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The Adventure Movie Countdown - Intermission: Impossible

49. The Hobbit
No Leonard Nimoy narration? Pass!

No hat, no stick, no pipe, not even a pocket handkerchief. How can one survive?
53 Point, 3 Lists, #15 Issun
Directed by: Arthur Rankin Jr. & Jules Bass
Starring: Orson Bean, John Huston, Hans Conried​

Bilbo Baggins is a homebody… and his home is a hole in the ground. One day, the humble little creature is approached by the legendary wizard Gandalf to join a small army of Dwarves on a quest to take back their homeland. Bilbo is scared but something inside of him allows him to take the old wizard up on the promise of adventure. A promise to sneak into the lair of a great feared dragon. And that’s not even counting the litany of dangers along the way. And even when the deed is done, one final trial remains, one with a more tragic outcome than he was prepared for.


This is our first and ONLY made for television movie entry on the list. The film was made by Rankin/Bass, most famous for their stop motion holiday specials and this was my first time watching this one. It’s clear that the duo have a real love for the source material with the songs finally put to music (the only original song being the incredibly 70s folk song The Greatest Adventure). I guess I never really considered Rankin/Bass as artists, more as businessmen but this shows that they are passionate about something, creating a truly loving tribute to one of the great fantasy novels. Unlike Peter Jackson’s needless sprawling epic version of a pretty simple tale, The Hobbit clocks in at a brisk 1 hour and 18 minutes but while at times it does feel like it makes scenes that once had more breathing room concise, it never feels like it is rushing everything out the door. In fact, the Riddles in the Dark section (one of the notable bright spots in the Peter Jackson movie), is really good and well-paced here, with a more languid but haunting frog-like Gollum, compared to Andy Serkis’ spry ghoul. The animation is made for TV animation and does pale a bit to Disney’s sporadic output at the time but it still looks pretty good overall.

Hero’s Journey: Bilbo goes from homebody to someone who truly learns to grow on an adventure and in the end, proves himself a good, kind “thief” whose adventures, both the joys and the triumph, become formative memories.

Trivia
The only original song lyrics in the movie are those to "The Greatest Adventure" and other sections where that melody is used. All others are directly from the book as written by J.R.R. Tolkien or adaptations of what he wrote in verse form.

Ready, Set, Piece


 
Oh hell yeah, I'm so happy this made it! This was an incredibly formative movie for me, and one of those VHS tapes I dang near wore out as a kid. These versions of the songs are so burned into my brain that the versions in the Jackson film just felt wrong. Glenn Yarborough's "Greatest Adventure" serves the tone well.

Yes the animation isn't great but it is incredibly imaginative, with the goblins, wood elves, Gollum and Smaug all being rendered in ways no one else has in all the years of art and film based on Tolkien's work. It's great to see it here, and it's great that you finally watched it, Johnny.

This song is a banger:

 
#22 for me. This film has been a staple since childhood, always a welcome choice on the ol' video store rental rack. I love all the music, and voice acting, and super 70s design.

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Sorry Ian McKellen you're a good glandolf but you don't look like you stepped off the side of a van.

Despite it's brisk pace I really apricate that the cartoon finds time for moments of feeling, reflection, or poignancy. Recounting the history of Lonely Mountain, Frodo breaking through the foliage in Mirkwood, the cost of the war and Thorin's passing all strike me as moments that are performing way beyond expectations for a TV movie. I'd go so far as to the say it's made-for-TV quality lends the film a humble air that helps serve the story and themes. It's pretty good!
 
I did not vote for either of these but we can close down the list early if we want because it served the most important purpose in life: getting Johnny to watch the Rankin/Bass Hobbit for the FIRST TIME?!?!?

I'm so disappointed in your parents.
 
Bulgakov said:
I did not vote for either of these but we can close down the list early if we want
Click to expand...
Oh, maybe I can do this with my new mod powers!

*exerts*

Huh. OK. It didn't work but somehow I retroactively closed down the top 50 Rock Bands list? I think I'll not try that anymore. For the sake of the space-time continuum.
 
Johnny Unusual said:
Oh, maybe I can do this with my new mod powers!

*exerts*

Huh. OK. It didn't work but somehow I retroactively closed down the top 50 Rock Bands list? I think I'll not try that anymore. For the sake of the space-time continuum.
Click to expand...
Oh great. Now are we going to have to adventure through both space and time in order to fix that?
 
Didn't vote for it but I absolutely love this, along with the follow-up they did of, oddly, JUST Return of the King (which I have to assume was just them stepping up to make sure there was SOME version of everything after Ralph Bakshi took a frankly awful stab at covering the whole trilogy and stopped early). This is still the definitive Gollum for me. That orc/goblin design is just INSPIRED and the reason Zelda has moblins, pretty sure this take on Smaug is the real start of the whole "dragons are basically cats when you think about it" general fantasy trend. And if I'm ever going to consider watching "the whole series" in movie form, it's going to be this, then the Jackson LotR.

And yeah all the songs are catchy as hell.
 
OK, the lessons I gleaned from these movies is to let love into my heart and not be afraid to move forward. Also, if adventures movies have taught me one thing, it's to start at a library, where someone is sure to try to assassinate me. I don't even have to ACTUALLY look a thing up. Which is good, because I don't think the library has books on hidden movie theatres. A shame, because that's a genre I can get behind.

Let's go to my local library.

gettyimages-107877720-1563376855.jpg


If you think this is hard to navigate, you should know this is actually the card catalogue. Man, I can't wait for someone to try to kill me here. It's going to be so cool.
 
Here we are. I better look busy and pretend I'm researching.

library-center.jpg


Man, I was going to get my niece The Bad Guys vol. 3 but now I'm a little intimidated.

What's that, movement in the shadows? (pleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease)

No...

OK, maybe I will see if they have a section on hidden movie theat--

Oh.

It's right here.

This was... rather easy. Now comes the hard part. Reading a book. UGH.
 
48. King Kong (2005)
How'd you get so funky? Did you do, The Monkey?

He was right. There is still some mystery left in this world, and we can all have a piece of it for the price of an admission ticket.
54 Points, 2 Lists, #4 Beta Metroid
Directed by: Peter Jackson
Starring: Andy Serkis, Naomi Watts, Jack Black​

Carl Denholm is a filmmaker who will make the movie he wants in defiance of all things. To that end, to make his newest picture, he’s hired actress Ann Darrow and scriptwriter Jack Driscoll and taking them to film on location on the mysterious Skull Island on a large ship. And nothing is going to stop Carl from making his movie; not international laws or the fact that the studio has halted production and put a warrant out on his arrest and not the terrifying storm heading his way. When the company finds themselves stranded on Skull Island, Ann is kidnapped by the natives and is to be sacrificed to something. Something huge. Something unstoppable. And in Denholm’s eyes, something that will draw an audience. And he’s going to catch it, whatever it takes.


It’s always ambitious to remake a classic and this isn’t the first remake of King Kong. In the 1970s, Dino DeLaurentis, a producer I associate with excess both for good and ill, had a film made that was big. In 2005, director Peter Jackson came off of one of the most ambitious film projects ever and was met with massive success. So he used it to remake one of the most important movies of his childhood. In some ways, while he still has the epic quality associated with the Lord of the Rings, he also injects even more of his sense of nastiness that one associates with his early projects. Yes, Rings has some of that too but here he really gets into the monsters. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen this one but looking back on the quotes and such, it feels almost more Carl Denholm’s story, the tale of a man who loves wonder and holding attention in a genuine child-like way but has absolutely no scruples about how it is done, which makes for an interesting tragedy. Andy Serkis, again, gets to show himself off as a tremendous physical actor and I’m glad that while he still has that talent people are learning to use him in other ways; he’s an incredible talent without make up and CGI too.

Hero’s Journey: Well, there’s a few heroes here. Antihero Carl goes full tilt with his worst instincts until he takes one beautiful monstrous thing and turns it into a cheesy stage show. Ann Darrow sees the beauty behind the beast and the heroic beast himself is brought low by both the best of humanity (in Ann Darrow) and the worst (the city and Carl)

Trivia
It took 18 months to craft the CGI version of the Empire State Building. The real thing was built in 14 months.

Ready, Set, Piece



 
I remember nothing about this film but the bug pit, which is prob the standout scene, but also good GOD
 
I thought about putting this one on my list. It's certainly the Kong remake that can go toe to toe with the OG and still come out well.
 
47. Stardust
Oh, that was alright, the band was altogether Yes, he was alright and the song went on forever

A philosopher once asked, "Are we human because we gaze at the stars, or do we gaze at them because we are human?" Pointless, really... "Do the stars gaze back?" Now *that's* a question.
55 Points, 3 Lists, #11 Alex
Directed by: Matthew Vaughn
Starring: Charlie Cox, Claire Danes, Sienna Miller​

Tristan Thorn is a lovestruck young man who wants to prove himself to the woman he pines after. One evening, he sees a shooting star and decides to follow it to collect it and show it to his love. But it turns out sometimes stars don’t look like what we expect. Sometimes they look like people. Sometimes, they are Yvaine. And Tristan isn’t the only one after Yvaine. So are three witches, who want to use her heart to regain their youth. And so do three young princes, for claiming her means claiming their father’s throne. And Tristan protect Yvaine from this litany of threats?


This is one of the few films on the list I haven’t seen. I have been trying to correct but I prioritized some other stuff first so I’m sorry I don’t have much to say. All I know is that there have been people who favorably compared it to the Princess Bride but I’m much more familiar with Neil Gaiman’s *literal* graphic novel (a comic-shaped novel with beautiful Charles Vess art on each page). And that was very good. Now I want to dig it up to read it again.

Hero’s Journey: It’s been a long time but I believe Tristan begins with a sort of classic unrequited romance love to meeting someone not like he expects but who can love him back.

Trivia
All Princes wear clothing with a pattern spelling out their number in Roman numerals, composed by smaller Arabic numerals. Furthermore, Septimus wears a vest with the numeral seven on each button.

Ready, Set, Piece

 
Ah, I had Stardust on my long-list, and if I'd given things another pass I might've swapped it in. It's been quite a while since I've seen it, but I (vaguely) remember it fondly.

Also had the old animated Hobbit on my long list, another good one that I haven't seen in decades.
 
Daikaiju said:
Rankin-Bass did not mess around with their animated Fantasy. See also, A Flight of Dragons
Click to expand...
Don't forget their production of The Last Unicorn as well. It may be the best R/B flick ever, and it just missed my 25 (I have more nostalgia for The Hobbit, as I didn't watch Last Unicorn much until I was a little older because the Red Bull scared the bejesus out of me as a wee one).
 
So I think the general vibe when Jackson's Kong hit was largely "OK so the reason this got made and the reason we're buying tickets is that Peter Jackson did a real damn good job on that trilogy and we owe him the favor of funding and watching his self-indulgent monkey movie now." So the fact that it's pretty fun is just kind of a bonus. I really can't understate the self-indulgence of it though. You can see a lot of it in that clip even. I can't really see it being anyone's favorite movie though just from how big of a shift there is before or after the island. If you just want your sappy "twas beauty killed the beast" stuff from later on, you probably don't want to see someone being eaten by a... Carnictis (neat wiki). And if you're like me and you were super thrilled to see that unlike the DeLaurentis remake we are totally acknowledging the whole island full of weird monsters (and bending over backwards to recreate that stop motion fight choreography), the whole thing really loses steam later. Hmm, how great would it be if we could get a whole movie of JUST the island stuff?

Also stuff like the veins and the ice really pull me out of it because like big monsters gotta weigh a lot, these shouldn't support them.

Meanwhile Stardust... I should really hunt down the book sometime. I have a feeling it'll have a less grounded, more tongue-in-cheek sort of tone to it. As is there's a bit of whimsy here and there, but not quite enough to distract from the fact that the bulk of the movie is about some creep who is super super happy that he owns this woman and he can give her as a gift to this other woman and like... that's honestly really hard to get past? It's honestly just worst rewatching it because at least your first time through you're off your footing all "hmm... what are the rules and wonders of this offkilter magical world" but once you know that it's just... how the hell are we supposed to sympathize with this outright creep?
 
Stardust was my list. Great flick.

Completely forgot about the animated Hobbit movie. It wouldn't have made my list but I enjoyed it the one time I saw it when I was in my early 20s and someone recommended when we were talking about the LOTR movies.
 
OK, so today's movies taught me to not exploit what I find and to look what's in front of me rather than some requited love (I assume. Look, I never watched that movie and it's been forever since I read the book. Mostly I remember the dying princes).

I don't know if that will help me immediately but will is this book.

tjtWHqL.jpg


Since it seems that no arcane order of conspirators actually wants to spend time killing me, I'll have to check this out and... well... check it out.

Excuse me, I would like to check this out.

Oh, yes, my late fees. I think I have... something... in this... wallet... HERE!

jump-out-window-fail.gif


... OK, I'll pay the $7.50 Time to go home for the part of the movie everyone likes, me wearing glasses and taking them off as if I was astonished by something I had read.
 
46. Moana
Is this the Way of Water I've heard so much about lately?

Hey! What has two thumbs and pulled up the sky, when you were waddling ye high? This guy!
55 Points, 3 Lists, #6 Positronic Brain
Directed by: John Musker, Ron Clements
Starring: Auliʻi Cravalho, Dwayne Johnson, Rachel House​

Moana has a great destiny. To her parents, that destiny is to become the next chief of the island she lives on, where food and joy is plentiful. But Moana has a hunger to travel, to leave the island. When she learns that her people were once nomads, she learns to other things; a literal affinity with the ocean and an encroaching dark threat to her people and perhaps the world. It turns out her destiny might be putting the world to rights and facing a massive lava creature but to do so she needs the help of a skilled navigator and demi-god hero; the incredible Maui. Unfortunately, Maui is self-obsessed, irresponsible and has no interest in working with an amateur. Can the two put aside their differences to save the world?


Our first Disney. And spoiler alert, not the last. Though sadly it seems Disney has left classic 2D animation with the very beautiful (but in my opinion, just OK) The Princess and the Frog, it was around that era that they began working on a comeback after some really middling films in the 2000s. By 2016, the company had a string of deserved megahits and Moana continues this with a wonderful musical quest movie with Lin Manuel-Miranda penned songs and a great performance by the charismatic Dwayne Johnson. Seriously, it’s a shame it seems like Dwayne is kind of showing himself to be a bit of a pill in the creative process/business side these days because he really is charming onscreen (and on… audio?). It’s a delightful film and the two lead characters are great, with some fantastic action scenes.

Hero’s Journey: Maui goes from guy who just wants to be scene as a hero to someone who understands how to really be selfless and work not just for his own legend while Moana gets her wish to journey out there, learns about what it really means to explore and is richer and stronger for it.

Trivia
Dwayne Johnson believes that voice acting is the most difficult career in acting, and is personally annoyed when celebrities are cast in animated films despite voicing their characters badly. When Johnson was cast for the film, he repeatedly asked the other voice actors present if he was really giving a good performance.

Ready, Set, Piece


 
45. How to Train Your Dragon
Step 1: A LOT of newspaper

Most people would leave. Not us. We're Vikings. We... have stubbornness issues.
56 Points, 2 Lists, #5 Positronic Brain
Directed by: Chris Sanders, Dean DeBlois
Starring: Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson​

In an isolated village of Vikings, the greatest threat is dragons. The Vikings learn to be strong by battling dragons but young Hiccup seems to have no talent for battle. However, when he runs across a small black dragon, he starts to realize that dragons are capable of far more than he thought. He soon learns that his new draconian friend which he names Toothless, is willing to learn from him and Hiccup starts studying dragons rather than slaying them and his knowledge about dragons give him an advantage in his dragon-slaying lessons. But when Hiccup refuses to actually do the business of slaying a dragon, he finds himself at cross purposes. Can he teach his people to live in harmony with the dragons?


I feel like I haven’t give DreamWorks enough credit. I think after releasing some cruder movies with the “here’s a shitty joke for grown-ups, too” traps, they started hitting a decent stride. Not perfect all the time but they have some solid franchises. I don’t really like Shrek but the last Puss-In-Boots film made me wonder if they do a new Shrek, will I be interested. The Bad Guys was a pretty fun take on heist films. Kung Fu Panda had some pretty standard storytelling but the fights were actually really cool. But I feel like How to Train Your Dragon is their strongest and most interesting franchise. I assumed the book it was based on was a solid YA adventure but in fact, the books skew a bit younger. The film was originally going to be closer to the book but ended up taking on a little more serious vibe and I think it works. While a lot of the DreamWorks canon are heavily wacky-focused, this series really came into its own with a very rich lore, extending the original novel series into it’s own thing. I really need to see the third one, I hear it’s quite good. But the first is really a lot of fun and worth checking out.

Hero’s Journey: Toothless is an educational journey while Hiccup’s journey is to realize his “softness” is empathy and it allows him to learn and change and innovate for his society.

Trivia
The hesitation Toothless shows during the famous "touch" scene was actually an animation error. However, it looked so perfect that the animators chose to leave it in the film.

Ready, Set, Piece

 
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@Johnny Unusual you've got a copy paste error in the last entry with the wrong trailer.

I haven’t seen the HTTYD films and should maybe rectify that someday. I noticed the still frame for the action scene posted makes the CGI look pretty dated, but honestly once it’s all in motion it’s fine.

Meanwhile, I did vote for Moana, which is maybe my favorite of the recent CG Disney flicks. Just a great rollicking time in Polynesia, with really fun lead characters.
 
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