CP3S

Wait, Bingo and your mom get paid for their movies?

:(

Whoa! We're like man crushing Eskimo bros., xhonzi! Michael Biehn is great. It is still surprising to me he didn't end up in more stuff. 

Wait a minute! Bingo is making amateur porn videos with TV's Mom as well? I feel betrayed...

Johnny Ringo said:

right now i'd say 2.5 balls pending a second viewing. I'll be more forgiving if the Necromancer stuff pays off later.

I agree about the poor job identifying the dwarves, but I feel like that was an issue left over from the source material. Even in the book, most of the dwarves are background with only a few standing out and being notable.

As for the Necromancer stuff, it is a pretty major plot line, should end up being pretty cool in the end, and will tightly connect the two trilogies together. Plus he is played by Benedict Cumberbatch, which should be cool.

Ultimately, the story of The Hobbit is not very exciting and is a very low stakes adventure. I am more excited about the Necromancer and the stuff connected to that plot line than anything else in this trilogy.

Hey, if I got out anymore I'd be feral, baby!

Burton fan, I take it?

Warbler said:

the movie isn't terrible, but again I wish it had been done years before, starring George Hern and Angela Lansbury.    I wish it had been directed by someone other than Tim Burton.  He's a weirdo.

Brightman out sings Rossum by far more than a mile. There is really no comparison.

The look of Burton's Sweeney Todd is all wrong. It is too outlandish, too Burtonesque.

Bingowings said:

^That is just Gay.

Yeah, well, YOU'RE just Gay!

Warbler said:

I disagree with you.   You see the stage recording of Sweeney Todd, starring George Hern and Angela Lansbury...

Oh, I have seen it and I love it. It is probably one of the better recordings of a play I have seen.

It really saddens me that from now on Sweeney Todd will forever be remembered as a Tim Burton film starring Depp.

TheBoost said:

I'd say it's not just a matter of prettiness, it's a matter of film presence too.

WRONG!!! I mean, seriously, who wants to look at closeups of Sarah Brightman for two hours?

;)

generalfrevious said:

Plus, Nolan's films have a reputation for being too talky and more based on ideas instaead of visuals. In a visual medium like film, that's not really encouraged.

Exactly! That is why Christopher Nolan sucks as a director, and Michael Bay may well be one of the greatest directors we see in our lifetime. The man has the visuals down! BOOOM! KABASH! BAAAM! So many exploOSIANS! Such a good director!

Nolan is crap because he makes a different movie every time and goes with unique ideas nobody else is doing. Who really wants that! I don't want to be confused by seeing a movie that has a plot I haven't encountered in every other action movie made! Grrrrr! Inception hurt my brain. Momento almost put me in a coma. Who can wrap their heads around stuff like that?! Seriously! Nolan's movies have way too much talking in them, modern audiences don't want to hear talking! We want explosions and lingering closeup shots of women in tight clothing and witty one liners we've already heard from other movies.

Thank god for directors like Michael Bay! In twenty years he'll be remembered for his greatness. Nolan, he'll just be remembered... well, he won't be. Old people will still watch the boring twenty year old Batman movies maybe, and a few of them might know Nolan made them, but nobody will care. A better director will make newer more action oriented Batman films with lots of explosions and lingering female ass shots and moderner technology, because that is what people want. Just hopefully they are made by a real filmmaker this time. Ug.

BmB said:

And I certainly did not see a lousy screening, it was probably the best I possibly could have gone to.

Best you could have gone to still sounds kind of lousy if you saw softening around the edges. I was scrutinizing every inch of that screen the whole time, and the whole time I was amazed and how incredible sharp it was. Unless you just have super human visual perception, I think there is a very good chance your experience was compromised by equipment issues.

Zombie made a good point about most 70mms being blow ups. There hasn't really been a whole lot recorded on 70mm since the 60's, so unless you are watching mostly old films, the 70mm prints you've seen are likely 35mm blow ups anyway.

Blurry? I saw no blurriness. It was probably the sharpest image I have ever seen. Perhaps my experiences with 70mm are too limited.

I am a big fan of film myself and am usually one of the first to argue its superiority, but I feel like they got me on this one. If all digital films look at least that good in the future, I have no problems saying goodbye to film.

Warbler said:

YOU SAW THE ORIGINAL CAST!?!?!  Damn, I wish I could have done that.    I love Phantom.   I'd give anything to see Crawford's and Brightman's performance.  Why in hell could they not have made the movie years earlier with the original cast?

Yeah, at least Crawford and Brightman, not sure how many of the others were the originals. It was when the show went on tour. I lived way out on the Western end of the US, far away from Broadway. My sister had the CD Highlights from The Phantom of the Opera and was pretty into it, so when my dad saw it was going to be playing only a few hours away he snagged some tickets.

CP3S said:

That being said, as great as Crawford and Brightman sounded in that live performance, Gerard Bultler and Emmy Rossum are far, far, far more pleasant to look at.

just for that *Warbler tells Javert that he saw CP3S steal a loaf of bread* 

Ugh, Emmy Rossum goodness!

xhonzi said:

The movie is different than the play is different than the book.

The musical is VERY different from the book. But the movie is the musical.

I guess the purist in me would rather see a faithful representation of the stag production in movie form.

You can't really film theater well. It isn't the same as going to see it live,  something about filming it totally kills the whole thing. While sitting in the seat the whole thing can feel very alive and exciting, somehow the translation to the screen turns it into a bunch of people in too much makeup wearing silly costumes while singing at each other. So I kind of like it when some of these make their way to the big screen. I totally agree with changes like the later one TheBoost mentioned, turning two songs back to back into one long scene. I see no reasons to allow the limitations of stage to dictate the film. In that case you might as well be using limited stage technology instead of modern day effects. No, I am all for adjusting it to the different medium. For some reason the changed placement of that song sticks out to me as a bit senseless.

As for original stage actors and movie actors... I know The Phantom of the Opera is pretty craptastic and sappy and I am no fan of Andrew Llyod Webber. But it has the distinction of being the first musical I ever went to see (original cast too). I was pretty young at the time, the story was really dark, and there was something kind of kinky and wrong about the storyline. My family went as a treat to my older sister and I got drug along, but I actually ended up really loving it. Going to see it again when I was older, I discovered my young prepubescent self filled in a lot of story elements in his head and made it a lot darker, sexier, and less sappy than it actually was. But I still liked it.

That being said, as great as Crawford and Brightman sounded in that live performance, Gerard Bultler and Emmy Rossum are far, far, far more pleasant to look at.

darth_ender said:

TheBoost said:

So, the movie moved Anne Hathaway's song "I'm So Damn Sad, Dear God I'm Sad" from after she looses her job (which would make me sad) where it is in the stage musical,  until...

SPOILERS ALERT

...after she becomes a bald toothless prostitute (which would make me sadder). Seems a solid dramatic choice. 

Kinda weird that Ann would sing a song about being so darn sad in a story called Les Miserables. ;)

Honestly, that sounds like a better position for the song to me.

I just don't see the point in moving it. What for? As Cobb says so that it is superficially different from the stage play? That is silly.

Anyway, life was kind of falling apart for her and she was very, very, very sad before she had to sell her hair and herself into prostitution. That song was part of her transition to rock bottom, as you watch as things keep going downhill for her. Don't see why they felt she couldn't be so damn sad until after she had become a prostitute.

Whoa! Are both versions of The Room available? Or is the 35mm one just seen in theaters and the HD one used in home video? I kind of want to side by side compare now, but I don't suppose there is any reason for a 35mm transfer to exist

It is crazy the kind of things that can happen when a not so bright or talented person who fancies himself quite bright and talented gets his hands on too much money. Oh, Tommy.

Mrebo said:

I finally saw the Hobbit, in old fashioned 24fps. The comments here and elsewhere were not very encouraging about the 48fps

*Cries and dreams of a more enlightened and open world in the future*

xhonzi said:

I am quite curious about this process.  Back when I did 3D animation, the motion blur algorithms were new and didn't quite have the right look.  But heaven forbid you rendered without motion blur.  Even 30fps looked quite jumpy without it.  Also- Looney Tunes and other old school animation was drawn at 12fps, with every frame doubled to get to 24.  So they had to hand draw a lot of motion blur in, and they were pioneers in the art.

Yeah, I am very curious about the process too. A few days before The Hobbit came out, I was at a friend's house and we were talking about the 48fps thing, my friend's wife swore up and down that the movie was actually filmed twice, with two cameras mounted together, one filming in 24fps and the other recording in 48fps and there was no convincing her this wasn't the case. Because of this conversation, I did a google search to try to read more about the conversion process and came up with nothing substantial or even informative.

BmB said:

As good looking as the hobbit in 5k 48 and 3d and all that jazz was, it still did not hold a candle to 70mm.

I don't think film is dead just yet.

Really? A candle? I've never seen a 70mm film that looked like that.

DominicCobb said:

Also, what's the point of doing a movie if it's going to be exactly the same as the stage show? 

Because a lot of people don't get the opportunity to go see live musicals. I mean, you are adapting the musical, why not leave it in its original form?

TheBoost said:

So, the movie moved Anne Hathaway's song "I'm So Damn Sad, Dear God I'm Sad" from after she looses her job (which would make me sad) where it is in the stage musical,  until...

SPOILERS ALERT

...after she becomes a bald toothless prostitute (which would make me sadder). Seems a solid dramatic choice. 

Hmm, I probably sound like a whining purist, but that is annoying that they moved it around. It served well for the millions of people who have seen the stage performance over the years.

What the hell?

None of those were personal attacks on you, or even necessarily directed specifically at you. My only point was it is a shame that a lot of people are missing out on the 48fps because there is so much crap and fear being tossed around about it.

:(

"The controversy over who shot first, Greedo or Han Solo, in Episode IV, what I did was try to clean up the confusion, but obviously it upset people because they wanted Solo to be a cold-blooded killer, but he actually isn’t. It had been done in all close-ups and it was confusing about who did what to whom. I put a little wider shot in there that made it clear that Greedo is the one who shot first, but everyone wanted to think that Han shot first, because they wanted to think that he actually just gunned him down."

Wow, that is so very blatantly untrue.

Frustratingly, stuff like this can be said, and many people having never seen the originals will just go along with it.

Wow, way to get defensive by only paying attention to part of my post. I was talking about all the silly fear mongering scaring people (like you and your wife), who very likely would have really enjoyed the 48fps, from going to see it that way.

It is a little different, but it isn't going to make your head explode, cause brain damage, or permanent harm, or even really ruin the experience of the movie if you don't let it (by skyjeding the hell out of it and freaking out about how it is going to destroy cinema, your childhood, and your life all in one blow). I can imagine if there had been an all black and white release of The Wizard of Oz, people may have opted to go see that for fear of color ruining the film for them.

At least my silly opinion isn't based on whiny people freaking out over scary change.

TV's Frink said:

Going to see it in good old 24 fps tomorrow because the wife will be in tow and she's (rightfully) nervous about 48 fps.

Oh for goodness sakes, it isn't rightful. People need to stop fear mongering this stuff.

Sounds like my grandmother expressing her nervousness about getting a finger trapped in the VCR while inserting a tape. Everyone knows new and untested technology can be quite perilous.

You should go see it in 48fps sometime if you get the chance. This is a historical cinematic landmark, it makes me sad to see people missing out on it because of all the fear being tossed around.

It is quite different, I'll give them that, and it is sure to take some time for people to warm up to. But it is also pretty cool looking. I can see how people who don't understand the effect or know quite what they are looking at or anything about frame rates would find the whole thing jarring and not know why or understand the point. 48 frames a second isn't something we are used to seeing. 

Interestingly, I went to see The Hobbit is 24fps yesterday, it felt painfully blurry and I could swear all the tracking shots and other quick motion shots looked like they were skipping. I wonder if I would have noticed that if I hadn't first seen it in 48fps?

NeverarGreat said:

Spoilers follow.

Eh, I thought the dwarves were all right. Though it seemed strange that I didn't learn who practically any of them were called, even after almost three hours, and I've read all the books! You'd think that PJ would have included more character bits to differentiate the dwarves.

I agree. Saw the film for the second time yesterday and during the dwarf introduction scene kept thinking, "I don't even remember seeing that guy, that guy, and that guy throughout the rest of the movie the last time I saw it." Of course they are there in the background, they just don't get much screen time nor are given any/many lines. Many of the dwarves in the film were more or less just props.

But in the book it was pretty much the same way. Even over multiple reads throughout the years, I could never keep straight who all the dwarves were, there are a few that stick out and are given more to do than others, and those are the ones you remember. The others are kind of just there.

That way, we would hear about the Azog vs. Thorin relationship, and later it would be a surprise even to LOTR fans that he had survived.

Wait, but that was a surprise to even LOTR fans. He doesn't survive in the books, Jackson and Co brought him back for the movies.

I liked the character of Radagast, despite being a bit too cutesy, but there was little reason to have him in the movie. Same with Sauruman, and Galadriel (apparently she can teleport?!) and the stone throwing giants. In fact, any time that the story wasn't solely about Bilbo, they should have cut it. There is something that has been called the Off-Screen-Movie, which is all of the implied events that happen while the actual scenes of the movie are playing, and these implied scenes can make a movie seem more dense, more fast paced, or more dramatic. In the Hobbit, everything about the story is shown onscreen, and this to me makes it seem like there is less story, ironically.

I feel like they really messed up the giants. In the book they are just playing around tossing rocks around during a rain storm for kicks playing some sort of game, in the movie they are violently fighting each other, ending with one decapitating the other.

I would have been cool with them cutting it. But I actually do really like the depth and detail they are going into with this film. In the end, it is still going to make loads of money and pull large audiences in, and when it is old and the masses don't care about it anymore, the fans will still have films that cater to them.

Here's an example. We see three characters that we have just met (Saruman, Elrond, and Galadriel) discuss with Gandalf at length about some place we haven't been (Dol-Guldur) and a character we know almost nothing about (the necromancer).

Through this dialogue, we get no impression about what effect it will have on Bilbo, the dwarves, or their quest to go to Erebor. In their discussion, a sword from a ghost that we haven't met yet is revealed, and used to make a subtle argument about the technical nature of magic in Middle Earth, something that we don't know much about. This scene must be absolutely bizarre for a newcomer, and for someone who has seen the LOTR movies, it is pointless collection of references for the sake of linking the two narratives together.

It is called foreshadowing. And it is for much more than connecting the two trilogies together. In one of the next two films the Necromancer will play a much greater role. What you are saying is pretty much like saying having the character of Anakin Skywalker in the prequels is a pointless reference for the sake of linking the two SW trilogies together. They are very closely connected stories and one leads right into the other.

I don't think you seem to realize that there are two stories being told in these films. It isn't just the tale of the dwarves on their quest to retrieve their gold, which is really just a short little children's story that could easily be fit into a single film. You said anything that wasn't part of Bilbo's story should have been cut, well that is all the book is. But these movies are also the story of Sauron's rise back to power and Gandalf's detective work of piecing together the puzzle of Sauron's plans, which eventually leads to the importance of the forming of the fellowship and the destruction of the ring. These films are basically an adaption of The Hobbit and major parts of The Lord of the Rings: Appendices A and B, merged together and playing out in chronological order.

It is clear you are one of the casual fans you mentioned and you aren't familiar with the books. I think you should just sit back and see how things pan out before getting too worked up. I think what's to come is going to be a lot of fun. I look forward to the stuff about the Necromancer far more than the rest of The Hobbit story, which really is quite anticlimactic. To me the peak of excitement in The Hobbit has always been the goblins in Misty Mountains and Bilbo finding the ring.

All of this, and they still don't explain the character and philosophy of the eagles, which have probably caused more casual fan confusion than any other element of the movies.

Why so?

Tolkien always used the Eagles as his last minute jump in and save the day thing. A very obvious and blatant deux ex machina. I feel they have always been more than a bit of a cop out. There is really no deep "character" and "philosophy". They aren't confusing, they are just lame.

xhonzi said:

CP3S said:

I knew you did, because I am pretty sure we've talked about them before. I just followed Ender's lead without thinking, then right after making my post, I read yours saying you have, realized of course you have, and edited my post. Must have missed my edit.

*AHEM* I made my post at 4:00 XDT.  You made your edit at 4:02 XDT.*

Maybe I didn't hit refresh on the page before clicking "edit", didn't see your post until after I made my edit.

2. I learned about the revised chapter many years ago, perhaps on this very forum.  What I didn't realize until the other day was that it was part of a larger rewrite effort that went unpublished.  I see Tolkienites mention often the revised chapter, but I've not read about the total rewrite before.

We have discussed them a lot, often drawing comparisons between Tolkien's tinkering with The Hobbit and George's tinkering with the OT.

3. I'm not a Tolkienite.  I consider myself a casual LotR fan... probably know more about it than the average bear, but not compared to actual Tolkienites.  But it doesn't mean I haven't read teh books, seen the movies, bought some action figures, etc...

There are Lord of the Rings action figures? It seems obvious there would be with how popular the films were, guess I just hadn't thought of it before.

Fixed.

Oh yeah, and the appendices are fun too.

And then, and only then, I will be a Jedi Knight?  Okay, I guess I'll go home and read the forward.  Then I can be a cool kid again.

The forward will educate you on some of The Hobbit changes, but it actually confuses a lot of people. When Tolkien wrote it, the changes had yet to be made to The Hobbit. For the target audience, those who had read the 1937 version before beginning LOTR, it was basically a big retcon they were reading, explaining that the previous book they had read contained omissions and inaccuracies on account of some dishonesty on the part of Bilbo, and then it goes on to explain what really happened. 

If you've read the modern printing of The Hobbit, then reading that part of the forward is really unnecessary. When I first read LOTR, I remember being a little puzzled, I had read The Hobbit before, and it was basically telling me the exact same story I had read in that book, only while making the claim that what I had read in it before wasn't what really happened. Years later when I found out there had been changes made to The Hobbit, a light bulb came on and it all made since. Ah, if only the internehts had been then what they are today, I could have powered up the ol' NES, loading up its web browser, and got on wikipedia and learned all I could have wished to know.