The Special Effects of the Hobbit

[zxcvbn]

There's a lot of uncertainity about the Hobbit film(s), but the one thing we know for sure is that the Special Effects will be great(with Weta doing it and all). But will they seem as spectacular as the LOTR FX were in their time? There are plenty of good SFX houses nowadays, and other films have raised the bar even higher since Return of the King was released. For instance:
1.Beowulf set the standard for Dragon battles. The slaying of Smaug will have to surpass that.

2.Sadly, the battle scenes in 300 have supplanted the Battle of Pelennor Fields in my mind as the greatest battle ever filmed. Hopefully the Battle of Five Armies will have similar levels of gore(it's only Orc blood, so it should stll be possible to get a PG-13 rating).

3.If there's any wizardry from Gandalf, Saruman and Radagast in the Dol Guldur scene it should take a leaf from the Harry Potter films. Like the wizard battle in Order of the Phoenix, Dol Guldur should really show the White Council's true power!

Does anybody else have any opinions about how the Special Effects should be?

[Sauron the White]

With the LOTR films, WETA replaced Industrial Light and Magic as the best in the business. Of course, that only forces others to up their game as well. I have no doubt that when HOBBIT is filmed and WETA does the effects, that they will push the envelope even further and make 300 look like yesterdays news.

[alatar]

...with the caveat that the special effects hopefully won't overtake the story, as you can view ruby lipstick on a virtual dwarf in high definition, but that doesn't change the fact that it's still a dwarf.

[skip spence]

The biggest danger IMO is that the special effects take center stage. It seems many special effects teams nowadays produce spectacular computer-animated scenes just because they can and not because the effects are nessesary for telling a story. I would hate it if Gandalf and company fights Sauron in Dol Guldur with Harry Potter-style magic.

Edit: Cross posted with alatar.

[zxcvbn]

Originally Posted by skip spence

I would hate it if Gandalf and company fights Sauron in Dol Guldur with Harry Potter-style magic.

I'd personally love it if that happened. In a movie it is necessary to give a more visual representation of things like magic in order for the audience to get an idea of the power in the character. Characters like Gandalf could be represented in battle like this(in a non-cheesy way of course).

Can you imagine it? Gandalf using a sword and blasts of fire and lightning, Saruman using mind control and explosive devices from the sidelines, Radagast guiding wild animals and Huorns/encasing vines, Sauron covering everything in Shadow etc.

[thelotrfreak1]

Originally Posted by zxcvbn

I'd personally love it if that happened. In a movie it is necessary to give a more visual representation of things like magic in order for the audience to get an idea of the power in the character. Characters like Gandalf could be represented in battle like this(in a non-cheesy way of course).

Can you imagine it? Gandalf using a sword and blasts of fire and lightning, Saruman using mind control and explosive devices from the sidelines, Radagast guiding wild animals and Huorns/encasing vines, Sauron covering everything in Shadow etc.

NO, NO, and NO. Gandalf rarely uses "magic" if we can call it that at all. He only produced fire in really cold situations and on a few other occasions. That's it. Your concept of magic in Middle-Earth is all wrong. Stuff like that would never happen.

Now back on topic. What in your opinion are good special effects? For me, its when you cannot discern them from reality. Thus, in my opinion, the movie with the best special effects up to now is Jurassic Park. 300 has horrible special effects and so does Beowulf.

[Eönwë]

Jurassic Park! Ahh. The special effects in that amazed me for ages.

Yes, I think too much fire and somoke and flashes of light would not work for such a wizard, though I wonder how Gandalf fought the Nazgûl at Weathertop (is that Amon Sûl?) in LOTR, that might have been a spectacular display of the kind zxcvbn was talking about, only I agree with Groin Redbeard Entirely

Originally Posted by Groin Redbeard

Wizards were loremasters and among the very wisest in ME, but were very capable of doing extradonary things with their powers, but it was not something that they did lightely. In Harry Potter they just pop off those magic spells as if they were nothing. It's called a wizards duel, not a fireworks duel, like they show in Harry Potter

Thats how real wizards fight. Harry Potter is a... erm...*


And as for 300, that did not even make an attempt to be real.

*edit: I still haven't found a word, and spellcaster just won't do the trick, as that gives an image of knowledge and power, of which young (even though he might be older than me in over half of the books) Harry has none.

[zxcvbn]

Originally Posted by thelotrfreak1

NO, NO, and NO. Gandalf rarely uses "magic" if we can call it that at all. He only produced fire in really cold situations and on a few other occasions. That's it. Your concept of magic in Middle-Earth is all wrong. Stuff like that would never happen.

Well, just because Tolkien disliked depicting bright lights and magic spells doesn't mean it didn't happen in Middle-earth. What about Gandalf's burning pinecones? The lightning at Amon Sul? And how do you think the White Council drove out Sauron from Dol Guldur in the books? By standing outside the gates and knocking on the doors with their staves? I wager there's more magic in Middle-earth(happening 'behind the scenes') than we get to see.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Mr. LowerLeftRow

Does anybody else have any opinions about how the Special Effects should be?

Well, I think there's lots in TH to excite the visual appetite, not necessarily all battle scenes either. In fact, in choosing some non-battle scenes there may be more scope for unique effects.


The barrel scene, for one. No amusement park water park slide/ride has ever matched it for fun, terror, thrills, excitement.

The giant spiders in Mirkwood. eeeeewwww! Lots of neat Sting-work, too. Actually, just the forest scenes themselves. Remember the eerie forest scenes in Terry Gilliam's The Brothers Grimm?

The Battle of Lake-town. Okay, I said no battles. But a town built on stilts! Cooler than Cloud City--and dragon fire.

wargs, too. brrr.

If the special effects are used to enhance Tolkien's story elements and not merely to show off computer animation techniques, it could be awesome.

[skip spence]

The crowning moment for the SFX team will of course be Smaug. A great, scary dragon that can fly, speak and breath fire will be a very difficult task to visualise. Will they do a Gollum and pull it off? Only time can tell...

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by skip spence

The crowning moment for the SFX team will of course be Smaug. A great, scary dragon that can fly, speak and breath fire will be a very difficult task to visualise. Will they do a Gollum and pull it off? Only time can tell...

True, true. Still, after the splendid bear effects in Golden Compass, I would be surprised if there aren't some at Weta who would hanker to get their claws into Beorn, so to speak.

[Thinlómien]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

True, true. Still, after the splendid bear effects in Golden Compass, I would be surprised if there aren't some at Weta who would hanker to get their claws into Beorn, so to speak.

Odd. Because even though I generally enjoyed the special effects in the GC, I thought the bears were, sadly, very un-bearlike in a way. Their faces were too long and there was something else wrong in their appearance as well - oh yes, they had too long legs. And they did not move like bears do. Close to it, but not close enough to appear believable.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

And they did not move like bears do. Close to it, but not close enough to appear believable.

I think they moved too fast, and their fur did not ripple, but I'm partial to any depiction of northern themes. (Blinded by the light on the snow I suppose. ) Bear mythology has rarely been seen in movies, so now might be the time to develop Beorn well.

[skip spence]

^I'm fairly certain Beorn will get cut out and thinking about it I'd welcome it too.

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

True, true. Still, after the splendid bear effects in Golden Compass, I would be surprised if there aren't some at Weta who would hanker to get their claws into Beorn, so to speak.

But bears are real animals, although they might not speak or work metals irl. A dragon like Smaug is an all together different challenge, and a much more difficult one. The dragons in Reign of Fire looked cool and fairly realistic but they were more like winged beasts. Smaug I imagine very different to those creatures. I look forward to the movie in any case. I think The Hobbit might be a better fit for the big screen then LoTR as it has a more straight forward storyline.

[Groin Redbeard]

Originally Posted by zxcvbn

If there's any wizardry from Gandalf, Saruman and Radagast in the Dol Guldur scene it should take a leaf from the Harry Potter films. Like the wizard battle in Order of the Phoenix, Dol Guldur should really show the White Council's true power!

Oh goodness, I sure hope that they don't do that! I thought that the wizards duel between Gandalf and Saruman in FotR surpasses any Harry Potter thing by far!

Also if they changed the magic level in the Hobbit way above what they did before it would look kind of stupid.

All I ask is that they give Beorn the skin changer a scene or two, especially at the end battle scene.

[zxcvbn]

Originally Posted by Groin Redbeard

Oh goodness, I sure hope that they don't do that! I thought that the wizards duel between Gandalf and Saruman in FotR surpasses any Harry Potter thing by far!

What?! I thought that duel looked cheesy. They were only throwing and spinning each other around! On the other hand the Dumbledore vs. Voldemort duel really showed the power and tension between the two adversaries. It was a purely elemental battle: lightning, fire, water, smoke, glass, sand etc.

Originally Posted by Groin Redbeard

Also if they changed the magic level in the Hobbit way above what they did before it would look kind of stupid.

Well, there weren't many people complaining about the change in lightsaber combat and increase in level of force power use in the Star Wars prequels, were there? It'll work.

[Groin Redbeard]

Originally Posted by zxcvbn

What?! I thought that duel looked cheesy. They were only throwing and spinning each other around! On the other hand the Dumbledore vs. Voldemort duel really showed the power and tension between the two adversaries. It was a purely elemental battle: lightning, fire, water, smoke, glass, sand etc.

Wizards were loremasters and among the very wisest in ME, but were very capable of doing extradonary things with their powers, but it was not something that they did lightely. In Harry Potter they just pop off those magic spells as if they were nothing. It's called a wizards duel, not a fireworks duel, like they show in Harry Potter (I won't even get started on that).

Originally Posted by zxcvbn

Well, there weren't many people complaining about the change in lightsaber combat and increase in level of force power use in the Star Wars prequels, were there? It'll work.

That's because the origional Star Wars was created 15 years earlier. Not within a couple years, like the Hobbit will be done.

[Eönwë]

Originally Posted by zxcvbn

2.Sadly, the battle scenes in 300 have supplanted the Battle of Pelennor Fields in my mind as the greatest battle ever filmed. Hopefully the Battle of Five Armies will have similar levels of gore(it's only Orc blood, so it should stll be possible to get a PG-13 rating).

So many movies now steal LOTR-style shots and special effeects, e.g. Kingdom of Heaven and 300. 300 stole the Wargs, it stole the strange Grond-beasts and also quite a llot of other stuff.

Also Beorn will probably end up like Tom Bombadil in LOTR.

About magic: If they missed out all the fire that Gandalf made in FOTR, then they'll probably do the same in the Hobbit. They tried to keep it combat-magic free (except for the fire that Saruman uses at Orthanc in EE, but thats probably why they got rif of it) and I like that, because with that style of movie (not book) it doesn't work.