Maidens of the Kaleidoscope
~Beyond the Border~ => Sara's Audio-Visual Import-Overflow Retail => Topic started by: theshirn on December 17, 2013, 08:34:37 PM
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I went and saw The Hobbit part 2 with my brother.
Where part 1 was a bit of a plodding mess, with significant additions to it thrown in from Tolkien's other works like the Silmarillion, part 2 was a fast-paced, high-energy film that pretty much bore only the absolute slimmest of resemblances to the book. I mean, for the first half it's not so bad - a little bit overdone, especially with the addition of Tauriel - but basically the second Bard shows up on screen we're off the pages and in completely uncharted territory. I mean, I'm not even sure how they're going to do part 3; I guess Smaug's going to have to die in the first half-hour so they can spend a solid hour minimum on the Battle of Five Armies. The focus is so wholly distorted from the book's original perspective that it's kind of hard to keep following, or caring in some ways.
What are your thoughts? Am I being too harsh or unfair?
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I'm pretty sure that if the whole mess was worked over by a great editor it would be a solid movie and a lot of the changes would make sense and be interesting. As it stands though the good stuff is pretty heavily counterbalanced by a lot of pointless nonsense. Why is Orlando Bloom even in this movie? He gets like as much screen time as Bilbo but he doesn't add anything.
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This is basically what I already figured the movie would end up doing. Welp.
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The Hobbit movies were created 100% so people could see Smaug and trying to convince yourself they were intended to be quality in any other way is an exercise in delusion.
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MotK? Interested in movies? PREPOSTEROUS!
It's an old cliche that the book is better than the movie, though there are some exceptions. I've heard Fight Club fares better as a movie, and Jaws was CRAP as a book. Based on your description, this one misses out on a lot of good stuff because it just isn't close enough to the book which had plenty going for it. It's definitely a legit reason to dislike it. Many other books or even movie series have fallen apart or lost their charm because they haven't focused on their original strengths.
Similarly, I had an interest in watching 47 Ronin - even with Keanu Reeves as the lead - considering the original story's mix of honor, revenge, political intrigue, and subtle manipulation. That interest faded when I heard it was supposed to be a Matrix-style monster mash that dispensed with the original plot entirely for ACTION and EXCITEMENT.
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Honestly; considering how well they did Smaug I don't care if they went off the book. Going off the book is fine if it makes things better. [On the other hand I hate how they did the middle Harry Potter adaptations]
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It's an old cliche that the book is better than the movie, though there are some exceptions.
here's a thing i posted somewhere
It's almost guaranteed that a sequel will be viewed as worse than its original, if the original was well-received. People will say things like "it's missing some of the qualities I really liked in the first movie", when really what people are saying in their heads is "it isn't literally the first movie". Having something original pumped out gives people the standard of "I liked this" and those memories become locked in to how you view that piece of media. When a sequel comes out and it's anything different even if it tries to be the same, you go "hey that isn't the same thing I felt before" and reject it. The same thing happens when a book is made into a movie, and it's probably a more commonly heard complaint than sequelitis: "the book was better".
In regards to original movies that end up with sequels, they're often originally written as a standalone piece. When the creator works on a project that is really segmented into parts, the next movies flow so naturally that you often don't call them sequels. Like the Chamber of Secrets isn't the "sequel" to the Philosopher's Stone. Using the term "sequel" is almost always reserved for movies where they didn't actually write the first with the second, or even have a second in mind at all. Because of this writers have to go back and sort of try and find what people liked about the first movie and abnormally inject it into the second because "that's what people liked". The same goes for games.
You're also stuck if you copy the original too much, because then it becomes obvious and people spot that. This is a bigger problem in movies, since games being formulaic isn't necessarily a bad thing if the concentration isn't really on the story, then it's an activity people enjoy doing rather than just getting things fed to you. If you aren't writing a second movie together with the first, you're boned by doing things different and you're boned by doing things the same. People probably won't like it as much. What you can do is bring something entirely different to the table, and throw away the opportunities for people to compare the first and the second. You have to be able to get the essence out, and invest it in an area completely unlike the previous. Diversity is a fundamental key for good writing.
The main issue here is that sequels are called that because they have the same characters and general setting. People are attracted to sequels because they've associated their feelings about the first movie with the characters rather than the writing and other elements that made that movie what it was. If you just made entirely different movies, people won't get that instant attraction to it from the characters. It's also technically easy to use the same characters and everything for a new production. If a production studio doesn't have a solid reputation going for it, the most lazy and profitable option is to make sequels. If you're Studio Ghibli, you don't give a shit and just make whatever you want: people associate the movies largely with the quality the studio offers, not the characters. Sequels are unnecessary at that point. Same goes for what Studio Trigger has going on right now. Basically, the solution to sequels is either to write multiple parts at once to tie them together well, or to become so awesome and varied that you get a reputation for your work rather than the work getting a reputation.
Not that it necessarily applies, you just reminded me of this
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I agree fully with all of that. That very closely matches my opinions and views. I still didn't like Hobbit 2 much, but it wasn't because of any divergences from the book, it was because it was kind of bad. I stopped watching Game Of Thrones because it didn't diverge from the book enough and I don't have that much interest in seeing a story I've already read (although I hear it's diverging more and more and doing a decent job of it, so I should jump back on).
The Hobbit is also a weird case where the second part may not be a sequel to the first part, but it is a sequel to Peter Jackson's Lord Of The Rings, bringing with it all of the baggage of being a sequel despite the relationship the source materials have to each-other. That's almost certainly the biggest source of problems for the Hobbit series. The tone is being bent to try to fall in line with Lord Of The Rings, and a lot of heavy-handed stuff is being inserted to tie them together as clearly as possible.
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The tone is being bent to try to fall in line with Lord Of The Rings, and a lot of heavy-handed stuff is being inserted to tie them together as clearly as possible.
Aha! Yes, the Hobbit was a very different book from LotR, with a different tone. Trying to make them have the same tone will result in this dissonance.
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I haven't seen this travesty yet, but I've heard ALL the stories about backflipping acrobat/killing machine Legolas (in a book where he never appeared) and "I am become barrel, the destroyer of orcs" bombur. For someone who's read the book about 5 times these things are a bit hard to swallow.
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The jist of what I've gotten seems to be that everyone who either didn't read the book, or doesn't particularly care about it following the book, really liked the movie. I don't mean from this thread, I mean from my relatives who all went and saw the movie. But yeah it was funny how I was leaving the theatre and heard someone complaining about the "large degree of artistic license taken".
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The jist of what I've gotten seems to be that everyone who either didn't read the book, or doesn't particularly care about it following the book, really liked the movie. I don't mean from this thread, I mean from my relatives who all went and saw the movie. But yeah it was funny how I was leaving the theatre and heard someone complaining about the "large degree of artistic license taken".
That has been mostly consistent with my experience. Although I didn't give a shit if it followed the book or not and I still didn't like it very much (although I would've preferred it followed the tone of the book at least, but I think I still would've disliked it overall if it did).
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I haven't seen this travesty yet, but I've heard ALL the stories about backflipping acrobat/killing machine Legolas (in a book where he never appeared) and "I am become barrel, the destroyer of orcs" bombur. For someone who's read the book about 5 times these things are a bit hard to swallow.
Well the barrel moment was more for humor purposes. That's something you add that doesn't change the story; but makes the movie better.