You don’t make me feel better about Hollywood when you write these things. We’ve gotten very little out of Hollywood..we got Dune and the current Project Hail Mary. The Marvel garbage and star wars is unwatchable for the most part. It’s all on TV. Say what you want about Taylor Sheridan, most of his stuff is entertaining. I’m happily forced to re watch old and obscure war movies or I get on Tubi and pick a genre or director and just watch everything. I can handle trash if it’s entertaining. The worst part about Del Toro’s two years wasted was we may well have gotten his “At the mountains of madness” passion project had he not lost the time. Great post as always, Devil!
Speaking from observation, The Hobbit came out at the peak of the Tumblrina empire, and they were the main fans of The Hobbit trilogy.* Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that sent the message to Hollywood that internet fangirls were a viable force to cater too. Until, of course, that business model collapsed under its own weight.
*None of the Tumblrinas I knew actually liked the movies, they all just creepily fangirled the actors.
Sweet Jesus, their yoai/disney hybrid cartoons of gay daddy Thrandril still pop up like cold sores on every media site if I ever hint to the algorithms I like the lotrs.
Here's my "break the internet" fan-casting for Bilbo Baggins.
Ricky Gervais
I know, I know but consider what you need from Bilbo…
Slightly put-upon. Mildly irritated by the world. Dry, internal commentary running at all times
Bilbo is: Set in his ways, Loves food, routine, and his chair, Deeply suspicious of disruption. Gervais can radiate that. “Why are you people in my house and touching my things?”
But here's the big thing: If you start with Gervais as petty, comfort-seeking, slightly selfish
Here's how they could have made three movies work. The first one fall of Erebor to Just after Beorn, no cgi, warns that looked like wolves not hyenas, practical effects, giants not moving mountains, The real beginning with the real dwarves. Then movie two the white council and the necromancer. Intrigue with Saruman battles with the big guns, rangers, wizards, throw in some fairy creatures (remember Hobbit not LotR), and some scary stuff with spiders and woodelves for kids. Maybe scenes of Gandalf exploring Dol Guldur in the past.
The third movie, River escape, laketown, desolation introduce smaug, under play him at first. The the cup, the theft of the Arkenstone battle of the five armies and the way home, a funny scene with the auction and Bilbo convincing everyone he's Bilbo. Roll credits.
Guilmo Del Torro, practical effects, stricter to the lore, more magic like the book not less, kid friendly but not talking down. No need for the abominable romance, idiotic subplots. No room for the modern audience. I know there were legal and structural problems but nothing would have been better than modern Tolkien.
I watched The Lord of the Rings Movies on DVD. At the time they came out, I was working days a week, sleeping the 7th. By the time the hobbit movies came out, I never got around to watching them, not even on DVD or streaming.
There's no way you can make 4 movies from a 200 page book. That, plus the CGI just looked weird.
I pray to god that they never get the Silmarillion or Beren&Lutien, or Aerindil's story. They'd just butcher them.
Hollywood needs to get back to creating its own stories again. I promise if they are good, I'll find a way to watch them.
Wokeness was, in its own way, an auto-immune response against this form of spreadsheet-brain bloat. Wokeness itself turned into a separate form of bloat, and Hollywood suffocated even more.
The reason that they got into the barrels was to escape unnoticed. This makes zero sense if you put the barrel in the water vertically and poke your head out the top. This pissed me off far more than it should have.
Next post in the series goes live tomorrow morning.
Arguably, the average human being they used for the training data did write like that.
If the author leaned on ai for the prose, congratulations; I did not notice. But I didn't have my guard up for it, either.
Tragi-comedy that in the focus of product, what results is unsellable product.
"But there must be eggs inside the golden goose, we need only cut it open to find them!"
Woe to the merchants and storytellers who forget this wisdom of old:
Product don't sell itself.
A story never sells itself.
But a story can sell jewels or rotten meat.
You don’t make me feel better about Hollywood when you write these things. We’ve gotten very little out of Hollywood..we got Dune and the current Project Hail Mary. The Marvel garbage and star wars is unwatchable for the most part. It’s all on TV. Say what you want about Taylor Sheridan, most of his stuff is entertaining. I’m happily forced to re watch old and obscure war movies or I get on Tubi and pick a genre or director and just watch everything. I can handle trash if it’s entertaining. The worst part about Del Toro’s two years wasted was we may well have gotten his “At the mountains of madness” passion project had he not lost the time. Great post as always, Devil!
Yeah but Dune was so damn good, it made up for the rest.
In other words...
The hobbit trilogy was goodhart's law + the McNamara fallacy in action.
Actually everything makes perfect sense and matches a lot of other tidbits I had gathered myself over time.
Speaking from observation, The Hobbit came out at the peak of the Tumblrina empire, and they were the main fans of The Hobbit trilogy.* Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that sent the message to Hollywood that internet fangirls were a viable force to cater too. Until, of course, that business model collapsed under its own weight.
*None of the Tumblrinas I knew actually liked the movies, they all just creepily fangirled the actors.
"Until, of course, that business model collapsed under its own weight."
I see what you did there.
Ha!
Sweet Jesus, their yoai/disney hybrid cartoons of gay daddy Thrandril still pop up like cold sores on every media site if I ever hint to the algorithms I like the lotrs.
So many problems.
Jackson filmed it in higher res and frame rate. I saw The Hobbit 1 in ImAX and it made it look fake. I could see the pores on Gandalf’s face.
And Martin Freeman was not believable as Bilbo.
I skipped the second installment but saw the third movie. Then I realized I didn’t miss much except some context.
Yeah, Martin Freeman was a bad choice for Bilbo. Basically you needed a young Ian Holm but there wasn't one in 2012.
They cast Martin bloody Freeman as Bilbo Baggins AND Arthur Dent! He played both characters exactly the same way.
Here's my "break the internet" fan-casting for Bilbo Baggins.
Ricky Gervais
I know, I know but consider what you need from Bilbo…
Slightly put-upon. Mildly irritated by the world. Dry, internal commentary running at all times
Bilbo is: Set in his ways, Loves food, routine, and his chair, Deeply suspicious of disruption. Gervais can radiate that. “Why are you people in my house and touching my things?”
But here's the big thing: If you start with Gervais as petty, comfort-seeking, slightly selfish
Then when he chooses:
Mercy (Gollum)
Courage (Smaug)
Loyalty (Thorin)
It all lands with him.
I'd agree, mainly from seeing After-Life. That's got a similar transformation from cynicism to hope.
And “The Hunt for Gollum” is a pointless moneygrab.
And a rights retainer. Don't forget that.
NEVER FORGET THAT!!!!!!
Here's how they could have made three movies work. The first one fall of Erebor to Just after Beorn, no cgi, warns that looked like wolves not hyenas, practical effects, giants not moving mountains, The real beginning with the real dwarves. Then movie two the white council and the necromancer. Intrigue with Saruman battles with the big guns, rangers, wizards, throw in some fairy creatures (remember Hobbit not LotR), and some scary stuff with spiders and woodelves for kids. Maybe scenes of Gandalf exploring Dol Guldur in the past.
The third movie, River escape, laketown, desolation introduce smaug, under play him at first. The the cup, the theft of the Arkenstone battle of the five armies and the way home, a funny scene with the auction and Bilbo convincing everyone he's Bilbo. Roll credits.
Guilmo Del Torro, practical effects, stricter to the lore, more magic like the book not less, kid friendly but not talking down. No need for the abominable romance, idiotic subplots. No room for the modern audience. I know there were legal and structural problems but nothing would have been better than modern Tolkien.
God I hated the hobbit movies
I watched The Lord of the Rings Movies on DVD. At the time they came out, I was working days a week, sleeping the 7th. By the time the hobbit movies came out, I never got around to watching them, not even on DVD or streaming.
There's no way you can make 4 movies from a 200 page book. That, plus the CGI just looked weird.
I pray to god that they never get the Silmarillion or Beren&Lutien, or Aerindil's story. They'd just butcher them.
Hollywood needs to get back to creating its own stories again. I promise if they are good, I'll find a way to watch them.
Angel Studios has already proven that.
Too many typos
He appears to have "fixed it in post."
So glad I never saw the movies.
Wokeness was, in its own way, an auto-immune response against this form of spreadsheet-brain bloat. Wokeness itself turned into a separate form of bloat, and Hollywood suffocated even more.
Unhealthily amusing.
The reason that they got into the barrels was to escape unnoticed. This makes zero sense if you put the barrel in the water vertically and poke your head out the top. This pissed me off far more than it should have.
Express yourself Pete.