GAH. I hate %@&*ing Hollywood. :-(

[Rath Darkblade]

All year, I'd been looking forward to the DVD release of the second Hobbit movie (i.e. "The Desolation of Smaug"). All year, no-one could tell me when (or even if) it would be coming out.

Now I finally found a release date online - 3 Nov (for Europe) and 4 Nov (for the US). That doesn't help me, because I live in Stralya.

So I call my local music/movie shop. After they disconnected me (twice!) they finally tell me that the release date for Stralya is 12 Nov.

GAH!!! Why can't Hollywood get their &@$%ing act together and release DVDs at the same time everywhere? It's not rocket science - just have them ready in time ship them to the various locations you need to, so they're in time to be released everywhere. It's called JIT (Just-In-Time) management, people. It's taught in universities, for f&@$'s sake.

What makes it even more annoying is that whenever I want to buy some new DVD or CD or computer game in the shops here, it always comes out later - and is more expensive - than anywhere else in the world.

Thanks for nothing, Phoneywood.

[BBP]

You think that's bad? Release dates for movies used to be delayed by months out here: because in German it's common practice to synchronize grown-up movies but in The Netherlands it isn't, and distributors would wait with releasing, say, a new James Bond in the Netherlands until the sync version in Germany was released, to prevent cinematic tourism. Nowadays syncing starts earlier fortunately, but we still have to wait for ze Germans, that's usually one or two weeks.

[Rath Darkblade]

You think that's bad? Release dates for movies used to be delayed by months out here: because in German it's common practice to synchronize grown-up movies but in The Netherlands it isn't, and distributors would wait with releasing, say, a new James Bond in the Netherlands until the sync version in Germany was released, to prevent cinematic tourism. Nowadays syncing starts earlier fortunately, but we still have to wait for ze Germans, that's usually one or two weeks.

Months??? Wow. I'm glad that syncing starts earlier for you now, but... wow. What is cinematic tourism, and why did they want to prevent it? As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't matter where we go to see a movie!

[BBP]

Germans travelling to The Netherlands to watch the new James Bond in English, thus not going to see the German version in Germany, thus making the German distributors less money.

[Maxor127]

Have you seen the movie? Because I thought it was pretty bad as both a fan of the book and of the LOTR movies, and you're not missing anything. I actually yelled out "Are you f***ing kidding me?" when the credits rolled.

[Tawmis]

Have you seen the movie? Because I thought it was pretty bad as both a fan of the book and of the LOTR movies, and you're not missing anything. I actually yelled out "Are you f***ing kidding me?" when the credits rolled.

It's not The Hobbit from the books, that much is certain. They have added stuff from appendixes and such, and made it darker than the Hobbit was, and added a lot of silly, over the top stuff as well; but they're not only playing up to the fans of the book, but a new generation of movie goers who have (hard to believe!) never read the book.

To me, it's like those comic book movies. They're never, ever, ever anything from the comic. Ever. They may be BASED on a storyline from a comic, but it's always DRASTICALLY different.

The same thing is happening here. The notion of it being BASED on The Hobbit is there; with a lot of extra stuff (mostly unneeded) thrown in there.

It's entertaining if you go in, with this notion.

The Hobbit, as most who know me know - is my Bible. So it's not like I am some casual fan, whose like, "What's the big deal with what they did?"

I just know Hollywood. And expect these things now.

Sometimes it pays off to be completely different (any of the Marvel movies), sometimes it doesn't, and sometimes it's just down the middle.

[Rath Darkblade]

Have you seen the movie? Because I thought it was pretty bad as both a fan of the book and of the LOTR movies, and you're not missing anything. I actually yelled out "Are you f***ing kidding me?" when the credits rolled.

I saw the movie, but as a fan of the books myself, I wasn't expecting much. I was pretty dumbfounded by that whole chase scene in the mountain (i.e. Smaug chasing the dwarfs, dwarfs run around, dwarfs unveil huge golden dwarf statue, etc.) That certainly never happened in the book, and I have no idea why Peter Jackson did that.

That said, previous "Extended Edition" DVDs always added in the scenes that were cut out, and it always made more sense that way. That's why I'm looking forward to those - I don't much care about "Director's Commentary" etc., but if I can see the film in its entirety (including the deleted scenes), then hopefully it would make sense.

Have you seen the movie? Because I thought it was pretty bad as both a fan of the book and of the LOTR movies, and you're not missing anything. I actually yelled out "Are you f***ing kidding me?" when the credits rolled.

It's not The Hobbit from the books, that much is certain. They have added stuff from appendices and such, and made it darker than the Hobbit was, and added a lot of silly, over the top stuff as well; but they're not only playing up to the fans of the book, but a new generation of movie goers who have (hard to believe!) never read the book.

To me, it's like those comic book movies. They're never, ever, ever anything from the comic. Ever. They may be BASED on a storyline from a comic, but it's always DRASTICALLY different.

The same thing is happening here. The notion of it being BASED on The Hobbit is there; with a lot of extra stuff (mostly unneeded) thrown in there.

It's entertaining if you go in, with this notion.

The Hobbit, as most who know me know - is my Bible. So it's not like I am some casual fan, whose like, "What's the big deal with what they did?"

I just know Hollywood. And expect these things now.

Sometimes it pays off to be completely different (any of the Marvel movies), sometimes it doesn't, and sometimes it's just down the middle.

Hmm-mm... and what did you think of the second Hobbit film, hmm?

I saw the "Extended Edition" of the first Hobbit film, and I thought it was fine. I especially liked the song that the dwarves have at the beginning; the actor playing Thorin has a good voice. That said, when you play the film with the deleted scenes re-inserted, it makes a hell of a lot more sense, and is closer to the book.

I've noticed that this happens with every "Extended Edition" of the Peter Jackson films. That's why I'm waiting for the "Extended Edition" of the second Hobbit film now - hopefully, it would make a lot more sense than the film that hit the cinemas (which, personally, I thought was a bit of a mess).

[Maxor127]

A lot of people seem to like the second movie better than the first, but I thought it was even worse. Here's the TL;DR of it. I hated all of the callbacks to LOTR in the first movie that just reminded me of how much better those movies were, and the unnecessary prologue with old Bilbo and Frodo that went on for far too long. And that is the chief complaint I can make about the whole trilogy so far. Scenes go on far too long, and the movie is clearly padded to stretch to three movies... like butter scraped over too much bread. And then I didn't like how everything is turned into a rollercoaster extravaganza whether they need to be or not. And when every scene is like that, then it just gets boring riding the same rollercoaster over and over. I didn't see any scenes that I thought were interesting or exciting. I mostly thought they were silly and cartoony. Adding appendix stuff was probably good in theory, but they were in appendixes and not a part of the story for a reason... it's superfluous stuff that detracts from the story rather than enhances it. The appendix scenes could've been good for an extended edition. But what I really hate and don't see the point of at all are the scenes that are completely fake and not from the book at all. The dragon scene was the worst of them. If someone told me Smaug wouldn't be dead by the end of Desolation, I would've said BS. And they add all of these fake scenes but cut down the riddle scene. I caught right away when they cut like 4 lines from one of the riddles, and sure no one who isn't familiar with the books or that scene would notice, but why cut 4 lines from a riddle? How is it even fair solving a riddle when you don't have all of the lines? And what do 10 extra seconds matter in a 2 and a half+ hour movie? I can boil down why these movies are disappointing by simply pointing out that Bilbo is a secondary character in his own movies. He's usually in the background doing nothing, not saying anything or reacting to anything. And even in the scenes that are his moment to shine, for example when he rescues the dwarves from the spiders or when he confronts Smaug, it's someone else who shows up and saves the day. The dwarves act like superheroes and completely overshadow BIlbo when he has a magic ring that can turn him invisible! Scenes where Bilbo used his cunning and wit to prevail are turned into long, drawn out fight scenes for the dwarves or elves. And I don't consider the movies dark at all. And book had some dark stuff already for a children's book. Even the Rankin/Bass cartoon has a darker tone. The movies can almost be dark, but it's usually broken by some corny joke or other times it takes itself too seriously while still being carefree. I hope that makes sense because it sounds contradictory, but it's the feeling I got from watching them. Okay, rant over.

[Rath Darkblade]

I know what you mean. Frankly, I felt that the Tauriel character felt tacked-on (especially her supposed "romance" with Kili). I think the only reason that Evangeline Lily is there is for fanservice and drooling teenage boys. I'm also not sure why we've got the scenes with Thranduil AFTER the dwarves have already escaped his jail - but I suppose that PJ didn't want people to forget that he's there. (I'm also pretty sure that Lee Pace, after reading the book, just MIGHT have thought "What, I have one or two scenes and THAT'S IT?!?")

I agree with you about Bilbo's moments (e.g. rescuing the dwarves from the spiders, rescuing the dwarves from Thranduil's jail, conversations with Smaug) are unfairly turned into dwarf-superhero moments. In particular, the whole Bombur-in-a-barrel-becomes-awesome thing struck me as ridiculous. (Incidentally, does it also strike you that Bombur looks a little like Obelix?)

Oh, and speaking of Bilbo getting overshadowed by the dwarfs - you might like this picture. Note the forlorn Bilbo at the back of the cart!)