Yesterday I attended a Hobbit Marathon at the nearby IMAX, showing all three Hobbit movies back to back. I wasn’t a huge fan of the first two, but this coincided with a day off work anyway and seemed like it would be fun.
While I didn’t think the first two Hobbit films were terrible, I was annoyed by action scenes that seemed to go on forever and new characters that were shoe-horned into the story unnecessarily (Azok, Tauriel). I also though some of the plot strayed a little too far from the book (like the party splitting up in Laketown and leaving four dwarves behind).
While Battle of the Five Armies inherits some of these flaws, the pacing did seem better to me and it was a mostly satisfying resolution to the trilogy. More specific comments with spoilers in my next post.
First the good things - the movie starts right off where the previous one left off with Smaug’s attack on Laketown. It was sufficiently horrifying and visually spectacular. I don’t think they needed to put Bard’s family, especially his son, at the center of the peril but I understand that the filmmakers were making a theme of Bard’s devotion and loyalty to his home and family, and fellow citizens, and contrasting that with the greedy self-interest of Albert and (due to the “dragon sickness”), Thorin.
I really love the scenes Jackson does with row on row of soldiers formed for battle and how he distinguishes each army from each other in terms of armor, tactics and precision. I also really, really liked Martin Freeman as Bilbo again this time. Seeing the three movies in a row really drives home the development in his character from Unexpected Journey to the latest film.
Overall I thought the movie was good - better than the first two. But -
I hated Albert; he was just a greedy/cowardly cartoon. And to make it worse, we never see him get his comeuppance. The best I can remember is he is last seen getting away with stashes of gold coins tucked in his dress.
Speaking of unresolved plot lines, what happened to the Arkenstone? It was last seen when Thranduil and Bard were rebuffed by Thorin at the gates. Never mentioned again. We don’t really get a proper good-bye for Bard, either, come to think of it. And no one mourns over the corpse of Fili.
There was a lot of good dialogue in the film (mostly lifted from Tolkien) so the clunky exchanges really sat there like a stinking turd:
“If this is love I don’t want it! Why does it hurt so much?”
“Because it was real.”
How was Azok able to set up that command post on the top of an overlook with a commanding view of Dale and Erebor and the plain in between them - the most strategic spot in the area - with no one noticing? He had a signal tower and everything!
Anyway, I’m a little sad that the trilogy is over, but a little glad that Jackson can’t do any more damage to it either. And really, back-to-back-to-back turned out to be a good way to watch them. Maybe I’ll try that with my LOTR extended editions some time.
Saw it last night and agree that it’s the best of the three, though many of the questions expressed in the OP were also wondered about by my daughter and I: Who mourns for Fili, what happened to the Arkenstone (I wanted to know why they just couldn’t say “we found this on that dead dragon over there”), what happened to the low-rent Grima Wormtongue guy, etc.
New drinking game for those who want to get drunk fast: Have a swig every time somebody says the word “war”. You’ll be completely trashed w/in 20 minutes, guaranteed.
At the end of the book, does Gandalf say “I know you found a magic ring”, as he did in the film?
Agree with the eye-rollingness of the passage quoted in the OP - “Why does this hurt?” “Because it’s real”. Oh, c’mon!
There’s no burial of Thorin in the film.
Legolas continued to be half-elf, half-video game character.
When the title card appeared showing “The Battle of the Five Armies”, I turned to my wife and, counting on my fingers, said “Not one, not two, not three, not four, but five! Five armies!”… “Now that’s value”, she replied. So I started counting them and I guess somebody miscounted:
I know the physics-defying acrobatics are kind of his thing, but when he climbed up to the crumbling tower-bridge by hopping from one stone to another in freefall I actually said aloud “oh come on!”
Great film. Best part was the White Council at Dol Gundur. I am glad Jackson decided to include this in the trilogy as it was happening while Bilbo was on his trek.
I thought it was awesome, though the best part of the movie IMO (the burning of Lake Town) was over & done with after the first ten minutes. Everything after that - while still thoroughly enjoyable - couldn’t match up to the opening.
Note: I’ve never read The Hobbit, so I can’t really speak to all the fan outrage surrounding the liberties that Jackson et al. took with the source material. Out of the three movies, the only part that really stuck out to me (in a bad way) was the barrel sequence in the second film. Even in terms of this final movie, a lot of my quibbles probably won’t stand a year from now when the three hour extended edition comes out & fills in some of the film’s narrative lapses.
Still, the faults that I picked out were:
-The Arkenstone. For all of the attention paid to it, I thought it was strange that it was forgotten about entirely after the meeting at the gate.
-Tauriel. Given all the fan outrage at her inclusion in these movies at all, I thought she fit nicely into the story, even if her romance with Kili didn’t completely make sense. I just would’ve preferred some kind of definitive closure on her character (beyond the “love was real” bit), given that, y’know, she’s obviously absent in LotR.
-The White Council. Aside from the Lake Town opening, the sequence at Dol Guldur was the best part of the movie. I’ve no complaints about the sequence itself, really, just a minor problem with how it ended; seriously, it seems like there was some footage cut from the film (likely to be included in next year’s definitive extended edition) after Saruman says “leave Sauron to me.” What the Hell does that even mean?
Beyond those issues, however, I don’t have anything else to complain about. I’m honestly just glad that Jackson and company were able to make these movies in the first place in order to bring this entire Middle Earth saga full circle. Hopefully in another ten years or so Warner Bros. might get its hands on the rights to The Silmarillion & make another prequel to this series (perhaps a movie about the rise & fall of Sauron himself?).
“So began a battle that none had expected; and it was called the Battle of Five Armies, and it was very terrible. Upon one side were the Goblins and the wild Wolves, and upon the other were Elves and Men and Dwarves.”
I thought it interesting that Saruman, who clearly hasn’t turned bad yet, was so frightened in the battle at Dol Guldur says “leave Sauron to me” when he clearly isn’t up to it.
I was a bit annoyed that they had Gandalf tell Bilbo he knew about the invisibility ring, as it is a major character point in LOTR that Bilbo trusted Gandalf with that knowledge sometime between the events of the two.
The huge tunnel boring worms would sure come in handy for modern tunnel digging, but as a plot device it threw off the balance of the whole world. Why where these things not used all the time by everyone?
Finally Tauriel pays off as a character.
All in all, this fanboy loved it. Probably a bit much for people who are new to the material.
Which he then followed up by giving Bolg a hurricanrana. It’s a little known fact that besides being a world-class swordsman and Archer, Legolas was also the finest luchador in Middle-Earth.
The theater I just saw it in burst out laughing at that scene.
Saw it, liked it, teared up a bit for Thorin’s death - entirely due to Freeman and Armitage being killer professionals.
So bloated, so epiloguey, it was fun to watch, but I was snarking on it the entire way through, so unlike Fellowship where I was forgetting to breathe at times.
I have to say, Lee Pace’s Thranduil eyebrows deserve an acting credit of their own. Love that man so much.
Now we only have to wait a few months more for the “extended edition” to get released, and some enterprising and brilliant fan will take the many hours of footage and re-mix them into a streamlined “Hobbit” that will take the lovely bones and strip away the unfortunate padding.
I agree. There are numerous items like this which are criticized heavily for not being ‘accurate’, but in fact are mentioned (although often briefly) in the book or within JRRT’s notes.
The theater I saw it at (Cinerama in Seattle, an old single-screen grand movie house from the '60s which is worth seeing a movie in at least once, if only because they have assigned seats and the concession stand serves chocolate-covered popcorn and craft beer) had Terminator Genisys, Tomorrowland, Jurassic World, and Star Wars. The audience cheered at the end of the Star Wars teaser, and I yelled “Trailer’s over, we can go home now!” which got some laughs.
I wish there were more of The Shire in 3-D because it is literally the most beautiful thing I’ve seen on film.
The most disappointing part for me was the White Council battle because, while still one of the best parts of the film, the White Council portions of the other films were so great I was sure it would be excellent as well. The sets looked good in it, but the action seemed like a standard level-90 MMO, I guess because the spirits seemed like they were “respawning”.
My favorite line: something about “Who is it” “An Elven army, and a couple hundred angry fishermen.”
