I watched a fan edit of The Hobbit movies last night that condenses all of them down into a single four hour movie with an intermission. I've never watched any of The Hobbit movies because they seemed like complete garbage.
After watching, I have four main takeaways.
1) Wow, Peter Jackson really didn't characterize the dwarves for shit. They're all onscreen for hours but none of them have any lines and, when they need one to give Bilbo a talking to or encouragement, PJ just kinda slotted one in at random and had them say something generic that didn't further their character whatsoever. In the edit at least, the only one that kinda stood out was Bofur, but it's not like he had an arc or anything, he was just nice to Bilbo. Also the movies make Thorin look like a spoiled petulant little asshole.
2) It's amazing how much bullshit you can cut out of the movies and they don't feel off. No Toriel, barely any Legolas, barely any Alfred, there's no stupid intro cinematic that explains the backstory on some bullshit that doesn't matter or can be shown instead of told, there's no White Council, and there's no fucking Sauron because he's not supposed to fucking be here. It's much better, and it's amazing how fans have managed to edit the movies better than Warner Brothers and their stupid three movie mandate ever could.
3) Why the fuck are the orcs outside during the day?
THAT'S LIKE ONE OF THE MAIN THINGS ABOUT THE ORCS, THEY DON'T GO OUT IN DAYLIGHT. WTF.
I don't know if it's petty, but it took me right the fuck out of the movies. LIKE HAVE YOU READ THE BOOKS?
4) Normalize intermissions. Like seriously they're great.
It tells the audience where it's thematically and tonally safe to take a break without necessitating breaking the movie into multiple films that each require their own narrative arcs in order to be satisfying. Please movies, give us more intermissions. They're wonderful.
Anyway yeah, The Hobbit movies kind of suck but fans did a tremendous job of making them at least watchable. I still love Martin Freeman as Bilbo, Andy Serkis was amazing as always, the dwarves were all fantastic despite not getting enough love from the writers, and I really liked Thranduil being just a shitty little femboy bitch. Great casting choices and acting all around.
6.5/10 they did a pretty good job polishing that turd
I still want Guillermo's version.
#TheHobbit #Hobbit #LordOfTheRings #LotR