• The Hobbit I Spoilers
• The Hobbit I Reviews

• The Hobbit II Spoilers



New Comic-Con poster released!



hobbitbattle_large.jpg

For some reason, I read that as "The Deafening Chapter."

Here's the new teaser trailer!



Not much of the titular battle but enticing none the less. Loved the use of Pippin's song from ROTK.

And the official teaser poster!



10557142_705766726125602_4828482954779498173_o.jpg

Yes, let's take a fairly short children's fantasy book, add several characters and events that never appeared in the story, pump it up with thousands of high-tech special effects, explosive sound, a bombastic score, an overdose of motion capture and CGI, and inflate it into a 3-part, 10-hour cinematic orgy...











And I've been loving every fucking second of it!

Final Trailer!

Fantastic trailer but I'm already a sucker for this amazing trilogy.

Hope to see the trailer in grand form when I check out Interstellar in (real) IMAX tomorrow.

Journey's end.

Saw the final, "defining chapter" along with the first two films altogether in a 9-hour marathon yesterday held by participating theaters.

TBOTFA is a rousing and fitting conclusion to this series. The titular battle is fucking sublime. The best parts of these films for me have always been the almost silent film era-like ingenuity in the action set pieces. It's what sets Peter Jackson and company apart from so many filmmakers working with such considerable resources. And that quality is on full display here.

The drama is pretty riveting too. Thorin's character changes, not to say too much, are handled pretty hauntingly. Beyond the action, that was probably my most favorite aspect.

Anyway, these films were just a joy to behold altogether. If you liked the first two, you won't be disappointed. Major props to the filmmakers for capping off this trilogy in such a delightful, memorable and grand way.

Jeezus, you survived that?

This is encouraging. I've read largely negative reviews so far online. Looking forward to checking it out this weekend.

Just got out of watching it.

I liked it. It was much faster paced. I'm looking forward to the extended, though. there was a lot left, I believe.

Just got back from it and I found it to be the least interesting of the series.

I was a fan of the first and second but this one lacked the wonder and connective tissue to the LOTR I enjoyed in the first, and the build-up to and awesomeness that was the Smaug encounter.

This one starts off strong, but most of the movie is one pure exhausting battle sequence where 10 year old kids suddenly become wrecking machines and character development happens because the script tells it to. I really expected a whole lot more from this "defining chapter." It actually left me feeling pretty hollow.

I just saw it, and thought it was spectacular. I'm already wondering what we will get in a future "extended cut."

More warpig action!

And more of that big ass bear.
Did the eagles actually drop-ship a big ass fucking BEAR?

Who is right? Opposing viewpoints; must, think , for self

Either is valid. For what it's worth, I'm not a big LOTR geek but I went with someone who is. He thought it was the worst of all of them (interestingly enough, the Rotten Tomatoes score reflects that).

There are very entertaining bits for sure and it's as well-made as you'd expect. It just doesn't feel like enough actually happens.

You'll go, you'll enjoy and we'll bitch about why it's better or worse than you thought it would be.

My biggest disappointment was no TFA trailer in Dolby Atmos.

I'm a huge Tolkien fan as well.

Thing is, I don't go in with the expectation that it's going to be as good as the book. Nothing will ever beat my imagination.

Is it is good as Return of the King? No. Not by a long shot. Not even as good as Two Towers, but I didn't expect it to be.

Bander, yeah, the Deus Ex of Middle Earth dropped Beorn, who changed, mid-fall, and started whoopin some Orc ass.

Ultimately, both points are valid, it just happens to be what you go in with expectations on. I turn my brain off and if I'm entertained, I'm good to go. I saw a childhood book brought to the big screen adequately. It was better than the cartoon, and there was no Leonard Nimoy soundtrack.

I can see that. My one criticism is that it doesn't really work that well by itself. It needs the two movies leading up to it for it to have meaning and to make sense. Once all three come out in one big BluRay/DVD/Whatever package, I think it will work better as simply the last statement in the cycle.

But I was blown away by the sheer spectacle and loved every minute of it.



They did show the TFA trailer at my screening. It was the first time I saw it on a big screen, and it was really amazing. Much more amazing than watching on my PC, of course.

No TFA in my atmos screening either.

I thought BoTFA was... okay. Wasn't bad by any stretch, it just didn't have any of the holy crap or cheer out loud moments from some of the previous battles we've seen (e.g., defense of helms deep, attack on Gondor). Also, keeping tabs on where you were geographically during the battle wasn't as tightly executed as in, say, RoTK, which kind of lessened my enjoyment a little. Was a little confusing for a bit... found myself wondering a few times about who was racing where to aid who against what and why. The eagles basically served the role of the undead army from King, cleanly mopping up a larger enemy army and quickly getting us to a happy resolution.

I that was probably the best thing about it, the end. Ties right into the Ring trilogy, made me want to watch them again.

I feel like the Eagles are this giant cheat code that was used any time the heroes are in impossible situations. Why don't they just call in the Eagles at the beginning of these battles? I actually laughed out loud when the Eagles saved the day AGAIN when everything seemed hopeless.

I still don't really know what the Orcs' motive was. They marched an army to the Lonely Mountain to fight a handful of dwarves? What if Smaug wasn't killed? I didn't quite feel the payoff and that's my major complaint. Azog also felt more menacing in the first two films for some reason.

For what it's worth, Bilbo was desperately all like, "The eagles are here! The eagles are here!" over the fallen Thorin. Seeing their arrival as the sort of instant remedy it usually is. That bit of seeming self-awareness helped assuage that issue for me.

Welcome to the Hotel California.

It was sort of like the Batlle of 4.5 armies... the men were a ragtag crew. The fight scene between the forming nazgul and the council of elders was awesome!

I did the same thing on 12/15. It was a really enjoyable day. The Hobbit films aren't nearly as good as the LOTR (just finished a marathon of those three films today), but they're plenty entertaining and really do add to the overall PJ-Middle Earth experience. I'm quite comfortable saying the extra material we got from the three films outweighs any bloat that was added to expand from two films.

I really enjoyed The Hobbit III

Looking forward to the Extended Edition of course.

Bjorn "I came in like a wrecking ball" Bear got a laugh outta me