Peter Jackson to produce "The Hobbit"!

[Edward]

I like the overall notion of lifting Tolkien bits from elsewhere in the canon to give the story more depth. Had it been made completely separately, the book alone might have made one nice little film, but it would never have worked to set it in Jackson's Middle Earth and do that, coming off the bakc of Rings. Back in the day, I read Rings first and then the Hobbit, and the contrast was rather jarring. Mixed feelings having seen the seocnd one, though. I think it could have lost a lot of the barrel sequence without losing anything, really. This might be one occasion where I'd rather Jackson produce a truncated edition... The invented character worked well enough (even if she did smack rather of tokenism), but I hope that they stay away from shoehorning in much else that isn't canon. I'm especially concerned that they might ruin the third part by hamming up the invented love triangle.

Smaug was great, though. Fine vocal performance from Cumberbatch. Can't imagine I'd have recognised him had I not known whose voice it was.

 

[Chasseur]

I saw the second Hobbit film over the weekend. I liked it more than the first, though it has some pacing issues (the Beorn sequence seems very truncated: I expect there's more for the extended edition) and the usual amount of now-that's-physically-impossible-without-getting-injured action that required a boatload of suspension of disbelief. But the reappearance of Legolas and invented-character Tauriel were better than I was expecting, and I thought Bard and the Laketown stuff was well-done.

And, as even the film's detractors have said, Smaug is very, very impressive. Between the outstanding design/animation and Benny Batch's expert vocal performance, Smaug unseats Dragonslayer's Vermithrax Pejorative as the best movie dragon ever!

Same on my side. I've waited many a year for an excellent movie adaptation of Smaug and Jackson and Cumberbatch really delivered on it!

Yes some of Jackson's action scenes, the barrels in particular, should have been reined in. But at least we didn't get into the territory of that horrible, horrible, ever ending dinosaur stampeed segment from King King...

 

[Edward]

Same on my side. I've waited many a year for an excellent movie adaptation of Smaug and Jackson and Cumberbatch really delivered on it!

Yes some of Jackson's action scenes, the barrels in particular, should have been reined in. But at least we didn't get into the territory of that horrible, horrible, ever ending dinosaur stampeed segment from King King...

Yes, that would have benefitted significantly from a good, harsh editing. Shame, as it was the only real downside to the project for me. I loved the whole look of it. It was also interesting to see Kong done as a period piece (both the Fay Wray original and the 70s remake - which actually is often critqued in an unduly harsh manner - were 'present day' settings when made). I do think that where Jackson's longer film scored big here was in exploring the relationship between Ann and the big ape - I was actually more convinced by their bond as a result than in either of the two earlier films.

 

[BriarWolf]

In my own, purely personal and harsh opinion, every relevant piece of Desolation of Smaug could have been folded into the theatrical cut of An Unexpected Journey with little detriment. Far too much of Desolation, to me, felt like action oriented filler. I LOVE that theyre continuing with the additional plotline of The War of the White Council, but there was, for me, too much that didn't get proper screentime for the sake of Elven kung fu. Now Smaug was practically perfect. Cumberpatch was an absolute credit to the old wyrm. But the twenty minute chase scene after his introduction felt like it should have had Benny Hill's Yakety Sax playing over it. Don't even get me started on the hamfisted romance plot.

 

[lupo]

I'm kind of flabbergasted that anybody liked any of the Peter Jackson films, let alone anyone on this forum, which generally has excellent taste. The CGI in every instance looks worse than a video game; and this is not necessary: this is just sloppy (many movies, such as Master and Commander, feature excellent realism in CGI). The additions to the screenplay (aka tokenist characters and various filler) were ridiculous. The direction and acting is abysmal. The screenplay pacing is atrocious. The action is pathetic slow-motion ridiculousness. Even the musical score is abominable.
The only good thing about it is ... it contained elements of the Hobbit and LOTR, and the stills looked kind of pretty. The cartoons were better made as films, and they were bad too.