Kera foehunter:
I seen the movie last night and i like it .
The opening was a great a good look into the dwarf world.
I love the troll Scene
it was one of the best parts. I also like the work they put into the Goblin town and the big goblin king was cool to
But i Don’t want to give the whole movie away…
Worth the money :hat off
Thommy H:
Yeah, it’s great fun. Different from the LOTR movies in exactly the way the books are different - more light-hearted, more fairy tale, more technicolour, almost. But the cast is great, the score is perfect, the additions to the scant material of the novel don’t detract at all (in fact -MILD SPOILERS - one of those additions is giving Bilbo an actual motivation beside “adventure” to help the Dwarves reclaim Erebor, and this goes a long way to dovetailing the tones of the two movie series). Plus, even though the Dwarves get involved in a lot of Gimli-esque comic relief, there are a few moments where you really get to see them in action, like the prologue Kera mentions. As bumbling and silly as some of them are, this is mostly presented as a side effect of their status as dispossessed wanderers, forced to find whatever joy in life they can. The ones who were at Erebor when it fell aren’t nearly so irreverent, and Thorin is just the right balance of pompous self-importance and glowering menace. If anything, this is more of an adaptation of the context of The Hobbit and its relation to the War of the Ring, since it incorporates material from the Appendecies of the LOTR and Unfinished Tales, which make sense of a few things that the book doesn’t really mention. And you need that, because otherwise it’s just a kind of silly adventure.
Two disclaimers: first, you’ll have to look pretty hard to find someone who knows and loves Lord of the Rings like I do, and this extends to the movie adaptations, which hold a very special place in my heart. So I’m not one of those Tolkien fans who sees Jackson’s work as some sort of desecration or, at best, a necessary evil. I love those damn movies, and this is a new one so that’s great. I’m not exactly unbiased.
Secondly, I didn’t watch it in 3D in the 48fps format that has divided critics so fiercely, so I can’t comment on that aspect of it. We avoided it specifically so we wouldn’t be distracted by the way the film was presented, but we’re going to see it again after Christmas and may seek out the high frame rate version this time, just to see what it looks like.
Kera foehunter:
One last thing (the epic chase scene)
Radagast the Brown in his dog sled of Rabbit being chased by the Wolf riding goblins
it was to give a chance for the dwarfs to escape
Very cute ,brought a chuckle
Thommy H:
It’s funny to read people complaining about how silly that is. It’s like, this is The Hobbit, in which Gandalf, an angelic spirit in mortal form sent across the sea by the Valar to contest the will of Souron chases off goblins by throwing burning pinecones at them. It’s necessarily going to be more light-hearted than the Lord of the Rings movies, as this is the nature of the source material. But then, they do bring in some more serious stuff too, and I feel they’ve handled the tone pretty well. The things that are serious are serious in the way that the Marvel cinematic universe is serious - so always with a nod towards bright, crowd-pleasing moments, rather than the feeling of grim portentousness that pervades the LOTR films.
Admiral:
The movie went far beyond my meagre expectations. I’m willing to coronate the first Hobbit movie as the best Middle Earth movie this far, although I’ll still have to give some of the dwarf miniatures bigger beards when I buy them in the future. 
Erebor was fantastic. The hefty dose of dwarves (and elves) and the sense of a larger, living world that would go on even if the movie stopped fills me with praise for the producers of the movie. But since Kera and in particular Thommy H have already pointed out the multitude of positive bits I don’t need to repeat them.
The movie deviated from the books, of course, but on the whole it was for the better. As someone with writing experience, I got the impression of a team of good script writers who had looked through the source material and made their best to improve on the original story. This is akin to an author who have written a piece of text and then reviews it to see how he can polish it and especially wring as much out of the story as possible, and see how he can fulfill its full potential. The story twists was generally so good and added to the tale that I imagine JRR Tolkien himself might have grudgingly acknowledged that some of the movie deviations and inventions in the story was for the better.
Thommy H:
I think most of the extra material is there in the background stuff Tolkien did anyway though. I’ve been reading the relevant parts of Unfinished Tales after watching the movie, and it really is all there - even lines lifted from conversations Thorin and Gandalf had “off screen” that here are made part of the main narrative. There is some condensing of the background for the Necromancer (since by the time of the events of The Hobbit “Mirkwood” was already well established, and Gandalf had already encountered Thrain in the pits of Dol Guldur and knew the identity of the Necromancer) but that’s no worse than the history of Arnor and Gondor being glossed over in the LOTR movies.
snowblizz:
Secondly, I didn't watch it in 3D in the 48fps format that has divided critics so fiercely, so I can't comment on that aspect of it. We avoided it specifically so we wouldn't be distracted by the way the film was presented, but we're going to see it again after Christmas and may seek out the high frame rate version this time, just to see what it looks like.Planning to do it the other way around. I'm at Uni and none of my friends are here, but back home the cinema doesn't have all that newfangled technology.
Thommy H
Admiral:
I think most of the extra material is there in the background stuff Tolkien did anyway though. I've been reading the relevant parts of Unfinished Tales after watching the movie, and it really is all there - even lines lifted from conversations Thorin and Gandalf had "off screen" that here are made part of the main narrative. There is some condensing of the background for the Necromancer (since by the time of the events of The Hobbit "Mirkwood" was already well established, and Gandalf had already encountered Thrain in the pits of Dol Guldur and knew the identity of the Necromancer) but that's no worse than the history of Arnor and Gondor being glossed over in the LOTR movies.Yes, almost all the extra background material is taken from the Ring's World (or what it's called in English), Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, Tales from Middle-Earth and whatnot the non-trilogy, non-Hobbit books are called. It was a pleasant surprise to see so much harkening back to the wider history of Middle Earth as opposed to the Lotr trilogy, which thinned down the background texture, and in particular the lack of Gondorian fiefdoms.
Thommy H
Thommy H:
It’s kind of weird, because they had to brutally cut LOTR to make it fit into a movie trilogy - even one that runs 12 hours, if you’re watching the Extended Editions (and it really is that long - we tried to do it in one sitting the other week). But The Hobbit is so slight, and the tone so tied into a world of childish whimsy (singing Elves welcoming the Dwarves into Rivendell anyone?) that you really have to pad it out to make it work as a movie for adults, so it has the opposite problem to LOTR! But, oddly, it seems a lot of the same people who complained there wasn’t enough LOTR, are also annoyed there’s too much Hobbit…
Taurian:
I did see the movie in 3D, with the full frames per second. I didn’t have any problem with it, nor did my friend’s 10yo son, his 13 yo daughter, or his son’s friend. I also didn’t see anyone else in the movie theater getting sick watching it as was reported in some articles. Actually, some parts were pretty cool in 3D. There were two parts in the movie where I found myself involuntarily blinking as something appeared to be thrown ‘at me’ from the movie screen.
Overall I liked the movie, and I think this is one of the things that needs a bit more time to grow on you through reflection. I’m a bit of a purist, so I generally don’t like tampering; to each his own. I was willing to give some creative license to a lot of things, though. I had no problem with the inclusion of Radagast the brown or the sled race with the wargs, for instance.
I did have a problem with the stone giant scene, which apparently no one else here did. It’s not so much that it wasn’t in the book, but that it didn’t really play a part in advancing the plot and seemed to be added for a bit of extra suspense. As I was watching it, it felt sort of like they were trying to mimic the scene from FotR when they were escaping down the great stairs of Khazad-dum and the supports were giving way. And with the movie being 169 minutes long, I just felt that this part could easily have been cut from the film to trim it into a leaner work without losing anything important.
With that said, I found that despite the 169 minute run time, it did not feel too drawn out and went by at a nice pace. I’ve heard some complaints about a few scenes that tended to drag, like the gathering at Bilbo’s home, but I didn’t see it that way as it was fairly integral to the story.
@Thommy H:
We’ll have to differ on opinion as regards the score. I didn’t really notice much new music, with a lot of the score being re-used from LotR. I don’t know if the reason was to help establish a continuity between the movies, and maybe I might have a different opinion on watching it again, but it seemed like a lot of the music kept repeating. While also on the topic of music, I will praise whoever made the decision not to make the orcs sing “fifteen birds in five fir trees”.
@Kera:
I’m afraid I didn’t care as much for the troll scene as you did. One of the reasons was that I felt the trolls were channeling the Three Stooges and appeared more comic relief than the threat they deserved to be. This likely has to do with the fact that I once played a Tolkien-based mud where these trolls were not only present, but were a serious challenge. This presentation took away from that mystique. I also thought that this movie’s resolution of stalling the trolls until dawn stole from Gandalf’s thunder, as I rather liked the way he played Bill, Bert and Tom against each other in the novel.
Anyway, I’m not going to nitpick everything as it almost sounds like I didn’t like the movie. I did like it and I may well see it again over Christmas break. I just figured I’d toss in my two cents.
Thommy H:
I’m a total nerd for the LOTR score (you don’t even want to know what my wife walked out to at our wedding…), and since I knew it was Howard Shore doing it again, I paid quite close attention to the music. I probably know every theme, every leitmotif, every piece of incidental music in that original films off by heart and I can tell you that everything that sounded familiar in The Hobbit was subtly reworked from the original versions. So you had those same themes coming in, but they were just changed enough to fit in with the new ones like the swashbuckling - almost Pirates of the Caribbean! - Dwarves theme that is a sped up version of the song Thorin sings with more horns and stuff (but which, and I may be wrong about this, uses a similar arrangement to the Moria theme in Fellowship).
So, for me, it really complemented all the things I’ve been saying about the slight tonal shift between the two series.
cornixt:
I also didn't see anyone else in the movie theater getting sick watching it as was reported in some articles.A couple of anonymous tweets were thrown way out of proportion by the media, no one else reported problems except the very occasional person who probably had psychosomatic symptoms after hearing about it.
Taurian
Kera foehunter:
To me i can relate in real life to the dwarfs in the Hobbit.
I have made a lot of adventures that i had with my friends and relative.
some of the things like crashing Bilbos house ’ Eating with the elves Lol just like that.
Come across 3 dumb guys ( like the trolls) not saying you lovely guys here.
I find that the personally of the dwarf to be more real like
i guess i look at things diffrent
Admiral:
I actually missed the elf youngsters who sang and chided the dwarfs as they made their way into Imladris. It added a layer of humour and somehow also credibility to the aloof elves. One wouldn’t expect old elves from the second or first age or even from before that doing it, but it fit for youngsters born late in the third age. Having it replaced by a murderous elven cavalry attack was however entirely acceptable. 
WORGORE:
I was still a little undecided if i should go see it on the big screen. But glad to hear on the whole it’s well worth the watch!
Now what time is the next viewing…
Grimstonefire:
I
Thommy H:
Haven’t you read the book? The film is a lot darker and more serious than the source material!
Kera foehunter:
So didn’t Gandalf seem more spaced out in this than the lotr ??
Skink:
I echo Grim in saying that the Dwarfs battle scenes were awesome. Especially the one outside of Moria. That´s exactly how I would imagine Dwarfs fighting!!! The only bit I didn´t really like was the behaviour of Thorin with Bilbo at the end of the movie… Technically he reconciliates with the Hobbit only at the end of the adventure. And damn it!!! I wanted to see the Dragon so badly!!!
Grimstonefire:
I came away from the film really wishing they could have done a whole film about the dwarfs at war. That would be the best film ever!