Then you have the cast of Dwarves. Sorry as hard as I try it's to easy to remember some of them by only their signature characteristic. The Leader Thorin, the youngest one, the one with the fluffy white beard, the deaf one, the bowman, the bald one, the fat one , etc. Too many names, too much alike. At least with the 9 in LotR there was enough uniqueness to remember everyone, plus they were introduced at a much slower pace.
1) It's been a long, long time since I read the book.
B) A movie goer shouldn't have too.
I'm afraid by the end of this trilogy it's going to dwarf (hehe) the action of the LOTR movies and that as a whole will come off odd to me.
Uhm. Not to put TOO fine a point on it (since there's technically too), BUUUUT:Spoiler for Hidden:
No no, I understand that. But LOTR is about a threat to the entire world. So dragon or not, the Hobbit shouldn't come off "bigger". That's all I'm saying.
Well we were very much looking forward to this because Larry (husband) is partly responsible for the Great Eagles.
You see, there are no eagles in New Zealand, not even in zoos. There are no Golden Eagles in Australia, not even in zoos. So WETA had no references.
We found this out when we were the Guests of Honor to the New Zealand national SF Convention when Lord of the Rings was in poss-and-CG mode, and we got a tour of WETA conducted by Richard Taylor himself (which was only supposed to be 30 minutes until he realized how much of this stuff we "got", how much we already knew about effects...and how much we loved old cars). We got into the CG studio and to the artist responsible for the Great Eagles and Larry asked him what he was using as a reference, and he got this panicked look on his face....whereupon we volunteered that we know a Cherokee Elder who stores her stuffed Golden Eagle (sent to her by the BIA Feather Bank) in Larry's studio, so we had a reference right there.
Short story and about 40g of hi-res photos later, you had the Great Eagles in LotR.
Fast forward to about a year ago, and Larry gets an email from Gino at WETA. Seems they had somehow deleted the archive and anyway, they were working in higher res now. Would he be willing to reshoot?
Not only did we, but we found one of the two falconers in Oklahoma who flies a Golden, and got multi-cam hi res video from multiple angles, but MOSTLY the view you will never get in documentaries of birds of prey--from the talon section looking up. "Hobbit's and dwarf eye view," so to speak.
So what you will be watching are "Tweetie" (the stuffed bird) and "Mina" (the live one). We should be getting our crew hats and other swag any day now.
Well we were very much looking forward to this because Larry (husband) is partly responsible for the Great Eagles.
You see, there are no eagles in New Zealand, not even in zoos. There are no Golden Eagles in Australia, not even in zoos. So WETA had no references.
We found this out when we were the Guests of Honor to the New Zealand national SF Convention when Lord of the Rings was in poss-and-CG mode, and we got a tour of WETA conducted by Richard Taylor himself (which was only supposed to be 30 minutes until he realized how much of this stuff we "got", how much we already knew about effects...and how much we loved old cars). We got into the CG studio and to the artist responsible for the Great Eagles and Larry asked him what he was using as a reference, and he got this panicked look on his face....whereupon we volunteered that we know a Cherokee Elder who stores her stuffed Golden Eagle (sent to her by the BIA Feather Bank) in Larry's studio, so we had a reference right there.
Short story and about 40g of hi-res photos later, you had the Great Eagles in LotR.
Fast forward to about a year ago, and Larry gets an email from Gino at WETA. Seems they had somehow deleted the archive and anyway, they were working in higher res now. Would he be willing to reshoot?
Not only did we, but we found one of the two falconers in Oklahoma who flies a Golden, and got multi-cam hi res video from multiple angles, but MOSTLY the view you will never get in documentaries of birds of prey--from the talon section looking up. "Hobbit's and dwarf eye view," so to speak.
So what you will be watching are "Tweetie" (the stuffed bird) and "Mina" (the live one). We should be getting our crew hats and other swag any day now.
Well, so far it's not really "bigger" (save, perhaps, in overall physical size of enemies encountered). It has the feel of an adventure rather than an epic.
Personally I pictured all the stuff shown in the Hobbit so far on a much much smaller scale. The overly used (and bad) CGI + physics and size of the battle with the Goblin King was too big in my opinion.
I- is that I always pictured it happening in dark claustrophobic tunnels rather than a huge well-lit cavern with catwalks all over.
And don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the movie. I'll own it. I'll watch it many times over the years. I'm just giving my nitpicks.