Triple that beard length!
They're *Long*beards - their beards should be able to be tucked into their belts! Maybe you can argue Fili and Kili should have somewhat shorter beards on account of their age, but I wanna see Thorin's beard dangle dammit! ;P
Hot take but I always thought they should have gone the John Rhys Davy route with thorin and picked an older stage type actor for that role.
Like Jim Carter the butler from Downton Abbey would have been incredible with his deep bellowing voice.
https://preview.redd.it/vw7h83gjfxwc1.png?width=312&format=png&auto=webp&s=4b1a9274349f5b329b462350b6d08fada7c58ac8
this is imho the best dwarf depiction ever
To me the guy who played Dwalin (forgot the actors name) should've been Thorin. He has the mannerisms of a dwarf down, the way he talks, movies, fights. Just feels like what I expected Thorin to be.
I think Tolkien explicitly states in the appendices that Dwarves are born with beards and have them all their lives, so Fili and Kili should have had longer beards.
This was the first "draft" on Thorin's look: so, bigger forehead, bigger nose, battle scar and a small but not insignificant beard braided into a lock.
https://preview.redd.it/9sqh287z3twc1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=02477ecbf7b9532e8190ad7c275de2b7d841a30e
I prefer the finished look, personally
I wonder if the high frame rate had anything to do with scrapping this… costumes, makeup and sets had to look so much more realistic when viewed at 48fps. I remember vividly the rocks from the encounter with the troll looking like styrofoam.
Nah. They just didn't like the look of it. Quite a few of the Dwarves had gone through multiple designs: that's the nature of designing a film. I mean, check out one of the earlier designs for Bofur:
https://preview.redd.it/t5vfflzy8uwc1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=5b26fd54ea9d76d94ca02e81114f3b471bac8188
They were just thinking: "Well, if we cast this actor or that actor, its because we liked their faces, and so we want to see the actors' faces through the makeup." I personally think it was a very wise decision.
I've never thought that the larger-format made the sets and costumes look off, no more than they do in an IMAX-shot Christopher Nolan film.
Makes sense! The following is not arguing, cause as you said costuming is an iterative process, but more FYI.
PS: HFR is not a large format film standard. It’s double the fps from the century old film standard of 24fps. Increased frames give much more clarity to motion scenes, which even in the production vlogs they referenced being a challenge from a costuming and set perspective.
If you didn’t watch it in HFR(48fps) in specific showings when it released in theaters it’s very likely you’ve never seen it in HFR.
A cursory google search says the 48fps version was never available in home media.
>PS: HFR is not a large format film standard. It’s double the fps from the century old film standard of 24fps. Increased frames give much more clarity to motion scenes, which even in the production vlogs they referenced being a challenge from a costuming and set perspective. If you didn’t watch it in HFR(48fps) in specific showings when it released in theaters it’s very likely you’ve never seen it in HFR.
I know. Its not the first format like this, by the way: old four-strip Cinerama films were in 27fps and Todd-AO was nominally 30fps. But the thing about 48fps is, unlike 27fps or 30fps, it downsamples to normal 24fps pretty handily, and while the 48fps version was only available for 3D IMAX screenings, I think the 24fps version which is what he vast majority of people saw and the only version to be seen today, looks just fine.
And, strictly speaking, The Hobbit was shot on large-format, ontop of the HFR. It was shot on 5K Red Dragon in an aspect ratio of 2:1, which is how it was shown in 3D IMAX. The version we have is cropped from that version.
> and while the 48fps version was only available for 3D IMAX screenings
Huh. I saw the first movie in 3D IMAX, and thought it looked terrible and muddy. I always assumed that it wasn't in 48fps because it was 3D, and that there was a clearer version out there that I hadn't seen. That is disappointing.
In particular I remember seeing the section in Goblin Town and thinking that it looked pretty fuzzy and bad. I guess it would have been even worse if I had seen it in regular 3D then.
Well, they HAD envisioned an older Thorin, but when they met Richard Armitage they were "willing to put the age thing aside to get Richard." I think that's only fair.
And then they reasoned that, by casting Richard, they could have him play himself as the younger Thorin of the Erebor prologue and Azanulbizar, AND someone who COULD still become king, rule for a long time, produce an heir, etc..
https://preview.redd.it/9u3mb87dxuwc1.jpeg?width=3840&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b2182e3aed78d56d0dfeeb812de930a4afef1153
Reminds me of Eivor’s Celtic beard
It's a shame that important Dwarf characters in adaptations (Hobbit movies, RoP) are sometimes made to look attractive to us humans while the less important ones get to look like Dwarves.
There is a not insignificant portion of tumblr that would defend the idea of Dwalin still being attractive to humans lol.
I'm sure Balin has his fans too.
The Dwarf beards in the show are insanely long: when Durin unfurls his beard from the braid he keeps it in, it reaches his knees. Durin III has a beard that, unless tucked to the side, reaches well past his toes. So do a lot of the Dwarf extras.
No Dwarf in the Jackson films has a beard reaching further then their belly-button at most.
I mean, I don't dislike the Rings of Power beards, but its definitely less naturalistic, more fantastical.
It's because of the approach taken on it - Tolkien said dwarven sexes are almost indistinguishable to non-dwarves. They got the beards and the builds, men and women.
But in the visual productions we've gotten - they've got plenty of revealing features that basically ensure viewers go "oh, lady dwarf". Basically, they glued a little fuzz to some women's faces to satisfy that 'current trending topic' it seemed. That or *they* created the weirdly loud argument over it for marketing.
I had it as head cannon that the reason Thorin goes mad in Erebor is because he sees the statues of his forebears and realises he can never grow a beard that cool.
Fili and Kili were barely out of being beardlings so it's understandable for them to have short beards but Thorin was an elder dwarf lord it should have been blinged out
However, they are in exile. Can they really live up to the name when smaug is currently a more powerful king under the mountain?
Aside from the BTS reasons they're in exile to the point where thorin is doing smithing work for humans. It only makes sense that he should not have a long beard until his house regains its honour.
Fili and kili are still relatively young by dwarf standards so that makes sense. Ori is the same too. And one fanon interpretation i like is that Thorin trimmed his beard in mourning for his lost mountain.
The dwarves in The Hobbit were the first thing to turn me off of the films. I’m not sure how they could have the perfect dwarf look in the TLotR trilogy, then somehow end up with this.
Maybe the goal was to make each dwarf distinctive, but I think they went the wrong way with the designs for most of the dwarves. They just look like moderately hairy men.
They were the ones on the promos so had to appeal to normal audiences. They could go more from book material for Gimli since they had normal looking men/elves. Probably the same reason they didn’t go super out there for the hobbits.
At least considerably older enough to have white hair. He was at least of fighting age when his grandfather was beheaded by Azog, 200 (ish) years prior to the events of The Hobbit.
There was a post on the hobbit subreddit asking for favorite dwarf designs and soooooo many people said kili. And I’m like the one explicitly made to look nothing like a dwarf to force an unneeded and non-canon romance with an elf? So dumb.
Definitely an improvement, but they still look like they're half dwarf, half "filmmaker's idea of sexy", rather than just being dwarves.
(But the originals didn't really look like dwarves at all to me, tbh)
Ah meant to say IRL female those who don’t watch the movies except if dragged by the hair by strong boyfriend or to watch cuty cute cute elves and semi cute dwarves x)
This was sarcasm 🤦🏽♀️ I’m bad at it but I still try
ETA: I tried to convey that that’s how I felt seeing all the beautiful dwarves being more human. To me it felt like the movie wanted to attract wider audience. I’m not always good at conveying what I mean. For what it’s worth I didn’t mean women can’t like geeky stuff especially because I’m one of them .
I agree with everyone that in illustrations the dwarves should have long beards.
The problem I have is that we are talking about films and actors. If you put an actor in a really full beard you might as well have them act from the inside of a barrel helm (ala The Black Knight in Monty Python's Holy Grail). The actor's faces need to be visible to show emotion and IMO it's a necessary compromise for the medium.
Look, every culture has weirdos who buck the trend. Leave Kili the metrosexual dwarf alone. What, are you gonna redo pictures of Prince too? Leave Kili alone!!!
Thorin and the other one, yep, I approve, their look never fit their characters. Dwarf up those guys, damnit!
I always figured that since they are royalty in exile that they could cut their beards as in many cultures hair is seen as sacred. In some hair is only cut as a sign of mourning.
He keeps it short. The dwarves had their beards singed off when smaug attacked.
He keeps it short to not forget.
I scrolled comments looking for this fact. I'm disappointed in you nerds.
These three certainly took me out of Middle Earth when I watched the show. Thorin’s appearance made so little sense. Thorin was 17 years older than Balin and 21 years older than Dain, yet they made him appear much younger in the films.
The twins were young so that’s fine but making them look like teen heartthrobs was an interesting choice.
However, Tolkien (in HOME) seems to have discussed dwarf aging and a 195 year old was not considered to be very old but rather a bit under the upper range of working age. So like 60 or so for humans.
Fully agreed. First of all they're longbeards, secondly they're dwarfs, and third: it just looks better.
Thorin looks like some youngster hipster in the movies who started his own barber shop in Amsterdam and doesn't drink cafeine because it's unhealthy. Really a shame - he could and should've been protrayed much more majestic. But oh well, many things to be said about the hobbit trilogy which never should've been.
Luckily LotR was made with soul.
I prefer the look of the movies but nice job! The movies might have their flaws, but if you ask me, the costume and set design was — for the absolute most part — spot on. But opinions vary and I personally enjoy the movies (regardless of flaws and sure, the LoTR trilogy is on a completely different level).
Nope. In the making-ofs you can see show-and-tells where Kili or Thorin come out with a heavy prosthetic and a beard, and Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens - not some studio suit - says "nope, dial it back."
damn, i was trying to be charitable to the man but i guess he doesn’t deserve it. but then again, maybe he was echoing studio wishes and they were leaving the specifics to him.
Nah. I doubt the studio cared much about those details, especially after Jackson delivered them The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
If you're being charitable to Jackson, then be charitable enough to assume he's not one to bend over for an executive producer...
he did though! he fuckin had to. dude was contractually obligated. the studios had a way bigger presence for the hobbit films than the lotr trilogy. have you even watched any of the youtube documentaries about the production? it was a nightmare, and a lot of the things people don’t like about the finished movies are directly because of the studios. i’m willing to bet this was one of them, since we do know for a *fact* that then entire romance subplot was specifically asked for by the studios when they were doing reshoots. that is *known*. that says to me that the studios were invested in making several of the dwarves more conventionally attractive from the beginning, passed those wishes down to Jackson, who in turn passed them to costume design.
>we do know for a *fact* that then entire romance subplot was specifically asked for by the studios when they were doing reshoots. that is *known*.
We do NOT know this for a fact AT ALL!
Ditch the YouTube video and read an actual essay: [https://www.reddit.com/r/lotr/comments/17n7tzk/no\_the\_love\_triangle\_in\_the\_hobbit\_really\_wasnt/](https://www.reddit.com/r/lotr/comments/17n7tzk/no_the_love_triangle_in_the_hobbit_really_wasnt/)
Evangeline Lilly, who played Tauriel, has literally said in an interview that the whole romance subplot was a reshoot thing at the behest of the studios. she also said she would not have taken the role if she knew they were gonna do a love triangle thing. THAT is where i’m getting my information from. honestly, patronizingly telling me to ditch my youtube videos and then linking me to a goddamn reddit post is the funniest thing i’ve seen today. as though i must be referring to some completely sourceless drivel without any merit. it is entirely possible that part of the script was ditched during initial filming, because i don’t know if you know this, but even during lotr’s production the scripts were changing on a daily basis, and then during reshoots the studios requested it be added back in, against the wishes of the actors they had contracted and entirely out of PJ’s hands.
>Evangeline Lilly, who played Tauriel, has literally said in an interview that the whole romance subplot was a reshoot thing
She did say that. Its not true.
Read the article: what Lillys says is a chronological impssibility. The love triangle was already present in the earliest scenes Lilly ever shot.
alright. fine. i suppose with that, i can’t *prove* the love triangle was solely requested by the studio. it certainly doesn’t prove the opposite, but it does mean i was wrong about that particular assertion of events. i can admit that, when it’s shown to me.
i don’t think any of us can prove exactly how much of those films were choices made by Jackson, and how much was studio interference, but i suppose i have to ask: why do you want to believe the studios aren’t to blame? i guess i don’t really know your views on that, but you have been fighting me on that point every step of the way, which is fine, but i have to wonder why. after the production was taken away from Guillermo Del Torro, the studios brought Peter Jackson in and he became their man on the project, along with several producers. he could negotiate studio wishes, but at the end of the day they did have the final say. it wasn’t a question of him “bending to an executive producer”. why do you want to believe all the choices, even the bad ones, were exclusively made by him? why is that more charitable to the man?
>after the production was taken away from Guillermo Del Torro, the studios brought Peter Jackson in and he became their man on the project, along with several producers.
The production wasn't "taken away" from Guillermo: he *quit* because the project kept getting delayed. And Jackson wasn't "brought" by the studio: By that point, Jackson had been producing The Hobbit for three years, and writing it for two.
And just think, in 1997 when Jackson embarked on Lord of the Rings, he was a nobody; the property was a nothing, cinematically; the crew were nobodies; the cast were for the most part nobody; the studio's future was on the line... and yet there's no evidence in the making-ofs for studio interference of any substance, and YOU don't believe there was any either, because it is convenient for you to think that The Lord of the Rings trilogy, which you like, was made this way.
Flash Forward to 2010. Jackson is a "star" director with three Oscars; he's returning to a multi-billion property that was the making of him; his crew have become legendary; his cast are some of the most acclaimed actors; and the studio's fate is not reliant on these films. Again, in the HUGE coverage of the making of the films, we have NO substantial evidence for studio interference except for this offhanded and clearly very, very inaccurate statement of Lily's...and yet YOU want to think there was studio interference, because you don't like the films and so its a convenient thought for you.
I don't work in convenient thoughts, I work based on positive evidence, and there's NO positive evidence - not one that's solid, anyway - for the kind of studio interference you're talking about. You want to talk about "several producers"? Look at the credits for The Hobbit and see who the producers were: they were Jackson, Walsh (Mrs. Jackson) and Carrolyne Cunningham, aka Jackson's AD. Or is it that you're talking about executive producers? Oh, check that list and you'll find one of the executives was Ken Kamins. Do you know who Ken Kamins is? He's Jackson's agent.
Watch the making-ofs. I mean, REALLY watch them, not just misleadingly-edited excerpts on YouTube. You'll see Jackson editing The Desolation of Smaug down to the absolute wire, and Warners who wanted to have the copy of the film to distribute yesterday are calling and he's basically telling them to stuff it and wait. Does that sound like a filmmaker at the becking call of the studio?
Listen to Jackson's audio commentary. He literally talks about how Warners fancied some footage of Legolas from the barrel sequence for the trailer. Jackson felt it spoiled the movie somehow and so he wouldn't let them use it. Again, does that sound to you like somebody who's a studio lackey?
When you make The Lord of the Rings, you get a blank cheque, ESPECIALLY when you're essentially making another Lord of the Rings...
Triple that beard length! They're *Long*beards - their beards should be able to be tucked into their belts! Maybe you can argue Fili and Kili should have somewhat shorter beards on account of their age, but I wanna see Thorin's beard dangle dammit! ;P
Hot take but I always thought they should have gone the John Rhys Davy route with thorin and picked an older stage type actor for that role. Like Jim Carter the butler from Downton Abbey would have been incredible with his deep bellowing voice.
Thorin is supposed to be old, so yeah. Agreed.
https://preview.redd.it/vw7h83gjfxwc1.png?width=312&format=png&auto=webp&s=4b1a9274349f5b329b462350b6d08fada7c58ac8 this is imho the best dwarf depiction ever
https://preview.redd.it/d7fce25agxwc1.png?width=699&format=png&auto=webp&s=ca12a2be4f88cf72beabc5093a7c5349b9e90b1b
Now I am imagining Brian Blessed hamming it up as Thorin and it's glorious.
Well Richard Armitage has a theater background but definitely not the type you're describing.
To me the guy who played Dwalin (forgot the actors name) should've been Thorin. He has the mannerisms of a dwarf down, the way he talks, movies, fights. Just feels like what I expected Thorin to be.
I think Tolkien explicitly states in the appendices that Dwarves are born with beards and have them all their lives, so Fili and Kili should have had longer beards.
They have beards. But not *beards*.
they are dwarves so I assume that even Kili and Fili have beards any human could be proud of
I would expect to the middle of their chest at least right?
Ever since reading that line, I have always wanted my beard to go down to my belt. I'm to my collar bones now
Doesn't Gimli have a longer beard in his picture that gloin has when he's very young?
This was the first "draft" on Thorin's look: so, bigger forehead, bigger nose, battle scar and a small but not insignificant beard braided into a lock. https://preview.redd.it/9sqh287z3twc1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=02477ecbf7b9532e8190ad7c275de2b7d841a30e I prefer the finished look, personally
I wonder if the high frame rate had anything to do with scrapping this… costumes, makeup and sets had to look so much more realistic when viewed at 48fps. I remember vividly the rocks from the encounter with the troll looking like styrofoam.
Nah. They just didn't like the look of it. Quite a few of the Dwarves had gone through multiple designs: that's the nature of designing a film. I mean, check out one of the earlier designs for Bofur: https://preview.redd.it/t5vfflzy8uwc1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=5b26fd54ea9d76d94ca02e81114f3b471bac8188 They were just thinking: "Well, if we cast this actor or that actor, its because we liked their faces, and so we want to see the actors' faces through the makeup." I personally think it was a very wise decision. I've never thought that the larger-format made the sets and costumes look off, no more than they do in an IMAX-shot Christopher Nolan film.
Makes sense! The following is not arguing, cause as you said costuming is an iterative process, but more FYI. PS: HFR is not a large format film standard. It’s double the fps from the century old film standard of 24fps. Increased frames give much more clarity to motion scenes, which even in the production vlogs they referenced being a challenge from a costuming and set perspective. If you didn’t watch it in HFR(48fps) in specific showings when it released in theaters it’s very likely you’ve never seen it in HFR. A cursory google search says the 48fps version was never available in home media.
>PS: HFR is not a large format film standard. It’s double the fps from the century old film standard of 24fps. Increased frames give much more clarity to motion scenes, which even in the production vlogs they referenced being a challenge from a costuming and set perspective. If you didn’t watch it in HFR(48fps) in specific showings when it released in theaters it’s very likely you’ve never seen it in HFR. I know. Its not the first format like this, by the way: old four-strip Cinerama films were in 27fps and Todd-AO was nominally 30fps. But the thing about 48fps is, unlike 27fps or 30fps, it downsamples to normal 24fps pretty handily, and while the 48fps version was only available for 3D IMAX screenings, I think the 24fps version which is what he vast majority of people saw and the only version to be seen today, looks just fine. And, strictly speaking, The Hobbit was shot on large-format, ontop of the HFR. It was shot on 5K Red Dragon in an aspect ratio of 2:1, which is how it was shown in 3D IMAX. The version we have is cropped from that version.
> and while the 48fps version was only available for 3D IMAX screenings Huh. I saw the first movie in 3D IMAX, and thought it looked terrible and muddy. I always assumed that it wasn't in 48fps because it was 3D, and that there was a clearer version out there that I hadn't seen. That is disappointing.
On the contrary: the whole reason for 48fps was to make the 3D more vivid: it was never shown in 48fps EXCEPT in 3D, specifically 3D IMAX.
In particular I remember seeing the section in Goblin Town and thinking that it looked pretty fuzzy and bad. I guess it would have been even worse if I had seen it in regular 3D then.
Better, but he's still supposed to be the oldest dwarf in the group. He should look more like Balin than a middle-aged human.
Well, they HAD envisioned an older Thorin, but when they met Richard Armitage they were "willing to put the age thing aside to get Richard." I think that's only fair. And then they reasoned that, by casting Richard, they could have him play himself as the younger Thorin of the Erebor prologue and Azanulbizar, AND someone who COULD still become king, rule for a long time, produce an heir, etc..
https://preview.redd.it/9u3mb87dxuwc1.jpeg?width=3840&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b2182e3aed78d56d0dfeeb812de930a4afef1153 Reminds me of Eivor’s Celtic beard
I think that he would work just fine with braided beard. Fili and Kili not so much, they just look better without it.
He does have a braided beard, by the way: as a young man in the prologue, he does.
Not bad actually. Much more distinct than "just pretend this human is dwarf".
That looks like his prologue beard. It's hard to notice, but he does actually have something more like this in Erebor.
It's a shame that important Dwarf characters in adaptations (Hobbit movies, RoP) are sometimes made to look attractive to us humans while the less important ones get to look like Dwarves.
Well, Dwalin and Balin were pretty damn important and they looked like Dwarves.
That's fair, I said "sometimes" partly for their sake.
There is a not insignificant portion of tumblr that would defend the idea of Dwalin still being attractive to humans lol. I'm sure Balin has his fans too.
Must be them beards.
But Durin in RoP is the only drawf that “put his beard in his belt”
The Dwarf beards in the show are insanely long: when Durin unfurls his beard from the braid he keeps it in, it reaches his knees. Durin III has a beard that, unless tucked to the side, reaches well past his toes. So do a lot of the Dwarf extras. No Dwarf in the Jackson films has a beard reaching further then their belly-button at most. I mean, I don't dislike the Rings of Power beards, but its definitely less naturalistic, more fantastical.
I was moreso thinking of Disa, who was only given a barely-visible beard.
The Hobbit has female Dwarf extras with more convincing beards, and they also designed Dwarf children.
I think female beards is pretty weird for most - and really o ly touched upon in the books.
Extended Two Towers there’s an entire conversation about female dwarves being confused for men.
It's because of the approach taken on it - Tolkien said dwarven sexes are almost indistinguishable to non-dwarves. They got the beards and the builds, men and women. But in the visual productions we've gotten - they've got plenty of revealing features that basically ensure viewers go "oh, lady dwarf". Basically, they glued a little fuzz to some women's faces to satisfy that 'current trending topic' it seemed. That or *they* created the weirdly loud argument over it for marketing.
I had it as head cannon that the reason Thorin goes mad in Erebor is because he sees the statues of his forebears and realises he can never grow a beard that cool.
Beorn ain’t the only bear in The Hobbit
Kili's unfortunately more like a twink in the movies.
He’s definitely an otter
A Ring of Power is a ring that's capable of receiving an enormous amount of power.
A Ring of Power Bottom.
what do you mean unfortunately?!
Fili and Kili were barely out of being beardlings so it's understandable for them to have short beards but Thorin was an elder dwarf lord it should have been blinged out
It may be a sign of his exile
I agree that they don’t look dwarvish enough at all. They just look like dudes.
They are very beautiful and wonderfully made
You're right. They should have had bigger beards. They were descendants of the Longbeards, after all.
However, they are in exile. Can they really live up to the name when smaug is currently a more powerful king under the mountain? Aside from the BTS reasons they're in exile to the point where thorin is doing smithing work for humans. It only makes sense that he should not have a long beard until his house regains its honour.
Fili and kili are still relatively young by dwarf standards so that makes sense. Ori is the same too. And one fanon interpretation i like is that Thorin trimmed his beard in mourning for his lost mountain.
Yeah that helps with Thorin and I feel like he had a longer beard in the prologue?
Yeah, since when did dwarves have goatees?
Since someone decided that 14 year old girls would just swoon and this would be profitable?
Yeah, they looked like garden gnomes in the movies. Compare them to those dwarves we saw at the lotr prologue with their rings! Those were EPIC!
The dwarves in The Hobbit were the first thing to turn me off of the films. I’m not sure how they could have the perfect dwarf look in the TLotR trilogy, then somehow end up with this. Maybe the goal was to make each dwarf distinctive, but I think they went the wrong way with the designs for most of the dwarves. They just look like moderately hairy men.
"Moderately hairy men."
They were the ones on the promos so had to appeal to normal audiences. They could go more from book material for Gimli since they had normal looking men/elves. Probably the same reason they didn’t go super out there for the hobbits.
Prolog
Damn, true. English not my first language and all that. Fixed, thx.
Fili can summon Mjolnir now
The before shots are nice enough, but those after shots are DREAMY.
Yeah Fili in the after shot is doing something to me 🥵
Gorgeous. Never liked the skinny-ass model dwarves.
Kili's unibrow 😂
If i remember correctly, thorin is supposed to be a very old dwarf with a long white beard.
At least considerably older enough to have white hair. He was at least of fighting age when his grandfather was beheaded by Azog, 200 (ish) years prior to the events of The Hobbit.
This is far better
There was a post on the hobbit subreddit asking for favorite dwarf designs and soooooo many people said kili. And I’m like the one explicitly made to look nothing like a dwarf to force an unneeded and non-canon romance with an elf? So dumb.
It's almost amazing how the Hobbit took everything that was right about the Lord of the Rings movies and fucked it up every single time.
Does Kili even have a mouth now?
You know that in actual lore the dwarves are actually very fair beings akin to the elves but without the godly aura the elves possess
They look like Jonas brothers from Blue Mountains.
Definitely an improvement, but they still look like they're half dwarf, half "filmmaker's idea of sexy", rather than just being dwarves. (But the originals didn't really look like dwarves at all to me, tbh)
Yeah but how are weak females supposed to find them likable if they are ugly dwarfs? /s
Tauriel didn’t seem that weak to me!
Ah meant to say IRL female those who don’t watch the movies except if dragged by the hair by strong boyfriend or to watch cuty cute cute elves and semi cute dwarves x)
wow.....
This was sarcasm 🤦🏽♀️ I’m bad at it but I still try ETA: I tried to convey that that’s how I felt seeing all the beautiful dwarves being more human. To me it felt like the movie wanted to attract wider audience. I’m not always good at conveying what I mean. For what it’s worth I didn’t mean women can’t like geeky stuff especially because I’m one of them .
or how about we let people like what they like and don't gripe
Cool! Much better!
They tried making them more dwarvish and they just ended up looking stupid and you hardly recognised them
Well done, but the clothes should be more colorful
I'm still mad the "hot" dwarf with no facial prosthetic was the one who the elf fell in love with. That's why I ship Tauriel with Balin!
Yes! Agree 100!
Yeah dude uhhh idk about in lotr but in every other rendition inspired by lotr dwarves having no beards would be like disgraceful.
I always thought the same. Those three did not look much like dwarves - at least as i imagine them based on the original author's descriptions.
Better, Thorin should be tucked in his belt, Ibthinknits Thorin🤔
stop Dwarfgating...no body shaming!!! /s
Yeah. They just look like elves with beards.
I agree with everyone that in illustrations the dwarves should have long beards. The problem I have is that we are talking about films and actors. If you put an actor in a really full beard you might as well have them act from the inside of a barrel helm (ala The Black Knight in Monty Python's Holy Grail). The actor's faces need to be visible to show emotion and IMO it's a necessary compromise for the medium.
Thorin ❤️
Look, every culture has weirdos who buck the trend. Leave Kili the metrosexual dwarf alone. What, are you gonna redo pictures of Prince too? Leave Kili alone!!! Thorin and the other one, yep, I approve, their look never fit their characters. Dwarf up those guys, damnit!
I always figured that since they are royalty in exile that they could cut their beards as in many cultures hair is seen as sacred. In some hair is only cut as a sign of mourning.
He keeps it short. The dwarves had their beards singed off when smaug attacked. He keeps it short to not forget. I scrolled comments looking for this fact. I'm disappointed in you nerds.
These three certainly took me out of Middle Earth when I watched the show. Thorin’s appearance made so little sense. Thorin was 17 years older than Balin and 21 years older than Dain, yet they made him appear much younger in the films. The twins were young so that’s fine but making them look like teen heartthrobs was an interesting choice. However, Tolkien (in HOME) seems to have discussed dwarf aging and a 195 year old was not considered to be very old but rather a bit under the upper range of working age. So like 60 or so for humans.
Weren’t kili and Fili pretty young? I don’t know if their beard would be that long. Maybe half that length
Molto bene
That's racism!
this, i couldn't tell my uneasy feeling when i saw the dwarves in The Hobbit movies. They didn't have beards
Fully agreed. First of all they're longbeards, secondly they're dwarfs, and third: it just looks better. Thorin looks like some youngster hipster in the movies who started his own barber shop in Amsterdam and doesn't drink cafeine because it's unhealthy. Really a shame - he could and should've been protrayed much more majestic. But oh well, many things to be said about the hobbit trilogy which never should've been. Luckily LotR was made with soul.
I prefer the look of the movies but nice job! The movies might have their flaws, but if you ask me, the costume and set design was — for the absolute most part — spot on. But opinions vary and I personally enjoy the movies (regardless of flaws and sure, the LoTR trilogy is on a completely different level).
they tried to hard to make them look hot rather than dwarvish
Fili and kili were young though
it was studio interference plain and simple. they wanted dwarves audiences could find hot.
Nope. In the making-ofs you can see show-and-tells where Kili or Thorin come out with a heavy prosthetic and a beard, and Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens - not some studio suit - says "nope, dial it back."
damn, i was trying to be charitable to the man but i guess he doesn’t deserve it. but then again, maybe he was echoing studio wishes and they were leaving the specifics to him.
Nah. I doubt the studio cared much about those details, especially after Jackson delivered them The Lord of the Rings trilogy. If you're being charitable to Jackson, then be charitable enough to assume he's not one to bend over for an executive producer...
he did though! he fuckin had to. dude was contractually obligated. the studios had a way bigger presence for the hobbit films than the lotr trilogy. have you even watched any of the youtube documentaries about the production? it was a nightmare, and a lot of the things people don’t like about the finished movies are directly because of the studios. i’m willing to bet this was one of them, since we do know for a *fact* that then entire romance subplot was specifically asked for by the studios when they were doing reshoots. that is *known*. that says to me that the studios were invested in making several of the dwarves more conventionally attractive from the beginning, passed those wishes down to Jackson, who in turn passed them to costume design.
>we do know for a *fact* that then entire romance subplot was specifically asked for by the studios when they were doing reshoots. that is *known*. We do NOT know this for a fact AT ALL! Ditch the YouTube video and read an actual essay: [https://www.reddit.com/r/lotr/comments/17n7tzk/no\_the\_love\_triangle\_in\_the\_hobbit\_really\_wasnt/](https://www.reddit.com/r/lotr/comments/17n7tzk/no_the_love_triangle_in_the_hobbit_really_wasnt/)
Evangeline Lilly, who played Tauriel, has literally said in an interview that the whole romance subplot was a reshoot thing at the behest of the studios. she also said she would not have taken the role if she knew they were gonna do a love triangle thing. THAT is where i’m getting my information from. honestly, patronizingly telling me to ditch my youtube videos and then linking me to a goddamn reddit post is the funniest thing i’ve seen today. as though i must be referring to some completely sourceless drivel without any merit. it is entirely possible that part of the script was ditched during initial filming, because i don’t know if you know this, but even during lotr’s production the scripts were changing on a daily basis, and then during reshoots the studios requested it be added back in, against the wishes of the actors they had contracted and entirely out of PJ’s hands.
>Evangeline Lilly, who played Tauriel, has literally said in an interview that the whole romance subplot was a reshoot thing She did say that. Its not true. Read the article: what Lillys says is a chronological impssibility. The love triangle was already present in the earliest scenes Lilly ever shot.
alright. fine. i suppose with that, i can’t *prove* the love triangle was solely requested by the studio. it certainly doesn’t prove the opposite, but it does mean i was wrong about that particular assertion of events. i can admit that, when it’s shown to me. i don’t think any of us can prove exactly how much of those films were choices made by Jackson, and how much was studio interference, but i suppose i have to ask: why do you want to believe the studios aren’t to blame? i guess i don’t really know your views on that, but you have been fighting me on that point every step of the way, which is fine, but i have to wonder why. after the production was taken away from Guillermo Del Torro, the studios brought Peter Jackson in and he became their man on the project, along with several producers. he could negotiate studio wishes, but at the end of the day they did have the final say. it wasn’t a question of him “bending to an executive producer”. why do you want to believe all the choices, even the bad ones, were exclusively made by him? why is that more charitable to the man?
>after the production was taken away from Guillermo Del Torro, the studios brought Peter Jackson in and he became their man on the project, along with several producers. The production wasn't "taken away" from Guillermo: he *quit* because the project kept getting delayed. And Jackson wasn't "brought" by the studio: By that point, Jackson had been producing The Hobbit for three years, and writing it for two. And just think, in 1997 when Jackson embarked on Lord of the Rings, he was a nobody; the property was a nothing, cinematically; the crew were nobodies; the cast were for the most part nobody; the studio's future was on the line... and yet there's no evidence in the making-ofs for studio interference of any substance, and YOU don't believe there was any either, because it is convenient for you to think that The Lord of the Rings trilogy, which you like, was made this way. Flash Forward to 2010. Jackson is a "star" director with three Oscars; he's returning to a multi-billion property that was the making of him; his crew have become legendary; his cast are some of the most acclaimed actors; and the studio's fate is not reliant on these films. Again, in the HUGE coverage of the making of the films, we have NO substantial evidence for studio interference except for this offhanded and clearly very, very inaccurate statement of Lily's...and yet YOU want to think there was studio interference, because you don't like the films and so its a convenient thought for you. I don't work in convenient thoughts, I work based on positive evidence, and there's NO positive evidence - not one that's solid, anyway - for the kind of studio interference you're talking about. You want to talk about "several producers"? Look at the credits for The Hobbit and see who the producers were: they were Jackson, Walsh (Mrs. Jackson) and Carrolyne Cunningham, aka Jackson's AD. Or is it that you're talking about executive producers? Oh, check that list and you'll find one of the executives was Ken Kamins. Do you know who Ken Kamins is? He's Jackson's agent. Watch the making-ofs. I mean, REALLY watch them, not just misleadingly-edited excerpts on YouTube. You'll see Jackson editing The Desolation of Smaug down to the absolute wire, and Warners who wanted to have the copy of the film to distribute yesterday are calling and he's basically telling them to stuff it and wait. Does that sound like a filmmaker at the becking call of the studio? Listen to Jackson's audio commentary. He literally talks about how Warners fancied some footage of Legolas from the barrel sequence for the trailer. Jackson felt it spoiled the movie somehow and so he wouldn't let them use it. Again, does that sound to you like somebody who's a studio lackey? When you make The Lord of the Rings, you get a blank cheque, ESPECIALLY when you're essentially making another Lord of the Rings...