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The Desolation Of Smaug :- Extended Edition
darkjedimaster
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According to Amazon the extended edition of The Desolation Of Smaug will be released on the 3rd November. Anyone here buying it ?
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darkjedimaster
Posts: 18,621
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cinema release,with a mixture of boredom and sheer
disbelief..........
Same for me, recently bought the blu ray...had reached a point where I literally had nothing new to watch and watched this. I struggled to get to the end, even after two attempts.
I really think these films have been done to death now - they are just flogging the proverbial dead horse for profit, and to appease rabid Tolkien fans that will literally lap up anything.
I like the extended version of Fellowship, but prefer to watch the theatrical versions of the other two films. I don't like some of the stuff added to 2 and 3. That's what I watched the last time I viewed the trilogy. I have the extended trilogy on DVD from way back, and I bought the theatrical trilogy on Blu-ray (£4, Sainsbury's).
As for these Hobbit films....... I saw the first one at the cinema, and don't feel any need to sit through it again. I haven't even bothered with the second one. Just don't have any interest in seeing it. Far too much padding in that first film.
I'm not sure.
I absolutely *love* the Extended Editions of the LOTR trilogy - I consider them the definitive versions, and refuse to watch the theatrical versions.
I bought the Extended Edition of The Hobbit part 1, but unlike the LOTR EEs the added footage seemed mostly pointless to me - it didn't *add* anything and would not be missed. The main difference seemed to be extra songs...
Scenes I was looking forward to (Beorn and Mirkwood) seem almost redundant because of their placing in the films. No-one wants those to be at the start of a movie, they should be halfway through, when things start to get dark and interesting. Though this is only the beginning of the issues...
My favourite moments from The Hobbit have already been covered in the first two films, so I'm not particularly looking forward to The Battle of Five Armies, even though it is going to be pretty spectacular.
At least they got Gollum and Smaug right...
I'm hoping that the majority of extended material in the DOS EE will focus on Beorn and Thranduil's respective homes, as these felt rushed and deserved more time devoted to them. Both were great new characters, who I felt were short-changed. I really don't feel they need to expand on Smaug, as I think they spent too much time on him in the theatrical version. By the second viewing, I was bored by the end of the film, and I've never felt like that with these films before.
For me it's not so much the pacing that's the issue, but the distribution of characters - not so much an issue in the first Hobbit film but a definite one in the second. The Desolation of Smaug was the first Middle-Earth film that left me feeling short-changed. It was so disappointing, and not for the reasons I thought it would be.
The nice difference between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings is the way the characters are meant to be presented. The Lord of the Rings quickly becomes an ensemble piece, rather than having an out-and-out protagonist. Frodo starts out as the main character, but by the third film it's just as much about Aragorn as it is about him, and even Merry and Pippin get near as much screen time as Frodo does! It works because it shows the scale and breadth of the story. The Hobbit on the other hand is meant to be more Bilbo's story than anything else, and by making Desolation such an ensemble piece it lost a lot of that Hobbit charm. Chuck in a few too many overly-choreographed action sequences that look like they're from a video game and I felt let down.
I didn't have a problem with including additional content from the appendices, and feel it may yet really pay off in the third film. But the cut off point in Smaug was awkward and jarring, the Orcs aren't threatening like they were because they've joined the CGI-fest, and by its end it felt overly long already given it wasn't given a proper climatic scene as opposed to a cliffhanger. Like The Two Towers it struggled being the centrepiece in places, but The Two Towers at least had a satisfying conclusion to make it feel like a coherent film. For me The Desolation of Smaug doesn't so much need extending as it does need rejigging. Move the end a bit further along.
What were you expecting then with a film about Hobbits, dragons and Elves?
book has been dragged out to ludicrous lengths,and the
'Peter Jackson brainwave' of adding Legolas (Who is not
in the book at all) and the female elf,who was made up
purely for the film!
The sequences inside the Lonely Mountain were sheer
CGI hooey. In the book, Bilbo alone enters the mountain
(he has been hired as a 'burglar' you will remember?) The
entire gang of dwarves do not go inside,and all the melting
gold rubbish was not an exercise in suspense,but a mish-
mash of drawn out tedium!
Not sure how true it is, but apparently some of the theatrical material will be removed to slot in 25 minutes of unseen footage. If so, I think this is the first time they've done that with these films, so maybe they have recognised some of the shortcomings of the theatrical version and are trying to redress the balance a bit.
I've read that there will be a section involving Thrain, and more Beorn.
Please no more Legolas - Orlando Bloom is like PJ's favourite pupil. I already object to how his character has overshadowed that of his father, who did at least appear in the book.
Ah ok, I understand. Personally I love the first two movies, but then again I was never a fan of the books.
I agree. TDOS suffered badly from having too little of the hobbit himself and far too much time on new characters like the Laketown crew, the wood elves and those tedious orcs hunting the party.
I thought it was a poorly made, bloated mess of a movie. I felt much like I did watching the Star Wars prequels....that Jackson had sold out to CGI and action sequences and 'more bang for the buck' at the cost of a cohesive story and characters we care about. It comes to something when the whole point of the film, the dragon, is irritating after 5 minutes. At least the first film had real locations and some heartfelt characterisation (e.g. the Hobbiton scenes and anything with Freeman or McKellan). At least I've now got very low expectations come December and won't be disappointed.
I'm a total LOTR nerd (I even did my film dissertation on it) but I couldn't sit through the theatrical version of TDOS again let alone the EE.
I agree with you. the first film had at least some of the spirit of Tolkein in it, Smaug was an abomination.
If i opened a cafe called Saurons Lair or a shop called Gandalfs Pound Store i am sure The Tolkein Trust would be sending me a letter about it. but they appear to be silent about Smaug - surely they should be wanting this film shredded, banned from sale and never mentioned in the media.