Holy shit, this is a big week for trailers.
The Dark Knight Rises
Okay, I’ve watched this trailer several times now. I am very excited . . . but I’m also trying not to get my hopes up. Which is, of course, ridiculous. This is Batman. Of course, I’m going to get my hopes up.
Believe it or not, I actually have notes for a fucking trailer:
1. Why isn’t Leonardo DiCaprio in this movie? Everyone else from Inception is. Okay, practically everyone else. (Sorry, Yusuf.)
2. I didn’t understand what Bane was saying until I actually read the transcript. Which is unfortunate because, you know, I generally want to understand the villains. Plus, I like Tom Hardy. Plus, once I could understand him, it seemed like a genuinely creepy line. I am hopeful that I will be able to hear better with the benefit of surround sound.
3. Joseph Gordon-Levitt! I’m still not exactly sure what your role is in this movie, buddy, and I don’t want to know. It’s been so hard to avoid people’s spoilers and speculations. If anyone leave theirs in the comments section, I will find them and flay them alive.
4. I actually have some hope for Anne Hathaway as Catwoman.
5. I kind of hate the special effects of the football field scene. I mean, I like the idea of the scene, but . . . those explosions just look so bad to me.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
I haven’t been very excited about this movie . . . not because I don’t plan on seeing it or anything . . . clearly, I’ll be seeing this movie on opening night, just like every other total nerd . . . but I don’t know, I’ve just been feeling very blase about the whole affair.
Not no longer.
After all that controversy about who was going to direct this movie, I’m really glad that Peter Jackson took back the helm. There’s a very specific look to his vision of Middle Earth that I’m not sure other directors could (or would want to) imitate. I’m also ridiculously excited to see Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins. I adore Martin Freeman. He might actually make me like Bilbo.
And finally . . . The Wrath of the Titans
Well, they can’t all be masterpieces by Christopher Nolan and Peter Jackson, right?
Look, I like Marilyn Manson’s cover of “Sweet Dreams” like any other once-kind-of-goth, but . . . really? Just because it’s a good song doesn’t mean it actually fits your trailer. More importantly, I’m relieved to see that the producers of this film have firmly stuck with shockingly original taglines like Feel The Wrath . . . although nothing, I mean, NOTHING will ever beat Clash of the Titans and Titans . . Will . . . Clash!
I never got around to seeing the first movie, so . . . yeah. I kind of doubt I’ll bother watching this one, either.
My Geek Blasphemy 
Wait wait wait….you don’t “like” Bilbo?
What?
How is that possible?
I don’t hate Bilbo, exactly. I just don’t really care much about his character, at least in the movies. I didn’t much like him when I read The Hobbit, though. But, to be fair, I really didn’t like anyone when I read The Hobbit. I think the only character who didn’t constantly annoy me was Gandalf.
Bilbo is Fantasy Arthur Dent. I can’t even fathom.
Then again…how old were you when you read The Hobbit?
Errr . . . around 18? I gotta be honest here: I don’t actually like The Hobbit. Took me three times to read that book, and I did a dance for joy when I finally finished it because I made myself get through it and I would never have to read it again.
Arthur Dent amuses me. Bilbo . . . and pretty much everyone else in that story . . . not so much.
“I didn’t understand what Bane was saying until I actually read the transcript.”
There’s a transcript? It seemed pretty clear to me “when Gotham lies in ashes you have my permission to die”.
By comparison, in spite of trying my absolute hardest, I still have no idea what Nic Cage says at the end of the first Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance trailer.
Whiney kid: “What if you have to pee while you are on fire?”
Nic Cage: “Owaagghaarble.”
My criticism of the Dark Knight Rises trailer would be the collapsing football pitch scene. Part of me wants to blame the CGI, but another part of me knows that it’s a blooming ambitious effect they are pulling off. The thing that annoys me is that American footballer who carries on carrying the ball to the touchdown and doesn’t actually appear to realise that the pitch is collapsing beneath his feet. It just felt fake.
Asides from that it all looks great. ZOMG Catwoman is an Occupy protester?!?!!
As for The Hobbit, I’m not particularly impressed. I’ve not been a terribly big fan of LOTR from Two Towers onwards. The second and third LOTR movies were edited to death. (It was especially confusing to see ROTK winning tons of awards when the theatrical cut was mostly just one long fight scene then followed by 14 consecutive endings – because goodness knows we couldn’t cut the scene of all the hobbits jumping on the bed. Far better to remove the tension from every single action sequence instead…) It was good to see the Extended Cuts and finally understand what the fuss was about, but the theatrical cuts had basically spoiled it for me by then.
This trailer for The Hobbit just seems to remind me of all the worst aspects of the LOTR movies. I think Guillermo Del Toro might have been able to give it a fresher feel, but this trailer just looks like more of the same… Plus they’re including Tolkein’s boring songs this time? If they are going to include the songs is it absolutely necessary to be so blatant about autotuning the dwarves?
The trailer for Wrath of the Titans looks exciting and everything, but the problem is you could have said the same thing about Clash. That’s still Sam Worthington playing the lead and so there’s still good reason to suppose that when all the action unfolds, we are really not going to care. If I had rather more hope that this was going to be good, I’d be really excited by it.
See, Nicholas Cage I could hear. Pretty sure he says, “Oh, it’s awesome.”
I have to disagree with you on the LOTR movies. I’m not sure if I can speak to extended vs uncut, since I’ve seen both and have a tendency to mix them up now, but I liked them all when I first saw their theatrical release. I think Two Towers is my favorite, although I’ve never been entirely sure. I really don’t remember having too many editing issues. And honestly, I don’t really want a fresher look at the Tolkien verse. I like a lot of del Toro’s work, but Peter Jackson really set the stage for me as far as what this world looks like, and I wasn’t really interested in seeing Middle Earth with del Toro-esque creatures.
What I have to say about the top two:
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE *breath* EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!
I have heard others that said they couldn’t understand wht Bane was saying. I think even from people who went and saw the proloug with I-Max screenings of Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocal. (guess they had to think of SOME way to get people in to that movie) But like Fatpie I had no problems understanding him. I have a harder time understanding Gordon in the first two films. Love Gary Oldman to death but in his Gordeon role he needs to speak up a little.
The Hobbit I am kind of disgusted with to be honest. Splitting the film into two parts is clearly a money grab. I mean it always is, even with Kill Bill, Harry Potter and Twilight, but at least in the case of Potter and Twilight you ahve some really big books to get out onto the screen in a mere 2.5 hours. The end result is that fans get a mroe faithfull adaptation. With the Hobbit though, that book is shorter than any of the LOTR books, and each of them was distilled down into a single film (aside form some shifitng around with the Shelob encounter) and it worked rather well. Now we have a shorter book being stretched out into two films? And this isn’t just to sell us a ticket to the same movie twice? I doubt it.
It makes me worry it will be like Jackson’s King Kong, where they took a 90 minute story, added nothing to the actual story itself, but somehow managed to stretch it into a 3 hour film. And it was a snooze fest as a result.
This isn’t actually what is happening.
It isn’t just material from “The Hobbit” that is being put into the 2 movies. They are filling in the gaps with a lot of stuff from the appendix section of Lord of the Rings that covers things like what Gandalf was doing every time he vanished in The Hobbit. Basically stuff Tolkien came up with after-the-fact to help blend The Hobbit into the LOTR trilogy, so that’s where they’re going with it.
I see. Still not sure it needs to be 2, 3 hours movies though
I never really had any trouble hearing Gary Oldman, but I must say, it did take me a little while to warm up to his Jim Gordon. Not like I expected him to be cheery or anything, but the first time I watched Batman Begins, I was like, Jesus, just throw yourself off a tower or something. I mean, mope a little more, damn. I did come around on the performance, though.
I thought the beat down personality made quite alot of sense really. The only good cop left in a pile of corruption, and is forced to live with the situation because he is unable to do anything about it on his own.
I’d be a mopey son of a bitch too.
Oh sure, it makes sense. Like I said, I came around on his character. At first, he just kind of rubbed me the wrong way, that’s all.