3D Hobbit 2

[bunn]

So, having whinged and moaned about the possibility of not being allowed to watch 'The Hobbit' in 2D, I decided that actually I wanted to see it in 3D 48fps as well, just to see what the differences were, and find out if it made me sick. It didn't make me sick. Yay! There was much less of the 'Whoo, lookit my 3D bits!!' stuff than in Avatar, the only previous 3D film I've seen, and since I'd seen Hobbit in 2D already, I didn't feel cheated by briefly looking away during the Zooming Around Dale bit at the start. I was expecting the 48fps element to possibly make the nausea worse, but I didn't feel it did.

There were scenes when the very crisp picture broke my suspension of disbelief a little - particularly during the scenes with the dwarves and goblins inside the mountains, which somehow had a 'Blue Peter Special' feel about them for me. But those are my least favorite scenes anyway. There were also several points when I found myself noticing how brightly the characters shone out from the distance-blurred background - almost as if they had been shot using a rather old fashioned green screen. In real life, you just can't see individual hairs standing out against a background that is more or less the same tone. It felt odd to be able to pick them out.

That said, there were some scenes where I felt the 3D did enhance the experience - particularly during the scenes at Bag End, when I swear my brain told me that it could smell Gandalf's tobacco smoke drifting into the cinema, before I realised that it must be making that up, and the scene with the Eagles towards the end, where the texture of feathers and the movement of the birds against the sky felt very real.

I greatly enjoyed this variation/retelling, though I'm reserving judgement to some extent until I see the rest.

ETA: have put some spoilers in comments :-D

Comments

[ningloreth.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you tried it. I didn't comment before, but I saw 'John Carter' in both versions and, like you, I found that 3D wasn't too nauseating -- whether because they've learned to tone it down or because I've learned to watch it, I don't know -- and it really enhanced some parts of the film. I've just seen 'The Hobbit' for the first time, and I went to 3D because my nephew recommended it (and I wasn't disappointed), though I'd like to see it in 2D as well because I think you do see different things.

I think I loved everything about it except Thranduil -- and that's almost certainly because I have a rather different Thranduil in my own head, and also because we were probably seeing him from the dwarves' point of view...

(Speaking of dwarves, I haven't seen anyone mention Thorin. I thought Richard Armitage was fabulous, especially at the very beginning).

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Agree about Thorin. I loved Ken Stott's Balin too. My favourite scene of the whole film might be the one where Balin explains to Bilbo, Fili and Kili why he follows Thorin.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I'm in favour of the 'toned it down' theory - I've tried acclimatising to computer games and movies that I found nauseating, and it didn't seem to work, so either the 48fps helped, or it had been assembled with an eye to trying not to nauseate the audience(which now I think about it, does sound like quite an obvious thing to try to not do...)

Thorin was great - in fact, everyone was great, and I really liked the slight re-writings done to emphasize Thorin's epic quality - for example, having him turn up late and alone at Bag End, and the fabulous scene with Balin telling Fili, Kili & Bilbo about the battlee of Azanulbizar (one assumes from this that Fili & Kili don't actually know their heroic uncle all that well, but I quite like that idea, that could work).

I'd hoped Martin Freeman would make an excellent Bilbo, and I think he did. On first watch-through, I was a bit :-o by the plotline that had him attacking the warg & Azog single handed, but actually, it's not far off what he does only slightly later on in the book with the spiders. So I thought his journey from sedate and fearful citizen to hero wasn't out of keeping, I just hope that having shoved him towards hero so fast, they don't have to mess with the plot too much to keep his character developing through to the end.

I actually even warmed to Elrond in this version, which is quite remarkable because Elrond was the one piece of casting that I really found hard to take in the Lord of the Rings movies. Given that the actor is now ten years older, I was impressed they managed to make him look both younger and quite a bit more Elfy this time.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

... Also, thank goodness for the improvements to the Wargs to make them more wolfy. The giant hyena things were ... not good.

And I loved the way that they managed to make the dwarf-company look like they were riding ponies, when in reality one assumes they must have been decent-sized horses given their size in relation to the riders.

[ningloreth.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think they've probably done their market research and toned it down -- though I did notice that the effect seemed to grow more naturalistic as the film went on, which must have been my brain. (I have monocular -- or something -- contact lenses, which means that one eye is corrected for distance and the other for close up, and your brain somehow sorts it out and lets you both drive and read. But, apparently, thirty per cent of people can't use them).

I loved the more virile, less careworn Elrond! (And I loved his calf length robe with boots, which my!Legolas will certainly be wearing). Hugo Weaving is famous for Agent Smith, but he's a better actor than that, and a lot of the change was just in his body language.

I think a lot of the plot changes -- like Bilbo's early heroism -- were needed to give the first film a satisfying(ish) shape.

I really liked the sizing of the dwarves, too. Their proportions were altered so subtly, they looked like small, sturdy, people -- they and Bilbo were normal, and everyone else was a giraffe. I loved the scene in Rivendell, where Elrond was taller than Gandalf and Gandalf was taller than Thorin, and it looked right. There was only one place I noticed, towards the end, where I thought, "Richard Armitage's head looks too small!"

I cannot wait for parts 2 & 3, and Legolas!

[bunn.livejournal.com]

It's not Hugo Weaving's acting I object to, it's the little pouchy bits at the corners of his mouth, his receding hair and the way he gets a stubbly double chin when he does his stern face. My mental vision of Elrond is emphatically devoid of pouchy bits, stubble and double chins.

I think I'd got used to the receding hair, but I do think they have done something with makeup to the 5 o'clock shadow

[ningloreth.livejournal.com]

LOL, a lot of the elves seemed prone to 5 o'clock shadows, even Legolas. Maybe they can CGI them away these days. Facially, Hugo Weaving was a strange choice, but he does have gravitas...

[bunn.livejournal.com]

He's got great eyes and cheekbones, but his chin lets him down. And his hairline! You'd think a wig would be able to sort that... He was great at the Cracks of Doom where you could sort of excuse the chin as being smudged with ash and the hair damp with sweat, but....

Haldir was the Elf King of the 5 o'clock Shadow, but since they'd more or less created him as a new character for the movies and just given him the name, I didn't mind that so much. Whereas Elrond has lived in the Rivendell in my head since I was about 6, so there was always a risk that the inner 6-year-old would react by going 'YOU AREN'T ELROND! YOU'RE A FUNNY MAN! I WANT ELROND! WAAAA'.

[ningloreth.livejournal.com]

That's how I feel about Thranduil. I had so much trouble, when I started writing him, keeping his character consistent, but I'd given him Alan Rickman's voice, and then I found a painting of an elf -- I think it's actually meant to be Fingolfin -- and suddenly he became 'real'. I'm really not sure how I'll cope with a new one.