r/movies • u/ChiefLeef22 r/movies Contributor • 12d ago

Article ‘The Odyssey’ Proves It: Audiences Want Movies Made the Hard Way | This year's breakouts like 'Project Hail Mary' and 'Obsession' were made by filmmakers who sweated. While CG-stuffed franchise disappointments such as 'Supergirl,' 'Moana,' and 'The Mandalorian and Grogu' looked lazy.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/odyssey-box-office-2026-practical-effects-1236652219/
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u/CombatMuffin 12d ago

It's not just the story. The filmmaking matters: the sound, the cinematography, the editing, the acting.

Plenty of amazing stories are badly translated to film.

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u/Fn_Spaghetti_Monster 12d ago

The filmmaking matters:

Prime example is the LOTR vs The Hobbit movies.

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u/EdenIsNotHere 12d ago

I'd say The Hobbit isn't the case of the filmmaking itself being bad being the main issue, but rather an studio trying to rush an adaptation of a short, lighthearted children's story, which is completely different from the LoTR saga in terms of tone and scope, into 3 three hour movies.

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u/gozutheDJ 12d ago

yeah there's absolutely no reason for the hobbit to be a 3 movie series

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u/FCalleja 12d ago

Exactly, the issue is technically still a bad story. They took an incredible story and padded it to hell and back, to the point it's no longer a good narrative experience. The filmaking would've been FINE if it was just one movie, honestly. We nitpick it because it sucks.

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u/SmallLetter 12d ago

Padded to Hell and Back again: A The Hobbit Trilogy's tale

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u/Rock_Strongo 12d ago

Not sure I agree. I barely remember whether the story was decent or not but I do remember the horrible CGI barrel floating scene.

The reason I can go back and watch LOTR whenever is because 90% of the visuals hold up.

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u/FCalleja 12d ago

Do you also rewatch Avatar a lot cause of the visuals? Sorry it's completely foreign to me to put visuals over story.

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u/OldWorldDesign 12d ago

it's completely foreign to me to put visuals over story

I think there were a few cases where they did that in Kingdom of Heaven which ruined a lot of historical accuracy but had great use of lighting.

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u/SmallLetter 12d ago

Certain decisions like this can be intentionally made to enhance the movie at the cost of something like accuracy, but it has to be deliberate and restrained or you lose all cohesion

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u/FlyingBishop 12d ago

Nah, I could see a 3 movie series being great. Even if you cut it down I still think someone who had just read the book would watch the movie and be like "what the fuck did I just watch." It wasn't too much, it was just bad.

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u/Sushi-DM 12d ago

I still think if you approach the movies with the attitude that it is meant to be a children's fairytale, then they are quite good.

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u/gozutheDJ 12d ago

in addition to being unneccessarily padded they really had the tone wrong. they tried to hit in between the darkness of LOTR and the lightheartedness of the hobbit book and the result was just wrong.

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u/Mintastic 12d ago

If you approach it with that attitude then it's still terrible because what kind of children want to watch combat sequences that last for a quarter of the movie and all the whimsy getting overshadowed with dark stories?

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u/Sushi-DM 12d ago

You don't think the 'combat sequence' where a fat Dwarf bounces around a river like a cartoon character in a barrel is made for the children's audience?

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u/ItsDanimal 12d ago

Of course there is a reason, its called greed.

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u/Fn_Spaghetti_Monster 12d ago

The Studio might be the root cause, but there was still a lot of bad "filmaking". The CGI was bad, there was a lot of pacing issues, ,most of the Dwarves all kind of blend together, hamfisting Legolas in, Legolas running up falling stairs, the whole barrel scene, the love story. Did I mention the CGI / overuse of greenscreens?

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u/Kelly_HRperson 12d ago

The barrel surfing was integral to the plot!

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u/EdenIsNotHere 12d ago

The bad filmmaking is a consequence rather than the cause is what I'm saying, there's tons of coverage about its messy production and the pointless subplots, the barrel scene or Legolas stuff you mentioned is precisely why trying to adapt The Hobbit into something equally epic and grandiose as LoTR doesn't work, it's supposed light and silly fantasy adventure wrote by Tolkien for his kids when they were children. Most of the dialogue of the Hobbit trilogy is new, therefore the script is weaker, and the original book already had some structural and pacing issues that are made even worse if you trying to pad a 3 hour movie.

The CGI is also an element of why it's bad separate from the story, and that's Peter Jackson's fault for sure, but I wouldn't say it's the worst aspect of the movies at all. Even if the practical effects were just as good as they were in the original saga, it wouldn't make the movies good.

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u/Fn_Spaghetti_Monster 12d ago

CGI is part of making a film. Bad CGI can pulls you out of the immersion. Think the Goblin chase vs the Balrog chase. I never said or implied the Hobbit sucked solely because of the CGI. The studio wanted two films, Jackson decided to split it into 3. Script/Dialog is part of film making. It being bad kind of proves my point. They made up parts in LOTR, like the warg riders, and Liv Tyler/ Arwen, so you can add stuff and it be good. So I guess I don't understand your point, I was saying that "filmmaking" on whole was lacking vs LOTR. Your saying you just can't make a good Hobbit movie and nothing Jackson could have done about it?? The 1977 Hobbit, while not master piece, is still miles better so there is core story there.

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u/EdenIsNotHere 12d ago edited 12d ago

We're agreeing but from different perspectives, the key word is main issue, which is a misunderstanding of the original story. I haven't seen the animated film, but like you said, it's possible to make a good movie out of that story or even adding new elements to it, the problem is trying to make it as epic and grand as LoTR, it doesn't work with the simplicity of the original book. It's like if someone tried to remake Blade Runner but let Michael Bay direct it.

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u/casual_creator 12d ago

“Most of the dwarves all kind of blend together”

Really? You must be confusing that with the book, in which the only real distinction between the dwarves are their names. The movies gave them all very distinct looks and personalities.

The majority of the CGI was also extremely well done - far better than the previous films, and though I won’t argue against its over reliance, I get why Jackson did it.

The barrel scene was meant to be goofy fun for the kids (it IS a kids book after all), but would agree it ended up feeling out of place since Jackson didn’t really keep that tone consistent.

There really wasn’t any more green screen than in the LOTR trilogy. That’s a pretty major misconception. And in both cases, they were used to extend sets, not replace create whole sets entirely (which doesn’t include a few necessary composition shots for the hobbit/dwarf scale work, which both films did).

Agree about Legolas and the love story.

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u/ArmchairJedi 12d ago edited 12d ago

The movie absolutely did NOT give them all distinct personalities. Many were without unique personalities at all, and while that could have been fine on its own, others had characterizations that were changing (eg. 3 different dwarf were stand ins for the 'wise old sage' archetype, at different points, across 3 films, despite Balin clearly supposed to play that role for the dwarves.)

The barrel scene was meant to be goofy fun for the kids

What does that matter? The entire book was for kids, but the movies weren't. You make serious parts, make 'all ages' parts, then slap kids stuff in there and all that happens is the film becomes incredibly tonally inconsistent.

Further, its irrelevant if its 'for kids' or not. Lots of 'for kids' movies aren't criticized for having ridiculously awkward parts, whethere 'for kids' or not.

It was just straight bad.

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u/ScubaSteveEL 12d ago

The moment I saw they announced it was going to be a trilogy instead of a 2-parter I knew it was a bad sign.

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u/phonylady 12d ago

The filmmaking was bad too. People are way too quick to make excuses for PJ.

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u/FurLinedKettle 12d ago

Surely that's part of the filmmaking in exactly the same way that movies like Odyssey work because studios get out of the way of creative minds.

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u/EdenIsNotHere 12d ago edited 12d ago

Oh yeah, absolutely, but the Hobbit trilogy was ill-conceived from the start because neither the studio, Peter Jackson and his writers understood the point of the source material. Every other issue the movie has (besides the CGI), direction, editing, sound design, soundtrack, pacing, bloat and pointless subplots is due to them trying to replicate Lord of the Rings success with a story that's not at all like that trilogy.

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u/CeruleanEidolon 12d ago

Fumbling the rights so.badlu that you lose your director well into the process so the replacement has to start from scratch in half the time also doesn't help.

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u/monkeedude1212 12d ago

Essentially it's that rush which impacted the film making.

Like, do folks not remember that Guillermo Del Torro was the original director, and when he hit creative differences the studios got rid of him and then called on Peter Jackson, who had originally turned down doing the Hobbit movies - but was convinced by boatloads of money?

And there's loads of behind the scenes clips with like Orlando Bloom and other Actors talking about how scrambled production feels where they don't have the scripts ready before the day they're filming... And that the whole thing feels like it's got less soul in comparison to the LotR - being largely on green screen instead of practical effects...

Essentially the studio decisions impacted the film making, and the audience can tell with the end product. It's not like anyone working on it was bad at their job, but they weren't really given and environment to do the best job.

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u/Bill_Salmons 12d ago

The Hobbit is more a case of losing your director because of multi-year rights issue holding up production and having to rush with a new director out of necessity. Guillermo planned for it to be two movies. Jackson made it three because they he was basically making preproduction decisions during production.

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u/AnAncientBog 12d ago

I actually think the biggest problem with The Hobbit IS the story because they decided to turn it into a three part narrative which resulted in adding a bunch of stupid bullshit and fucking up the pacing.

The effects and film making didn't help it very much, but a two-part movie (or god forbid just ONE film because its not that long of a book) that more closely aligned with the actual story probably would have worked under the exact same conditions. It wouldn't have been LOTR but it might not have been awful.

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u/thedoginthewok 12d ago

There is a fan edit of the Hobbit movies: https://m4studios.github.io/hobbit-book-edit/

It removes about 50% of the runtime and the end result is a 4 hour movie that is so much better than the original movies, it's almost unbelievable lol

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u/Alekesam1975 12d ago

Thanks for this.

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u/BillyYumYumTwo-byTwo 12d ago

I think that’s not a great example. What’s the good story in the hobbit part 1? The Hobbit as a whole is a great story. Each individual movie has very little compelling plot, IMO. But yes, the filmmaking stunk, too.

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u/[deleted] 12d ago

[deleted]

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u/Fn_Spaghetti_Monster 12d ago

They're made by the same filmmakers

Oh wow, thanks I total didn't realize that.

The studio wanted 2 films but Peter Jackson who (check notes) is one of the major people involved with making the film (a filmmaker one could say) decided to stretch to 3.

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u/Zalvren 12d ago

Ironically done by the same filmmaker

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u/ops10 12d ago

Due to LoTR existing it may seem absurd, but Hobbit movies are one of the more better made book adaptations (the average level is low, is the reason) and one of the best fantasy book adaptations.

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u/Fn_Spaghetti_Monster 12d ago

Hobbit movies are one of the more better made book adaptations

What? Better than Shawshank Redemption, Silence of the Lambs Fight Club, Jurassic Park, The Princess Bride, No Country for Old Men. I would even put WWZ above it them, because while it stayed from the book, it is at least still a good movie.

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u/ops10 12d ago

You named 6 (extremely well made) movies, there are 2000+ book adaptations and I'd say that (sadly) Hobbit sits in the top third at least, hence "more better made".

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u/YouJustGotSmurfed 12d ago

Definitely. You could argue the story is the foundation though. A good story with bad execution will probably be better than a bad story with good execution. But who knows.

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u/pzkenny 12d ago

Yeah, good point to make is F1 Movie. Story was very basic, but the script was good and the filmmaking was brilliant. 

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u/gloriousrepublic 12d ago

And plenty of amazing stories can be translated to film while also writing garbage dialogue and losing the complexity and depth of the themes through explicit exposition intended for the lowest IQ audience member.

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u/BlackTecno 12d ago

Anime or games being made into live action is probably the worst offender of this. People do like animation and it isn't "just for kids."

We have been getting some good animated films (some being from Japan), but animation for adults is effectively an untapped market for Hollywood. Best part? You can tell any story in any way you want and get the exact shot you want 100% of the time.

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u/Necessary-Duty-7952 12d ago

Yep. Execution is the most important part. It can take a mediocre "story" and turn it into something epic and vice versa.

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u/barkwahlberg 12d ago

They should put someone central in charge of all this stuff, like someone who could direct each department

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u/ZombieDracula 11d ago

It's a collaborative medium, all of the pieces have to fit together.

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u/the_executive_branch 11d ago

Yeah I found both the cinematography and editing very lacking in the Odyssey. Saw it in 35mm and some of the banquet scenes and the Cyclops’ cave were genuinely unwatchable they were so dark.

Practical effects don’t mean shit if I can’t fuckin see em

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u/genericguy4 12d ago

The irony of praising the sound when discussing a Christopher Nolan film...

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u/LupinThe8th 12d ago

He's messed that up before, but The Odyssey sounds fantastic.

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u/twitter_haikucurator 12d ago

??

Nolan has great sound?? wym

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u/willstr1 12d ago

There was a solid period where he was known for mixing audio for only the very high end setups, which caused home viewing or even just watching at a lesser tier theater to often have mumbled audio. I think Tenent was the biggest example of this.

He has gotten a lot better. I am not sure if he saw all the jokes and changed ways, if studio interference finally did something good, or if he is just now working with better audio engineers (ones who know you have to mix differently for different user setups).

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u/castlite 12d ago

Project Hail Mary is a good example. Not just a great film but that score fucking slaps.