Originally Posted by blayze

Finally saw the movie - overall I thought it was mediocre.

It's moving along way too slowly and it's missing the epic battles that defined the first 3 LOTR movies. Way too much boring dialogue, not enough action. Doesn't hold a candle to its 3 predecessors.

Definitely should have been one movie.

Originally Posted by lockedge

Just saw it last night, was pretty solid.

Pros:
-Great pacing, considering
-Nice balance of fun and action
-Great acting
-Great sound
-Nice work bringing material in from outside of the Hobbit, and weaving it into the film

Cons:
-Action scenes were rather poorly done for the most part(especially the one in the mountain with the goblins). Also the one where the brown wizard is supposed to be leading the goblins away, but is instead keeping them dangerously close to the group. Made for an anti-climactic, wtf is going on minute or two, and was just poor scene planning/writing.
-Too many useless "Look how awesome our CGI is" scenes, like the stone golem battle. Such a useless scene.
-The final bit with the pale orc and Thorin and whatnot could have been done so much better. Considering pretty much every battle that wasn't a flashback was boring and anticlimactic, they really needed a good one to prop the movie up on at the end, and that wasn't it. Thorin comes out with an oak branch for a shield and that sword...cool. Pale orc comes at him with a mace, on a warg, and beats the shit out of him instead of engaging in singles combat. I mean, sure, I don't doubt for a moment that the orc would do that, but through a film where there are so many coincidences and somewhat out of character moments, could they not have decided to pull the "orc wants to earn his pride back, and demolish Thorin's in part two of their battle", instead of annihilating all the tension that had built up around them throughout the film? They could still have Thorin bested, and Bilbo come in for the save like he did. Would have made for a more intriguing and satisfactory fight. Instead, it just made the film limp to a conclusion.

All in all, I'd give it a 7.5 out of 10. I figure, if you're going to turn The Hobbit into an actiony film, you'd best do the action right, which...it didn't. *shrug*

Originally Posted by ridinryan44

That's definitely the downside to having the LOTR movies first - almost impossible to stay true to the story and have it as exciting as the trilogy. Simply put, the story was more of a long, drawn out adventure that set up the epic battles and finales of the trilogy. That's why I enjoyed more the second time. My expectations were lowered and I was able to sit back and appreciate it for what it was. At this point I actually quite enjoyed it.

It would have been fantastic had this story come out first, I one or two movies, and was followed by the trilogy. I think it would have received a much wawr reception had they done so.

Originally Posted by blayze

I think taken as a whole, the Hobbit can be just as good as each of the other LOTR movies in the trilogy. Yes it's more of a light-hearted story but at it's core, it's got the same ingredients to make an epic movie as the other 3 - an epic battle at the end of the story that is comparable to the epic battles in the other 3 movies, and no shortage of smaller battles and side stories to keep it interesting.

The problem is they are taking a book that should have been one movie, and they are simply stretching the shit out of it in a pathetic attempt at a cash grab.

As I've iterated earlier in this post, on it's own, the entire Hobbit book is actually SHORTER than EACH of the other 3 LOTR books. Now imagine the original trilogy split into 9 movies... it would be boring as ****. That's essentially what they've done with the Hobbit.