In theatres: 'Desolation of Smaug' [2] SPOILERS

I get driven crazy by people who say "I could care less" when what they mean is "I couldn't care less".

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what about that was 'donkeys years ago' as in, a long time ago. Donkeys dont live that long.

And when people say 'dont be out after dark', well, why not ? after dark comes light doesnt it ?

Oh, come now people. It's just a silly goofy action movie. If you removed Tolkiens name from it people would be going; "Meh. It's kind of funny, but nothing special."

Certainly not anything worth dying over. Neither literally or metaphorically.

Mrs Figg wrote:and?......

And it wasn't as bad as AUJ, but it was still a load of rubbish.

That's one I didn't expect - better than AUJ! I thought AUJ had its moments at least, DOS was 100% horrible. Interesting

AUJ made me feel embarrassed to be in the theatre at some points.... DOS didn't.

Also, DOS seemed to have more made up stuff which I found easier to distance from the book whereas AUJ seemed to be based more on the book content, just with stupid little changes.

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DOS was less of a botched adaptation and more of a bad stand-alone film, so it wasn't as embarrassing. What's embarrassing are the ways people react to moments in the film. Laughing and ooing and ahhing The fan reactions and overindulgence in made up "appendices" info also is too much to handle sometimes. They're pulling stuff out of thin air, just like their master PJ has done.

Well... since I was hiding behind my little screen on the plane, nobody else knew I was watching DOS so was a little different to being at the cinema. I felt good that I hadnt paid to go see it... I wont be going to see TBOTFA either!

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Ayup FS...

As so will I. But OH ! how shall the terrible void after this be filled ??? After all, there's only so much bitching a body can do. Even here. what I'm waiting for of course is the full fat triple Blu-Ray Hobbit EE box set to come out before I commit to spending actual money , other than Cinema admissions, on it. And before even then, I may find something on a car boot sale...

And finally, there's the 24 Hrs plus or whatever the running times come to, for both TH AND LOTR EEs to watch them in sequence... Then I probably wont look at them for at least a year !

I'd have to say I agree with Lance.

Though I'm keeping two thoughts in the head at once here. If you're looking at the two movies as adaptations, there's a few moments that stays quite close to the spirit of Tolkien in AUJ. Along with moments that leans heavily towards Jacksons spirit and sense of humour. In DOS there's very little that even hints at the spirit of the original story, in my opinion.

As adaptations then I, and I understand people who come to the films through their love of the source material could, would prefer AUJ. Or at least see it as the better fo the two.

As standalone films however AUJ is such a mismatched collection of parts pulling in different directions, just for the same reason as stated above, that it really struggles to stay a coherent movie. DOS on the other hand is more consistent, in leaning almost completely in the Jackson direction. A better movie, but a worse adaptation.

DOS to me seems just another silly goofy action movie. And if you removed the Tolkien connection people would probably go "Meh, nothing special," but it wouldn't inspire the hate it seemingly does because of that connection.

That's how it seems to me, anyway.

Maybe "Guardians of the Galaxy ish, but not as good." would sum DOS up pretty well?

Bluebottle wrote:

DOS to me seems just another silly goofy action movie. And if you removed the Tolkien connection people would probably go "Meh, nothing special," but it wouldn't inspire the hate it seemingly does because of that connection.

That's how it seems to me, anyway.

I don't disagree, Blue.

But hypothetically if you did remove the Tolkien connection from DoS, the resulting "DoS-goofy-action-film" would probably only draw one or two percent of the box office profits of "DoS-Tolkien-linked-film", if it was lucky.  More likely it would have run  for a just few weeks in the cinemas and then gone straight to DVD and Netflix with no talk of a sequel.  

That's a big difference financially!

If you think about the collective audience as one person, they've significantly overpaid for what they received. I'd guess the collective anger (if you could measure such things) is probably proportional to the collective inflated profits.

I caught 5 minutes of DOS the other day on tv, my gaze skimmed over it rather like it was wearing an Elven cloak, it didnt arrest my attention, couldnt focus on it, but then I was extremely bored.

Bluebottle wrote:As standalone films however AUJ is such a mismatched collection of parts pulling in different directions, just for the same reason as stated above, that it really struggles to stay a coherent movie. DOS on the other hand is more consistent, in leaning almost completely in the Jackson direction. A better movie, but a worse adaptation.

DOS to me seems just another silly goofy action movie. And if you removed the Tolkien connection people would probably go "Meh, nothing special," but it wouldn't inspire the hate it seemingly does because of that connection.

That's how it seems to me, anyway.

Yeah, I completely agree. If I wasn't a Tolkien fan I'd probably feel similarly about this as I did with any other mediocre (give or take) blockbuster movie.

I'd really only be interested in the dragon if it was a stand alone film. And I'd have to watch an entire two hours before I even got to see it

Eldorion wrote:

Bluebottle wrote:As standalone films however AUJ is such a mismatched collection of parts pulling in different directions, just for the same reason as stated above, that it really struggles to stay a coherent movie. DOS on the other hand is more consistent, in leaning almost completely in the Jackson direction. A better movie, but a worse adaptation.

DOS to me seems just another silly goofy action movie. And if you removed the Tolkien connection people would probably go "Meh, nothing special," but it wouldn't inspire the hate it seemingly does because of that connection.

That's how it seems to me, anyway.

Yeah, I completely agree.  If I wasn't a Tolkien fan I'd probably feel similarly about this as I did with any other mediocre (give or take) blockbuster movie.

As far as big blockbusters go, I really liked Pacific Rim. I don't know how I would feel about DOS since it's very difficult to remove Tolkien from that equation.

Mrs Figg wrote:I caught 5 minutes of DOS the other day on tv, my gaze skimmed over it rather like it was wearing an Elven cloak, it didnt arrest my attention, couldnt focus on it, but then I was extremely bored.

I can't remember connecting at all to most of DOS it just passed over me, making no real impression positive or negative, I was surprised I didn't even care enough to get annoyed, I felt more of a connection to Expendables 2... I haven't watched it since, and I'm not really looking forward to watching it again, but I kinda feel like I have to, it took me three viewings of AUJ to form a relatively indifferent opinion.

DOS is already showing on TV?

yeah on Sky cinema.

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 yeah that black guyliner was kinda cool ala Gary Numan

Recoveryanonymous wrote:

Eldorion wrote:

Bluebottle wrote:As standalone films however AUJ is such a mismatched collection of parts pulling in different directions, just for the same reason as stated above, that it really struggles to stay a coherent movie. DOS on the other hand is more consistent, in leaning almost completely in the Jackson direction. A better movie, but a worse adaptation.

DOS to me seems just another silly goofy action movie. And if you removed the Tolkien connection people would probably go "Meh, nothing special," but it wouldn't inspire the hate it seemingly does because of that connection.

That's how it seems to me, anyway.

Yeah, I completely agree.  If I wasn't a Tolkien fan I'd probably feel similarly about this as I did with any other mediocre (give or take) blockbuster movie.

As far as big blockbusters go, I really liked Pacific Rim. I don't know how I would feel about DOS since it's very difficult to remove Tolkien from that equation.

Yeah, true. It's an interesting mental exercise though. And I think it's good to keep be aware of exactly what one is discussing, if you start mixing arguments from thses different discussions it quickly becomes pretty muddled. It also allows you to look at things from another angle, as it's hard to do little else but condemn these movies as adaptations. And it helps in understanding people who really enjoy these movies.

As movies they're "meh," and I can see how people can enjoy them. Well, DOS is. I have issues with AUJ just as a movie, as well.

That's not to say that I don't think the criticism of the movies as adaptations aren't valid. I do understand that people can feel cheated, as David suggested, or that they can be seen as reflecting badly on the subject matter or.. oh, there's probably too many to list. They just shouldn't play a role in discussion of the movies as simply movies, which, to my mind, I see them doing a little too often.