I was looking forward to Cats! When the trailer dropped, I was giddy with how ridiculous it looked. People bad mouthed the CGI designs, which I can see, but I figured I’d get used to it.
I love musicals, so I was excited to see a new musical on the screen, especially from an established property. I knew very little about it, except some cat names, and the song Memories.
But most importantly, I saw the movie Six Degrees of Separation, based on a play of the same name, with Will Smith in one of his first film roles. Why are they related? Because there is a long discussion about the musical cats being made into a movie, how it could not be done, and with Ian McKellen‘s character trying to get a role in the film.
It took 26 years, but he finally got that role!
Cat Boobs
Alright, so in this movie about cats, there is kind of a plot?
It takes place in the alley’s of London, where every year, these cats gather together and do a singing competition, where one of the cats is chosen one! The chosen cat gets to arise into the heavens and be reborn. There is a lot they could do about that plot if they wanted to, like questioning motives and stuff. Maybe something like Logan’s Run!
But they don’t, we and they accept all of this. We get to be told their story, because a new cat, Victoria (Francesca Hayward) gets thrown into their ally from a bag, abandoned on the same night of their festival. So we get some narrator cat Munkustrap (Robbie Fairchild) to take her under the wing and introduce people.
These cats are all about their names and having a purpose in their lives. There is a cat for a very specific focus, and I guess that is it. Only some cats want to be reborn though, and for what reason is mostly unclear.
Anyways, a lot of cats get together to sing about themselves, and one cat, Macavity (Idris Elba) is a bad guy cat who wants to eliminate the competition so only he remains.
Assumption: I will get used to these CGI looks for the cats and maybe the trailers weren’t just super polished.
Reality: Oh my goodness, these CGI looking cats look terrible. Why did they not do cat costumes!?
Yes, it is really distracting/off putting. I can see a lot of work done on most of their faces, but the rest of them, neck down, just feel like poor animation for the most part. When they are doing elaborate dance numbers, taps, or flips…it does nothing for me. I don’t know if there are real people behind them doing that. They might be! They probably are! But it also feels like it could be completely animated and just a face, which makes it zero levels of impressive.
It makes sense that the main song people know is Memory. It is probably the only song in the entire musical that isn’t very repetitive and full of a cat’s name over and over. Wanna know which song is sung by Rum Tum Tugger? The one with his name a whole lot. Shit, Pokemon execs probably saw Cats and thought them saying their name a lot was a good idea and launched the biggest multi-media franchise of all time.
This is a movie that is just a lot of introductions, and eventually it ends. It is visually appalling to watch not amazing CGI cat bodies dancing in front of pretty bad CGI backgrounds.
And one final note, how many times do they sing Memory in the musical live version? I feel like it heard it three times, or maybe one of those times was extra long. It did not have an amazing impact on me at the end when I already heard the thing 40 minutes prior. Such a strange decision.
Easily one of the worst films of the year, and a shocking (because of my naivety and love of musicals) one at that.
Wow, how do you introduce a tale as old as time? Something as true as it can be? You just gotta speak from the heart.
I do love the animated Beauty and the Beast film. It celebrates intelligence! It has one of my favorite introduction songs. Gaston is fascinating, with his own great song. But I have always had issues for it. So I better get it off my chest now:
The main takeaway from Beauty and the Beast is bullshit. The prince was punished for not seeing someone’s true beauty, so he was turned into an ugly creature. To learn his lesson, he needs to fall in love and be loved in return, with a nice kiss too, before he turns 21. (Which of course means he was punished as a kid, joy). So how does it eventually happen? By getting the perfect person in his life. She is smart, kind, but also the hottest chick in the village. To really drive the point home, she should have been not matched the perfect standard of beauty. It is kind of crap. Shrek and Shallow Hal end up driving the point home better.
Okay, no more of that. I also appreciate that Gaston is set up as a typical old school Disney Prince, who just wants love because they are beautiful, so it sort of shows Disney going away from their older film tropes.
What I am really getting at is that I am excited for the live action version of Beauty and the Beast. I was not excited for the live action Cinderella, because the plot of Cinderella is shit and celebrates obedience to mean people and doing chores until a prince can take you away. Fuck that.
Give that bitch a book. Bitches love books.
In some nondescript village in old timey France, there was a castle. None of this is Paris, we know that for certain. There was a prince (Dan Stevens), who lived in the castle, and he was mean. He was so mean to some haggy bitch, that the haggy bitch turned him into a really hairy dude and all of his servants into utensils and shit. What in the fuck!
Now years later, they have almost given up hope at becoming human again. The Beast has to not just fall in love, but have someone love him back. They are depressed, cold, and a spell was put on the area for people to forget about their existence. So that doesn’t help either.
Thankfully, there is a really freaky girl in that poor provincial nearby town. Belle (Emma Watson), a girl who was trained to use that brain of hers, an inventor, a girl who likes books and is somehow still decent looking. Some shit goes down with her dad (Kevin Kline). He finds himself locked up in this castle forever. Thankfully, their horse was also trained to use its brain and he is able to take her to the castle and HOLY FUCK, A BEAST!
Using that goddamn brain of hers, she is able to trick her dad into taking his place, planning to escape in the future. You know, because she is so youthful. But then she falls in love. Oh, way too early. A lot of strife happens. But after a good old fashioned food orgy, she starts to love the place, and thinks about calling it home. Plus, it can clean itself, with the magical slave item army and all.
Gaston’s face cannot be shown because Gorgon Reviews is not a big enough website.
Remember Cinderella? That film I already mentioned? Again, it was okay. It was colorful. Shit story. Good dresses. A terrible idea for a first run. It was like the Universal Monsters series trying to give us Dracula Untold as the start of their shared Universe. But now they gotta get The Mummy to save their asses. Yes, I recognize we have had a few other live action films since Cinderella, but this is the first one since then to be about a Disney Princess!
Beauty and the Beast delivers, and it delivers hard.
Of course, we get the best parts from the original. Bonjour is fascinating, with a village of real people, and we still get the “Please Let Me Through!” line. Be Our Guest is an explosion of extravagance. The Gaston song starts off awkward for me, but grows into its own, feels like a giant party, and has a few surprises. (Although, the chorus of that song is also almost impossible to understand)
But we also get a whole lot new! An expanded introduction, more backstory on the Beast and Belle’s lives before the film and their parents, bigger connections to the castle and the village and why it is a big surprise, Belle being a stronger female character, and more. AND! Alan Goddamn Menken, the Disney musical genius, came back to rewrite some of his songs from two decades ago, plus a few new ones. Three at that. Day in the Sun and Evermore are great additions to the film and Evermore had me crying. And don’t worry, the Human Again song added to the animated film does not take place in this movie.
I am annoyed that at the timing of this review, I have to wait a week to hear some of the newer songs again, just to see if I like them as much as I am writing.
Beauty and the Beast is not just a remake. It is also a re imagining. With more backstories, more lines for side yet important characters, everyone feels more fleshed out. Even Gaston and especially LeFou. We get some good call backs, and good changes to match the times. It was an incredible job done by the team, who treated their source material with respect, and really matched what made the first film great 26 years ago.
Ian McKellen and Michael Fassbander have an interesting thing in common. Fassbender has played two different roles that McKellen has more famously played before him. They were both Magneto and they were both Macbeth.
This is all technically irrelevant, since Fassbender has never played Sherlock Holmes. But Benedict Cumberbatch has played him! And they are basically the same person.
This is a bad intro, in that I am now going to hope that Ian McKellen will play a second role that Cumberbatch had famously played before him. We can’t see McKellen as an older Alan Turing, unfortunately. That’d be preferable. Honestly, most of Cumberbatch’s roles are not super famous, so we might have to wait for McKellen to play a very old Julian Assange. I assume time travel will be involved to get this done.
Either way, that nonsense aside, I think Mr. Holmes is the first time anyone has looked at the Holmes character, super old and near death. The only one attempting to give a closer look into the man behind the myths, the man without a Watson.
They meant a literal closer look of course.
Sherlock Holmes (McKellen) is now very old, in his 90s, and living far away from Baker Street. Watson had finally left him after getting married, leaving Sherlock to continue work on his own. But something happened that caused him to retire from detective-ing altogether. He instead wanted to move to the coast, in a nice house alone, to become a beekeeper and read books all day long.
He isn’t alone though. No, he is too old to be alone. He has a housekeeper (Laura Linney) and her son (Milo Parker) living with them to take care of the day to day needs. And of course he has regular doctor (Roger Allam) visits for his ever declining health. Did you know he is losing his memory? He can’t remember simple things, such as the names of people he used to interact with or even just interacted with. He even forgot the boys name at one point!
Thanks to his failing memory, he has to do things before it goes away. Like stalling, with plot of him going to Japan to meet basically a stranger (Hiroyuki Sanada) to eat a flower to help with his memory. And finally reading all those damn books that Watson wrote about him, turning him into a caricature of his actual self. He sets off to write one of the famous mysteries down in his own words, one without all the pomp and circumstances, because he himself can’t remember how it ended, just that it was important. All the while passing on some wisdom to the boy in his home and hopefully stop being such a smart asshole to everyone he meets.
I assume he is actually telling the kid about his inherent X-gene and how to exploit others.
If anything, Mr. Holmes gets points for trying something different with a character who has had dozens of film and TV iterations. We don’t even have a Watson in this film! No Watson at all! It is just one guy losing his mind. I can always appreciate it when they take an established work or character and give it a completely new flavor.
That being said, despite its originality the story ended up being a weak point. There were two stories being told through flashbacks while Holmes is hanging out in his cottage trying to remember them. The Alzheimer based plot allowed for things to take their time and force the stories to pace themselves out. It just felt lazy though watching it. It is not interesting to watch someone slowly remember events, especially if the events aren’t life threatening in any way. Memento was about a guy slowly remembering events, and it was a well done crime thriller. This one the stakes were no where near as high, so it made me wonder what the point was.
The good news is that it was for the most part well acted. Everyone played their parts well, even though it felt like McKellen was literally dying in front of the camera as the movie went on. Playing an old and enfeebled person will not get you on the cover of any magazines. It was also a gorgeous movie with its set pieces, costumes and cinematography. It just also featured a mostly forgettable story with only a bit of the wit I have come to know and love from a made up detective character.
Ding dong the mother fucking witch is dead. That is how I am starting to feel about this franchise. In college, I wanted to do a semester abroad in New Zealand because it is a beautiful country, but now I think I have seen enough of it.
Everyone knows the Lord of the Rings are incredible, so I won’t mention them. I was really excited with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, it was a bit longer, more CGI, but hey, let’s return to Middle Earth.
I completely hated The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug. It was far too long, and it was a completely filler movie. I mean. FUCK. It didn’t end with the Death of Smaug. The obvious end point at least. It was just a long tease that made me bored and tired.
So, here we are, at The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies. Two things of note come up with the last part. First off, I really hate the title. I booed so hard and long once they announced the title change. It was originally The Hobbit: There and Back Again, a title taken from the book of his journey. Great title. This one is as lame as The Desolation Of Smaug (given that Smaug doesn’t get desolated).
Two, this one is going to be a lot more exciting than the second film. That much is certain. It is pretty easy to do when you leave like one cool aspect into the second film and delay the rest for the ending. The third film gives the end of the dragon and the big battle, so it will be super awesome. But at what cost? A shitty second movie. Given the connectedness of these films, it is important to look at them individually and as parts of a whole. So I don’t know if I can really enjoy this movie as much knowing that it was essentially delayed a year because the movies were broken up from two films into three films.
I think I am allowed to be a little biased and peeved going into this film, as I believe the second movie was 160 minutes of my life wasted.
But this one has tiny men on rams! Yay rams!
Okay so. Battle of Five Armies. Before that, we got a Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch) to kill. And then they do that. Moving onnn.
Humans are all pissed off because their water town is destroyed. They have lost everything, their wealth, their homes. They need a place to go. Making Bard (Luke Evans) their de facto leader, they decide that they kind of want to head to the near by Dwarven stronghold for safety. And to get some of that gold that was promised to them.
Speaking of people who want to go to the stronghold, the wood elves are dicking around too. Apparently there is some priceless treasure in there that they want back. And that is all. A bunch of the elves are played by these people (Lee Pace, Evangeline Lilly, Orlando Bloom). Hugo Weaving and Cate Blanchett are elves too, but they are in another part of the story. I don’t really understand what they are doing with Christopher Lee and Ian McKellen, so I won’t talk about it.
Oh yeah. Dwarves. Like Thorin (Richard Armitage). He is now a real King because he has a real Castle, but he is after his special stone and is kind of going mad. Mad enough to go to war with the humans and the wood elves. But also, the orcs that no one know are coming. And Bilbo (Martin Freeman) is kind of just hanging around.
There are also non Dwarven actors, like Ryan Gage and Stephen Fry. But also all those Dwarves? I still don’t feel like tagging most of them. Just Billy Connolly, Aidan Turner, and Dean O’Gorman. I think I am done talking about the plot. And actors.
BUT WHO IS THE FIFTH ARMY?
Orlando – “I heard you got a role in another franchise. Lucky. This one is finally owner.”
Luke – “Dude, no one is going to watch the Monster Avengers movies.”
Yeahhh, dead dragon and big army fights!
And some of that was really cool. Well, the dragon death felt kind of rushed and awkward. Like, somehow, the cartoon version of The Hobbit had a more intense dragon death scene than this movie. It kind of just happened, exactly as one would expect too. So that was actually disappointing. Just that it ended so quick and easy, they could have made the death way more awesome and also, you know…put it in the fucking second movie?
Now the army fight was pretty bamf. So that is good. Entertaining fight scenes, although it was hard to follow just how many humans were actually in the war and how the battle grounds were laid out. You just kind of had to go with it and accept it, although I doubt it was planned out. Martin Freeman still made a good Bilbo, so that was good. But of course, the focus wasn’t really on him this whole movie, despite the title. He gets super pushed to the side.
The love story is not as bad as the second one I guess, because of all the fighting going on during it.
And as I said above, I have no idea what the point of the necromancer story line was. Like, they resolved it I guess, but it was totally unexplained and felt incredibly pointless. It was really shitty.
Overall, that makes this movie just okay. Not the weakest of the series, maybe the best. Hard to say. None of these match the LOTR quality and I don’t think that was their goal. But I can’t help but feel the entire franchise was a let down. I haven’t bought any of them, because I know I want to wait for the cool extended package with all of them bundled. But also, will I actually watch any of these again? Probably not. I will probably watch the cartoon Hobbit more.
This is the seventh film of the franchise. SEVENTH. X-Men: Days Of Future Past. When I first heard about this, I was excited. It was a very ambitions plot and storyline to go for, time travel tends to do that. Couple that with the fact that X-Men: First Class was actually decent meant the series might be headed off in a certain way.
But you know what was terrible? The advertisements for this movie. By having two time lines of cast, we have a shit ton of characters, and Fox decided the best way to advertise it was to give every character its own…thing, whatever. So, magazines would have 30 unique covers, or 30 individual character posters, or whatever. No giant cast pictures, no, just an overabundance of individual character shit.
Here is one of the real reasons this bugs me. Anna Paquin. It was stated a long time ago, in the year of 2013, that she was basically cut from the movie. Then it became a rumor. Then it became true and then changed to say that she would just be a cameo. Just a cameo? And still getting full ad treatment? Boo. That is almost worst than the 47 Ronin ad issues, because she is supposed to be a bigger character.
Finally, in the credits, her name was higher than many other people in the film. Because she is more famous? Than Ellen Page? Fuck that. She was in the original X-Men movies then a shitty TV show, while Page has had a big lucrative film career. It is just nonsensical, and most of this doesn’t matter for the actual movie.
No, but these robots matter. AW YEAH SENTINELS!
In the near future, everything is bad, lots are dead. Mutants. Humans who would give birth to future mutants. The sentinels have destroyed it all. Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) has an unexplained ability to also let people go back in time with their consciousness to their body and like, change the future. But only for a few days, maybe a week. This is long enough to help their band of mutants survive and run, but not long enough to fix it.
No, they’d have to go back to the 1970’s, before Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) (who’s actual mutant power seems to be very limber leg maneuvers) kills the creator of the Sentinels (Peter Dinklage). But the process to send back a consciousness would tear apart a brain. Unless of course, the brain can heal itself. Hmm.
Enter Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) ready to travel back in time, convince past Magneto (Michael Fassbender) and past Xavier (James McAvoy) to work together, change the future, and fix their stupidity.
I will only advertise one character per picture, as per movie tradition.
Yay Sentinels! Like a lot a folks in my age bracket, the Sentinels were one of the first X-Men plots I was exposed to, thanks to the first two episodes of the X-Men Animated TV Series on Fox. Shit, that is where I learned most of my basic plot lines, and why to fear the motherfucking Juggernaut. They were fascinating to see and I love the changes made to them. They were TERRIFYING and kept the viewers on the edge of the seat.
What else rocked? Most of the movie. Sure, some plot elements could have been explained better. But the Xavier/Magneto back story was great, a good continuation from First Class. Speaking of dickheads, Fassbender as Magneto is a huge one, and it was awesome to see. The best part is, you can easily relate to where he is coming from and he isn’t just a mindless villain.
Speaking of even more awesome, Fox’s adaption of Quicksilver was so entertaining. He didn’t have the bigger role in the movie, but whenever he was on screen, you paid attention to him and no one else. They really went all out to make him stand out, kind of a big middle finger to Marvel, daring them to raise the bar in Avengers: Age of Ultron.
To make this long review a bit shorter, here is the quicker analysis: So many characters, but outside of tiny cameos, they all were great and wonderful. Special effects and action was good. Story and plot was good. Holy shit, give me Apocalypse.
Did this 100% fit the continuity issues between a few of the movies? Heck no, but at least it gave it a good try and an entertaining one to boot.
Last time, when I reviewed The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, I didn’t get to see it in the 48 FPS 3D version until about a week later. But this time, times are a changing, and I can talk a bit about that too. I ended up liking the super detailed high frame rate for the first film, so I am of course excited to see right away this time.
But I am also stoked for a second reason. Now I don’t have to watch The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug twice within a week in theaters. I don’t care how good it is. Ain’t got time or money for that now. I don’t like to watch these LOTR movies a lot anyways. Once in theaters, and once eventually an extended version.
This picture does not do justice to how BAMF he actually looked on screen, 3D, 48 fps.
Plot outlines for this seems dumb. I assume everyone knows the story?
This movie starts out with Bilbo (Martin Freeman), Gandalf (Ian McKellen), and the Dwarven friends (Ricahrd Armitage, Ken Stott, and more) on the run, orcs still chasing them. Some stuff happens, and Gandalf has to leave again to go figure out some necromancer stuff.
This causes the gang to get in lots of trouble. Trouble with spiders, and then the wood elves (Where we meet Legolas (Orlando Bloom), and Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly), who totally gets the hots for a Dwarf. Odd!). Some escapes happen, they eventually get to Laketown, meet Bard (Luke Evans), sort of help an uprising, and get their way to the mountain! After all, they only have so much time to get there, before the secret entrance is no longer revealed.
Then we finally meet a dragon, Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch), who just wants to get his sleep on, but bitches be burglin’, so he has to get his rage on.
“Damn it Bilbo, I will not draw you like a french girl. Stop asking!” – Smaug
The term desolation might not mean what it used to mean. With a title like that, and if you already know The Hobbit story, you then know when this movie is going to stop at.
But you’d be wrong.
After seeing this movie in theaters, I left with an overall bad taste in my mouth, definitely something I didn’t see coming, and rather unfortunate, due to the size and nature of this movie.
I should reiterate, I don’t care what the the book story is, and the sideplots they added from other source material to make these movies. More interesting plot lines never hurt anyone. But this movie is called The Hobbit and subtitled The Desolation of Smaug. A better, more descriptive title would have been Legolas Kicks Ass, and then they meet Smaug. Which is all this movie felt like to me.
Sure, there was a cool spider scene. The barrel escape was nifty. But plot line wise with this film, you would find a hard time figuring out what actually gets accomplished. Once they introduce Legolas, they almost forget about the other characters, and focus on how amazing he and Tauriel the other elf are at fighting. It becomes just a Legolas show when he is literally running around Laketown and taking out a whole Orc invasion pretty much on his own.
Smaug was very badass. That is very clear. He was a well made CGI creation, probably one of the better dragons I have ever seen in a CGI movie. The best scene in the movie for me was the initial encounter between Smaug and Bilbo, when Smaug toyed with Bilbo as he ran through the treasure piles. But eventually he felt like nothing more than a cheap cartoon villain, or something, once the Dwarves got involved and start to mess with him.
I understand that this movie is part of a series, but I felt like this one has done the worst job at still telling a complete and actual story. Each of the LOTR stories felt complete. Yes they had more to do, but they ended at appropriate points once the current biggest baddest climactic point was finished, the ones they were building up to for each film. An Unexpected Journey ends after a series of skirmishes, a close encounter with death, and the dwarves finally learning to accept Bilbo.
This movie LITERALLY ends right in the middle of a fight. What in the fuck. Is this Lost? Is this some show that needs cliffhangers? So instead of getting a complete story, I get part of a story. A 160 minute part of a story.
Here is a third picture, to give you a better scope of this movie.
So what is the main complaint? I guess, somehow, it is their change from 2 to 3 movies. A problem I didn’t have with the first one, but I believe in this one becomes very very apparent. This entire movie, save for a few scenes, felt like filler, working towards the third, probably more exciting and conclusive story.
I will reiterate, Smaug was great. The barrel scene was way better than I could have imagined. The spiders were interesting. But everything else just fell flat or felt repetitive. I felt no fear from the Orcs the entire movie. The appeared, they died, they kept appearing, they kept dying.
Peter Jackson might thing he is infallible now, given the original success, and other successes of stuff like The Adventures of TinTin, but for this film I think he reached too far.
Watch out everyone, movie event of the year coming through.
Sure, that is debatable. After all, Twilight Ended, the year isn’t over yet, and the end of Batman Trilogy and Avengers went down. But The Hobbit still may have been a greater buildup. After all, the previous LOTR movies were all nominated for Academy Awards, and the last one won!
This is a new trilogy, taking in more than just the Hobbit book, with tons of lore, and stretched into three movies. I AM ALLOWING MYSELF SPOILERS IN THE SECTION IN BETWEEN PICTURES, BECAUSE WELL, most people know this story anyways. The Animated Movie was a thing, after all. That middle section is normally reserved for plot anyways, and I feel like its hard to really give away shit, because its so well known.
Either way, spoilers in the middle warnings!
Spoiler: Only one hobbit is really focused on in this movie. That’s 75% less Hobbits than LOTR.
As most of you know, The Hobbit takes place before LOTR. Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) is a simple Hobbit, who doesn’t like adventure. Gandalf (Ian McKellen) comes by, fucks it all up, and without warning, thirteen dwarves have crashed the place and are eating all his food! Oh noes!
Why? Because they want to reclaim their ancient kingdom, that a terrible dragon named Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch) has taken over! Thorin (Richard Armitage) is the last line of Dwarven royalty, and technical king of a home they don’t control. He sent out a call for dwarves to help him take back the mountain, and only 12 answered. But according to Gandalf, they also need a Burgler, and he has decided that Bilbo will fit the bill.
The first hobbit movie ends after the encounter with Gollum (Andy Serkis) and the escape from the Goblins, and then the further escape from the orcs by Eagle Power. We also get an appearance of Frodo (Elijah Wood), Elrond (Hugo Weaving), Galadriel (Cate Blanchett), and a pre-evil Saruman (Christopher Lee). Balin (Ken Stott) is the next main dwarf, Azog (Manu Bennett) is the pale orc main antagonist, Figwit is now Lindir (Bret McKenzie). AND THEN WE HAVE RADAGAST THE BROWN (Sylvester McCoy). A mother fucking druid/crazy wizard?
Don’t remember him? Because like I said, this is more than the Hobbit. A lot of the Tale of the Necromancer is in here too, and was only set up in this movie. Gandalf left the Hobbit a lot to do his own shit, and he was doing the necromancer stuff. This added a lot to the movie that I wasn’t expecting.
One other thing I liked? Well, as most of you know the story, you know that Gandalf and the Eagles are a Deus Ex Machina on a stick. Rarely do they solve their own problems without one or both of the groups coming to save the day. Same thing happened in LOTR, and it was pretty annoying. One of the biggest examples is when they are in the trees with the orcs and worgs attacking, then the Eagles come and carry them away. Well, in the movie, that scene is QUITE longer and a bit more inspirational. Yes, it ends the same way, but damn it, the Dwarves don’t just sit their crying. They fight back, they give it their all, they show courage and bravery. I loved that change. Same result at the end, but I think the way they got there was a little bit better.
Pictured: Actual Trolls picking apart the Hobbit.
First off, no I didn’t get to see the movie in 48 fps. They decided to can the wide release idea, and only have it in select theaters. Sucks to suck, I might get to see it next week that way, all depends on if I want to see it again. The 3D on its own, was very nicely done, rounding out the movie in a good way, like Life of Pi did.
Martin Freeman felt really good as Bilbo. I understand the direction they took the character is a bit more witty and awesome, versus kind of a selfish asshole. Same with the dwarves, but really, I think it made the story better. There were like, three songs in this movie, maybe a throw back to the animated movie. None as silly as those songs, unfortunately.
I also read an article telling me the main 19 differences between the book and the film, and honestly, it mostly seemed like harmless fluff changes that didn’t matter. But when I left the theater, I heard lots of grumblings in regards to changes from the book still. Oh well, one day people might not have a shit. Just kidding, it will never got away.
It had its flaws, and some pacing issues in it. Personally the rock giant fight scene came completely out of nowhere for me, and didn’t really make…any sense. Just happened in the middle of traveling, no explanation, no buildup, and then it was done. Really disliked that scene.
For whatever reason, it has been a shocking fact amongst my friends that I have only seen each of the LOTR movies only once. Each one in theaters, so obviously the theatrical version, never the extended. It is already super fucking hard for me to watch a long movie, and the idea of watching all 3 ended ones in a day just scared me. Scared me more than hippos. Which are pretty damn scary, so you know how scary this idea was to me.
But hey, in honor of The Hobbit remake, why not go to the theaters to see all LOTR again, but extended? In a day?
Why not record my thoughts based on minutes into the film too? I mean, what could happen?
For more info on the event itself, the entire day pass was for $25, came with a lanyard, was going to include special introductions from Peter Jackson, and concession discounts! We are talking $1 refills on drinks (normally no refills), refills on popcorn (normally none), cheaper ice cream, and $2 hot dogs (Versus $4 normally!). All we had to do was stay in the theater for 12.5 hours, how hard could it be?
000 (0:00): Time to start this shit! I got my large drink ready to go, no food yet. Too early. I mean, its 11am, but I of course ate breakfast before this! Yeah. I made the unfortunate mistake of sitting in the middle of a row, but hey, if I have to get up to piss, stretch, food out, or just run around like crazy, I only have to pass one person. I am sure it won’t come up to negatively effect me. Hey, why was there no Peter Jackson introduction?
030 (0:30): Holy fuck, half an hour in, and Bilbo is finally gone. That is HALF AN HOUR of this weird nonsensical back story, then a bunch of shoeless hobbits running around, just, well, running. And doing nothing else. Damn it Bilbo, don’t you know this movie is not your time? This is the time for that little kid from The War! And Rudy! And good old Charlie from Lost! And uhh, some other guy who hasn’t one anything famous.
Alright asshole, for being so useless in any other show or movie, you can have a spot on this review.
054 (0:54): Oh man! Dumbledore and Count Dooku are in an epic wizard fight. Allegedly. All I see them doing is waving their staves at each other, close, but no contact, yet bitches be flying. They at least make it look real on the WWE, come on guys. Man up.
074 (1:14): So, this Man from The Road just took on five of those crazy dark wraith things, by himself. By himself! All Frodo did was sit there and get stabbed, like a bitch. It was like his third fall this series already, and he takes forever to stand back up. If that guy can take on five wraiths by himself, just imagine what they could do if the Hobbits actually gave a shit?
092 (1:32): AHHH, WILL TURNER AND COMIC RELIEF HAVE JUST BEEN IN A SCENE. EVERYONE QUICK. PAY ATTENTION!
100 (1:40): Oh, they are making a fellowship, to guide the ring to the lava pit. I get the title now.
103 (1:43): Meme alert! One does not simply play a character if you are Sean Bean. You must experience the entire life and death of that character, or else. Double internet related time, we have motherfucking Figwit in the house.
Once you go Figwit, you can’t go back.
120 (2:00): Come on Dumbledore, open the damn door. Before the tentacle demon happens.
128 (2:08): Meme alert #2. Confused Dumbledore is super confused. So am I, what the fuck is going on?
147 (2:27): So, are all the meme and internet references in this dungeon? Because You shall not pass just happened. I could piece this part of the movie entirely through memes, and it bugs me.
164 (2:44): Alright, they are in this elf forest. I have learned something about this trilogy. Big elf parts are super boring. It is a shame there were no big dwarf parts. But the extended scenes must have just added stuff here, because I am going to die if these elf scenes continue to happen.
205 (3:25): A-ha! First movie done! Bean is dead, they are split up, and Samwise really wants to mount Frodo.
243 (4:03): The search for sustinance is going terrible wrong. The movie has started 7 minutes ago, we got a longer break than expected because of the no Peter Jackson stuff. The popcorn refill was a lie, there is no ice cream. The $2 hot dogs may have been a lie, because they did not prep for the LOTR break, when of course everyone is getting hot dogs. I bought two myself, and 7 minutes after it starts, after waiting for 35, they tell me I can go in the theater, and they will deliver it. Gee thanks. I only missed the best scene, the Balrog / Dumbledore fight scene!
270 (4:30): Alright, these orcs are horse shit stupid. “Hey, we need more wood.” Old guy – “Okay, chop more trees. Chop them all down!” “Oh okay”. Damn it, don’t be stupid orcs. Obviously just get more wood. Stop throwing that shit in magma too, what a waste!
290 (4:50): HOT DOGS HAVE ARRIVED!
330 (5:30): Whoa whoa whoa, Dumbledore is back but no longer gray. He is white! I think there is a subliminal message in here somewhere. Can’t beat an old crippled guy, but now that he is white, he can win the game? White power! White power! White power!
Wormtongue? Come on Tolkien, why’d you get stupid there?
365 (6:05): There was another long boring part. I almost died. But thankfully, giant words just attacked everybody and I got excited again. Like, I was falling asleep.
415 (6:55): Another long moment of boredom, but seriously. Seriously. Shit is about to go down. The elves have come to the keep to fuck some shit up, so it might be entertaining soon. Maybe.
422 (7:02): Why the fuck is it called The Two Towers? I only saw one tower in this movie…
438 (7:18): OH YEAH. TREES ARE MAD. The Ents or whatever, I love it when they destroy all the shit. It is possibly my favorite scene in the movies.
507 (8:27): The third movie started. Good news, I saw the beginning. We get to see Gollum‘s transformation, but not enough of the past to ruin the Hobbit for us. So no worries.
517 (8:37): Samwise just gave Frodo some bread. Bitches love bread. Especially special elven bread give to them by Liv Tyler.
543 (9:03): Hey, speaking of Liv Tyler. It is Figwit again! Thanks to the internet, even gets some speaking lines this time. Hell, he even got a part in the Hobbit movies as another elf. Not Figwit, maybe an actual character. You can tell everyone is pretty pumped for that shit!
566 (9:26): What is this bull shit hidden fortress in Mordor? It looks like the Emerald City, if the Emerald City was taken over by the witch and her weird ass army. That is all I could see here. Secret passage way in the back, my ass. Gollum, stop lying to us.
L. Frank Baum would be suing some asses, if he didn’t die almost 100 years ago.
590 (9:50): That Gollum guy just called Samwise fat. Samwise is mad. He so mad, no one calls him fat. It’d be Mr. Fat to Gollum, at least.
609 (10:09): This Aragorn and random blonde chick romance is getting kind of weird. She basically threw herself at him again, asked if she could do anything for him, despite his love of a certain elf. I thought for sure he was about to ask her for a quick BJ.
622 (10:22): Skull avalanche! Skavalanche? Dead army? Yes, yes yes, dead army!
Yeah, definitely Skavalanche. No other term can do!
624 (10:24): So the dead army might have scared me a little bit. I dropped my pen. It is a dark theater, and a black pen. Whoops. But hey, Peter Jackson just got shot by pretty elf boy, which is awesome.
641? (10:41): NOOOO. Why did you do that? “No man can kill me!” “I am not a man!” Oh god, the cheese, it is falling from the sky, in such a climatic battle. At least they won. Too bad the ending is still about an hour away.
665 (11:05): You know what Return of the King reminds me of? Star Wars Episode III. Frodo is looking super Anakin like in that movie, all this magma. I thought I was about to hear samwise yell that he had the upper ground, and to call Gollum foolish. Holy shit, I wonder if they used similar CGI sets?
Is this not a clip from the end of LOTR?
675 (11:15): I think I will let Randall take it from here.
Yeah its over! And only 12 ish hours of my life were gone!
Turns out these movies were much better than I remember. Not sure why everyone hates on the second one. I thought it better than the first, which just takes an eon roughly to get set up.
I finished the day with only five piss breaks, pretty proud of myself. I am just disappointed I got the 15 disk Blu-Ray set of the movies about two weeks before the event, because now I won’t want to see the awesome BR quality until sometime next year. There is a such thing as too many hobbits.
But be warned, if you do this stuff, maybe bring something else to do during the long boring parts. Or at least have a mini-Olympics in between movies, to get the blood flowing again. I am pretty sure there is no way the Hobbit movies will have extended versions. They already extended it from 2 to 3 movies, he can’t possibly have more. Can he? Can he?!
