I have seen the 1st two of these movies of this Christmastime season. Exodus is about the original Passover, so not very Christmas-y. It is grand cinematically and ok as an action movie. I thought it was interesting that Moses did not become obsessively religious, and have religious delusions and hallucinations until after he had a serious head injury. Also notable were that God is an angry 9-ish year old boy who has a British accent, and almost all the ancient Jews and Egyptians appear suspiciously Caucasian.
The final movie of the Hobbit movie trilogy was also ok cinematically and action-wise, but I suspect quite disappointing to Tolkien purists, as could be expected in any effort to make a trilogy movie out of a single children’s book.
I am looking forward to seeing Unbroken. I expect that it will also not have much to do with Christmas, but may be inspiring in regards to human potential. (Although I heard that in the book, the main character became devoutly Christian, I also heard that this was not highlighted in the movie.)
I saw The Hobbit: the Battle of Five Armies. Good movie, not great. Didn’t stand on its own as the other two from the slim book, but a good conclusion to the trilogy. Now i need to go back and watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy again.
Tim you are correct about Unbroken. The main character does have a revelation and turn religious but its non-fiction so you have to accept it for what it is. Still a very interesting story.
I liked The Hobbit movies, and I thought the last was the best. Given that there really was a huge battle in the book, that was the most appropriate place for Jackson’s love of ridiculously extended battle scenes, and for me it worked just fine. I kind of wish that the action sequences from the previous two movies were toned down more, so that in sequence the final battle had more of a dramatic impact.
In terms of comparing the movies to the books, I think they’re ideologically faithful to the source material and I don’t expect the films to be an exact retelling of the books simply because that almost never works. Film is a different medium, and Peter Jackson and company are different artists, and one has to judge their products on their own merits, not on the merits of the inspired Tolkien books.
I haven’t seen Unbroken or Moses Parts The Red Sea Yet Again.
Tim you are correct about Unbroken. The main character does have a revelation and turn religious but its non-fiction so you have to accept it for what it is. Still a very interesting story.I plan to read the book before I see the movie.
I saw The Hobbit: the Battle of Five Armies. Good movie, not great. Didn't stand on its own as the other two from the slim book, but a good conclusion to the trilogy. Now i need to go back and watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy again."The Fellowship of the Ring" was the greatest movie experience in my recent memory, because I could tell early on that, at last, someone has created a movie that can do some justice to the books.
I liked The Hobbit movies, and I thought the last was the best...I absolutely loved the Lord of the Rings trilogy because it was so faithful in spirit to the books. There were quite a few changes made to the plot, large and small, but I could see the cinematic sense in doing so. In some cases, I'm sure Tolkien himself would have agreed. But I have to say I bailed out halfway through the first of the "Hobbit" movies. I just lost interest. Then I heard there was not only a sequel but a THIRD movie, all built around a short little book like The Hobbit? I think that's just taking things to extremes.
I liked The Hobbit movies, and I thought the last was the best...I absolutely loved the Lord of the Rings trilogy because it was so faithful in spirit to the books. There were quite a few changes made to the plot, large and small, but I could see the cinematic sense in doing so. In some cases, I'm sure Tolkien himself would have agreed. But I have to say I bailed out halfway through the first of the "Hobbit" movies. I just lost interest. Then I heard there was not only a sequel but a THIRD movie, all built around a short little book like The Hobbit? I think that's just taking things to extremes. Like I suggested earlier, Tolkien purists are likely to have felt violated by the cinematic exploitation of the book, "The Hobbit".
Exodus is about the original Passover, so not very Christmas-y.I thought the book was better.
Good one, Scott.
Does anyone remember to old Rankin-Bass cartoon movie of The Hobbit from the late 70’s or maybe the early 80’s? That cartoon was just over an hour long and did a fantastic job of capturing the whole book. If I remember right, there was only one major scene missing from the movie that was in the book. How do they take that one hour and turn it into 3 movies that were over 2 hours long each? They took scenes like the barrel trip to Laketown and finding the goblin cave and Bilbo in Smaug’s lair and stretched them out to ridiculous levels.
I am a huge Tolkien fan and was very excited about The Hobbit being made and when I heard they were going to make 3 movies out of it, I assumed they would be including a lot of material from the appendices of The Hobbit and LOTR and maybe stuff from the Silmarilion or other source material. Instead, all they did was drag out scenes with fluff. Very sad.
I don’t really think of myself as a “purist”. I bailed on the movie before I even knew there would be a sequel. It was just as you said, full of pointless fluff. I think the main thing was that I didn’t like the actor who was cast as Bilbo. Obviously he’s a “hot property” these days, but I don’t like him.