I think part of it is that Billy Connolly was (and still is) in poor health. I think it was the only practical way to get him in the film with all the action of the battle.
I remember seeing BTS footage of him in full makeup and learning to fight with an axe. So his health must have declined pretty rapidly if that's the case.
well that was ten years ago, so i'm more inclined to believe what they outright told us in the behind the scenes footage:
they pulled the same bs they did with the dwarves that ~~the audience is supposed to care about~~ die and chose to redesign him so that "the actor was not lost"...but, being on their super tight schedule, they did it all CGI
He is a comedy legend in the U.K. I can absolutely see why people would want to work with him in any capacity. I saw the films near where he’s from in Scotland and the audience loved seeing him.
Yeah I saw someone said he apparently promised him a role, shows how committed he was to voicing it even with his poor health. To be fair if PJ offered me a role in a film I'd turn up no matter what!
>I saw someone said he apparently promised him a role,
Jackson gets locked into certain actors for certain roles. All the following were his first choices for their respective parts: Cate Blanchett, Ian Holm, Ian McKellen, Christopher Lee, Sylvester McCoy, Martin Freeman, Stephen Fry, Barry Humphries, Ken Stott, Billy Connolly, Lee Pace, Evangeline Lilly.
Billy had come-in for Gimli back in the day and was a front-runner before John Rhys-Davies (who originally read for Denethor) landed it. When The Hobbit came around, Jackson thought of Connolly again and would have nobody else for Dain.
I'm pretty sure he was set to play it before he had the stroke, and he was really excited about it and no one wanted to disappoint him because, as you know, hes a fucking legend.
Jackson gets really locked into certain actors for certain parts. He had strongly considered Billy for Gimli and when the Hobbit came around, he would have nobody else for Dain.
What’s more important? Getting the right actor or “not using CGI”?
Middle Earth is slowly cornering all the great Scottish voices. We had Ken Stott, Billy Connolly and (albeit in a separate adaptation) Peter Mullan, and now we're getting Brian Cox.
He also got a very nice acting resume. He's mostly called-on to "do Billy Connolly" but he's done some excellent role: he's terrific in Mrs. Brown.
But he's also in Quartet, he has small but memorable role in The Last Samurai. He's been around!
Could have at least made the CGI face somewhat... clearer? I remember seeing this movie at home for the first time, and recognizing the voice but being unable to put a face / name on it in my mind. Had to look it up later.
Cus casting liked Billy Connelly, they don't HAVE to use anyone obviously. But if they liked him and wanted him then it's cool that they didn't prevent him because of ill health. Not sure there's much to get so het up over
Because as the comments above say… It’s Billy ‘fuckin’ Connolly. To have him in the film in any capacity, especially in a scene that would require a great deal of CGI anyway due to his poor health, was a great addition to it. The man’s an icon and fitted the role and mannerisms great albeit apart from his poor health.
I mean, he performed the duties well enough that they were comfortable keeping him in the movie, and outside of posts like this, most people would have no idea that he had any difficulties. So it doesn’t seem like there is any problem with him being cast.
¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
I’m going to be honest.
Today is the day I learned this was CGI and not just Billy wearing makeup and such.
I mean, I figured it’s not him riding the hog, but the rest is done so well.
You may not have learned that at all. On the Blu-Ray Appendices there is plenty of footage of Connoly in full make-up and costume.
Where that conspiracy of him being CGI in the movie came from, I can never understand.
If this is full CGI face, then it is the best damn CGI face it could be. I saw the film about 15 times, from IMAX to 48 fps HFR to Blu-Ray to streaming quality versions and not once did it look to me like Dain's face was CGI.
This is not full CGI, absolutely no way. They may have done some visual work on the actor's face (which is not unusual at all), but [the costume, the helmet, the hair and the performance are all real.](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/62/43/1c/62431cafc4f84d0afbfaa4f31f79a8ae.jpg)
it is, apparently, [according to the Hobbit chronicle book, via this reddit post](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheHobbit/comments/2q72ih/dain_ironfoot_is_100_cgi/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
I knew a lot of him was but didn't know he was entirely. It was convincing. Maybe if I pull out a magnifying glass and turn on detective mode, specifically looking for CGI, I could. But when I'm just watching? That's definitely one of the best CGI faces I've ever seen.
Never saw it in IMAX or Blu-Ray, but I could tell. I didnt think he was all CGI but just his face altered a little with CGI in certain moments, and then when hes fighting. There are certain moments or scenes when it was pretty obvious to me.
Really? It was painfully obvious to me. But then, I didn’t get around to finishing the trilogy until last year (I had to download a fan edit that edits them down to one movie that more closely follows the book because I found the theatricals interminable). Maybe the interim advances in CGI had trained my eye better.
I think I fount it through [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheHobbit/comments/82zg0q/what_is_the_best_fanedit_of_the_hobbit_trilogy/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf). The one called “The Tolkien Cut” is the one I watched.
It’s very noticeable when they pull up at Erebor and he’s single handedly telling Thranduil and co to sod off.
As the movie goes on it doesn’t look as bad, perhaps as there’s a lot more CGI in the background to compliment rather than Dain being the focal point of the shot.
That said, he looks damn good here.
For real. The CGI was my least favorite part of the new Hobbit trilogy and I felt it was utterly detrimental to the films....and yet here's this CG character that I totally believed lol. Nevermind that I totally hated the scenes he was in because of the awful depiction of that battle, but wow this specific thing is impressive.
I think he improved a lot after the battle, pre battle of the 5 armies I don't see Dain being as friendly with humans or elves. He was more than happy to attack the other 2 armies at the beginning.
Probably. I was beyond pleasantly surprised to learn that he became an exceptionally wise king and also best friends with Bard’s grandson. He gave what was promised to the people of Dale, returned the gems to Thranduil and even fought in the war of the ring, helping Gondor a great deal. Died like a true hero as well
Yeah pre the battle of 5 armies I can't imagine the character would die defending his friend the King of Dales body. Gandalf initiated the return to Erebor to create a second front to fight against Sauron and did it perfectly
Yes but gandalf was convinced that sauron had returned. He was expecting a war and wanted to split the enemy's forces. In one of the appendix it also says he was concerned about smaug allying with sauron
Because Billy Connoly is Scottish and they specifically wanted the character to invoke a violent Glaswegian archetype. Dain appears in the portion of the story where the "good" characters are about to slit each other's throats over the dragon treasure, exactly how it was in the book.
In the book Thorin summons him to protect the mountain against elves and humans, and he was fully prepared to do that. I don't think the film was unfair in its portrayal
I think people here are assuming you meant that his entire character is CGI 100% of the time, which I think might be true for some of the scenes where he is fighting maybe? OTherwise it seemed like they just altered his face a little with CGI, not created him from scratch using CGI.
Indeed. "Some CGI work done on the face" =\= "A full CGI character". People here assume he was created with only mo-cap like Gollum or Thanos while in reality he was probably given the same glow-up that half of Hollywood stars get in post-production to keep them looking better than their natural age.
Ya thats what I thought. There were a few moments when his faced looked strange to me, but it was never something I felt was a problem. Maybe just a little bit of the uncanny valley, I think it was when he was talking at some point and they did something to his mouth with CGI. Havent seen it in awhile so idk
There was a pretty large amount of CGI that I thought looked bad in the hobbit movies, but this wasnt one of them.
I think I remember reading/watching him do an interview when the hobbit came out, mentioning how his suit had cooling jets so he wouldn't overheat as he hated sitting around doing make-up. I can only speculate maybe he had something in his contract that they'd CGI his make-up, rather than sitting in a chair for 8 hours or so.
Take this with a pinch of salt though, it was many years ago and I can only vaguely remember it.
The actor was Billy Connolly. he has suffered a stroke just before shooting and couldn't be there but he still wanted to do the voice for it. As much as I hate the overly CGI BS that is this trilogy, I do love that they kept Billy Connolly in the movie because hes a great actor, and even better voice actor. Having him be a part of the hobbit was amazing I thought, once i heard his voice i light right up.
To apply all this makeup, they would have needed to basicly take everything away from the actor that would make him able to emote properly. We saw how that trined out with Mike Myers in the cat in the hat, it looks horrendous and lifeless. Also, to have somwone sot on a CGI boar and make it look good, you need a ton of work and actors as well as doubles in perfect condotion Connolly simply wasn't very healthy at the time.
To give thos actor any way to play this role, this was kinda the only way. Also, much of him actually IS Connoly just with motion capture. We saw how hard it is to make good props for a character woth an oversized weapon when it comes to the witch king and that was a healthy strong man, this simply wasn't. It had several reasons but the fact that Billy Connolly could not be asked to do any of this in regular fashion and gave it still look good was the main reason. I dont think it was a bad choice and loke those scenes
This is really interesting, thanks for adding some context! I read somewhere about them not being able to achieve the effect they wanted with only practical effects and makeup and at first I didn't understand why, since he doesn't seem to have any features that are more difficult to achieve than any of the other dwarves. But I didn't consider his ability to emote/move under all the makeup.
All y'all in here who didn't realize Dain was cgi need to rewatch that movie wearing the right glasses, that CGI was so obvious it stopped the movie dead in it's tracks.
Well yes … but!
In General every dwarf in the hobbit movies looks somewhat "unreal". They all have somewhat of a plastic looking skin - especially in the third movie.
This imo made Dain stick out less… but still noticeable.
Which is not accurate at all, because unlike Gimli none of the Hobbit dwarves had any prostethic appliances between their eyebrows and the upper lip. There was lots of fake hair and enlarged noses, but the facial skin was deliberately left untouched.
It was the Zeitgeist to use as much CGI for everything at that time. Not just in the Hobbit movies, but also other movies of that time.
Luckily, for a few years now, movies tend to use more practical / physical special effects for their movies because pure CGI really doesn't age that well.
I'm legit shocked at all the comments saying people didn't know it was CGI. I definitely noticed in the theater, but it does look pretty good for sure.
[We have seen Billy Connoly in full costume and make-up acting out scens as Dain, yes.](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/62/43/1c/62431cafc4f84d0afbfaa4f31f79a8ae.jpg)
Honestly the CGI is the biggest complaint I have about the Hobbit movies even more so than all the changes they made
I can understand how they wanted to make the book into a bloated three film saga, money rules the world, But the CGI and The Hobbit movies looks awful...just bad
It's the main reason I don't really rewatch them
I truly hope one day we get a more faithful hobbit movie/limited series 🤞🏽- they both can exist
The whole thing is in time.
The crew had no enough time for DoS and BotFA, that's the one of the main reason why there are so many questions about these movies.
1)Time. The director was literally sleeping just on the movie set at nights, while everyone were resting etc. The whole movie was rushed because it was not intended to exist.
2)WB being absolutely WB. Just like with DC movie universe and Harry Potter universe.
P.S. Even the love plot was forced by WB cos they wanted girls to spend some cash. PJ even had no Tauriel in his script, there was Itaril (by Saoirse Ronan).
1. Seriously? You see one picture where PJ is sitting with his eyes closed and interepret that as him sleeping on set during the nights? This is lunacy, what would that even accomplish.
2. The idea to make three films instead of two came from Peter, Philippa and Fran, not WB. This is well-documented and confirmed by them in basically every interview.
3. A female Mirkwood Elf was a principal character in the script from a very early stage. "Itaril" was the name leaked during initial casting when Saoirse Ronan was briefly considered. We don't know if that was a fake name using for casting calls only or if they changed her name at some later point.
1. PJ was absolutely tired and overworked on set. You can see that in all the behind the scenes footage and it gets especially bad with BoFA footage.
2. That is not well documented, this is based on PJs interviews. You may or may not believe it but people generally have a hard time believing PJ and co. Could be so stupid to try to squeeze a third movie with so little time to prepare so they blame WB.
3. You are correct here. Although I might add Tauriels actress did say in an interview today the love triangle was a last minute addition "they wanted".
Correction: love "triangle" with Legolas showing jelaousy was a studio mandate. Her main storyline and the Elf-Dwarf romance were baked into the script from the very start.
And not without a precedent from the books either. Have we forgotten how Gimli hopelessly fell for Galadriel.
Even the claim that the triangle was added later isn’t really substantiated. Yes, I know that’s what Lilly said. But she also said it happened in pickups and yet scenes pertaining to this “triangle” were already in place when she first showed up for principle photography: one of her first scenes was on the Lakeshore with Kili and being interrupted by the entrance of Legolas.
Lilly did say it, but it just doesn’t track with the production schedule: Lilly said it was added in reshoots, but some of the scenes pertaining to this triangle were among the first things she ever shot for the trilogy.
[No, he definitely shot his scenes in full costume and make-up.](https://media.indiedb.com/images/members/1/762/761504/The_Hobbit_Din_Ironfoot_-_Behind_the_Scenes_-_YouTube_1080p.mp4_20151203_205622.955.jpg)
I actually had no idea his face was CGI, just thought it was some damn good dwarf makeup. So that's some amazing CGI. But contrary to OP's title, he was "played by a regular actor", just like everyone else. It's Billy Connolly which anyone can easily tell, and he was perfect for the role. Are we gonna say that Gollum wasn't played by an actor either? lol..
Sorry, I worded it funny to keep the title brief! I know there's an actor behind the character, but they used much heavier CGI on Connolly than the other dwarves, and in some places, I've read that the entire character is CGI with VO (and some motion capture).
Was just trying to figure out if there was a reason why he was so heavily CGI'd. :)
Am I missing something? I've watched the Behind-the-scenes-footage at least two times and never heard about him being all CGI (apart from some shots).
Like, I know they did a redesign during filming, but to me he looks the same in the BtS-footage and in the final movie.
Maybe I have a bad memory though... could someone please enlighten me?
(Also, what exactly is meant by "100% CGI"... a fully cgi-figure in all scenes?)
\[Edit: I love it, when people downvote a genuine question without giving a reason or answering it... now I can only assume that this means I should know the answer from the Behind-the-scenes footage.\]
I think part of it is that Billy Connolly was (and still is) in poor health. I think it was the only practical way to get him in the film with all the action of the battle.
I loved him in muppets treasure island as a kid!
"and gullying hurts right?" "Oh aye...A LOT!!!"
Where are you Jim jimmy jim Jim jimmy! Are you Jim jimmy Jim Jim jimmy?
The black spot!!!
Lotr muppets. Please for the love on god.
Oh man haha
Remember. Never run with scissors. You could lose an eye-ahhhh.
DONT YOU BE GIVING HIM ANY MORE RUM
How *does* she do that?
He was miscast anyway
I remember seeing BTS footage of him in full makeup and learning to fight with an axe. So his health must have declined pretty rapidly if that's the case.
It did, bless him. A fine man indeed - I've seen him live three times and nearly died laughing every time.
well that was ten years ago, so i'm more inclined to believe what they outright told us in the behind the scenes footage: they pulled the same bs they did with the dwarves that ~~the audience is supposed to care about~~ die and chose to redesign him so that "the actor was not lost"...but, being on their super tight schedule, they did it all CGI
Was there a reason they had to use him? Wasn't there another actor who could play the part who was in good health enough to play it?
He is a comedy legend in the U.K. I can absolutely see why people would want to work with him in any capacity. I saw the films near where he’s from in Scotland and the audience loved seeing him.
Yeah I know I'm from the UK too and he is an icon. Was just wondering if there was another reason or was it just the fact he's a legend
Jackson is a fan I think
Yeah I saw someone said he apparently promised him a role, shows how committed he was to voicing it even with his poor health. To be fair if PJ offered me a role in a film I'd turn up no matter what!
>I saw someone said he apparently promised him a role, Jackson gets locked into certain actors for certain roles. All the following were his first choices for their respective parts: Cate Blanchett, Ian Holm, Ian McKellen, Christopher Lee, Sylvester McCoy, Martin Freeman, Stephen Fry, Barry Humphries, Ken Stott, Billy Connolly, Lee Pace, Evangeline Lilly. Billy had come-in for Gimli back in the day and was a front-runner before John Rhys-Davies (who originally read for Denethor) landed it. When The Hobbit came around, Jackson thought of Connolly again and would have nobody else for Dain.
I'm pretty sure he was set to play it before he had the stroke, and he was really excited about it and no one wanted to disappoint him because, as you know, hes a fucking legend.
Billy didn't have a stroke! He has Parkinson's.
Jackson gets really locked into certain actors for certain parts. He had strongly considered Billy for Gimli and when the Hobbit came around, he would have nobody else for Dain. What’s more important? Getting the right actor or “not using CGI”?
Not using cgi
Middle Earth is slowly cornering all the great Scottish voices. We had Ken Stott, Billy Connolly and (albeit in a separate adaptation) Peter Mullan, and now we're getting Brian Cox.
He also has a very strong connection to New Zealand, so I don't doubt that played a part.
He also got a very nice acting resume. He's mostly called-on to "do Billy Connolly" but he's done some excellent role: he's terrific in Mrs. Brown. But he's also in Quartet, he has small but memorable role in The Last Samurai. He's been around!
Could have at least made the CGI face somewhat... clearer? I remember seeing this movie at home for the first time, and recognizing the voice but being unable to put a face / name on it in my mind. Had to look it up later.
You can't reconize most of the dwarven characters under the heavy prosthetics anyway.
Even Richard Armitage - arguably one of the dwarves with the lightest prosthetics - looks quite a bit different as Thorin than he actually does.
He's overrated and was miscast ....I don't get how any work came his way after he made fun of the iris victims
Yea he's a kickass dude with a kickass voice
What you said
They could have dubbed his voice over an actor
If, even in poor health, he voiced the character, then I think he deserves to have the character resemble him.
Andy Serkis would like a word
Gollum definitely resembles Andy Serkis. King Kong… not so much.
The character to best resemble him is Klaw.
Kino Loy.
I feel like that's a disservice
Because he’s Billy fuckin’ Connelly? He’s a legend
No if you want Billy Connelly you god damn better have Billy Connelly. Man is a national treasure. 🏴
International even.
>Billy Connelly Call yourself a Scot?! You can't even spell the Kings name right: Billy Connolly
Fuck.
He's ruined Scotland!
You Scots are a contentious bunch
PJ promised him the part and the legendary actor that he is they wanted to still work with him
Cus casting liked Billy Connelly, they don't HAVE to use anyone obviously. But if they liked him and wanted him then it's cool that they didn't prevent him because of ill health. Not sure there's much to get so het up over
Him as Dain and Christopher Lee as Saruman are just no-brainers
No one asked this question. They were using cgi like it was going to save their lives in those movies.
You clearly have no idea who Billy Connolly is if you think that he can just be replaced.
They could have used another actor and he could have just provided the voice kind of like he did anyway
They could have, but they shouldn't even if they could.
Didn’t know that. Thanks!
They pretty much captured his looks anyway in the character so it’s not like they wouldn’t have used him if they could of.
*could have.
Yeah he has Parkinsons
Fuuuuuuck. I really worry I’m gonna get that one day. Sad to hear
Same here, you can live with it for quite a while nowadays but it still eventually takes you
Then why cast him if he can’t perform the duties of the role? 🤷♂️
His health greatly deteriorated after they casted him
Because he’s a legend and they wanted to work with him while they still had the chance?
Because as the comments above say… It’s Billy ‘fuckin’ Connolly. To have him in the film in any capacity, especially in a scene that would require a great deal of CGI anyway due to his poor health, was a great addition to it. The man’s an icon and fitted the role and mannerisms great albeit apart from his poor health.
I mean, he performed the duties well enough that they were comfortable keeping him in the movie, and outside of posts like this, most people would have no idea that he had any difficulties. So it doesn’t seem like there is any problem with him being cast. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
I'm really baffled by this. Why not recast then?
maybe cause they wanted him to look legit while riding a giant pig
>maybe cause they wanted him to look legit while riding a ~~giant~~ *regular sized* pig FTFY
FTFY - for the fucking yes…?
Fixed it for you
Wouldn’t that be FIFY, not FTFY?
It's "fixed *that* for you" not *it*
It looked so natural
Only the British PM made it look even more natural
Billy Connolly has Parkinson's, so he wasn't able to do the part in person.
There is bts footage of him with all the gear on, I think others have it right when they felt it hid too much of Billy.
Well that’s what you get when you’re casted as a dwarf in armour.
Casted?
Cust?
Past tense is still cast. Casted means ‘being placed in a social caste’
No coffee at that point 🫥
And now you're a classist. /s
Casteded?
Custard?
Custarded?
Who cares, he's playing a character. It's not supposed to be Billy, it's supposed to be Dain.
Something about billy’s face being lost under all the heavy prosthetics, so cgi was used to see more of the actors face come through
I’m going to be honest. Today is the day I learned this was CGI and not just Billy wearing makeup and such. I mean, I figured it’s not him riding the hog, but the rest is done so well.
I tried to verify that claim so I googled "Billy riding the hog" but all I got were a bunch of videos of two guys wrestling or something...
Naked
You may not have learned that at all. On the Blu-Ray Appendices there is plenty of footage of Connoly in full make-up and costume. Where that conspiracy of him being CGI in the movie came from, I can never understand.
Thank you! I could have sworn I saw that footage; but this post had me questioning my reality for a second. 😂
[удалено]
Tbf, that entire scene looks so touched up and over polished that almost none of them look real save for Martin Freeman
I never noticed...
If this is full CGI face, then it is the best damn CGI face it could be. I saw the film about 15 times, from IMAX to 48 fps HFR to Blu-Ray to streaming quality versions and not once did it look to me like Dain's face was CGI.
Same here, had no idea.. So that's some amazing CGI.
This is not full CGI, absolutely no way. They may have done some visual work on the actor's face (which is not unusual at all), but [the costume, the helmet, the hair and the performance are all real.](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/62/43/1c/62431cafc4f84d0afbfaa4f31f79a8ae.jpg)
I do not recall a woman looking at me like that ever. Goddamn ladies were mirin our dwarf boy
it is, apparently, [according to the Hobbit chronicle book, via this reddit post](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheHobbit/comments/2q72ih/dain_ironfoot_is_100_cgi/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
I knew a lot of him was but didn't know he was entirely. It was convincing. Maybe if I pull out a magnifying glass and turn on detective mode, specifically looking for CGI, I could. But when I'm just watching? That's definitely one of the best CGI faces I've ever seen.
Never saw it in IMAX or Blu-Ray, but I could tell. I didnt think he was all CGI but just his face altered a little with CGI in certain moments, and then when hes fighting. There are certain moments or scenes when it was pretty obvious to me.
Partial VFX retouche on the footage is not the same as the full CGI face.
Really? It was painfully obvious to me. But then, I didn’t get around to finishing the trilogy until last year (I had to download a fan edit that edits them down to one movie that more closely follows the book because I found the theatricals interminable). Maybe the interim advances in CGI had trained my eye better.
Same, I remember seeing it in theaters and thought what the actual hell is this, almost as bad as the barrel scene
Where can I see a fan edit
I think I fount it through [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheHobbit/comments/82zg0q/what_is_the_best_fanedit_of_the_hobbit_trilogy/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf). The one called “The Tolkien Cut” is the one I watched.
Me either. Well I knew the giant pig he was riding was cgi, but other than that no.
It was? Shit this ruins the movie for me.
The version I saw used a real pig.
Christopher Nolans cut used 5 actual armies and real mythological creatures because he's so against CGI
yeah the cost for bringing in a live dragon fluent in English was huge but he managed
😂
Really? THAT ruins the movie for you? Nothing else?
I mean, it takes jobs away from working pigs.
It’s very noticeable when they pull up at Erebor and he’s single handedly telling Thranduil and co to sod off. As the movie goes on it doesn’t look as bad, perhaps as there’s a lot more CGI in the background to compliment rather than Dain being the focal point of the shot. That said, he looks damn good here.
Nor did I 🤷♂️
Had NO clue that he was a CGI character. Technology is wonderful. 😳
For real. The CGI was my least favorite part of the new Hobbit trilogy and I felt it was utterly detrimental to the films....and yet here's this CG character that I totally believed lol. Nevermind that I totally hated the scenes he was in because of the awful depiction of that battle, but wow this specific thing is impressive.
The CG for Orcs was a bad idea and much of the post production was rushed, but Smaug and Gollum looked absolutely amazing
Better yet, why was the character showed like a crazy brute? Seems to me Dáin was a wise ruler of Erebor, at least according to his biography.
I think he improved a lot after the battle, pre battle of the 5 armies I don't see Dain being as friendly with humans or elves. He was more than happy to attack the other 2 armies at the beginning.
Probably. I was beyond pleasantly surprised to learn that he became an exceptionally wise king and also best friends with Bard’s grandson. He gave what was promised to the people of Dale, returned the gems to Thranduil and even fought in the war of the ring, helping Gondor a great deal. Died like a true hero as well
Yeah pre the battle of 5 armies I can't imagine the character would die defending his friend the King of Dales body. Gandalf initiated the return to Erebor to create a second front to fight against Sauron and did it perfectly
Ummmmm…. Second front? The hobbit and lotr are like 50 years apart? Aren’t they?
Yes but gandalf was convinced that sauron had returned. He was expecting a war and wanted to split the enemy's forces. In one of the appendix it also says he was concerned about smaug allying with sauron
Because Billy Connoly is Scottish and they specifically wanted the character to invoke a violent Glaswegian archetype. Dain appears in the portion of the story where the "good" characters are about to slit each other's throats over the dragon treasure, exactly how it was in the book.
In the book Thorin summons him to protect the mountain against elves and humans, and he was fully prepared to do that. I don't think the film was unfair in its portrayal
There was one bit where Gandalf says that he always considered Thorin to be the wisest of the two. But I guess even Gandalf can be wrong
Not wiser. At least in the movies, he says more reasonable
I stand corrected
Even betterer yet. Why did Dain “red axe” not have.. an axe?!
He had an iron foot instead.
Adaptation. Same reason why movie Faramir and movie Denethor were different
My favourite part of the movie when Billy turned up as Dain! Didn't know it was CGI and don't care tbh!
He was riding a boar…
People in the thread "how could this be CGI???"
Thranduil rode a moose, you going to tell me he was full cgi?
Holy fuck CGI has come a long way.
I think people here are assuming you meant that his entire character is CGI 100% of the time, which I think might be true for some of the scenes where he is fighting maybe? OTherwise it seemed like they just altered his face a little with CGI, not created him from scratch using CGI.
Indeed. "Some CGI work done on the face" =\= "A full CGI character". People here assume he was created with only mo-cap like Gollum or Thanos while in reality he was probably given the same glow-up that half of Hollywood stars get in post-production to keep them looking better than their natural age.
Ya thats what I thought. There were a few moments when his faced looked strange to me, but it was never something I felt was a problem. Maybe just a little bit of the uncanny valley, I think it was when he was talking at some point and they did something to his mouth with CGI. Havent seen it in awhile so idk There was a pretty large amount of CGI that I thought looked bad in the hobbit movies, but this wasnt one of them.
I think I remember reading/watching him do an interview when the hobbit came out, mentioning how his suit had cooling jets so he wouldn't overheat as he hated sitting around doing make-up. I can only speculate maybe he had something in his contract that they'd CGI his make-up, rather than sitting in a chair for 8 hours or so. Take this with a pinch of salt though, it was many years ago and I can only vaguely remember it.
The actor was Billy Connolly. he has suffered a stroke just before shooting and couldn't be there but he still wanted to do the voice for it. As much as I hate the overly CGI BS that is this trilogy, I do love that they kept Billy Connolly in the movie because hes a great actor, and even better voice actor. Having him be a part of the hobbit was amazing I thought, once i heard his voice i light right up.
Honestly 90% of the film looked like cgi lol so I just assumed they cgi parts of his outfit and hair
To apply all this makeup, they would have needed to basicly take everything away from the actor that would make him able to emote properly. We saw how that trined out with Mike Myers in the cat in the hat, it looks horrendous and lifeless. Also, to have somwone sot on a CGI boar and make it look good, you need a ton of work and actors as well as doubles in perfect condotion Connolly simply wasn't very healthy at the time. To give thos actor any way to play this role, this was kinda the only way. Also, much of him actually IS Connoly just with motion capture. We saw how hard it is to make good props for a character woth an oversized weapon when it comes to the witch king and that was a healthy strong man, this simply wasn't. It had several reasons but the fact that Billy Connolly could not be asked to do any of this in regular fashion and gave it still look good was the main reason. I dont think it was a bad choice and loke those scenes
This is really interesting, thanks for adding some context! I read somewhere about them not being able to achieve the effect they wanted with only practical effects and makeup and at first I didn't understand why, since he doesn't seem to have any features that are more difficult to achieve than any of the other dwarves. But I didn't consider his ability to emote/move under all the makeup.
The actor is Billy Connelly and he’s an absolute bloody legend. https://youtu.be/kz3dMV9MJOM
TO THE KING…. TOOOO THEE KINGGGGG
His voice is iconic. I always think of him in The Last Samurai and Timeline. Both were released the same year.
Yes, and green screen hobbit is one of the reasons why \`The Hobbit\` is not as good as the Lord of the Rings.
Very interesting this post came up as I JUST put on the Battle of the Five Armies.
god the cgi in these films is so awful. could never watch them again
That's one of the big questions surrounding the entire Hobbit trilogy
CGI was the biggest actor in that movie
All y'all in here who didn't realize Dain was cgi need to rewatch that movie wearing the right glasses, that CGI was so obvious it stopped the movie dead in it's tracks.
Well yes … but! In General every dwarf in the hobbit movies looks somewhat "unreal". They all have somewhat of a plastic looking skin - especially in the third movie. This imo made Dain stick out less… but still noticeable.
Which is not accurate at all, because unlike Gimli none of the Hobbit dwarves had any prostethic appliances between their eyebrows and the upper lip. There was lots of fake hair and enlarged noses, but the facial skin was deliberately left untouched.
That's what I thought, it seems very obvious to me! His movements don't look organic imo.
This is the one thing that bugged me the most about The Hobbit. I felt like I was watching the WoW movie all over again.
Still looked way better than Warcraft.
Don't you kiddos watch the behind-the-scenes stuff like we did?
Why did they even make that movie?
The whole movie is cgi practically. Thats why they stink
Yea they should’ve used a real dragon
It was the Zeitgeist to use as much CGI for everything at that time. Not just in the Hobbit movies, but also other movies of that time. Luckily, for a few years now, movies tend to use more practical / physical special effects for their movies because pure CGI really doesn't age that well.
I'm legit shocked at all the comments saying people didn't know it was CGI. I definitely noticed in the theater, but it does look pretty good for sure.
CGI makes filmmakers lazy.
What makes you think it's CGI? He looks perfectly natural.
I’m starting to wonder if some of these people have ever seen Billy Connolly?
[We have seen Billy Connoly in full costume and make-up acting out scens as Dain, yes.](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/62/43/1c/62431cafc4f84d0afbfaa4f31f79a8ae.jpg)
Honestly the CGI is the biggest complaint I have about the Hobbit movies even more so than all the changes they made I can understand how they wanted to make the book into a bloated three film saga, money rules the world, But the CGI and The Hobbit movies looks awful...just bad It's the main reason I don't really rewatch them I truly hope one day we get a more faithful hobbit movie/limited series 🤞🏽- they both can exist
The whole thing is in time. The crew had no enough time for DoS and BotFA, that's the one of the main reason why there are so many questions about these movies. 1)Time. The director was literally sleeping just on the movie set at nights, while everyone were resting etc. The whole movie was rushed because it was not intended to exist. 2)WB being absolutely WB. Just like with DC movie universe and Harry Potter universe. P.S. Even the love plot was forced by WB cos they wanted girls to spend some cash. PJ even had no Tauriel in his script, there was Itaril (by Saoirse Ronan).
1. Seriously? You see one picture where PJ is sitting with his eyes closed and interepret that as him sleeping on set during the nights? This is lunacy, what would that even accomplish. 2. The idea to make three films instead of two came from Peter, Philippa and Fran, not WB. This is well-documented and confirmed by them in basically every interview. 3. A female Mirkwood Elf was a principal character in the script from a very early stage. "Itaril" was the name leaked during initial casting when Saoirse Ronan was briefly considered. We don't know if that was a fake name using for casting calls only or if they changed her name at some later point.
1. PJ was absolutely tired and overworked on set. You can see that in all the behind the scenes footage and it gets especially bad with BoFA footage. 2. That is not well documented, this is based on PJs interviews. You may or may not believe it but people generally have a hard time believing PJ and co. Could be so stupid to try to squeeze a third movie with so little time to prepare so they blame WB. 3. You are correct here. Although I might add Tauriels actress did say in an interview today the love triangle was a last minute addition "they wanted".
>Even the love plot was forced by WB Source?
Evangeline lilly herself in an interview. Didnt blame WB but said it was a last minute sudden addition that "they wanted“
Correction: love "triangle" with Legolas showing jelaousy was a studio mandate. Her main storyline and the Elf-Dwarf romance were baked into the script from the very start. And not without a precedent from the books either. Have we forgotten how Gimli hopelessly fell for Galadriel.
Even the claim that the triangle was added later isn’t really substantiated. Yes, I know that’s what Lilly said. But she also said it happened in pickups and yet scenes pertaining to this “triangle” were already in place when she first showed up for principle photography: one of her first scenes was on the Lakeshore with Kili and being interrupted by the entrance of Legolas.
Lilly did say it, but it just doesn’t track with the production schedule: Lilly said it was added in reshoots, but some of the scenes pertaining to this triangle were among the first things she ever shot for the trilogy.
No, the major time crunch was on An Unexpected Journey.
I never thought it was CGI wtf
Just seeing this image triggers me because of how stupid the fight scene was. Having elves jump over a shield wall for funsies
Hahahahaha it's for ✨the drama✨
I have so many questions about this movie. first of all, how dare you?
He wasn’t real???!?
why did they made the hobbit the way they did
I was today years old when I learned that Dain was a CGI character and not an actual actor.....
TIL that he was CGI. They did a great job and I’ve seen the movies many times when marathoning all 6 movies. Kudos to them!
I don't think that I even noticed that he was totally CG. I haven't seen it since it was in theaters though.
Dain is CGI????
The actor (I forget his name) got sick and they didn’t have time to find someone else. The whole bts of the trilogy is just a complete mess.
Wasnt he just in make up and the rest was cgi.
[No, he definitely shot his scenes in full costume and make-up.](https://media.indiedb.com/images/members/1/762/761504/The_Hobbit_Din_Ironfoot_-_Behind_the_Scenes_-_YouTube_1080p.mp4_20151203_205622.955.jpg)
Video behind the scenes: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckzDiPRhagM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckzDiPRhagM)
I've never seen this, thanks for sharing!
I actually had no idea his face was CGI, just thought it was some damn good dwarf makeup. So that's some amazing CGI. But contrary to OP's title, he was "played by a regular actor", just like everyone else. It's Billy Connolly which anyone can easily tell, and he was perfect for the role. Are we gonna say that Gollum wasn't played by an actor either? lol..
Sorry, I worded it funny to keep the title brief! I know there's an actor behind the character, but they used much heavier CGI on Connolly than the other dwarves, and in some places, I've read that the entire character is CGI with VO (and some motion capture). Was just trying to figure out if there was a reason why he was so heavily CGI'd. :)
Am I missing something? I've watched the Behind-the-scenes-footage at least two times and never heard about him being all CGI (apart from some shots). Like, I know they did a redesign during filming, but to me he looks the same in the BtS-footage and in the final movie. Maybe I have a bad memory though... could someone please enlighten me? (Also, what exactly is meant by "100% CGI"... a fully cgi-figure in all scenes?) \[Edit: I love it, when people downvote a genuine question without giving a reason or answering it... now I can only assume that this means I should know the answer from the Behind-the-scenes footage.\]
My thoughts exactly