So - twice to the cinema today.
First up is The Hobbit:The Battle of the Five Armies at 12:20 with my daughter for her birthday and then Kajaki at 18:10
Impressions to come.
For anyone not in the know and who wants to know more about Kajaki - here's the trailer
I won't give the wiki of the incident because of spoilers - but you can find out more if you wish...it's about a group of Para's being caught in a minefield and trapped...and what happens
Great :)
Two times battle Good against Evil
...it just occured to me that Saurons Eye is gimballed over the cresent moon :o
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fcsmres.co.uk%2Fcs.public.upd%2Farticle-images%2FMakkah_clock_tower_1.jpg&hash=0e75348de6d8a94b7eb7f1ef14c5558b1b153db4)
...how could JRR Tolkin knew ^-^
lol
So - just got back from seeing The Hobbit:The Battle of the Five Armies.
My review is thus
WOW
That's actually all I've got...wow. O0
WOW can be good or bad. I'm assuming it's a good WOW. I hope this film's great but the first 2 disappointed me with the changes to Tolkien's story and it's obvious attempt to be the new LOTR. I'll be seeing it come Wed. and just have to wait impatiently. :tickedoff: Did you go 3D Dredd?
So the Hobbit movies are decent?
I've not seen any of them. I've seen the LotR trilogy but the Hobbit movies just didn't interest me/motivate me to want to go see them.
Ok - sorry for the "tease" - but I was really awestruck with it.
WOW is f*cking great. Superb. Fantastic. Marvellous. Excellent. Stupendous.
Disclaimer - I liked The Hobbit trilogy more than the LotR trilogy. I preferred the story and I definitely warmed more to Bilbo Baggins than I did to Frodo. Also, I hadn't read any of the books...though we did get The Hobbit read to us daily in Primary School as a project...but that was 40 years ago. Still - there's a line in the film that I definitely remember from the book (I think)...when the line was spoken, it definitely hit me I knew it.
I don't like 3D. Heresy I know, so it was 2D for me. If 3D is done well, I would imagine, given a lot of the scenes, that it would be fantastic in 3D. I should've went to see it in 3D...Peter Jackson, of Avatar, was involved and whatever you thought of that story, that has been the best 3D movie I have ever seen.
Battles - superb
Characters - fantastic
Story - excellent
My daughter and I thought it was over pretty quick - and that's always a good thing I think.
So I loved it - but I did like the trilogy and I had no real prior knowledge of the books - Hobbit or LotR.
That's good enough for me Dredd. I'm all in.
Kajaki was absolutely amazing. Very moving and they nailed the British soldier banter
Two fantastic movies in one day....how good can life be! O0
Quote from: JudgeDredd on December 13, 2014, 11:54:27 AM
Ok - sorry for the "tease" - but I was really awestruck with it.
WOW is f*cking great. Superb. Fantastic. Marvellous. Excellent. Stupendous.
Flawless? Staggering? Perfect? (Crap, I can't remember any of the other praises by Bilbo for the dragon armor. In my defense, I played Gollum and Smaug's voice for the children's play, so I didn't have to memorize those lines -- or any dragon lines actually since I could read those from the script. Bro, btw, was Gandalf. Explaining all this to the nieces is great. :coolsmiley: )
Quote from: Banzai_Cat on December 13, 2014, 11:30:35 AM
So the Hobbit movies are decent?
For various values of decent, uhhhh, sure! >:D
(The first two had a lot of problems, some endemic to the book, some foisted by PJ & Co. But they had a lot going for them, too. Haven't seen the 3rd yet. Kind of cringing about whatever PJ might have done to extend the cut to Hobbit 2: Electroplated Dragaloo.)
Quote from: JudgeDredd on December 13, 2014, 11:54:27 AM
Peter Jackson, of Avatar, was involved and whatever you thought of that story, that has been the best 3D movie I have ever seen.
...no? I mean, I'm reasonably sure he wasn't involved in any significant way, or at all, with Avatar. (But yes, best live-action 3D movie that I can recall seeing. :) )
Quote from: JasonPratt on December 15, 2014, 02:15:52 PM
Quote from: JudgeDredd on December 13, 2014, 11:54:27 AM
Peter Jackson, of Avatar, was involved and whatever you thought of that story, that has been the best 3D movie I have ever seen.
...no? I mean, I'm reasonably sure he wasn't involved in any significant way, or at all, with Avatar. (But yes, best live-action 3D movie that I can recall seeing. :) )
He wasn't....I should've looked before I posted. It was James Cameron in Avatar.
Right. And the movie was a "Titanic" success. Got my tickets ready for Wed. 12 noon. Looking forward to being up to my ass in orcs by 12:30pm.
OK. First of all, I got to second Dredd. Hobbit 3 is an excellent film. Clearly the best of the 3 and worthy of the Tolkien name. The movie has a rapid pace, good action scenes, and manages a couple of genuinely funny moments. Great battle at the end which is a little long and predictable but well done. Some of you Third Age TW fans will recognize some of the units I think. The variances from the book don't take away from the story and allows for a moving ending. Great special effects and good acting brings the Middle-Earth story to a close with a great tie-in to the first LOTR. Jackson finally got it right on the 3rd try. Very well done. I'd go 8.3 out of 10 because I'm picky.
http://www.evanpalmercomics.com/ainulindale/
That was pretty sweet. Great find, Brant!
Could never finish the Simarillion. It was just too much fantasy for me. Over my head like Pee Wee Herman at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.
The problem with the Silmarillion was the very first bit, the Ainulindale, which is what Brant's link led to. Except in comics and text. In a shortened form. I always found it boring and too long. The rest of the book was uneven. There were some really good bits and some long, drawn out bits, too. The best part is the history itself. You just have to want it.
Wow +10!
I would buy that for my nieces if I could. (I suppose technically I could put that on my phone as a pdf...)
If I were Saul Whoevermanagestherights, I'd hire that guy pronto.
CGP Grey (my favorite "edu-tainment" guy) does a pretty decent summary of the First Age in this short video:
Despite the link to his 2nd Age video, that doesn't exist yet, btw.
I know. He likes to tease his followers that way (the cheeky git). :buck2:
Watched Hobbit Threé Deaddragon Battleé Saturday night with the Bro. Not as lengthy as I was expecting. As usual with this trilogy the personable connections which make the action meaningful tended to get spaced out in too few dollops (and not always presented well even then. Though the scene with Gandalf cleaning out his pipe next to the silent Bilbo overlooking the battle toward the end was great.)
Plenty of great things; still trying too hard to back prequel callbacks to LotR. The evil Jar Jar character was constantly painful and served no purpose to the plot at all, other than making me wish whoever wrote and insisted on that part had been hospitalized those weeks. The ten seconds of Beorn must have been confusing to anyone who forgot he was in the previous movie, and annoying to those who remembered he had been built up there like he was going to be important: I understand why the writers thought his awesome climactic cameo from the book ought to be resolved a different way by different persons, but still. Hoping next year's extended edition will show more of him kicking ass at least.
Thorin is stuck with a movie's worth of being an insane asshat occasionally struggling with decency; the actor is given the thankless role of trying to sell that onscreen. The writers flailed hard trying to convey his resolution to do the right thing at last, and I can't say they succeeded in that transition. They should have toned down the insanity angle and made his greed and paranoia more realistic.
Dain Ironfoot was apparently told that since this was the final movie in six films he could be the one to cuss off humorously in Tolkien's work. Amusing but as thuddingly tone deaf as Gimli's Popeye the Sailor homage in RotK. (Admittedly awesome otherwise, though. "Wouldja be willing to do something for me? Please? SOODDDDD OFFFFFFF!")
Writing Legolas as a grumpy humorless thickhead (30 pounds heavier and older than he will be in LotR) was, frankly, always a major mis-step. That continues here. Sigh.
I feel like substantial parts of Thranduil's story were left for the extended editions or permanently cut.
I was never once sold on the elf/dwarf romance. Not even remotely. But I acknowledge the actors tried their best to sell it in the final scene. "Why does it hurt so much?" "Because it was real." Yeah, I'm as surprised as you are about that, Elfking. ::) The idea that elves don't really know anything about what love truly is, or only in very rare circumstances, is utterly insulting to Tolkien, while I'm thinking about it.
Why does Galadriel hulk out when banishing Sauron, like she's being tempted with the One Ring when it isn't there? Is that supposed to indicate the ring was tempting her with nothing more than what was already fully inside her all the time, not even magnifying it? Because if anything she looks worse here than in FotR. The writers seemed to be trying to establish a romantic link between Gandalf and Galadriel, too (here and in Hobbit1). Nonsense.
Also nonsense: Thranduil giving Gandalf lip. You're one of the three elven rulers, dude, you aren't some ignorant human or dwarf. The woodelf king would know better than to mouth off to a minor angel of God like he's some wandering soothsayer peddling premonitions.
I did like Radagast being the one primarily involved in bringing in the eagle army (and Beorn), that made good sense.
Worms for marching the army underground. Okay, cool, I'm on board with that. And they aren't good for ruining allied formations and/or fortifications, why? And the northern orc army doesn't get them?
Giants in the army(s). Not just trolls, giants. Deformed giants, too. Pretty much loved those, Bro and I LOL'd and clapped with the dumbass battering ram giant, but waaaay too delicate and easily slain. Then again, so are the orcs: several times they ought to be smashing through the defenders like a hammer on hot butter. A problem endemic to the series, unfortunately.
Very much appreciated the extra areas outside the Lonely Mountain, up to and including Dale. The editor didn't do such a great job establishing a coherent idea of where various things were happening, though.
The clumsy attempt at tying Aragorn even distantly into the plot was asinine. So, you'll tell Legolas he's a good man who could be a great one, and that he's the son of Arathorn, but you'll only tell Legolas his nickname is Strider and that "you'll have to learn his true name yourself"? That illusion on your face must have given you brain damage, Thran.
Legolas and the Princess ride to Gundabar in order to do nothing except talk about story parts which may or may not be filmed by PJ next who knows, and to talk about the warbats like they're expected to make the slightest difference in the fighting which they don't. Then they ride back arriving only five minutes ahead of an army moving on foot. They don't even mention the most important thing about Angmar: it was ruled by the leader of the Nazgul!
The fight against the proto-Nazgul was pretty sweet. I guess I can understand why Elrond didn't use his Ring, since the writers have ignored him having it as thoroughly as they've ignored him being half-elven (and thus having even more justification for warning his quarter-human daughter off from marrying a human, HE KNOWS IT IS NOT GOING TO END WELL). Christopher Lee smats the hell out of the Nazgul like a boss.
Smaug attack on Laketown was handled reasonably well (including the father/son black arrow teamup), although Smaug had no reason to flap around for 3 minutes first to give people time to try escaping, and no reason not to thwap the guy in the tower shooting arrows at him even though they're being harmless. Also, I'd have shot the black arrow straight down his mouth: a clearly much larger target, likely to do as much fatal damage maybe moreso. The writers hilariously though Bard should find his bow broken as an excuse not to try shooting the GIANT WROUGHT IRON POKER with it.
Despite my nits, I liked the movie. It doesn't feature Tauriel being filmed as though she's having an orgasm kneading the lower half of the dwarf, so it will always have that unbeatable advantage over Hobbit 2. >:( :P
(To be fair, overall I liked Hobbit 2, too. :) )
Just came back from the late show of the Hobbit. I am sad to report that I am unimpressed. I wanted to like it. Smaug burning up Lake Town was pretty cool, but as soon, as that's over, it just becomes a series of scenes to me. They don't flow in to one another. It's not seamless. It's like a series of random scenes that tell a cognizant story using the characters we are familiar with, but only making sense by accident. Maybe it's just me. Probably, it's just me. Way too many people have shelled out for it not to be a good movie.
Watched Hobbit 2 again the other night, now that the extended edition is out (which I was given for Christmas, yay. :) )
I was rather more tolerant of its own several problems this time; but then I like Hobbit 1 better after my first impression of it, too. Not sure the extendeds per se help with that (unlike the LotR extendeds which make some real differences in the plot), but neither do they add anything I recall being worse than pointless. I did think the few additions in Hobbit 2 helped tie a few plot points together better which seemed choppy in the theater; mainly though they feature an unnecessary comedy bit from the book about Beorn, which I appreciated and thought was played as well as could be expected (with Gandalf SCARED OUT OF HIS MIND trying not to anger the giant werebear and slowly introducing the dwarves) but which due to PJ's rewriting of the arrival at his house didn't make much damn sense. (In the book Beorn is in the fenced yard or the house, I forget which, and the dwarves are slowly cycling in from outside. In the movie, we're expected to believe Beorn after having chased the dwarves into hi own house in bear form, and patrolling the area during the night, and then working outside in the morning, doesn't have a single clue how many dwarves are in his own house with his own beloved cattle and animals which the totality of his side of the plot so far says he would want to protect especially since he doesn't much like dwarves.)
But that's PJ piddling with the plot again, trying to make the story more cinematic and burping up problems as he goes. Sometimes his renovations actually fix or add to the plot in meaningful ways, so I don't always mind them.
Anyway. Did like Hobbit 2 again and more than before or with less parallel hate than before. One thing I couldn't help but notice this time was how the Evil Jar Jar character from Hobbit 3 plays a much more nuanced and restrained character in Hobbit 2. Practically a different characterization. Did PJ lose a bet with him, and so had to find something for him to do in Hobbit 3 aside from die in Laketown, and this was his vengeance for having to write him in throughout the movie????? In H2 he makes sense and adds to the plot. In H3 he is painfully unfunny and adds nothing at all to the plot. I can't imagine the 3rd extended edition is going to fix this.
I've liked all 3 movies more after seeing them for a second time. Which one is the Jar Jar character you're talking about? I thought the whole "Sauron Returns" plot a bit of a stretch but not un-stomachable. And I kind of missed there being no other Dwarf songs but for the first movie. I kind of pictured Dwarves as singing and drinking more that this bunch.
Quote from: Sir Slash on December 29, 2014, 03:37:33 PMWhich one is the Jar Jar character you're talking about?
the sidekick from Laketown. Lickspittle
At least these films had bad teeth in them. Unbroken had POW's beaten, starved, tortured, and generally filthy but with perfect teeth. Like this guy... ;D
Quote from: Sir Slash on December 29, 2014, 03:37:33 PM
And I kind of missed there being no other Dwarf songs but for the first movie. I kind of pictured Dwarves as singing and drinking more that this bunch.
You have triggered perhaps my greatest peeve about the second and third movies combined. WHY DID YOU NOT POST A TRIGGER WARNING! ;)
Look. I am super annoyed about how they chopped up the lyrics to the Lonely Mountain song in the first movie, and while I'm at it they should have put the attack on Dale and the LM there instead of at the very beginning.
But the music to that was boss, as was the presentation generally. They had a perfect thematic song for the quest of Thorin and Company. (Much as in the Rankin/Bass cartoon which had the good sense to keep its themes going throughout the film. And also had the good sense to tell the whole story effectively in under 90 minutes.)
And then.
And then for no clear reason other than... copyright problems? They didn't want to pay the composer to use that song again?? I don't understand the reasoning on this at all. THAT THEME DISAPPEARS IN THE SEQUELS!!!
There were
So. Many. Places. where that theme could have been and
should have been used in various variations. Instead we got weak-ass generic music (within the overall Lotrmovie style admittedly) whenever the dwarves were doing something awesome and/or important. Hobbit 3 at least took a swing at that ball, even though it failed to connect. Hobbit 2 didn't even try.
I my nieces haven't played far enough in the Lego Hobbit game to tell yet, but I'd bet a Coke they had enough sense to reuse that theme at the appropriate times. (And by the way, how weird was it for the Hobbit trilogy game to be released whole seasons in advance of H3?)
Quote from: bayonetbrant on December 29, 2014, 03:55:40 PM
Quote from: Sir Slash on December 29, 2014, 03:37:33 PMWhich one is the Jar Jar character you're talking about?
the sidekick from Laketown. Lickspittle
Right. I think his name was Alfred? (The other being the town's nickname for him.)
He spends all of H2 being a total but fairly effective asshat; and all of H3 being a painfully unfunny ineffective comic relief asshat; radically endangering people with his cowardice and selfishness by the way; and toward the end of the fight in H3, Bard basically lets him run off with as much of the town's small supply of money as he can carry -- this being quite literally
why they came to Dale in the first place because they needed money to rebuild and were willing to murder the dwarves with an elven army if necessary to get what the dwarves fairly promised and owed them! But Bard sends him on his way with kind of a fond farewell. While the fight is still going on. There are literally orcs running into view in the background generally where Alfred is running to, but it doesn't seem like Bard thinks he'll be rightfully killed or something by taking the town's meager possessions that way.
I legitimately look forward to the docs on the expanded edition for hints or statements on what the utter hell the writers were thinking about how he's used in H3. Because I am baffled.
11 Times 'The Hobbit' Is Just Like a Game of 'Dungeons & Dragons' (http://www.zimbio.com/Beyond+the+Box+Office/articles/GjU1RgZ3rVl/11+Times+Hobbit+Just+Like+Game+Dungeons+Dragons)
I watched the first two Hobbit movies this week, finally. Not bad at all. Thinking of going and seeing the third one at the theatre tomorrow or Saturday, but I highly, HIGHLY doubt the wife will want to see that. (It's either that or Big Hero 6, as there's shite locally right now. Just about everything playing at the nearby theatre has crap ratings with a few exceptions.)
Quote from: bayonetbrant on January 01, 2015, 10:53:20 PM
11 Times 'The Hobbit' Is Just Like a Game of 'Dungeons & Dragons' (http://www.zimbio.com/Beyond+the+Box+Office/articles/GjU1RgZ3rVl/11+Times+Hobbit+Just+Like+Game+Dungeons+Dragons)
SPOT ON!!!
Caught a matinee showing of
The Battle of Five Armies this afternoon. Having already accepted I wouldn't like it as much as I did the LotR films, I will say I enjoyed this one more than the previous two Hobbit movies.
I suffer from being a purist, I think. No matter how hard I try, I can never entirely divorce the movies from the books in my mind. Thus, I'm always comparing the former to the latter...and finding the former wanting, to a greater or lesser degree. The Hobbit films deviate to a far greater extent from their source material than even the Lord of the Rings movies do, and so I find more to criticize.
All that being said, I'm still glad I went. Despite the warts, be they both numerous and massive, it was fun to visit Middle-Earth again.
Quote from: bayonetbrant on January 01, 2015, 10:53:20 PM
11 Times 'The Hobbit' Is Just Like a Game of 'Dungeons & Dragons' (http://www.zimbio.com/Beyond+the+Box+Office/articles/GjU1RgZ3rVl/11+Times+Hobbit+Just+Like+Game+Dungeons+Dragons)
Ha! Nice.
I went today. Not a good sign when I checked my watch at least half a dozen times during the film. There's a scene near the end when the band of dwarves are all lined up to wish Bilbo a farewell and I could only match one of them to their name from the books.
Compare with the now-classic DM of the Rings (http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=612): if LotR had been invented/written by a D&D Dungeonmaster wanting to railroad his players through this epic story he's created for his enjoyment.
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.shamusyoung.com%2Ftwentysidedtale%2Fimages%2Fcomic_lotr1b.jpg&hash=03dea477dd3b869122c7532a2da58cb9e10e2695)
WARNING: UNLESS YOU HAVE SEVERAL HOURS TO SPEND, DO NOT FOLLOW THE LINK!! 144 parts plus appendices.
(The still-running Darth and Droids homage (http://darthsanddroids.net/archive.html), where the six movies are invented by a group of rollplayers over many years, passed its 1000th chapter long ago, and is nearing the climax of Episode V. Definitely not a railroad scenario; arguably the best alt-variation of Star Wars ever made. ;) )
Quote from: JasonPratt on January 06, 2015, 03:38:24 PM
(The still-running Darth and Droids homage (http://darthsanddroids.net/archive.html), where the six movies are invented by a group of rollplayers over many years, passed its 1000th chapter long ago, and is nearing the climax of Episode V. Definitely not a railroad scenario; arguably the best alt-variation of Star Wars ever made. ;) )
HOLY SHIT - I'M ABOUT TO LOSE AN ENTIRE WEEK OF WORK TO THIS
It's awesomely hilarious, too
QuoteR2-D2: Guys, just brainstorming here, but how about I go out and fix the ship?
GM: That's incredibly dangerous... Besides, other droids are already on that.
R2-D2: I'm totally hardcore. Bring it on.
GM: The droid working next to you gets hit and blown into space.
R2-D2: Don't hold back, man.
GM: The droid working on the other side of you gets hit and blown into space.
R2-D2: No problem. I have Mechanic at max. I roll 01101.
GM: What?
R2-D2: Custom dice.
GM: Are they really labelled in binary? Let me see.
R2-D2: Of course. I got this set especially for playing robot characters.
GM: Are they chrome??
R2-D2: Titanium.
Quote from: JasonPratt on January 06, 2015, 03:38:24 PM
(The still-running Darth and Droids homage (http://darthsanddroids.net/archive.html), where the six movies are invented by a group of rollplayers over many years, passed its 1000th chapter long ago, and is nearing the climax of Episode V. Definitely not a railroad scenario; arguably the best alt-variation of Star Wars ever made. ;) )
This might seriously be the funniest thing I have read in 2 decades.
It is truly a work of art. I dropped out after they finished Ep 3, not because I didn't care but because I had gotten used to binging the work all at once and I wanted to plow through the final (first) three movies that way, too.
That being said, the DM of the Rings ranks up there, too. And it's only 144 chapters! :)) That's like a day of work, tops.
(...possibly I know that from past experience...)
(Sigh) sorry for the double post yesterday...I didn't see this here. :-[
??? I don't recall seeing your impressions of H3 anywhere, B_C.
Also, I can't figure out what kind of Ascii emoticon B_C should represent, but now that the idea has occurred to me my brain WILL NOT LET IT GO!! :crazy2:
Quote from: JasonPratt on January 07, 2015, 02:18:35 PM
Also, I can't figure out what kind of Ascii emoticon B_C should represent, but now that the idea has occurred to me my brain WILL NOT LET IT GO!! :crazy2:
Actually, turn your head left and it looks like a bow-legged hombre in glasses about to draw his shootin' iron.
Quote from: JasonPratt on January 07, 2015, 02:18:35 PM
??? I don't recall seeing your impressions of H3 anywhere, B_C.
Oh, he meant the DM of the Rings and Dr&Dr. No prob, I thought they should have a separate thread, too. :)
Also, Stagger's interp of the Ascii emoticon of your nickname's initials
has now become canon in my mind! O0 :coolsmiley: