The Hobbit

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FenderPriest

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Ok, fess up. Who's going to see it, and who's seen it? My wife and I are going to the midnight release in a few hours!
 
I'll probably see it, but will wait until the crowds thin out. Too bad the reviews say it's merely pretty good.

My son is very eager to see it and I think I'll allow him to see it with me, despite word that the film is a more gruesome than necessary treatment of a book that's decidedly child-friendly compared to Lord of the Rings. Wish they'd kept it that way for the movie.
 
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I've read several reviews: overall its considered a mixed movie. The biggest complaint? The length: 3 hours! and two more are planned...
So, I'll probably watch it from Redbox....besides, I've got a mini-projector I use for teaching that outputs 720dpi up to 90"!
 
Midnight tonight with my 3 sons and a few of their friends. I hope I can stay awake. I should be napping right now as I type this.
 
I would go to the midnight showing except there isn't one here. Lord willing, I'll take my fiancé on a date to see it next week.
 
My oldest daughter is going tonight with some friends. Tomorrow I'm going with my three other kids.
 
Saw it last night.

First thing: IT WAS AWESOME!!! Saw it in 3D, but not 48fps, so I can't comment on that part. Even still, IT WAS AWESOME!!!!

Secondly, I don't know who was saying it was three hours. It was only three hours at our theater because of the 20-5 minutes of previews and trailers. The lights dimmed at 12 sharp, and the credits rolled at 3am. So the film itself was about 2.5 hours - a reasonable amount of time.

Thirdly, I'd say that this is basically someone reading The Hobbit through the lens of The Lord of the Rings + Appendices, which is exactly what they did. To be honest, if one made a straight Hobbit film word for word, line for line from the book, the characters would be ridiculous and silly in light of the Lord of the Rings. Thankfully, they didn't do that. However, it essentially scene for scene, which is kind of expected given the length of the book.

Fourthly, give this article a read before you see it, it helps set expectations and gives some thoughts on what's going on in the movie - Desiring God: How to watch 'The Hobbit'.
 
My wife an I are going tonight. Greatly looking forward to it.

On a tangentially related note: who is less comfortable going to the movies in light of the Aurora shootings and the more recent Oregan mall shooting? We rarely go to a movie theater and I'm not thrilled with having to go tonight: holiday season, big realease, crazy people seem to be on the increase...But we loved the LOTR triology and the tickets are a gift from my brother, so we're excited to go nonetheless.
 
On a tangentially related note: who is less comfortable going to the movies in light of the Aurora shootings and the more recent Oregan mall shooting?

Certainly there is a disturbing propensity for deadly violence in our world. But judging merely by the sort of tragedies that are most common, your greatest danger during your outing is probably from a wreck on your drive to and from the theater—not to mention that nothing can happen outside the will of our Father.

Somehow, I find the fact that traffic accident fatalities (a danger I've become accustomed to facing every day with hardly a thought) are more common than nearly any other non-medical danger in America to be strangely comforting. Being shot by a stranger is way, way down on the list.
 
Going to see it this weekend. I am actually more interested in seeing the Man of Steel trailer attached to the Hobbit.
 
Looks good. Will wait for it to come out on DVD though. I used to love going to movies at the theater but the last few years I just don't like the crowds or the process.
 
I saw it in 3D and 48FPS and it was totally amazing!!! I loved it so much and wish I could go see it again today.
 
On a tangentially related note: who is less comfortable going to the movies in light of the Aurora shootings and the more recent Oregan mall shooting?

Certainly there is a disturbing propensity for deadly violence in our world. But judging merely by the sort of tragedies that are most common, your greatest danger during your outing is probably from a wreck on your drive to and from the theater—not to mention that nothing can happen outside the will of our Father.

I agree, and yet things like this keep happening, leaving me less and less comforted by statistics...
 
On a tangentially related note: who is less comfortable going to the movies in light of the Aurora shootings and the more recent Oregan mall shooting?

Certainly there is a disturbing propensity for deadly violence in our world. But judging merely by the sort of tragedies that are most common, your greatest danger during your outing is probably from a wreck on your drive to and from the theater—not to mention that nothing can happen outside the will of our Father.

I agree, and yet things like this keep happening, leaving me less and less comforted by statistics...
 
What on earth is the attraction in watching a film from midnight to 3am? I'd be asleep!!
We went to the midnight release because:
1) We're ultra Tolkien nerds. My wife and I will go on dates and have long sections of conversation about Tolkien/LOTR.
2) It's an easy babysitting gig: "Hey, you wanna come sleep on our couch to make sure our kid is safe? He never wakes up during the night, and he'll be asleep when you get here, and we'll be here when he wakes up." Um, yes please!
3) I went to the mid-night releases of the LOTR films 10 years ago, so it feels like a tradition at this point. Probably won't ever do it for another film series, but for these - why not?!
 
Statistically I think you are quite safe going to a movie.

When we read of horrible events like Aurora it makes it seem like movie going is not safe. I do not have statistics on hand, but I do believe it is a very safe activity.
 
I saw it last night; 3D 48 fps. The 48 fps is going to take getting used to. Celluloid gives movies a rich texture that is lost with hyper-realism.
I agree. I was really distracted by the hyper-realism. Maybe that's the best way to describe it. It looked almost like soap opera lighting to me and seemed to not seem real in some ways. I found myself distracted and unable to think it was a high production movie because the realism didn't seem like real life. I don't know how to make sense of it. It was crystal clear but the clarity made it seem like characters super-imposed on a fake world.

That said, my son and I really enjoyed the movie itself in spite of the distraction of the 48fps 3D.
 
Does it have any of the "spiritual" quality – the sense of "true myth" per Lewis or Tolkien – that LOTR had? I mean, there was a sense of this in LOTR – such as in "the shadow of Mordor" being a correlative to the growing satanic darkness in real life. Or is it just a grand adventure with familiar heroes?
 
Does it have any of the "spiritual" quality – the sense of "true myth" per Lewis or Tolkien – that LOTR had? I mean, there was a sense of this in LOTR – such as in "the shadow of Mordor" being a correlative to the growing satanic darkness in real life. Or is it just a grand adventure with familiar heroes?

It's the former. Gandalf is the only one who seems to understand there is a rising darkness.
 
Thanks, Rich! So then it may be worth my seeing.


Bill, many of us were of that mind. In '80 – we were living in Woodstock then I took my 7-year-old daughter to a nearby town to see it. But you were a notch above, an uber-Star Wars fan!
 
Saw the movie. I really enjoyed it and felt it did an excellent job maintaining continuity with what we saw in the LOTR movies (as it should). Many times when I watch movies I always look for discontinuity and 'holes' between sequels and prequels (the less holes, the more impressed I am that the makers took the time to maintain continuity in even the smallest details). I honestly could not find any areas of discontinuity in The Hobbit.
 
I went with my three sons yesterday. It certainly "felt" more like Lord of the Rings than The Hobbit. I can put up with changes from a book (although they felt less necessary here than in LOTR, where space was an issue). The thing I liked least about The Hobbit (and I liked it in general, and my sons loved it) was the change in the character of Thorin. He went from being a complex, more "human" leader who had pride and self-importance issues to being a mini-Aragorn.

I also think Jackson missed out on one of the lessons of Tolkien's world - race relations. Instead Thorin's distrust of elves being a product of racial (Dwarvish) prejudice resulting from ancient "wrongs" back and forth (much like real-life racial tensions), it became a "this elf didn't help us, so I hate all elves" kind of cartoonish character.

The older I get, the more I appreciate Tolkien's wisdom in showing moral/theological/social issues of our world in a fantasy world.
 
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