5 ms·

I think the Poirot series is superb, but some of them suffer from stretching the runtime -- the best ones are about 51 minutes long, whereas the longer ones (wh

I think the Poirot series is superb, but some of them suffer from stretching the runtime -- the best ones are about 51 minutes long, whereas the longer ones (which includes all of the last few seasons) click in at 1 hour and 29 minutes, some of which are based on short stories, not novels. As delightful as Poirot and his mysteries are, these are also admittedly somewhat shallow, implausible puzzles that rely on acting and cozy English nostalgia to entertain, not deep characterization or touching character arcs. Stretched to two hours, there's often not enough meat to hold one's attention. David Suchet is a national treasure, though. I wish he would be in more movies and shows.

thaumasiotes 9y ago
> the longer ones (which includes all of the last few seasons) click in at 1 hour and 29 minutes, some of which are based on short stories, not novels. What matters is how much content there is in the episode. People have gotten the idea from Peter Jackson's awful, awful Hobbit movies that pages of source material are a restriction on how much movie you can make. But the problem there was that the movies were terrible, not that The Hobbit was shorter than a three-book series. Shrek is a 90 minute movie based off of a children's book of just 1,150 words. Nobody ever complained about the quality of Shrek.
- mathattack 9y ago
  After rereading the Hobbit, I wanted someone to arrest Peter Jackson for vandalism. It was such an awesome reread!
- oldandtired 9y ago
  A personal question to you: Why and in what particular ways do you consider Peter Jackson's renditions of the The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit to be so awful, awful? I have enjoyed by stories since I first came across them 40 years ago. I thought that Peter Jackson did an excellent job on retelling the story. In point of fact, retelling it in a way that keeps the essence but is a new variation. When I first obtained my copy of Lord of the Rings (which I still have), I read it 11 times in 8 months. I still read it when I get the urge. I have found that Peter Jackson has quite a different imaging of the story of the story compared to my own imagining and no less entertaining. I have had people complain about the "licence" he took in the retelling, about not being true to the original writing. However, a good story teller will add to and change a story to make it more effective for his telling. That is the essence of good story telling - how you choose to emphasise various elements.
  - thaumasiotes 9y ago
    > Why and in what particular ways do you consider Peter Jackson's renditions of the The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit to be so awful, awful? A question to you: when did I say anything about The Lord of the Rings?
    - oldandtired 9y ago
      Because Lord of the Rings is no less one of the Hobbit movies.
      - thaumasiotes 9y ago
        You're staking out some pretty strange territory, if you think it's wrong to refer to the movies based on The Hobbit as "the Hobbit movies". The Lord of the Rings movies are not the Hobbit movies at all, not being related to The Hobbit.
  - kmonsen 9y ago
    I think the Peter Jackson of LOTR and the Peter Jackson from the hobbit must be two different directors. LOTR is a pretty good adaptation, a little bit too action oriented for my tastes but it is his adaption. The hobbit just feels stretched and with too many gimmicky scenes, IMHO of course. The strange part is that in some ways I like the hobbit better as a book.
    - spondyl 9y ago
      If you watch the production diaries, you'll see exactly what went wrong. tl;dr Guillermo del Toro was the original director with proper prep time and then Peter had to take over, without the prep time. He was winging it most of the time and making things up on the spot. You can literally hear the above from his own mouth: https://youtu.be/SQkygZdZ_Vk https://youtu.be/SQkygZdZ_Vk
      - kmonsen 9y ago
        Thanks!! That is like the most honest take I have heard, it is almost like they are a bit ashamed and want to explain what happened.
sg0 9y ago
I was just seeing "The Falcon and the Snowman" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087231/?ref_=nv_sr_1 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087231/?ref_=nv_sr_1) on Hulu, where David Suchet plays the wily Russian agent Alex (his father's side of family is originally from Russia, however in that movie his accent sounded quite British to me).

thaumasiotes 9y ago

> the longer ones (which includes all of the last few seasons) click in at 1 hour and 29 minutes, some of which are based on short stories, not novels. What matters is how much content there is in the episode. People have gotten the idea from Peter Jackson's awful, awful Hobbit movies that pages of source material are a restriction on how much movie you can make. But the problem there was that the movies were terrible, not that The Hobbit was shorter than a three-book series. Shrek is a 90 minute movie based off of a children's book of just 1,150 words. Nobody ever complained about the quality of Shrek.

mathattack 9y ago
After rereading the Hobbit, I wanted someone to arrest Peter Jackson for vandalism. It was such an awesome reread!
oldandtired 9y ago
A personal question to you: Why and in what particular ways do you consider Peter Jackson's renditions of the The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit to be so awful, awful? I have enjoyed by stories since I first came across them 40 years ago. I thought that Peter Jackson did an excellent job on retelling the story. In point of fact, retelling it in a way that keeps the essence but is a new variation. When I first obtained my copy of Lord of the Rings (which I still have), I read it 11 times in 8 months. I still read it when I get the urge. I have found that Peter Jackson has quite a different imaging of the story of the story compared to my own imagining and no less entertaining. I have had people complain about the "licence" he took in the retelling, about not being true to the original writing. However, a good story teller will add to and change a story to make it more effective for his telling. That is the essence of good story telling - how you choose to emphasise various elements.
- thaumasiotes 9y ago
  > Why and in what particular ways do you consider Peter Jackson's renditions of the The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit to be so awful, awful? A question to you: when did I say anything about The Lord of the Rings?
  - oldandtired 9y ago
    Because Lord of the Rings is no less one of the Hobbit movies.
    - thaumasiotes 9y ago
      You're staking out some pretty strange territory, if you think it's wrong to refer to the movies based on The Hobbit as "the Hobbit movies". The Lord of the Rings movies are not the Hobbit movies at all, not being related to The Hobbit.
- kmonsen 9y ago
  I think the Peter Jackson of LOTR and the Peter Jackson from the hobbit must be two different directors. LOTR is a pretty good adaptation, a little bit too action oriented for my tastes but it is his adaption. The hobbit just feels stretched and with too many gimmicky scenes, IMHO of course. The strange part is that in some ways I like the hobbit better as a book.
  - spondyl 9y ago
    If you watch the production diaries, you'll see exactly what went wrong. tl;dr Guillermo del Toro was the original director with proper prep time and then Peter had to take over, without the prep time. He was winging it most of the time and making things up on the spot. You can literally hear the above from his own mouth: https://youtu.be/SQkygZdZ_Vk https://youtu.be/SQkygZdZ_Vk
    - kmonsen 9y ago
      Thanks!! That is like the most honest take I have heard, it is almost like they are a bit ashamed and want to explain what happened.

sg0 9y ago

I was just seeing "The Falcon and the Snowman" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087231/?ref_=nv_sr_1 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087231/?ref_=nv_sr_1) on Hulu, where David Suchet plays the wily Russian agent Alex (his father's side of family is originally from Russia, however in that movie his accent sounded quite British to me).