'The Battle of the Five Armies' in theatres | SPOILERS

Just came home from the theatre now, and this time I'm not even going to write a rant report. I went in expecting nothing more than what I saw in DOS, so I wasn't disappointed. I liked a few things, mainly the few lines from the book that made it into the film. I also liked the dwarf army, the way they dug in there was pretty badass I liked Dain as well, some classic taunting there Didn't much care for his headbanging, though, that was as ridiculous as the rest of the film. And the scene where Thorin dies, I thought that was great. I was also very pleasantly surprised to see the auction, didn't think they'd bother with such "minor details". All in all it was over-the-top-Jackson like we've never seen it before, and you just had to laugh sometimes. And cringe.

I'm pretty sure it's possible to make a half decent edit out of it, petty, and your issue with the dwarves splitting apart should be easy to fix as they just walk back up after Smaug is killed. It looked to me like Dol Guldur can be edited out entirely as well, so I'm pretty excited to see what you can do with it. If nothing else, I'm glad it looks editable

Yeah, for all the hype, the Dol Guldur stuff was pretty irrelevant to the main plot. Just goes to show how empty the apologist argument about DG being an integral part of The Hobbit was.

Yeah, it felt pointless. Perhaps watching AUJ and DOS again would have helped, but I'm never watching Jackson's AUJ, DOS or Bot5A again if I can help it. If Petty can pull off a decent edit, which I'm pretty sure he can, I'll watch that. If not, there's always the LotR trilogy.

I'm going to see BOFA again at some point with my sisters, so I'm expecting to be more crabbit after seeing it again. I was watching DOS a bit last night and it occured to me how many plot points were dropped from second to third film. I liked the third film because it wasn't so bloated, so I didn't mind, but it just goes to show how poorly planned out the three film stretch actually was. Also, everything not in the book (so basically all the elven characters) sounded like a fanfiction. I'm pretty sure I've read some that sounded just like the film. The Dol Guldur bit was so poorly executed, although I did notice that the orc who was harassing Gandalf in the beginning was the original Bolg from that picture.
Also I agree with you figgs about noticing the acting more than the characters. I never thought "Wow! Thorin is awesome!" I thought "Wow, Richard is doing so much better." I think that's a result of being so connected with the aspect of making these films moreso than the characters coming alive.

I am not sure Tin, I just felt that I was noticing that Balin was doing some good acting, and as you said, Richard was doing much better, which makes me think that I wasn't emotionally connecting at all. I never feel this in LOTR, when I watch it I am actually seeing Boromir not Sean Bean, or Sam etc, I know they are acting well on one level but it doesn't distract me or take me out of the moment as I believe their characters are real in that moment. In the Hobbit I was noticing nice scenes not because I was enjoying Bilbo being Bilbo but because Martin was actually in the scene being given some lines for once and I was noticing how he made the most of it. So when he had a nice scene with Balin I wasn't moved by the teary eyed bit but clinically noticing the teary eyed effect was pretty good acting. Basically it failed as acting (for me personally) because I didn't believe any of it, it didn't transport me into ME.

It's probably a bit early for a BOFA-EE thread, but we've already got an (alleged) screencap of a scene that I can only imagine would be included in the extended cut, and really should have been in the theatrical one too.  Behold!  The funeral of Thorin, Fili, and Kili:



Source: Herr-der-ringe's Facebook page (click here).

The whole time I watched the film, I kept on finding parts that should have been cut to make room for more at the end (since I went in knowing it would be a short one). Those scenes involved the Alfrid shannanigans in Laketown and the golden whirlpool scene. In my head I kept thinking "This is too long. Why are they spending time on this?" and the only reason I can think of now is that PJ enjoyed the performances so much that he didn't care about it taking up time.

First time caller; long time listener.

First off I love this site. Second these days TORN makes me want to vomit. Third, you guys are being waaaaaay too forgiven of this film, but I suppose the epic shit-baggery of DoS is to blame: You're either relieved it's not as surprisingly shitty as DoS, or relieved it's over.

But this wasn't even a movie. It was the final act of a film. There wasn't a three act structure at all. Even DoS had that.

I'll make this quick:

1. Smaug's death = shoehorned in, anti-climactic. Hell, his attack on Dale in AUJ was more of a spectacle.

2. What happened to Stephen Fry? Why was he even in this trilogy?

3. What happened to Beron? Why was he even in this trilogy?

4. What happened to Radaghast? Why was he even in this trilogy?

5. What happened to Tauriel? Why was she even in this trilogy?

6. What happened to Dain? Why was he even in this trilogy?

7. PJ has his priorities all fucked up. You don't leave the important stuff for the EE's, ya know little things like how the battle ended, funerals for the young hot dwarves. It's the theatrical versions that need to be fully developed.

8. Another LOTR call back with a Gandalf resurrection? Dude. Just stop.

9. So Thorin, Fili, and Kili don't die together. The one fucking thing PJ could wrung for all it's worth and...no...anticlimactic, anti-logical, boring deaths. So fucking lame. And seriously, how the hell did Azog pull that shit off? What is he? Free Willy? Pshaw.

10. I haven't been able to recognize the score since AUJ and that's only because it was inappropriately recycled LOTR music.

11. This trilogy's edits suck so bad. The original prosthetic Bolg gets a cameo? Really? It was obvious that they couldn't cut the fuggered up footage together any other way.

12. Oh cool. One of the only eye rolling moments in FOTR gets its return here (Mean Galadriel)

13. Bard gets a back story because, in movie land, you can't have a guy who's heroics play an integral part of the story just show up at the last minute unannounced and do his thing. It'll leave audiences feeling cheated. So what the fuck is Dain's excuse?

14. Didn't notice a PJ cameo. (His son's cameo seems to be non existent in this trilogy.)

15. What the fuck does Leggy's mom have to do with ANYTHING?! (including Leggy's motivations/feelings)

16. Other than the dead 3 and Dwalin, I didn't notice ANY of the company in the battle once. I kept asking myself "Where's Balin?" So much for the supposed "hero moments" of each of the company.

17. I just gotta say again: WHERE THE FUCK WAS BEORN!!!!!!! a crowd pleaser from the book relegated to what exactly?

18. Alfrid gets screen time but Stephen Fry not?

19. Wasn't Gandalf the Grey's falling supposed to be Legolas' first encounter with death? What? Does he get amnesia for the next 60 years?

20. Aragorn? What the hell does he have to do with anything?

21. So they set up Sauron in the first two films to do what exactly in this one? Oh I guess he wasn't the evil force behind everything after all.

22. Total waste of Ian McKellen and Martin Freeman.

I know many of you brought these points up, but don't go easy on this film just because the colossal failure of DoS, desensitized you. This wasn't even a film. It was a third act. And a shitty one at that.

p.s.
Fuck this orange and teal bull shit. The movie isn't even fun to look at.

I need a nap.

This film was a pile of shit. Orange and Teal colored shit.

Someone's miffed !
Hello Stig, One feels so much better when one gets it orfff ones chest I began life here with a rant,

* wakes up; continues rant*

...And I let the cut-n-paste elven army in the trailer slide because I figured it was just a place holder until the actual footage got rendered. But, no. There they were (or should I say "There he was.") in the finished product.

Lazy, shitty mess.

I have, how you say on this forum, a case of the CRABBITS!


Oh. Where are my manners? Hello, everyone.

Stig wrote:* wakes up; continues rant*

...And I let the cut-n-paste elven army in the trailer slide because I figured it was just a place holder until the actual footage got rendered. But, no. There they were (or should I say "There he was.") in the finished product.

Lazy, shitty mess.

I have, how you say on this forum, a case of the CRABBITS!

Welcome to Forumshire Stig!

Although I tend to be slighty more forgiving of the film than some, I can say your sense of disappointment/anger/crabbit is something all here can sympathize with.

I wouldn't say it was a lazy mess per se (the shitty part I'm inclined to agree with) as Jackson and co put an awful of work into the final product-that may be the greatest tragedy of all north of $750 Million (American, not taking into account the numerous tax breaks the NZ government probably pushed through) was spent on this trilogy...and look what we ended up with

Teal and orange shit    yep you hit the nail on the head. it didn't even look all that good to compensate on the mind boggling craparola onscreen.

 hi Stig, nice to meet you. I totally agree with all your points.

theres some seriously disappointing and frankly weird things in BO5A, most of all the way they treated Beorn, a character actually in the freeking book, instead they chose to spend time with made up Alfrid rubbish, that just criminal. They spent more time on Alfrid and Tauriel than on Beorn and the funerals of Thorin and Kili, Fili. They made Galadriel look like a psycho, one minute shaking with fear, then doing some weight lifting, Galadriel is supposed to be an Elven Lady not Bertha the Body Builder, I HATE the nuclear Galadriel horror thing. It sucks, how could they make her look so ugly and twisted, and as for her voice it made me cringe. Its all bloody ugly crap.

hows that for crabbit.

malickfan wrote:

I wouldn't say it was a lazy mess per se (the shitty part I'm inclined to agree with) as Jackson and co put an awful of work into the final product-that may be the greatest tragedy of all north of $750 Million (American, not taking into account the numerous tax breaks the NZ government probably pushed through) was spent on this trilogy...and look what we ended up with

That is the great tragedy. So much time, effort and hard work is all undone by shitty decision making on the director's part.

Seriously this is the "attention to detail" apologists are raving over:

Stig wrote:

malickfan wrote:

I wouldn't say it was a lazy mess per se (the shitty part I'm inclined to agree with) as Jackson and co put an awful of work into the final product-that may be the greatest tragedy of all north of $750 Million (American, not taking into account the numerous tax breaks the NZ government probably pushed through) was spent on this trilogy...and look what we ended up with

That is the great tragedy. So much time, effort and hard work is all undone by shitty decision making on the director's part.

Seriously this is the "attention to detail" apologists are raving over:

Yeah, that's been pointed out several times, I hate to jump on the 'Jackson is the New George Lucas' Bandwagon, but when your action sequences literally contain an Unconvincing Attack of The Clones, it's kinda hard to defend...

The sad part about that shot, is it probably involved several people working flat out for Days none of whom stopped to think 'Hang on a minute, is he taking us for idiots?'


Then again it's probably only angry fan boys like me who pick up on this stuff...

[/quote]

Yeah, that's been pointed out several times, I hate to jump on the 'Jackson is the New George Lucas' Bandwagon, but when your action sequences literally contain an Unconvincing Attack of The Clones, it's kinda hard to defend...

The sad part about that shot, is it probably involved several people working flat out for Days none of whom stopped to think 'Hang on a minute, is he taking us for idiots?'


Then again it's probably only angry fan boys like me who pick up on this stuff...[/quote]

I should mention that I have been PJ's biggest fan since Bad Taste and I would defend any of his FOTR and prior work as having the subtlety he is so usually accused of lacking. He was not only a master of subtlety, but of tonal change, almost imperceptibly so in some of his films...which the hardest thing to accomplish in film and a sign of a true master of the art.

Which drives home the point that after his oscar blow out for ROTK he  unequivocally became the new George Lucas. No hyperbole, just cold hard facts.What makes it worse though, it that Lucas was never really that good. Ever. He only shined as a basic concept/money man. Jackson, on the other hand, was a champion of prosthetic, story, and anti-Hollywood look/dialog. He was a champ for the underdog and showed that great films on any scale could be made while eschewing tired ass Hollywood conventions. He put his money were his mouth was and taught everyone a lesson with the LOTR trilogy. He made the $$$men stacks of cash, while doing it his way. Our way. The way underdogs were saying all along it could be done.

And then...

EDIT: Okay. His splatter films weren't (always) subtle, but you know what I mean.

I also rolled my eyes that Tauriel is the first character we see, yet ends up having NO consequence on the story. Not even on Legolas. I thought they were pushing her to be his "motivation" for hating dwarves in LOTR (as if the obvious race feud wasn't enough). I thought it'd be all "I hate dwarves forever because they caused the death/desertion of my one true love!" But, nah, Leggy just dips out as his paw brings up his maw for no reason. Does Leggy have mommy issues? That's news to me. Certainly wasn't hinted at in the Hobbit trilogy...or the LOTR trilogy...or the books (right?)...

Why are they trying to cram so much shit into these films?

EDIT: More shit:
It was really strange to me how separate the hot dwarves deaths were. First, I didn't think Fili died because, well, I didn't see any penetration. That's not a joke either. I thought it was a ruse until he got...ahem..."tossed" (that is a joke.)

I actually didn't see Kili's death coming either. I thought Tauriel was gonna deflect the weapon somehow and at least the brunette dwarves would die together. Nope.

And when Thorin dies, there's no mention of his nephews. Good lord, how could PJ & Co be so flippant with the material?

I understand PJ and his team have worked hard. But damn, as someone mentioned elsewhere: it's their own damn fault. They decided to trilogy-ize it and keep fiddlin' making last minute script/pick-ups/CG changes. If they had stuck to their 2 film deal, we'd have a nice extended set conclusion for the films right about now and PJ would be chillin' in Wellywood working on his shitty script for his shitty version of Dambusters.

Alas...

I wonder what Viggo Mortensen thinks of this final installment?

yeah I agree. I will always love LOTR and he really put some love and care into those films. Its just really sad what happened to The Hobbit, for us being Tolkien lovers and as fans of his previous work its a big crushing letdown.

As for those cloned Elves, it was glaringly obvious during the film, its inexcusable, it looks really amateur and considering the amount of cash and talent floating about that studio its a bit odd.

Welcome Stig- just curious but do you have a white shiny helmet are do you frequent dumps or is the name from elsewhere?

Anyhow I too was a Pj fan back in the day of Bad Taste et all. But I would disagree about FotR- its his best Tolkien film but its not devoid of all the PJ issues which later increasingly  plague the rest of LotR's and all the TH films and some PJ traits are fully in place- such as telling the viewer to much and revealing things too soon and before their correct place in the narrative, displacing realism for spectacle, altering major character personalities and motivations, rewriting all Tolkiens dialogue, over simplification of good and evil, leaving crucial character beats to the EE.

All of these are present in FotR too.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Welcome Stig- just curious but do you have a white shiny helmet are do you frequent dumps or is the name from elsewhere?

Anyhow I too was a Pj fan back in the day of Bad Taste et all. But I would disagree about FotR- its his best Tolkien film but its not devoid of all the PJ issues which later increasingly  plague the rest of LotR's and all the TH films and some PJ traits are fully in place- such as telling the viewer to much and revealing things too soon and before their correct place in the narrative, displacing realism for spectacle, altering major character personalities and motivations, rewriting all Tolkiens dialogue, over simplification of good and evil, leaving crucial character beats to the EE.

All of these are present in FotR too.

FOTR aint perfect, but I deem it excellent and the case in point for how PJ & Co are better at condensing material, rather than expanding it. But that discussion is for another thread. Right now I must de-crabbit over what I  saw last night. Jebus.

p.s.
updated my avatar.

Eldorion wrote:Congrats on scoring tickets to the Fjoridian premiere, Blue! That looks like a lot of fun.

bungobaggins wrote:That looks like a lot of fun, Blue.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Well at least the stuff before the film looks a lot of fun. I'd have been inclined to go home then while you were still ahead.

It was. Though I kind of wish I could have been a bit less stressed out, as I think I would have enjoyed the experience more. It was great to have gone to at least one of the premiers though.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Basically how crabbit am I going to be. And how drunk will I need to be to endure it? (And I'm willing to accept passed out as an answer here)

Well, you've obviously seen it now. But I would have said substantially. (To both questions.)

On the other hand, after Bo5A I went directly to an indie theater to see 'The Babadook'. Not too bad. I know there's some Aussies here. Did you all see it?

The first trilogy had 4 editors, if I'm not mistaken this trilogy has one (very young, seemingly impressionable and inexperienced) editor.
Tsk, Tsk.

Reading a few other forums I came across someone pointing out that Thrandy wouldn't tell Leggy Strider's name...but he did name his father (Arathorn.)

Kind of sums up the writing problems really but in a single sentence- not thought out.