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Last Good Movie You Saw


Gyaruson
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Well Avatar will be the biggy for a while.

 

Ah yeah, got me there. I stand corrected.

 

What did they computer animate that you thought they should have used practical effects for? The only time I can think of where they used computer animation when they should have used prosthetics was the mining dwarf at the very beginning.

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The Hobbit. Fucking fantastic film and it made my friends, who were going in with all intentions to hate on it, eat their words. The CGI didn't bother me because it was largely used for non-human sized creatures like with LoTR and they chose to use it for creatures like the white orc to make them look slicker. Honestly it's unfair to compare the CGI to Avatar because this one looked just as good imho and it had many scenes where it combined live action with CGI unlike Avatar where most scenes of the blue alien cats had no live action humans around.

 

It wasn't as good as LotR but people need to remember this book was written before and was meant as more of an adventure film than the "Save the world" epic of the Lord of the Rings.

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I'm not comparing it to Avatar, Ethan just asked which film has better CGI of which Avatar obviously comes to mind (I could potentially name dozens more had I a copy of the film and time to blast through a bunch of others, but it's not really a worthy endeavour). The combination of CGI and live action is where part of the issue comes in. Azog is a particular issue, it's like he never leaves Moria.

In the book he dies there, it wouldn't surprise me if the original plan was he'd die there in the film too, thus him fitting in perfectly well there, yet his compositing in later scenes of the film him sticking out like a sore thumb.

 

I expect the CGI work in the next two films will be better though given they'll have shy of a full year each for post, since all the filming is done. (Unexpected Journey had the post finished only two days before premier).

 

Yeah the plot/story get's a lot of leeway in the fact that it precedes Lord of the Rings and thus isn't as fully fleshed out nor is Tolkien as adept at writing. Jackson has obviously done a lot of work, where possible, in fleshing out and polishing the story and he's done a good job.

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I never noticed a problem with Azog. The only two parts that stood out to me as bad animation were

 

 

Radagast's rabbit sled and the stupid part where they were sliding down the cliff on the broken walkway.

 

 

As for the story aspects of Azog,

 

 

I figured they just felt like the movie needed an antagonist, hence him being there.

 

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I also was really really bothered by the orcs and goblins being 100% CGI. I felt that the design of these guys were very different from what they were in LotR, and for some strange reason they all suffered from the cave troll disease and had their eyes too far apart and very small for their heads.

 

Peter Jackson actually confessed that he was never happy with the design of the goblins and wargs; the former, because they all looked like skinny men in costumes, and the latter, because he wanted them more wolf-life. So now the goblins come in all shapes and sizes, and the wargs have bigger snouts. They were deliberate changes and I actually quite liked it.

 

In terms of pacing, I think this fares better than FotR, simply because the journey does really get going in earnest a lot sooner.

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Not even color but the faces. I didn't just watch the movies, but I did watch all 9 hours from each of the special extended version of Fellowship and Two Towers. I enjoy "making of" features, and those versions were amazing to watch. So I have a familiarity of the design of the orcs and goblins. I just remember the one guy who wants to eat Merry and Pippin's legs, he looks nothing like anything in the Hobbit.

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Okay, until I just went to look it up I was under the impression that Orcs and Goblins were two different things.

 

*Edit* - But like dean said, different races. Even among the Orcs just in the LotR trilogy there's huge variation between Orcs in size, color, face shape, etc.

Edited by TheMightyEthan
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On the orc//warg design thing, I am going off of Empire magazine's big special on the film. It's stated that Jackson wanted to tweak the designs. It may be that they are different races and such (like Uruk-Hai are special orcs), but that was not the reasoning behind it. I always figured the shorter guys with big pointy noses and ears were goblins (probably Warhammer influence), when I think they are just 'lesser' orcs.

 

Heh, found this explanation:

“Goblins” is the generic phrase for the creatures. A catch-all phrase that covers all.

 

In LotR, Goblins wasn’t used much. The two types are called Orcs and Uruk-hai. But he does describe the Uruk-hai as being a bigger type of Goblin (the general race).

 

In the Hobbit, the general term Goblin was used for all. They are mostly the same as Orcs, but those from under the mountains may be a smaller sized tribe than those seen in LotR.

Hobgoblin meant a large Goblin – he later said this was an error as hob means small and corrected this to Uruk-hai for LotR.

 

Wasn't aware of that. Damn you, Warhammer.

 

As for the warg comparison:

Two Towers

The Hobbit

 

Think this all needs bumping over to The Hobbit thread again. :P

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Uruk-Hai are a Orc-Human half-breed, not simply larger Orcs.

 

Hmm, I thought I remembered seeing they were half-elf or something. Guess it doesn't really make much difference.

 

(There's next to no non-Goblin King goblin images on the net at the moment, which sucks)

 

Sure about that?

 

626439-sir-les-patterson.jpg

 

 

 

Adapted your joke. :P

 

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Uruk-Hai are a Orc-Human half-breed, not simply larger Orcs.

 

Hmm, I thought I remembered seeing they were half-elf or something. Guess it doesn't really make much difference.

 

Orcs originally were bred from corrupted elves, but the Uruk-Hai specifically are Orcs cross-bred with the wild men of the mountains.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Watched a few over the holidays. Let's see...

 

Chronicle.

 

In basic terms, it's sort of like a found-footage Carrie, with superpowers. Though, it has a little more story and reasoning to it, I didn't quite buy the sudden shift for one of the characters. If more time were spent on some development there, instead of 'doing funny shit', it might've worked better. That doesn't stop it being highly entertaining, and a lot of credit must go to the director for putting the whole thing together on a relatively low budget and using the found-footage gimmick innovatively and effectively.

 

Zombieland.

 

A really good mix of gory horror and humour, with a great cast (and cameo). A little predictable in some regards, but no worse for it. Plus, Emma Stone was pretty hot.

 

The Inbetweeners Film Movie

 

As a fan of the series, I loved it. The premise and some of the jokes aren't exactly original, but they're usually pulled off rather well by the cast. While it's maybe a bit too happy an ending, it's a decent sendoff. Though, with the amount of money it made, I can see them making another...

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I too loved Chronicle when it came out, as close to American Akira as we will ever get and wouldn't mind a sequel.

 

Jack Reacher

 

Fuck the haters this movie is really fucking entertaining. I'm not the biggest Tom Cruise fan but he absolutely fucking wins with his performance of Jack Reacher. Basically a guy that is so badass it is hilarious to watch.

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Chronicle is on my to do list, good to hear praises, might have to move it up a few notches. Though I am still a tad wary mind, found footage isn't exactly a favourite of mine,.

 

Yeah, I'm not fond of found-footage, but here it's used really well. Some of the reasoning behind its presence may be a little flimsy at points, but it does make use of other sources (CCTV, bystander smartphones), as well as the power of telekinesis, to mix it up a bit. I think there's a subtle theme of vanity in there as well, supported by the choice.

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Crazy, Stupid, Love.

 

Actually bought this for my sister, so wound up watching it with all my sisters. Not the usual sort of film I'd go for, but I'd read good things. It's really well-crafted and has a great cast. It also has lots of memorable lines and moments, with a funny twist in there, too. A little cheesy at points, but that's par for the course.

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