Peter Jackson directs "The Hobbit"

The trailer for movie two was released today.

Great. Now even The Hobbit has Kate episodes.

Also *squee*!

Are all the mountains in Jackson's Middle Earth completely hollow?

lostlobster wrote:

Are all the mountains in Jackson's Middle Earth completely hollow?

With all those dwarves and goblins digging around? Of course.

Whats the third installment going to include? That trailer showed parts towards the end of the book. I can't get myself excited for this after being let down by the first one.

The CGI in the trailer was very plastic. I was let down a bit by the first movie and the trailer isn't thrilling me for the second.

“Sorry! I don't want any adventures, thank you. Not Today. Good morning! But please come to tea -any time you like! Why not tomorrow? Good bye!”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

(and yes of course I'll probably still see it. After all, it's just the trailer)

EvilDead wrote:

Whats the third installment going to include? That trailer showed parts towards the end of the book. I can't get myself excited for this after being let down by the first one.

The Battle of Five Armies is a given, Smaug V. Bard is gonna be fleshed out, and maybe some more filler stuff to tie in with The Fellowship (ie Gandalf and Aragorn hunting Gollum).

Also, no sighting of Beorn yet?

Nicholaas wrote:

Also, no sighting of Beorn yet?

I didn't see him, but I didn't check carefully. That's the part of this part that I'm most excited for. I get why people didn't really like the first one, but I totally enjoyed it for what it was. I'm quite excited for the second part. Smaug!

Nicholaas wrote:
EvilDead wrote:

Whats the third installment going to include? That trailer showed parts towards the end of the book. I can't get myself excited for this after being let down by the first one.

The Battle of Five Armies is a given, Smaug V. Bard is gonna be fleshed out, and maybe some more filler stuff to tie in with The Fellowship (ie Gandalf and Aragorn hunting Gollum).

Also, no sighting of Beorn yet?

No Aragorn - at least no Viggo as Aragorn.

EvilDead wrote:

Whats the third installment going to include? That trailer showed parts towards the end of the book. I can't get myself excited for this after being let down by the first one.

If the first one let you down, that's understandable. According to Peter Jackson the Battle of Dol Guldur is going to be portrayed in the films. That wasn't in The Hobbit, and is near the beginning stages of the War of the Ring. The third installment will likely center around this battle, and provide a decent lead-in to The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Nicholaas wrote:

Also, no sighting of Beorn yet?

Are you sure that wasn't Beorn at 0:40?

EvilDead wrote:

Whats the third installment going to include? That trailer showed parts towards the end of the book. I can't get myself excited for this after being let down by the first one.

Well, there's the whole part that Jackson and crew are inventing, with Gandalf and Radagast off investigating the necromancer, so some of that could go in the third movie as well as this one.

I doubt that both the battle at Laketown and the Battle of Five Armies will be in this movie. We've seen nothing of the Battle of Five Armies in the trailer, so that's pretty clearly going to be in movie three. I had thought that taking care of the dragon problem was going to be in movie two, but we haven't seen any hints of that either, so that could also end up in movie three. That puts the end of the movie at about the point where Bilbo talks to Smaug and takes an item from his treasure, and then comes back to the dwarves saying, "well, I've done my burglary job. What are you going to do about the dragon?"

LouZiffer wrote:

According to Peter Jackson the Battle of Dol Guldur is going to be portrayed in the films. That wasn't in The Hobbit, and is near the beginning stages of the War of the Ring. The third installment will likely center around this battle, and provide a decent lead-in to The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

I think Peter Jackson messed with the timeline a bit anyway. According to the LoTR wiki, Gandalf actually found out that Sauron was in Dol Guldur nearly 100 years before The Hobbit takes place, it just takes a while to convince the council to do something about it. It seems I was misremembering as well. I thought the timing was pretty much as presented in the movie.

Katy wrote:
EvilDead wrote:

Whats the third installment going to include? That trailer showed parts towards the end of the book. I can't get myself excited for this after being let down by the first one.

Well, there's the whole part that Jackson and crew are inventing, with Gandalf and Radagast off investigating the necromancer, so some of that could go in the third movie as well as this one.

I doubt that both the battle at Laketown and the Battle of Five Armies will be in this movie. We've seen nothing of the Battle of Five Armies in the trailer, so that's pretty clearly going to be in movie three. I had thought that taking care of the dragon problem was going to be in movie two, but we haven't seen any hints of that either, so that could also end up in movie three. That puts the end of the movie at about the point where Bilbo talks to Smaug and takes an item from his treasure, and then comes back to the dwarves saying, "well, I've done my burglary job. What are you going to do about the dragon?"

That sounds nuts, and kinda terrible...but I think you're right.

I'm going to go ahead and predict that the barrels in the river battle is the running away from goblins sequence of this movie--a seemingly endless bit of padding. While I can stretch and see why there should be three parts, I don't see why there should be three parts at three hours.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:

While I can stretch and see why there should be three parts, I don't see why there should be three parts at three hours.

Precedents were set with the LOTR trilogy, it is canon that PJ only makes 3 hour movies for these things!

I hope the next movie is better than the first. The action was cartoonish, roller coaster-y, and generally boring. The Lord of the Rings battles seemed more "realistic" and were integral to the development of the characters. For The Hobbit, it seems like they just said, "let's do every action scene like that one where Legolas takes down the olyphant!" and have it have almost no bearing on character development. I hope they do a better job this time around. I really want these movies to be good.

I finally caught the first one and got pretty frustrated with all the unnecessary padding for length and the kind of bad pacing.

Also what Heavy said above about the action. It was like it had the same little bits and pieces of the LOTR movies that really bothered me (particulary Two Towers and ROTK) but it made them longer and and then they decided they should have them more often too.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:

I don't see why there should be three parts at three hours.

Also this. The Hobbit is a shorter and fun read in comparison to LOTR. If it ends up frickin 9 hours long I'm gonna be extra unhappy.

I liked it! I thought it was fun. And I liked the trailer. Even with the cartoonish bits. The Hobbit always did seem much more cartoonish in my mind. The impending doom was their destination, not all around them. It just seemed more like an adventure than an end-of-the-world quest.

I have sort of separated the book and my experience with the book from these movies. I am extremely fond of the book and have collected quite a few different editions of it over the years. They are just two completely different beasts, however, and I'm actually happy about that. The book is an extremely personal story of adventure. My dad read it to me when I was a kid, and it was one of the best experiences of my life. That being said, I like the movies being big, epic, rollercoaster-ride, popcorn flicks. It's hard to take them seriously, I suppose, and it doesn't mess with my memories of the book. I'm not sure why it works for me. It just does.

Katy wrote:
Nicholaas wrote:

Also, no sighting of Beorn yet?

Are you sure that wasn't Beorn at 0:40?

That's what I thought, anyway. Not sure what else it could be if not Beorn.

Katy wrote:

I doubt that both the battle at Laketown and the Battle of Five Armies will be in this movie. We've seen nothing of the Battle of Five Armies in the trailer, so that's pretty clearly going to be in movie three. I had thought that taking care of the dragon problem was going to be in movie two, but we haven't seen any hints of that either, so that could also end up in movie three. That puts the end of the movie at about the point where Bilbo talks to Smaug and takes an item from his treasure, and then comes back to the dwarves saying, "well, I've done my burglary job. What are you going to do about the dragon?"

It's called The Desolation Of Smaug. Not having the dragon fight would be like Bill not being killed.

Oh yeah, cool, that was a bear. I thought it was a warg or something, initially. I'm more interested in the non-bear Beorn, though.

Thin_J wrote:

Also this. The Hobbit is a shorter and fun read in comparison to LOTR. If it ends up frickin 9 hours long I'm gonna be extra unhappy.

Jackson's Hobbit movies aren't just pulling from the Hobbit book. They're also expanding the dwarves' backstory from the appendices of LOTR. Three fully fleshed out movies doesn't surprise me -- there's enough material for a single movie in your average novella, so full-length novel+epic backstory+gratuitous action/chase sequences is plenty of plot for three films worth. I'm interested to see how he executes it. I may not agree with all his choices, but I'm not letting that make me unhappy.

Katy wrote:

Well, there's the whole part that Jackson and crew are inventing, with Gandalf and Radagast off investigating the necromancer, so some of that could go in the third movie as well as this one.

This was mentioned briefly above, but I wanted to jump on and confirm that this line was not invented by Jackson, and is a storyline that I am quite looking forward to seeing.

As far as the first movie went, the extended action scenes were terrible (escape from the goblins and rock giants mainly, but running from the wargs was about to get tedious too) but I have been really happy with all of the " expanded universe" stuff they have been putting in.

Yonder wrote:
Katy wrote:

Well, there's the whole part that Jackson and crew are inventing, with Gandalf and Radagast off investigating the necromancer, so some of that could go in the third movie as well as this one.

This was mentioned briefly above, but I wanted to jump on and confirm that this line was not invented by Jackson, and is a storyline that I am quite looking forward to seeing.

I see it as invention in that Jackson & Co. are greatly expanding the material that's actually present in the books. I think I'm due for a re-read.

Katy wrote:
Yonder wrote:
Katy wrote:

Well, there's the whole part that Jackson and crew are inventing, with Gandalf and Radagast off investigating the necromancer, so some of that could go in the third movie as well as this one.

This was mentioned briefly above, but I wanted to jump on and confirm that this line was not invented by Jackson, and is a storyline that I am quite looking forward to seeing.

I see it as invention in that Jackson & Co. are greatly expanding the material that's actually present in the books. I think I'm due for a re-read.

Well, unless I am also forgetting things, a lot of it is probably embellished, for example, I don't remember

Spoiler:

The sword or Radagast's involvement

However for as important an event as it was, Tolkien wrote very little about it, nowhere near enough to flesh out the sort of plot it deserves. Unless I am mistaken Tolkien never did go into much detail in appendices and whatnot of anything any of the wizards did solo, and he has so much information on everyone else it makes me suspect it was intentional.

You guys are tough. So it's the Lego/Summer Blockbuster version of The Hobbit? I'm in.

mateo wrote:

You guys are tough. So it's the Lego/Summer Blockbuster version of The Hobbit? I'm in.

Seconded. I'm honestly just waiting for one more person to come in screaming that they're shocked and horrified that there are three movies. The book's hardly a masterpiece - it's just a fun ride. If the movies make me even 40% as happy as the book made me as a kid, I'll consider them a success. So far, things are on track for me.

ianunderhill wrote:
mateo wrote:

You guys are tough. So it's the Lego/Summer Blockbuster version of The Hobbit? I'm in.

Seconded. I'm honestly just waiting for one more person to come in screaming that they're shocked and horrified that there are three movies. The book's hardly a masterpiece - it's just a fun ride. If the movies make me even 40% as happy as the book made me as a kid, I'll consider them a success. So far, things are on track for me.

If I don't see Legolas riding a shield in this next part I'm leaving the theater!

Actually, I would laugh so hard in the theater if they did that. That would be the best joke ever. Maybe they'll make Kate ride the shield this time.

I'm all about further fleshing out Tolkien's universe, and Peter Jackson does a wonderful job of it in my opinion. Bring in Radagast! Go into the appendices and show us what happened in the north which we missed in LotR! I'll be happy with any of that.

Honestly the only material I might not enjoy quite as much is that from the early first age and before, as it has little chance of matching up with what's in my imagination.

My only real criticism of the Hobbit was an over reliance on CG instead of practical effects. And I'd have preferred a more light hearted tone.

Other than that the extra material was brilliant and the pacing spot on.

One of the main changes in the movie is that the dwarves take a much more active role. In most of the adventures, the dwarves are pushed along by the events, whereas in the movie, they engaged. For example, in the book, the dwarves get captured one by one by the trolls, but in the movie there is a battle. It makes the movie more exciting, and the dwarves more likable characters. Remember, even the cartoon basically portrayed the dwarves as doddering old men. I'm not saying one is better than the other, but they are very different.