Money Better Spent
A film that for me was easily one of the slowest, draggiest and most suffocating viewing experiences of 2012 has earned more than $1 billion worldwide. What does that tell you about the future of the species, much less the taste levels out there? The same kind of lazy, thoughtless, ball-scratching consumerism is the cause of many social ills.
As far as I’m concerned the Chinese now have two things to answer for — forking over $37.3 million in 10 days to see The Hobbit and continuing to buy elephant ivory in the belief that it increases sexual potency.
I loved the 48 fps format, but beyond that I found The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey “a major slog,” as I wrote on 12.3. “I began looking at my watch at the 25-minute mark, at which point I moaned and muttered to myself, ‘God…over two hours to go!’ It’s like being on a long dull plane ride to Alaska without wifi. It’s ponderous, meditative and glacially paced, and sporadically or episodically cranked up in the usual Jackson style.
“The acting is always broad (except for Martin Freeman‘s low-key Bilbo Baggins), but everything is always frenzied and amplified and compounded with the heroes facing terrible, insurmountable odds, and the action scenes always ending in a cliffhanger with the ‘oh my God!’ rescue never happening until the very last second, and with nobody ‘good’ ever getting seriously hurt, much less killed. They might be unconscious and look dead, but they’ll wake up sooner or later.”
Once again defending high frame rates: “Once you’ve seen a big, empty, splashy, FX-driven film at 48 fps, you’ll never again be fully satisfied with seeing a big, empty, splashy, FX-driven film at 24 fps. 48 fps is perfect for comic-book whack-offs, Star Trek or Star Wars flicks, monster movies, vampire movies, pirate movies, adventure flicks, zombie flicks, animated features…anything that isn’t straight drama or any kind of impressively written, character-driven adult fare aimed at anyone with a year or two of college.
“My personal preference is that straight adult fare should be shot at 30 fps because it looks a lot cleaner than 24 fps and reduces pan blur and makes the action seem smoother. And all the rest of the films (i.e., those described above) should be shot at 48 fps. And believe me, the harumphs will eventually ease up and settle in.”
“should be shot” = fascism word play!
All art must conform or else!
As a somewhat fan of the original trilogy (really only the first one and bits of the second), this movie was atrocious. Wells is right on the money, just an absolute bore of a slog to sit through. And it looked cheap as fuck too, which is a bit surprising. Too much digital. They used way more actual sets in the first as opposed to CG environs in this one, and you can tell, nothing has weight. Just awful.
I thought the 48 fps worked well in “exterior” shots, the fields and cliffs etc…but inside Bilbo’s house everything had a sped-up, soap-opera honey-glaze to it that I never got used to. Plus, the opening parade of bearded moochers absolutely killed the film’s momentum. Once they all hit the road, everything picked up and the CGI started to reveal itself nicely but I was already pretty bored.
Then again, I know zilch about that universe so maybe Tolkein fans were sitting there RIVETED while another bearded clown deep-throats a chicken leg.
At least the arguably worse (if inarguably shorter) JACK THE GIANT SLAYER dropped dead at the national boxoffice. HOBBIT aside storybook fantasy isn’t doing much for audiences.
Yeah, it’s been said, but 48fps for interiors still has the herky jerky flicker frame feel of motion interpolation on TV. You keep getting distracted by every chair that moves or whiff of smoke at the edge of the frame.
Forgot to add that I agree with Thunder on the cheap look of a lot of the CGI sets. Rivendell looked like something out of a Sci-Fi Channel miniseries.
“As far as I’m concerned the Chinese now have two things to answer for — forking over $37.3 million in 10 days to see The Hobbit and continuing to buy elephant ivory in the belief that it increases sexual potency.”
And gulags.
Or not.
What does China have to do with this? They have over a billion people more than the US, where it pulled in over $150 billion in ten days. It did better in Germany and the UK. Is this about the ivory?
Look at those guys. Who wouldn’t want to see that shit?
Bring back the Cultural Revolution, Mao would never have let this Peter Jackson coddling happen.
Rob: “At least the arguably worse (if inarguably shorter) JACK THE GIANT SLAYER dropped dead at the national boxoffice.”
It could bode badly for X-Men: Days of Future Past, though.
I paid for 48 fps and think I got hoodwinked because I wasn’t really dazzled at all.
Most of my excitement for the second installment is to give it another go at another theatre and see if my past experience was a bait and switch.
But yeah, it was just awful.
It was 20-30 minutes too long, for sure. A Jackson trademark. … But in the grand scheme of things, compared to all the other dreck passing for popcorn and no-brain entertainment in our society, this is hardy the worst cinematic evil to be lamenting.
“It could bode badly for X-Men: Days of Future Past, though.”
No, but it could definitely bode badly for that prediction.
And, just curious — out of all the bad movies released year, why pick on this one?
Yeah — it’s way too long, and has to contend with that pesky-albeit-not-entirely-inaccurate “pale version of LotR” label (in a perfect world, this would have come first), but the craft and universe-building is solid (as always with Jackson), and has at least one timeless scene for the cinematic ages in the Gollum-riddle sequence (at least he didn’t drop the ball on that one).
In other words, I don’t entirely disagree with your overall verdict — but your disdain for this genre in general (didn’t you hate ALL of the LotR flicks) make your taste pretty suspect.
Having said all of that, though, it’s pretty hard to deny this franchise is a shameless cash-grab at this point — I mean, Jesus, just compare the size of the books for the respective “trilogies.”
Here’s what its success means:
-People go see movies based on books that they like.
-People go see movies that are an extension of other movies they like.
That’s all. Like the movie itself or not, those are perfectly logical reasons to go see something.
Kaned: “No, but it could definitely bode badly for that prediction.”
This is the second simple big-budget concept Singer’s fucked up in the last few years. DoFP sounds more convoluted than First Class, and will probably cost at least close to one of the budgets from Returns and Jack. Face it. He peaked with X2.
I actually don’t necessarily disagree with much what you said (although — as usual — it’s muddled enough so as to not really take much of a “last stand” on anything), D.Z., but let’s remember that Singer also hasn’t made an X-Men film since X2.
There’s a precedent here for a struggling director successfully returning to the franchise that broke him out in the first place (Craven, New Nightmare; Campbell, Casino Royale, off the top of my head). I share your general suspicion about Singer on the whole, but let’s be careful not to bury him quite yet).
Kaned: Well, by your reasoning, one can only hope John McTiernan’s next.
ANY film that runs over 2 hours better have a damn good excuse! Am I the only one that thinks that? I missed the high frame rate version of the Hobbit, but I am intrigued on the debate of the issue. It’s strange how some people actual don’t want films to appear more ‘real’. Personally I think it all comes down to what we’re all accustomed to.
Slinky Films
This movie may not be your cup of tea, and you may think it wasn’t particularly good in terms of plot, pacing, etc. But how anyone can call this lazy is beyond me. These movies are massive undertakings, and Jackson put just as much effort into this one as he did in LOTR.
Cannonball Run I and II are lazy. Ocean’s 12 and 13 are lazy. Die Hard 4 and 5 are lazy. Even if you hate it, you have to admit that all the money in The Hobbit is on the screen.
(For the record, I thought it was too long, but it turned out to be surprisingly faithful to the source material. The Gollum sequence is the best in any of the Middle Earth movies. I think the second movie will be pretty good, too, since it will have spiders and elves and Smaug. I think the third one will likely suck badly, since that’s where they’re going to dump the majority of the Star-Wars-Prequel-esque crap from the LOTR appendices.)
Can anyone explain how Oz is tracking in the 70-80 million range? It’s got no stars, and its attempt at world-building comes off just as geeky as Green Lantern.
Oz appeals to young girls. That’s the key with these fantasy things. The ones that hit aren’t too gross or arch, and have stars young girls like, like Michelle Williams or Kristen Stewart.
Sam Raimi’s Oz is the Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland of 2013.
Spoiler alert: Fear not. At the end of The Hobbit 3, some good guys die. Two of the more major characters die in one paragraph in the book, but I’m sure the movie will give them ten minutes’ worth.
Jeff: “Oz appeals to young girls.”
How does it appeal to young girls when they don’t even know what the hell it’s about? Nor does it tap into the Hot Topic aesthetic which made Alice a hit. My only guess is it’s like the Narnia films. The target audience is too young to know or care about what the hell the books are about, but the adaptations come off “shiny” enough in the trailers to attract more interest than the average overpriced fantasy flicks.
“How does it appeal to young girls when they don’t even know what the hell it’s about?”
They do know what it’s about – it’s about Oz. As in The Wizard of Oz – aka, one of the most watched movies in history.
And what is this Hot Topic shit you ALWAYS bring up. You act like Hot Topic is some generation defining place that does Walmart level business. It isnt… NO ONE was sitting in at production meetings on Alice in Wonderland and saying, “Umm, Tim… have you been to Hot Topic lately? ‘Cause I think this movie needs a litlte more of ‘THAT aesthetic”.
You’re a sweet kid D.Z.
Come on, Kaki is just goofing on us now. All evidence to the contrary, even he isn’t that clueless.
bents: “They do know what it’s about – it’s about Oz. As in The Wizard of Oz – aka, one of the most watched movies in history. ”
The Twi-hards watch movies that old?
Robert Cashill, you can’t take one shitty looking movie’s demise (Jack) and pronounce a genre not doing well because of it. Oz looks like it’s going to be big, that horrible looking Snow White and The Huntsman did well, and what about other billionaire Alice in Wonderland? And don’t forget about Game of Thrones!
Having said that, The Hobbit sucked.