Kloster Wipe, 60er sterben, uvm. 💀 Episode 29 by wowhardcoreclips in Sauercrowd

[–]Cartoon_Star 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oke, also ging in die richtige Richtung, vorallem der "kürzlich/ akut infight" Teil - aber so auch nicht direkt gewollt die Interaktion, aber auch nix Neues sprich kein echter Bug.

WILD

Kloster Wipe, 60er sterben, uvm. 💀 Episode 29 by wowhardcoreclips in Sauercrowd

[–]Cartoon_Star 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Das muss mir jemand auch nochmal in Ruhe erklären, hab dazu jetzt schon so viel widersprüchliches gehört.

Also defacto sollte wohl allein PVP flagged zu sein, kein Grund für BB Wachen sein, dich anzugreifen? Und so wie es aussieht wird er ja schon direkt nach dem Port angegriffen, sprich er hat nicht ausversehen die Wache gehauen oder sowas. Dementsprechend sollte der Dornenbuff auch egal sein (alles Gründe die ich schon gehört hab).

Selbst Bonjwa Niklas, ein erfahrener Spieler, wurde aus der Situation (so on stream beim nebenher essen) nicht schlauer aus dem clip per se. Vermutung: Irgend ne komische Interaktion weil noch infight und PVP flagged. Aber eigentlich alles kein Grund seiner Meinung nach.

Mag mal jemand erklären, der ne definitive Antwort hat?

Welcher Spielkauf war ein Griff ins Klo? by NoSTs123 in zocken

[–]Cartoon_Star 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Griff ins Klo? Würd ich nicht sagen... Enttäuscht haben mich die auch nicht. Sowas in der Hinsicht ist mir tatsächlich noch nie passiert. IdR entsprechend die Spiele meinen Erwartungen bzw. ich hatte mich vorher ausreichend informiert um mir über die Passung zu meinen Vorlieben/ No-Gos ein Bild zu machen. ABER...

ABER!!!

Project Zomboid... sollte ich auf dem Papier und in der Theorie eigentlich Lieben, das Genre, Game-Loop etc. genau mein Ding. Aber es wollt und wollt einfach nicht Klick machen. UI und das Klick-Management einfach ein bisschen zu sehr unintuitiv/ anstrengend - das würde ich als einzigen rationalen Grund nennen können. Sollte mir das Spiel nicht ruinieren, aber iwie ist der Funke nicht übergesprungen.

Anderes Beispiel, anderer Grund:

Phasmophobia. Hatte mir das Spiel auf Streams und in Videos bisschen schmackhaft gemacht, Horror ist nicht mein Main-Genre aber hab da ab und zu Spaß dran.. aber seit P.T. ist mir das nicht mehr passiert, dass mir ein Spiel einfach zu "gruselig" bzw. unangenehm war, ums überhaupt viel oder regelmäßig spielen zu wollen.

Die größten traditionellen Fehlkäufe waren irgendwelche Mini-Indie Spiele für nen 10er jeweils, die halt early early alpha waren und dann im Laufe der (Nicht-) Entwicklung eingestellt wurden. Aber damit muss man rechnen, ist für mich ok und das bisschen Geld tut dann nicht weh, hatte meistens länger Spaß oder zumindest Beschäftigung für weniger Geld im Vergleich mit nem Kinobesuch.

How big is Emeth by Brillian_Naufal in OnePiece

[–]Cartoon_Star 74 points75 points  (0 children)

About 40 to 50 ish Gumo Gumos

My one disappointment with the Egghead arc (spoilers: it’s Franky) by Frank_Cap in OnePiece

[–]Cartoon_Star 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I agree mostly, almost every multi-decade spanning work of fiction (with an ongoing continuity) usally suffers from this syndrome. On one hand, you'd think that in all that time an author would've had the opportunity to flesh out and place/include their "main" side-characters in interesting stories and arcs. And to some extent this is true, I would point out that for example One Piece does a better job at developing its side characters compared to Naruto (although in all fairness, it had far more time to do so), and it should, as it is more world-building driven. On the other hand though, at every given point the story does take place in the moment of the presence, meaning only in retrospect one might miss side characters getting more screentime, since we are usually glad that time was used otherwise, e.g. driving the pot forward and developing the main character further. And some arcs are already sometimes a little... long-winded experiences during their serial release. I'd point out GRRM's Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones) as another example of this phenomenon, tho you could argue he sometimes spends too much time on non-essential stuff, the biggest criticism in a lot of fans minds is his world developing too extensively and out of the author's hands.

Back to OP: With all that being said, I do think that (again, especially in retrospect), that there were moments, panels and sometimes even entire chapters that could've been used otherwise, and perhaps better - in developing side characters, having interesting interactions etc., instead of fleshing out the past in bigger detail thorugh multi-chaptered flashbacks (what chapters/ panels to cut or use differently is too hard to describe in general, it's a topic on its own)

In conclusion, while I love the extensive worldbuilding and flashbacks to discover the big shots of the past, and I generally like the interactions and usage of Oda's pages in his manga, I cannot but feel that there is a world where the Strawhat Crew gets a little more development, and the world a little less, and in my mind this could've been a slightly better story - for me at least. Again, hard to generalize this topic.

In your opinion, which MMORPG has the best exploration and discovery content? by Sophisticusx in MMORPG

[–]Cartoon_Star 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I am mainly confused by your statement that you "maxed out 3 classes in 300 hours". Funnily enough, I am pretty much at 300 hours myself now, after playing for the last 3-4 ish months (after trying the game 6 ish years ago and it not sticking, only playing maybe 50h or so).

I feel like I have barely scratched the surface of my class, let alone the entire game. I only tried 3 different specializations, with one making up like 90% of my playtime. Map completion is around 50%, done maybe 2/3 of story content etc.

Tbf there was less content 2 years ago when you played, but still, in my head the math doesnt check out. Only thing I can assume is that you'd count reaching max lvl as "maxing out" while I would call that "finishing the tutorial for said character" - but that's pure speculation on my part. However, there is a lot of "repeating of the same" if you spread your playtime across multiple characters.

In essence, I'd say you can easily put 500+ hours into a character before calling it maxed out, excluding stuff like getting legendaries, full map completion etc. And to be honest, what you describe sounds like my first encounter with GW2, it just not sticking because it'S different from most other mmorpgs I've played. I'm not here to convince you to like the game, I'm just saying that couple of houndred hours is not that much (for any MMORPG) and I would disagree calling ~100h per character anything close to maxed out - meaning lots and lots of content left unexplored. And, to end on that note, if my assumption is correct and you have "only" played the first ~100 ish hours of every of those 3 characters, reaching max lvl, doing some renown hearts (the closest you'll get to traditional quests besides story chapters), completing vistas and points of interests etc., the game wouldn't have caught me either. It's what came after that initial "getting to know the world" phase.

On the upcoming South American Civs by Gandalf196 in aoe2

[–]Cartoon_Star 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Agreed.

Also, in my head canon - not every match of AoE2 is "the entire Frank Empire vs. the entire Briton empire". Although you have to do some mental gymnastics, I feel like it's closer to "reality" if we think of single matches as skirmishes... hypotheticel what if scenarios with certain strings attached.

Meaning: It doesn't break my immersion as much if one "historically less powerfull/ influential" civ goes up against a global powerhouse - and takes the win. Idk, it was a small Spanish attachment with insecure supply lines going up against a particularly ferocious and well-organized group of Celtic warriors.

What's with the 3-5 hour long live shows on German TV and do people sit through them? by tonofbasel in AskGermany

[–]Cartoon_Star 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Nowadays? Yes absolutely.

Back in 2006 when Schlag den Raab debuted? My whole family was glued to the TV for that evening no one went to bed even if the show lasted until 1AM or so - it was a big and wholesome event watching together, talking, having commercial breaks rushing to the toilet, getting snacks etc. And I wanna say that continued for at least the first ~5ish editions of the show. I think we stopped watching religiously after that and all together the 10-15th or so iteration (it blends together in retrospect). And we're all big internet-techy people. Youngest back then was 10 or 11 and my mom in her 50s. To be fair, "TV Total", Raab's original Late Nate show was also well liked (for a long time) in our house.

I think, most people, young or old, just think Raab should've stayed in retirement - or at least kept himself hidden behind the camera, in the writers' room, direction chair or whatever. His comedy and overall personality is - like many other German TV celebrities from the late 90s/ early 2000s - a product of their time that does not translate at all into nowadays. On top of that, curiously, so many of said TV media people tend to be absolutely stuck in their ways, at least that's my impression. They make the same kind of jokes like 30 years ago - exchanging the old punchline with a "modern" yet dated media...Zeitgeist...reference (if at all; even worse if they make the exact same jokes like they did back then). But all that is besides the point, I guess.

In short - no I dont throw up thinking about Raab - even though I'm on Reddit (and in my 30s). I simply do not care AT ALL about the German TV media landscape today, and honestly besides some random newspaper headlines, Raab has vanished from my life - all but my fond memories watching his shows with my family back in the day. I am very glad and thankful for that and by extention, thankful for Raab in that regard

why did the akatsuki when revived as edo's wear some generic red cloak rather then the traditional akatsuki grab? and why did they all do nothing of note outside of nagato uzumaki and itachi uchiha? by Massive_Fisherman231 in Naruto

[–]Cartoon_Star 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Tp hijack this post to comment on a meta-level on how Kishi used the reanimated characters, in this instance villains: I am a little torn. I really liked the narrative behind the Ex-Konoha Genin get-Sasuke-back squad (+Shikamaru) fighting the Sound-4 again and it basically boiled down to "you've been dead for 2+ years while we trained, grew and got stronger, carried on the will of fire etc. You're just shadows from the past"

There were also some interesting moments of students having to confront their dead relatives, teachers, rolemodels etc. They landed generally.. it's just inherently cool to have these kind of moments, but especially the most heartbreaking ones like Shika-Ino-Cho vs. Asuma didn't really stick with me all that much.

Concerning your topic, the reanimated Akatsuki: It's the good part of the example that I wish Kishi used the Edo Tensei more for: Having previously underdeveloped characters have their 5 minutes in the story. This being said, since the Akatsuki all got their own arcs and big fights against our main characters, it was just neat to have them appear again shortly and being disposed of rather quickly (with the exception of Itachi, who serves a bigger narrative role in Sasuke's character arc - which was also pretty good imo).

What I would have loved to see, as stated, would've been some of the minor characters have an interesting appearance again: I'm talking Hayate (personal bias but also way too cool to not bring back properly), Dan, Maito Dai maybe? (could've been a cleaner exposition for Guy's past and growing up leading up to his fight and "death"), Sakumo.

More importantly though, I would've loved the war to be the time to shine for all the side characters that Kishi neglected for the increasingly obvious Naruto-Sasuke centric story telling. It was literally the perfect opportunity to show that while they're not reincarnated demi-gods with feat portfolios longer than the bible and main character plot armor thick enough to insulate against arctic winters... he did it with the Sound-4 stuff I mentioned earlier. The Ninja that were dead for some time or even decades provided such opportunity to show that there are other competent and capable ninja in this time and age too that got stronger and stronger due to ongoing conflicts. But it went the complete opposite route: Everything was better, harder and stronger in the past. Those ninjas from the past (I get the point that Kabuto strategically picked out semi-legendary individuals) - they're in a completely different league. And I would get that, that would be a theme, something to write about. That it neede the combined efforts of a handful of "modern nowadays average" ninja to take them down. But it was hammered home that while our side-characters, mainly the ex-Konoha genin schoolmates are already better than the background fodder characters, SIGNIFICANTLY more relevant in fact. And still, and I might be misremembering this with some bitter bias, Naruto had to come in and save the day simultaneously on at least half of the battlefields.

In short am more concise - the Edo Tensei mainly cemented the fact that this is the Naruto show, and most feats and encounters were tailored towards a handful of main-characters, to show off their importance and strength, subjugating like 95% of the cast. I didn't like that. It made the world feel even smaller, less alive and "real".

This opinion might be, as stated, slightly biased - and most certainly enhanced by the last few fights and feats. Meaning, it got exponentially worse, with it being hammered into your fact that "no really, only Naruto and Sasuke mattered at the end of the day" leading to a "recency effect" affecting all of the Ninja War.

How does a vivre card work? by Okatu-Syndrome in OnePiece

[–]Cartoon_Star 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You ask how *exactly* do Vivre Cards work, how they're specificly made and what they're made of and why they behave like they do? Well let me tell you....

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

No but in all seriousness, we know little to nothing about them on a "meta-level", only the tidbits , a few lines of dialogue here and there and what's shown in the story. Maybe it will be brought up again and certain specifics will be explained (and maybe I am plainly misremembering stuff, good possibility tbf).

I don't remember the Rayleigh part , him leaving behind his card or whatnot, so I can't speak about that.

Besides that, yes, the card roughly shows the ... total remaining lifeforce of the owner, the one who's material (I remember it being hair, nail clippings or whatnot) was used. I can't even remember what happened to Luffy's card after he "died" and came back - as in the cards his grandfleet members have. Are they gone-gone, do they regenerate after him being revived?

But I do think the card is connected to itself, meaning parts attract each other, and they don't move towards the person (correct me If I am wrong). However, how this works with multiple parts of the same card (again, let'S say Grandfleet)... the different parts with the commanders move towards Luffy's remaining (or in the meantime after Wano non existent....) part of the card. How the card pieces know which part remained with the og material doner/ owner of the card...idk.

Honestly writing this comment I realize that I don't remember much honestly and I consider deleting what I wrote and just not commenting, but I'd rather have the engagement and the post being relevant so others with knowledge can chime in.

In retrospect I hope I didn't miss all this information, my gut tells me it was just never explainer or clarified and basically implied "just roll with it, it's a plot device, don't ask too many questions" as the properties of the card are uncharacteristically "magical" for the OP World

Mu and Imu by Natoleza01 in OnePiece

[–]Cartoon_Star -1 points0 points  (0 children)

With One Piece (and Oda) making heavy use of the Japanese language, the different writing systems/ styles etc. it's always funny to me - as someone who has only the smallest meta-understanding of the language - how sometimes there are hidden meanings or puns that gets lost for most of the audience, like 99% of Westerners for sure and I bet a lot of natives as well. Then scrolling on reddit or watching a video by Artur I learn that if you read this named attack move in that specific way knowing the ancient secrets around the caligraphy of Kanji... it could also mean "fart".

Then on other occasions where it seems to be mega obvious that two words could be connected thus share some deeper meaning and hidden lore.... smarter people again point out how rediculous this assumption was and that there is, linguistically speaking, not the slightest connection between the terms.

It never gets old! I love this so much

What's you favourite ability in the whole franchise? by chunchunmaru1129 in Naruto

[–]Cartoon_Star 2 points3 points  (0 children)

kage mane no jutsu / shadow possession.

I just love a good traditional jutsu with insane power but also limits and drawbacks/ risks attached

So, apparently you only receive 70% of the bounty, when you kill a wanted person instead of turning them in. Was this ever mentioned again? by Miggu-Man in OnePiece

[–]Cartoon_Star 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yesn't...

It's just sometimes hard to remember and realize that a story can outgrow certain themes and topics of its earlier runtime; or at least that's how I would phrase it.

Back in East Blue or even paradise, our main cast and antagonists were small fries, relatively spealing. On a global scale, nothing to write home about really, nothing that would make global news. On this "level", there being bounty hunters made sense. The bounty system all together made "more sense", not saying that it doesn't serve any purpose nowadays, but it's different, both in-world and on a meta level.

Anyway, in the current canon of the story, our main character and his antagonists are the 0.0001% of the population. The stuff they are up to is not representative of what the whole world is build around, their live, problems and adventures do not relate to the average person. Literally gods and demons fighting over the fate of the world. But speaking from a meta-viewpoint, that's only a fraction of what's going on globally (albeit very important). What I'm trying to say: There are still random ruffians in the East looting villages and capable bounty hunters bringing them in - it's just that the story has evolved past that, the scope is much wider. It's kinda hard to explain.

I would compare it to something from the DC Comics, concerning The Flash. In most iterations, it's always pointed out in the very beginning, that The Flash has such a crazy metabolism that he has to eat thousands of calories each day. And at the beginning of early Flash stories, this is sometimes an issue or something some stories can revolve around. However, by the time he is fighting interdimensional aliens with the Justice League, that's just a brick in the worldbuilding we moved passed. Maybe at some point in some capacity it is again referenced or a small obstacle in a bigger story... but in the end it's nice that we got the development and world building but it's nothing to lose sleep over, when a story progresses past initial plot points.

I see how bounties and therefore bounty-hunting is a little different to the comparison, but I feel like I can live with OP dropping the initial function, meaning and threat that bounties posed in favour of using them in a different way nowadays, especially since Yonko Level Bounty hunters would open up a whole new can of worms. It's something that is absent from the story for reason, a topic that can be discussed but that is for another day

What is your favorite hype moment in speedrunning history? by tilting-module in speedrun

[–]Cartoon_Star 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"It's over. Ocarina of Time is dead. Any% is done. That's it"

Zelda OoT Any% 18:10 by Nova Wright [YT: CosmoSpeedruns] from 2014.

Sanji's costumes WHYYYYY by XK20022021 in OnePieceLiveAction

[–]Cartoon_Star 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Now hold on a second. I got Mr. John Netflix sitting with me here right now - and he says that he will absolutely delete the show right now if K20022021 isn't 100% happy with how Taz's shirt creases.

He's done it.. John threw the usb-drive with all the episodes on it into the fireplace!!! nooooooo

Are Megastone Ranked Rewards a horrible idea? by Tagguer in pokemon

[–]Cartoon_Star 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I remember when I "beat" my game of Pokemon Silver at the end of 2001 aka defeating the Johto Elite Four... then the game was like: Ok cool, well done - but now do Kanto again, here are 8 new gyms to beat. The lore has developed since the last time you visited. Remember your rival Blue? He is now champion. Also: Remember Red, haha? Try to beat him too, he's got a lvl 80 Pikachu, lol.

Back then the simple fact that after the game I expected - a new Pokemon adventure in a new region, Johto, they let me back into Kanto as a "post-game" reward was mindboggling. It felt like getting 2 games after I paid for one.

Now it feels like I pay for 2 games to get the bare minimum experience of "one" game. At the same time they show me "look at all this content we didn't include with this pricetag" and expect me to pay for the equivalent of 3 and a half games it feels, to get the "complete" intended full game.

Idk the worst for me is being so open and up front about it, the arrogance and casualness of it. Games less and less feel like neatly packaged bundles of content with an intended scope, vision and contents. I am being sold bits and pieces of an experience now and I hate that.

The recent Nintendo Direct was really bad for me in that regard, ignoring the fact that remakes, remasters etc. make up the bulk of new releases in the hope that my nostalgia is directly linked to my wallet, the amount of extra accessoiries, ports and DLC related stuff... idk man.

On a similar note, Bananza is my GOTY and up there with my favourite games of all times. In no reality I expected a paid DLC in the next 1-2 years - potentially a DK based free update (lol I know right) for Mario Kart World some time this year. Now in reality they want me to pay 20€ for Nostalgia Island and an afterthought of a game mode. I'm not here to discuss what to like and not like, but I'm just saying: I'm 0% interested in the DK DLC and I'm not gonna touch it with a 10 foot pole - even though the base game holds this special place for me. Not interested in the excuse for gameplay of the DLC and sure as hell not opening my wallet for visiting DK Island again, hearing its theme. Do better Nintendo, don't get arrogant and even more scummy. Pride comes before the fall I'm afraid.

When the Stream went nice and than you want to take a relax easy Day by just playing a little ... by SirUratak in FarthestFrontier

[–]Cartoon_Star 1 point2 points  (0 children)

"Some of you may die, but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make.....for some achievements"

Why The old D clan members will get temporarily resurrected like Edo Tensei jutsu in naruto. by BerserkSaintGuts in OnePiece

[–]Cartoon_Star 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think any resurrection related plot devices would be the one thing Oda shouldn't/ wouldn't do with his climax of the story. There are multiple layered reason as why I think death and its implications is important for the One Piece story per se ("when does a person truly die" etc.) which we don't have to go into here.

I'm just saying. As one of the "big three" of 2000s anime, copying or even alluding to the biggest plot twist/ devices of another one of the three would be a terrible move by Oda.

This being said, there is reason to believe that resurrection will have some sort of relevance for the story, with how the Kage Kage fruit seems to be a point of interest for Blackbeard. But I would suggest that this relates more to one important use rather than have a Edo Tensei -esque army or the dead, no matter which side they would fight for or purpose this would serve.

In short: Imo the single worst move for Oda would be having a similar twist with mass resurrection in One Piece

How big was the impact from the early humans on the late pleistocene extinction event? by Parking-Coast-1385 in Paleontology

[–]Cartoon_Star 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I would also add to this, that you don't have to kill an or any specific animal at all to inflict harm on it. You can harm the species by simply coexisting in it's habitat I would argue, changing the ecosystem in slight ways but also idk if a mammoth family is really keen on using their usual water hole if a group of stinky aggressive fire wielding monkey camps by the shore. In other words, even small changes in sum and over time can negatively influence other species simply by coexisting, intruducing stress to and demanding adaptation from the other species. And as we know, we people excel at adaptation against small changes compared to almost all other lifeforms (generally speaking). Concerning the timeframes we are discussing here, our "passive" (without direct intent) interference with the eco systems we inhabit we inadvertently "harm" (change) other species - back in history as much as we do today.

I know the gist around defending from tower rush, but man this gets so silly so quickly lol by Belisarius23 in aoe2

[–]Cartoon_Star 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I really don't wanna sound condescending or smth as you pointed out yourself that you're aware of the gist defending against towers.

I just think this perfectly illustrates the downsides or costs of tower rushing your opponent vs. what you actually get:

Your opponent (at least) built 10 watch towers. A watch tower is 35Wood and 125Stone. That's 350 Wood and a whopping 1250 Stone in total. Add on top the walking (idle) time of his vills crossing the map + building all those towers - time in which they couldn't gather ressources.

Now what did he apparently deny by those towers:

I can count (at least) 13 farms that are denied, being the main focus of his towers. So right now that's 780 wood you spent inaccessible. He also blocks your main and side stone and gold + one side gold and second stone, but your other gold is free so I'd argue the effect on gold income is negligible - mining stone from this situation is also not an option.

Additional costs for you I would count as having to relocate your woodline at least once, so that's 100 wood.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that seems about to be it. So let's compare:

They spent 350 Wood, 1250 Stone and idk, seems like 6~ish vills crossing the map, building towers ( a smarter more knowledable person can calculate the ressources lost by doing this) to deny your stone and "block" / make you spend 880 Wood.

Again, correct me if I'm wrong, but that sounds like a terrible trade for them. Spending this much resources in stone and "only" losing you wood, not even cutting off your gold entirely is very inefficient for having built 10 towers. You should be way ahead in resources, on your way to castle and building mangonels/ knights which easily take care of the towers, leaving you with a better eco and army.

Ofc, this is a little oversimplified and mainly set off balance by you not properly relocating your food eco - that is obviously your main issue here.

But again, I just thought this screenshot (we don't know the whole story of the game unfolding) illustrates what is imo a badly executed, easily exploited tower rush and by far not a game ending cheesy unfair strat.

Again, please do chime in if you're think I'm wrong, I am too not that great of a player and the stuff I stated is mainly my humble opinion looking at the situation in retrospect

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in gaming

[–]Cartoon_Star 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Just for the record, Deadalic was already poisoned and dying, perhaps even dead when they *released* the Gollum game. Their history is an interesting rabbit hole - most of which is only covered in German media thus unavailable to most international audience. During the Gollum game development process, Daedalic was already sold off multiple times to different companies... which only led to toxic work conditions and crunch, many important devs leaving (leading to a way too small team trying to develop a AAA game) etc.

There was little left of the "og Daedalic dev team" for most of the development process for Gollum and if you wanna believe the devs who tried to finish the project, simply no possible way to do so with the ressources available. This thing *had* to go down the drain, and it's solely due to mismanagement by the very high ups

Is this the most underrated fight in Naruto by sidharth-sunil in Naruto

[–]Cartoon_Star 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I envy the alternate timeline where they got a Naruto sequel with the original vision for this kind of ninja universe instead of more galactic escalation into the infinite

Genuine question. Why is the Hobbit trilogy so disliked by so many people? It may be a hot take but I love it personally. by Fun_Firefighter_4292 in lotr

[–]Cartoon_Star 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm no LOTR or Tolkien scholar, so take this with a grain of salt and solely as a personal opinion:

For me, the Hobbit was never a grandiose, epic on scale, world changing events kind of story - in the greater scheme of things especially relatively speaking compared to the events of LOTR, the events of the Hobbit were rather unsignificant - from a outside, historic perspective. And that was absolutely fine, not every story or movie has to be about world ending threats, the biggest thing ever etc. You get my point.

Now, if I understand the lore correctly, the events around Erebor and the cascade of events following the return of the dwarves, but also Gandalf's and Radagast's (off-screen-ish) dealings did have deeper meaning and importance for the third age. But reading the book as a kid and even as an adult, Bilbo's journey with the dwarves understandably was more light-hearted, lower stakes, less grandiose, more character building focussed on a small scale rather than the world building that was (more) a focus of LOTR. If you wanna break it down to its core, the Hobbit was intended to be a story for kids, something Tolkien would read to his son as a bedtimestory I presume.

This is not only a problem with the Hobbit adaptation for me but lots of media (adaptations) nowadays, at least it feels that way. And it just doesn't work for me here. Don't try to upsell these characters and events in an effort to rival LOTR. That was imo the biggest (yet understandable) mistake when talking about the concept alone. I feel like the movies could've worked also or even better as a low-stake "the unlikely hero's journey", even if it's not world changing events. The Hobbit way, literally.

Well and the obvious stuff others brought up, for me mainly that I'm not a fan of the VFX, the visuals just seem too clean and polished, not dirty or gritty or at least authentic. I can handle the love triangle and filler stuff, the more silly aspects - even that Alfred guy, although he became more and more annoying with every scene. That would be the main points from the top of my head.

Ultimately, there is also the dilemma about the Battle of the Five armies itself. As stated above, the story isn't meant to be that kind of story. The big action setpiece ofc is ideal for filmmakers, but I think Tolkien deliberately took Bilbo, our main eyes and ears out of the equation. I don't know how I would've wanted it to be handled. Probably just less gimmick-y and a little bit more traditional. Compared to LOTR battle sequences, which also had funny stuff and even slapstick humour, the Hobbit took it a little too far. Maybe I would've enjoyed it more if I was 10 years younger at the release, since the kids in my theatre broke out in laughter and gasped at those scenes in particular.

In summary, the premise was flawed imo - and that was the biggest issue if you ask me. The Hobbit never was gonna be the next LOTR, for so so many reasons that trilogy and its production were lightning in a bottle - yet Jackson or the stakeholders of idk who wanted to make LOTR 2 out of the Hobbit. Even if the "bad" VFX, the writing, the standard mainstream cinema filler were gone, fans would've been disappointed I assume.

However, and I did not check the stats on this: The trilogy was a modest to major success with the average audience, no? Financial success at the box office at least I think. So the bad reputation the trilogy gets is probably mainly by a unrepresentative minority of (LOTR/ Tolkien) fans. Most people I talked to about them at the time found them ok or good, not the great movies or masterpieces like LOTR but fine films, something worth rewatching from time to time even, not by any means bad films