The last installment of a The Hobbit. My wife and girls and I went a few days before Christmas.

[NRaleighLiberal]

No spoilers - just some comments.

Why oh why oh why did Jackson take a nice tidy story and split it into three long movies?

Why do the characters look like odd, overly sharp pseudo people from a video game? (we saw the 3D HD screeding and didn't like the visuals at all).

My rating - 5 or 6 of 10 stars.

The movie (and all of the coming attractions of which it seems there were dozens, all of which involved explosions, creatures, end of the world, lots of noise and no scenes longer than 5 milliseconds) - made me feel old, obsolete, and pining for something that is clearly not being made these days!

[d_r]

1. I agree with you

about stretching the story out way too much.

I saw it in 2d and didn't notice the visuals you described.

[NRaleighLiberal]

2. my daughter told me that it is the 3D High Def that is bothersome and odd to me -

it is not as warm or realistic as 2d. it is extremely harsh and artificial looking to my eyes (my wife nearly left the theater - my younger daughter was just bored with it). Far inferior to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, in my view.

[Skinner]

3. The problem isn't that you are old.

The problem is that The Hobbit movies were not a work of love. They were entirely a work of commerce. That was obvious from the moment it was announced that there would be three of them.

I loved loved loved the three Lord of the Rings movies. It was obvious that Peter Jackson loved the source material and wanted to do it justice on the big screen. The Hobbit movies are a bloated overlong mess. Utterly devoid of soul.

I watched the first Hobbit movie in the theater on the last day it was in the theater, and thought it was too long.

I watched the second Hobbit movie when it was available on Demand on my home television, and I ended up surfing the internet for half of it because I was bored.

I'll probably watch the third Hobbit movie at some point because I'm an idiot who hasn't learned his lesson.

Utter garbage.

[Scootaloo]

4. Some answers...

1) because The Hobbit contains too much material for a 90-minute movie, or even a 120-minute movie. It would have made more sense to make the film a two-parter with just the content of the books. but that actually lacks a certain aesthetic grace - "a trilogy" sounds more thorough, more 'complete" than "a two-parter," which just makes it sound like you'd bad at editing, or that the second one is a sequel - sequels tend to do poorly

So you end up with too much stuff for one movie, not enough for three, but a market problem if you try to make two. As a result you have to pad it out to three movies.

2) That's what HD 3-D will do. Remember, film is a two-dimensional medium with hte illusion of three-dimensional depth. Every shape on the screen still has hard edges, nothing there is really "curved." So putting it into high definition and then throwing it at you with 3-D technology just enhances those edges along with the depth illusion, giving a rather odd visual effect sort of like paper puppetry. also, Jackson's style in The Hobbit and LotR already uses a lot of inorganic lines and shapes, so it gets worse. I would recommend avoiding 3-D films in general.

Could be worse, though.

[Aristus]

5. A lot of people dump on the 1977 cartoon Hobbit.

I'm not one of them. First of all, it's a nostalgia thing; the cartoon broadcast was my first exposure to Tolkien's storytelling. From my teacher at the time, who was a huge Tolkien fan, I subsequently learned of 'The Lord Of The Rings', the huge, dense, sprawling, masterful expansion of the world I encountered in "The Hobbit".

Despite it's limitations, the 1-hour cartoon did well with what it had, including fragments of the actual songs and poems from the books. Telling at least one of the riddles in the riddle game in song was an inspired touch.

Sure, the cartoon left much (very much) to be desired. (Small green elves with German accents? Please!... ) But it was a notable first step in putting Tolkien's work on the screen...

[Scootaloo]

6. Oh, I'm not dumping on it. It holds a warm place of nostalgia in my heart

And i do appreciate the style, especially for the effort that went into doing that much detail, cell by cell, by hand. it's art. Several tens of thousands of frames of art. Same wit hthe Lord of hte rings movies, and hte film that guy did to prve himself to the Tolkien Estate, "The Wizards."

But it's also very dated, and the aesthetics aren't... very... yeah... Bilbo looks like some sort of gelatinous hamster-fish, it's just not attractive.

But at least it didn't ruin dwarves the way Jackson has. Did we need to add "Sultry," "Pouty," and "Broody" to Snow White's lineup?

Show 'em how a real dwarf do, Bruenor!

[yallerdawg]

7. Saw the Imax 3D High Frame Rate Version.

Peter Jackson is utilizing 48 frames per second film technology as an option to 24 fps which is pretty much the standard of the film industry. Film is, of course, a series of progressive single shots and creates the illusion of movement.

This process has been described as producing a smoother, satiny, less-blurred, "hyper-reality" to the movie. Some people actually find the effect nauseating! Many don't want more realism - it is just a movie, a fantasy.

But how else do you put bodies in the seats? Bigger, better, louder (much louder!), RealD 3D 'Imax' effects you can't get at home, you can't stream.

The "5 Armies" movie? Thank God it's finally over! I'm still saying that days later! And I love and appreciate Peter Jackson. But please stop beating this dead horse, please!

What about the "Dune" trilogy? You know, the 'big worms' book?