason Jackson went CGI.

Azog the Defiler?

Or was it Bolg by that stage?

FunLover18

Deleted User wrote: »

Jackson's main flaw, for me, is his Lucas-esque obsession with CGI

LOTR had beautifully married practical and computer effects but from Kong on he just went all show with no substance

Yep, totally agree. The Uruk Hai in LotR work because they're real, they're there. The orcs in the Hobbit look awful.

jones wrote: »

Totally agree I saw something last year where they had one of the main orcs from DOS (cant remember his name but the one who's hunting the dwarfs) and it showed the actor in prosthetics versus the CGi version and the actor looked FAR better. But for some reason Jackson went CGI.

Yeh I can't remember the name of the orc but it was the one who fought Legolas in Lake Town, one of the best fight sequences I've seen in a long time but the fact that his enemy is so obviously cgi really takes away from it. Why they bothered when they had a lad in prosthetics is beyond me.

jones

Deleted User wrote: »

Azog the Defiler?

Or was it Bolg by that stage?

Bolg that's it.
I'll see can I find the picture but it basically compared the two and the prosthetics looks FAR superior.

Agreed with the fight it almost took on a computer game look and so I don't think the audience had any real investment in the outcome (plus the fact we know Legolas aint going to die ha)

jones

Here is something along the lines of what I was referring to

DoYouEvenLift

+1 for the CGI not being even close to as good as the makeup and masks. You'd imagine that they'd be able to do the makeup a lot better nowadays too.


Even fan cosplays and the ones in this fan film for shadow of mordor do it better

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xK7e0-_3oQ

PhiloCypher

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Jackson's main flaw, for me, is his Lucas-esque obsession with CGI

LOTR had beautifully married practical and computer effects but from Kong on he just went all show with no substance

Just like Lucas Jackson became too proud of this technological terror he'd constructed in weta digital (off the back of his own hugely successful trilogy) and failed to understand the power to Construct worlds digitally is nothing when compared to the power of building them practically.

With both men having such a large stake in both effects houses of course they were gonna throw as much work at their own companies as possible thus lining their own pockets.

I loved the extras for the lotr trilogy, the practical effects, the creative use of forced perspectives. I don't think I'd be arsed with anything but the most basic blueray of the hobbit trilogy. You've see one pixel pushed around a screen by a nerd you've seen them all.

Heroditas

Anyone see Graham Norton the other night? He had Ian McKellan on and they showed a fresh clip from the film - CGI to beat the band.
First thing that struck me was that it looked very similar to the siege of Minas Tirith in ROTK. Every last bit of it was CGI too. Quite frankly, I thought it looked awful.
My wife commented "y'know what, it actually looks like a video game". I found it hard to disagree.

I'm still going to see it but more out of a sense of duty than anything else and I still love the books.
It's a bit of a tradition for a few of us to go see the films together, ever since FOTR was released back in 2001.

EDIT: there seems to be quite a few official clips up on YouTube now.

Roar

Ha. My wife said the exact thing. She just couldn't get over how fake it all looked.

funnights74

I totally agree, after seeing a few of the trailers and teaser clips it just looks a bit too polished and perfect. i accept that it's fantasy but every single pixel seems to have been methodically placed there, i recall from the LotR in some shots some of the main characters were added in post production, and it stood out a mile. Hopefully the actual story won't be lost amongst all of this.

DoYouEvenLift

I wonder if any fans will take all the extended versions of these movies and cut the most important and best parts of each and make it into a single great movie, which it should've been anyway.

Gbear

DoYouEvenLift wrote: »

I wonder if any fans will take all the extended versions of these movies and cut the most important and best parts of each and make it into a single great movie, which it should've been anyway.

I would watch the **** out of that.

Josey Wales

Are Cineworld not showing the HFR version in there big (fake) IMAX screen?

DoYouEvenLift

Josey Wales wrote: »

Are Cineworld not showing the HFR version in there big (fake) IMAX screen?

Emailed to ask them the other day and got a stupid automatic response with a long FAQ that didn't answer the question and haven't heard anything since. Theirs is listed on the imax site as one of the projectors capable of doing hfr imax yet seems like they're not using the opportunity, stupid really.

Josey Wales

DoYouEvenLift wrote: »

Emailed to ask them the other day and got a stupid automatic response with a long FAQ that didn't answer the question and haven't heard anything since. Theirs is listed on the imax site as one of the projectors capable of doing hfr imax yet seems like they're not using the opportunity, stupid really.

I saw the first two Hobbit movies in their IMAX screen in the HFR format. I wonder if they feel they are losing sales by having it in this format.

sonic85

far too much cgi in this trilogy and its kind of ruined the films for me but ill still go see this. really cant understand why Jackson would change his approach from prosthetics that clearly work and look fantastic to dodgy cgi that's so clean looking and polished that it basically looks like a video game.

bah

DoYouEvenLift

sonic85 wrote: »

far too much cgi in this trilogy and its kind of ruined the films for me but ill still go see this. really cant understand why Jackson would change his approach from prosthetics that clearly work and look fantastic to dodgy cgi that's so clean looking and polished that it basically looks like a video game.

bah

More CGI = more business for his special effects company I'd say

jaykhunter

Hi there. Was there a reason they changed the title of the movie from "There and back again"? Battle of 5 Armies sounds like a concession to get more punters in the door.

bucketybuck

jaykhunter wrote: »

Hi there. Was there a reason they changed the title of the movie from "There and back again"?

Because...

Battle of 5 Armies sounds like a concession to get more punters in the door.

funnights74

DoYouEvenLift wrote: »

More CGI = more business for his special effects company I'd say

Definitely, himself and Richard Taylor own weta digital. I suspect this is their motive behind the 3 films, there's no way the hobbit book justified 3 films, they borrowed heavily from the appendices of the LotR books to fill up the 3 hobbit films, plus extended versions of the dvds of course. No surprise it all boils down to money.

david75

I wouldnt side with the $$$/slightly cynical view of these three films had they simply been better films. Impossible to meet or even come come close to their LOTR forbearers maybe, those 3 films each being a new standard in class and quality.
But, when presented with the chance to see things i've always wondered about, like the White Council descending on Dol Guldur to vanquish Sauron, to see Smaug toy with Bilbo, or even the battle of the five armies in all its scale, I can't be cynical. I don't have much hope for this film based on the first two, but maybe, just maybe, it'll all be worth it.

DoYouEvenLift

funnights74 wrote: »

Definitely, himself and Richard Taylor own weta digital. I suspect this is their motive behind the 3 films, there's no way the hobbit book justified 3 films, they borrowed heavily from the appendices of the LotR books to fill up the 3 hobbit films, plus extended versions of the dvds of course. No surprise it all boils down to money.

Peter Jackson's already worth $400m too, at what point is money not an influencing factor anymore for guys like this? He's rich enough to take absolute gambles with artistic projects and even if they were absolute fails he still has enough money to fall back on and live like a king. What can be done with $400m that couldn't be done when he was worth $10m. Seems like their company is well off the ground and getting decent business so they could've left out the fuking OTT CGI for these movies