Why the Neverending Story is Retarded (Not Safe For Work)

[knightkrawler]

The problem of anti-intellectualism in the world today.

And it is there. Everybody has to decide for himself how far they journey into nothingness with meaningless moneymaking machineries of meh.
If The Lord of the Rings is 11 hours long as a film and the book is 1400 pages, how can The Hobbit (same author, same style) be 11 hours long?
Ah yes, because that way you can make one and a half times the planned box office income. Money completely put out of perspective.

LotR is a superb monster of a film trilogy. I can and will not believe that The Hobbit has any right to be put in the same scope. It's ridiculous.
It should be a one-film "issue 0" to LotR. The scene with the raging mountains? Worst stretcher I've seen in a very long time. It's Jackson wanking off on his cutting desk.
The CGI and the hubris combined make for the worst 3D quality film I've seen.
I am not an expert on the technicalities, but too many frames per second meant that even I was shocked by the lack of quality and credibility in CGI scenes.

[ampersand]

The problem of anti-intellectualism in the world today.

And it is there. Everybody has to decide for himself how far they journey into nothingness with meaningless moneymaking machineries of meh.
If The Lord of the Rings is 11 hours long as a film and the book is 1400 pages, how can The Hobbit (same author, same style) be 11 hours long?
Ah yes, because that way you can make one and a half times the planned box office income. Money completely put out of perspective.

LotR is a superb monster of a film trilogy. I can and will not believe that The Hobbit has any right to be put in the same scope. It's ridiculous.
It should be a one-film "issue 0" to LotR. The scene with the raging mountains? Worst stretcher I've seen in a very long time. It's Jackson wanking off on his cutting desk.
The CGI and the hubris combined make for the worst 3D quality film I've seen.
I am not an expert on the technicalities, but too many frames per second meant that even I was shocked by the lack of quality and credibility in CGI scenes.

i dont believe jackson had much to do with it. the powers that be wanted to make it another lord of the rings when everyone that has read the book would probably agree 1 action packed film of about 2.5 hours would of been perfect.remember he didnt even want to work on the film originally because of his legal wrangle with new line cinema. so all th efleshing out using other material was kinda something put upon the film makers by the film studio. i remember feeling kinda sad when i saw the last lord of the rings...it was the last one..with a faint glimmer of hope of the hobbit being made. ok they went overboard but im still gonna enjoy them all regardless

[chaoticprime]

I just got back from Thor 2. My god that was a retarded movie. Nothing makes you realize how good of a directer Kenneth Branaugh is until you compare his Thor to Alan Taylor's Thor 2. It was just a wretchedly constructed piece of *lemony goodness*. It was like an overly episode of a shitty television show.

[knightkrawler]

They definitely went way overboard with Loki's jokes.
And the part set on Earth conveyed the feeling they botched it in the first movie, so they had to do it better, but of course that didn't work, because they tried too hard.
Kat Dennings is smoking hot, but she played exactly the role she plays in 2 Broke Girls. Exactly the same.

[Jewels!]

The novel is called the Hobbit, because its not about freakin' dwarves. Thorin Oakenshield is not a strong young man, he's a miserable old bastard who wasted his life. The point of the story was to contrast Bilbo with Thorin. If you missed that, read it again, but read it right.

I have not read the book form of The Hobbit, but I did not get this AT ALL from listening to the song.

[Sinned]

If The Lord of the Rings is 11 hours long as a film and the book is 1400 pages, how can The Hobbit (same author, same style) be 11 hours long?

Because they added stuff from other Tolkien books? Something they made clear when they started?
Still; I absolutely agree that it could have been done in 2 movies of +-2/2,5 hour each.
On the other hand: there aren't many well-crafted Fantasy movies these days.....so I'm not complaining that much.

Someone should make a decent D&D movie or start making movies of Tad Williams' books (Dragonbone chair -read that 21 years ago and I remember it was good?-)

I just got back from Thor 2. My god that was a retarded movie. Nothing makes you realize how good of a directer Kenneth Branaugh is until you compare his Thor to Alan Taylor's Thor 2. It was just a wretchedly constructed piece of *lemony goodness*. It was like an overly episode of a shitty television show.

I haven't seen Thor 1 and 2 (I'm not a Marvel fan -except the X-Men movies)...but I wonder which movies you DO like?

The Hobbit movie is a freakin' sham, and if you spend money to see it, you're part of the problem of anti-intellectualism in the world today.

This is the same as saying: "If you play Heroquest you're part of the problem of anti-intellectualism in the world today. You should play Chess; an intellectual game."

[Goblin-King]

This thread is going all over the place!!!

At 1:28 - I was SO disappointed they didn't emerge in bikinis after we saw them throwing all their clothes over the dune.

Anyways...
The thing I really dislike about a lot of popular fantasy is that they too often follow the formula:
Get from A to B to C - encounter random stuff along the way.

Both the Hobbit, LotR and Neverending Story does this.
In my opinion the only thing that really sets Tolkien apart is the fact that he pioneered a lot of the tropes of fantasy.
His depiction of high elves, orcs and the general setting paved the way for a lot of fantasy to come.
With that being said I must admit I don't find his stories THAT interesting. It's way too linear for me.
The chapters are pretty exciting in their own right, but I find it hard to give a summary of the overall plot and make it sound exciting.
Tolkien is by no means bad - just overrated in my humble opinion.

Stretching the Hobbit to three movies is stupid and greedy in my opinion.
They could easily have made it into one 2-hour movie. The art of cutting a movie is a lost art.
Nowadays people seem to think that more is better. Oh! We waste time seeing some obscure tidbit! Nerdgasm!!!
But really, all it does is slowing the movie down and telling the story in a worse way. A MOVIE IS NOT A BOOK!

Regarding Neverending Story.
I've only seen the movie (or movieS if you count the terrible sequel- urgh!)
While it still pretty much follows the A to B - stuff happens formula, I find it somewhat more interesting than Tolkien's works.
We are made to believe the realm of imagination is a "real" place we have a mutual relationship with.
Already at that point I feel more invested in the movie.
The "Nothing" is a very good concept though. Of course imagination's mortal enemy is the lack of imagination. Makes sense.
And it's a terrible force. You don't die- you simply seize to exist!

While I wouldn't go as far as calling NS "deep" it does have some depth to it.
The theme of the modern world losing it's soul/imagination and the boy coping with real life problems through imagination - It's enough to keep me hooked.
I also think Atreau's quest being a farce to get Bastian to keep reading is pretty brilliant.
The movie is in addition extremely well done in regard to scenes and special effects. This is very much one of the movies that really helped shape my imagination as a kid.

I've seen it as an adult and I still see the qualities in it.

/my part of the rant

Also I have nothing nice to say about Harry Potter. I just don't like them! Neither the books nor the movies.

[knightkrawler]

This is the same as saying: "If you play Heroquest you're part of the problem of anti-intellectualism in the world today. You should play Chess; an intellectual game."

That is simply not true. When played right, HQ is an intellectual mindfuck for all players involved. Strategy. Using strict rule corsets to your own advantage.

[knightkrawler]

Tolkien is by no means bad - just overrated in my humble opinion.

That is true. In a literary sense, he's overrated. Techniques, instruments, and themes and motifs are somewhat one-dimensional and have been the subject to rather nerdy research from fans rather than of serious literary studies, and rightly so. There's not much to interpret; The Lord of the Rings is allegoric for political and cultural views and observations in the real world by Tolkien as well as for the coming-of-age/destiny/self-reliance of the main characters.
But it is a freakin' awesome book.

[Sinned]

This is the same as saying: "If you play Heroquest you're part of the problem of anti-intellectualism in the world today. You should play Chess; an intellectual game."

That is simply not true. When played right, HQ is an intellectual mindfuck for all players involved. Strategy. Using strict rule corsets to your own advantage.

Unlike chess, HQ is partially a game of chance (the dice).....case closed.