Why i think that the Hobbit is better than LOTR

[Papay]

Ok i know that LOTR fans will hate me for this. But after seeing again the two hobbit films(waiting for the third to come out)i realized that the hobbit is better than LOTR. Here some reasons why

1)Better script. Hobbit has better pacing and quickly runs from the one adventure to the other adventure. Of course LOTR had its adventures too but sometimes they would become tiresome. For example the battle in Twin towers lasted for about an hour. Even if you had not read the books you knew what the result would be. So whats the point of dramatising this battle so much?
2)Better acting. The dwarves, Bilbo Baggins all of the new actors were excellent. In contrast with LOTR were, i must say, i never liked the hobbits with the exception of Sam. There was something that was missing from Aragorn too. Not so convincing as a future king. Boromir was great but he was killed in the first movie
3)Better-shaped characters. All the characters in Hobbit have advantages and disadvantages which is realistic. Thorin is brave but makes mistakes. Bilbo is indifferent but usually saves the day. Balin is the wise advisor yet he is somehow reluctant. I also like Tauriel as the female elf that sympathises with one of the dwarves.
By contrast i really hated female characters in LOTR. They were all crying for Aragorn...Come on. We need to see some Orcs fighting!
4)And at last Hobbit trilogy took many liberties that, i think, benefit the movie

After saying this things i continue believing that LOTR was an excellent trilogy(especially the first movie). But i think that Hobbit is better

[Wulfburk]

Better script? No LOTR has much better pacing, and nothing in the world was more tiresome than all the smaug and dwarves hide and seek in Hobbit 2, or the WHOLE goblin king sequence in the first.

Better acting? Dont agree as well. The "main" actor is better (Bilbo and Frodo) but the rest LOTR wins completely. (even gandalf worked better in LOTR than in the Hobbit).

Better shaped characters? You probably mean more cliche characters? Aragorn was more developed and by far the most interesting in both trilogies, Boromir developed quite well even if he had a small time in the camera, and most characters were more interesting than in the hobbit. To be fair the only 2 dwarves that really even matter (excluding Thorin) are Dwalin and Balin. All the rest are there just so PJ can say "hey i didnt make everything different than in the book". I also think Eowyn and Arwen were better female characters than Tauriel. (both more pretty too IMO).


Aragorn is so awesome im starting to use long hair like his, that has got to mean something! (killing orcs in the morning and sleeping with elven females in the night, or so i wish )

[John Doe]

I kind of agree with papay, the first LOTR was the best of the three, mainly because it was a linear quest story. The next two felt like a lot of talking in between CGI battles. So far the first 2 episodes of hobbit kept that "on a quest" feeling, the only scene I thought was unenjoyable was the river descent in the barrels, look like a bad circus number, way OTT.

[Himster]

There is less raw lore data that needs to be adhered to for the Hobbit films. This means for freedom for the film maker, which obviously lends it to a superior adaptation for a different medium.

[Condottiere 40K]

I saw someone comment that LotR will age better because of the cosmetic prosthetics, as CGI employed by the Hobbit will soon be dated.

The first installment was just silly, but also likely the most closest to the source material. The Hobbit also lacks the epic feel of LotR.

[Påsan]

Ok i know that LOTR fans will hate me for this. But after seeing again the two hobbit films(waiting for the third to come out)i realized that the hobbit is better than LOTR. Here some reasons why

1)Better script. Hobbit has better pacing and quickly runs from the one adventure to the other adventure. Of course LOTR had its adventures too but sometimes they would become tiresome. For example the battle in Twin towers lasted for about an hour. Even if you had not read the books you knew what the result would be. So whats the point of dramatising this battle so much?
2)Better acting. The dwarves, Bilbo Baggins all of the new actors were excellent. In contrast with LOTR were, i must say, i never liked the hobbits with the exception of Sam. There was something that was missing from Aragorn too. Not so convincing as a future king. Boromir was great but he was killed in the first movie
3)Better-shaped characters. All the characters in Hobbit have advantages and disadvantages which is realistic. Thorin is brave but makes mistakes. Bilbo is indifferent but usually saves the day. Balin is the wise advisor yet he is somehow reluctant. I also like Tauriel as the female elf that sympathises with one of the dwarves.
By contrast i really hated female characters in LOTR. They were all crying for Aragorn...Come on. We need to see some Orcs fighting!
4)And at last Hobbit trilogy took many liberties that, i think, benefit the movie

After saying this things i continue believing that LOTR was an excellent trilogy(especially the first movie). But i think that Hobbit is better

Sorry mate, I get that you have your own opinion, but you dont have a clue what you're talking about here.

[Ybbon]

To me, LoTR are far better and will stand the test - the story is better paced and not just Die Hard with dwarves and elves.

To be fair, I love Die Hard too, and the Hobbit movies but the Hobbit as a book is a single volume half the size of any of the LoTR volumes, so stretching it out to make 3 movies makes it feel, to quote Bilbo himself, "like butter that has been spread too thin on toast" or something like that anyway. LoTR missed out chunks such as the whole Old Forest and added a few, but the Hobbit barely sticks to the book at all now. Not that I won;t be booking my IMAX ticket for when it comes out anyway.

They are running the first two before release on midnight in the one near me, I'm tempted but that will be a 9 hours or something like that so not sure.

[Påsan]

Not a chance, I disagree with all of your points. LotR will be one of the timeless classics, the Hobbit movies are fun, but really nowhere near the same cinematic quality.

There is less raw lore data that needs to be adhered to for the Hobbit films. This means for freedom for the film maker, which obviously lends it to a superior adaptation for a different medium

And this does not make any sense. Less adherence to the source material obviously leads to a superior adaption?


I'd say the quality of the source material and how the director chooses to adapt it is slightly more important.

[Torment]

The Hobbit (1 & 2) isn't a movie. It's a hotchpotch of stuff happening that never seems to end. Also CGI orcs. No thanks.

[Ybbon]

The Hobbit (1 & 2) isn't a movie. It's a hotchpotch of stuff happening that never seems to end. Also CGI orcs. No thanks.

Yeah, putting real Orc actors out of work by using CGI instead - just cheapens the whole experience

Orcs in Hobbit are also too overpowered - I always get the impression from the books that the orcs are sneaky, strong yes, but not like in the Hobbit - that was what different about the Uruk Hai - they could stand daylight.

[athanaric]

Ok i know that LOTR fans will hate me for this. But after seeing again the two hobbit films(waiting for the third to come out)i realized that the hobbit is better than LOTR. Here some reasons why

1)Better script. Hobbit has better pacing and quickly runs from the one adventure to the other adventure. Of course LOTR had its adventures too but sometimes they would become tiresome. For example the battle in Twin towers lasted for about an hour. Even if you had not read the books you knew what the result would be. So whats the point of dramatising this battle so much?

What? The script of Hobbit movies has been panned by many people (most importantly, me), for being boring, long-winded, ridiculous, or some combination of the above, depending on who you ask.

2)Better acting. The dwarves, Bilbo Baggins all of the new actors were excellent. In contrast with LOTR were, i must say, i never liked the hobbits with the exception of Sam. There was something that was missing from Aragorn too. Not so convincing as a future king. Boromir was great but he was killed in the first movie

Yeah I give you that point. The Hobbit movies have quite a few great actors and the Dwarves, Bilbo, Smaug, and of course Gandalf are all very well cast. Even Hugo Weaving looked less ugly than he did in LotR. I can't find much fault though with the Merry and Pippin characters, they were relatively close to the book, and I haven't met anyone who didn't like them.

3)Better-shaped characters. All the characters in Hobbit have advantages and disadvantages which is realistic. Thorin is brave but makes mistakes. Bilbo is indifferent but usually saves the day. Balin is the wise advisor yet he is somehow reluctant. I also like Tauriel as the female elf that sympathises with one of the dwarves.
By contrast i really hated female characters in LOTR. They were all crying for Aragorn...Come on. We need to see some Orcs fighting!

Really? Let's see:
Legolas (who shouldn't be in a Hobbit movie, except as a minor background character at his father's court, anyway. And maybe as an Elven captain at the last battle) - still in God Mode, this time even with a God Mode sidekick. So much for disadvantages
Tauriel - a character completely invented by the scriptwriters, and a pretty far-fetched one at that. She's less obnoxious than I thought she'd be, but along with Legolas occupies way too much screentime. Neither of the two have any relevance for the main plot
Thranduil - for some reason (= Peter Jackson doesn't know how to spell subtlety, let alone moderation), he's a total jerkass. Not a very multi-faceted character in the movie
Thorin - turned into a Dwarvish version of Aragorn. A racist, inconsitent one, that is
The Mayor - again, completely overplayed villainy there. Also quite different from the book

As for female characters, Tolkien was never famous for them. Still, at least Éowyn in LotR is a complex character. Which you'd know if you'd read the books, or even actually watched the movie adaptation. You know, the part where she turned into a war hero and even had some character development. Also, Galadriel isn't in love with Aragorn, and she's a female character too.

4)And at last Hobbit trilogy took many liberties that, i think, benefit the movie

You mean, turn it into an overlong snorefest with even more RPG and arcade game tropes (hardly any of which are to be found in the book) than the LotR movies?

And this does not make any sense. Less adherence to the source material obviously leads to a superior adaption?


I'd say the quality of the source material and how the director chooses to adapt it is slightly more important.

I never thought I'd hear that from you. So there's still hope. One day, my son, you'll see the light.

Yeah, putting real Orc actors out of work by using CGI instead - just cheapens the whole experience

lol

Orcs in Hobbit are also too overpowered - I always get the impression from the books that the orcs are sneaky, strong yes, but not like in the Hobbit -

Precisely. They are OP in the LotR movies, too, though. Well, at least the Uruk breeds.

that was what different about the Uruk Hai - they could stand daylight.

And have better discipline.

[Mangalore]

Both movie trilogies are visually striking but as movies pretty flawed. In essence PJ always uses the same few camera and editing tricks to keep tension up because the script does not: eery music, camera pans and zooms, meaningful stares and actually jump scares.

It's rather weird when watching it again. Particularly the music is interesting in setting moods against whatever is happening or usually not happening on camera.

[DarthShizNit]

[Roma_Victrix]

Heresy indeed. LOTR is better in every way, and to say otherwise is wrong. IT IS LAW.

[Himster]

And this does not make any sense. Less adherence to the source material obviously leads to a superior adaption?

I mean there is less material that Peter Jackson has to put in the Hobbit films, there's more room for cinematic choices for cinematic sake. That being said I'm not sayng Peter Jackson did this, I'm just saying that the Hobbit had/has potential that Lord lf the Rings couldn't have had.

I'd say the quality of the source material and how the director chooses to adapt it is slightly more important.

I agree.

[GussieFinkNottle]

I suppose I am not the Hobbit's target audience so that may explain away a lot of my objections, the Hobbit being a children's movie while LOTR was for all (same as with the books) but I found the Hobbit really tiresome and in no way comparable to the LOTR. It just felt somehow... lazier, like it didn't have the same soul. The cast of LOTR was absolutely perfectly chosen, and clearly became a unit whereas you get the feeling it was more of a jobbing actors situation with the Hobbit. A huge problem for me was that I felt Martin Freeman (great actor though he is) was woefully miscast as Bilbo, who I always imagined as a podgy, bumbling, agreeable sort of a totally different mold.

The production values seemed to have taken a huge hit, also damaging that feeling of complete soul. LOTR felt like it was fully, believably in its world, everything was painstakingly made to feel authentic and rich. In the Hobbit, not only do the props and prosthetics seem lazier (I mean, in what way do some of those dwarves look like dwarves, especially that one the elf falls for, who just seems to be a short man. In LOTR, Gimli was a far more believable fantasy dwarf in a way that immersed you in the world), but also CGI was overused to the great detriment of the movies.

Previously very convincing prosthetic orcs are now digitally rendered and don't look at all believable, particularly the white orc and the goblin miners. Gothmog or Lurtz looked real because they were real actors. Bolg looks like something out of Shrek. I'm so glad Jackson didn't have the money or means at the time to overfill LOTR with CGI to the extent of the Hobbit or, thank god, film it in blinking 3-D. The weird camera effects used in the council of Elrond/Galadriel/Saruman/Gandalf scenes managed to make them all look like they were not real humans. Whereas in LOTR if you bought into the premise, it all seemed believable, like you could reach out and touch the characters and experience the events, in the Hobbit, you are constantly jarred out of this with absurd set-piece scenes that Jackson didn't indulge with in the old films. A few examples:

-The mines. Does anyone feel like a character so manifestly unbelievable as scrotum-chin would have made it into LOTR, or that there would have been a fight scene so gamey as the one that followed.

-The absurdly over exaggerated fight scene with the insane physics as the barrels float downstream

The only scene I liked was the one with the LOTR veteran: Andy Serkis in Riddles in the Dark. BTW, what the heck was up with the terrible Thranduil casting? That man was camp as a row of pink tents, and not in a funny way. It looked like he was getting a different sort of pleasure from interrogating Thorin.

Overdramatisation was a pain, just a simple example, when in the book there is a scene as follows: The dwarves, Bilbo and Gandalf are fleeing the mines, they reach a forest and climb some trees to escape wolves chasing them. The orcs arrive and choose to burn the trees to kill them. When it looks like they may die, the eagles save them at the last second from the treetops.
In the film, they are all on one tree at the edge of a terrifying precipice. The fire makes it tilt out from the very edge of the cliff, so all may fall. The arch nemesis of Thorin, a terrible monster orc arrives, and Thorin walks, in dramatic slow-mo no less, down the tree trunk to battle. At the last second, when all hope is lost, Bilbo saves him. Then the eagles arrive and carry them off. Needlessly over the top, in a way that just seemed cliched.

And last but not least, the fights. The repetitive, boring, constant unnecessary fights where not in the book, e.g. being chased by orcs while Radagast charged around on his rabbit chariot, to stretch one thin volume to 3 3-hour epics and to keep the attention of the ADHD movie consumer. The second Hobbit was significantly more entertaining than the first, and I don't think they are beyond redemption, but they don't bear the slightest comparison to the masterful Lord of the Rings films.

[Inhuman One]

The pacing is terrible, the hobbit movies are just cheap action flicks that will soon be forgotten. They keep throwing in random fight scenes and theres little room to build up atmosphere.

While LOTR was not perfect either, it truly embraced the beauty of fantasy and opened the world of fantasy settings to a much broader audience without dumbing it down much.

The hobbit movies with their fake CGI, lots of throwaway dwarves and too much fuss going on due to the little book being stretched out into three movies just doesnt do much for me.

[jockmcplop]

I preferred the book of the Hobbit. Much less rambling and needless lore detail.
The movies, however, i don't really like any of them that much. The LOTR movies made me hate Frodo and his whole story. There must of been about 3-4 hours of just him and Sam walking and whining.
I only got half way into the first Hobbit movie before i realized that its just an empty adventure movie. Things happened, but none of them left any kind of impression after i turned it off

[IZob]

Yeah, putting real Orc actors out of work by using CGI instead - just cheapens the whole experience

Orcs in Hobbit are also too overpowered - I always get the impression from the books that the orcs are sneaky, strong yes, but not like in the Hobbit - that was what different about the Uruk Hai - they could stand daylight.

This man knows his .

[High Fist]

Did someone say orcs were OP? Ha! Hahahaha!

The useless s couldn't kill anyone until they put three arrows in them!

D'you know what was good in the Hobbit though? Legolas fighting Bolg (or Azog?) in Lake Town. That was a good fight. Better than pretty much all the other fights in the movie.