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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

The Hobbit...

awwwesommme... saw it last night.

imax 3d dragon chase @48fps will blow you away (:

i'll let it get through the weekend (and watch it again) before i really say anything so as not to 'spoil' anything storywise
 
There did seem to be some green screen that was quite obvious. The GoPro shots on the barrels looked terrible. Didn't even come close to matching.

Anyone see Peter Jackson in the very first scene walk by the camera dressed up as an extra?
 
Patrick Wieland said:
There did seem to be some green screen that was quite obvious. The GoPro shots on the barrels looked terrible. Didn't even come close to matching.

Anyone see Peter Jackson in the very first scene walk by the camera dressed up as an extra?
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I saw him, first shot of the film, pretty obvious. Yeah the Go Pro was jarring to me, I thought those shots were unnecessary. The audience was laughing during the barrel fight scene, not the best part of the film.
 
Generally I thought the straight images (non CG stuff) out of the Epic were gorgeous, I saw it in 24FPS. The opening scene in the prancing pony was memorable for me as really pretty, as well as any shot of Evangeline Lilly :-)
 
Yeah, green screen wasn't too good and the GoPro footage was unnecessary and distracting. But the CGI Smaug was very impressive! The story drags a bit and three movies is far too much for such a short book, but I liked Desolation of Smaug a lot more than An Unexpected Journey. Saw it in 2D (my preferred format), but plan on seeing the 3D HFR at some point.
 
Not going to lie, I thought it kind of sucked. I just can't warm up to all the CGI. Its frankly looks terrible. Weta seems to be on the downward slide. Some stuff looked fantastic (Smaug) and a bunch of other scenes looked downright awful. You could tell that they were acting in front of green screens for a large portion of the film. Middle Earth just doesn't have the same gritty lived in feel that the original films have. Miniatures? Gone. Replaced with 100% CG environments that look like plastic. Everything is too clean, too polished. Its frustrating because the LOTR trilogy had the best combination of CG and practical effects ever seen on the big screen. The totally CG orcs looked bad. I hate to admit it but I think Peter's best days are behind him. He has gone the way of Cameron and Lucas, industry pioneers that have over-embraced computer generated imagery as a sub-par replacement for the practical effects that they became famous for. Its a real shame but visually, I think that films are regressing (Gravity is exempt because it was gorgeous). The live action Red stuff was fine but the CG set extensions killed almost all of the magic in the image. I would have loved to see the Epic coupled with the practical sets, miniatures and prosthetics of the past but I think those days are long gone.
 
The hate towards these movies around the net amuse me, especially when it comes from people, who apparently enjoyed stuff like Hunger Games or [put another summer blockbuster title here]. I don't know what they've expected going in, a short bedtime story for children, political thriller or social commentary about scary people from the evil lands of the East? Either way, 3-hour long rollercoaster adventure is PJ's thing, it's like these people never saw Jackson's King Kong or any of his early cheeseball horror stuff. Thank heavens filmmakers like Peter Jackson are not too bothered by what critics and / or bitter people has to say.

I liked Unexpected Journey, but I loved Desolation of Smaug. Much better than the first one as a movie, I wish I could've said exactly that about Two Towers.
 
He's changed a lot more with Hobbit than he did with LotR (and he changed a lot there too), but I think he stayed faithful enough to the essence of the book that I'm OK with it. His characters though different from my imagining of them, capture the essence of Tolkien's as conveyed in The Hobbit (other than Beorn... who I saw as the only clear miss in the movie). Cumberbatch absolutely nailed Smaug. I also thought the Desolation of Smaug was a better movie than Unexpected Journey. While I'm a bit obsessed with Tolkien's Universe, I'm not so rigid that I can't enjoy some fine work by PJ & del Toro.
 
Dominik Muench said:
I haven't seen it yet......GoPro footage ??? Why on earth would they ?? :/
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It supposed to be an iPhone footage. Google about Peter Jackson, HFR 48fps and image quality... He made a promise last year that the second part will be shot on iPhone 4 since almost nobody liked HFR 48fps... At the end of the day we got only 2 shots... :)
 
Filip Orlandic said:
It supposed to be an iPhone footage. Google about Peter Jackson, HFR 48fps and image quality... He made a promise last year that the second part will be shot on iPhone 4 since almost nobody liked HFR 48fps... At the end of the day we got only 2 shots... :)
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the homie has 50 or so EPIC's sitting on the shelve...and then that ? :/ what a waste *sigh
 
satire...

just to lighten things ups here, look at this dragon i made before the movie (:

BbVVGctCEAE35v0.jpg:large
 
I walked out about 1hr 40mn in. I was bored, but mostly could not get into the HFR. I think it worked well on some of the sweeping pans, but I did not like the stage play look. I could not take another hour of it. I will give it another chance when it comes out on Blu-ray... in 2D.

Someone mentioned Hunger Games. I thought Catching Fire was a much better movie.
 
*SPOILERS*

I loved it, I knew going in there were going to be campy over the top scenes, like the book and PJ in general so I enjoyed it, like the fat dwarf who bowls over all the orcs in the barrel and then fights in it like a suit, I thought it was funny.

The go pro shots were literally about a second long a piece and mostly white water so I could look past them easily, it was more like "hey that's not RED, oh well it's over". I really enjoyed the environments in this one, like the lake town.

If I had to criticize anything it would be the molten gold stuff, it was the most unrealistic to me, especially when he rides the wheel barrow in it, it would be so hot, he should have at least acted like it was unbearably hot and couldn't take much more or something.

Overall I liked it about even with the first, maybe a hair more, the first had the Gollum scenes going for it also.

I grew accustomed to the HFR faster than the last film and could appreciate it.

I am a huge fan of Practical over CGI, but if this is what we are given, I will take it for what it is and I still get enjoyment out of it.
 
Pretty easy to spot GoPro footage in this professional movie? What were they thinking? They could have spend 20k on an Epic underwater housing and tested that MTF edge to edge sharpness from one of our fine builders in the Bubble Blowers Thread!

Nicholas Davis said:
The go pro shots were literally about a second long a piece and mostly white water so I could look past them easily, it was more like "hey that's not RED, oh well it's over".
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