Comment by iainmerrick
7 days ago
I think the main trick is that they set out to make the best and most impressive movie(s) they could with every tool available -- practical effects, old-school camera angle tricks to make the hobbits look small, hordes of extras and well-crafted props, as well as groundbreaking CGI.
Same with Jurassic Park, come to think about it -- there's famously more animatronic dinosaurs in that movie than CGI.
As opposed to relying on one shiny new tool to take care of everything. I think with The Hobbit they got over-enamoured with the notion that you can do anything with CGI.
More recently, Andor is a good example with its mix of CGI and massive sets; The Mandalorian is a bad example with its over-reliance on the "Volume" LED stage.
> As opposed to relying on one shiny new tool to take care of everything. I think with The Hobbit they got over-enamoured with the notion that you can do anything with CGI.
But the visuals are The Hobbit's main selling point. People hate it because of the writing.
I was responding to the parent comment, that the CGI somehow got worse with later films, e.g. the Hobbit having a lot of "this is obviously cgi lmao what is this"
I agree with that, The Hobbit looked pretty bad. You're right that part of it was the bad writing, but I think it's a vicious circle -- if you're convinced that CGI can make twenty minutes of elf-vs-goblin parkour look cool, you'll write that into the script.
If instead you started from the viewpoint of, well, we made a successful movie trilogy out of a famous book trilogy; here's another famous and beloved book by the same author, who even went back and revised it to make it fit with the trilogy -- why don't we just use all the tools at our disposal to put that book on the big screen? Maybe that could have resulted in one really good movie.
My nine-year-old seems to enjoy the Hobbit as much as The Lord of the Rings, so part of me suspects that it's just old curmudgeons like me who really dislike it.
For me, what grates are the action sequences that feel like they were written for the video game tie in -- the river escape sequence, for instance.
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The parts of the Hobbit movies that have actual sets, locations and people in costume looks really good. The problem is that the CGI is just too much in most places.