That's a brilliant observation.

I agree with everything you said except that the movies are also wonderful. "Have some wonderful moments" is the most I can say there. They also had some pretty bad moments, and from what I've heard of the Hobbit movies, wonderful is waning and bad is waxing.

I would like to see the new movie, Steven Greydanus notwithstanding. The first film was a middling success, too full of noise and nonsense, but it had its good moments. I guess I like Middle Earth enough that I'm willing to sit through a whole lot of bluster for the intermittent pleasures.

Paul's observation above is really excellent. I wish Jackson was more of a hobbit, or even a dwarf. Still, it's not as though anybody else is making films about Middle Earth. Beggars, choosers, etc.

I think i lucked at re: Aragorn. I have such a strong image of him from reading the book several times that I just kinda internally laugh when I think of that Viggo feller playing him. I laugh even more (before I start crying) when I think of Blanchett's Gala... No, I can't say it.

I didn't see Hobbit I, so I doubt I'll see Hobbit II. I also didn't watch most of LotR II and III, except what my kids told me were the very best parts.

The Oliphaunts were all wrong.

Aragorn is probably the worst for me, as far as what I think vs. movie is concerned. I would say you're probably better off, Robert, not having seen LOTR II and III. Things only got more egregious, though apparently the Hobbit movies are much worse.

I didn't think Blanchett was bad, actually. But another thing I hate is seeing people who played those wonderful characters in ugly roles.

Who could? That goes back to the original suspicion: the only way to fix some of those problems would have been not to make the movies at all. I didn't think any of the elves were really very good, except possibly Arwen. But then she's only half-elven. And I'm sorry I ever read an interview with Liv Tyler.

Well, there are plenty of actresses that could pull off 6000 better than CB. Now, you will want me to name them, which I won't, because then someone will say, "Her? HER? UGH!"

I can't believe I'm having this conversation again, ten (!) years later. My gentle and patient wife once made me shut up on this topic.

LOL!

"Ridiculous action sequences"--yeah, those were already too numerous in the LOTR movies, which was part of why I wasn't even very interested in the first hobbit movie. I pretty much agree with your (Daniel) view of what was right and wrong. I didn't think the Ents were badly done, considering the inherent difficulty. And as I guess I said earlier I think the elves were really impossible, so I saw that as an honest and reasonable effort that just didn't work too well, not a sort of bad faith thing like putting contemporary wisecracks into Gimli's mouth, or a failure of understanding, like making Aragorn an angst-ridden sort of guy.

If I remember correctly you're not a huge fan of Tolkien's writing. Correct? That might explain your view.:-)

Narnia--I saw I, but not II and III. The first was enough.

And its not that I don't like adaptation to cinema or even a different focus or take on the themes. I just don't like the take that the producers present.

I didn't really think I was awful, but there was enough bad in it that when I read about what "liberties" were taken with II and III, I was sure I didn't want to see them.

I'm not seeing it either. The first installment disappointed me so exceedingly that I broke topic and blogged about it yesterday :P My two cents: http://andronocean.com/2013/12/13/why-i-wont-be-seeing-the-hobbit-movie/

Greydanus's review is pretty harsh, too! Thanks for the link; that was an entertaining read.

So, sounds like it stinks not only as a Tolkien adaptation but on its own terms. A farrago.

Andron Ocean, you seem to have put your finger on the core of the problem: "...shows disrespect on Jackson’s part, where before he had great admiration for Tolkien’s story."

Maybe so. Maybe he thought was going to do the sort of thing that happens occasionally, where someone produces a film based on a book and the film is actually better. I can't think of any examples offhand, but there have been a few. Usually the book in question is not so great to start with. Maybe Jackson though The Hobbit's childrens'-story quality made it seem lightweight, and useful mainly as a jumping-off place for his attempt to produce another Lord of the Rings.

Gosh, I'd heard New Zealand was pleased with the publicity and revenue, but I didn't know they were making that much of a deal about it.

That Jackson is in it for the money is certainly plausible. It could also be artistic delusions of grandeur.

Warner Bros. threatened to not film The Hobbit in New Zealand back in 2010 because of a dispute with New Zealand Actors' Equity over working conditions and minimum pay. The NZ government quickly gave Warner Bros. a $25 million tax break and altered labor laws to suit the studio. And this is a very union-friendly place.

Just seen it (with two teenagers). Wheels and engines and explosions in abundance. The special effects show more the inspiration of video games and amusement park rides than love of language or story.

That's my impression from both the negative and positive reports, reading between the lines somewhat in the latter.

I found rereading The Hobbit to my son, perhaps 8 years ago, an eye-opener. It's much more nuanced and slow-paced than I remembered from 20 years before that, and knowing that Tolkien had been a signals officer on the Somme put a lot of it in a new light. I can heartily recommend rereading with the First World War in mind, but at no point in the book are the dwarves and the dragon in the cave together, and there is no stupid giant golden dwarf, so rereading would make you no wiser from that point of view, Grumpy.

"giant golden dwarf"?!? Adding the adjective "stupid" to that is almost redundant. The movie just sounds worse and worse.

I never thought of any First World War connection to The Hobbit, though I think in one of his letters Tolkien may have explicitly made the connection with Lord of the Rings.

It is indeed slow-paced and nuanced. It has absolutely nothing in common with cartoons, Disney stuff, or any of that sort of thing. I remember being a little surprised that my children liked it, because it is so slow and nuanced. But it really held their attention.

"Guffawed"? I can see the very meaningful this-is-good-for-you sort of attitude, but not a great deal of laughter.

If I remember correctly, I had to be talked into reading it to my two older children, because I thought they were too young to enjoy it. Or maybe that was LOTR.

I saw The Hobbit 2 in 3D and thought it looked awfully blurry except for the main camera focus. Then I went back again and saw the 2D version and didn't think it looked much better. So that's my gripe, not the storyline which I enjoyed (even Tauriel!). But I can't find any reviews which say anything bad about how it looks. Go figure. American Hustle is quite good - look and story! I walked out of 2D Hobbit after an hour or so and watched it for a second time. :-)

Rob G - that is the main reason I've stopped enjoying action movies in the past few years. Most have been turned by CGI into 'glorified cartoons'. The worst were those Pirate movies. I saw just one and was mortified to find that the adults I was with were enjoying it. But the same goes for many recent action / thrillers. Of course, no action/thriller was ever genuinely plausible, but when the directors use 'spectacle' to heighten implausibility, for me, the result is that I don't care what happens to the characters, because they have been de-realized.

Haven't seen 'American Hustle' yet but it's on my list. The new Coen film, 'Inside Llewyn Davis,' is very good.

Have y'all seen 'Mud' or 'Ain't Them Bodies Saints' yet? Both are excellent. 'Prisoners' is also very good but quite dark.

I don't recognize the name, and I'm glad.

You recommended Mud a while back, but I didn't manage to see it. Haven't even heard of the others, except for Llewyn Davis, which I've heard good things about, but...I've come to the conclusion that I don't really like the Coen Bros. all that much. Their movies are always interesting but sort of hollow.

Oh, that giant dwarf... what a mess. The whole sequence made absolutely no sense. It was as though they thought they needed a big set piece to bring the end of the film to a climax... but they couldn't think of anything, so they ... oh, I can't even talk about it.

I would say Hobbit 2 is quite a lot worse than Hobbit 1. Smaug was terrific, but the rest of it... ugh.

Stu, I will agree with you about how bad it looks. One big CGI sequence, in particular, was terrible: when they were floating down the river in barrels and one dwarf's barrel went bouncing along the rocks, knocking down orcs. I'll concede that this was a tricky sequence to animate, but the figures were very poorly rendered: pixellated and featureless. I don't know the back story, but I strongly suspect that the CGI rendering simply wasn't finished when they had to ship the film. Peter Jackson has a history of working right up to the deadline, and I think this time it got away from him.

Rob G, I did see "Mud" a week or so ago. I really enjoyed it, though not quite as much as Nichols' previous film ("Take Shelter"). I was not entirely sold on the last 20 minutes.

Still haven't seen the new Coen brothers film, but intend to when it hits DVD.

Take Shelter is one of my favorites of the last several years (it's a travesty that Michael Shannon didn't get an Oscar nomination, imo), but I think that Mud is its equal. They are very different films, however, and are difficult to compare. All 3 of Nichols' movies so far have been outstanding, as I'm a big fan of Shotgun Stories too.

"Their [Coens'] movies are always interesting but sort of hollow."

Yes, I think I know what you mean. There always seems to be a distance between the viewer and the characters that prevents real engagement. Even this new film, which some critics are describing as their most "human" yet, features a protagonist that you want to root for, but who has enough flaws to turn him into just that much of a jerk that you can't do so wholeheartedly. Having said that, it's still a very good movie with great music.

"... a distance between the viewer and the characters..." Yes, and it's an ironic distance that sometimes goes far enough to make them seem unreal, just toys to put through silly escapades, as in O Brother. I often feel like in the end the filmmakers hold their characters in something close to contempt. Yet it's not quite satire, either, most of the time.

"...this new film, which some critics are describing as their most "human" yet..."

The fact that people would describe it that way is an indicator of what we're talking about.

Oh yeah, I forgot No Country is theirs--yes, that's a major exception.

I suppose satire is fundamentally somewhat cold-hearted, but even there, with, say, Waugh, there is something passionate under the surface, whereas there's something cold about a movie like Burn After Reading. Similarly, Fargo hovers somewhere between black comedy, drama, and satire. I'm not complaining that it doesn't fit into a box, but that its effect is diffused by its mixed signals, and detachment from the characters is part of that mix.

I would have eventually written a blog post about this, but since you bring it up: I watched Wild At Heart a few days ago and didn't care much for it. In spite of its redeeming triumph of love, there was just too much filth to get through. And by "filth" I don't mean the sex scenes, but the general ugly perversity. And it didn't have the sense of mystery that Mulholland Drive does, or not much of it. I would probably have bailed on it after 30 or 40 minutes if it hadn't been Lynch.

Your money's better spent elsewhere, Mac. Not to mention your time and attention.

I agree about Wild at Heart. Didn't like that one much at all.