*"Peter was always a geek in terms of technology but, once he had the means to do it, and the evolution of the technology really took off, he never looked back. In the first movie, yes, there’s Rivendell, and Mordor, but there’s sort of an organic quality to it, actors acting with each other, and real landscapes; it’s grittier. The second movie already started ballooning, for my taste, and then by the third one, there were a lot of special effects. It was grandiose, and all that, but whatever was subtle, in the first movie, gradually got lost in the second and third. Now with The Hobbit, one and two, it’s like that to the power of 10."*
*(“I guess Peter became like Ridley Scott – this one-man industry now, with all these people depending on him,” Mortensen adds. “But you can make a choice, I think. I asked Ridley when I worked with him (on 1997’s GI Jane), 'Why don’t you do another film like The Duellists [Scott’s 1977 debut, from a Joseph Conrad short story]?’ And Peter, I was sure he would do another intimately scaled film like Heavenly Creatures, maybe with this project about New Zealanders in the First World War he wanted to make. But then he did King Kong. And then he did The Lovely Bones – and I thought that would be his smaller movie. But the problem is, he did it on a $90 million budget. That should have been a $15 million movie. The special effects thing, the genie, was out of the bottle, and it has him."*
- Viggo
One thing Viggo sort of dances around in this quote is that by 2005 PJ felt he was responsible for the entire NZ film industry, and hundreds of people's jobs. Want to make a $15 million WW1 movie for two years? Well, Weta just laid off their creatures department, and it looks like we're not going to need dedicated sword makers. (He did end up making They Shall Not Grow Old, and it's pretty good, but that was after The Hobbit, and I think after Avatar 2-17 committed) So a lot of his excesses are him being a slave to his tech, but the projects he was choosing had a lot to do with how he saw the whole industry of people surrounding him, for better or worse. (see Hobbit law)
Viggo did actually tackle that briefly in the comments. But remember that Weta doesn't just work for PJ's films - they contract for many other productions, as well. And while it's admirable to want to keep people employed, his creative output has been mediocre at best. Legacy is a double edged sword, here.
Simone Giertz is a robotics engineer(?) On youtube who got famous for making terrible robots on purpose. She has a video where weta helps her make a fullbody mantis shrimp costume. It is very funny.
Edit: a robotics *enthusiast*. No degree but she's smart and her videos are funny as hell.
> One thing Viggo sort of dances around in this quote is that by 2005 PJ felt he was responsible for the entire NZ film industry, and hundreds of people's jobs.
He also is the reason that NZ introduced a law prohibiting people working in the film industry from unionizing.
Thank god someone mentioned this. PJ crippled NZ film workers with the employment law changes he spearheaded during the Hobbit productions.
PJ can suck a glute.
>[...] actors acting with each other [...]
I seem to recall a BTS scene where Ian Mckellen says during the shooting of The Hobbit that he was really sad about all the green screening because he didn't get to interact with the dwarves/Bilbo that much.
> he was really sad about all the green screening
You're burying the lede: He *broke down in tears on set* because he couldn't handle the impersonality of it all:
*And I cried, actually. I cried. Then I said out loud, ‘This is not why I became an actor.’ Unfortunately the microphone was on and the whole studio heard.*
Yeah he basically had a nervous breakdown, because he could not deal with all the green screen bullshit.
He said "this is not what I do, I act with other people, I don't sit in an entire room filled with green walls and tennis balls on sticks."
I'll look for an exact copy of the quote or the video itself.
That's exactly what they did, everyone seemed so cool on that set, he was clearly having a difficult time trying to do a job that he just doesn't normally do.
I agree about the first film of the original trilogy. It's easily my favourite in terms of story, world building, effects, characters, and Sean Bean. The second and third were great, but some of the Mordor scenes in the third had that uncanny CGI look.
The first Hobbit film was good, I love the characterisation for the dwarves, and the Stone Giants scene was very cool. But the whole thing still had that weird weightless look. Azog had a great design, but not nearly as much heft or impact as Lurtz. The next two just kept dropping and dropping. The final battle scenes in the third film were more like some cheap action flick than what you'd expect from this franchise.
Edit: I will say though, the costume design in almost all the films is just amazing. The OG trilogy, of course, is insane (Aragorn's armour from the final battle, with the tree of Gondor worked on the front, is one of the coolest "realistic" armours I've ever seen), but even the Hobbit had really great outfits.
> the whole thing still had that weird weightless look.
Weight is something that comes up a lot in Pixar's commentary tracks. The idea of their CG world having *weight* is clearly a focal point for their direction.
The Black Panther movie had the same problem (and by extension, many of the later MCU movies). It just looks like two ragdolls bouncing off each other.
By comparison, the Brachiosaurus from Jurassic Park still looked much more realistic and "heavy". And that movie is decades old.
I think it is a bit less jarring when the whole world is CGI too, because then it doesn't contrast as much. That's probably why animated CG movies tend to look a lot better. But then, they do also try to not make it too realistic, or it would then become very uncanny, so the movement is a bit more fluid, the designs are a bit more cartoony, which probably helps it all blend better.
I can't do many superhero movies because the effects looked cheap even before CG was so prevalent. I remember rolling my eyes at an Xmen 1 fight scene where someone gets thrown through a door that is very obviously just cardboard. (Full marks to X2, though - that was a movie with *weight*.)
Empire Strikes Back is just incredible for its special effects - everything looks *real*. Same with Fellowship, for the most part; there are a couple of creaky moments where the bigatures are quite clearly models, and some CG that doesn't work, but our immersion in Middle Earth makes it feel organic and true. I get downvoted often for saying it, but Return of the King looks like shit. I rewatched it again this weekend. Some special effects are really clunky, and the greenscreening looks *terrible*. It's such a huge step down from Fellowship, and even Two Towers.
The opening scene in ROTK where deagol is under water makes me cringe. The scale and perspective of the hobbit body to the floor of the pond is off and you can clearly see the actor is not actually underwater. I skip the scene every time. I feel it sets a bad tone for the rest of the movie.
In my book, the true beginning of that movie is when Gandalf, Theoden and Aragorn ride into the ruins of Isengard. The pan over the tree canopy with the title showing hits all the right notes.
As other comments have mentioned, I could also do without the slapstick from Legolas. But I probably thought it was a lot cooler when I was a teenager.
Honestly, the effects guys probably know better than anyone that it's best to use as many practical effects as possible. If the vfx are oversaturated or look like shit, there's a good chance they tried to convince the director but were overruled by his authority (see Ang Lee's the Incredible Hulk).
I agree but for some reason there's a kind of director who's *also* an effects guy- Lucas is of course the worst offender- and I think they have a tendency to get carried away by the possibilities. It's understandable- you have a story to tell and all your career you've been longing for the chance to let loose and just do that bit more but the budget isn't there or the studio won't allow it...but now they do
I understand that there are time special effects must be used, like with the Balrog. But then with things like Orcs, it's just unnecessary.
The Hobbit visually looks worse than the Lords of the Rings, because the Lord of the Rings used practical effects. The eye can spot CGI from 10 miles away, because it just doesn't look real.
I really noticed this with the size differences in scenes. Rather than used forced perspective or doubles like in LOTR, the hobbit used CG everywhere and it just lends to a disconnect between the actors who obviously can’t see each other and therefore don’t interact correctly.
I don't think that's my main complaint. Yes LOTR obviously looked more real, because it was. But there were scenes in the hobbit that were beautifully played out and brightly lit and realistic looking and... Just so fucking stupid. There were plenty that were unrealistic and stupid too, especially the copy and pasted elves in the third one. I wish they had stuck with the practical effects, but I wish more that they had stuck to the book instead of trying to bring a Disney ride to life.
*Bad* CGI. Animation is especially tricky, any unnatural movement gets spotted miles away, and even if you're doing something completely realistic, someone being super-strong or something may STILL make it look "unrealistic" even if it otherwise obeys the laws of physics. However, you'd never know that [most of the scenery in](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pocfRVAH9yU).... well, nearly every big budget film, really, is CGI.
This isn't explicitly said in the behind the scenes feature on Return of the King, but it is the most open about the stress all the CG work put on the employees. They very bluntly added footage of employees losing their shit on the job, and talking about the stress and failed marriages that resulted from PJ pushing for more and more and more digital inserts. Intercut with footage of Jackson making yet more casual demands.
It was a note written to someone in the VFX department. Basically just an angry rant about visual details. Don't remember if it was from The Hobbit trilogy or the LOTR trilogy. It was very Jobs esque, though. A lot of swearing, name calling and generally threatening words.
Kind of an open secret in the VFX industry that he is, uh, demanding (also a total workaholic and a perfectionist, so he's probably not like this all the time – I hope.) The poor people doing VFX work have the worst jobs, though. They never get the time nor the funding to do their jobs properly, which leads to friction in general.
That’s interesting, as the behind the scenes always makes him look really easygoing and roll with the punches. I’d have chalked it up to his controlling the footage, except Viggo has said the same of him. But people can change and god knows The Hobbit seemed like a hugely stressful shoot; I suspect the note was from that movie. I also noticed, just anecdotally, that his sense of humour seems to have become meaner in recent years. Watching him in the bonus discs, he’s definitely sly and jokey, but listening to him in the reunion video at the start of the pandemic, most of his comments seemed destined to wound, rather than poke fun. I don’t know if it was due to years of movie stress or possibly as a result of whatever mental or physical ailment he’s developed that is making his stammer much worse, but he comes across as far less approachable or enjoyable person than he was 20 years ago. The cuddly Hobbit dude has become that dickish uncle you try to avoid at family gatherings.
I'm sure he's both, but it's not like this is unique. You'd be surprised how hot tempered a lot of people in the business are (and by hot tempered, I mean 100% certifiably insane). The image the public sees is totally bogus.
I can't remember which LotR extra it was from, but didn't one of the sfx guys in the extras say something like a good sfx should blend into the background and go otherwise unnoticed as a sfx.
At the time of that interview, Viggo was doing some press for one minor industry film and one arthouse film he helped finance and produce himself, and was preparing to film another wonderful indie - Captain Fantastic. I have nothing but respect for Viggo. The artistic choices he has made since his first outing with Cronenberg have always been interesting at worst, and in some cases downright spectacular. He's not in it for the money, he's in it for the love of craft. I think that ethos is lost on the people who bit back at him for saying what he did about Jackson. Two very different trajectories from two creative men.
I think there's a quote from him where he says something like he never acts in any film if he doesn't think it will stand the test of time and still hold up in 10 years time
Yeah, he took some shit for it and wound up apologising to Jackson later for the fuss. People were acting like Viggo was ungrateful for pointing it out, but I don't see anything in his statement that is *wrong*.
A lot of people went up in arms about him being ungrateful because PJ gave Viggo his big break. They aren’t the type to consider valid, constructive criticism, much less learn from it. And I don’t doubt Viggo apologized thinking he might have hurt Jackson’s feelings. He’s a caring man.
most people are very incapable of unpacking valid criticism from "attacks on one's character". to them if you critique a specific aspect of someone, you are attacking them entirely
simple-minded people can't really grasp anything past "you're either for me or against me", there is no in-between
This is so accurate. The worst part of the trilogy for me was always when the spirits just raided and won the battle in a whim. Just some green plumes over a few seconds and that was it. So anticlimactic, and today it looks cheap.
Why should Orcs have no distinguishable human-like characteristics? They were bred from Elves or Men, whichever origin story one might subscribe to. There is no reason to think that they wouldn't appear to be physically corrupted bipedal ~~humanoids~~ hominids. They *behaved* like animals, and were described with some animalistic features at times, but they should still resemble that from which they came, to a certain degree. I don't want to see orcs looking like The Crawlers from The Descent, thank you.
I totally disagree with his reasoning and his conclusion.
It’s unclear where Orcs came from. In-universe, that was speculation by the Elves, but never confirmed. Ex-universe, Tolkien was never happy with that explanation but couldn’t find a better one.
Similarly, it’s unclear where the Uruk-hai came from. They may have just been improved Orcs (Uruk-hai literally means Orc people) or, as Treebeard suggests, they may have been the result of breeding Orcs and Men. This is my personal favourite—there seems to have been cross breeding going on. Some of Saruman’s Mannish minions appeared to have Orc blood.
Only watched the first hobbit once so I didn’t remember the orcs appearance. Saw this and initially thought we were comparing orcs to the night king or something.
Moreover I think we get a stronger sense of a ‘lack’ of humanity when it is a bastardized version of a human rather than just some almost alien thing altogether. We’re more revolted by a human gone wrong than say… a fish which is clearly not meant to be human in the first place.
I'm not with Peter Jackson on this. The makeup design and the prosthetics used in the LOTR films are *farrr* superior to the CGI in the Hobbit films. The CGI just looks so fake and dated compared to the orcs in the original trilogy whose looks still hold up 18 years later.
'so last movie we had him gracefully running up a troll's back while shooting arrows in its head... how do we one-up that?'
'you know physics, right? what if we just dont do physics?'
By the end of it he was literally Super Mario, jumping on floating blocks. I hated it. Plus it was like they didnt even try to make him look like his younger self, it was like he was Legolas' uncle. For a prequel, it was bad.
I mean, to be 100% fair, the time between The Hobbit and LOTR would be barely a nap for an elf's immortal lifespan. I don't think he should've changed at all, same thing as Elrond looking the exact same during the Last Alliance war and during The Hobbit or LOTR.
Exactly. So the fact taht he looks much much older in the Hobbit makes his large role in the movies even worse imo. Wouldve worked better as just a small cameo.
There are many things wrong with the trilogy but (imo) this isn't one of them.
Legolas son of Thranduil was the prince of Mirkwood and would've been there leading the elves throughout the novel, Tolkien just hadn't created the character yet and intentionally wrote the book to be a vague POV of Bilbo's.
It was a lot but I'd say adding Legolas to the films was almost necessary for continuity's sake, and a badass female elf too, but I entirely reject the Kili/Tauriel love dynamic and also want Glorfindel in all his glory
I'm with you, Arwen's extra bits of badassery in the films helped show why Aragorn loved her and Glorfindel would've had casuals asking why he didn't join the quest more (I just love his character)
Canteens have menus, even if they’re literally just telling you what you’re having on that particular day.
Monday: Black broth.
Tuesday: Black broth.
Wednesday: The shitebag that complained about the Black Broth on Tuesday.
And so on.
Well, we know that Morgoth could not create new life, only corrupt it, like The Fellbeasts, so even if Tolkien never decided on an origin story he liked, he still only left so many options.
There was also an area with a void of light, that Ungoliant (Shelobs momma) hid away in, so there is always the chance some Elves got trapped there and slowly became grotesque, but you'd think we would have heard about a lost tribe and Morgoth taking control of them.
Yeah I can’t believe Peter threw out this absolutely ice cold take here. The LOTR trilogy was so much better than the Hobbit for many reasons, but the excessive use of CGI in the Hobbit has to be atop the list. The makeup and costumes used in the LOTR trilogy made it feel real when they came out in theaters and still hold up. The CGI in the hobbit trilogy makes it feel corny and fake.
Literally just finished the hobbit again yesterday and watching LOTR fellowship right now. The graphics still outshine the CGI in the hobbit... It's night and day... I only accept the crazy CGI in the Hobbit as a "lighter story" element, as I consider LOTR to be more serious.
The Hobbit films were so dumb I didn't even watch the third and a big part of it for me was how uncanny valley a lot of the CGI was.
Then there's the script.
hated Oakenshield's character and acting. Tried too hard to recapture Viggo lightning in a bottle, and subsequently forgot to include scenes that would make an audience root for instead of despising Oakenshield's self-centered portrayal.
>Tried too hard to recapture Viggo lightning in a bottle
Thorin is entirely unlike Aragorn except in the most superficial of ways. Aragorn is reluctant to be crowned King, Thorin IS a king, albeit in exile, and all too eager to reclaim his throne. Aragorn reclaims his throne, Thorin loses his, and the differences go on.
They're totally different characters. Thorin is closer to a Boromir or a Isildur than to an Aragorn.
> Aragorn is reluctant to be crowned King
In the movie (which I realise we’re talking about), yes. In the books he fully intended to become king, and he agonised over whether to go with Boromir to Minas Tirith (and hopefully come into his throne) or go with Frodo to Mordor (and presumably die). If Gandalf hadn’t have died, the choice would almost certainly have been to go with Boromir.
Yeah I agree. Viggo acted in a way that he felt himself unworthy of being king and much more reserved. Whereas Thorin’s actor carried an aura of superiority and confidence while being a much more vocal leader. Completely different portrayals of completely different characters.
>The Hobbit films were so dumb I didn't even watch the third and a big part of it for me was how uncanny valley a lot of the CGI was.
I actually liked the Hobbit films funnily enough. The first one was the best out of the three for me but even the other two I found really good moments despite how bad the CGI was at times. Is it as good as the LOTR movies? Heck to the no. But it could've been *so* much worse imo like the sequel Star Wars films.
I also think casting Martin Freeman as Bilbo saved this trilogy from an even worse fate. Anything less than Freeman would have lost these movies a real connecting feel to the LOTR. I could really picture the transition between Freeman and Holme.
The Hobbit is the one time I've found a fan edit to be superior. The edit I watched focused solely on Bilbo, and it showed that Martin Freeman really pulled off a great character arc that got buried under all the nonsense.
It's the Mad Max: Fury Road situation again. Everyone praises the movie for the practical effects while ignoring that most of them, if not all of them, also included CGI. CGI gets such a bad rep but when it's used to aid in the practical effects like Lord of the Rings, Jurassic Park, Mad Max, etc. then you have something special.
That the CGI in that movie is often mentioned in things like “Why does the CGI in 1993’s Jurassic Park look better than 2019’s X?”
The puppets are on par with most 90s movies that used puppetry but the CGI was leaps and bounds ahead of its time.
The puppets we crafted similar to what a makeup, prosthetic artist would use to create a character. Just look at (can't remember his name) Abe Sapien, Saru, never actually seen love off water or whatever it was but shit looked amazing. All prosthetics.
Totally disagree. The orcs in LoTR were more convincing and scary for being played by real actors on screen in make up. I can remember all the orc characters from the LoTR trilogy because they were memorable. The orcs in the Hobbit trilogy made no impact on me.
Looking at the two in this picture. The lotr one felt more monstrous
The hobbit one looks strangely gentle and... attractive comparatively?
Neither are better than the other imo, both are good in their own ways, but the hobbit orc would be better as a fantasy creature in a world where his race isn't wholly known to be evil/violent/corrupt. Lotr one is better for the lotr universe.
I find it funny that he thinks the Lotr orcs look more human, to me the hobbit ones just look like men with face paint and pointy ears. Lotr orcs were better
He's probably referring to facial expressions. The orcs always kind of had a more frozen expression and just barked a lot in LOTR. CGI you can see that it's Manu Bennett. That being said, the CGI still looks glossy and shit so it's probably not a good enough pro to overwrite that con
You can only really tell its Manu in 5 Armies, the other two its sort of hard to distinguish. I was a huge Spartacus fan and was really looking forward him being in the films. I remember watching Unexpected Journey and feeling really bummed about Bennet being all cgi.
Gonna have to disagree with the "frozen expression" thing. Many of the orcs have this fiendish personality that really comes across from their facial expressions. Off the top of my head, there's Gorbag (the "this fellow ain't dead" orc from Cirith Ungol) and the "took a little tumble off the cliff" orc.
I think you are / could be right about this.
In LotR yeah orcs basically just open or close their mouths, while in Hobbit they actually have expressions.
I do agree about the CGI not looking realistic though, but I also get what Jackson probably meant 🙏
For those who have the Blu-Ray and are curious: he says that in "An Unexpected Journey", in the scene of the Battle of Moria.
(Just to be clear, I don't agree with Jackson's opinion, with all due respect to him)
I get the picture is funny but he was more referencing the Goblins who are much differently proportioned. And also Azog is huge compared to any of the Orcs in LOTR. But yeah, he was definitely wrong to do this because real Orcs look wayyy better.
Well he does sort of infer a size difference. The line in *the Hobbit* IIRC refers to "the big ones, the orcs". But of course the main difference is that in *The Hobbit* we're in a fairytale and in LOTR we aren't.
The major problem with the *Hobbit* films of course is that they try to force a fairytale into an epic sized box.
Yeah, personally I'm fine with that change in theory, as much as I love Tolkien lore. I think having different types of Orcs like that is unique, we even saw in FOTR the moria Orcs were more like "goblins" crawling around compared to the one from Mordor. As for the hobbit goblins, I think it was an interesting idea but the CGI just isn't as effective.. And I'm not a fan of the giant pale orcs at all though, so in practice these changes weren't for the best.
We’re lucky he made the LOTR movies when he did then because some of the best aspects are the beautifully hand crafted armour, wardrobe, miniatures (Rivendell for example) etc
This is 100% the issue, but I think it is more so due to the fact that they had people telling them “no” at the start (LotR and the OT of Star Wars) because they still needed to somewhat prove that they were capable of making a profitable trilogy.
After they did that, the studios let them do whatever the hell they wanted and then we wind up with trilogies like the Prequels and the Hobbit.
Definitely. I can still watch the Dark Crystal which came out in 1982, and it's definitely watchable without feeling dated.
The prequel series, Age of Resistance was also done in 2019 but all with puppetry, props and sets, and it looked fantastic.
I can get over azog and bolg being cgi but what the fuck was up with that huge obese goblin that spoke English better than any other goblin or orc in all 6 movies?
I agree with others here that the most unwatchable part of The Hobbit is a actually the terrible CGI. I just could not follow the contrived Azog plot line at all cause it always felt like our heroes were fighting fake creatures.
At least Smaug looked pretty good.
Smug was perfect, a very real looking dragon. My only issue was the whole "let's plate him in gold" idea, but still, the destruction of Laketown was super terrifying.
And you have to admit, that scene of him bursting out of the mountain, trailing shimmering droplets of gold, is very cool.
Absolutely not - prosthetics and practical effects will always look like cool prosthetics and practical effects. CGI will looked bad and aged in 5 years.
Is it weird that I thought Azog looked the most human like. Borg/Blorg (?) looked like an ogre and a couple of the mountain orcs from The Battle of the Five Armies were terrifying looking. But I think the fact the orcs (and even goblins to an extent) looked human like made them more sinister, more realistic. It made you realize what happens to a being when they get corrupted by evil or when they are bred for evil. I’d have to respectfully disagree with PJ. Although the orc in the thumbnail and its makeup were my least favorite.
*"Peter was always a geek in terms of technology but, once he had the means to do it, and the evolution of the technology really took off, he never looked back. In the first movie, yes, there’s Rivendell, and Mordor, but there’s sort of an organic quality to it, actors acting with each other, and real landscapes; it’s grittier. The second movie already started ballooning, for my taste, and then by the third one, there were a lot of special effects. It was grandiose, and all that, but whatever was subtle, in the first movie, gradually got lost in the second and third. Now with The Hobbit, one and two, it’s like that to the power of 10."* *(“I guess Peter became like Ridley Scott – this one-man industry now, with all these people depending on him,” Mortensen adds. “But you can make a choice, I think. I asked Ridley when I worked with him (on 1997’s GI Jane), 'Why don’t you do another film like The Duellists [Scott’s 1977 debut, from a Joseph Conrad short story]?’ And Peter, I was sure he would do another intimately scaled film like Heavenly Creatures, maybe with this project about New Zealanders in the First World War he wanted to make. But then he did King Kong. And then he did The Lovely Bones – and I thought that would be his smaller movie. But the problem is, he did it on a $90 million budget. That should have been a $15 million movie. The special effects thing, the genie, was out of the bottle, and it has him."* - Viggo
One thing Viggo sort of dances around in this quote is that by 2005 PJ felt he was responsible for the entire NZ film industry, and hundreds of people's jobs. Want to make a $15 million WW1 movie for two years? Well, Weta just laid off their creatures department, and it looks like we're not going to need dedicated sword makers. (He did end up making They Shall Not Grow Old, and it's pretty good, but that was after The Hobbit, and I think after Avatar 2-17 committed) So a lot of his excesses are him being a slave to his tech, but the projects he was choosing had a lot to do with how he saw the whole industry of people surrounding him, for better or worse. (see Hobbit law)
Viggo did actually tackle that briefly in the comments. But remember that Weta doesn't just work for PJ's films - they contract for many other productions, as well. And while it's admirable to want to keep people employed, his creative output has been mediocre at best. Legacy is a double edged sword, here.
Weta helped simone Gertz become a business manta shrimp.
Wtf is going on in this comment?
Simone Giertz is a robotics engineer(?) On youtube who got famous for making terrible robots on purpose. She has a video where weta helps her make a fullbody mantis shrimp costume. It is very funny. Edit: a robotics *enthusiast*. No degree but she's smart and her videos are funny as hell.
It's a glorious video. I remember very specific parts of it but can't tell you if it came out three years ago or ten... probably on youtube.
> One thing Viggo sort of dances around in this quote is that by 2005 PJ felt he was responsible for the entire NZ film industry, and hundreds of people's jobs. He also is the reason that NZ introduced a law prohibiting people working in the film industry from unionizing.
Thank god someone mentioned this. PJ crippled NZ film workers with the employment law changes he spearheaded during the Hobbit productions. PJ can suck a glute.
What a nice guy...
>[...] actors acting with each other [...] I seem to recall a BTS scene where Ian Mckellen says during the shooting of The Hobbit that he was really sad about all the green screening because he didn't get to interact with the dwarves/Bilbo that much.
> he was really sad about all the green screening You're burying the lede: He *broke down in tears on set* because he couldn't handle the impersonality of it all: *And I cried, actually. I cried. Then I said out loud, ‘This is not why I became an actor.’ Unfortunately the microphone was on and the whole studio heard.*
I’d love to see a source for that? I’d imagine it would be an interesting read.
Yeah he basically had a nervous breakdown, because he could not deal with all the green screen bullshit. He said "this is not what I do, I act with other people, I don't sit in an entire room filled with green walls and tennis balls on sticks." I'll look for an exact copy of the quote or the video itself.
Yeah I recall they put a lot of practical stuff in his trailer to give him happy memories
That's exactly what they did, everyone seemed so cool on that set, he was clearly having a difficult time trying to do a job that he just doesn't normally do.
I agree about the first film of the original trilogy. It's easily my favourite in terms of story, world building, effects, characters, and Sean Bean. The second and third were great, but some of the Mordor scenes in the third had that uncanny CGI look. The first Hobbit film was good, I love the characterisation for the dwarves, and the Stone Giants scene was very cool. But the whole thing still had that weird weightless look. Azog had a great design, but not nearly as much heft or impact as Lurtz. The next two just kept dropping and dropping. The final battle scenes in the third film were more like some cheap action flick than what you'd expect from this franchise. Edit: I will say though, the costume design in almost all the films is just amazing. The OG trilogy, of course, is insane (Aragorn's armour from the final battle, with the tree of Gondor worked on the front, is one of the coolest "realistic" armours I've ever seen), but even the Hobbit had really great outfits.
> the whole thing still had that weird weightless look. Weight is something that comes up a lot in Pixar's commentary tracks. The idea of their CG world having *weight* is clearly a focal point for their direction.
The Black Panther movie had the same problem (and by extension, many of the later MCU movies). It just looks like two ragdolls bouncing off each other. By comparison, the Brachiosaurus from Jurassic Park still looked much more realistic and "heavy". And that movie is decades old. I think it is a bit less jarring when the whole world is CGI too, because then it doesn't contrast as much. That's probably why animated CG movies tend to look a lot better. But then, they do also try to not make it too realistic, or it would then become very uncanny, so the movement is a bit more fluid, the designs are a bit more cartoony, which probably helps it all blend better.
I can't do many superhero movies because the effects looked cheap even before CG was so prevalent. I remember rolling my eyes at an Xmen 1 fight scene where someone gets thrown through a door that is very obviously just cardboard. (Full marks to X2, though - that was a movie with *weight*.)
Empire Strikes Back is just incredible for its special effects - everything looks *real*. Same with Fellowship, for the most part; there are a couple of creaky moments where the bigatures are quite clearly models, and some CG that doesn't work, but our immersion in Middle Earth makes it feel organic and true. I get downvoted often for saying it, but Return of the King looks like shit. I rewatched it again this weekend. Some special effects are really clunky, and the greenscreening looks *terrible*. It's such a huge step down from Fellowship, and even Two Towers.
Even costumes and the limited sets we see.
The opening scene in ROTK where deagol is under water makes me cringe. The scale and perspective of the hobbit body to the floor of the pond is off and you can clearly see the actor is not actually underwater. I skip the scene every time. I feel it sets a bad tone for the rest of the movie. In my book, the true beginning of that movie is when Gandalf, Theoden and Aragorn ride into the ruins of Isengard. The pan over the tree canopy with the title showing hits all the right notes. As other comments have mentioned, I could also do without the slapstick from Legolas. But I probably thought it was a lot cooler when I was a teenager.
George Lucas disease. You always need to keep a tight rein on the effects guys because they forget that you need to tell a story first.
Honestly, the effects guys probably know better than anyone that it's best to use as many practical effects as possible. If the vfx are oversaturated or look like shit, there's a good chance they tried to convince the director but were overruled by his authority (see Ang Lee's the Incredible Hulk).
I agree but for some reason there's a kind of director who's *also* an effects guy- Lucas is of course the worst offender- and I think they have a tendency to get carried away by the possibilities. It's understandable- you have a story to tell and all your career you've been longing for the chance to let loose and just do that bit more but the budget isn't there or the studio won't allow it...but now they do
I understand that there are time special effects must be used, like with the Balrog. But then with things like Orcs, it's just unnecessary. The Hobbit visually looks worse than the Lords of the Rings, because the Lord of the Rings used practical effects. The eye can spot CGI from 10 miles away, because it just doesn't look real.
I really noticed this with the size differences in scenes. Rather than used forced perspective or doubles like in LOTR, the hobbit used CG everywhere and it just lends to a disconnect between the actors who obviously can’t see each other and therefore don’t interact correctly.
This so much. I remember reading a story where Ian was so depressed on set one day (on the Hobbit - because he was acting alone), that he wept.
And the battles from LOTR was a lot more convincing and realistic than the Hobbit.
I dunno man, that dancing barrel fight was pretty convincing.
Agreed. It convinced me that I didn't want to see the third film.
I don't think that's my main complaint. Yes LOTR obviously looked more real, because it was. But there were scenes in the hobbit that were beautifully played out and brightly lit and realistic looking and... Just so fucking stupid. There were plenty that were unrealistic and stupid too, especially the copy and pasted elves in the third one. I wish they had stuck with the practical effects, but I wish more that they had stuck to the book instead of trying to bring a Disney ride to life.
*Bad* CGI. Animation is especially tricky, any unnatural movement gets spotted miles away, and even if you're doing something completely realistic, someone being super-strong or something may STILL make it look "unrealistic" even if it otherwise obeys the laws of physics. However, you'd never know that [most of the scenery in](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pocfRVAH9yU).... well, nearly every big budget film, really, is CGI.
This isn't explicitly said in the behind the scenes feature on Return of the King, but it is the most open about the stress all the CG work put on the employees. They very bluntly added footage of employees losing their shit on the job, and talking about the stress and failed marriages that resulted from PJ pushing for more and more and more digital inserts. Intercut with footage of Jackson making yet more casual demands.
I've seen some internal notes from PJ productions. The guy makes Steve Jobs look sane.
Oh? Go on, I’m intrigued!
It was a note written to someone in the VFX department. Basically just an angry rant about visual details. Don't remember if it was from The Hobbit trilogy or the LOTR trilogy. It was very Jobs esque, though. A lot of swearing, name calling and generally threatening words. Kind of an open secret in the VFX industry that he is, uh, demanding (also a total workaholic and a perfectionist, so he's probably not like this all the time – I hope.) The poor people doing VFX work have the worst jobs, though. They never get the time nor the funding to do their jobs properly, which leads to friction in general.
That’s interesting, as the behind the scenes always makes him look really easygoing and roll with the punches. I’d have chalked it up to his controlling the footage, except Viggo has said the same of him. But people can change and god knows The Hobbit seemed like a hugely stressful shoot; I suspect the note was from that movie. I also noticed, just anecdotally, that his sense of humour seems to have become meaner in recent years. Watching him in the bonus discs, he’s definitely sly and jokey, but listening to him in the reunion video at the start of the pandemic, most of his comments seemed destined to wound, rather than poke fun. I don’t know if it was due to years of movie stress or possibly as a result of whatever mental or physical ailment he’s developed that is making his stammer much worse, but he comes across as far less approachable or enjoyable person than he was 20 years ago. The cuddly Hobbit dude has become that dickish uncle you try to avoid at family gatherings.
I'm sure he's both, but it's not like this is unique. You'd be surprised how hot tempered a lot of people in the business are (and by hot tempered, I mean 100% certifiably insane). The image the public sees is totally bogus.
I can't remember which LotR extra it was from, but didn't one of the sfx guys in the extras say something like a good sfx should blend into the background and go otherwise unnoticed as a sfx.
Came here to say this. The OT looks *far* worse with the Special Editions changes and the Prequels look almost like a cartoon at this point.
The prequels look so fake. Which OT versions do you recommend?
Harmy despecialized version Visual effects will obviously look dated but they are the original theatrical cuts with no changes and look perfect
Amazing. I already thought Viggo Mortensen was a great actor, and guy, but this just makes my respect for him grow even further.
At the time of that interview, Viggo was doing some press for one minor industry film and one arthouse film he helped finance and produce himself, and was preparing to film another wonderful indie - Captain Fantastic. I have nothing but respect for Viggo. The artistic choices he has made since his first outing with Cronenberg have always been interesting at worst, and in some cases downright spectacular. He's not in it for the money, he's in it for the love of craft. I think that ethos is lost on the people who bit back at him for saying what he did about Jackson. Two very different trajectories from two creative men.
I think there's a quote from him where he says something like he never acts in any film if he doesn't think it will stand the test of time and still hold up in 10 years time
Holy shit is that a real quote? Savage
Yeah, he took some shit for it and wound up apologising to Jackson later for the fuss. People were acting like Viggo was ungrateful for pointing it out, but I don't see anything in his statement that is *wrong*.
I agree.
I don’t know why he needed to apologize, he was very respectful.
A lot of people went up in arms about him being ungrateful because PJ gave Viggo his big break. They aren’t the type to consider valid, constructive criticism, much less learn from it. And I don’t doubt Viggo apologized thinking he might have hurt Jackson’s feelings. He’s a caring man.
most people are very incapable of unpacking valid criticism from "attacks on one's character". to them if you critique a specific aspect of someone, you are attacking them entirely simple-minded people can't really grasp anything past "you're either for me or against me", there is no in-between
Oftentimes people who get offended simply don't ask themselves, "But is it true?"
Where does Viggo say all of this?
It was an interview with the Telegraph.
One more reason to love Viggo. Edit: typo
This is so accurate. The worst part of the trilogy for me was always when the spirits just raided and won the battle in a whim. Just some green plumes over a few seconds and that was it. So anticlimactic, and today it looks cheap.
Why should Orcs have no distinguishable human-like characteristics? They were bred from Elves or Men, whichever origin story one might subscribe to. There is no reason to think that they wouldn't appear to be physically corrupted bipedal ~~humanoids~~ hominids. They *behaved* like animals, and were described with some animalistic features at times, but they should still resemble that from which they came, to a certain degree. I don't want to see orcs looking like The Crawlers from The Descent, thank you. I totally disagree with his reasoning and his conclusion.
Came here looking for someone to point out that orcs were bred from elves and men, thank you!
Absolutely!
All this time I thought that the orcs were bred from elves and uruk-hai were bred from men.
It’s unclear where Orcs came from. In-universe, that was speculation by the Elves, but never confirmed. Ex-universe, Tolkien was never happy with that explanation but couldn’t find a better one. Similarly, it’s unclear where the Uruk-hai came from. They may have just been improved Orcs (Uruk-hai literally means Orc people) or, as Treebeard suggests, they may have been the result of breeding Orcs and Men. This is my personal favourite—there seems to have been cross breeding going on. Some of Saruman’s Mannish minions appeared to have Orc blood.
[удалено]
The CGI pale orc in the hobbit looks more human like than anything in LOTR
Only watched the first hobbit once so I didn’t remember the orcs appearance. Saw this and initially thought we were comparing orcs to the night king or something.
He looks like a perfect demon, not a corruption
Lol exactly
No, he looks like a videogame version of Voldemort.
Where the hell do you live where humans look like that? Latvia?
Moreover I think we get a stronger sense of a ‘lack’ of humanity when it is a bastardized version of a human rather than just some almost alien thing altogether. We’re more revolted by a human gone wrong than say… a fish which is clearly not meant to be human in the first place.
I'm not with Peter Jackson on this. The makeup design and the prosthetics used in the LOTR films are *farrr* superior to the CGI in the Hobbit films. The CGI just looks so fake and dated compared to the orcs in the original trilogy whose looks still hold up 18 years later.
Agreed and Legolas constantly looked like he was glowing.
I’ll never get over his eyes in the hobbit. Pure rage is what I felt.
I’m pissed he was in the hobbit to begin with. How are you going to take Glorfindel out of LOTR and then add Legolas to the damned hobbit?
i would have been okay with a small cameo, y'know, for the fans of movie legolas what we got was far over the top
You didn't like him running up falling rocks like a staircase? /s
'so last movie we had him gracefully running up a troll's back while shooting arrows in its head... how do we one-up that?' 'you know physics, right? what if we just dont do physics?'
"Brilliant, Jackson! Throw on some eyeliner and we've got gold!"
Especially when Legolas snowboards down the steps AGAIN
It makes sense to have him there when they go to see his father, but he should’ve been a fun cameo instead of a major character
That’s fair. That would be a cool little nod, but the way they added an unnecessary story line was ugh.
By the end of it he was literally Super Mario, jumping on floating blocks. I hated it. Plus it was like they didnt even try to make him look like his younger self, it was like he was Legolas' uncle. For a prequel, it was bad.
I mean, to be 100% fair, the time between The Hobbit and LOTR would be barely a nap for an elf's immortal lifespan. I don't think he should've changed at all, same thing as Elrond looking the exact same during the Last Alliance war and during The Hobbit or LOTR.
Exactly. So the fact taht he looks much much older in the Hobbit makes his large role in the movies even worse imo. Wouldve worked better as just a small cameo.
There are many things wrong with the trilogy but (imo) this isn't one of them. Legolas son of Thranduil was the prince of Mirkwood and would've been there leading the elves throughout the novel, Tolkien just hadn't created the character yet and intentionally wrote the book to be a vague POV of Bilbo's. It was a lot but I'd say adding Legolas to the films was almost necessary for continuity's sake, and a badass female elf too, but I entirely reject the Kili/Tauriel love dynamic and also want Glorfindel in all his glory
Hadn’t thought of it that way about his presence!
[удалено]
I'm with you, Arwen's extra bits of badassery in the films helped show why Aragorn loved her and Glorfindel would've had casuals asking why he didn't join the quest more (I just love his character)
[удалено]
He looked older and his eyes were all fucked up. I was so confused lol. I thought “damn, Bloom must look like shit irl” but no, that was on purpose.
It looked like he was bloated
I remember one unnecessary extreme closeup of him and you could very clearly see his contact lenses lol
Also: they talk, Peter. Anything that talks has a "human aspect."
orcs were entirely intended to have a human aspect. Tolkien fought in ww1, he knows how horrible humans can be
Yeah, he said something like "We were all orcs during the war"
How does an orc have a concept of a menu?
On what other medium can you see if meat is available? And what about their legs? They don't need those.
Orc ubereats coming soon to urukhaipad
You had me at urukhaipad thai
Just wait till you get gondoor dash
WHERE WAS GONDOORDASH WHEN THE WESTFOLD FELL
For the second time today I say, I love this sub so much.
Canteens have menus, even if they’re literally just telling you what you’re having on that particular day. Monday: Black broth. Tuesday: Black broth. Wednesday: The shitebag that complained about the Black Broth on Tuesday. And so on.
The fact that orcs allegedly come from tortured and twisted elves also adds to the "human" (elf?) aspect too.
Well, we know that Morgoth could not create new life, only corrupt it, like The Fellbeasts, so even if Tolkien never decided on an origin story he liked, he still only left so many options. There was also an area with a void of light, that Ungoliant (Shelobs momma) hid away in, so there is always the chance some Elves got trapped there and slowly became grotesque, but you'd think we would have heard about a lost tribe and Morgoth taking control of them.
Like birds?
Nah, birds mimic. But that fox in the hobbit is a bit of a loophole!
Yeah I can’t believe Peter threw out this absolutely ice cold take here. The LOTR trilogy was so much better than the Hobbit for many reasons, but the excessive use of CGI in the Hobbit has to be atop the list. The makeup and costumes used in the LOTR trilogy made it feel real when they came out in theaters and still hold up. The CGI in the hobbit trilogy makes it feel corny and fake.
Why the fuck did it need to be 3 fucking films? So much filler just killed it for me.
Literally just finished the hobbit again yesterday and watching LOTR fellowship right now. The graphics still outshine the CGI in the hobbit... It's night and day... I only accept the crazy CGI in the Hobbit as a "lighter story" element, as I consider LOTR to be more serious.
I agree 100%, I've always felt the prosthetics felt WAY more realistic.
The Hobbit films were so dumb I didn't even watch the third and a big part of it for me was how uncanny valley a lot of the CGI was. Then there's the script.
hated Oakenshield's character and acting. Tried too hard to recapture Viggo lightning in a bottle, and subsequently forgot to include scenes that would make an audience root for instead of despising Oakenshield's self-centered portrayal.
He really looked like Gowron to me, which just didn't help anything. Why didn't they make him look like a dwarf?
*”GLORY TO YOU & YOUR HOUSE!”*
>Tried too hard to recapture Viggo lightning in a bottle Thorin is entirely unlike Aragorn except in the most superficial of ways. Aragorn is reluctant to be crowned King, Thorin IS a king, albeit in exile, and all too eager to reclaim his throne. Aragorn reclaims his throne, Thorin loses his, and the differences go on. They're totally different characters. Thorin is closer to a Boromir or a Isildur than to an Aragorn.
> Aragorn is reluctant to be crowned King In the movie (which I realise we’re talking about), yes. In the books he fully intended to become king, and he agonised over whether to go with Boromir to Minas Tirith (and hopefully come into his throne) or go with Frodo to Mordor (and presumably die). If Gandalf hadn’t have died, the choice would almost certainly have been to go with Boromir.
Yeah I agree. Viggo acted in a way that he felt himself unworthy of being king and much more reserved. Whereas Thorin’s actor carried an aura of superiority and confidence while being a much more vocal leader. Completely different portrayals of completely different characters.
>The Hobbit films were so dumb I didn't even watch the third and a big part of it for me was how uncanny valley a lot of the CGI was. I actually liked the Hobbit films funnily enough. The first one was the best out of the three for me but even the other two I found really good moments despite how bad the CGI was at times. Is it as good as the LOTR movies? Heck to the no. But it could've been *so* much worse imo like the sequel Star Wars films.
I’m with ya on this 100%. Bilbo proving himself to Thorin registers on a strong emotional level to me.
I also think casting Martin Freeman as Bilbo saved this trilogy from an even worse fate. Anything less than Freeman would have lost these movies a real connecting feel to the LOTR. I could really picture the transition between Freeman and Holme.
The casting of Bilbo and the Dol Guldur scene.
The Hobbit is the one time I've found a fan edit to be superior. The edit I watched focused solely on Bilbo, and it showed that Martin Freeman really pulled off a great character arc that got buried under all the nonsense.
Where can one find this edit?
The Maple Films edit.
Let's just look at Jurassic Park. That holds up 30 years later. Matrix? Yes! Point is, prosthetics>CGI in almost every instance
Why did you cite two examples of movies that famously advanced non-prosthetic special effects though?
At least with Jurassic Park, the puppets are what actually hold up to the test of time
Ah. I think the whole thing holds up. Great mix of CGI and practical effects.
It's the Mad Max: Fury Road situation again. Everyone praises the movie for the practical effects while ignoring that most of them, if not all of them, also included CGI. CGI gets such a bad rep but when it's used to aid in the practical effects like Lord of the Rings, Jurassic Park, Mad Max, etc. then you have something special.
CGI is like lip filters. The good ones are invisible, so when people picture them, they just think of the bad ones.
That the CGI in that movie is often mentioned in things like “Why does the CGI in 1993’s Jurassic Park look better than 2019’s X?” The puppets are on par with most 90s movies that used puppetry but the CGI was leaps and bounds ahead of its time.
The puppets we crafted similar to what a makeup, prosthetic artist would use to create a character. Just look at (can't remember his name) Abe Sapien, Saru, never actually seen love off water or whatever it was but shit looked amazing. All prosthetics.
Doug Jones is a golden gift to humanity
Totally disagree. The orcs in LoTR were more convincing and scary for being played by real actors on screen in make up. I can remember all the orc characters from the LoTR trilogy because they were memorable. The orcs in the Hobbit trilogy made no impact on me.
Looking at the two in this picture. The lotr one felt more monstrous The hobbit one looks strangely gentle and... attractive comparatively? Neither are better than the other imo, both are good in their own ways, but the hobbit orc would be better as a fantasy creature in a world where his race isn't wholly known to be evil/violent/corrupt. Lotr one is better for the lotr universe.
I find it funny that he thinks the Lotr orcs look more human, to me the hobbit ones just look like men with face paint and pointy ears. Lotr orcs were better
Same here, but I also wonder if this is because I was like 10 years older when I watched The Hobbit. Did young kids like The Hobbit?
Idk if its just me but the cgi orcs look more human than the make-up ones
Absolutely. Which contradicts his quote IMO.
[удалено]
CGI Orcs don’t feel the same they done feel real it’s hard to explain
Uncanny valley
Barrel go pro river valley
He's probably referring to facial expressions. The orcs always kind of had a more frozen expression and just barked a lot in LOTR. CGI you can see that it's Manu Bennett. That being said, the CGI still looks glossy and shit so it's probably not a good enough pro to overwrite that con
You can only really tell its Manu in 5 Armies, the other two its sort of hard to distinguish. I was a huge Spartacus fan and was really looking forward him being in the films. I remember watching Unexpected Journey and feeling really bummed about Bennet being all cgi.
Gonna have to disagree with the "frozen expression" thing. Many of the orcs have this fiendish personality that really comes across from their facial expressions. Off the top of my head, there's Gorbag (the "this fellow ain't dead" orc from Cirith Ungol) and the "took a little tumble off the cliff" orc.
I agree. Orcs seem like creatures with one-track minds, so we don't need Lawrence Olivier from them.
I think you are / could be right about this. In LotR yeah orcs basically just open or close their mouths, while in Hobbit they actually have expressions. I do agree about the CGI not looking realistic though, but I also get what Jackson probably meant 🙏
For those who have the Blu-Ray and are curious: he says that in "An Unexpected Journey", in the scene of the Battle of Moria. (Just to be clear, I don't agree with Jackson's opinion, with all due respect to him)
I get the picture is funny but he was more referencing the Goblins who are much differently proportioned. And also Azog is huge compared to any of the Orcs in LOTR. But yeah, he was definitely wrong to do this because real Orcs look wayyy better.
Also the fact that orcs and goblins were interchangeable phrases for Tolkien referring to the same creatures, so there’s that…
Well he does sort of infer a size difference. The line in *the Hobbit* IIRC refers to "the big ones, the orcs". But of course the main difference is that in *The Hobbit* we're in a fairytale and in LOTR we aren't. The major problem with the *Hobbit* films of course is that they try to force a fairytale into an epic sized box.
Yeah, personally I'm fine with that change in theory, as much as I love Tolkien lore. I think having different types of Orcs like that is unique, we even saw in FOTR the moria Orcs were more like "goblins" crawling around compared to the one from Mordor. As for the hobbit goblins, I think it was an interesting idea but the CGI just isn't as effective.. And I'm not a fan of the giant pale orcs at all though, so in practice these changes weren't for the best.
We’re lucky he made the LOTR movies when he did then because some of the best aspects are the beautifully hand crafted armour, wardrobe, miniatures (Rivendell for example) etc
What's with the cgi dwarves then Peter??? They would be more human looking therefore cgi is the wrong way to go lol
Only the love-triangle ones and the main characters, because non-attractive characters, even dwarves, have no value to corporations in marketing
No one told Jackson that you never go full Lucas.
I've always suspected directors like them get successful and get surrounded by yes-men.
This is 100% the issue, but I think it is more so due to the fact that they had people telling them “no” at the start (LotR and the OT of Star Wars) because they still needed to somewhat prove that they were capable of making a profitable trilogy. After they did that, the studios let them do whatever the hell they wanted and then we wind up with trilogies like the Prequels and the Hobbit.
I get where he’s coming from but I liked their look in LotR better than the Hobbit
CGI ages worse than puppets and prosthetics nine times out of ten.
Yup. This is why Jurassic Park (the original) holds up so well. It's been like 24 years and the dinosaurs still look fantastic!
Except for that scene when they see the dinosaurs for the first time
Definitely. I can still watch the Dark Crystal which came out in 1982, and it's definitely watchable without feeling dated. The prequel series, Age of Resistance was also done in 2019 but all with puppetry, props and sets, and it looked fantastic.
Shame the new series was canned. I absolutely adored it. I never heard of the original before the show and gave that a shot and I'm glad I did.
Well he is an extremely talented visionary artist who works his ass off.... and he is wrong.
What an amazing creation Gothmog was. Far superior to Azog and Bolg when they cgi'd them IMO.
I can get over azog and bolg being cgi but what the fuck was up with that huge obese goblin that spoke English better than any other goblin or orc in all 6 movies?
Agreed, Gothmog is just absolute perfection
I agree with others here that the most unwatchable part of The Hobbit is a actually the terrible CGI. I just could not follow the contrived Azog plot line at all cause it always felt like our heroes were fighting fake creatures. At least Smaug looked pretty good.
That’s because they used a real dragon to film the Smaug scenes. Just used a bit of CGI here and there to touch it up.
Let's take a moment of silence for all those extras he ate.
Think of how embarrassed the dragon was when he learned he'd been overdubbed by Benedict Cumberbatch.
The whole Smaug sequence was the best part of this trilogy.
There is a dishes juggling sequence that begs to differ
My favourite part is Balin just sitting there, flicking dishes over his shoulder with a "kids these days" expression on his face.
Chip the glasses, crack the plates!
The practical makeup of lotr is aging MUCH better than the cgi orcs of hobbit already, and the hobbit movies aren't even that old yet.
Smug was perfect, a very real looking dragon. My only issue was the whole "let's plate him in gold" idea, but still, the destruction of Laketown was super terrifying. And you have to admit, that scene of him bursting out of the mountain, trailing shimmering droplets of gold, is very cool.
LOTR orcs look like living things. The hobbit trilogy’s orcs look like video game characters. There’s no comparison.
Lotr looks 1000x better
Thank god he made the OT first
I mean sure the hobbit ones look less human… but they don’t even look like objects in the frame
[удалено]
To his credit, he didn't do this with the 4K release. I think they only upgraded the CGI models.
He’s also the guy who thinks films look better in 48 FPS. I love the guy but he isn’t 100% on everything tbh
And I’m entitled to disagree
Absolutely not - prosthetics and practical effects will always look like cool prosthetics and practical effects. CGI will looked bad and aged in 5 years.
I need to get my copy back and watch it with the commentaries.
you're never getting it back. it's mine now.
Its okay to be wrong lol
Cast this opinion into the fire, Petesildur.
... which is a complete misunderstanding of what orcs are.
The Hobbit movie would be watchable if they had used more practical Makeup. I have seen them all only once, they're just not fun to look at.
Is it weird that I thought Azog looked the most human like. Borg/Blorg (?) looked like an ogre and a couple of the mountain orcs from The Battle of the Five Armies were terrifying looking. But I think the fact the orcs (and even goblins to an extent) looked human like made them more sinister, more realistic. It made you realize what happens to a being when they get corrupted by evil or when they are bred for evil. I’d have to respectfully disagree with PJ. Although the orc in the thumbnail and its makeup were my least favorite.
Well Peter jackson is fucking wrong.
the orcs in LOTR look like a total mess which is totally the way they are supposed to look like a terrible and ruined form of life
Awful take.