Tauriel in PJ's The Hobbit

[Olinser]

Tauriel was bad, but simply one symptom of the underlying disease that afflicts the movies - namely that the director got a big head after LOTR and decided he had carte blanche to rewrite the book to make it 'better' and ended up turning a rather short book into a massive drag of a trilogy chock full of clichéd, boring side plots.

Tauriel (and her pointless love triangle), Legolas, Rhadagast, Bolg being reduced to just a gofer underling of Azog, the stupid 20 minute pointless action sequence with Smaug bumbling around not even injuring a single dwarf, the changing of the Black Arrow to the dwarven windlass, the ludicrousness of Bard having to use his son as a prop to steady the shot, these were all just symptoms of that bigger problem.

None of them individually was that bad and can't be pointed out as the sole reason the movies just didn't work very well, but they all contributed.

[Legato Endless]

Compared to pretty much every fantasy film except LotR , the Hobbit films are thoroughly excellent.

While I agree with everything else, I'm not sure I'd go that far. Less that The Hobbit is so irredeemable (it isn't), but more because while it's anemic the genre isn't that starved. There's a bit more there than Conan the Barbarian or Labyrinth. Perhaps The Princess Bride and the Dark Crystal might be overrated by nostalgia. Dragonslayer certainly is. But Fantasia and the Wizard of Oz are towering works of filmmaking. To say nothing of Terry Gilliam's oeuvre, Pan's labyrinth, The Seventh Seal, Ugetsu, and a few superior works.

Cut the fat off, and the Hobbit might compare favorably to Stardust, or the first Narnia, but there are a few high-caliber fantasy films besides LOTR.

[Kitten Champion]

I liked pretty much everything to do directly with Bilbo. If they were edited down to that I'd indisputably have enjoyed The Hobbit, I believe.

From the trilogy, I'm guessing that's around 2-2:30 hours.

[Pex]

At the time I saw the movies I had not read the book, but I have since then. Even so, a movie based on a book doesn't have to be verbatim. Liberties and additions are fine for drama or excitement. If you want the book read the book. Of course you can't stray too far by contradicting the book because you'll get your audience mad and risk ruining the story, but strict adherence to the book or else you're The Suck is unwarranted.

[Olinser]

I liked pretty much everything to do directly with Bilbo. If they were edited down to that I'd indisputably have enjoyed The Hobbit, I believe.

From the trilogy, I'm guessing that's around 2-2:30 hours.

There are actually a couple fan-cut versions that come in at about 3-5 hours for the whole trilogy.

[Aedilred]

While I agree with everything else, I'm not sure I'd go that far. Less that The Hobbit is so irredeemable (it isn't), but more because while it's anemic the genre isn't that starved. There's a bit more there than Conan the Barbarian or Labyrinth. Perhaps The Princess Bride and the Dark Crystal might be overrated by nostalgia. Dragonslayer certainly is. But Fantasia and the Wizard of Oz are towering works of filmmaking. To say nothing of Terry Gilliam's oeuvre, Pan's labyrinth, The Seventh Seal, Ugetsu, and a few superior works.

Cut the fat off, and the Hobbit might compare favorably to Stardust, or the first Narnia, but there are a few high-caliber fantasy films besides LOTR.

I guess a lot of it comes down to genre definition. Disney have a number of animated fantasy films that are pretty good, but they don't conventionally tend to get included. I'd probably push The Seventh Seal over into horror, but I'll acknowledge (some) Gilliam, Pan's Labyrinth and The Wizard of Oz. I must admit I've not seen Ugetsu. A couple of the Harry Potter films are decent, though I'd say the series averages out no better than the Hobbit and the first two films are undeniably worse. I don't really care for The Princess Bride and find it quite badly made in some respects but it's a favourite of so many that I guess it has to be included. Still, it's a relatively slim pantheon, compared to its cousins over in the historical, sci-fi or indeed horror genres.

Not that that necessarily redeems The Hobbit. It still has to answer for its failings, even if it's better than most of the rest of the genre. But LotR cast a long shadow - an unavoidable one in the case of The Hobbit and I have to wonder whether if the Hobbit films had come out first whether the films would generally be considered such a turkey, or whether they would be seen as groundbreaking and revolutionary in their own right.

[Lacuna Caster]

Cut the fat off, and the Hobbit might compare favorably to Stardust, or the first Narnia, but there are a few high-caliber fantasy films besides LOTR.

*cough* Harry Potter, anyone?

EDIT: Whoops, missed that part!

[Forum Explorer]

"I haven't seen the films in question, but I have to assume they're so terrible that nothing could make them worse!"

I always appreciate an informed opinion.

He saw the first one, and it was so bad he decided it wasn't even worth finishing. Why would he pay money for the others? I've only seen the second one, and it was so bad I had no desire to look into the first or third movie. In fact, it was so bad I wouldn't watch another one of Peter Jackson's films without it first receiving rave reviews and having it personally vouched for by a close friend.

I guess a lot of it comes down to genre definition. Disney have a number of animated fantasy films that are pretty good, but they don't conventionally tend to get included. I'd probably push The Seventh Seal over into horror, but I'll acknowledge (some) Gilliam, Pan's Labyrinth and The Wizard of Oz. I must admit I've not seen Ugetsu. A couple of the Harry Potter films are decent, though I'd say the series averages out no better than the Hobbit and the first two films are undeniably worse. I don't really care for The Princess Bride and find it quite badly made in some respects but it's a favourite of so many that I guess it has to be included. Still, it's a relatively slim pantheon, compared to its cousins over in the historical, sci-fi or indeed horror genres.

Not that that necessarily redeems The Hobbit. It still has to answer for its failings, even if it's better than most of the rest of the genre. But LotR cast a long shadow - an unavoidable one in the case of The Hobbit and I have to wonder whether if the Hobbit films had come out first whether the films would generally be considered such a turkey, or whether they would be seen as groundbreaking and revolutionary in their own right.

Really?

I've seen the first three Harry Potter movies. They were alright, nothing special. Overall, I'm kinda positive about them. I wouldn't buy them on DVD, but I enjoyed watching them.

The Hobbit was actively bad. I would warn people away from watching it. Because it's so. damn. long. There is a good movie in the Hobbit, but it's buried beneath all the unnecessary crud that dragged it down.

[sktarq]

Tauriel?

That was the character they wanted Arwen to be in LotR and didn't quite make work.

They may have even started with a neat idea in terms of the whole Dad doesn't allow Legolas to be with the commoner elf and the stresses that causes. And Why the elves were so inward looking and the like in a world where it seems like they should just *end conflict* at will-show the fall of the elves just tell it like they did in LotR.

the love triangle story. . . that just didn't feel like it worked. It also felt rather disrespectful to the whole the human-elf relations have only happened twice thing in JRRT's work. I felt it cheapened it. It also feel tacked on. Turns out it was in reshoots.


But for the trilogy as a whole. I really do think it was a group of bad movies. The plot is stretched very thin over several movies. There are tons of little tangent bits that really feel like just opportunities for the CGI team to show off. It is tonally inconsistent - prolly from ramming the more child aimed hobbit with the more adult aimed LotR world. The action set pieces were massively suspension of disbelief breaking (I will never forget the total crack up in the theatre when Legolas ran up the freefalling stone after already having wisecracks for the whole fight-movie lost all tension) and the whole thing is far far too long and in generally felt too much like advertising for toys, games, park rides etc.

[Rodin]

I actually thought the first movie was okay. It suffered from Peter Jackson Syndrome* for a fair few of its scenes, but the movie as a whole nailed the lighter and fluffier feel of the book. The stuff with the Necromancer was unnecessary but not too bad for all that, and I quite enjoyed the rest of it even when it deviated from the book (something that cannot be said for previous meddling in LOTR).

The second movie though was just a mess. They spent far too long on the Elves, it introduced Tauriel and the love triangle, and then tried to squeeze in a lot of the Lonely Mountain plot when that material fit better in the third movie. Then there's a huge pointless chase sequence with Smaug which leaves the movie without enough time to actually resolve things in a transparent attempt to set up a cliffhanger to bring people back for the third.

The third just goes from bad to worse. Killing Smaug in the first in bizarre fashion (although I'm actually in the minority that didn't mind the windlass), then dragging out much of the rest of the movie because they didn't leave enough of the book to actually draw material from. Then finishing off with a ridiculous "boss battle" on a mountaintop that makes the actual battle into a sideshow.

There was definitely enough good material to make two movies from. De-Jacksonify the first, remove the Necromancer stuff, and tag an abbreviated Mirkwood onto the end. This makes the first movie "The Journey" and leaves the Dwarves facing down Lonely Mountain. The second movie can then focus on the good scenes with Smaug and Bilbo, Smaug's death halfway through, and then get some focus on Thorin's greed for the Arkenstone (the only good bit of the third movie). Then finish with the climactic battle and the epilogue is the journey home.

I really do think there were too many things to cover in just one movie, especially if we want to see things that were deliberately left vague in the book. The flight through the halls of the Goblin King in the books was basically "it was very dark, confusing, and Bilbo got lost", and the Battle of the Five Armies was "Bilbo gets knocked out and misses all the cool stuff". Three movies was definitely way too far, as they had to add a LOT of stuff to pad the movies out and none of it was all that good.

*making scenes way longer than they should be for no apparent reason.

[paddyfool]

Jumping on the "I did not like Tauriel but she was far from the worst bit" and "they should have cut a lot of the bloat and made just two movies" bandwagons. The movies weren't all bad - visually and musically they had plenty I enjoyed. And I personally don't mind a movie being long, as long as it's good. But they should have been much less bloated.

EDIT: One thing I would not say was that it compared favourably to Stardust. Stardust also had its problems, and also went a long way from its source material... But it can be forgiven a lot for being fun. The hobbits movies, instead, committed the cardinal sin of being boring.

[Frozen_Feet]

If you ask me, Tauriel's story would've been justified if Thranduil would've mercy killed her.

Like, she's on the cliff, grieving over Kili's body, all "Boo hoo, love of my life is gone but I'm here forever. it hurts. Make it stop."

And Thranduil sheds one manly tear. "I know how it feels. I will." And then just stabs her and kicks her off the cliff.

Problem. Solved.

It would've been beautiful.

Too bad they didn't have the balls to do it.

[Lacuna Caster]

Jumping on the "I did not like Tauriel but she was far from the worst bit" and "they should have cut a lot of the bloat and made just two movies" bandwagons. The movies weren't all bad - visually and musically they had plenty I enjoyed. And I personally don't mind a movie being long, as long as it's good. But they should have been much less bloated.

To be fair, while these movies do show PJ at his absolute most self-indulgent (they shoulda just given it to Del Toro,) I suspect there was immense pressure from the studio to pad out the material across as many directors' cut DVD extra packages as humanly possible, for purely mercenary reasons.

But yeah, it should've been one movie. Two at most.

[snowblizz]

The love triangle was especially weird as one point of the triangle was a dwarf. Dwarves and elves are well established as hating one another, and a major development in LOTR is Gimli and Legolas overcoming that.

And the reason Legolas and Gimli are able to is thanks to Tauriel.

[paddyfool]

What bits of bloat, besides Tauriel's whole arc, would people most like to trim? Personally, I'd limit Gandalf in Dol guldur to a few flashes, rather than the whole sequence, and Legolas to perhaps a brief cameo at Thranduil's court and the battle of five armies. And I don't think the movies would have been any poorer for a bit less time fighting orcs, including not isolating and seperating Thorin's "final boss fight".

[Kalmageddon]

Tauriel was a bad, forgettable character. That she was a romantic subplot attached to a movie that needed none, or that she was there mostly because otherwise the trilogy would have been a sausage fest are minor details compared to the fact that she was just boring and pointless.

[The Glyphstone]

To be fair, while these movies do show PJ at his absolute most self-indulgent (they shoulda just given it to Del Toro,) I suspect there was immense pressure from the studio to pad out the material across as many directors' cut DVD extra packages as humanly possible, for purely mercenary reasons.

But yeah, it should've been one movie. Two at most.

Didn't PJ turn it down at first, they tried to get Del Toro but he wouldn't do it, and they finally went back and threw money at PJ until he agreed? I still maintain that the end-result of the Hobbit was his blatant middle finger to the studios for not listening when he told them he wasn't interested.

[Lacuna Caster]

Didn't PJ turn it down at first, they tried to get Del Toro but he wouldn't do it, and they finally went back and threw money at PJ until he agreed? I still maintain that the end-result of the Hobbit was his blatant middle finger to the studios for not listening when he told them he wasn't interested.

My recollection is that PJ and Del Toro were collaborating for a while, then Del Toro split? I remember that Del Toro was specifically very interested in getting Smaug right (Vermithrax Pejorative being his primary inspiration), but I'm not sure what happened after that.

I suppose if we're discussing imaginary edits or rewrites... while I can understand the decision not to go with Gandalf essentially hustling Bilbo out the door, I might go with something closer to Frodo's route and have him commit to the mission in stages- i.e, Gandalf talks him into going as far as the prancing pony, then he's willing to go as far as Rivendell, and finally as far as Laketown and the Mountain.

Aside from that, I'd probably just adapt the graphic novel, frame for frame. You know, like Sin City, only not like that at all.

[Thialfi]

I'm all for strong, competent women in my action films, I find Evangeline Lilly to be attractive, likable, and a decent actor and I do not venerate the source material.

That being said, I thought the love triangle bit was weak and they didn't give her enough to do.

I'll stick to watching her in the next Ant Man movie where she's paired with the equally likable Paul Rudd.

[2D8HP]

...I find Evangeline Lilly to be attractive, likable, and a decent actor....

I enjoy Ms. Lilly's performances as well.

As I posted before I walked out of Journey, and never watched Desolation, or Battle.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture was awful, but Wrath of Khan was good.

Any reason to see the others?

[Aedilred]

I enjoy Ms. Lilly's performances as well.

As I posted before I walked out of Journey, and never watched Desolation, or Battle.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture was awful, but Wrath of Khan was good.

Any reason to see the others?

As people have said, the scenes with Bilbo, and in particular the scenes with Bilbo and Thorin, are pretty much universally strong. At least, I think so. Smaug was well done, for the most part. The Battle of Five Armies (that is the battle, not the film) was too long, and with a couple of frustrating decisions, but also had some moments I found it worth sitting through for.

There are also a number of problems with the later films that are similar to those in the first. There's too much faffing around with the Dol Guldur plot, although for what it's worth I thought that ended on a high. The cartoony, suspension-of-disbelief-busting physics and action sequences seen in the stone giants sequence and the escape from Goblin Town make a couple of reappearances, and even if those scenes can be tolerated briefly they are almost always too long. Pretty much anything to do with Bard, prior to the evcuation from Laketown, is a bit of a bust. The love triangle with Tauriel is ridiculous. The resolution of the Battle of Five Armies is frustrating.

So there are a lot of problems, as has been said. Whether they're worth watching will largely depend on whether you think you'll be able to look past those problems to appreciate what is good about the films, and enjoy the rest as mere spectacle.

[Eldan]

Basically, those movies could have profited a lot from having at least half an hour's worth of material cut out and the rest tigthened considerably.

[Legato Endless]

The key issue is the films have this simplistic more is more design aesthetic, and that pollutes everything else. Take a small annoying detail of the Battle of the Five Armies. During the fight, one of our heroes gets overwhelmed by an Orc. Just when all seems lost, someone else sweeps in to save him. It's a standard action movie beat. It's a cliche, but as a one off that's fine.

But...it doesn't end there. We get another scene of this, verbatim, except with a different trio of characters. And it's not a quick cut either, it's a dramatic zoom where the camera holds, teasing the audience. Why would you do that again? It's not dramatic, it's not exciting, it doesn't further anything, it's does nothing but eat up time. At this point it's kind of obnoxious, but whatever, there's a lot of filler in this lethargic battle sequence. Except we're still not done. Then we zoom to Thorin in the same exact situation.

And at this point, please forgive me that I honestly thought the movie was going to be clever. Two repeated beats to set the audience up. Oh my god, now they're going to twist the knife. Because he's got to die, and the unspoiled audience will drop their guard. Thorin isn't going to make it, he's going to-WHY DID IT HAPPEN A THIRD TIME?! Whoever made that decision should never storyboard an action film again.

EDIT: One thing I would not say was that it compared favourably to Stardust. Stardust also had its problems, and also went a long way from its source material... But it can be forgiven a lot for being fun. The hobbits movies, instead, committed the cardinal sin of being boring.

I said it hypothetically could compare to Stardust with a better execution and just be this fun family fantasy film. Not that it does. I also don't recall minding any changes to the source material, the original author seemed to know what he was doing when he adapted it for the screen.

[tomandtish]

I enjoy Ms. Lilly's performances as well.

As I posted before I walked out of Journey, and never watched Desolation, or Battle.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture was awful, but Wrath of Khan was good.

Any reason to see the others?

As people have said, the scenes with Bilbo, and in particular the scenes with Bilbo and Thorin, are pretty much universally strong. At least, I think so. Smaug was well done, for the most part. The Battle of Five Armies (that is the battle, not the film) was too long, and with a couple of frustrating decisions, but also had some moments I found it worth sitting through for.

What Aedilred and the others have almost, but not quite said is this:

The Hobbit is good. Not great, but good. Anytime the movie(s) are dealing with The Hobbit, they are worth seeing .

However, you have 4-5 hours of material that AREN'T The Hobbit, or are The Hobbit ON STEROIDS. And you have to slog through all that.

If you can catch a cheap viewing on TV, go for it. I woudn't pay anything for it though.

[Zalabim]

As a lighthearted, disbelief-suspending, action-adventure romp, I enjoyed it. The dramatic talky parts were fine too. But much like Bilbo, I was unconscious for the majority of the actual Battle of Five Armies, and that's pretty much the most damning condemnation I can make of a film I've actually watched.

"I slept through your movie the first time I saw it. I was not entertained. You had one job, and you failed." That would be my review for the finale. Compared to that, nothing else is even a blip of a complaint. I basically enjoyed everything else.

Not to say there's nothing else to complain about, I just don't feel it worth my effort to do so.

[Zevox]

Personally? She was a character that wound up thoroughly pointless padding, bringing nothing of value to the films.

By and large, my opinion of the Hobbit films is that when they were actually telling the story of The Hobbit, and sometimes during the bits they tried to adapt from LotR's appendices, they were fairly good. When they diverted into wholly original content that was unmoored from the actual source material, they became very bad, unnecessarily bloated, and boring. Unfortunately, Tauriel is part of the latter.

To be fair, she didn't have to be. They could have had her be a minor character who showed up from time to time, identified as the Elven captain of the guard and given her name once or twice, showed her fighting at the Battle of the Five Armies in a scene or two, and that would have been fine. It was giving her a larger amount of focus - more than many of the Dwarves that were supposedly among the main characters - and making her main role to be part of a romance subplot that was never part of the story and had no reason to be there that makes her an issue. And yes, Tauriel was not the worst part of The Hobbit films, but she is emblematic of their worst mistakes: pointless changes and additions that frequently add nothing and at worst make the story worse, all in the name of padding the story out to three films instead of two.

Seriously, An Unexpected Journey was the best of The Hobbit films, and pretty much went through the parts I would have expected it to for a two-movie version of the story. It wasn't flawless, but I was happy with it on the whole. If you could cut The Desolation of Smaug and The Battle of Five Armies down to one film, jettisoning all the padding like Tauriel, and changed the barrel-escape scene to be what it was in the books instead of an awful action scene, I might be able to call it a solid duology of films. As-is, well, I'm happier with it than a lot of other people, but far less so than I wish I could be.

[solidork]

I mean, do you guys also take offense at Legolas' role in the films? Because his motivation is even more dependent on the romance subplot than Tauriel, who at least has some conviction that the elves should take an active role in fighting the darkness creeping into the world.

[Dienekes]

I mean, do you guys also take offense at Legolas' role in the films? Because his motivation is even more dependent on the romance subplot than Tauriel, who at least has some conviction that the elves should take an active role in fighting the darkness creeping into the world.

Yes.

He should of been a cameo in Mirkwood, and maybe during the Battle of Five Armies.

[Legato Endless]

The debate over taking an active role is a pointless bit of filler. It's there to give Legolas a strange bit of pre-LOTR angst to justify his bloated screen presence and make Tauriel look more progressive by making everyone else look foolish. If you're going to change characterization, at least make it dramatically interesting. The conflict is boring because one side is cartoonishly obviously wrong and one dimensional. Give Legolas two brief cameos. We're good. More is not better here.

[Kalmageddon]

Yes.

He should of been a cameo in Mirkwood, and maybe during the Battle of Five Armies.

I agree and this post is now more than ten characters.