The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

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Spider-Man 3 is more Sony's fault than Raimi, putting too many demands and bloating Spider-Man 3 with too many characters. He certainly made two excellent Spider-Man films before it, so if they had let him do his thing the movie would not have sucked. Which is a shame, because Sandman was perfectly cast and so underused in favor of a badly cast Venom.

However I don't recall him being in the running to direct The Hobbit. I know Guillermo Del Toro was signed on to direct at one point and co-wrote the screenplay before backing out of directing duties, at which point Peter Jackson agreed to do it. That I would not have minded at all, Del Toro would have done a great job too.

I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Especially Radagast. He's cooky and crazy and awesome.

I agree about GDT. His early works and Peter Jackson's early works are very similar.

The CGI, directing, and cinematics were a lot tighter than they were with the LOTR series. The only problem was it felt like they were trying to pack 20 pounds of something in a five-pound bag in certain areas; the bridge-to-bridge thing, hanging on to ledges on the legs of giants, falling 200 to 300 feet and being fine - it started getting a little far-fetched.

One of the most interesting things about The Hobbit (the book) is that Gandalf is a dick. He peer pressures Bilbo into going on a dangerous mission that has nothing to do with him. In fact, it's not even clear why Gandalf himself should care about this dwarven property dispute. You get the impression that Gandalf is some kind of cosmic troll who just turns up and sends people on adventures.

In the movie, there is an attempt to make Gandalf noble instead. This is accomplished in two ways.

First, Gandalf gives extremely vague and unconvincing reasons why it is important to take Bilbo along. Of course, in the end it turns out that Bilbo is very useful, but only because he finds a magic ring. Gandalf could not possibly have known this in advance.

Second, Gandalf reveals that he wants Smaug dead because he is worried that Smaug could ally with Sauron if Sauron rises to power again. So, apparently Bilbo and company really are Saving The World (TM), but in an ridiculously indirect way.

I never minded Gandalf in the book. Yes, he's not the nicest chap, but he's not bad or anything. He's just a grumpy 'old man'.

I didn't mind him, in fact I found him charming. But he seems more like a "force of nature", as opposed to a character with sensible motivations. It seems like he is driven by things which lowly hobbits and dwarves could not possibly understand, and he's always mysteriously disappearing and reappearing. In the movie, they give him a very explicit and boring motivation (wants Smaug dead in case Smaug allies with Sauron), and it takes away some of the mystery.

Yeah that's really a sign of the times, and how babied kids are today.

A century ago when tolkien was young, gandalf was your standard english grandfather, stern, grumpy and very caring.

As a huge fan of both the books and the movies, I was highly anticipating this film. It was good, but not as good as the LotR trilogy. Why? The orcs and wargs both look different (though The Hobbit ones were probably closer to Tolkien's original idea of them). The dwarves look (to me) too comical; though they were portrayed somewhat comically in the book. Radaghast seemed too silly to me, though I like how we actually got to see him. The rock giant part seemed a little too impossible. Also, the dwarves didn't start trusting Bilbo until Mirkwood in the book.

I don't know about the 3 films thing. Yeah, some of the stuff is being pulled from the appendices, but I don't think it's enough for 2 extra films. One, yes; two, maybe not, unless the Necromancer banishing part is awesome. We'll just have to wait and see.

For the record, it was still a really good movie, my favorite in the past two years; I'm still going to buy it when it comes out on DVD. And I can't wait for the next one; Beorn is my favorite character from The Hobbit.

Good movie and good song too

Same here!

Me, too! I enjoyed this one! I also loved the references to the original trilogy. I can't wait for the other two!

I am looking forward to seeing Beorn's talking animals on the silver screen!

This is in the books as well, I think either in an appendix from LotR or Silmarillion.

I saw the first one last night. Didn't know it was going to be a multi-film ordeal. It should've been subtitled "An Unexpected Ending" or "Most of the Way There and Not Back Yet".

I was really disappointed in it. Being a huge fan of the LOTR films, I thought I would like this film as well, but it was just okay for me. I disliked the addition of the white orc, which IMO brought down the entire film with is goofiness, the completely bizarre portrayal of Rataghast the Brown (he was one of my fav characters so I have a bias), and as others have mentioned, the "justification" Gandalf uses to recruit Bilbo and go after Smaug. I understand that Jackson is trying to tie them into his original movies, but I feel the story completely lacked the character of the book. Also, some things were completely far fetched, even compared with the LOTR films, such as the stone giants sequence, as mentioned earlier on in the thread.

I will probably like it better when I watch it at home, though.