Saw a midnight show last night at 24fps 2D (my preferred format, not a fan of gimmickry.)
LOTR films served 2 masters. Let's call them Movie Master and Film Master. Movie master demands popcorn fun, crazy FX, lots of action, stupid humor for the kids, bombastic over the top physics scenes. Film Master demands good dialogue, pacing, letting us have a little time to get to see the scenery and know the world... emotional moments like Gandalf talking to Frodo in Moria about "the time that is given to us." Film Master insists you take your time, develop your characters, get your audience invested in them and awe them with grand, impressive shots.
In LOTR films, I felt like Movie Master and Film Master were evenly matched. Both were certainly represented (Legolas shield-surfing, some Gimli and Pippin humor which may have been a bit over the top, staircase falling apart in Moria, Legolas trunk-surfing etc...) Film Master felt like he was at least holding his own, and perhaps even dominating Movie Master. Film Master gave us things like the ominous ride of Gandalf toward Minas Tirith... the slow build up of dread in Moria, taking the time to do grand, sweeping shots showing us the grandeur of this old abandoned kingdom... stopping to foreshadow Gollum, beautiful moments like Gandalf riding out and scaring off the Nazgul with his sunlight from his staff. Etc.
In The Hobbit, I felt like Movie Master put a plastic bag over Film Master's head, dragged him out into the alley, beat him within an inch of his life, and left him gasping for air.
This film was so relentless. It felt like LOTR's 13 year old son after he just chugged 4 Red Bulls.
I love video games, but this felt like a video game and not in a good way. There was no credible threat or peril... when you watched the company flee Goblin Town, you were watching a physics SFX demo reel. They'd keep falling, doing impossible thing after impossible thing... no matter how many Goblins swarmed them, they never felt threatening. It was just a CGI overload fest. Frankly I'm surprised I didn't find myself instinctively doing XBox controller motions with my hands as I watched scenes like Radaghast's Rabid Rabbit Ride.
I can't help but suspect that the (horrible) decision to do 3D here infected the entire process.
I think once you choose to do 3D, it taints your every decision. Every time you set up a shot, you're thinking about when you do something with 3D in it... what's going to be popping out of the screen at the audience? Will it be a blade this time, or a warg mouth again? Considerations like atmosphere, character, etc are going to take a back seat.
Martin Freeman was a fantastic choice for Bilbo. Too bad he wasn't given a similarly good Hobbit film to be Bilbo in.
As the New York Times review said, at least I think it was them, Freeman's quirky, real persona should've been given a chance to set the tone of the film. Instead, PJ was like "Hop in the back seat and buckle up, Martin... CGI is at the wheel, and he just did a line of coke."
CGI in the LOTR films was used in conjunction with physical fx, and more traditional fx of all types to a much more healthily balanced degree. CGI was mostly used when no other fx tech would do the trick. You need flying Nazgul or a kraken in the water? A Balrog? CGI is your man. But in LOTR, let's look at the Two Towers Warg Rider scene for instance.
Plenty of CGI in that scene, but they'd keep coming back to real actors in prosthetics as orcs, atop metal frames covered with real animal fur. This kept bringing it back to reality. Kept re-grounding it if you will. CGI was used for shots that couldn't be done otherwise.
In this film, CGI is used for almost everything. Just about every orc is 100% CGI, every warg is 100% of the time. One orc who was an actor in prosthetic (killed for losing the dwarves) still looked awful because the make-up wasn't as good as LOTR and they seemed to overlay a layer of CGI onto him anyway.
They did everything in CGI so they could do more crap with 3D. Therefore, 3D helped ruin this film.
Let's compare Lurtz, the orc who killed Boromir (Sean Bean) to Azog, the pale orc.
Azog is 100% CGI at all times. And at no time was I ever unaware of this. Somehow, 2012 CGI looks worse than 2002 CGI in many ways. Not entirely... I mean, clearly it has more polygons... the movement is more fluid... but in no way, shape, or form is it ever believable as something real.
When you see Lurtz in slow-mo knocking another arrow to fire at Boromir, and he has that animalistic face, that growl... and it's a real actor in prosthetic and make-up... Lurtz may have been an invented and somewhat silly character, but he was a credible, believable threat as he killed Boromir and as he fought Aragorn.
Here? Azog feels like a video game boss because he's so obviously CGI, he's never grounded back to reality at all...
This film had only 2 speeds. 100 mph, or slow motion.
Like I said... LOTR's 13 year old son after he just chugged 4 Red Bulls.
LOTR films served 2 masters. Let's call them Movie Master and Film Master. Movie master demands popcorn fun, crazy FX, lots of action, stupid humor for the kids, bombastic over the top physics scenes. Film Master demands good dialogue, pacing, letting us have a little time to get to see the scenery and know the world... emotional moments like Gandalf talking to Frodo in Moria about "the time that is given to us." Film Master insists you take your time, develop your characters, get your audience invested in them and awe them with grand, impressive shots.
In LOTR films, I felt like Movie Master and Film Master were evenly matched. Both were certainly represented (Legolas shield-surfing, some Gimli and Pippin humor which may have been a bit over the top, staircase falling apart in Moria, Legolas trunk-surfing etc...) Film Master felt like he was at least holding his own, and perhaps even dominating Movie Master. Film Master gave us things like the ominous ride of Gandalf toward Minas Tirith... the slow build up of dread in Moria, taking the time to do grand, sweeping shots showing us the grandeur of this old abandoned kingdom... stopping to foreshadow Gollum, beautiful moments like Gandalf riding out and scaring off the Nazgul with his sunlight from his staff. Etc.
In The Hobbit, I felt like Movie Master put a plastic bag over Film Master's head, dragged him out into the alley, beat him within an inch of his life, and left him gasping for air.
This film was so relentless. It felt like LOTR's 13 year old son after he just chugged 4 Red Bulls.
I love video games, but this felt like a video game and not in a good way. There was no credible threat or peril... when you watched the company flee Goblin Town, you were watching a physics SFX demo reel. They'd keep falling, doing impossible thing after impossible thing... no matter how many Goblins swarmed them, they never felt threatening. It was just a CGI overload fest. Frankly I'm surprised I didn't find myself instinctively doing XBox controller motions with my hands as I watched scenes like Radaghast's Rabid Rabbit Ride.
I can't help but suspect that the (horrible) decision to do 3D here infected the entire process.
I think once you choose to do 3D, it taints your every decision. Every time you set up a shot, you're thinking about when you do something with 3D in it... what's going to be popping out of the screen at the audience? Will it be a blade this time, or a warg mouth again? Considerations like atmosphere, character, etc are going to take a back seat.
Martin Freeman was a fantastic choice for Bilbo. Too bad he wasn't given a similarly good Hobbit film to be Bilbo in.
As the New York Times review said, at least I think it was them, Freeman's quirky, real persona should've been given a chance to set the tone of the film. Instead, PJ was like "Hop in the back seat and buckle up, Martin... CGI is at the wheel, and he just did a line of coke."
CGI in the LOTR films was used in conjunction with physical fx, and more traditional fx of all types to a much more healthily balanced degree. CGI was mostly used when no other fx tech would do the trick. You need flying Nazgul or a kraken in the water? A Balrog? CGI is your man. But in LOTR, let's look at the Two Towers Warg Rider scene for instance.
Plenty of CGI in that scene, but they'd keep coming back to real actors in prosthetics as orcs, atop metal frames covered with real animal fur. This kept bringing it back to reality. Kept re-grounding it if you will. CGI was used for shots that couldn't be done otherwise.
In this film, CGI is used for almost everything. Just about every orc is 100% CGI, every warg is 100% of the time. One orc who was an actor in prosthetic (killed for losing the dwarves) still looked awful because the make-up wasn't as good as LOTR and they seemed to overlay a layer of CGI onto him anyway.
They did everything in CGI so they could do more crap with 3D. Therefore, 3D helped ruin this film.
Let's compare Lurtz, the orc who killed Boromir (Sean Bean) to Azog, the pale orc.
Azog is 100% CGI at all times. And at no time was I ever unaware of this. Somehow, 2012 CGI looks worse than 2002 CGI in many ways. Not entirely... I mean, clearly it has more polygons... the movement is more fluid... but in no way, shape, or form is it ever believable as something real.
When you see Lurtz in slow-mo knocking another arrow to fire at Boromir, and he has that animalistic face, that growl... and it's a real actor in prosthetic and make-up... Lurtz may have been an invented and somewhat silly character, but he was a credible, believable threat as he killed Boromir and as he fought Aragorn.
Here? Azog feels like a video game boss because he's so obviously CGI, he's never grounded back to reality at all...
This film had only 2 speeds. 100 mph, or slow motion.
Like I said... LOTR's 13 year old son after he just chugged 4 Red Bulls.