It was great-! Lovely-! That’s all the biased reviews I could share right now since I’m just on my way out to see it. In iMax 3D no less-! Ahhh, life is so gooood. Ok, so I’m kind of disappointed del Toro did not end up directing it. But hey, it’s Jackson’s baby so I’m fine with that.

The Hobbit books never interested me, fantasy/sci-fi are my least favorite genres.

@Coloma Thanks for that inspiring note, lady…Macbeth-?

@mazingerz88 LOL

My tickets are for Saturday morning. Full review then.

Unlike Lord of the Rings, I’m not expecting The Hobbit series to stay true to the original. The original story was a bedtime story and merely the beginnings of the mythos. Peter Jackson is tying his own version of the classic story into the world he put into film ten years ago.

I am just giddy waiting for my chance to watch!

It’s Hobbit forming. But I’m waiting for it to come out on DVD so I can check it out from the library and watch it for free like I did for Lord of the Rings series.

Not for me, looks like a right pile of shite.

My mom and I made plans to see it this weekend. I can’t wait!
It would be like my late birthday/early Christmas present.
It looks like it’ll be good, I guess I’ll have to find out.

I thought it was pretty damned fabulous, all around.

I agree with @WillWorkForChocolate and would like to add that the movie plot sticked to the book’s story pretty accurately.
But Radagast the brown was portrayed differently, in the movie he seemed so crazy, whereas in the book he is described as a sensible, respectable, even intimidating person.
And some scenes seem to be additional, but I haven’t read the book in a while, so I’m not 100% sure.

My family are all going to see it on the 29, so no spoilers please! I will give a review after that.

Just saw it! But can’t say anything right now that wouldn’t include spoilers. I would go as far though as recommending that you see it in Imax 3D. It’s worth it!

We are going to! I am quite excited about it. I can unfollow so you can talk about the movie. Don’t want to spoil people’s fun.

@Bellatrix let’s start a discussion about the movie when you’ve seen it, and have fun :)

Thank you @scuniper. :-)

Saw it today!

Bawled like a baby through half of it, cheered the other half, and went most with goosebumps and a stupid grin on my face.

A couple of technical aspects bugged me. I don’t go to 3D movies – I already wear glasses and don’t need another layer of plastic between me and the film. So watching the 2D version and seeing several obvious 3d gimmicks taking up screen time is annoying. Yay, buttons. I know what buttons look like.

I refuse to give away spoilers, so all in all, great pic. Loved seeing Figwit again (big Flight of the Conchords fan, yay!) and Aidan Turner is sex on screen, I don’t care what he’s playing, so mad props for all the screen time HE gets. Martin Freeman is a fantastic Bilbo, and I want to take Gollum home and cuddle him to pieces.

@scuniper There are additional scenes, absolutely. They’re adding a lot of meat to the story; much of it seems to be taken from the Children of Hurin and the Silmarillion. They’re basically fleshing out the history of the Dwarves. If you remember, the LotR doesn’t really give a lot of background beyond Moria, which all occurred in the 60 years following Bilbo’s return to the Shire.

And that’s why I’m not giving spoilers. If what was going on was involved in the Hobbit or LotR books alone, I’d just assume everyone already knew what was going to happen .^_^

@Seek_Kolinahr well, they do need the material to make three films out of a rather short book ;) But I think it’s better than taking parts away…
You’re welcome @Bellatrix.

I’m not at all upset about it. The Dwarves have a rich history. They were actually the first sentient beings on Middle Earth – and were not created by Eru Illuvatar, but by one of the Valar.

Most of the additions are talking about what Erebor is and why the Dwarves want it back. That’s need to know back story for any adult.

I thought it was way too long, and all of the added backstory was really unnecessary. And I didn’t like the dwarves very much, they were too cartoony. But I loved the last hour of the movie, it captured the spirit of the book extremely well.

@rockfan I see where you’re coming from as far as the cartoony dwarves. I’m hoping the next two movies will allow some of their characters to be fleshed out a little bit (Except Bombur, of course. He’s plenty fleshy already, ha ha). I want to see more of Balin, in particular.

Gimli was a bit cartoony.

Oh my god. 3 hours is a lot to ask of a movie goer. Nothing was accomplished at all! It was three hours of a story that could have been 15 minutes. Too many snarling dogs, they’re obnoxious and overdone in so many movies. I wasn’t really impressed at all. I like Bilbo Baggins though.

I really enjoyed the movie, and it didn’t feel 2⅔ hours to me.
The goblin king kind of reminded me of Orson Welles. I wonder if he was who the artists modeled the GK after.
I thought the movie was much better than the previews led me to believe.

@filmfann I’m just curious, did you really feel that anything really happened? If so, what? Besides the ring?

@filmfann I got that, too. And I thought that was a great character. I was a little sad when he “died”, and then happy when he was not dead, and then sad again when he was actually dead.

@deni Nothing has really “happened”, yet. This movie sets the scene. It’s an old epic-style story. A lot of build up, big climax, everyone goes home happy.

@Seek_Kolinahr Alright, well I’m okay with that then. I suppose the whole thing with not being a real big LOTR fan and all that, is that I thought the whole story was one movie. I thought that’s why it was three hours. So when the dragon opened it’s eye I got excited that they were almost there, and then it just ended. I was stunned. lol

Just finished reading the book. Damn it…Tolkien did it again. Created a great ending. I don’t know why some people think the book is too short to be told in three parts. There’s a whole lot of goings on, both small and great in it and all altogether equally significant so a nine hour trilogy sounds just about right to me. Can’t wait for the next two installments.