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The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Learn English with this movie English lesson

Date: Feb 15 2013

Themes: Pop Culture

Grammar: Adjectives

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Intro

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2. Read and Prepare - Read the introduction and prepare to hear the audio.

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Any list of the best trilogies of all time includes The Lord of The Rings. These hugely successful films are a tough act to follow, but filmmaker Peter Jackson decided to try with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

The film is the first of three prequels set in Middle Earth 60 years before The Lord of the Rings. But the technology used is far more futuristic. The images are very high definition, and the film even shows twice as many frames per second as a normal movie.

Some say this technology makes classic characters like Gollum more real. Others think all the detail actually reveals flaws in the film and makes it seem fake. Jason loves The Hobbit, but Vanessa isn’t so sure about it. Listen to them discuss the film in this English lesson.

Dialog

1. Listen and Read - Listen to the audio and read the dialog at the same time.

2. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.

Jason

Vanessa

Jason: Do you want to go see The Hobbit? I’ve been waiting to see it for what seems like forever. I’m so excited.

Vanessa: I actually saw it last week and you know, I wasn’t too crazy about it.

Jason: What? How could it not be good? The Lord of the Rings, the whole trilogy was amazing.

Vanessa: They were. I loved The Lord of the Rings trilogy, but I found in this movie…You know how they’ve been talking about the really crazy high-definition technology?

Jason: Yeah, I guess everything was state of the art for this movie.

Vanessa: It almost made it look worse somehow.

Jason: What? How?

Vanessa: Well, the movie just seemed like you could tell they were costumes and instead of making the pictures look more real and exciting, the high definition actually revealed the flaws and the fact that it wasn’t real.

Jason: Wow. So it’s so clear you can almost just see behind the scenes.

Vanessa: Yeah. It almost just looks like…It almost makes everything more fake. It’s very bizarre. It’s not what you would think, but I felt distracted by that.

Jason: Maybe I’ll just not wear my glasses when I go.

Vanessa: That might help.

Grammar Point

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Quizzes

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Discussion

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Since he is a big Lord of the Rings fan, Jason wants to go see The Hobbit. He is surprised to learn that Vanessa already saw the movie and didn’t like it.

She says that the futuristic technology used to make the film created a picture that was so high definition it revealed flaws. The state of the art images distracted her. She was thinking about what was going on behind the scenes instead of watching the movie.

Jason suggests maybe if he watches the movie without his glasses on, it will fix Vanessa’s problem.

Do you like the Lord of the Rings movies? Do you think high-definition technology can be distracting sometimes?

Comments

mahbubeh92

Iran, Islamic Republic Of

wow i love the movie .i watched it and enjoyed and also i watched the second part.it was fantastic i’d rather watching such movies instead of movies like LUCY.

and also i am intersted in knowing what was going on behind the scenes.

hey_sherry

China

i didnt see it ,is it really wonderful?

mehdimansiz

Iran, Islamic Republic Of

I saw ‘The Hobbit’ & I like it

JessicaBoonee

South Korea

Could be distracting.

However, we are always in the process of going towards the state of the art technology.

What’s important is how we get impressed by that.

I think people often like it when the technology really moves human.

Englishty

Egypt

Actually no i don’t think high-definition technology is distracting to me, quite the opposite, The more the merrier.

seungmanlee68

South Korea

I’m not good at seeing a high-definition technology movie. Sometimes I used to enjoing a drama like a Friends which is an American sitcom created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, which aired on NBC from September 22, 1994 to May 6, 2004. In my opinion, It’s more fun and friendly than that of Lord of the Rings. If any movies and dramas cannot give a clear message to audiences because of high-definition technology, the value for which I choose movies will not be there. And also, a high-definition technology movie is not always good. It sometimes distracts our interest and intension about movies due to abusing visual effect.

pirate006

Turkey

i love smeagol:)

julito

Argentina

The buzz today is The Hobbit and Jason was not immune to it, but it looks as though Vannesa threw a bucket of cold water at Jason by telling him that the technology has flaws . Poor Jason , I don´t think that he will ever invite her to a movie again. lol

kavir1387

Iran, Islamic Republic Of

its a good and i love it

but lord of rings was unique and very very good

kareem_10

Egypt

well..with all due respect for “The lord of the ring” lovers..I don’t really think it’s that good!!!..and I haven’t seen “The Hobbit” yet..but I’m not very excited about this kind of films..!!!

As far as I’m concerned, High-Definition Tech. (HDT) is awesome..I don’t need something to tell me that the film is unreal or that there are some flaws in it..I already know these stuff..but I don’t let that put my mind away from the film….there are more important things in the film to focus on..!!!

Fernandinha

Brazil

I haven’t seen The Hobbit yet. And I am a big fan of high-definition technology. It surely doesn’t distract me.

moon1412

Saudi Arabia

hi ,everyone
good lesson

Wielomian

Poland

First of all I want to say that I don’t like Lord o f the Rings:) I know that somebody would like to kill me now for that, but I really don’t like Tolkien story. So I have seen only first part of trilogy, It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t incredible too. I have seen much more interesting films in my life:)

HD is now a standard. And I agree in this area with Cclearnenglish:P

This is a big problem of present people. They want to see beautyful images, HD videos, 3D movies, clear voices and so on… I almost no one cares about a plot. The same is for games. No matter what is the story, the most important is that graphics is incredible. That is sad.

In the end I would like to add that I am a big fan of futuristic technology in all branches of our life, but sometimes we should overlook on technology and focus on other staff. Don’t consider whether HD is good or not, just take a step deeper and think about plot and characters for example:)

Jawsome

Turkey

A spectacular movie to watch absolutely ;)

mojtaba

Iran, Islamic Republic Of

yes that is agreat movie about good and bad.I enjoyed from watch it

cclearnenglish

China

I don’t agree with the woman. The advantage of high definition pictures overtakes the fake feeling, which I don’t really understand because I never felt that way before.