3. Weird Looking Dwarfs

I am not sure whether the current crop of absolutely weird looking dwarfs were due to Guilermo Del Toro or Peter Jackson, but they don’t tend to look like Dwarfs. In the Lord of the Rings we were introduced the Dwarfs who mostly just looked as if they were slightly shorter human beings who took to growing a beard pretty well, their features looking pretty normal. Then there are the dwarves in The Hobbit . Oh boy….

Lord of the Rings – Dwarves

Hobbit Dwarves

I know from reading The Hobbit  art book that they wanted to make each dwarf in The Hobbit  unique and easily identifiable when looking at their silhouette, but I do wonder if they bothered looking at how the designs of the dwarves were made in the Lord of the Rings? I also have to wonder why some of the dwarves look like dwarves and some of the just look like smaller humans. I am looking at you Thorin, Kili and Fili. I know why you three were made to resemble being human. They have to relate to the audience, and if you look like a regular dwarf they think you would not be able to relate to them. Which makes me question – why they think we like Gimli so much?

If the dwarves were made for the Guilermo Del Toro movie then it would have made sense in his version of the movie if it was going to be more of a fairy tale than say a straight up Lord of the Rings movie.

4. From Real actors to Real CGI

For me personally, one of the saddest things when I watched The Hobbit  was seeing how over-reliant they have become on CGI to do the goblins and the orcs. Watching behind the scenes of the Lord of the Rings it was apparent just how much love and care was put into the movie for the armour of the Uruk-Hai. From armour dedicated to each clan to individual blades for all warriors it was amazing to see it on screen and it felt real. The Hobbit on the other hand has CGI characters. Now I know what you’re thinking  – the writer hates CGI right?

Lord of the Rings – Uruk Hai – Lurtz

The Hobbit – The White Orc09

The reality is I don’t – I actually wanted to do it at some point in my life, but I didn’t have the skillset to do it at the level I wanted. I personally believe CGI can make a bland scene come to life, but it needs to be used sparingly and very subtle. Another problem with fighting against CGI characters is you don’t know how to react.

There’s this scene in Star Wars Episode 3 where Obi-Wan is facing off against General Grievous. General Grievous is pulling out his lightsabers and does this very fast twirling motion in front of Obi-Wan, but Obi-Wan doesn’t flinch at all. That’s because Ewan McGregor didn’t know what was going to happen in the scene. That scene in Star Wars sums it up why I don’t really like people fighting against CGI characters. The actors have to use their imagination on what is happening and sometimes the director has his own idea what is happening. The same goes for The Hobbit!