I rewatched the Hobbit films recently and found that I enjoyed

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>>87000084
The second film is where the trilogy dips sharply. The series’ largely whimsical tone is switched to that of almost slapstick humor. The orcs feel of little threat as even villagers are shown to at least hold their own against them. The film feels tight and well balanced when the camera is on the dwarves, particularly Thorin who was portrayed with great screen presence. Outside of the dwarves, however, the film quickly loses its focus. Laketown’s dark and gritty aesthetic is yawn inducing as any charm the city could have is quickly lost to the same Snyder-esque lighting we’ve seen a dozen times before. The Legolas and Tauriel plotline feels largely redundant and Azog the Defiler simply feels hammy at best. Surprisingly, unlike many people, I didn’t necessarily mind the Fili/Tauriel romance. Was it unnecessary for the film? Yes. Did it detract from the main story? Yes it did. But, unlike much of the cast who simply felt like background characters it made me care for the two of them. The chief flaw with this film was simply a lack of direction. Jackson clearly struggled in portraying the parallel plotlines of the quest to kill Smaug and the imminent threat of Azog’s army and it shows.

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>>87000126
Ironically the third film suffers from the same amount of bloat, only with laser focus. The entire film is simply one large battle. The audience is dragged from one skirmish to another. As one would expect this quickly loses its sense of suspense and the stakes are quickly lost upon the viewers who lose any concern for the characters upon watching just about every character in the film mow down orcs with little problem. The Thorin arc was the one saving grace of this film as it felt incredibly refreshing to see this character who we the audience have seen from the beginning soften, grow, harden, regress and then overcome this regression. Martin Freeman displays his acting chops towards the end of Thorin’s arc as the normally awkward Bilbo has by then grown into a more serious yet still empathetic young hobbit.

Now of course all of this makes it sound as though I’m simultaneously criticizing the film and leaving out the common criticisms of it which others have made. That’s not what I’m trying to get across here. What I’m trying to get across is that the films are not inherently bad and were not so much ruined, but hamstrung, by the sheer amount of grandstanding and bloat plaguing them. From a purely scriptwriting perspective the films, while bloated, follow the schematic of what makes a good film. I found that when I looked past the bloat, poor effects, schlockiness, hamminess and otherwise poor executive decisions and other mistakes made by time constraints what I saw was not an unenjoyable trilogy, simply an unpolished one.

So the point I’m trying to get across here isn’t that the Hobbit films are only enjoyable if you turn off your brain or that you shouldn’t have standards for films. What I’m saying is that sometimes you need to step back and simply ask yourself ‘Was I entertained while watching this?’ And for my own part I was.

It avoids the 2nd and 3rd film not being linked to the 1st problem because it was originally only 2 films. The studio forced Jackson to make it a trilogy, which is why it's bloated as fuck.

There's a fan-edit of all 3 films that condenses them down to the Book only stuff that removes most of the bloat and makes it pretty enjoyable.

>>87000126
The second movie was the best. The Hobbit trilogy was more aimed at young people and wasn't meant to be as dark and brooding as LotR. He did a great job of capturing that childish action and fun without completely undermining the movie.

nice try peter

>>87000084
The only reason it was bad was basically studios.
Del toro had a vision for the film, and most agreed it was an amazing vision (abit a little darker than they wanted, but a great vision none the less), but the studio kept fucking with him until he said enough is enough and quit. 2 and a half years of pre-planning dead in an instant.

Studios were happy, of course. They got what they wanted and as an added bonus, none of his stuff would be used because he wouldnt allow it. They basically forced jackson into the directors chair, said you have 3 weeks of pre-planning, after that, start shooting. Thats one hell of a fucking task for something like a lord of the rings, especially because he had to pre-plan 2 whole fucking movies. right after they started shooting, the studios informed him it was to be a trilogy.

multiple interviews and even him talking in the bluray sets confirm he was literally pre-planning the scenes hours before they shot, instead of the months before. The reason he had to CGI most of the parts he did was because he had no time to do it any other way.

>>87000179
2 Hours version
http://homework.never-ends.net/hobbitedit/
4.5 Hours
https://goldfishblues.wordpress.com/2016/02/20/the-hobbit-the-bilbo-edition-2-0-extended-edition/

I went in not expecting a faithful adaptation, but to enjoy the spectacle and like the series.

I feel asleep in the theater watching the first two. This has never happened with em and any other movie.

I've tried watching them at home with my kids, and have the same reaction. There is zero excitement or tension. I just lose interest completely.

Oddly enough, I went to a conference for work that had a lot of film industry guys and special effects teams. Many held up the Hobbit films as a prime example of how not to do fight choreography, how not to build dramatic tension, etc.
It made a lot of sense. Everyone agreed, the movies were beautiful, but they don't manage to engage the viewer.

https://youtu.be/-NG_9tVGU1U

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>>87000084
>'I rewatched the Hobbit films recently and found that I enjoyed them much more than I did upon my first watching'
>Proceeds to list why the films are trash

>>87001162
Have you watched these anon? Do they correct the pacing problems or is it a cut riddled mess?

>>87000084
>>87000126
>>87000168
didn't read lol