TIGAER-DESIGN.COM_.v5

KHAAAAAAAAAANNNNNN!!!!!!! And I thought to myself… “dear lord… you people really did go there”. 1990 I watched my first Star Trek movie. On a rented VCR I watched it with my father and a friend of his. One of the rare memories I have with my father. That certain movie was ‘Star Trek: The Wrath Of Khan’. I honestly didn’t understand much of what was going on. The only Trek I knew at that point was TNG with Picard. But still, even without knowing anything, that movie stood in my memory. I watched it several times in the past years and the film grew to be one of my all-time favourites. It IS the best of all the movies they did (and probably will ever be). Oh and by the way… SPOILERS! Sorry. =)

The movie starts and we see Kirk (Chris Pine) & gang on a mission, observating a planet and its inhabitants. A primitive race that stands on the verge of extinction because of a volcano that is close to break out. Kirk of course wants to save these creatures and therefore breaking prime directive of never interfering with the internal developments of alien civilizations. While doing so the movie develops the first conflict between the ideology of Spock (Zachary Quinto) and Kirk. The next conflict we have is between Uhura (Zoe Saldana) and Spock because he risked his life without seemingly thinking about her opinion and emotions. Kirk gets punished by Starfleet Command because of his reckless behaviour/decisions and loses the Enterprise. In the meantime a weird guy named John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch) manages it to blow up a secret facility of the Starfleet. Stuff blows up, things happen, people die, new conflicts arise and Kirk gets back command of the Enterprise to hunt down Harrison. There is only a problem. And that is that Harrison is on the Klingon homeworld Kronos. So the Enterprise has to go on a covert mission to track him down. Once there we get to see how powerful Harrison really is. And on a sidenote we get a look at the Klingons. A kinda strange and somehow disappointing look. Kirk manages to capture Harrison and together they unveil what’s behind it all. In the meantime we learn that Harrison is Khan. And all the story twists the movie had, I saw coming miles before they hit.

I was really excited for this new movie. Watched the trailers which looked pretty awesome. But first and foremost I wanted to see Benedict Cumberbatch as the villain. I kind of had no doubt that he would reprise the role of Khan. And if he didn’t, he would probably be one of Khan’s soldiers. Ultimately it turns out that he indeed is Khan in the new movie as well. So it really had no impact for me when they revealed it in the movie. Honestly I would almost liked it better if Harrison would have been one of Khan’s soldiers. It would have kept some sort of mystique to the character of Khan. Cumberbatch however tries the best he can to play his part. And he does good. You could see in his performance that his character is indeed powerful and mysterious. You could never tell what he was really up to. Of course it’s obvious that he is up to no good. But still, it’s not the original universe. Maybe he’s a little different in this movie. I was hoping for that. But no, he’s plain evil and only following his own plan. Which is fine due to the performance of Cumberbatch. It’s still certainly not on par with the grand performance of Ricardo Montalban in the 1982 film. This new movie didn’t allow it to explore the character more deeply. Unfortunately.

The action is great. Even though it’s a little like all the other high budget movies I’ve seen lately. One action setpiece after another. It’s a little too much after a while and I left the theater pretty floored and exhausted. I would have preferred to leave one out and give character developments more space. But no. The studios seem to go for the kaboom nowadays. Unfortunately. Because the dynamics between our protagonists are great and a lot of fun. Bones (Karl Urban) still is a scene stealer like in the first movie. Simon Pegg got more space in the movie and pulls off a really good Scotty. Sulu (John Cho) and Chekov (Anton Yelchin) have their moments as well. Like in the first movie there overall is a really good balance between all the characters and their given room within the story. I really enjoyed that! And all of them deserve it.

LENSFLARES! Well, I dig lensflares. I use them for my own work to add that little bit extra optic flair. In the first J.J. Abrams Star Trek we pretty much had a lensflare overkill. It didn’t hurt much since it kinda fits the Scifi tone and look of it all. Abrams continued to use these flares in Super 8. Especially in situations where it did not make a tiny bit of sense. He understood the criticism after that movie and toned it down for Into Darkness. At least in the first half of the film. I noticed a huge jump in lensflare appearences the closer we got to the end. Overall the movie is just a beauty to look at. The VFX are astounding and now we really reached a point where you can do pretty much anything photorealistic with CGI. Especially the last big CGI scene in the film is an eyecatcher. All the destruction and detail that came with it is a great show.

So yeah, my overall impression is that it is a good movie. Other than Iron Man 3 recently, this movie does not leave a weird feeling in my stomach. But. Yes… the famous but! There are also a lot of parts that do not go so well. Especially when they are referencing things from the original 1982 movie. Things that actually have absolutely no right to be there in this new one. The line I mention right at the beginning of my review is in the movie. Yup! Only thing that is different though is that Spock is the one screaming it. They just reversed the parts and Kirk is the one dying. Only that he is not really dead which I (again) saw coming miles before it hit. And while Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto really try their best to give that death scene the weight it deserves, it never had a chance. In today’s popculture that famous scream became a parody. Especially on the internet. Which leads to the question why the hell they left it in there?! That certain element does only work in the 1982 movie. Also the fact that Harrison had to be Khan. Why? Like I said, Khan is a very interesting character that deserves a lot of room to be explored, which is not given in this movie. So the movie would have worked a lot better if Harrison would have been one of Khan’s soldiers instead of Khan himself. And another thing. At the end we hear that a year has passed since the happenings and that everything is back to normal again. I ask myself one thing. What about the Klingons? I mean… you landed on their planet and slaughtered a bunch of people there. The Klingons I grew up with would have gathered their fleet within a week and prepared for open war in no time! But well, at least the look of their planet had a nice industrial feel.

Like I said. I think it’s a good movie with a solid story that makes sense. Only certain elements sprinkled in there feel odd and out of place or just don’t belong there. They rebooted the universe to go new ways. So why adding references to the old movies while its your job to create a movie that creates references on its own!

Still a good movie. =)

7.9/10

Star Trek: Into Darkness on IMDb

I really liked the first one. The down to earth tone and feel of it. Robert Downey Jr. is Tony Stark. I couldn’t imagine someone else in that role. The second movie generated the same feeling I had for Iron Man 1. But what you immediately saw was that they amped it all up a notch. More action. More Humour. More everything. Part 2 was entertaining but not quite where the first part was.

Iron Man 3 starts after the events of The Avengers. Tony sits at home and tries to deal with his inner conflicts. That conflict basically is some sort of post traumatic stress syndrome. When Tony worked with the Avengers he understood that there are other heroes out there. He alone cannot save the world. In the end he is just a human with all human weaknesses. The only thing that makes him special is his armor. But he can’t have it with him all the time. And that’s kind of the plot of the movie. It shows us how vulnerable Tony is. When suddenly a terrorist organization is doing bombings and killing tons of innocent people. A man with the name of ‘The Mandarin’ is responsible and threatening the United States. Just for fun I guess since I cannot remember him saying something about what exactly his motivations are. Except the usual empirialism the USA represent. At the same time we have another new face entering the Ring. Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce) is a scientist who’s trying to get Stark Industries to join his cause to find the ultimate cure for everything that could happen to a human beeing. Pepper Potts, in the name of Stark Industries, refuses the offer since, what Killian is looking for, could easily be used as a weapon. Killian is not amused. In the meantime Tony reacts to Mandarin’s threats, which leads to the complete destruction of Tony’s home. Now it’s personal and Tony wants to take Mandarin out.

The movie has a few twists which, at least for me, weren’t too surprising. The overall story felt a little flat and did not have the depth of the first two. There is a lot going on in this movie. A lot of location jumping which was a little exhausting. The action scenes were loaded with kaboom and eye candy. For some reason, after 3/4 of the movie, I didn’t care anymore. It was just even more CGKaboom. Especially the final battle at the end, when suddenly 30 or 40 different AI controlled Iron Man suits appear. This was just too much for me. Then at the end end we have the fistfight between Tony and the villain. That should have been the finale. That was done great and engaging. Thet 10 minutes of kaboom before that were just there becauuseeee… because. If I would have to use only two words to describe this movie then it would be “too loud!”. For no reason. The first one worked great without the massive action stuff.

What saves the movie are the actors. They all seemed to have had a fun experience with this film. The chemistry between Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow is still there and working. The additional cast did a nice job too. Ben Kingsley and especially Guy Pearce are worth to be mentioned as well. They also got the humour right again. There were a couple of well placed and timed ‘laugh out loud’ moments. It’s also worth to mention that Tony, for the most parts of the movie, is not in his armor. Which really made it a better movie. Due to the destruction of his home and laboratory, Tony gets put in situations where he has to be inventive (A-Team style) to find a way out. That are really nice moments that bring us a little closer to the character and show the difficulties he has to deal with.

There are lots of good parts in this movie. But also a couple that really bugged me and just felt like “meh”. I guess ultimately I wouldn’t say the movie is worse or better than any of the other two. It’s ‘just there’ with the other two movies.

The VFX work is pretty much great here. Everything looked seamless and the integration of the CG into the live action footage (and vice versa) looked pretty much flawless. The camera work is nothing special though. From that alone it’s not a movie you need to see on the big screen. Bluray would be enough. The 3d was amaaaaaazing… but no, I saw it in 2d and that was more than enough.

Overall it’s a fun movie that doesn’t expect too much off its audience. I personally just think they tried a little too hard after Iron Man 2 and The Avengers. However… it is entertaining!

Iron Man 3 on IMDb

Halcyon Awaits

Here we have a picture that resulted from an actually different picture idea. Originally I wanted to go for a more fantasy like approach and create something with a big fortress. I cannot exactly say what specifically happened but it turned into a Scifi pic. Although you can see parts of the original idea in the setup of the final picture. What we see here is intended to be some kind of holiday resort. A place where people go to have some fun, find peace and enjoy nature a bit. Even though I leave interpreations, about what this place really is, open to the viewer. It’s certainly a nice panorama of nature and technology.

Technically speaking it’s my Vue & Photoshop mixture again. This time though I attacked the creation of mountains with Worldmachine. A great tool for creating terrains, and sometimes easier to handle than Vue, when it comes to achieving a certain look. For the structures I used a bunch of models and reworked them to my needs. Among them a couple of Stonemason objects which you can buy on DAZ3d.com. These give you a great starting ground for your ideas. I also want to mention Sebastien Hue who created a model after a concept I did. I used that model for the small flyers, zipping about on the right. The bridge objects I mainly created with Vector and the Text Tool in Vue. It may sound strange but hey, it worked. =) Overall the creation process was tedious but fun.

This pic also made it into last year’s E-On Software Environment Competition finals. Even though it did not win anything, I still think that’s a great thing, and worth to mention. =)

Vue – Photoshop – 5000px wide

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Trouble with your Wacom driver not booting properly on windows? For the longest time I had problems with my Wacom tablet being ready to work once Windows finished booting. When I picked up the pen it just didn’t move. When I tried to open the Wacom Tablet Properties I got the message that the driver did not load or something. Only way to resolve this was to reboot the machine. Not via ‘restart’ no… a complete shutdown was necessary. Very annoying when your Windows takes a while to boot. Mine surely does.

Recently I had enough and started to look for a solution (for the 10th time or so). With the difference that I seem to have found one now. Don’t bother with the Wacom forums. As far as I can see they don’t have much of a solution. But anyways. What can you do to solve the issue? Well, time to share some wisdom. Here we go:

1. Click the Windows button and type Services into the quick search
2. Click the icon on top of the upcoming list
3. Look for a service called Wacom Professional Service (that goes at least for the Intuos 5)
4. Double click that service and set the Startup type to Manual
5. Apply and OK it

What we did here was to deactivate the Wacom driver to load at the start of Windows. Somehow the Wacom driver doesn’t like to be treated like all other drivers and wants to be loaded separately. I don’t know why. Wacom should be able to find a solution to this problem but obviously fails. Since I had a similar problem even with my Intuos 3.

Now what you can do is to start that service manually by hand when Windows finished booting. Just open the Services, find that Wacom Professional Service and press the Start button. That’s faster than restarting over and over again until the driver decides to be ready. Or you can create a shortcut for your desktop. Here is how you can do that:

1. Right click on your desktop and create a new text document

2. Copy the following part into it:

net start "WTabletServicePro"

3. Save the file on your Desktop and give it a name of your choice. Important here it to use a .bat extension instead of .txt – For example: startwacom.bat

4. Next time you start Windows just wait for it to calm down with the boot process and just right click startwacom.bat, Run as administrator and the service should be started. Your pen and tablet should work perfectly fine now. No need to go into the Services anymore each time after Windows booted.

That at least works with my Intuos 5. Other tablet versions may not work and may also have services with different names. But anyway… I’m just happy I found a solution for my annoyingly stupid problem. Maybe it helps someone else too.

This is probably the first of Lars Von Trier’s movies I’ve seen. I wanted to risk a look at Dogville but never really mustered up the interest. I surely know that his movies are a little special and you immediately get this vibe in Melancholia as well.

After an almost mesmerizing opening, with some really captivating shots, the actual story starts with a wedding. We follow Justine (Kirsten Dunst) through the evening. Along with all of the tirades and shenanigans that can happen when there is a big family meeting. It doesn’t take long and we recognize that Justine isn’t exactly the most happy person on the planet. Lets just say that Justine and me wouldn’t get along. There these moments when she’s truly adorable and one minute later it seems as if she gave up on everything. I constantly asked myself what the hell is wrong with her? We also learn that the opening scenes seem to be from a dream Justine had. But that doesn’t explain her character’s decisions and actions.However, I feel sorry for the groom. Especially during that one scene when she leaves him alone in a room to go for a walk and make love to a stranger outside. Sure enough the groom is leaving her a few scenes later. My only thought… “Good for him!”. I’m kind of like Udo Kier’s character in this movie. Constantly with a question mark hovering over my head.

Then we follow Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), the sister of Justine. Now they know a Planet called Melancholia is marching into our solarsystem. Obviously the movie doesn’t care about physics. Well, I admit I’m no expert, but wouldn’t the gravity/mass of Melancholia mix up some of the sensitive things that keep our solarsystem the way it is? Resulting in certain cataclysmic effects regarding Earth way before Melancholia actually hits or comes close? Yeah yeah, I guess Melancholia is more a metaphor instead of a real planet I guess. But anyway. In the meanwhile Justine fell into a strong depression and Claire is trying to help and stay close to her. Finally a woman that makes sense in this movie. In the meantime Melancholia comes closer to Earth. Claire doubts that Earth will survive the passing of Melancholia. While her husband John (Kiefer Suchterland) is trying to assure her that everything will be fine, she still finds no reason to believe him. Soon enough both find out that nothing good is about to happen.

Whether you like Justine or you don’t but Kirsten Dunst delivers a good performance. Even if I ask myself why that character is actually in the movie. The character I can more relate to is Claire. And that’s actually all I can say about the characters. Overall very good performances from everyone.

When it comes to the technical execution I really have some issues. Instead of constructing well composed shots it’s shaky cam most of the time. The movie shows in the beginning that it’s very well able to create some nice shots. So I’m not sure what the movie wants to tell us here. Maybe the camera work is so restless because it wants to build a connection to emotions ofthe characters. Aside of that I can add that the VFX work is ok but not overwhelming. But VFX are not what drives the movie… so it’s fine the way it is.

The final verdict is that the movie left me with a question mark. I’m not able to figure out the motive of the movie. Only the scenario is interesting to watch. But that scenario could have worked without the wedding part. So what is it trying to tell us? Maybe I’ll figure it out later… but right now I’m unable to.

7.2/10

Melancholia on IMDb

Arcady’s Epiphany

Arcady, very early on, showed a huge fascination with all kinds of adventure stories. The traditional heroes and their bold undertakings to rescue a damsel in distress. Soon enough she started to think about becoming an author herself. “Someday, when I’m grown up!” She used to say. On her 12th birthday morning, her father decided to take her out into the field. Arcady had no idea what her father had in mind, but she saw him smile and his eyes shine bright like a star. “A place that always made me imagine my own adventures!”, he said. “Something inspirational!” Arcady could not resist, smiled at her dad and made herself ready for the trip. A quick breakfast and some words Arcady will never forget, when her dad said, “Time to write your own stories, darling!”.

This one was done for the 20th Exhibit of the Luminarium artgroup, created between October and December last year. The topic was ‘Adventure’ and I immediately had some ideas in my head.

Inspiration for this came from… I don’t know. Could be a mixture of things I saw in videogames and movies… as well as descriptions in books (and no, I haven’t seen Burton’s Alice yet) =). I was also playing around with Xenodream and its fractals. Its feature to export fractals to a 3d format enables creativity to fiddle around with a lot of ideas. The exported 3d fractals were easy to import into Vue. So I started to setup the scene until the almighty creative spark lit up.

Next stage was Photoshop. Again I used the Multipass options of Vue to render out additional elements to enhance the scene. A lot of work went into making everything fit and creating a nice depth. The original render already worked well but, as usual, I started to enhance the atmosphere part in Photoshop too. The plate pics for the planets were created with Vue as well. I’m not the most awesome space artist but I think the planets do look good enough. I also allowed myself to go for some really strong colours. I really wanted this to be an eyecatching pic, even in thumbnail size. Eventually I got to a point where I was rather pleased with the result.

When it comes to using fractal 3d objects then it’s highly possible you’ll see more of that in the future. =)

Hope you like what you see here. Enjoy!

The short little snippet of story is inspired by a character in Isaac Asimovs’s ‘Foundation’ books.

This pic is part of the 20th Exhibit by ‘The Luminarium Artgroup‘. A lot of great art for your inspiration! Check here.

Vue – Xenodream – Photoshop – 6000px wide

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Here we go again! “Adventure” is the 20th and therefor a milestone Exhibit release by The Luminarium Artgroup. #20′s topic “Adventure” pretty much allows a wide range of interpretation – which the artists used very well. Again this release is filled with all kinds of different artworks in the traditional, digital and even musical way, that will inspire you for sure! So go now! Check it out!

The Luminarium: Website – Deviantart – Shadowness

Regards

I tried to avoid any reviews for this one to go into it with no expectations and an open mind. I’m also not the biggest Tarantino fan and cannot really understand the hype around his persona. I guess he’s just a little too extroverted for my taste. When it comes to his movie work then I always appreciated what he tried to accomplish with his work. They all have a certain tone and feel that is special for Tarantino’s directing style and his directorial decisions. But overall his films don’t give me too much.

The first Tarantino movie that really surprised me was his ‘Inglourious Basterds’. I really liked this one. That could be mainly because of the appearance of so many german actors in it. Which was a genious move by Tarantino I would say. Aside of that it was just so beautifully shot! And now comes ‘Django Unchained’ and I was interested to see if the magic of the Basterds movie carried over a bit.

The story is actually fairly simple. Here we have our main character Django (Jamie Foxx) during the 1850s. At first he’s a slave but gets freed by a bounty hunter who needs him to confirm three targets he’s looking for. The bounty hunter, a german by the name of Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), now feels responsible for Django and both become friends. Schultz early on discoveres that Django is a very great help with all the bounty hunting business and decides to build a partnership with him. He soon learns that Django has a wife and both decide to find and free her too. On their way they get done some bounty hunting jobs and when the winter ends they start their journey to find the girl. Soon enough they got their first lead that gets them to a plantation and its owner Calvin J. Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio). Django and Schultz make up a plan to get to Candie and make him invite them to their plantage, where they indeed find Django’s wife. When Candie discoveres, with help of his ‘to the death’ loyal house slave (Samuel L. Jackson), the true intentions of Django and Schultz he goes a little mad and heads start to roll fast.

My last three moviegoing experiences were ‘The Dark Knight Rises’, ‘The Hobbit’ and now ‘Django’. All three of them with an overall running time of 165 minutes. Very long movies. Comparing all three I have to say that Django felt the shortest. The longest sitting was ‘The Hobbit’ for me. Django on the other hand delivers enough suspense to keep you interested. Action scenes were well paced, sprinkled nicely and well balanced into the different parts of the film. It had one or two lenghty moments but nothing that took me out of the movie much. On the other hand it’s a Tarantino movie. You got to expect lots of dialogue scenes.

Since the movie isn’t a big action spectacle and keeps a low profile, I have to talk about the acting in this one. Here the movie plays out its strenghts so damn well. Much like the ‘Basterds’ movie the dialogue scenes here are loaded with suspense. You never know what happens next or where it’s going. The main 4 people in this film are Django, Schultz, Candie and Candie’s house slave Stephen. Django’s part, to me, felt very very flat. And that is no critique. It is a very simple character and Jamie Foxx nails it nicely with mainly facial expressions that say more than words. Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio and Samuel L. Jackson are the best here though. While Waltz plays the german dentist Dr. King Schultz in a way that makes the audience easily build a connection to him, DiCaprio plays an awesome slimey bad guy. Samuel L. Jackson took his character and plays it in a way that more than once left you thinking if he’s a good or bad guy. Jackson also plays a role that makes him really shine as an actor again. Something where he isn’t the ‘I can do everything and save the day’ type of guy. Actually a very vulnerable character in this movie.

Unlike the other two 160min movies I mentioned, ‘Django Unchained’ was not in 3d. It was also filmed traditionally with a film print. No digital cameras. And while I have nothing against digital camera work and (for the most part) nothing against 3d, I just have to say that it was such a pleasant experience to watch this movie! It was beautifully shot and I didn’t see any quality issues whatsoever. And the most important fact is that I was never taken out of the movie because of some stupidly executed post converted fake 3d effect. Despite the overwhelmingly positive critics and fan response I don’t think the 3d hype will stop. Instead I’ll see even more unnecessary stuff come out. Like 48 frames per second. I say USELESS!

The movie also generated a lot of buzz caught a lot of flak because of all the blatant racism going on in it. And there I have to ask why? While the movie is indeed very much fictional, I bet my right arm that the racism, portayed in this movie, is pretty much accurate for the 1850s. Yes the ‘N’ word is used in every sentence possible but nowhere in the movie does it say that it’s good to use this word. On the contrary! Every single time we see something cruel happen to one of the slaves we also see the reaction of the german Dr. King Schultz character. He’s through and through disgusted by how the black people are treated. And that’s the statement right there. Why is no one talking about that? I mean… think about how it must have been for a civilized person to see how brutal one human being can be to another, without any justifiable reason. And this brutality was just reality in that time. Much like the Nazi’s burning the jews in their concentration camps. Every now and then it’s necessary to remember people how it was not so long ago.

Did I mention that the movie is also very violent? No? Well then consider it mentioned now. The use of fake blood in this movie could surely easily fill a bathtub or two. And while this as well generated a lot of controversy I have to counter with the argument that this is a movie. A movie with fictional characters and a fictional story. People who are not able to separate reality from a movie have a problem to begin with. It’s also the responsiblity of the parents to not let their kids see such movies. Especially Tarantino films. I personally liked the violence in this movie. Its purpose to make certain scenes hard to watch just works and is intended. And certain scenes will definitely make you cringe a bit. I really liked this. It’s a bold and necessary move to stay true to the story that’s told in this movie.

To counter that hard reality and brutality of the 1850s, we have some very delicious kind of humour in this movie. The timing and execution of these, sometimes a little over the top, scenes is just perfect. Even the partly ‘over the topness’ doesn’t hurt the movie at all. First of all you are constantly reminded that this is a Tarantino movie. You got to expect the unexpected. And Tarantino delivers exactly that. And sometimes you really have to laugh out loud at what he’s delivering. I don’t know how this guy is doing it, but it works perfectly. Django Unchained might be the most funny movie Tarantino did so far. And the actors do a very great job at delivering that humour. Especially Christoph Waltz is just perfect in acting out the most usual lines of text in a way that makes them sound and look funny.

To round this up with technical things then I have to repeat what I said earlier. The movie is very pleasant to watch. And all that without 3d, digital camera work or 48 frames per second. This movie finally felt like a movie again. I kinda missed that. Tarantino movies are famous for their soundtracks and Django does have some interesting music choices as well. Some of them hit you in the face a bit. At least me. They, however, never felt too much out of place. The camera work and editing is an homage to the old spaghetti western movies. That style is all over the movie, works nicely and generates the right feel for the film.

Yes this movie managed to carry over what I liked in the ‘Inglourious Basterds’ movie. Enough babble… go treat yourself with one of the best movies out there. It’s worth the cash!

My final words are: DiCaprio should have been nominated for the Oscar!

8.3/10

Django Unchained on IMDb

This movie has a long history. It ended when Peter Jackson decided to take the directors seat by himself again. Originally Guillermo Del Toro was a name attached to that seat. And I’m fairly sure he would have done some great things. Ultimately I think the production problems drove him off and Jackson decided to do it. Del Toro nonetheless helped with the writing and I think, in some parts, you can clearly see that. This review is written from the ‘did not read the original book’, perspective. I usually have no problems when it comes to movies from books. I can understand that some book parts do not translate well on screen. So it’s natural and often necessary to compromise.

On a technical note this movie generated a lot of buzz because of a new 48 frames per second projection. Naturally a movie has 24 frames per second. That is basically all information our eye needs to enjoy a movie. 48 frames per second make movements look much more crisp instead of motion blurred. Which gives, especially fast cutted action scenes, a much clearer picture. The downside is that a lot of other parts of the film look very very amateur handycam like. But more about that later. How was the actual movie you might ask? Well. Let’s see.

It starts out in the Shire. Bilbo Baggins lives a good life and doesn’t want that to change. One day a weird old man appears and recruits Bilbo for an adventure. That old man is Gandalf The Grey. Together with the dwarf Thorin Oakenshield, Gandalf wants to take back their city. They lost it due an attack by the dragon ‘Smaug’. Who is still holding the city captured, which happened a long time ago. The dwarven civilization basically lost its home. Thorin wants to reclaim the city as well as the gold and riches burried under the mountain! Not without help. Beside Gandalf there are eleven other dwarven friends who want to go with them. Loyal to the core and willing to fight everything that is crossing their path. And then there is Bilbo. He is not exactly happy when the company of dwarfs marches into his home. Gandalf has a plan though. He wants to have Bilbo with them. As if he knows that Bilbo will play a part on that journey that no one else would be able to play.

After some hesitation Bilbo decides to go with them. That’s something I can relate to. I’m a little like Bilbo when it comes to these things. I’m not the adventure guy too… but I know that it’ll be fun when you look back and you will also have some stories to share when it’s over. I guess that’s what Bilbo drove when he decided to join the adventure. From that point on it’s Bilbo who kind of works as the point of view for the audience.

From then on we follow the group to their first adventures. The dwarfs have their doubts about the role Bilbo could possibly play. He got no experience with anything… except being a hobbit and liking good food. Bilbo, however, will get his chances to prove himself to the group. Eventually he’ll gain their respect and becomes a valuable asset.

Instead of preaching down the whole film, which would be like writing a short story, I want to go to a few things I really liked and don’t liked, about the film. It could involve spoilers!

What I liked are the little homages to the characters of the first trilogy. Not necessarily the scenes that involved Frodo and old Bilbo. It was more the use of specific images we know from ‘The Fellowship’ movie. The behaviour of Bilbo in the beginning, when he tried to get rid of Gandalf. Martin Freeman almost to the splitsecond re-enacts the reaction of Bilbo in ‘Fellowship’, when unwanted visitors knocked on his door. There were a couple of scenes like that. Again in Bilbo’s home, when Gandalf hits the light with his head, for example. That’s a little fanservice to the true fans of the first trilogy.

Then there is that one scene in the mountains. Again there were a couple of scenes/camera angles that reminded me of the ‘Fellowship’ movie. For some reason we have some giant mountain/rock people having a fight. Our band of heroes is trying to move along a cliff when they see that they are part of a giant moving rock. For some reason this rock is having an argument with another giant rock and you have this amazing fight sequence going on. Our heroes, of course, try to get out of there alive. All that while these giant things fight each other, causing immense tremors and falling pieces of rocks. This scene was a lot of fun to watch. I would love to know why these giants were fighting. I guess we’ll never know.

Another thing I enjoyed was Radagast. He belongs to Gandalf’s people and has quite a knowledge when it comes to magic and especially nature. Even if his whole short plotline feels a litte ‘thrown in’… I enjoyed it. It gave a different perspective on things.

One of the highlights, again, was Gollum. From a technical point of view, with all the technical progress since the first trilogy, he now looks even better. The integration into the live action footage looked pretty much seamless and his interaction with Bilbo flawless. Andy Serkis (who plays Gollum as reference in the live action footage) brings out the best again. The animation of Gollum’s face, when he’s arguing with himself, is just great to watch. He makes Martin Freeman look pale in these scenes. And don’t get me wrong, I think Martin Freeman does a great job playing Bilbo.

The movie to me felt very much like a rollercoaster ride. You have these action sequences that work pretty much great all together. Then you have some quiet scenes that, I feel, could have been reduced a little bit. One scene for example is when the dwarfs begin to sing their song in Bilbo’s house. While I understand that it’s trying to set a mood and tone for that group of people, I also think that this wouldn’t have been necessary. You can see that this company of dwarfs is a tight pack of wolves when they’re having their meal. No need for that song in my eyes.

Back to that scene between Gollum and Bilbo. I heard that it’s accurate to the book and that can’t be a wrong thing, right? Well, it felt a little long for my taste. To see Gollum in action was great but somehow I felt that whole segment was a little stretched out. Sometimes it’s better to cut down certain things.

At the same time, when Gollum and Bilbo have their standoff, we follow Gandalf and the other guys on their escape from Goblin city. This whole escape sequence also felt a little too long. Don’t get me wrong, that chase/escape scene was entertaining and they had some cool ideas with it. Maybe it was because of the 48 frames per second. I literally felt exhausted when this scene was over. I think all the speed and extra detail (that otherwise would get lost in the motion blur of the usual 24 frames per second) was a little too much.

Let’s talk about that 48 frames per second issue. I have a mixed opinion about it. On one hand the extra visible detail, in some scenes, really worked nice. Other moments did not look so well. The biggest problem is that it immediately makes you see that the environment is fake. Everything feels unnatural. You immediately know where a matte painting or cg was used. Due to that we lose a lot of magic that the original movies had. Which brings me to the conclusion that the 48fps would be great for animated movies – since it makes the 3d effect work more crisp. Movies that mix live action and cg… no, I don’t think that works well.

It’s a little funny. The 48 frames per second make the movie having almost a video game aesthetic. On the same note the 48 frames reduce the motion blur to make the picture sharper. While video games nowadays implement an extra motion blur effect, to make the game more feel like a movie and therefor more cinematic. Do movies now want to look like video games while video games want to look like movies for the longest time? Strange development. Which brings me to the visual effects.

And for the visual effects there is not much to say. The 48 frames per second spoiled the experience a bit. The whole film looks very fake. Even scenes with real backgrounds looked fake. Which is a shame. If the movie would have been projected on a usual 2d/24 frames setup… I think it would look just beautiful. A lot of beautiful matte painting work as well as superbly detailed 3d characters.

While they did cut out elements from the first three movies, that made fans go wild, it makes the impression that they’re almost desperate to get everything they possibly can, into the new movies. Understandable when you think about the fact that the first trilogie had three massive books on their backs. The new trilogy has only one book to go from.

But enough disection for now. Would I recommend the film? Yes I would. It’s one of the better productions these days. Even if it doesn’t have as much heart as any of the first trilogy’s movies, it still works. It also manages to bring over the charme of Middle-Earth very well. I would also suggest to skip the 48 frames per second as well as the 3d. If you can catch a normal 2d screening, it’s probably the best way to enjoy this film.

A solid 7.9 from me. (Rating for the 48fps/3d version)

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey on IMDb

Hey Folks,

This year was and interesting one. Ups and downs here and there. Business as usual I guess? We even survived the apocalypse a few days ago! Guess we’re all lucky! Overall it was a good one and I cannot believe how fast it went by. For now I wish you guys a merry christmas and a very happy new year! I hope your 2013 will be one of your best and successful years! Keep it up and thanks a lot for all your support through 2012! Hope to see you again next year!

Regards