The Hall of Fire DoS Review Thread

[axordil]

Smaug smiting the mountain, and dwarves pulling up Bombur in the nick of time, and the tension of having to shut the door and know there was no way out except through the dragon's lair.

See, I like the more competent, less passive dwarves in the movies better than the marginally competent figures of comic fun that suddenly turn into capital D dwarves for two pages in the Bo5A. Each are fine in their setting: one in a children's bedtime story with a heroic ending tacked on, one in an overlong fantasy epic.

I think anyone who thinks Hobbit is a children's bedtime story has unusually nightmare-proof children. And is overdue for a re-read.

Tolkien's dwarves are more or less a single character with few exceptions. I like PJ's approach to making them more distinguishable without overwhelming us with thirteen leading characters. However, I do think that the source material could have been applied in a way that made them more competent, without fireproof dwarves, rides over molten metal (ouch!) and improbable statues.

Reread last year. The book is still on my headboard shelf. That's the reading that really brought home the incongruous mix of elements. What's kind of cool, though, is that a similar mix of elements worked in LOTR. Practice makes perfect.

Most "bedtime story" material of years past had some...issues. Cautionary tales are rarely pretty.

[yovargas]

While I know you that you personally love LOTR exactly as it is and are reluctant to accept any criticism of it, I think you need to step out of yourself a bit if we're going to talk literary criticism and I would say that the oft-state difficulty that newcomers have in getting through those early sections, with many people finding it a dull slog or even quitting before they get through it, is very good evidence that Tolkien could have done a much better job at making the early journey a more engaging and compelling one.

If that were the applicable standard, James Joyce would be widely held by literary critics to be the worst writer of the 20th century, not the best.

I'm confident that this is a totally incorrect analogy but I haven't figured out why yet. I'll get back to you.

[Passdagas the Brown]

A plot can have drive and urgency without the threat of violence. Pride and Prejudice certainly does so, particularly towards the end. But the point is that the scenes that occur generally move the narrative forward. You can excise huge parts of LotR from Gandalf's conversation with Frodo in his kitchen to the hobbits' arrival in Bree and it makes no difference to the story. The films effectively do that. That, at least, is a valid literary criticism.

Valid or not, I disagree. Removing those sections considerably impoverishes the story, IMO.

While I know you that you personally love LOTR exactly as it is and are reluctant to accept any criticism of it, I think you need to step out of yourself a bit if we're going to talk literary criticism and I would say that the oft-state difficulty that newcomers have in getting through those early sections, with many people finding it a dull slog or even quitting before they get through it, is very good evidence that Tolkien could have done a much better job at making the early journey a more engaging and compelling one.
(There's no way a sentence that long is grammatically correct....)

I am quite capable and willing to criticize Tolkien, and have done so on many occasions. This simply happens to be a point of disagreement, and I believe I have given a rational justification for these chapters on literary grounds.

Also, I believe you are confusing popular anecdote with literary criticism. Yes, there are people out there who find the early chapters a slog, just as there are people out there who cannot get through a sentence of Dostoevsky.

But critics and authors like Salman Rushdie, for example, have labeled the Shire material in LOTR the best part of the books as well (in his case, he finds the high mimetic/ legendary stuff of the later chapters tiresome).

So, thanks for the advice, but as a literate adult (I think) I feel I am capable of looking at my likes and dislikes objectively, and finding adequate arguments from a literary perspective for why LOTR's early chapters are integral to the story.

My apologies if anyone takes offense to this, but literary criticism and the study of the arts in general, are not a science. We can argue over the definition of essential narrative elements until the cows come home, and never arrive at a common definition.

And that's fine by me! Disagree all you like. But please try not to tell me that my opinion on this subject is objectively wrong, and that I am deluded by blind Tolkien love! Even if I was deluded, the rules of HoF debate should be followed, and psychoanalysis left with your hat and coat at the door.

The truth is simple: you disagree about the literary merit of the early FOTR chapters, and wish to ground that disagreement in objective facts about what makes a narrative! But the crux of the matter is that you simply prefer a tight narrative over one that's a bit more meandering. That's a preference, and nothing more.

[Passdagas the Brown]

As stated many times before, I believe The Lord of the Rings could be made in a purist fashion, including Bombadil et al, but only as a Game of Thrones style TV production, not as a movie.

I agree with this.

I have also worked out a 6-film narrative structure for LOTR that could easily work, esp. in context of a 3-film Hobbit.

But even then, you'd lose a lot. On the other hand, a 5-7 season TV LOTR would be heaven on Earth.

Though again, in HBO's hands, Galadriel in the glade at night could take an unexpected turn.

[Passdagas the Brown]

While I know you that you personally love LOTR exactly as it is and are reluctant to accept any criticism of it, I think you need to step out of yourself a bit if we're going to talk literary criticism and I would say that the oft-state difficulty that newcomers have in getting through those early sections, with many people finding it a dull slog or even quitting before they get through it, is very good evidence that Tolkien could have done a much better job at making the early journey a more engaging and compelling one.

If that were the applicable standard, James Joyce would be widely held by literary critics to be the worst writer of the 20th century, not the best.

Those chapters elevate LOTR above what it would have been otherwise, IMO, even if Tolkien may have considered revising them (which I don't believe he did).

Not only did he think of revising them, he did so, very extensively, until he got them right.

We can throw lots of authors under the bus by that standard. Joyce, Steinbeck, Dostoevsky, Camus, Tolstoy, Rushdie, Austen, Dickens. The list would go on and on forever!

[Passdagas the Brown]

Thanks, Al!

But now I'm very worried.

And it looks like most of the OTT stuff, like the dwarf confrontation with Smaug, was constructed basically at the last minute in pick-ups.

It may be safe to say that if PJ is given too much time to fiddle with and add to his films, after principal shooting is done, he tends to make the film worse.

The confrontation sounds worse than I could have possibly imagined.

Perhaps it's best to walk out of the cinema after the Bilbo and Smaug dialogue, which sounds like it was amazing?

The dwarf confrontation is too big a set piece to have been constructed in Pickups. I think it was a bad idea, but I don't think it was last minute.

We at least have confirmation that all the VFX for the sequence was very much last-minute. From a recent interview with the "Show VFX Supervisor" for DOS, Eric Saindon:

Was there a shot or a sequence that prevented you from sleep?

The Erebor forges sequence was one the last scenes to start and we had a very short amount of time to finish. From start to finish the whole sequence was completed in less than a month.

Full article here: http://www.artofvfx.com/?p=5789

[yovargas]

That's surprising to me. Makes me wonder how that sort of thing happens. Surely they knew for longer than a few weeks how the confrontation with Smaug would play out?

[Passdagas the Brown]

That's surprising to me. Makes me wonder how that sort of thing happens. Surely they knew for longer than a few weeks how the confrontation with Smaug would play out?

I don't know, but according to Armitage, the whole dwarf-dragon confrontation was a very late addition (filmed entirely during pick-ups).

[Elentári]

DP, sorry!

[Elentári]

Well, a lot of the pick-up would have been the result of the change to 3 films, still wouldn't it? Originally the break for two films was after Barrels, so there wouldn't have been a huge confrontation for the Dwarves and Smaug in the second -and final - film as it was then.

[sauronsfinger]

If Jackson can construct and film a series of sequences as elaborate and amazing as the Erebor dwarves vs. Smaug scenes over the last half hour of DOS in a few weeks of pickups - it gives me great anticipation of what he will film this May for TABA.

Perhaps PJ added all that action as a result of the "its too slow" criticism that was oft heard with AUJ?

[Passdagas the Brown]

He may have, though my guess is that he simply wanted to amp up the action, and with Erebor, felt the need to have a stirring conclusion involving the dwarves.

The "it's too slow" lament from critics certainly didn't put a dent in the Box Office, so I doubt he really took it to heart...

[yovargas]

It mainly makes me curious, if this was all added at the last minute, what was the original plan? Cuz surely they must have had some plan for the ending before they starting shooting!

[Elentári]

It mainly makes me curious, if this was all added at the last minute, what was the original plan? Cuz surely they must have had some plan for the ending before they starting shooting!

Yov I stated just now that I think there was no confrontation originally in the 2-movie scheme, and as filmed in principal photography. But they had to create a climax for the end of DoS once it became necessary to have a second break point for the third movie...

ETA: The more I think about it, perhaps this is where the stolen cup scenario comes in, which they apparently filmed - perhaps the storyline stayed closer to the book originally?

[yovargas]

It mainly makes me curious, if this was all added at the last minute, what was the original plan? Cuz surely they must have had some plan for the ending before they starting shooting!

Yov I stated just now that I think there was no confrontation originally in the 2-movie scheme, and as filmed in principal photography. But they had to create a climax for the end of DoS once it became necessary to have a second break point for the third movie...

Sure but didn't that happen like, 2-3 years ago?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The additional filming that took place as a result of the change from 2 films to 3 occurred last July, I believe.

[Passdagas the Brown]

The 3-film decision happened on July 30, 2012, a mere 4 and 1/2 months before AUJ was released. Pick-up filming happened around then for AUJ, followed by some more pick-ups last summer, I believe...

[Elentári]

The 3-film decision happened on July 30, 2012, a mere 4 and 1/2 months before AUJ was released. Pick-up filming happened around then for AUJ, followed by some more pick-ups last summer, I believe...

That's how I understood it. A lot of the pick-up filming last year was of course for Bo5A and TABA, but also the Dwarf-Smaug sequence in the forges...(and the Love triangle!)

[Pearly Di]

I saw the film for a third time this weekend and enjoyed it as much as ever.

No, I won't be seeing it zillions of times like I did with the LotR films. As much as I like it, my ardour isn't THAT obsessive.

But I do really like it. Yes, I would be just as delighted if PJ cut out the sillier fight sequences, the Laketown conspiracy subplot (although I hope that Smaug fries Alfred the goon ) and above all, that incredibly silly moment when Thorin rides a river of molten gold on a heat-conducting wheelbarrow. Honestly, PJ. Physics is still physics, in Middle-earth ...

But I ignore all such moments just as I ignore/laugh at Arwen blubbing over Frodo at the Ford (a moment I take impossible to take seriously to this day, it is so irritating on so many levels. )

The cinema was packed, by the way. I saw it in 2D because the friend I was with doesn't like 3D.

Everybody groaned out loud at the ending. It was hilarious. You'll just have to come back for more next year, folks, won't you?

One of my favourite lines is one of the Dwarves - I forget which one, Gloin? - saying that watching Elvish medicine at work (i.e. Tauriel healing Kili) was a 'privilege to witness'.

Re: earlier discussion, I love the first half of FotR, including all the hobbit-talk. I'm not a fan of Bombadil's rhymes, but I like the Bombadil interlude, even though it's a plot diversion.

[Dave_LF]

All this talk about whether some scene or another is "necessary"... it's a novel/movie, so strictly speaking, the whole thing is unnecessary from start to finish. The important question to ask when deciding whether to include one thing or another is whether it is enjoyable or enriching.

But granted, if you're dealing with time/page constraints, then scenes that are required for overall story coherence do need to take precedence over ones that are merely enjoyable.