'The Hobbit' trilogy vs. the 'Matrix' sequels vs. the 'Star Wars' prequels

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by The Hermit, Nov 30, 2018.

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  1. The Hermit

    The Hermit Wavin' that magick glowstick since 1976 Thread Starter

    In the volumes of comments and articles online and elsewhere written about films-that-could-have-been-better, it's always the above three that seem to get a mention... why is that, I wonder?

    I'll post my thoughts later on each one, why I think they missed the mark, and how they could have been made better overall, but I'm interested to hear people's thoughts on them...
     
    Last edited: Nov 30, 2018
  2. Matthew

    Matthew Senior Member

    Of all of these I enjoyed the Matrix sequels the most.

    At the time I didn’t think they were terrible, though it’s been YEARS since I’ve watched them.

    The Star Wars prequels I have no desire to watch again. The Hobbit trilogy was just too, too much filler.
     
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  3. malcolm reynolds

    malcolm reynolds Handsome, Humble, Genius

    Location:
    Oklahoma
    The Hobbit gets the nod from me. The Prequels have grown on me a bit but they are still awful movies. I hate, loathe and despise the second and third Matrix films. I walked out out of the second Matrix film in the theater during what felt like the 40 minute long underground rave scene. Took me me the longest time to muster up the courage to watch the third one on DVD and I hated it just as much.
     
  4. Chris DeVoe

    Chris DeVoe RIP Vickie Mapes Williams (aka Equipoise)

    Same here. I wish it hadn't become a gun fest, but there were plenty of great parts to those movies - the Merovingian, the Architect - that it's worth putting up with the cliched parts.

    Part 3 is a lot better than you would think.

    All the "filler" was from the appendices to The Lord of the Rings.
     
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  5. unclefred

    unclefred Coastie with the Moastie

    Location:
    Oregon Coast
    When I saw that scene and all of the creepy weirdos, I started to root for the machines.
     
  6. genesim

    genesim Forum Resident

    Location:
    St. Louis
    Star Wars shoukd have never had sequel at all. So that takes it out of the race.

    The Matrix only had one good movie.

    I have never see the Hobbit movies but Lord of the Rings triogy was pretty darn good...so I want to keep that vision a while.
     
  7. Matthew

    Matthew Senior Member

    Not strictly. They flew in characters from LOTR and also created new ones.

    I remember rolling my eyes when during production it was announced the originally planned 2 movies was to become a trilogy.

    Not terrible but nowhere on par with the LOTR trilogy. They had their moments though.
    [​IMG]
     
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  8. Erik Tracy

    Erik Tracy Meet me at the Green Dragon for an ale

    Location:
    San Diego, CA, USA
    Or made up sh** from PJ & Co's mind
     
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  9. California Couple

    California Couple dislike us on facebook

    Location:
    Newport Beach
    The only ones I watch and own are the Star Wars.

    1. Sith
    2. Clones
    3. Jar Jar
     
  10. Ringmaster_D

    Ringmaster_D Surfer of Sound Waves

    Location:
    Chicago, IL
    I was soooo disappointed by the Hobbit movies when they came out--especially the second and third films. So obviously padded and so over the top. Imagine my surprise when a fan-edit made me realize that there really was a good movie lurking between all the mis-guided additions. This is highly recommended: J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit
     
  11. Parachute Woman

    Parachute Woman Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    I didn't even like the first Matrix film all that much, so I haven't seen those sequels. I do remember that my dad absolutely hated the second one and shut the third one off before the halfway point, so disgusted was he.

    The Star Wars prequels are bad films, but there are a few interesting parts--mostly in Revenge of the Sith, which is easily the best of the three. The scene at the opera in which Palpatine really gets into Anakin's head at least tries for some psychological unease.

    The Hobbit films were deeply affected by their production. Peter Jackson stepped back in after Del Toro pulled out and he didn't get the pre-production time he needed. If you watch any of the behind-the-scenes footage from those films, it is like a slow-moving car crash that none of the principal filmmakers can stop from happening. In terms of the final result: I think the first two both have some charming bits, some good production design, some fun acting and lots of stuff that doesn't work at all. Especially the very long and drawn out action sequences. The third one is a complete mess, being one giant action sequence.

    Not all of it. Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly's character) was completely fabricated, as was her poorly-written romance with Kili and the love triangle with Legolas, who was also shoe-horned into many other new places.
     
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  12. Luke The Drifter

    Luke The Drifter Forum Resident

    Location:
    United States
    The Hobbit trilogy bothers me the most of these three I think. All they had to do was have Jackson closely follow the source material, and it would have been as good as Lord of the Rings. But they knew they had a Billion dollars waiting for each film and demanded three. So a bunch of filler was brought in, and oddly other sequences cut. I wonder if there is a high quality fan edit of this Trilogy that someone could recommend?

    Edit: Ringmaster answered above. I will check it out!
     
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  13. Holerbot6000

    Holerbot6000 Forum Resident

    Location:
    California
    I've always been a huge fan of the Matrix trilogy and never understood the hate. Even if all the mythological jibberjabber is just that, it's still a fun and thought provoking series. I always thought it was ahead of it's time and I think that's proving to be true.

    Star Wars prequels - I think only the Phantom Menace is truly offensive. I have become a fan of the Machete method for viewing the first two trilogies.

    The Hobbit - I was surprised how good the first half of the first movie was but then I thought it went to hell in a handbasket. Should have been one long movie, two movies tops. I'm surprised no one has created an edited version without all the added dross and fluff.
     
  14. Ghostworld

    Ghostworld Senior Member

    Location:
    US

    This.

    The ad campaign should have been “How did they make such a bad movie from “The Hobbit?”
     
  15. Encuentro

    Encuentro Forum Resident

    Someone has. Ringmaster_D posted a link upthread.
     
  16. Al Kuenster

    Al Kuenster Senior Member

    Location:
    Las Vegas, NV - US
    I guess I'm in the minority here I have all of them on disc and enjoy them more or less.
     
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  17. Erik Tracy

    Erik Tracy Meet me at the Green Dragon for an ale

    Location:
    San Diego, CA, USA
    I'll cut you some slack for comparing PJ's LotR to The Hobbit; LotR was better, but 'closely follow the source material'?

    Maybe 'MORE closely follow....', cuz PJ's LotR had some made up sh**, too.
     
  18. hvbias

    hvbias Midrange magic

    Location:
    Northeast
    Of those three the Matrix trilogy for me as well. 2 and 3 were not great movies but at least they told an interesting story.
     
  19. SurrealCereal

    SurrealCereal Forum Resident

    Location:
    California
    I haven’t seen any of the Matrix movies all the way through.

    By the time I got into Star Wars, most of the prequels were already out, so I never really had to deal with the shock of the decrease in quality. I think the prequels are all right. I never watch them voluntarily, but I get some enjoyment out of them when I do.

    I have mixed feelings about the Hobbit trilogy. I love The Hobbit book and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but the Hobbit movies are a bit different. As a whole, they botched it, but there were a lot of things they did right along the way. The casting was great and - for the most part - they did a good job of creating a more fun and lighthearted tone that still felt like the same world as the Lord of the Rings adaptations. The big things they did wrong IMO were turning it into a trilogy (two movies would have been perfect), relying too heavily on CGI (especially those goofy fight scenes in the goblin cave and on the river), cramming in that apocalyptic LOTR-style subplot with the white orc and the necromancer, having tonal inconsistencies and painfully bad attempts at comedy (“That’ll do it!”), the subplot with Legolas and that other elf, and just generally having tons of filler that wasn’t in the book and was detrimental to the movie (all the useless subplots I mentioned, the giant CGI mess that was the battle of five armies, etc).
     
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  20. rich100

    rich100 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Middle of England
    Matrix, I like them all as far as sequels go.
    Star Wars prequels, nope what a disaster
    Hobbit was the biggest let down, it was only ever one films worth, maybe two at a push. Too much of the extended mine scenes escaping the goblins etc, like a wacky races type scene completely unrealistic, then the barrel scene, the the Radagast and rabbits scene etc etc. They forgot The Hobbit worked as a children's book because it didn't patronise them, the trolls were wicked trolls not comical ones. The story should have been kept tight, it was a huge let down on what I was expecting of a childhood favourite, especially after how LOTR really did honour the original story so much - that one was what I saw in my minds eye when reading the books.
     
  21. The Matrix was a terrific film. The other two sucked.
    The Hobbit was entertaining but the expansion of the story was pointless to me and hurt the trilogy of films.
    The prequels were varying states of bad. The first horrible awful bad. The second not as bad. The third between the first and second with poor direction from Lucas and casting choices (and the writing, well, as Harrison Ford said "You don't have to say the stuff you write").
     
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  22. Michael

    Michael I LOVE WIDE S-T-E-R-E-O!

    enjoyed them all. : )
     
  23. Zoot Marimba

    Zoot Marimba And I’m The Critic Of The Group

    Location:
    Savannah, Georgia
    I do like The Matrix (not as much as everyone else but I do like it), But haven’t seen the sequels.

    Star Wars prequels: I wouldn’t go as far as to call them great movies, even calling them good is a stretch, but they had some pretty cool parts and I do like Sith for the most part.

    The Hobbit, I actually like the first two, but I agree with @Parachute Woman, the third is just one big climax that overstated its welcome. Of course coming off one of the all time great trilogies it was absolutely a downgrade but as far as popcorn flicks go, it was actually somewhat enjoyable. Helps that I don’t really care as much about The Hobbit to begin with.
     
  24. The Hermit

    The Hermit Wavin' that magick glowstick since 1976 Thread Starter

    The Hobbit trilogy - I like these considerably more than the other two examples, they are really well made high-fantasy movies despite their flaws... some of those flaws I give Peter Jackson a lot of leeway on as he was essentially forced into the director's chair against his initial will when Guillermo del Toro upped and left, and had only around six months to rewrite, redesign, and prep two huge tentpole films to meet a set-in-stone release date (that being said, Richard Donner had a mere 11 weeks to do the same for both Superman films, and look how the first one turned out!!!), frankly it's amazing they turned out as good as they did under that circumstance, and is a testament to Jackson's immense talent as a filmmaker... even though by the end, it looked like making those films almost broke him in the process!

    On the other hand, however, the whole HFR digital cinematography was Jackson's fault and it all but ruined those films... it looks truly ghastly to me... if any films should have been shot on 35mm film, it's The Hobbit films... more so when Jackson was making them to be seen alongside The Lord of the Rings trilogy as one huge singular six-film saga. I think it's very telling that no-one (except James Cameron on his upcoming Avatar sequels) has utilized HFR since the Hobbit films were made...

    I have no problem with it being a trilogy as I think the first two films worked very well for the most part, whilst the last film's theatrical version was clearly truncated and cut some important scenes out that should have been kept and would have improved the film overall a great deal (I've heard it from a reliable source that Jackson's intended theatrical cut ran 10 minutes longer but the studio 'requested' it be under two-and-a-half hours)... that being said, I still believe two three-hour+ films would have been the ideal structure for that story, but I have to keep reminding myself that Jackson is someone who made a 187-minute King Kong movie, so the guy clearly loves to wring every last drop from a story.

    I never liked the Azog plotline, it always looked like that character had wandered in to the wrong film from LOTR, I would have made Bolg the chief antagonist throughout and had him played by a proper actor in make-up and prosthetics not a CGI creation.

    Thorin and the two dwarf brothers didn't even look like dwarves, they were more like miniature humans... and that is not what they should look like... at all.

    The whole 'love triangle' was a worthless load of baloney, but that was forced on them by the studio.

    Tauriel was frankly a useless character who was evidently only included for the sake of female 'representation' - guess they forgot Galadriel was also back too! - simply put, that's not reason enough for such a character... was The Shawshank Redemption or Master and Commander lesser films because they had no female characters?

    Yeah, there was a hell of a lot more CGI in these films than LOTR, and it made it look less like a tactile, tangible world and more like a video game at times, but much of that was due to the accelerated prep schedule and only having time to build pieces of sets, or so I've been told.

    So all in all, I like The Hobbit films (but I just can't love them) whilst readily admitting their considerable flaws; had Jackson been given an extra year to prep those movies, had they been shot on 35mm film, and had they stuck to two three-hour+ films to tell that story, I think it would turned out like gangbusters... although I've always been intrigued how Guillermo del Toro's version would have played, let's hope it gets a documentary some day in the future a la Jodorowsky's Dune.

    Onto the Matrix sequels... God have mercy on my soul...
     
    Last edited: Dec 1, 2018
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  25. The Hermit

    The Hermit Wavin' that magick glowstick since 1976 Thread Starter

    The idea to extend them to three films was Jackson's idea not the studio's... he didn't like how they were playing as a two-film structure; he felt too much good stuff would have to be cut to fit the story into two films; and they had ideas for material they wanted to shoot but had not yet done so when that decision was made, so three films gave them the room for all of what they wanted to put onscreen.

    Not defending that decision, but it's just good to put it in proper context.
     
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