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Extended Cuts and Director’s Cuts. Oh, My!

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I was watching Stargate the other night.  Fantastic movie, you can read my review by clicking on the Reviews tab at the top of the page.  More specifically, I was watching the extended cut, which was about 9 minutes longer than the theatrical version.  It got me thinking:  Was it really necessary to have those scenes put back into the movie?  As usually happens when a question like that enters my head, I have to start thinking about all the other movies that have gotten the extended cut treatment.  They’re not always called that; sometimes it’s “Special Editions” or “Director’s Cuts.”  You also can’t forget about the “Unrated” cuts, either.  But that one is generally reserved for horror movies.  So, how does one define Director’s Cut or Special Edition.  Well, a film goes through a process called editing during post-production after filming is completed.  Editing is used to form a coherent film.  It’s like a puzzle of sorts, but during the process, certain bits and pieces of the film are deemed unnecessary or too long for a particular film.  As a result, said bits are left out of the film.  The average length of a film is about 2 hours, give or take a few minutes.  For a good long while, some of these extended “Director’s Cuts” were not meant for the public.  Usually, we got a shorter version of the film, because our attention span is typically non-existent.  I’m going to go into some detail into some of the movies that got an extended version released.

The past 40 years have seen movies getting re-edited and re-evaluated by the director, and we started getting these extended versions on home video.  Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner is a prime example of a director who went back multiple times to try and get it right.  Blade Runner got 5 different releases, with The Final Cut being the last and probably best version of the bunch.  It’s usually not typical of a film studio to allow a director of a film to go back and “fix” issues with the film that he/she feels could have benefited the film more.  During the early 1990’s, we started seeing special extended cuts of movies being released.  The two big ones were James Cameron’s Aliens and Terminator 2.  Both films were made by the same director, but were published by two different companies.  Each extended version had 15 minutes of footage edited back into the film for home video release.  In Aliens, one of the most interesting aspects about Ripley that was removed from the film for one reason or another, was the fact that she had a daughter.  Ripley spent 57 years in hypersleep after the events of the original Alien.  She’s informed by Burke, a company exec, that Ripley’s daughter, Amanda had died two years prior.  The reintroduction of that particular footage and information actually had an impact on some of the scenes that followed.  When Ripley and a group of marines head back to LV-426 to investigate the disappearance of the colonists, they discover a lone survivor in the form of a little girl.  During the course of the movie, Newt(the little girl)and Ripley start bonding and Ripley’s instincts as a mother come into play, and it’s really moving at times.  So, having that kind of context can actually improve a film.  Yeah, there were more action scenes and the use of robotic turrets that were really cool, but it was that deal with Ripley being a mother that made the character far more relatable.  Sometimes an underlying theme can help drive a film.

Terminator 2 had a scene that was truncated, but it was a very important aspect of the film.  The scene in question was after John Connor and the Terminator had rescued Sarah Connor from the T-1000 and were hiding out in a mechanic’s garage.  The scene was kind of a throwaway in how the Terminator learned about human behavior, but in the extended version of the film, we learn that Skynet presets the Terminator’s CPU to “read-only” when they’re sent out alone.  This scene is significant for several reasons.  One: It makes more sense for them to able to reset the switch so the Terminator can start evolving in a certain way.  Another is to allow John to showcase some of his leadership abilities.  He basically says that if his own mother won’t listen his ideas once in a while, how would you expect anyone else to?  So, afterwards, we start seeing the Terminator start learning about human behavior.  He even learns how to smile, and the bond that John and the Terminator form gets stronger.  The Terminator is still a machine at the end of the day, but because he learned about human behavior and what makes us tick, he begins to understand the value of human life.  As with Aliens, Terminator 2 also featured more action and more character development.  In the end, the extended versions of these films actually ended up being better than the theatrical version.  Thankfully, the theatrical versions of each film were really, really good, so the extended versions were a bonus.

There is the rare occasion where a director’s cut or extended cut will significantly alter a movie.  I’m not talking about just a few scenes here.  I’m talking entire plot points that were cut out of the theatrical release to get the run times down.  As a result, those films ended up not being as well received.  Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven is a prime example.  50 minutes of footage was reintroduced several months after the film hit theaters.  There were two plot points involving Orlando Bloom’s character murdering his own brother and Eva Green’s character killing her own son because he was going to be a leper like his father.  These plots really changed the scope of the film.  It became a lot more personal and made a lot more narrative sense.  Fantastic movie, but a movie CAN hinge on how important a particular plot can be.  Alien 3 suffered from multiple problems:  The lack of an actual script, some questionable editing, and serious interference on Fox’s part.  The film that was released wasn’t that bad, but there were issues.  Some characters would show up, and then disappear without an explanation.  When the Alien Quadrilogy DVD set was released it contained two versions of each film.  The one that most people were anxious to see was the Assembly Cut for Alien 3.  Not only did the film run half-an-hour longer, it showed us a lot more of the prisoners and their environment.  Not only that, there was a scene where they attempted to capture the creature.  In the Assembly Cut, they succeeded, only to have it sabotaged by one of the survivors who went insane.  So, that answers TWO major questions.  Now, the Assembly Cut was still imperfect and wasn’t supervised by David Fincher, but he gave his approval for it, as it was closer to the film that he wanted released.  It was basically two different movies.

An extended cut can’t really save a bad movie, though.  Highlander 2 is probably the best example I can think of, where no matter how much effort you put into trying to fix the movie, the damage has already been done.  In Highlander 2, the explanation for Immortals was that they were aliens from the planet Zeist.  While the original film didn’t get the theatrical attention it deserved in the states, Highlander actually ended up being a cult classic, and one of the best action-adventure movies of the 80’s.  Here’s the problem, Highlander 2 was flawed way before it was released to theaters.  It went way over-budget, there were issues with special effects and some really flawed writing.  Russell Mulcahy recognized this fact and was allowed to go back and attempt to fix it.  This is one of those movies that got multiple releases on home video.  One of the more recent releases of the film, actually revamped many of the visual effects and gave the shield a blue hue instead of that red eye-sore.  They also cut out the whole Zeist angle, but the remnants of that were still left in the film.  They also got rid of some unnecessary action footage.  While the latest version of the film is a lot tighter in terms of editing and is still a lot of fun, it can’t hide the fact that Highlander 2 was a mess to begin with.  No amount of tampering is going to fix that.

Now, we come to UNRATED!  I’m rather bemused by these ones.  Sometimes a movie has to get a certain rating so it can go to theaters, which means that sometimes the material in a particular film can be too violent or too…..sexy.  This label is generally reserved for horror movies, because they are often gory and super-violent.  A horror film is sometimes edited for content to be sure, but there are cases where the amount of stuff they cut out is laughable and doesn’t really make a difference in the final product.  When you have movie that has UNRATED CUT or KILLER CUT in the title, I have to call absolute bullshit on.  The difference between the “UNRATED CUT” and the theatrical can be very minimal, and it strikes me as a complete waste of everybody’s time.  Sometimes the unrated cut has alternate footage, maybe a different or some additional violent footage or sex scenes.  Some of them can be pretty noticeable without making the film longer.

Now, do certain movies really need an extended version?  Not really.  I mentioned above that I had watched Stargate the other night, the extended version.  Why does that exist?  The film opens differently, yeah, but it’s a basically a longer version of the flashback in a later scene when they discuss Ra.  All the extra stuff in the extended of this movie serves no actual purpose.  In fact, it slows the film down.  Same deal with Independence Day, the extended version ran 8 minutes longer, yet it really didn’t need to.  Now, I’m sure they have a reason for putting those versions out there, but honestly, its’ superfluous at the end of the day.  When Peter Jackson released The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, he also gave us extended versions of those movies.  While the extended versions really weren’t necessary, it was actually really great to see more of Middle-Earth, and some of the stuff that was shown made sense.  But you didn’t really need them to get what was going on.  Those were worth buying.  The Hobbit?  I saw the extended edition of the first movie and it was weak.  It was seriously weak.  There was nothing substantial in those extra scenes.  I haven’t the extended version of the second movie, but I’m not entirely sure I’m going to.

Now we come to it at last.  The elephant in the room: Star Wars.  When the original Star Wars film came out in 1977 it was groundbreaking and record-breaking.  But somewhere along the way, George Lucas felt that the versions of the films that he released were…incomplete.  I understand that the technology at the time was limited for what he really wanted to do, but you know what?  He broke new ground in terms of visual effects and how to make movies.  He pioneered techniques that are still used by filmmakers today.  He didn’t seem to think that the visual effects in his movies weren’t good enough, so when CGI got to the point where it could be viable enough, George Lucas re-released the Original Trilogy back in 1997 with new special effects and additional footage including a new ending for Return of the Jedi.  Let’s just say that not everybody was happy with the results.  The CGI was….not that great, some of the additional scenes were unnecessary.  The first movie got most of the “enhancements.”  Honestly the only enhancement for the original movie that I actually approve of was the assault on the Death Star.  That was great.  But yeah, the scene with Jabba was pretty bad.  The Sarlacc in the third film gets a CGI beak and it was just not overly threatening.  I prefer the hole in the ground.  And that ending was….not surprisingly terrible.  Empire Strikes Back is the only one in the trilogy that actually reaped the benefits of the extra stuff.  For the most part, it was untouched.  We got a new approach to Cloud City, we got to see Vader leave the planet.  We also got to hear Luke scream when he was falling down the central shaft.  The initial DVD release didn’t actually make things a whole lot better.  Some of the CG got touched up, but(and most fans will tell you this)HAN SHOOTS FIRST!!!  Well, the second DVD release, we got the original pre-Special Edition trilogy on DVD as well, which was great.  But Lucas couldn’t leave well enough alone.  He just kept tinkering with his trilogy until the Blu-Ray was released.  That was also a mixed bag.  Thankfully, George Lucas sold off Star Wars, and his company to Disney.

So what are my final thoughts on extended editions?  As with all things, I take it on a case by case basis.  I look at what each edition has to offer and I judge accordingly.  Some extended editions are fantastic, yet others can’t save a bad movie.  Some are pointless while others add just a few things.  A good movie will stand on its own without the need for an extended cut.  Quentin Tarantino has not done anything like that with his movies, because the movies that are released are the versions that he intended for us to see.  At the end of the day, these are just movies, and this has been my observation on this particular topic, but I thought it was an interesting topic.  Any thoughts?  Preferably not spam.

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Stargate

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Movie Trailer

Released: October 1994

Director: Roland Emmerich

Run Time: 121 Minutes(Theatrical), 130 Minutes(Extended Cut)

Rated PG-13

Cast:
Kurt Russell: Colonel Jack O’Neill
James Spader: Dr. Daniel Jackson
Jaye Davidson: Ra
Erik Avari: Kasuf
Mili Avital: Sha’uri
French Stewart: Ferretti
Alexis Cruz: Skaara
Djimon Hondsou: Horus

In one of my previous reviews, I mentioned that the 90s had some fantastic movies.  Movies like Alien 3, Independence Day, Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, and Men In Black among many, many others.  Independence Day was directed by Roland Emmerich who would go onto do more disaster movies including the ill-advised Godzilla 1998 debacle, as well The Day After Tomorrow, and 2012.  So, disaster movies are the name of his game.  He’s great at destroying the world, if nothing else.  But before he did Independence Day, he directed two of the most interesting action and science fiction films to date: Universal Soldier and Stargate.  Universal Soldier had an interesting premise in which dead soldiers could be revived into super-soldiers.  The film was an absolute blast with Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren leading the way.  But the film that really came in under the radar and got people’s attention was Stargate.  Released to audiences in October 1994, Stargate would go on to be one of the most unique and interesting movies of the decade.  In a year that had some of the biggest movies of the decade, including a Star Trek movie and Disney’s The Lion King, Stargate basically came out of nowhere and surprised a lot of people.  The film got mixed reviews, but that didn’t stop people from talking about it.  Personally, I loved the hell out of it.

The film begins in 1928, in which an archaeologist has discovered an interesting find on the Gaza plateau: A mysterious ring-shaped object.  66 years later, Dr. Daniel Jackson is essentially laughed out of a lecture for his theories that the Pharaohs of the 14th Dynasty didn’t build the Great Pyramids.  Offered a chance to prove his correct by a mysterious old woman, Dr. Jackson is brought to a secret military installation where he begins to translate the hieroglyphs on an ancient cover stone.  After successfully determining that some of the symbols on the stone were actually star constellations and basically a map of some sort, Jackson gets to see the Stargate.  Discovering a seventh symbol that the original team had been trying to locate, they succeed in activating the Stargate.  After sending a probe through, it turns out the gate leads to planet on the other side of the known universe.  A decision is made to send a team through the gate to discover what’s on the other side.  Leading the team is Colonel Jack O’Neill, a tough-as-nails Air Force Special Forces soldier with an awesome flat-top.  Dr. Jackson joins them so he can decipher the symbols on the other gate.  After going through the gate, Jackson reveals that he can’t get them back home because he needs an order of alignment of symbols to open the Stargate.  This leads to O’Neill, Jackson, and a couple of other soldiers heading out to the desert to search for some traces of civilization, which they find in people that speak ancient Egyptian.  They learn that these people are descendants of people who were nabbed from Earth thousands of years before by a tyrannical being known as Ra.

I have to say that this story is one of the most interesting and unique I’ve ever seen in a science fiction movie before.  I like it because they take actual Egyptian history and give it a science fiction twist.  It shouldn’t work, but it does.  While a majority of the characters aren’t really given much of a back-story, Dr. Jackson and Colonel O’Neill are very compelling.  Jackson gets laughed out of a lecture only to find that he’s been evicted from his apartment and basically homeless.  O’Neill is suffering from the tragic death of his son who accidentally shot himself, and left O’Neill despondent until he was reactivated by the Air Force.  These stories help give us an insight into the characters and how they deal with certain situations.  The rest of the military outfit aren’t as compelling.  Ferretti is pretty irritating.  I guess that comes from the fact that I don’t particularly like French Stewart as an actor.  Things get pretty amusing when they encounter the primitive tribe that’s mining a bizarre mineral.  Leading the tribe is Kasuf and his son, Skaara.  As you would expect from a situation with a serious language barrier, things get a little bizarre.  The humor works and the writing is pretty exceptional.  The way that the characters interact with each other feels very genuine, especially when Jackson is learning to speak their language, and develops a relationship with Sha’uri, Kasuf’s daughter.  Our villain is the Egyptian Sun God, Ra, who is actually an alien in human form.  This is an interesting take on Egyptian history and mythology.  If the ancient civilizations witnessed aliens landing among us, they would certainly be regarded as gods, so having the Egyptian Gods as aliens makes an unusual kind of sense, especially when you consider how the pyramids were built and you look at their particular alignment.  That’s not entirely far-fetched.  A portal that leads across the universe?  Because, you know, science fiction.  Anyways, Ra is a tyrant and he has enslaved the population of the desert planet, making him the Big Bad.

The acting is actually really good.  Kurt Russell brings the bravado and machismo that is required of an armed soldier.  He also has that awesome flat-top that says, “Don’t f**k with me!”  James Spader is one of the most underrated and intense actors that I’ve ever seen.  He gives the role an awkardness that you would expect from somebody who is almost out of his element.  As the film goes on, the character starts falling in love with Sha’uri and the tribe as a general, as if he’s found what he’s been looking for.  That leads to him being to step and help defend the people against Ra and his cronies.  French Stewart’s character is irritating and I was hoping he would die.  Painfully.  Erik Avari, who plays, Kasuf, brings humility and caution to a character that’s trying to look out for his own people, and is understandably cautious when these strangers show up speaking a strange language.  These tribesmen are innocent because they know nothing of warfare, or why they do what they do, because writing has been outlawed by Ra.  All the actors do a really good job at making their characters….human.  Jaye Davidson plays Ra, and aside from the glowing eyes bit is particularly menacing, even though he looks pretty feminine at times.  Davidson played a transgender person in The Crying Game and was nominated for an Academy Award for it, but after Stargate, he dropped off the map, and pretty much hasn’t been seen since.  Ra was a character that he could have overplayed hilariously, but he really gives the character a very elegant and menacing demeanor that made the character memorable.

One of the things that really stand out in the film are the costume designs.  Look at Ra’s outfit and mask as well his henchmen, and it’s extraordinarily detailed.  The masks for Horus and Anubis are amazing and pretty freaky.  And this where some special effects come in, when these guys retract their helmets revealing the actual people underneath.  Likewise, the sets are absolutely phenomenal.  Most of the film was filmed on location in Arizona and California.  The huge dunes that you see in the film are in Yuma, Arizona.  There were a lot of sets that were built out in the desert.  The pyramid entrance that the soldiers come out of, was an actual set with the pyramid and moons that were put in post-production.  The interior of Ra’s pyramid ship is extraordinary.  It’s a combination of advanced technology and ancient Egyptian architecture.  It’s really quite spectacular.  As far as special effects go, outside of some CG, most of it’s done either in front of the camera or miniatures.  This is one of my favorite aspects of Stargate, it doesn’t really heavily on visual effects to sell the story or action.  This is a very human-driven story.  Don’t get me wrong, the visual effects that are there are spectacular given the film’s budget.  The opening of the Stargate is awesome as well when Jackson steps through it.  That is one of the most spectacular sequences in the film.  The action is intense especially towards the end.  O’Neill’s fist-fight with Anubis is awesome.  It’s one of the best fist-fights I’ve seen in a movie and it ends with an awesome one-liner.

As of this writing, there are two different versions of the film available.  There’s a Blu-Ray release that has an  extended cut which is 9 minutes longer than the theatrical release and has a very different opening to the film.  There are also extended scenes.  While it’s cool to see the extra stuff, it’s superfluous in the long run.  There’s not enough extra stuff put in to recommend it over the theatrical version.  I have an opinion on extended versions of movies, but that is a post for a different day.  In fact, that may be my next post.  Stargate, regardless of the version you choose to watch is an extraordinary film.  It’s well written, acted, and has some of the most incredible sequences I’ve seen.  The music by David Arnold is iconic in the same way that the music from Star Wars is iconic.  It gives the film it’s epic flair, emotion and grand sense of adventure beyond the stars.  It’s wonderful.  If you can find it, I definitely recommend picking up the soundtrack.  It’s not very often that single film can spawn an entire universe.  Star Trek did it first, but it started out as a TV series first.  Star Wars did it, as did Alien.  Stargate, which could have benefitted from maybe one more movie sequel, actually ended up getting several TV series.  SG-1 saw Richard Dean Anderson in the role of Jack O’Neill, and while he was different, he did a great job with it.  Atlantis itself was a spin-off of SG-1.  Universe was a spin-off of Atlantis.  While the original series lasted 10 seasons, Atlantis saw only five, and Universe only lasted two.  From what I’ve been reading, they plan on redoing Stargate from the ground-up as a trilogy of films that bypass the TV shows.  I’m morbidly curious.  Overall, I can’t recommend Stargate enough.  It’s an incredible action-adventure sci-fi romp that is thrilling, funny and spectacular all at once.  With some minor quibbles, I’m giving Stargate a 9.5/10.  It’s an awesome movie, and I wish Roland Emmerich would return to this kind of film-making instead of finding different ways to destroy the world.

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Independence Day

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Released: July 4, 1996

Director: Roland Emmerich

Run Time: 145 minutes

Rated PG-13

Cast:
Will Smith: Captain Steven Hiller
Bill Pullman: President Thomas J. Whitmore
Jeff Goldblum: David Levinson
Robert Loggia: General Grey
Vivica A. Fox: Jasmine
Margaret Colin: Constance Spano
Mary McDonnell: Marilyn Whitmore
Randy Quaid: Russell Casse
Adam Baldwin: Major Mitchell
Brent Spiner: Dr. Brakish Okun
Judd Hirsch: Julius Levinson

Aliens have been a main staple of science fiction films for the better part of six decades.  Movies such as The Day The Earth Stood Still, War of the Worlds(the original), and Invasion of the Saucer Men just to name a few.  These are some of the classic films in the genre.  While we have seen a lot of them over the past 30 years, we’ve only really seen a resurgence in the genre in the past decade.  With movies like Skyline, Battle: Los Angeles, Pacific Rim, and Edge of Tomorrow, the genre has garnered more interest.  Obviously, the quality of the films I mentioned have ranged from excellent, like The War of the Worlds, to absolute crap films like Skyline.  I did enjoy Skyline for the slick visuals, but that movie was not very good.  Some are beyond reproach like the original The Day The Earth Stood Still.  During the 90s, we saw a lot of excellent movies from every genre in the world.  But there was one blockbuster film that came out in 1996 which became one of the biggest movies of the decade.  The title of that movie is the same as the day it was released: Independence Day.

The film opens at S.E.T.I(Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence, it’s a real organization, look it up), where one of the workers begins to hear an unusual signal that seems to be originating from the moon.  The military assumes that it might be a meteor when one of the officers says its slowing down.  After President Whitmore is informed of the situation, the object splits into 12 or more separate pieces, that are smaller than the main object, but over 15 miles in width themselves.  After witnessing some mysterious cloud formations, the actual alien vessels emerge over several major cities across the globe.  A cable repairman in New York, David Levinson, stumbles on a signal that is actually a countdown.  Rushing with his father Julius to Washington DC, he informs the President that the visitors are about to attack.  After the White House is evacuated, mostly, the ships begin their assault, firing a main beam of energy which sends a wall of fire in every direction, destroying everything in its blast radius.  Afterwards, the people of Earth decide to fight back.

Story-wise, this is nothing new under the sun.  In fact, it’s pretty similar to the main plot of War of the Worlds.  More to the point, there’s a lot of stuff in Independence Day that feels very familiar to people who seen those older sci-fi movies.  The Day The Earth Stood Still, is directly referenced in one of the scenes in the movie.  It was awesome.  In many ways, Independence Day feels pretty old-fashioned.  That’s not necessarily a bad thing.  The film knows exactly what it is, and goes full throttle.  It takes a little while for things to get going, but when they do, it’s spectacular.  During the 90s, we got a lot of high-profile movies that really pushed the envelope in terms of visual effects.  Terminator 2 pushed what we could with CGI when Cameron created the T-1000, Jurassic Park showed how realistic dinosaurs can be portrayed using both CGI and practical effects.  Independence Day doesn’t actually push the envelope in terms of visual effects, but what it does do is use a combination of several different techniques, including CG, miniatures, and actual props.  It’s extraordinarily well done.  When the cities are blown all to hell, that is one of the big action pieces of the film.  It was incredible.  But then, we also have the incredible air battles.  So, the film not only takes its cues from the older sci-fi classics, it borrows a bit from Star Wars, and it feels that way during the air combat scenes.  The film is incredibly fast-paced as well.

All the visual effects in the world can’t prop up a movie by itself, so you have to actors who are willing to act against a green-screen and use their imaginations, and most of the actors in this film are fantastic.  This is Will Smith’s show, through and through.  While Bad Boys put Smith on the map, it was Independence Day that really made him a superstar.  Jeff Goldblum is fantastic as David Levinson.  His deadpan delivery is absolutely hilarious at times.  Bill Pullman plays the President and is pretty reliable as a fighter pilot-turned-politician.  Judd Hirsch almost steals the show as Julius Levinson.  A lot of what works here is the interactions between the characters, and it’s fun to watch.  Getting to see Brent Spiner play an actual human being is fantastic.  He’s really good at it.  Randy Quaid plays the resident drunken pilot.  It’s Randy Quaid, so not much can be said for that.  Vivica A. Fox plays Steven Hiller’s stripper wife-to-be.  Margaret Colin plays David Levinson’s ex-wife that left him for her career.  The music by David Arnold helps give the film its life.  It’s very grand and bombastic, and when the good guys start winning, we get some really great stuff.  Some of it comes across as a little over-the-top, but considering the nature of the movie, it’s to be expected.

Yeah, there’s a lot of patriotic stuff flying around with awesomely cheesy pep talks and otherwise terrible dialogue.  Will Smith can take some of the worst dialogue in the movie and make it hilarious, he’s good at that.  As I said before, this is a movie that knows what it is.  It proudly wears all those cliches on its sleeves.  Roland Emmerich has definitely crafted a pretty memorable action film that really doesn’t overstay its welcome unlike some of his later movies….(I’m looking at you 2012).  He had previously directed the magnificent Stargate, and the awesome action flick, Universal Soldier.  He definitely knows his way around grand scale action sequences and explosions.  For a movie that’s nearly 20 years old, Independence Day holds up surprisingly well.  Sure, it’s cheesy, but it’s the kind of cheese that doesn’t get moldy.  Make no mistake, this is mindless entertainment, and it would be very wise to shut your brain off for 2.5 hours.

One of the reasons why I wrote this, is because Roland Emmerich is going to be doing another 2 Independence Day films.  Only a handful of cast-members have been announced.  Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, and Vivica A. Fox are the only members of the original film confirmed to be on board at this point.  Truth be told, I’m not entirely sure how Emmerich’s going to pull this off, because the first movie ended pretty definitely.  Yeah, there were books that took place right after.  I’ve read them, and they weren’t really that good.  So, Emmerich needs to have something up his sleeve to make this work.  I had heard rumors that they were going to attempt to make at least one sequel, and those rumors had persisted over the years.  It seems now that the project is gaining steam, with a projected release date sometime in July of 2016.  I’ve honestly enjoyed Emmerich’s work over the years, so I’m kind of interested where he goes from here.  That being said, I’m giving Independence Day a solid 9/10.  Yeah, it’s cliched, but damn if it ain’t fun.

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The Hobbit

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Released:
An Unexpected Journey: December 2012
The Desolation of Smaug: December 2013
The Battle of the Five Armies: December 2014

Director: Peter Jackson

Rated PG-13

Run Time: 474 Minutes

Cast:
Ian McKellan: Gandalf
Martin Freeman: Bilbo Baggins
Richard Armitage: Thorin Oakinshield
Ken Stott: Balin
Graham McTavish: Dwalin
Aidan Turner: Kili
Dean O’Gorman: Fili
Hugo Weaving: Elrond
Cate Blanchett: Galadriel
Christopher Lee: Saruman
Lee Pace: Thranduil
Orlando Bloom: Legolas
Evangeline Lilly: Tauriel
Benedict Cumberbatch: Smaug/Necromancer
Luke Evans: Bard

When The Lord of the Rings movies were announced people were very excited, especially the folks who had read the books by J.R.R Tolkien.  The first film in the series: The Fellowship of the Ring launched in December of 2001, with The Two Towers in 2002, and The Return of the King in 2003.  The Lord of the Rings Trilogy became one of the most successful movie trilogies to date with the third film winning 4 Academy Awards.  I haven’t heard of any other fantasy film that has achieved that kind of success, and it’s mostly because of Peter Jackson who directed the films.  All the movies were filmed together.  It was a massive risk by New Line Cinema, but it clearly payed off in the end.  So, with The Lord of the Rings done, what about the story that preceded them: The Hobbit?  As luck would have it, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were two stories that the Tolkien estate allowed to be made into movies.  For a while it was assumed that Guillermo Del Toro would be helming The Hobbit films with Peter Jackson producing, but circumstances changed switching the roles.  Honestly, while I have a lot of respect for Guillermo Del Toro, Peter Jackson was probably the better choice for The Hobbit.  Why?  Because he has experience with fantasy epics, obviously.  The initial reporting was the The Hobbit was going to be split into two movies.  That made sense.  There’s a lot of stuff in there that probably wouldn’t have fit into one movie.  Now, remember: Each of the LOTR films was based on each book, but they had to remove and change certain elements so they could be released for a reasonable run-time: 3 hours.  But they left the real important stuff in so they wouldn’t split each book into two movies.  The Hobbit I could see with two movies.  Turns out that someone decided it would be best to split the book into THREE movies.  I’ll get into that later.

The Hobbit begins with Bilbo Baggins sitting on his bench when he’s approached by a mysterious stranger with a pointy hat: Gandalf The Grey.  After being offered the chance to partake in an adventure, Bilbo refuses.  That night his house is basically invaded by a company of 13 dwarves led by Thorin Oakenshield.  These dwarves are on a quest to reclaim their homeland of Erebor from the clutches of the evil dragon Smaug who had laid waste to the region years before.  While initially refusing to join them on their quest, Bilbo eventually catches up to them and agrees to help them retake their home.  Along the way, the group encounters trolls, orcs, elves and the aforementioned dragon.  I supposed I could have reviewed each Hobbit movie individually, but these three movies are still ONE story and it just makes more sense for me to review The Hobbit films as such.  The first film introduces us to our main characters, namely Gandalf and Bilbo.  The introduction for the dwarves is pretty amusing.  While it takes a little time to really get going, the film takes us from The Shire to The Misty Mountains with some incredible visual effects including the Rock Giants which is absolutely crazy.  The encounter with the goblins is also pretty cool, which leads us to one of the most pivotal moments in both trilogies: Bilbo’s encounter with Gollum.  The film also features a cool battle with orcs riding wargs with the lead orc, Azog being Thorin’s arch-enemy.  The second film begins where the first one ends, with the merry band of dwarves, Hobbit and Wizard making their way to the Lonely Mountain.  On the way, they encounter a man who can change into a bear.  He lets them borrow some horses which they ride to the edge of Mirkwood, a sickly forest that stretches for miles.  Gandalf leaves the group because he fears that there is something at an abandoned Elven fortress that needs investigating.  Making their way through the forest, they encounter spiders, and are rescued by Bilbo.  Afterwards they are captured by elves.  This second movie introduces us to Legolas, Tauriel, Bard and Smaug himself.  Legolas doesn’t actually appear in the book, and Tauriel is a completely new character.  The second film seems to be a little more focused.  It’s certainly has more action in it, especially when the dwarves reach Erebor and encounter the dragon.  This leads to one of the most spectacular scenes in the trilogy, and….wait, what?  The movie’s over?!  Damn you, Peter Jackson!

The third and final Hobbit movie picks right up where Desolation of Smaug decided leave its audiences hanging.  After the dwarves battle Smaug, he flies to Lake Town and burns it to the ground, or water.  During the ensuing chaos, Bard successfully kills Smaug and the movie can finally begin.  After retaking Erebor, Thorin begins to act strangely.  Word has spread of Smaug’s destruction, so The Lonely Mountain’s treasure is basically up for grabs at this point.  Gandalf has been taken prisoner by a mysterious Necromancer and Thranduil has come to mountain to claim what is his.  Thing is, the elves aren’t the only army that have come for the mountain.  Dwarves, orcs, and goblins would soon descend upon the mountain.  The Battle of the Five Armies is about as straight-forward as you can get.  We get to see Elrond, Saruman and Galadriel rescue Gandalf and battle what would become the ringwraiths.  It’s actually pretty cool to see these guys in action.  We also get to see how truly powerful Galadriel really is when she banishes Sauron back to Mordor.  This also leads up to the main confrontation in the story, which is the name of the movie.  I have to tell you, WOW!  That is something to see.  This is the most action-packed of the three movies.  The last hour of the film is straight action.  It’s epic and absolutely thrilling.

All is not sunshine and rainbows in the land of Middle-Earth however.  Believe it or not, the addition of Legolas and Tauriel aren’t an issue for me.  In fact, I’m glad they’re a part of it, even if they aren’t in the book.  Some of the issues I have with The Hobbit films stems from the fact that there are three movies instead of just two.  Two movies, I could understand, but three?  That’s really stretching it, especially when you consider that each film is not even 3 hours long.  The Battle of the Five Armies is the shortest of the bunch at 144 minutes.  When I heard that they were going to make three movies, I had to question how they were going to do that.  Basically, they lifted several elements from the appendices from the Return of the King book.  A lot of these elements were present in all three films.  They wanted to tie in with LOTR, so they made Sauron a behind-the-scenes villain of sorts, much like he was in LOTR.  One of the elements lifted from the appendices was Sauron’s presence at Dol Goldur, where had set up shop so he could search for the One Ring.  It was certainly interesting.  But that was never a part of The Hobbit.  There was also a plot line where Sauron had sent his armies to aquire the Lonely Mountain, because to the north was the ancient kingdom of Angmar.  I don’t seem to recall that Sauron had ever wanted to bring Angmar back from the dead, even though the kingdom’s leader, was the greatest of the 9 ringwraiths.  Some of these elements make sense, but others really shouldn’t be here.  The romantic triangle between Tauriel, Legolas and Kili was awkward at best.  It just seemed really out of place.  It all ties in with the LOTR Trilogy, but I don’t think it needed to.  The Hobbit was a simple adventure story.

Stretching The Hobbit over three movies means they had to pad certain parts just so they could flow properly, and that’s just not how you really want to tell a story.  That being said,  The Hobbit films are still a fantastic set of films set in Middle-Earth.  The characters are unique and interesting, and there’s plenty of humor.  It’s also visually exciting as the movies are filmed in New Zealand.  So, we have some very pretty pictures.  The acting is spot on, and it’s definitely awesome to see Orlando Bloom as Legolas.  He was always fantastic in that role.  Evangeline Lilly is stunning as Tauriel, but she can certainly hold her own with the rest of them.  Lee Pace is interesting as Thranduil, who came to The Lonely Mountain for his own reasons, but ends up allying with the men and dwarves.  Luke Evans really gets into his role as Bard The Bowman.  One of the main reasons why The Lord of the Rings trilogy resonated with me was because of the interactions between the characters.  You got to know them quite well, and by the end of the story you really didn’t want to see them go.  The same kind of sentimentality is applied here.  These are characters you get to know and love over the course of three movies, so when the final battle hits, the stakes are incredibly high.  The only character I really didn’t care about was Albirt.  He was a weasel, and I didn’t care for him one bit.

At the end of the day, The Hobbit is nothing more than a simple adventure story, but it’s one that has a lot of heart behind it with some amazing action sequences and great acting.  Yeah, I think they could have done with a little less CG, but Smaug was brilliant.  Sadly, not everyone feels the way I do about these movies, and honestly, I don’t think they stand up as well as The Lord of the Rings.  But these are not bad movies.  On the contrary, I love them.  However, there are issues which stem from the fact that The Hobbit wasn’t adapted THAT well.  It was only ONE book.  My final verdict on The Hobbit films is a respectable 8/10.  While certain issues bring these movies down a bit, the final package is still very impressive and I definitely recommend them.