Movies reviews by yourself

cumberbitches/cumberbabes
hiddelstoners

but the worst is for captain hook on once upon a time - hookers.

tanita_mors wrote:cumberbitches/cumberbabes
hiddelstoners

but the worst is for captain hook on once upon a time - hookers.

Neither of those sound very fetching... 
Hiddlestoners sounds like, well stoners. Kurtsies sounds better, although Colferites sounds like some sort of flu.  

tanita_mors wrote:cumberbitches/cumberbabes
hiddelstoners

but the worst is for captain hook on once upon a time - hookers.

  

Val, colferites sounds like some sort of mineral, or gem stone if you want something positive.  

man, i'm half way throw the extended version of the first hobbit movie, and i can't believe just how much rivendale and elrond (some of my favorite parts of the lotr) got cut for the theatrical release.   

there are a lot more scenes that are cut out from teh second movie - scenes that are in promotional materials and production videos and are no where to be found in the theatrical version. most of the cut scenes are actually from the book, which made many "purist" fans furious. for the first movie though, most of the cut scenes are in the first half and the extended time was less than 15 minutes. i expect at least half an hour of extended stuff for the second movie. i mean, for a movie called "the desolation of smaug",

Spoiler:

they should turn the hobbit into a 20 episode tv series instead, done netflix style (all released at the same time so we can binge watch all of them instead of waiting another year for the next installment).

yesterday i watched the second movie for the third time. again at an IMAX 3D high frame rate. i will reserve the 2D watching for when the extended bluray comes out.

just finished.   

i think i liked it the second time better. like a lot. some of the action scenes still feel very overlong and those few singing scenes kind of seam wrong in this movie - kind of cartoonish (i know tolkien wrote songs in the novel, but still).

anyway, i'm seeing smaug today (it's 3 am on the 25th here   )

DESOLATION of SMAUG

Spoiler:

me after last night and today

spoiler warning for the rest of my post!!!!






i never understand this Sauron thing - i mean why he's in the eye form. does the book say anything about it?

i don't care about the romance thing. it doesn't move me. it became a bit annoying the second and third time around but still no big deal. according to EL's interview, she didn't want any love triangles for her character but during hte last pickup they said the studio demanded it so there you go.

i think he still hadn't his full power without the ring - so he didn't have his body. who knows, maybe the eye form is far more powerful then that black mist/semi present human form he created for gandalf in desolation. it is all seeing, ever watchful. i just don't understand what the hell was he doing in that ruined fortress at all. why wasn't he in mordor, when he was defeated there. don't get me wrong, i love sauron and i was sorry he was a sort off non-existent presence in the trilogy. and also why did it take them 60-70 years to realize that it was him again when the ring appeared with frodo (i'm guessing he needed that time to recuperate and build his army after the inevitable ass whupping he is going to get in part 3 of the hobbit). shit is hella confusing.

i red that about the triangle. i'm not surprised. well at least it wasn't overwhelming so i can get over it. but that girl-elf ain't surviving movie 3. mark my words.

as i said, i red the hobbit ages ago, i don't even remember the details of it's ending, who lives or who dies, besides the obvious of course.

tanita_mors wrote:

Spoiler:

fantastica wrote:spoiler warning for the rest of my post!!!!






i never understand this Sauron thing - i mean why he's in the eye form. does the book say anything about it?

Yes: Sauron became a big eye after some members of the council chased him away from the woods he was living in during the time of 'the Hobbit'.
Actually that was why Gandalf was not with Bilbo and the dwarfs most of the time during their travels (in the book, that is), as the fight between Sauron vs. the council took place completely seperate from the adventures of the dwarfs, and was only mentioned in passing in the original book.

Sauron's semi corporal form he had in the dark woods he dwelt in at that time got destroyed in the process of the council battling him, and after he fled to Mordor he could not take a corporal form ever again, hence the eye.


I've yet to see the 2nd movie, but I rewatched the first one a week ago to get prepared for our annual LotR extended trilogy watching (between Christmas and New Year's Eve).
I still don't like the first Hobbit movie, and last week I practically fell asleep after 2 hours of watching it again. But my husband wants to go to the 2nd movie, and Legolas will be in it, so I might as well give it a try.

tanita_mors wrote:i think he still hadn't his full power without the ring - so he didn't have his body. who knows, maybe the eye form is far more powerful then that black mist/semi present human form he created for gandalf in desolation. it is all seeing, ever watchful. i just don't understand what the hell was he doing in that ruined fortress at all. why wasn't he in mordor, when he was defeated there. don't get me wrong, i love sauron and i was sorry he was a sort off non-existent presence in the trilogy. and also why did it take them 60-70 years to realize that it was him again when the ring appeared with frodo (i'm guessing he needed that time to recuperate and build his army after the inevitable ass whupping he is going to get in part 3 of the hobbit). shit is hella confusing.

Sauron was severely beaten before (when the ring was seperated from his finger), and although he was powerful: losing the ring was a big blow for him (as he put a lot of his own power in the ring), so he needed a long time to recover.
He also knew that the council knew that he hadn't completely died when he lost the ring in the battle, so the council was still looking for him. That's why he fled Mordor and came to the dark woods first to hide and regain his strengts, and to slowly gather his armies again.

Plus Sauron was secretly searching for the ring and he knew it was taken from Mordor by the king. He could somewhat feel the presence of the ring and follow it so that's also why he came to that part of the world, as that's where Smeagol was dwelling after he found the ring in the river.

thanks for all that info. i see we have a real bonifide tolkien fan among us.

i think you will like the second movie much better. i know i did.

also, i want that rabbit driven carriage. i NEED to have it.

i listened to a documentary about lotr and a lot if it is derived from other knows myths, anglo-saxon and northern european /scandianvian, not to mention the bible. sauron is more like satan to me, a fallen angel who was corrupted and now wants to corrupt others. i love the fact that the most powerful object in the world is a little thing like a ring and that it's power is that it corrupts you within with only one goal, getting back to it's master. no matter what you do, how pure your intentions are, that piece of sauron in the ring is so evil that nothing will stand in it's way. also, the fact that it wasn't the elfs, the dwarfs, men and aragorn, or even frodo the one who saved everyone, but one act of pure malice, jealousy and obsession by golum that finally destroyed the ring. kind of ironic.

anyway, while yes, the second movie does deviate a lot, maybe you will love it because all the things that got glossed over in the novel, like the while gandalf/necromancer/sauron plotline gets nice amount of screen time.

tanita_mors wrote:i think you will like the second movie much better. i know i did.

fantastica wrote:

Thanx Marie, but i think u will hate the second one more because it deviates from the book more and its packed with action.

Getting mixed signals here, guys.     

Since my disappointing experience with the 1st movie I will go watch the 2nd one with the knowledge that it will have little to do with the original book, so that won't bug me so much this time.
I already expect a simple OTT action movie, and my mindset will be to just enjoy the rollercoaster and the bits of 'original' Elfs stories and their mythical background and such. I think I will like how they put stuff from the other Tolkien books in it and/or elaborate on things that were merely mentioned in 'the Hobbit'.

Though the love tringle sounds awful, tbh. They put 1 female character in the movie (because lbh: Tolkien didn't write many females in his books) and sure: she has to be fought over. We already had a love triangle (quadrangle, really) in the LotR with Arwen/Aragon/Eowen(/Faramir), there's no need to put one in the Hobbit as well. And te fact that the studio dictated it.....oy.
(another reason why I love that Chris went independ with SBL: no studio meddling)
I've gotten a bit allergic to them because of Glee, I guess.  

About sauron - he reminds me of Voldemore. The ring is like his horcrox and sauron is trying to regain his strength and physical form that he had lost before. Both are dark Lord with an army of ugly things. To completely destroy both u need to destroy the horcroxes, and it takes some very short men to do it.the short men are of course aided by lots of friends. Oh, and there are dragons in both their works too, not to mention they are both very British (not the dragons but the main characters)

i listened to a documentary about lotr and a lot if it is derived from other knows myths, anglo-saxon and northern european /scandianvian, not to mention the bible. sauron is more like satan to me, a fallen angel who was corrupted and now wants to corrupt others. i love the fact that the most powerful object in the world is a little thing like a ring and that it's power is that it corrupts you within with only one goal, getting back to it's master. no matter what you do, how pure your intentions are, that piece of sauron in the ring is so evil that nothing will stand in it's way. also, the fact that it wasn't the elfs, the dwarfs, men and aragorn, or even frodo the one who saved everyone, but one act of pure malice, jealousy and obsession by golum that finally destroyed the ring. kind of ironic.Both Tolkien and J.K. Rowling based a lot of their own stories on ald mythology, religion and other historical myths and stories. Therefore they have a lot of similarities. In a way Chris did the same with TLoS.

The ring is in a way a horcrux, as Sauron needed to put a lot of his own power in it when he made it, so it would rule over the other rings. And when it was destroyed so was he (like Voldemort). The evil in the ring that could overpower the will and soul of anyone who wore it also resembles the horcruxes.
But as boths stories are told in such different ways and with different consequences and outcomes they're both entertaining in their own right. (We talked about this before in the TLoS thread I believe).

I also agree with the fallen angel comparison of Sauron. He once was a great sort of semi-God who became evil. David Eddings e.g. used that same set-up for his Belgarion and Mallorea books.

As for the evil deed od Gollum that ended the ring: I agree that was a great idea, but also how it was contrapointed and even aided by a completely selfless and loving act of someone else: Sam carrying Frodo up mount Doom, while he declined wearing the ring itself (to not get under its power).
In the end Frodo could not fulfill his promise and throw the ring in the fire because he was under the ring's power, and he needed both evil and good to complete the task. That's a wonderful story.

tanita_mors wrote:i listened to a documentary about lotr and a lot if it is derived from other knows myths, anglo-saxon and northern european /scandianvian, not to mention the bible. sauron is more like satan to me, a fallen angel who was corrupted and now wants to corrupt others. i love the fact that the most powerful object in the world is a little thing like a ring and that it's power is that it corrupts you within with only one goal, getting back to it's master. no matter what you do, how pure your intentions are, that piece of sauron in the ring is so evil that nothing will stand in it's way. also, the fact that it wasn't the elfs, the dwarfs, men and aragorn, or even frodo the one who saved everyone, but one act of pure malice, jealousy and obsession by golum that finally destroyed the ring. kind of ironic.

isn't that a coincidence? yesterday i watched a documentary on netflix that has the same content. talking about the power of the ring!

i also watched the first part of the extended Fellowship of hte Ring last night and i realize how well the Hobbit movies fit as a prequel to LOTR trilogies. things i never noticed, like that map of erebor in Bilbo's home... brought back so many feelings! But then, i noticed that the CGI really wasn't as good as those in the Hobbit. that's totally understandable because the one aspect of film making that has definitely advanced a lot through the ages is technology - cameras are now 3D w/ high frame rate and much higher resolution. lighting can be controlled by sophisticated computers. CGI blurs the line between reality and fantasy, and color grading sets the right tone and mood for the film. technology changes but the basic storytelling is the same - engaging plot, interesting and well developed characters, believable acting...

just had a thought - someone should build a theme park (not that the tolkien family would currently allow it) complete w/ roller coasting in the mines of Moria (or gobblin town) and barrel rides in white water, plus eagle rides (fake eagles of course) and for the little babies - pony rides in hobbitton. then you have restaraunts/bars named "prancing pony" etc. i would love see build-up worlds of river town, elves realms etc.

btw, does anybody know where does the light come from w/in Erebor? it's dark but it's not pitch black.

now that xmas is over, my grinch persona will be shed as well. back to the beautiful Thorin and his majestic mane!

does anybody notice that there's always a fan in front of thorin? i mean, even when he's inside Erebor. his hair is always flowing. not complaining of course. i am obsessed w/ his hair and it deserves to be blown.

i didn't watch 47 Ronin, but saw the preview/trailer when watching the hobbit. don't know anything about the movie but judging by the 300-like CGI graphics (impressive graphics-wise) I am so not watching it. i long for those 7-Samurai type of old fashion movies - no special effects but great story telling and extremely moving tales. Love Kurosawa to pieces!

fantastica wrote:now that xmas is over, my grinch persona will be shed as well. back to the beautiful Thorin and his majestic mane!

does anybody notice that there's always a fan in front of thorin? i mean, even when he's inside Erebor. his hair is always flowing. not complaining of course. i am obsessed w/ his hair and it deserves to be blown.

i didn't watch 47 Ronin, but saw the preview/trailer when watching the hobbit.  don't know anything about the movie but judging by the 300-like CGI graphics (impressive graphics-wise) I am so not watching it. i long for those 7-Samurai type of old fashion movies - no special effects but great story telling and extremely moving tales. Love Kurosawa to pieces!

Ahh...Kurosawa and the "7 Samurai" it's like the ultimate artistic action porn.        "Yojimbo" and "Red Beard" are  also great  and the "Hidden Fortress" I also love.  "Throne of Blood" his verson of Macbeth OMG....  "Ran" I love but "Kaghemusha" I'm a little more mixed about. 

So nice to have a fellow Kursosawa lover here!!!

i think i liked all of Kurosawa's movies I have seen (not sure if they are ALL of his movies). some of my favs are 7 samurai, hidden fortress, red beard, ikiru, and ran. i found most of his movies have an emotional impact on me. Ikiru is the one movie I cried myself a river toward the end. i was shocked I got sucked in so hard emotionally. the guy is a genius in storytelling - of course, you have to be rather patient for the story to be unfold. some of his movies are very slow and long - totally necessary but some modern viewers may not have the patience to sit through 3 hours of character building to reach the climax.

fantastica wrote:i think i liked all of Kurosawa's movies I have seen (not sure if they are ALL of his movies). some of my favs are 7 samurai, hidden fortress, red beard, ikiru, and ran. i found most of his movies have an emotional impact on me. Ikiru is the one movie I cried myself a river toward the end. i was shocked I got sucked in so hard emotionally. the guy is a genius in storytelling - of course, you have to be rather patient for the story to be unfold. some of his movies are very slow and long - totally necessary but some modern viewers may not have the patience to sit through 3 hours of character building to reach the climax.

Ikirul the ending scene of the old man in the swing....

See I don't find his movies "slow" , maybe building gradually for impact but there is  such sure footed storytelling with Kurosawa....

So I watched the second Hobbit movie in the cinemas yesterday; and here’s my spoiler-filled thoughts about it:

I have to agree with tanita here in saying that I felt misled by the title of the movie. The movie ended just when things were getting interesting…

Well, there are a lot of other interesting stuff going on in the movie, so I shan’t complain. I’ve listened to the Hobbit audiobook just a few months ago, so I could identify the bits where I go, ‘No, wait, this wasn’t supposed to happen here' (e.g. Bilbo going all Gollum-like in retrieving his ring back) and ’That’s not how it happened in the book’ (e.g. the dwarves invading Beorn’s home instead of slowly getting introduced in pairs as Gandalf unfolds the tale of their journey to their host). There are probably a bit too many fighting scenes that, while impressive to watch at the start, feels kind of repetitive after too much exposure to it (e.g. elves killing spiders, elves killing orcs along a river, elves killing more orcs in a town). Still, I do miss seeing Orlando Bloom as Legolas, so I don’t really mind seeing him reintroduced in this movie. The character came across as more grim and hostile in this movie though (which makes sense, I guess). One of the more amusing scenes in the movie is Legolas's unkind commentary about Gloin’s family photo (Amusing because the audience knows about the lifelong friendship that he shall establish with Gloin’s son in the future).

Now, the dwarf-elf-elf love triangle. I find that I don’t mind it too much, because that side-story is a relatively quiet moment of character relationship building in the midst of one dragged out action-packed fight or flee scene after another. Like tanita, I also have a feeling that the female elf won’t be surviving the third movie. I’m already anticipating some tragic scene in which she tries and fails to save-- well, um, spoilers-- and she perishes in the attempt.

One part of the movie that didn’t sit too well with me was when Bofur was abandoned at Laketown just because the poor dwarf overslept. How is it possible that the dwarf king abandons a loyal companion just because no one could be bothered to find him and wake him up? Oh well, I suppose it’s not entirely a bad thing to split the dwarves up; as they do tend to merge into one entity without individual personalities when they’re together in a group. The under-utilized Nesbitt (Bofur) getting a speaking line is always welcomed.

For those of you who are more familiar with Tolkien’s material, what’s the deal about the necromancer and Sauron? Is Sauron the necromancer? It certainly looked that way in the movie… It’s  nice to see that bit of barely-touched-upon story in the Hobbit getting expanded, as I never did find out in detail what exactly it was that Gandalf did after he left the dwarves.

Smaug is an impressive work of CGI (it makes me wish that I had watched the movie in 3D instead), and Benedict Cumberbatch did some really good voice-acting too. The scenes between Smaug and the dwarves in the mountain got a bit drag-gy towards the end (which mainly consisted of dwarves running about and nearly getting torched again and again), but I’m too busy being impressed by the whole spectacle of it all to be bothered by it.

Delight wrote:So I watched the second Hobbit movie in the cinemas yesterday; and here’s my spoiler-filled thoughts about it:

I have to agree with tanita here in saying that I felt misled by the title of the movie. The movie ended just when things were getting interesting…

Well, there are a lot of other interesting stuff going on in the movie, so I shan’t complain. I’ve listened to the Hobbit audiobook just a few months ago, so I could identify the bits where I go, ‘No, wait, this wasn’t supposed to happen here' (e.g. Bilbo going all Gollum-like in retrieving his ring back) and ’That’s not how it happened in the book’ (e.g. the dwarves invading Beorn’s home instead of slowly getting introduced in pairs as Gandalf unfolds the tale of their journey to their host). There are probably a bit too many fighting scenes that, while impressive to watch at the start, feels kind of repetitive after too much exposure to it (e.g. elves killing spiders, elves killing orcs along a river, elves killing more orcs in a town). Still, I do miss seeing Orlando Bloom as Legolas, so I don’t really mind seeing him reintroduced in this movie. The character came across as more grim and hostile in this movie though (which makes sense, I guess). One of the more amusing scenes in the movie is Legolas's unkind commentary about Gloin’s family photo (Amusing because the audience knows about the lifelong friendship that he shall establish with Gloin’s son in the future).

Now, the dwarf-elf-elf love triangle. I find that I don’t mind it too much, because that side-story is a relatively quiet moment of character relationship building in the midst of one dragged out action-packed fight or flee scene after another. Like tanita, I also have a feeling that the female elf won’t be surviving the third movie. I’m already anticipating some tragic scene in which she tries and fails to save-- well, um, spoilers-- and she perishes in the attempt.

One part of the movie that didn’t sit too well with me was when Bofur was abandoned at Laketown just because the poor dwarf overslept. How is it possible that the dwarf king abandons a loyal companion just because no one could be bothered to find him and wake him up? Oh well, I suppose it’s not entirely a bad thing to split the dwarves up; as they do tend to merge into one entity without individual personalities when they’re together in a group. The under-utilized Nesbitt (Bofur) getting a speaking line is always welcomed.

For those of you who are more familiar with Tolkien’s material, what’s the deal about the necromancer and Sauron? Is Sauron the necromancer? It certainly looked that way in the movie… It’s  nice to see that bit of barely-touched-upon story in the Hobbit getting expanded, as I never did find out in detail what exactly it was that Gandalf did after he left the dwarves.

Smaug is an impressive work of CGI (it makes me wish that I had watched the movie in 3D instead), and Benedict Cumberbatch did some really good voice-acting too. The scenes between Smaug and the dwarves in the mountain got a bit drag-gy towards the end (which mainly consisted of dwarves running about and nearly getting torched again and again), but I’m too busy being impressed by the whole spectacle of it all to be bothered by it.

YES.

and i agree with the second one as well.

also, for all those who don't want to go to the movies to see it, a decent DVDSCR of the Hobbit 2 is already online.   

i believe the sauron and necremancer stuff are from the appendixes of the LOTR?

adding dwarf/dragon showdown gives the movie a climax that's not available in the book. it's also weird when the dragon is the dwarf's primary nemesis but they had no confrontation whatsoever. after watching the movie 3 times now i totally understand why they attempted to kill the dragon. the first time i watched it i was just overwhelmed w/ everything and didn't catch every detail.

Delight: movies like this deserve to be seen on an IMAX screen in 3D high frame rate glory. i will attempt a 4th try at the nearest IMAX theater before they take it down after the new year.

btw, am i the only one who doesn't find the dragon scary but instead rather cute?

i've seen so many dragons on screen. non of them are scary to me. but i love that this one has the same look that is on the cover of the hobbit. maybe not exactly the same, but that brown/gold color, long serpentine body without legs and huge ass wings.

i like the fact that after the 3rd movie, you can watch all six of them and really feel that they are not only part of the same story, but done by same director with identical vision and an obvious attempt to wove them all into one big epic story, particularly because hobbit wasn't part of the lord of the rings story initially and it was all mashed together latter. so, the necromancer wasn't sauron when the hobbit was written, just some nameless, faceless villain, but it was latter while writing the LOTR that tolkien decided to make him the chief antagonist and it worked nicely.

also i was doing some reading, and apparently, sauron did have a body in LOTR. the eye was like his extension, some speculate an illusion built around one of the all-seeing stones (Palantír). i guess jackson either decided he didn't want to show him or in his mind the eye was sauron. but according to tolkien, he had a corporal form that resonated extreme heat (after he lost his fair form - he is apparently a shape shifter and trickster ) and that is why he was so black in the flashbacks and burned gandalfs staff in desolation of smaug.

the movie is pg13. i heard some children as young as 5 or 6 went to see it. nothing in this movie scares me. not even the spiders.

if you go back to the Fellowship of hte Rings, in the prologue, they used a different actor to play Bilbo when he discovered the ring. of course they didn't know Martin Freeman would be in the Hobbit then. also, the Gollum in the beginning of that movie was very different. they haven't settled down on his design yet. also, the smaug in the theatrical release of AUJ had different anatomic features. they hadn't decided what he would ultimately look like. also, Thorin's face was different in some of hte Bagsend scenes. they gave him darker eyebrows and somewhat more prominent forehead. Later the soften the features and lightened his eyebrows.

Lee Pace who plays Thranduil is younger than Orlando Bloom. it's the only time I know that a younger actor plays the father in the same scene as the son.