Sadly, from what I hear, one of the best things to come out of ‘The Hobbit’ was actually the trailer for ‘Pacific Rim’. (Edit: Saw ‘The Hobbit’… and LOVED it.) On the upside… Who doesn’t love giant robots fighting giant monsters?
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj40MJU-tn4?rel=0]
Very little artwork for the movie has yet been made public. But I’m sure when they make an ‘Art of’ book, it will be killer reference for SF buffs. In the mean time, here is a very small sampling of the only real concept/promotional art to be released thus far.
I disagree about The Hobbot. I really enjoyed it. As for Pacific Rim, I hope it's good, but the trailer, as cool and fun as it is, has the potential to have many cringe-worthy moments. I hope it breaks the odds and its writing ends up being as good as its art direction.
I disagree about the Hobbit as well. I had a fantastic time being back in Middle Earth. Having the opportunity to go there in 3D, and with the vivid clarity of 48 frames/sec was a treat. Yes it was different….but good different. 10 minutes into the film and I was sold. I highly recommend it.
Yes, Pacific Rim looks amazing. I agree with Dan that the Art of book will be a must have.
I give this Muddy Colors post a One out of Ten.
Go see the movie and bring a flask of rum.
Yeah, just word of mouth for me at this point. I plan to see it regardless on Tuesday in a quiet theatre. I'm hoping I like it.
Even though The Hobbit was published in 1937 it seems a lot fresher than Gundams fighting Godzilla.
I can suspend disbelief a lot better when there is an actual wizard right there on screen. I can't suspend disbelief when powering a giant robot would be about impossible and if it were possible they could have weapons a lot more practical than giant robots.
Are you saying that powering a giant robot is less plausible than an ACTUAL wizard?
Who didn't like Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla. Those old Japanese Godzilla vs movies were cool, but I don't think you can really compare the two. If you liked LOTR and read the Hobbit (and like it) your gonna see and like the Hobbit movie. I will definitely go see the Hobbit and I pretty sure I'll enjoy it.
I don't think Dan was trying to compare the two.
Gundam vs. Cthulu? I was skeptical but then I saw Guillermo del Toro's name.
This trailer and the concept remind me of Evangelion. ^^
I also disagree with whoever complained to you about The Hobbit…saw it yesterday & it was quite good.
On the other hand, I have no interest in seeing Pacific Rim… looks a bit too “Independence Day” to me.
The trailer looks awesome for sure, as many of the trailers lately do, hehe. About the hobbit i have two critics, the pacing was off at certain stages. Also the flashy action scene cut its just…its really hard to understand whats going on imo.
Interesting argument to consider.
I suppose if you mean ACTUAL supernatural power-wielding wizard then a robot is more likely. Commonly in fantasy fantasy fiction though “a wizard did it” though is a common vehicle for the Deus Ex Machina occurrences. Magic doesn't have to be explained; it merely is so.
Dragon is too heavy for it's wings…magic
That armor isn't practical…not when it's magical armor thongs
How are those dwarves not completely sloshed?…magic
In the future i'd say a giant robot in space might be eminently practical. That would be sometime pretty far in the future when we have orbiting space harbors for mining and exploration. A giant robot could operate very well in a weightless vacuum and be useful for mining, maintenance, even tugboat type duties.
Hard to say what a “wizard” could be that time in the future. Right now we have things that are pretty wizard-like. I automatically thought of this with your question:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/ee07/
Sure it was april fools but with a little effort and ingenuity you could make something even more amazing than this right now. It'd be largely theatrical but it'd still be “magical”.
My overall premise though is if we could make a power source advanced enough to power a giant earth-bound fighting robot then the average consumer would have access to things like Ironman suits and Harry Potter invisible cloaks. We could whisper to Siri X in our augmented iImplants and summon autonomous robot “familiars” to help us. A large portion of Earth's population could get off planet on a space elevator and leave to colonies. We could probably destroy the monsters without robots in the first place and it wouldn't be a problem. We might not even be necessarily still humanoid in the purists sense. We might find some other augmented form is more practical for our lifestyle so making a robot in humanoid form would seem silly.
Don't take anyone's words about The Hobbit before you actually see it. If you read the book and you liked Peter Jackson's work on the LotR, you're going to like The Hobbit. It's different from the previous trilogy, but that's expected considering the book itself is quite different than the Rings books. Just watch it.
First, the Hobbit was pretty impressive. Not as epic as LOTR, considering it's more of a children's story, but some great work in it. The Goblin King is impressive, and Gollum was better than ever.
Pacific Rim looks gritty and pretty…that scene of the battleship with a giant carcass on it had me thinking, “Wow…this is going to be cool!”, but then seeing that the solution to this apparent invasion was to make gigantic human robots the same scale as the monsters (essentially negating the impressive size of the critters) all of a sudden made the whole thing seem trite. I never was a Gundam fan though, so maybe it's just not my thing. Del Toro is all that gives me any hope of all at this thing being much better than “Battleship” (by the way, Redbox, I'd like my $1.28 back for that one).
At this point I'm thinking the best thing about it other than the eye candy will be hearing the dulcet tone of GLaDOS again (nice touch there!).
Really looking forward to new Star Trek, Wolverine, and the Hobbit pt.2…oh, and for Walking Dead to start up again. 🙂
Precisely what I thought sir.
If you're going to see The Hobbit, go ahead and see it in IMAX 3D. It is worth it. Never have I felt so immersed in a film, and I don't mean the action scenes. I never felt more like I was standing in a room listening to a conversation instead of watching a movie. You actually start wandering around the room to try and peek into every corner and open doorway. The scenes in Rivendell had my jaw dropping. Peter Jackson actually gives you the time to enjoy the 3D rather than throwing it in your face. For people who love attention to detail he's nailed it on the head.
I am not a purist but I have a lot of respect for Tolkien's text and I feel like Peter Jackson just doesn't get it. WETA gets it, they make the second 2 LOTR films and this Hobbit film bearable but PJ seems bound and determined to explore crap that Tolkien never fleshed out instead of sticking to the story he has right in front of him. LOTR is not a well paced series of books, parts are a real slog but most of the time that slog is rewarding; it makes you feel like part of the Fellowship.
The Hobbit is a fun breezy read, yes it is for the most part a children's story but more in the scary fairy tale vein. This film is so uneven I have a hard time recommending people see it. I don't want to go into a spoiler filled hate-train on this film but don't spend more than matinee and come in about 15mins late and you will have a better experience with the film.
My question to people who complain about Jackson delving into and expanding on parts of middle earth history and stories that Tolkien never fully fleshed out is: How is it any different than works such as Donato's 'Then There Were Three', a painting of something that may have happened in middle earth, but that was never actually written by Tolkien? Do you have complaints about works such as that as well? I feel that it is part of an artists job to expand on works when they change mediums. Why would I want to watch something if it is exactly the same as it's source material; I've already gone through that adventure.
Douglas Adams, author of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, promoted his works being changed and expanded by the translator every time they changed medium, from book, to radio series, to BBC miniseries, and finally feature film. Every version of Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy is different and makes the world richer.
The Hobbit/ Lord of the Rings takes place in a fantasy setting where magic, gods, elves, dwarves, orcs, goblins, dragons, etc. exist.
As far as I can tell, Pacific Rim takes place in a fantasy setting where giant monsters invade earth and giant robots are feesible and a plausible means of combating said giant monsters.
Well first as a very large Tolkien fan, one who absolutely loved the original trilogy and thought that the The Hobbit although good did not match the greatness of the originals on my first viewing (planning on seeing it again. I would say that at no point has or did Tolkien ever write “crap” and I am sorry that you think his attempt to flesh out and add depth and context to a good story that severely needs it would be described as suck.
Show up to the movie 15 minutes late? So you would rather not see the Dwarven realm of Erebor in all of its splendor before Smaug lay waste to their home and stole everything they had? The point was to show what they lost and how silly and stupid their attempt to get it back is…you know… context and character development, or according to Tolkien purists “crap”
Please tell me I'm not the only person to watch that Pacific Rim trailer and see “power rangers.
Ah, book purists. I never paid them much mind. They don't seem to realize that translation from page to film entails some changes here and there. It's like a statue of a person vs. a painting of the same. They're going to look a little different because they're different types of media.
But I am preaching to the choir.
Anyway, I'm a huge Tolkien fan like you, Stephen. I very much enjoyed the LOTR films and thought Peter Jackson did an excellent job adapting them. I loved The Hobbit film almost as much. I did think there were some elements in it that seemed incongruous with the Middle-earth he'd created in LOTR (like the balls joke one of the dwarves makes during the scene at Bilbo's house and Radagast's rabbit sled), but, eh. That's as it goes, I guess. It wasn't a big deal to me. I plan on seeing the movie again.
To nullunit: I loved that Jackson took the source material and made it less fun and breezy. Even as huge of a Tolkien fan as I am, The Hobbit has always been my least favorite of his books precisely because of its breeziness. It just didn't seem to fit in with the rest of his stories. The first time I read it, it took me about a year to do because I'd read a page or two, get bored, and go read something else (usually my favorite passages from LOTR!)
At any rate, what I really did appreciate about Jackson's adaptation was that he began tying it into LOTR. The book doesn't do much of that. It's, as you said, a fun breezy adventure story, but it was written without LOTR in mind and it shows. The only things it really has in common with LOTR is a magic ring, Gollum, and hobbits, but the Ring of The Hobbit is a far different one from the one in LOTR. The Hobbit's Ring is just what it is: a magic ring that makes its wearer invisible. In LOTR, it's a sinister object that eventually bends its wearer to its will. It's a dangerous thing. Not so in The Hobbit. But what the film did was to better mesh the two stories together. We as the viewers know what that ring is that Bilbo now has and the film knows we know that. Gandalf notices Bilbo slip the ring into his pocket and there's a foreboding look on his face. HE knows what that thing is too. Or, at least, he suspects.
Earlier, we see Saruman, Galadriel, Elrond, and Gandalf talking about the Morgul blade and the evil that is rising again. Before that, we see one of the Nazgûl appear. It's great because it's showing us that well before Frodo left on his quest, things were already being set in motion that would lead to the events that take place in LOTR. It blends the two stories together and makes them seem more like two parts in a much longer narrative rather than a fun adventure story and a very different dark, epic tale.
As for LOTR itself, I am so very glad Jackson didn't stick with the material that was right in front of him (although, I'd argue, he actually does stick to it fairly well). Not all of it translates well to the screen and the books themselves could have done with some better editing. Of particular note is the entire Tom Bombadil side story that doesn't go anywhere. I don't know if you're familiar with TVtropes or the Nostalgia Critic, but it's what you'd call a “Big Lipped Alligator Moment”: It comes out of nowhere, is bizarre even within the context of the story, has no bearing on the plot, and is never spoken of again after it happens. It is, in fact, one of the prime examples of a Big Lipped Alligator Moment and it really didn't belong in book or movie. Don't get me wrong, I think that side story is kind of fun to read, but it might have been better done as a stand alone short story rather than as a part of LOTR. So Jackson leaving it out? Alright by me. Likewise, many of the other changes he made were wise, in my opinion (like “The Scouring of the Shire”—the book by that point had started to drag a long time ago and that whole chapter was just…unneeded.
So I would have to disagree with your statement that Jackson doesn't get Tolkien. I think he gets Tolkien very well. I also think he gets storytelling very well. Pretty much any change he made was in the name of storytelling. He improved on Tolkien's character development, streamlined the story (yes, even as long as the films are, the story is streamlined), and fleshed out the things that Tolkien hadn't.
Alright, I'm being too much of a nerd right now going on at length about all this. So, in conclusion, I am very pleased with Jackson's work on both LOTR and The Hobbit and can't wait for the next installment—right after I see the first one about twenty more times. 🙂
Saw 'The Hobbit' today, and I loved it. I don't know what people were complaining about. I found it whimsical, and visually breath taking. I also think it captured the book's character perfectly.
totally agree with your post. ive read reviews on the hobbit and wondered if they had seen the same movie….
im definitely watching it on imax
anxiously waiting for next years crop of movies, man of steel especially!
I agree with Dan about the Hobbit. I actually had little interest in it because I read and loved the book as a teen and the movie was already in my head. I took my wife to see it and I was pretty impressed and will soon see it again in 3d. I had forgotten how awesome the dwarves are and the humor was surprising.