Critics review 'The Battle of the Five Armies'

Several people have said they cried after seeing the film. If I cry, it will be out of anger that this was the steaming pile of shit we were left with after almost 6 years of anticipation and 6 years of my personal time and energy I put into worrying and waiting for this damn trilogy. And for what! Eru bless Forumshire and everyone who inhabits it!

The only tears I'll be shedding will be tears of joy.... Thank god this crap is over with and may Peter Jackson never set foot in middle earth again

Sinister71 wrote:The only tears I'll be shedding will be tears of joy.... Thank god this crap is over with and may Peter Jackson never set foot in middle earth again

In the cinema I didn't have a strong reaction (I skipped the credit sequence and alot of fans said it was what set them off crying), but it hit me today, whatever my personal opinion of Jackson's take on the material, you can't deny his dedication and enthusiasm for the films, few other filmmakers would dedicate over a decade and a half to one massive franchise, don't get me wrong I'm not sad to see him leave cinematic middle earth, but it does feel a little odd.

I can't imagine how it feels for people like you or Petty who waited decades for a big budget film adaptation, only to see three equally disappointing films in quick sucession.

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20141212-is-the-final-hobbit-film-a-flop

Thought this was a decent read... esp the last sentence or two

Its like saving really hard for years, going without, desperately clinging to the hope you can save enough to buy that special 'thing' & then, when youve nearly got there, the bloody shop goes out of business.
OR, you have a suit or ( for me ) a gorgeous dress, You come home, sure you can detect something ? find out just minutes before a special event that the cat has pee'd all over it,
thats how it feels Malick ...

Sinister71 wrote:http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20141212-is-the-final-hobbit-film-a-flop

Thought this was a decent read... esp the last sentence or two

Not available to watch in The UK typical BBC.

azriel wrote:Its like saving really hard for years, going without, desperately clinging to the hope you can save enough to buy that special 'thing' & then, when youve nearly got there, the bloody shop goes out of business.
OR, you have a suit or ( for me ) a gorgeous dress, You come home, sure you can detect something ? find out just minutes before a special event that the cat has pee'd all over it,
thats how it feels Malick ...

indeed

I'm young enough I'll probably live to see god knows how many reboots/spin offs/remakes in future years I'll probably end up loosing interest (Doesn't The Hobbit Enter the Public Domain in 2043?)

malickfan wrote:

Sinister71 wrote:The only tears I'll be shedding will be tears of joy.... Thank god this crap is over with and may Peter Jackson never set foot in middle earth again

In the cinema I didn't have a strong reaction (I skipped the credit sequence and alot of fans said it was what set them off crying), but it hit me today, whatever my personal opinion of Jackson's take on the material, you can't deny his dedication and enthusiasm for the films, few other filmmakers would dedicate over a decade and a half to one massive franchise, don't get me wrong I'm not sad to see him leave cinematic middle earth, but it does feel a little odd.

I can't imagine how it feels for people like you or Petty who waited decades for a big budget film adaptation, only to see three equally disappointing films in quick sucession.

Honestly it's quite sickening to me how Jackson treated the Hobbit like his own little Lego set and just built the story how he wanted it, instead of just following the directions. That's how I interpret Jackson's Hobbit films yeah he built something slightly resembling the hobbit but it's still not it. If he had just followed the instructions Tolkien left it would have been the hobbit and not something not quite the hobbit. The added material didn't add anything other than confusion to the films. Legolas's heavy involvement just muddied the pool and made more problems than solved. Not to mention having to flush out so many characters but yet more than half the dwarfs still get no dialog in the second or 3rd film. Plus there is no pay off for the dwarfs, from all I have heard none of their quest is really concluded. Dain isn't noticed asking under the mountain and that whole plot is left hanging. Instead Bilbo is rushed home for an auction which, honestly big deal. I mean writing a script from a book which has tons of action isn't that freaking hard. All you need to do is let the source material be your guide

[quote="Sinister71"][quote="malickfan"]

Sinister71 wrote: All you need to do is let the source material be your guide

That isn't true for all adaptations though, one of my favourite films 'Children of Men' for instance takes massive liberties with the source material (beyond the central concept of the plot, and a few character names, the entire plot is totally different) yet still feels thematically close, a good interpretation of the spirit of the source material (The author loved the film, and stated she was pleased someone had adapated her work) a fantastic book in its own right, that would have worked reasonably well as a film, it dosen't bother me though becuase they feel like two sides of the same story.

I'm not saying Jackson should have gone totally off the rails in terms of faithfulness to the plot, but in many ways he stuck closer to the book than I'd imagined he'd might of in terms of plot, so that's something to be thanful for I guess. It's more the execution of it of the way he did it, and the tone of his script that bothers me, I'm rambling a bit, but basically for me it just depends on the source material in question as to how much the changes bother me (a cop out answer I know).

malickfan wrote:

Sinister71 wrote:

malickfan wrote:

Sinister71 wrote: All you need to do is let the source material be your guide

That isn't true for all adaptations though, one of my favourite films 'Children of Men' for instance takes massive liberties with the source material (beyond the central concept of the plot, and a few character names, the entire plot is totally different) yet still feels thematically close, a good interpretation of the spirit of the source material (The author loved the film, and stated she was pleased someone had adapated her work) a fantastic book in its own right, that would have worked reasonably well as a film, it dosen't bother me though becuase they feel like two sides of the same story.

I'm not saying Jackson should have gone totally off the rails in terms of faithfulness to the plot, but in many ways he stuck closer to the book than I'd imagined he'd might of in terms of plot, so that's something to be thanful for I guess. It's more the execution of it of the way he did it, and the tone of his script that bothers me, I'm rambling a bit, but basically for me it just depends on the source material in question as to how much the changes bother me (a cop out answer I know).

But the Hobbit is rather easy, especially since he already had the style because of LOTR. I mean it's not rocket science when adapting a book like the Hobbit. Children of men I can't comment on since I have never read the book. But the Hobbit is a no brainer, it's packed with action if you look at the actual story instead of looking at it like your trying to create another story out of this one.

I'm about 1/2 way through my first Draft of the script I'm working on based on the Hobbit and so far I have some added details but not too many. And it follows the book rather closely. To be honest at this rate I would like say my script would be 2 just under 2 hour films or roughly 4 hours total. I'll see what the second half looks like but I don't expect much more added stuff some sure but not 4 hours of filler crap like PJ gave us

bungobaggins wrote:Rotten Tomatoes just got a hefty dump of rotten reviews. Currently standing at 64 percent.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_hobbit_the_battle_of_the_five_armies/

That rotten PJ Middle-earth movie isn't far away, now.

Will be interesting to see if it rebounds at all our if the wide release reviews hurt the score permanently. It's at 62 right now, which is two percentage points below AUJ. The Metascore has been a little more stable, but also went down a bit IIRC.

I still disagree with Sin that PJ'S problem with The Hobbit was trying to be too different from LOTR. I think he went out of his way to be like LOTR at nearly every step of the way, and most of the excesses in The Hobbit, including tone, can be seen in putative form in the earlier trilogy.

I've long since given trying to create a universal theory of film adaptation since I don't give a damn about changes for most films I see, but LOTR is close to my heart, and I think most of the changes were for the worse even when I'm doing my best to be objective.

A historic moment!



Fanboys weep!

59%. That sucks.

They really need to update the critical consensus.

I talked to a close friend over at Rotten Tomatoes and he was able to pull a few string to get BOTFA back up to "fresh".

 

Peter Rosenthal is back with more thoughts on The Hobbit from The Onion.

http://www.theonion.com/video/the-onion-reviews-the-hobbit-the-battle-of-the-fiv,37677/

His DOS review:

http://www.theonion.com/video/the-onion-reviews-the-hobbit-the-desolation-of-sma,34821/

How can he keep a straight face?!

{{{Have you seen BOFA yet, Eldo?}}}

Yeah, I saw it this afternoon, but I'm still trying to figure out what to say about it. I'm feeling pretty under the weather too.

Honest Trailers is at it again, revisiting DOS-EE in "honor" of the new release.

"I could have anything down my trousers" is THE worst line, EVER, in all this verruca of a trilogy It still makes me cringe violently & I cant for the life of me understand how that line got thru !! Its SO non Tolkien ! Its border line disgusting, What could be down there ?? only a Dwarfs weener !

Let the excuse-making commence! Tor.com takes up PJ's torch by claiming that it was really those evil studio execs who are responsible for how BOFA turned out. I love how they claim that the increased "prominence" of the WB logo is evidence of this, despite the opening credits/titles being exactly the same as in the first two films. Or claiming with absolutely no evidence that the studio is responsible for the love triangle even though Philippa Boyens has publicly claimed responsibility for that one.

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2014/12/movie-review-the-hobbit-the-battle-of-the-five-armies

Eldorion wrote:Let the excuse-making commence!  Tor.com takes up PJ's torch by claiming that it was really those evil studio execs who are responsible for how BOFA turned out.  I love how they claim that the increased "prominence" of the WB logo is evidence of this, despite the opening credits/titles being exactly the same as in the first two films.  Or claiming with absolutely no evidence that the studio is responsible for the love triangle even though Philippa Boyens has publicly claimed responsibility for that one.

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2014/12/movie-review-the-hobbit-the-battle-of-the-five-armies

Cognitive dissonance causes all kinds of problems. It's one thing to enjoy these films and call it a day. I'm sure there's lots to love in BOTFA for the general movie going audience. As an adaptation of Tolkien this trilogy is a horrendous POS. I suppose it's too much to bare for fans who are confused as to how Jackson could have made such stupid decisions. Whether or not the studio had anything to do with is not the issue, though surely it does happen; it's ultimately the director takes the praise and awards, and he/she should also take the criticism.

Eldorion wrote:Peter Rosenthal is back with more thoughts on The Hobbit from The Onion.

http://www.theonion.com/video/the-onion-reviews-the-hobbit-the-battle-of-the-fiv,37677/

His DOS review:

http://www.theonion.com/video/the-onion-reviews-the-hobbit-the-desolation-of-sma,34821/

Ayup Eldo...

Is this Bloke for real ? taking the piss is all well and good, but. Words fail me. I'm going tomorrow night.

The Onion is satirical.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the film, Feanor!