Dutchiee @ 5/12/2012 19:39

modest reviews surfacing.

Not surprised tbh. Most of the criticism seems to be about the pacing.

yeah, fellowship might have had similar points tho... hopefully we get better pacing in 2 (two towers pacing was by far best, not that its all that relevant)

also expected that the cgi orcs have nothing on the make up-based orcs in lotr. a real shame that

Wait ALL of the orcs are CGI now? Even the close-ups? Sigh...

A part of me wishes del Toro would've stayed onboard. I really like his animatronics/makeup for his creatures and it would've been really interesting to see his take on middle-earth

I'm beginning to wonder if CGI will ever escape that uncanny valley effect. It's amazing that so many years on and Jim Henson's creature shop still beats it hands down.

Still looking much forward to seeing it. In 48 fps... I must know if it makes it better or worse

Boc @ 6/12/2012 1:10

Wait ALL of the orcs are CGI now? Even the close-ups? Sigh... A part of me wishes del Toro would've stayed onboard. I really like his animatronics/makeup for his creatures and it would've been really interesting to see his take on middle-earth

Yes this is one of my biggest problems. I loved LOTR for its set pieces and proper use of ORC's Uru'kai costumes. Now everything will feel like a Star Wars prequel like movie. I joked awhile back that a good hour of the film will probably take place in Hobbiton and it looks like it most likely will.

at least all the sets are real

Leaffan20 @ 6/12/2012 16:02

Boc @ 6/12/2012 1:10 Wait ALL of the orcs are CGI now? Even the close-ups? Sigh... A part of me wishes del Toro would've stayed onboard. I really like his animatronics/makeup for his creatures and it would've been really interesting to see his take on middle-earth Yes this is one of my biggest problems. I loved LOTR for its set pieces and proper use of ORC's Uru'kai costumes. Now everything will feel like a Star Wars prequel like movie. I joked awhile back that a good hour of the film will probably take place in Hobbiton and it looks like it most likely will.

I just don't understand why they cop'd out with the makeup for cgi... blah.

but yeah still immensely looking forward to it...

I don't think it's so much copping out, as it is Weta being more experienced in that now and thinking they can make it work on a larger scale... what with their work on Avatar, Rise of the Apes, etc.

especially considering the movie is 48fps meaning twice as many frames have to be edited digitally.

cop out, poor decision making, whatever.

Why change a working formula.

Is it orcs that are changed though? I thought it was mostly goblins in this movie.

Here is a goblin in FOTR


And H:AUJ


... I honestly don't think it's that bad. I suppose that just wanted to make them... less human-like?

... ok I feel silly I did a bit of searching and apparently Goblins and Orcs are the same things? I always thought of Goblins as more spider-like living in holes and Orcs more as a warriorish race? I dunno.

But... ah... I just recalled Uruk Hai were Orc/Goblin crossbreeds. (Ok that was just in the movie, which this movie follows the canon of, so I'm just overall confused. lol)

From IGN

Unfortunately, Azog, like all the orcs and goblins seen in The Hobbit, is a CGI character. Remember how formidable and scary the Uruk-hai were in the LOTR movies? It's because they were played by real actors in makeup and wielding actual weaponry, monsters who had a presence that CGI just can't recreate. The phoniness of these CG-heavy creatures makes The Hobbit feel as inorganic to LOTR as the prequels were to the original Star Wars films.
There's actually a lot of less than jaw-dropping visual effects work here, whether it's Azog -- who looks like he walked out of a video game -- or the horde that chases Radagast the Brown (Sylvester McCoy) or the wargs. The Goblin King (Barry Humphries) and his minions are all CGI. At a certain point during battle scenes with these CGI characters it becomes evident that the main actors are swinging at nothing; you never get the sense anything's actually connecting and thus you're never fully invested in these battles or what happens to anyone in them. It's makes you think that if you went 20 minutes in any direction outside of The Shire you'd end up in Toon Town. Add in the brighter landscapes and The Hobbit often looks more like a Narnia film than an LOTR one.

the thing is they probably were actually fighting people, if it was anything like they did with Andy Serkis. It was all mo-capped and then the people were replaced. Gollum was all CGI and I guess he possibly could have been a real actor, but that worked out... so I'll hold my reservations til I see it.

The Hobbit is a fair sillier story than LOTR so I wasn't expecting anything incredibly dark... I don't think anyone who read the book is expecting this to be really similar in vein to the LOTR trilogy. Despite PJ's best efforts.

well I agree that the tone is different, I personally liked the hobbit book more then lotr fwiw (3 movies is a massive stretch tho)... but they were different. LOTR everyone was on stake, in hobbit it's more tied to the party and the personal growth of bilbo. But small things like make up and costumes could have been done in the same vein as lotr, there is no reason why they couldn't, regardless of "silliness". Not so much to keep in vein with the atmosphere of lotr, but the atmosphere of middle-earth.

The IGN report did say the one place where CGI was win, was indeed gollumn, but other then that it was pretty meh. The urukai and orcs in lotr were pure epic, from what I've seen and read about hobbit, not so much.