The hobbit, and anything tolkien related thread
 

Who has seen the Hobbit?

I've seen it and re read the book yesterday. I liked the film as an entertaining rollercoaster ride, but the original storyline is not much more than a guideline. Some of the quirkyness, humor and authenticity of the book is lost imho. Although I have to admit I'm very curious how they will fill in the "gaps" in the book in the next two films.

Awesome movie. Been a few years since I read the book so I can't comment on that. See it in IMAX if possible

I liked the first film, though, as has been noted they take the basic premise of a bunch of short people walking to a mountain and change practically every encounter along the way, not to mention introducing an antagonist which just isn't in the book.

I didn't see it in IMax, but I want to, simply to see how different it looks with the higher framerate.

We saw it last night. It was good but somehow I thought it was going to be the whole story, not just the first part. I double checked the movie synopsis at the theater and it definitely gives the impression they make it to the mountain. Grr...

Maybe different over here, but it was widely publicized as a trilogy.

Great movie! My daughter and I saw it in 3D - stunning! I am a huge fan of all the movies!

I haven't seen the latest Hobbit, but I have seen previous versions and like them all. I have quite high expectations for this one, and I'm afraid I'll be disappointed.

I re-read the books every year or so, and read the Silmarillion a few years back. The back story of the Silmarillion makes the LOTR books that much more enjoyable.

Maybe it was, but I didn't find that out until recently myself, so it was kind of a surprise to me, too.

I just saw it and thought it was good. I knew it was gonna be a trilogy but it was a long movie by itself!

Also, I heard they're adding parts so that it connects with the LOTR trilogy better (ie the antagonist, I don't remember him from the book but its been a while so maybe I just forgot)

The necromancer is in the book, but is known about from the start IIRC.

Azgog (the white orc) is meant to be long dead in the happenings in the Hobbit, he was killed in a battle in the battle in the mines of Moria (the flashback battle between the orcs/goblins and the dwarves seems to be some kind of combination of what was two encounters in the backstory).

I love LOR but I can't hardly stand to watch the movies. Every time I do I end up cringing over the stuff that didn't happen in the book. I'll probably watch the hobbit but I'll wait untill I can see them all at once I suppose.

Haven't seen it yet, hopefully this weekend. I'm a little peeved over the trilogy thing - made perfect sense for LOTR, but the whole point to the Hobbit was that it was the the shorter, more self-contained children's story by comparison to the great sprawling epic. But I suppose they sell three times as many tickets this way...

The Hobbit is my favorite book by Tolkien. As such, I was less than thrilled that the story line was so dramatically changed (like too many movie adaptations). It should have been entitled Peter Jackson's Amazing Middle Earth Adventures or some such. I saw the movie, but doubt that I will see the sequels. Maybe pick them up in a couple years on DVD as a box set. :hmm:

to be fair the lord of the rings should have been 6 movies easily.

I saw it last week with the family. The Hobbit was an uneven book IMO, starting as a children's story, then partially revised by Tolkien to sync it up with LOTR, then extensively revised as an adult story, although this last version was abandoned. Jackson has extensively revised the story to bring it in line with LOTR, and I'm fine with that. The only real excess in the first Hobbit movie was the mountain giant battle, a CGI bridge too far.

The LOTR was tightly written and plotted so that the deviations from the books often weakened the story and were sometimes cringe worthy. The Hobbit is a simple adventure story and as such harder to damage by adding a bit here and cutting a bit there.

I was disappointed in Jackson's LOTR but like his first Hobbit movie.

Saw it three times already. Good stuff.

***SPOILER***

I really enjoyed it. But I agree the troll fight was way over the top. Really, one more battle scene that didn't happen in the book? Just let Gandalf come and turn them to stone and be done with it, no need for the battle.

Did anybody else notice that the Dwarves get attacked whenever Bilbo activates his magic sword, and he always emerges unscathed?

not sure if serious...

sword glows blue when goblins or orcs are nearby meaning that of course they'd get attacked when it glows, the enemy is nearby