Spoiler Alert - Click to Toggle

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I also can't get over the fact that they are traveling on foot probably hundreds of miles, and yet it wasn't until everyone gets trapped into a burning tree leaning over a cliff (that they ignite) does the wizard get the idea to tell a butterfly to go bring some big birds to carry them away so they don't have to walk the last hundred miles.

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I really liked the original Lord of the Rings movies, but this one just doesn't do it for me. It looks bad, the sound mix was nowhere near as good as the LOTR movies, everything seems forced, and it was just kinda blah.

2.5 out of 5
 

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Posted by Aaron Garman (Member # 1653) on 12-15-2012, 12:36 AM:
 
I found it enjoyable just because I love the characters, the original story, and most things Middle Earth.

That said, this one definitely lacks the polish of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Too much CGI and not enough tactile, real stuff that made the originals so nice to watch. I'm curious to see how the other two films are handled but this one just felt like Peter Jackson wasn't trying nearly as hard. Perhaps because he wasn't originally going to direct it in the first place.

AJG
 

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Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 12-15-2012, 04:10 AM:
 
Our first day with the flik wasn't the best .. and some walked out after watching it, saying that " it just wasn't it". For 169 minutes, some said it really dragged on.

Sounds like the Rankin-Bass, 1977 cartoon version for TV was a lot better.

Is this the sign of things to come for the rest of the year's releases?
 

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Posted by Geoff Jones (Member # 3668) on 12-15-2012, 10:48 AM:
 
I thought it was less than the sum of its parts (which is exactly how I felt about King Kong). I would love to see them release a shorter, tighter cut down the line, much the way they did the exact opposite with the LotR films.

I saw it in 2D at Harkins Northfield on their large Cine-Capri screen. It looked like 4K to me, but I don't know that for a fact. Presentation was good, but could have been a little louder.

Side note: I liked the preview for the WALL*E remake starring Tom Cruise.
 

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Posted by Aaron Garman (Member # 1653) on 12-15-2012, 11:02 AM:
 
Good point Geoff: the editing/pacing was not nearly as good as the theatrical LOTR films. My friends think I'm nuts, but I've always stood by the theatrical cuts of those being the best versions as they are paced so well compared to the at times bloated extended versions.

AJG
 

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Posted by Jonathan M. Crist (Member # 413) on 12-15-2012, 11:06 AM:
 
The idea of making 3 movies totaling 8 to 9 hours out of a single 250 page book was ridiculous to begin with. The result had to be padded and bloated and it most certainly was. Prehaps it should have been titled "The Hobbit: Bored Of The Rings".

But look on the bright side: parents will bring little children who will quickly lose interest. That translates to more trips to the concession stand.

As far as the 48 FPS is concerned, I am reminded of my initial reaction listening to the first compact discs as compared with their analog vinyl counterparts: clearer yet harsher. And the warning that they used to imprint on the inserts of the first compact discs also applies: "the high resolution of this technology may reveal limitations in the source recordings".
 

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Posted by David Buckley (Member # 2600) on 12-15-2012, 12:24 PM:
 
I saw Hobbit last night (RealD HFR).

Background: I've not seen any of the LoTR movies, never read anything by Tolkien, have no middle earth tendencies. Just went along to see what HFR looked like. Expecting the worst, based on comments here and elsewhere.

But, as a movie-going experience, I was blown away.

Knowing nothing of the story, I was hooked. Three hours that seemed to pass in a flash.

The movie just looked lovely. Breathtaking.

The biggest surprise was that it actually had humour in there; that I was not expecting.

Worth every cent of the admission. Though I well overdid the sweeties at concessions, thinking I'd be muching my way non-stop through boredom, failing to finish the first bag...
 

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Posted by Connor Wilson (Member # 6088) on 12-15-2012, 07:40 PM:
 
CINEMA: Cobb Village 12, Leesburg, VA
AUDITORIUM: 4
PRESENTATION: Barco 2K, Dolby 7.1, 2D
PRESENTATION PROBLEMS: Two boys giggling to the left of me for the first hour, and then covered their ears for the crappy sound mix.
RATING: Four (out of ten)

I don't know which sound mix was worse this year, "The Dark Knight Rises" or "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey". I seriously thought something was wrong with the sound system. When the Goblin King spoke, it sounded like his voice was coming out of all three stage speakers. I might have to see this in Atmos at Tyson's.

Also the movie was bloated and over-long. How are they seriously going to make a trilogy of films based solely on a 250-300 page book? I wish Guillermo del Toro was directing...
 

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Posted by Kurt Zupin (Member # 2751) on 12-16-2012, 01:37 AM:
 
I saw this last Monday when I did the IMAX build and screened it after. I waited until I had seen it again before posting my review just to make sure sleep deprivation didn't have any effect on my thoughts.

While I'm not a huge fan of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I did enjoy them. Some how in my life I've never seen the Animated Hobbit feature nor read the book. I went into this just knowing what I had heard from people for the past year or so and watching the Production diaries that PJ puts out. While I enjoyed the film, the one time viewing was all I'd need. As already mentioned, the first hour takes forever, however this was by far my favorite part of the movie. Martin Freeman is inspired casting for Bilbo, he plays the character with a quirk and charm that no many could of pulled off. Elijah Wood did not do this with Frodo, he felt wooden where Martin feels like the character he is portraying. I've always rather enjoyed the Shire and liked the scenes that took place there this time around.

Richard Armitage is great, I really enjoyed the BBC Robin Hood series where he portrayed Guy Gisborne. Some of the other Dwarfs are great, but most are just filler. From what I'm told they will all get their own chance to shine in the sequels.

The IMAX print for the first hour or so has some very washed out/over saturated scenes. I'm not sure if this from the scenes needing to be a little brighter for Digital release due to the lack of light out put but it makes some of the blacks gray and some of the greens almost neon green. Seems the color correction gets fixed after they hit Rivendale (Sure that's not right)

I've only seen about 20 minutes of the HFR and I'm on the fence, some instances it looked good, other's I was waiting to hear Benny Hill music play while they were moving. I'll need to sit down and watch it in the next couple months to get a full idea of it.

Overall 3.25/5
 

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Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 12-17-2012, 09:12 AM:
 
My primary interest wasn't in the movie itself. I guess regarding the story, I got exactly what I expected. So, I withheld judgement until I had seen this in both 24 and 48 fps. I've seen this 2.5 times now...

The first time was in 3D HFR using Dolby3D. This presentation started off on the wrong foot: First they moved us from one of their biggest houses to a smaller one. The bigger house has a dual Barco projector setup and I guess that one couldn't handle HFR (yet). The 3D trailers in front of the main feature were in plain 24 FPS off course, but the color wheel timing was off: All 3D trailers had their left and right frames mixed with a huge dose of flicker. When the HFR kicked in, it took about 5 seconds for the projector to adjust: The first seconds of the WB logo were messed up. All in all, it left a very amateurish first impression.

The second time was in "24 FPS Dolby3D" in the same theater, essentially using the same gear and comparable screen size. This way I had the best comparison between the HFR and non-HFR version.

The last time was in HFR 3D using RealD. This screening was much darker and had there was a huge amount of ghosting present. The transition between 24 FPS and 48 FPS was entirely smooth although. I didn't watch this presentation until the end, because frankly, I had my fair share of The Hobbit already...

In both Dolby3D presentations (HFR and 24 fps), the picture looked extremely vivid and sharp. Maybe even a bit too realistic, especially for a fantasy movie. The fact that you're looking at just a 2K picture was merely revealed by the subtitles and credits in this case.

Having seen both the HFR and normal 3D version, I can say that much of the "TV/documentary/soap opera" look is also present in the normal (3D) version. Actually, the darker RealD presentation in HFR I've watched looked more "cinematic" than the brighter normal 3D projection. The 24 fps version doesn't suffer from the "fast forward/Benny Hill" look, it is obvious that they've added extra motion blur in post here. I guess the "fast forward look" is the result of the motion blur in those scenes not being adjusted to our own vision, it probably exceeds our own vision and thus is perceived as being sped-up.

The HFR is noticable from the very first seconds. Even the Warner Brothers, New Line Cinema and MGM logos look much more fluently animated in HFR. Also, there is no judder visible in any of the exorbitant camera moves. Actually, you can now even see unstable camera moves in several shots, that would otherwise be perceived as judder or would've been almost unnoticed due to the motion blur.

Personally, I think HFR is a step forward in creating more realism and a better cinema experience overall. But it is a tool that needs to be used with great care. Additionally, I guess we still need to learn how to adjust shutter speed during recording and how to apply motion blur in post production, especially for close-ups, to avoid this "fast forward" effect in future releases.

Many people are claiming that the CGI in this movie is obvious and looks fake. Well, I watched pieces of the "old" trilogy on BluRay recently and those effects looked much more fake and "green-screeny" than the ones in The Hobbit. I guess it is often difficult to say how things from fantasy movies would look in real life... Gollum, for example, looks far more CGI in LOTR than in The Hobbit.

In my opinion, most of the movie looks great and sometimes even breathtaking. It's got all the ingredients of a real movie epic, just the story falls flat.

I've read the original LotR novels about 15 years ago and I liked most of the original movie trilogy. It probably was already stretched to the maximum bearability back then, but they had about 1300 pages worth of material. Although I've never read The Hobbit, I fully agree with the critics when they say that creating a fully blown trilogy out of 250-300 pages worth of material is really pushing it, probably right over the edge. As a whole, I got what I expected and story-wise, and I didn't expect very much.

I don't know how that neat "Spoiler" tag works, so I do it this way:

Spoiler alert below this invisible line:

quote:

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I also can't get over the fact that they are traveling on foot probably hundreds of miles, and yet it wasn't until everyone gets trapped into a burning tree leaning over a cliff (that they ignite) does the wizard get the idea to tell a butterfly to go bring some big birds to carry them away so they don't have to walk the last hundred miles.

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quote: Marcel Birgelen

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Personally, I think HFR is a step forward in creating more realism and a better cinema experience overall. But it is a tool that needs to be used with great care. Additionally, I guess we still need to learn how to adjust shutter speed during recording and how to apply motion blur in post production, especially for close-ups, to avoid this "fast forward" effect in future releases.

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quote: Brad Miller

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It was as if they went out of their way to write all of the stars from Lord of the Rings into this script, even if it wasn't necessary.

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quote: Brad Miller

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the sound mix was nowhere near as good as the LOTR movies

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quote: Kurt Zupin

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Wasn't this one of the key reasons he wanted to do it in HFR 48fps? To get rid of the motion blur and give a clear showing of his movie? Why shoot a movie in the format just to go in during post and make it not look like it was shot in 48fps? That seems like a giant waste of money, the sped up effect is a by product of the process, you don't want it? Then don't shoot it that way.

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quote: Marcel Birgelen

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That was one of my points too, but that's also a problem in the last LotR part, isn't it?

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quote: Frank Cox

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But this is one of those movies that would be twice as good if it was half as long. The story rarely gets into gear, and there is a lot of extra (and irrelevant) stuff that's dragged in to stretch the runtime.

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That is exactly how I feel about it. I certainly was no fan of the LOTR films, but have to admit that they work and tell the story well although I don't like the particular visual style and casting.
The Hobbit is a simple book, much closer to fairy tales than LOTR, and it has its own ironic charm. Now Jackson tried to make it into a ten-hour epic and killed the story's appeal.

Now I don't expect a movie to be "true to the book" because the goal is to tell the story as a motion picture, it has to stand on its own feet. But why do you make a Hobbit film when you do not understand what the book was about and why for 75 years people have reading it again and again? At 300 pages, there was no need to compress and shorten things like with LOTR.

I'm not sure whether the screenplay for the Hobbit should be filed under rape or homicide of a preexisting story, but every change and addition made by Jackson and his collaborators is for the worse. They messed up motivations, dialog lines and added nothing but video game action and their stupid "super orc". It's not enough to get the heroes up on trees with deadly wolves and orcs attacking them, no, let's put the trees close to a five mile cliff so we can do another domino effect - ex-ci-ting! Ghost-writen by Wiley E. Coyote, I suppose. All CGI monsters share the same cheap game look, only Gollum stands out as a great performance.

The dwarves look like a bunch of village idiots shrunk to 2/3 size, Jackson did not grasp the concept that Tolkien created, there is just no moment of dignity like the character of Gimli brought it to LOTR.

Peter Jackson is not a very inspired director, and while the LOTR films were powered and driven by the story and good actors, The Hobbit proves that he cannot even direct a simple dinner table scene. Every second rate studio director of the 1940s would have been ashamed to mess it up like this.

To me, the Gollum/Bilbo riddle scene was the best part of the movie, my respect to CGI artists and to Andy Serkis who played Gollum by Motion Capture.

IMHO the whole movie feels bloated and like it was made from LOTR leftovers, good actors like Freeman, Blanchett, Lee and Weaving are totally wasted and cannot save it. Without a doubt, The Hobbit will make tons of money. I have no desire to watch more of this, especially not in cheesy HFR/3D directed by someone who believes he could "improve" on JRRT.
 

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Posted by Stu Jamieson (Member # 4626) on 01-05-2013, 07:53 PM:
 
It's probably a blessing that the 48fps HFR incarnation of The Hobbit has received a limited release as this technology could have seriously dented the box office takings of J.R.R. Tolkien's seminal story. It turns out that HFR is a very unforgiving medium. Anything that is actually real (like the NZ landscapes) looks incredibly real but anything that is fake (like CGI or any time artificial light is used) looks really really fake. You'll see some panoramic vista shot of our dwarvish company wandering through the NZ wilderness looking splendid and then it will cut to a character detail which is clearly using artificial lights with coloured gels and it looks like they've just jumped from a lush nature documentary to the set of The Wizard of Oz - it's very jarring. It looks like one of those "making of" featurettes you see on TV, with all the pre post-production on-set footage. The effect is a film which looks superfluously choreographed and "acted". If special effects blockbusters intend continuing with this technology then a serious lift in the quality of production design and CGI will be required to fool the unfeigned eye of the HFR camera. The future of HFR may well be in its selective use, much like IMAX and, indeed, 3D. There certainly seems to be a place to use it and a place not to use it. There's a potentially wonderful nature documentary waiting to be made with this technology.

An unfortunate by-product of HFR is that it lays bare the significant problems in the script and pacing of the film, problems which are much easier to overlook in the more enjoyable (and conventional) 24fps release. The film has so many back-story distractions that the central narrative, at times, fades into the background and you wish they'd just get on with it. It seems Jackson has elected to dispense with the theatrical cut and head straight to his "Director's Cut".

The film is littered with Hollywood-style falling down holes and helter skelter sliding and tumbling about which quickly becomes tiresome and serves to slow the pace down even further. Jackson has succeeded in transforming a classic story into an utterly conventional Hollywood blockbuster which even includes turning poor Bilbo a into "Kickass"-style public defender by the end. Ingenuity no longer matters it seems, what matters is holding your own against an orc. These things seemed to be there for no other reason than to inject action into the proceedings, but they cheapen the film overall and they look more than a little ridiculous. Jackson would have done well to stick to the brevity of Tolkien's version of events.

Jackson was justified in revising The Lord of the Rings story as that book required substantial changes just to make the film project feasible; and he was highly successful in distilling that story whilst preserving its Tolkienistic essence. But the small tome of The Hobbit had no such restrictions. With The Hobbit Jackson displays an irrational compulsion to play out every detail visually, no matter how small, and is even so presumptuous as to invent an extra villain. In doing so he changes the tone of the story, seemingly in an effort to improve upon Tolkien's work and bring it into line with his own. This is a serious and arrogant misstep. And it's unnecessary as The Hobbit fits just fine with LOTR even as a children's book; indeed Tolkien's infantilisation of Bilbo contributes significantly to the transition of his overall character arc across the Ring anthology. The inescapable result is that Jackson has turned a thrift book into a laborious movie.

The "Riddles in the Dark" sequence with Gollum, however, is masterful and is one of the few sequences where Jackson truly nails Tolkien's vision. I suppose Jackson (and Andy Serkis) had a lot of practice to get this right. And the Council of Elrond sequence nicely draws a direct line of continuity to Jackson's Ring films. There are certainly some gem-like qualities to the film but it would take a savage edit to crystalise them. Perhaps the directors cut of this film will be an economic, pruned down cut of the story? (Of course, this is fanciful thinking.)

6 out of 10
 

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Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 01-08-2013, 11:48 AM:
 
I agree Stu - the Riddles in the Dark was the standout scene in the movie, not only for the reasons you pointed out, but also for the Atmos mix to really shine - the disembodied voice of Gollum as it echo's around the scene/auditorium was incredible. The Atmos mix though on AMC Tyson's ETX screen though was so fricki' LOUD that it really didn't impress me when all it did was create a giant mush of assaultive sound.

the presentation of the HFR version at Regal Kingstowne 16 was outstanding - the clarity and sharp as a tack imagery the sped up look though
 

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Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 01-08-2013, 04:03 PM:
 
ETX screens are always too loud. That's AMC's policy, believe it or not.
 

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Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 01-08-2013, 04:48 PM:
 
Atmos made it even louder
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-08-2013, 09:40 PM:
 
Well I'm no LOTR fan and had (and still have) no interest in seeing this one, but moviegoers' reviews -- the ones who count -- have been very positive. I will agree that the movie was damn loud, but I feel that way about every movie with a lot of "battles" in it. Those battle soundtracks get overdone every time. (The worst one ever, so far, was the most recent Transformers movie -- at least this one had some breaks in the mayhem.)

Anyway, we decided not to play this on the break because of the 3-week minimum. We waited until Week 2 when WB said they would let us have it for two weeks. As it turned out, it could have easily gone three weeks.

I would guess our audiences would give it four out of five stars on the average. Some people were absolutely giddy with delight when they exited and we had quite a number of repeat customers. And some people who were truly bummed out that the next chapter is almost a whole year away.
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 01-09-2013, 02:24 AM:
 
Funny so many people here are complaining the movie was too loud. Was it really as loud compared to other action movies? Mike compared it to one of those Transformers movie turds...yet those had lousy mixes too.

A GOOD mix can be played ridiculously loud if the acoustics are good, quality speakers are used and the room is carefully tuned by someone who understands the art of it and isn't just dialing up the EQ like a robot to the RTA. (Same thing for people who let the processor auto-EQ itself.)

The bottom line is that a bad mix just can't be played as loud on even the best setups. The Hobbit was not an example of good sound mixing. Atmos can help directionality and such, but it can't save a poor mix.
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-09-2013, 02:41 AM:
 
I wasn't griping about the loudness as much as about the unpleasantness of what I was hearing. I didn't watch the movie so I don't know about the sound mix, but I remember keeping the office door shut most of the time just to keep the racket out.

Kind of like you can be hearing the best stereo system in the world, but it' just making noise if it's not playing the kind of music you like.
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 01-09-2013, 03:08 AM:
 
Oh I don't know about that. I can appreciate even rap music if it was mixed well and is being played on a good sound system.

But seriously, assuming for just a moment that rap music is actually mixed well. When was the last time anyone played RAP on a good sound system? Then again, has it EVER happened?
 

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Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 01-09-2013, 05:18 AM:
 
o hellz yeah it haz, b! u thro on sum 2pac or mebbe sum biggie in my ride and ur eyeballz wont be able 2 focus cuz da bizzase is so deep and melting ur mind. as i roll down da street peeps turn on der lights an thro thingz at me cuz dey no my sound is tite. dey jelly 4 sho na mean? it like u strapped 2 da word biggest vibrtor hook up 2 some 61,400 volt 32,768 watt ampz wit da barracuda powa amp u b shakin all nite even afta all da music is dun u no wat im sayin? wat u think ur sound system iz betta? ya aight u keep belevin dat cuz u aint no gud sound till you been in my ride mofo.
 

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Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 01-11-2013, 08:59 PM:
 
^ that's racist ...

quote: Mike Blakesley

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I wasn't griping about the loudness as much as about the unpleasantness of what I was hearing. I didn't watch the movie so I don't know about the sound mix, but I remember keeping the office door shut most of the time just to keep the racket out.

Kind of like you can be hearing the best stereo system in the world, but it' just making noise if it's not playing the kind of music you like.

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Posted by Scott Jentsch (Member # 1681) on 01-22-2013, 12:04 PM:
 
I finally had the chance to see The Hobbit in 3D, HFR, and Atmos at the Kerasotes ShowPlace ICON Theatre in Chicago on Sunday.

It was the second time that I saw it; the first time being in 2D at a local nothing-special-but-mostly-decent theater in December.

I came away from the first showing somewhat disappointed by the movie. I'm a fan of the Lord of the Rings movies and of the original written material, but I'm not walking around in funny ears and speaking dwarvish, so I expected to enjoy The Hobbit.

However, the movie suffers from the lack of an editor. There is so much material in it that should have been cut and included in an "extended edition" release instead. One can only think that these were intentional decisions because of the upcoming installments, and perhaps the additional characters and scenes will show their worth later on. I was much happier coming out of the second showing, so maybe it's just a matter of letting go of the source material and enjoying the story as it's presented in movie form.

My first viewing was intentionally 2D. I didn't want to deal with 3D (not the biggest fan), and the comments about the HFR technology made me want to see the movie and not have to be affected by all that. However, I definitely was curious about the HFR and the Atmos sound system, so it took this long to schedule a 4-hour round trip to Chicago and back.

The theater now has two Atmos installations, and the manager I spoke with on the phone said that this theater (#6) was the smaller of the two, but only by a small amount. It had a 48' wide screen, 10 ceiling speakers (2 rows of 5), with 6 rear speakers, and 7 on each side wall.

The 3D was RealD, and I was surprised that the screen was not as shiny as I've seen other RealD installations up here in Milwaukee (mostly Marcus).

I have to say that I was very impressed by the quality of the 3D work on The Hobbit! I put it at the same level as Avatar and Hugo, with some obvious effort having been put in to use focus and depth to enhance the experience. The image was also suitably bright, and didn't make wish that it was brighter or that dark scenes were being crushed or highlights were being muted. Since I'm not used to watching 3D, I did have to close my eyes periodically to give them a rest, which is what I remember doing during Avatar as well.

The Atmos sound system was great! The Riddles in the Dark scene was excellent use of the ceiling speakers, as well as what sounded like a combination of the front ceiling and front side speaker to cause sounds to come from the upper corner of the auditorium. Other scenes had some ambient sounds that opened up the sound field as well. Bass in the theater was well-done, without being boomy but still providing some heft. I wouldn't have minded some extra gut-thumping bass for the stone giant scene as well as a few others, though.

Lastly, this show was in HFR and I was bracing myself for the artifacts that have been mentioned here and in other places. I expected to see goofy sets, bad makeup effects, and odd movement (speedups), but I saw none of that. I did notice that pans looked less jumpy, so I'm pretty sure that HFR was in play here (I did verify with a manager to make sure that this was an HFR show), and only once did I notice something that resembled a speed-up when they were showing a long shot of a grassy meadow and hillside that stuttered a little bit.

Otherwise, I didn't notice anything bad about the image. Maybe I'm not sensitive to its effects because I haven't been watching film running through projectors at 24 fps as long as others, but if this is what HFR brings to the table, I say bring it on.
 

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Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 01-25-2013, 11:39 PM:
 
Scott: you didn't find out how many added speakers are behind the screen - one thing I noticed on the Atmos mix, that the Trolls that threaten to eat Bilbo and the Dwarves, their voices are placed above the Dwarves dialogue level giving the illusion of the height of the Trolls in relationship to their 'meal'.
 

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