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

[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.