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LotR vs. Hobbit.
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LotR vs. Hobbit.
LotR vs. Hobbit.
I have probably watch the LotRs trailers about...oh, three dozen times, maybe more, even after watching the films a half dozen times each just to listen to the music and watch Aragorn and Legolas be awesome and hear Elrond's doomsday prophecies. It is my opinion that is the best film trilogy EVER, even more so than Star Wars. What I like most is how Peter Jackson captured the spirit of the book when bringing it to life, and even though he changed minor things, you still get the infinite awesomness of Tolkien's creation. The characters are all true to the books, and (in my opinion) made even better by the actors performances.
Now, about the Hobbit films...I did not like the Unexpected Journey. Okay, it was fine as films go, but Thorin was utterly wrong, and there were waaaay too many additions and changes to the plot. Bilbo would never have saved Thorin from an orc. He might have tried, but I think he would have failed. Gandalf would have saved Thorin, yes, but not Bilbo. He has courage, but he's not the typical hero.
The Desolation of Smaug may be better (since there are elves again and Mirkwood was always interesting what with spiders and elf-kings and so forth) but there are again too many changes, including an elf-warrior named Tauriel (a girl) who never even had a shadow of a mention in the book, and the actress of whom is not even British. Sad. Very sad.
All in all, a bit of an anticlimax from LotR. There is a sense that you can't believe what's going on in the Hobbit, you don't get that feeling of sympathy for the characters (mainly because you can hardly tell the dwarves apart and Thorin's a real pain the neck for nearly all of the film). Also, I've always like Gandalf the White more than Gandalf the Grey. Gandalf in all colors is quite a good character, but there you are. I always thought that if they were going to make a Hobbit movie at all, two would be plenty. Three gets tiresome. But I'll see it anyway, because I still have a great respect for Peter Jackson and because Bilbo is hilarious, even though a bit bumbling.
What do you prefer, LotR or Hobbit?
I think it is redundant to say that I think LotR is the champion by about fifteen miles.
submitted by Everinne, age 14, Mirkwood
(July 29, 2013 - 5:31 pm)
(July 29, 2013 - 5:31 pm)
I haven't read all of LotR, but from what I have read, I like the Hobbit better. I haven't seen the movies.
(July 30, 2013 - 9:38 am)
I haven't seen LotR or read it, so I'm going with the Hobbit.
(July 31, 2013 - 12:04 pm)
I'm only talking about the movies here...the books are about the same to me in literary merit.
(July 31, 2013 - 2:49 pm)
The Lord of the Rings movies were way more faithful to the book, so I definitely prefer them, too.
(August 1, 2013 - 4:21 pm)
As books, I would rate LotR and Hobbit the same.
However, I have not seen the LotR movies, but I agree that The Hobbit wasn't exactly incredible. I also agree that three movies is way too much for The Hobbit. I mean, The Hobbit is about the same length as the LotR books, and you could fit those into one movie! And also, The Hobbit was way too long --- it was like, two hours or something. And people, are you going to make three two-hour movies (for which there is not enough material), or are they going to do like one long movie and two short ones? And besides the movie being long, it had lots of flaws.
First, it takes 43 minutes for the actual adventure to begin. 43 minutes! In my opinion that's way too long. If the dwarves spent as much time killing dragons as they did singing the movie would have been about twenty minutes long.
Also, rabbits.
AND NOW: A MID-RANT RANT.
Since when do rabbits pull a guy in a sled/sledge/carriage thing? Well, since these rabbits are so freaking different from regular rabbits they can pull a guy in a sled and also outrun a bunch of orcs (note: Radagast apparently forgot that his objective was to lead the orcs away from the dwarves and just ran in circles anyway) but I'm sure Hollywood knows a lot more about rabbits than I do, so whatever.
Thirdly, the entire setup with the goblins. First: note the sword "of Elvish make" which will "glow blue when orcs or GOBLINS are nearby" which DOES NOT GLOW BLUE IN THE MIDDLE OF ALL THE GOBLINS! Neither does Gandalf's sword! (Also, in the scene in which Radagast runs in circles, the blade isn't glowing in the presence of ORCS. Hmm.) Then, Bilbo falls into a giant chasm and would totally have died or at least been paralyzed if the movie had not been taking place in a zero gravity chamber.
The ring landing on Bilbo's finger. More Hollywood magic. I'm just going to ignore this since it's obviously for dramatic effect, and is sort of excusable if you like that kind of thing.
More zero gravity: An entire section of the bridge collapsing carrying a bunch of dwarves as well as Gandalf and then acting as a sled down a giant rock face. I hope these guys know how lucky they are.
Azog wants to kill Thorin himself, then orders one of his henchmen to do it.
The eagles drop all of them on top of a GIANT STUPID ROCK, possibly the WORST place to drop them off because now they will have to make a climb down (during which, if physics were applied, they would probably all die.)
Then they all see the Lonely Mountain from the top of the previously mentioned giant stupid rock. Why didn't the eagles just fly them all the way there? Seems like it would have saved everyone a lot of angst.
THE END.
If you read this, thank you. If you didn't, thank you anyway for not wanting to read a pointless rant.
I should become a movie critic . . .
(August 3, 2013 - 12:09 pm)
I smell CinemaSins references. DON'T DENY IT. YOU'VE SEEN THAT VIDEO.
(August 3, 2013 - 10:05 pm)
Okay fine XD I love that guy
(August 5, 2013 - 10:16 am)
@ Zach L.
Thank you for that rant. You mentioned pretty much everything I was annoyed by but couldn't think of.
(August 3, 2013 - 5:32 pm)
Okay. The LotR movies were fantastic, but the first Hobbit was better than the second Hobbit. In the first Hobbit, sure Bilbo couldn't have saved Thorin, but in the second one, it was so bad we left the theater in the middle of the movie. Like, why would they add Tauriel and make her fall in love with the dwarf?
(July 5, 2014 - 7:31 am)
And Zach L., you just mentioned all the bad stuff I didn't even think of.
(July 13, 2014 - 5:50 am)
I agree, that the second is pretty bad. But guys, I think The Hobbit movies are not HORRIBLE. They are WAYYY better than those boring, battle wrenched LOTR books. Statement cleared. No more arguing. I think Hobbit is better.
(July 26, 2014 - 10:21 pm)
And another thing no one mentiond: WHY THE HECK IS SORON IN THE MOVIE?!?!
(July 13, 2014 - 5:52 am)
@ EarthGirl13:
Who's Soron, please?
Can't stand Tauriel or Kili. PJ's reason for including Tauriel was because he said he needed a female character, but I think he should have stuck to making the male characters interesting and believable and let the female audience lump it. A lot of girls like boys movies that don't have many female characters. I'd rather watch an all-male cast than see a woman make a fool of herself over a guy.
I read some article recently that Viggo Mortensen (a.k.a. Aragorn) made some knock against Peter Jackson's overuse of CGI in the Hobbit films because they detracted from the story. A perfectly good point because there IS no story. At least, not enough to spread out over three films. And plus, to quote Dominic Monahan, "Viggo's an artist." So of course he's not going to like the brutal alterations of the plot and all the weird inhuman, unrealistic effects needed to carry them off, compared to the subtle effects and pure story in LOTR.
I think Soron may refer to Sauron, a character in Lord of the Rings.
Admin
(July 14, 2014 - 4:35 pm)
It really is too bad that the quality of The Hobbit movie is not as good as that of the LOTR. I guess we should just go back and read the book.
(July 21, 2014 - 1:27 pm)
Yeah, I meant Sauron. Sorry. My dad read me the LoTR books, so I don't see how the names are spelled.
(August 2, 2014 - 6:24 am)