LogFAQs > #975084434

27. The Hobbit

Ermine: 15
Evillord: 16
Mythiot: 20
Suprak: 21
Inviso: 23
Karo: 24
Johnbobb: 24
Plasma: 24
Red: 27

Total: 194

Ermine: Wow the pacing of this is breakneck speed. We barely get time to enjoy or laugh at any single moment because within seconds we're fast-forwarded off to another one.
I did enjoy Gollum's design in this though, I liked that he looked more creatureish in this.
I dunno, I don't have too much to say about this one. It's fine. Has some funny and charming moments.

Evillord: This is the opposite end of the spectrum to Peter Jackson's adaptation. Instead of a bloated trilogy it's definitely a detrimentally stripped down version that almost feels like a synopsis of Tolkien's book rather than an adaptation. There is no introduction to Bilbo's life before his adventure or to any of the dwarves - they're out of the Shire within something like two minutes. Fantasy stories are almost entirely about the little details and escapades this film omits, so it barely feels like an adventure anymore when it's pared down this much. The best parts are the few scenes - Bilbo's encounters with Gollum (whose frog-like design in this version is a nice change of pace considering how the CGI Andy Serkis version of the character has dominated all visual depictions of him for the last two decades), and Smaug - that are actually given enough time to build and release tension. It mostly survives on the charm its old-fashioned animation and the fact it directly adapts the main source material bring to the table in an age where American animation is almost entirely poor-man's Pixar CGI and the LotR universe has been milked almost as ruthlessly as Star Wars.

Mythiot: *no writeup submitted*

Suprak: *no writeup submitted*

Inviso: I�d certainly HEARD of this movie before, largely in comparison to the bloated Peter Jackson Hobbit trilogy. This has defenders as the superior film, but I�m sorry, I just can�t agree. Don�t get me wrong�the live-action film really didn�t need to be THREE films long, and it got to the point where the overuse of CGI felt completely pointless and stupid�but at least it had enough time to be a MOVIE. Too much time, sure, but enough time all the same. This movie tries to cram an entire book�s worth of plot into a runtime less than an hour and a half. As a result, you wind up with just a series of action scenes that are rather disconnected and incohesive. The overall plot still exists, but it�s not necessarily served but what�s on the screen most of the time. Don�t get me wrong�those scenes COULD be kept in�if they served the plot and furthered the character development. But instead, you just have characters making choices, and then completely changing their choices with little rationale. It�s still a story though, and at least the plot moves from a beginning to an end, so that�s a positive?

Karo: The old hokey animated version of Tolkien's beloved tale of the ggggggreatest advennnntrrrre thhhat liiiies ahhhead that is famously parodied in one of the best episodes of South Park.
From a story standpoint this is a remarkably faithful adaptation, all things considered. Certainly moreso than Peter Jackson's bloated overblown travesty. The characters even sing all of Tolkien's poetry from the book throughout the film which is cute I guess.
It is kind of what you'd expect from a 1970s made-for-tv movie, the animation is extremely poor and there are commercial break transitions everywhere. The character designs are very weird and unpleasant, with everyone being a distorted mound of wrinkled and folded flesh that would feel more at home in a Lovecraft story rather than a Tolkien one.
Still, there is a whimsical charm to its cheapness, harkening back to a simpler time before the series got polluted by mainstream pop culture acceptance where if someone knew what a hobbit was you knew they were cool.

Johnbobb: for the entire runtime I could not get over how much more detailed bilbo's hands were than his face

Plasma: I read the book several years ago, and this movie seemed like a faithful adaptation. Too bad I found the book to be a suspenseless slog.

Red: There are some interesting tidbits here and there but for the most part this movie is old and quite rough to watch. The music feels very "old television special" in the worst of ways and few of the characters ever advance beyond annoying, rarely ever memorable. The best I could say of this is that I managed to watch it without falling asleep, something I could not say of the more recent modern Hobbit film, which I could argue as more of a borefest than this thing, which was definitely pretty boring.