[Perdogg]

ping

[FreedomStar3028]

Perhaps a spoiler alert would be appropriate. Before they are posted?

[ReagansShinyHair]

Enjoyed it, but thought it wasn’t as good as the first. The pacing was a bit off, and parts were too repetitive. Still worth seeing.

[be-baw]

I saw a preview in 3D on IMAX. It looked really good. I need to watch the first Hobbit movie first. That seems to have gotten mixed reviews

[vladimir998]

The movie was a bit too long. I’m afraid Jackson is coming down with George Lucas disease (he just doesn’t know when to stop).

Having said that, I though the movie was good. Generally good acting from everyone. Neat mixture of the original Hobbit storyline with other ideas to tie it in more with The Lord of the Rings. Smaug was excellent not only as cgi but the voice and evil intelligence of him, etc.

Saw it in 3D. Several times it honestly looked like something was flying right off the screen at me. Very interesting. Wanted to throw out about forty teenagers who talked throughout the movie, left their seats repeatedly and played with their cell phones.

[Bender2]

Re: I did not recognize Evangeline Lilly, although she is pretty, but I think elf ears make pretty women look hotter.

Now, dogg, let me get this straight-- You think... elf ears makes me prettier?

Prettier than... my new short hairstyle?

Prettier than... me in "Lost" in only my wet bra and panties?

Prettier than... than me in my sexy chair?

Prettier than... than me all covered in sand?

Prettier than... than me washing off all the sand in the waterfall?

So, tell me the truth or I'll... cut your lying tongue out!

Gadzooks, dogg! Vange looks her best... when I read her... the morning after sports page.

[cloudmountain]

I think elf ears make pretty women look hotter.

Pretty women have always had the world by the tail. We humans love YOUNG pretty women and YOUNG handsome men...always have and always will.
When women turn 35 or so, men stop looking at them, even if they are "still pretty."
After ALL the years of women's lib NOTHING has changed. Women are STILL judged by their looks, face and body.

All men oogle and stare at the pretty women. YOUNG women look at pretty women to compare. The only ones who don't care about looking at pretty women are us older broads. Men and young women ignore us. Young women and men deny this but, being an older woman, I KNOW what I say is true.

I always tell the young women, "JUST WAIT until the guys start looking past you and stop even SEEING you." They don't believe me, of course, thinking I'm just a bitter old woman. Haha, they just have to wait a while and they will know the truth of being an invisible old woman.

Caveat: I was waxing poetic on this in my mind and I walked past an OLD, OLD man and was about to ignore him.....and I stopped and looked at him.
He was staring up at me with a melting look of love. :o) I was STILL attractive to men, but the men were in their 90's!!!
Hahaha, life is so interesting, isn't it?

[jocon307]

What is HFR? Glad you feel you got your money’s worth, because $16.75 seems super high for a movie to me.

[Nifster]

“a mixture of themes found in Star Wars, John Carter, Thor, and Game of Thrones. “ What silliness. Tolkien wrote before any of those movies. Tolkien wrote of the universal battle between good and evil. Those other pretenders barely do the originals any justice at all

[Lowell1775]

The LOTR trilogy was an epic that will remain relevant for generations as will the books themselves. The LOTR speaks to the very heart of western values and civilization. In effect, Tolkien’s objective was just that. He interwove Judea-Chistianity over pagan Roman, Celtic, and Saxon/Nordic mythologies and race memories.....in effect, exactly what Western Civ is all about. Peter Jackson’s challenge there was to cut the 3 volume classic down to fit into the 10 to 12 hour total run time (depending on the many versions he marketed)

The Hobbit was written first, by Tolkien’s own admission, as a bedtime story for his kids.

The Hobbit suffers in over-stretching what is at it’s heart a short story into another 12 hour over-commercialized epic. It shows, but is still better than most sci-fi or fantasy work. The Hobbit (both book and film) lacks the well done and deep studies in personalities and inner as well as outer angst of men and women in conflict with the evil of this world and the next.

All that said, I will/have seen everyone of them 3x in the theater and then buy the first cut, the director’s cut, and the boxed set extended version with commentary as they are released.

And I will participate breathlessly in discussions like this, because in the end, I am a geek and embrace it.

[mylife]

This film sounds like it may be worthy of viewing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPVWy1tFXuc

[martin_fierro]

Buncha furry people riding around on horseback — a lot.

Yawn.

[unlearner]

I saw the first Hobbit movie in HFR (high frame rate which is 48 fps vs 24 fps) and was a bit disappointed because it looked too real which gave it a kind of soap opera / BBC feel. The 2nd Hobbit is similar. I saw it in HFR also and felt the cinematography was slightly better, but it really needs something to give it more of a film look.

What stood out most to me was that, more than any movie I have ever seen in the theaters, this one leaves the audience hanging at the end on almost every plot line... the dragon, the town, the love triangle (not in the book as you mentioned), Gandalf. It almost seemed like a TV serial other than being nearly 3 hours long. The first Hobbit had a great stopping point at the end in which the tension of the story was resolved, but the audience’s expectation is set for coming adventures. In this one, very little of the story is resolved.

One negative that stood out to me was the love triangle involved a brief sexual innuendo that seems quite out of character for a Tolkien story and for the targeted family audience, particularly because it came from among the ensemble of heroes rather than a villain. Not a major issue, especially by today’s standards, since worse happens all the time on prime time public programming. But it was still a little disappointing as it deviated from the spirit of the LOTR series and Tolkien in general I thought.

But I still enjoyed it over all. And I actually like the embellishments that flesh out the characters and the world they live in.

[DollyCali]

Thanks Perdog. Seeing it this week. For early bird first showings our tickets will be 8.50.

[Egon]

Excellent movie. Can’t believe they’ve managed to stretch it out into a trilogy, though.

[Mr. K]

I didn’t like that they turne “The Hobbit” into an epic adventure like “Lord of the Rings”

LOTR was huge, The Hobbit was smaller and light-hearted. The moives don’t capture that and add so much that was not in the books

What, was the book not good enough for them? they had to add to it?

I kept looking at the screen and going ‘what is this? this wasn’t in the book”

But... if you are not a purist that way it is an awesome movie. I did like it very much

I was hopping for the fun of the original book. The funny and childish way Bilbo taunts the spiders (calling them “addercop” which is the worst insult you can make to a spider) was gone- replace with horror-story theatrics.

Getting lost in the forest is completely redone- and escaping from the elves smuggled in wine barrels is replaced by a fight scene.

Etc. Etc.

If you like this kind of thing (and I do - especially in 3D!!!) and are not familiar with the books (or don’t care that they took too much literary license on the details) then you will like it.

BONUS: NO detectable liberal bias!

[snowstorm12]

I highly recommend 3d. I was going to see the 2d but they couldn’t get it to work, so I got to see it 3d for free. It was on one of those mega screens too. I love the Hobbit better than Lord of the Rings. It doesn’t have that little twerp Frodo in it.

[snowstorm12]

The movie starts picking up when the spiders show up. I wish I watched Hobbit again before I saw this part 2. I did not want 3d because usually 3d to me is really weird on my eyes and not up to snuff, but so glad they had technical difficulties and I got to see 3d. Maybe they improved 3d in the last 2 years from what it used to be? The way they chose to end the movie, the cutoff point, was a very odd choice. I really like this actor for Bilbo. Freeman is his name? he does a great job. all these new actors I liked quite a bit.

[Mamzelle]

All I want to know—was it FUN?

[Mad Dawgg]

Someone needs to give me a rational explanation why Legolas shows up in the Hobbit Movie. And said rational explanation shall be devoid of any reasoning that has to do with garnering the 14-50 female demographic.