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Back Seat Producers Season 08 Shows

BSP Episode 254: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Release date:  12/14/2012

Warner Bros. Pictures

Directed by

  • Peter Jackson

Produced by

  • Carlynne Cunningham
  • Zane Weiner
  • Fran Walsh
  • Peter Jackson

Screenplay by

  • Fran Walsh
  • Philippa Boyens
  • Peter Jackson
  • Guillermo del Toro

Based on The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien

Cast

Martin Freeman

  • Bilbo Baggins

Ian McKellen

  • Galdalf the Grey

Richard Armitage

  • Thorin Oakenshield

The hosts review:

  • “Your silly childhood nostalgia can’t defeat my logic.”
  • A brief biography of Daniel Day-Lewis.
  • We do not have a consensus!
  • “Listen, b*#%hes! It is a MOVIE, it is not a BOOK!” (I could just stop here; nothing better can be said)
  • Darrell goes WILD!!
  • The movie was rushed, and part of that showed.
  • Pacing problems and too long battle scenes.
  • There is more back story on Thorin in the movie than in the book.
  • David liked the parts of the movie he thought he would hate.
  • Comparisons of reading The Hobbit to reading The Lord of the Rings
  • The dwarves felt dwarfish.
  • Singing dwarves are great!
  • Martin Freeman is the Bob Hope of this movie.  He’s surrounded by craziness and he’s seemingly the sanest.
  • David didn’t like Freeman as Bilbo.
  • Hugo Weaving could end up as a quadruple-triple!
  • Frodo is about ¾ moron and the other ¼ is Sam.
  • Young Bilbo is much more likable than older Bilbo.
  • Bilbo has a choice to leave; Frodo doesn’t really have a choice to leave.  Bilbo is better.
  • The fight scene with the goblins was too fast, too busy, too much.  Also, their method of bridge-building was lame.
  • Gollum was fantastic!
  • Hey, remember all the places we went to in Lord of the Rings? Let’s go there again!
  • David could do without the eagles.
  • Wait… there’s giant spiders in the next movie?!
  • The rabbit sled was very cool.
  • Deuce could have used more Bilbo Baggins, Tony could have used less Radagast and dwarves (but not the main dwarves), and David could have used less conflict between Thorin and Bilbo.
  • Deuce missed the part where Thorin Oakenshield gets his shield of… oak.
  • Elves on horseback save the party again!
  • A bit of Pacific Rim talk.
  • Morgan Freeman must be so proud!

Trivial bits ‘n pieces:

Gollum (Andy Serkis) only appears in one scene in the book, and he completed filming during the first week of production.  Serkis stayed on as Second Unit Director.

The Hobbit is the first feature film to be shot and projected at 48 frames per second, versus the industry standard of 24 frames.  The intention is to provide the film a smoother and more realistic motion with reduced strobing.  This is beneficial when viewing the film in 3D, as the higher frame rate helps to correctly synchronize the images for each eye.

Bombur doesn’t say a word along the entire movie.

Your Producers for this episode were:

  • Tony
  • Darrell
  • Tony/Deuce
  • David/Disappointment

This episode was recorded: 1/3/2013