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

How ON EARTH can they justify a theatrical edition that doesn't do the funeral of Thorin? its gone way beyond odd and is capering in the fields of the fucking weird.

Read this. It's obvious we're dealing with a director that "cannot see what he has become" and has "The Oscar Sickness":
https://www.yahoo.com/movies/the-hobbit-director-peter-jacksons-next-act-105871825637.html

Mrs Figg wrote:How ON EARTH can they justify a theatrical edition that doesn't do the funeral of Thorin? its gone way beyond odd  and is capering in the fields of the fucking weird.

I honestly want to be...well not a fly on the wall, but at least an eaves dropper on most of the editing sessions for these films. Could you imagine?

So, I haven't seen it yet, but I was wondering what plot points got dropped between the second and third movie?

I moderately hate the first, and really hate the second. I only plan on seeing this one to be done with it.

I love that Thrain is missing his left eye in the first movie, and in the EE for the second it is clearly visible, and his facial tattoos are different. It really is like no one paid attention to anything in these movies.

Welcome to Forumshrire Goose.

In terms of dropped plots between films its more a case of set ups that go nowhere.

Probably the biggest is Beorn. In DOS they gave him an invented backstory explaining his hatred of Azog- that Azog wiped out all the Beornings and Beorn is the last of his kind- well it never gets a mention again, Beorn doesn't even see Azog let alone meet hm and his total screen time in BOFA is about 15 seconds long. And stupid.

Setting up all the politics and obstruction in Laketown between Bard, the Master and Alfred is also utterly pointless in the end and goes nowhere in BOFA.

The whole Thrain, Nazgul tombs is also completely pointless and serves no purpose at all either. Had Gandalf just gone to investigate Dol Guldur ater arriving at Mirkwood and seeing the eye symbol on the stone everything would have played out exactly the same In BOFA as it does.

Any questions that might have been raised in DOS regarding Smaug his relationship with Sauron and how he seems to know so much about what is going on outside his mountain- well you will still be wondering after BoFA's as they dont address any of it.

There is plenty more but those four immediately spring to my mind.

Thanks for the reply. I am just reading your review now in the other thread.

Man, these movies have been a major let down. I remember being excited when they were first announced. I was skeptical of the division to three films, but still thought it might be good.

Talk about crushing disappointment. Barring some incredibly stupid changes in the original trilogy (with my most hated being The Two Towers), I like them overall. I can barely find any redeeming qualities in these movies, however (other than the dwarves singing in the first movie).

The dwarf/goblin war is one of my favourite moments in Tolkien, and to have that butchered like it was is unforgivable in my eyes, especially for an asinine reason like "he has a cool name", which they gave for keeping him alive. Ugh.

I tried to talk about it on the One Ring.net forums, but it seems any dissenting opinion is shouted down or removed altogether. It is a wretched hive of scum and villainy (or PJ apologists and fanboys/boot-lickers). Sad.

I have a lot of problems with the LotR's trilogy as well, in fact a lot of the same problems I do with TH flms- the main difference is that the LotR's has redeeming factors, TH has very few if any.I could count the good scenes in all three Hobbit films on the fingers of one hand of a leper.

I too loathed Pj's Battle of Arseandbull - the battle between the dwarves and the goblins was so much epic in Tolkien- fought for years in secret under the earth with most other races not even aware of this bloody carnage in the dark.
And Azog is smart and so more terrifying he can talk in compete sentences that are not just short violent snarls.

Its bad enough they kept him alive for these films, but that they reduced is IQ to that of a mollusc is just taking the piss.

Just a quick question: Anyone see if PJ had a cameo? I know his daughter did (she was in a boat in Laketown) but I didn't see the villain anywhere!

Its funny how these films have nose-dived from a relatively promising start in Bagend in AUJ, by the time they met the trolls I had glazed over and switched off, the rest of it along with DOS and this latest travesty was second rate fan fiction, apart from the Gollum cave section the quality of which could have come from LOTR itself.

I believe one of the many mistakes they made was equating children's literature with silly. In the book there was a bit of silliness from the elves in the entry into Rivendell, but that was about it.

That Halfy is one reason I have very mixed feelings about letting PJ anywhere near Doctor Who.
One of the things Who does particularly brilliantly is appeal to children and adults by never treating the children as stupid- thats doesnt mean not putting stuff in they will enjoy thats silly by adult standards- Who is full of that- but it does mean treating the young audience with respect.
As Moffat always says if you dont understand whats going on in Who, ask a 6 year old to explain it to you.

After TH I fear Pj will have no skill to judge the tone, despite being a huge lifelong Who fan, as Th doesn't exemplify any of Who's ethos towards its young audience.

Tinuviel wrote:Just a quick question: Anyone see if PJ had a cameo? I know his daughter did (she was in a boat in Laketown) but I didn't see the villain anywhere!

Like everything else that should've been there, it's probably in the EE.

I believe I spotted him in amongst the Dale refugees, but not 100% sure as he had a hat on.

Ok, so here are some of my thoughts.   (Finally. )  It's not a comprehensive review, as most of you have seen the movie by now and know what happens. Rather I've tried to tuch on some of the themes that struck me upon viewing the movie.

(I thought this would be pretty short, but seems it turned out a lot longer than I expected. Hey, maybe I'm less indifferent than I thought. )  

The movie starts as we all know with the Smaug bit, which is pretty spectacular, but I kind of have the feeling they overdid it with the talking. It was almost like they wanted to give Benedict Cumberbatch some more material, rather than add to the narrative. I guess it's a consequence of the heroisizing of Bards character. Which illustrates a general trend of these adatations I struggle with.

The Hobbit book is all about unheroic characters overwinning their flaws to accomplish heoric deads. Bilbo, the middle ageed self satisfied Hobbit that dosn't want to leave his comfy hole without his handechiefs becomes the unsuspected hero of the piece, Thorin, the, in name, heir of Durin who could never live up to the role of kingship laid on him overwins his failures in his rush from the Lonely Mountain and becomes the king he should have been, and Bard, a grizzled old man who has given up on everything and despite his lineage has accepted his faith of obscurity leaving the rule of the once people of Dale to people like the Master kills the Dragon and through no want of his own turns into a competent leader of his people. As such he, despite him showing any lack of signs of importance, is the most important character of the story..

In the films Bilbo still have some of his jouney left, though it  is preempted and as early as the Trollshaws Bilbo, and not Gandalf as in the book, saves the dwarves by delaying the trolls and playing for time. The other two on the other hand are displayed as straight up heroic characters. Thorin is the tragic figure trying to reclaim his homeland, while in the book he was, as Petty noted, a middle aged pomps self important dwarf who lead a company to steal back some of his ancestral treasure, which was why they hired a burgular. Bard is for all intents and purposes a freedom fighter, fighti9ng the yoke of the Masters oppressive regime.

Jackson and co changing this with regards to all three characters skews the angle of the story, and along with the ramping upof the importance of the Bo5As and adding Saurons involvement makes the story told in the movies a completely different one to the one told in the books.

Is there anything wrong in itself in that? I would say no, but I do find both the storiy and the characters less interesting written like that, we get ready made heroes, although a tragic one in Thorins case, instead of characters on a journey to redemption, and there are several flaws to the now original writing of Jackson and co that i willl return to, that I do not think the book story share.  

The movie then through the regrouping of the Laketown survivers, including some rather pointless asides with Aldric and Legolas and Tauriel leads into the quite interesting part, as the narrative focus shifts form action to the interpersonal relationships of several of the central chatracters

This part of the film gives an extended run of character collisions. Thorin and Bilbo, Bard and Thranduil, Thranduil and Gandalf, Bard and Thorin and Bard, Thranduil, Thorin and Bilbo. I think focusing on these clashes of personalities is a really good and very effective way of telling this part of the story thorugh the visual medium. And there are great acting performances all round.

It's rather interesting how much more effective these scenes are compared to all the over the top action, but when you contemplate the actors they hired it becomes pretty clear. Martin Freeman, Richard Armatige, Ian McKellan and Lee Evans. Give them something to work with and of course they will make something passable out of it. (How little of the three films that's passable says all that needs to be said about the writing, I think.)

And Armatige in particualr does shine in these scenes. His portrayal of Thorin kind of getting it's redemption in this movie. As his brooding demeanour and character in this movie, as compared to the others here actually has a justification in the dragon sickness. This is how Thorin should be acting during this part of the story. Richard Armatige actually really impresses me in this movie, and his Thorin is one of the best parts of the film.

Martin Freeman also deserves some acolades. The movie does a good job of telling the story from his perspective through this part, first through his interactions with Thorin, then bringing the Arkenstone to Thranduil and Bard and finally as part of the Thranduil, Bard Thorin showdown giving the audience some grounding in the story, very much being the voice of reason and the audiences focal point. It's a shame that he disapears for the entirety of the beggingin of the battle.

At this point I was kind of thinking this might turn out pretty good. (Quite a shock, I know.)

It must be said though that it also contained my least favourtie scene in the movie. And it's down to the original writing of the three screenwriters.

Bilbo runs off with the Arkenstone and brings it to Tranduil and Bard, at which point Gandalf has his monologue about the importance of the Lonely Mountain. Apparently Sauron wants to capture the Lonely mountain because that gives him the opportunity to retake Agnmar. Which apparently will lead to the fall of Rivendell, the Shire and even Gondor.

Err.. Um.. This is obviosuly an attempt to justify the role the wriers have given Sauron throught hteir own additions the the story of the book. It has to serious issues though and does not make snese in the context of their further additional writing.

Now why does Gandalf monologue make no sense? Well, let's start with the mountain beign held by Smaug at the moment Saurons army departed Dol Guldur in the internal temporal narrative of the movie. Were they going to capture it from Smaug who according to Gandalf was a potential future ally of Sauron? Secondly, it would allow Sauron to recapture Agnmar.. Let's ust leave the whole "Rivendell, the Shire and Gondor would fall" thing aside as it makes absolutely no sense.. in any sense. Would capturing the Lonely Mountain allow Sauron to reestablish his hold on Agnmar? No, for the simple reason that we see Legolas and Tauriel approach Gundabad, the apparent capitol of former Agnmar (another great invention of our ideterminate writers),which is held by a huge orc army Bolg recruits to the cause of Sauron.

So Agnmar was already held by forces friendly to Sauron..

Now the Lonely Mountain does hold a strategic importance as expounged on by Gandalf elsewhere in Tolkiens writing, but that is not the justifications of Jackson, Boyesn and Walsh. They write their own, which jars with both their own addtitional writing and the story as a whole.

It's the worst scene of the movie for me, and is another example of Jackson and co writing something that doesn't take into account the reprecussions of making changes without thinking them through in the context of the wider narrative.

Ah,well. That aside aside leaves us with the armies of the men and elves outside the Lonely Mountain when the Dwarf army under Dain arrives. The arrival of which, at least from the onset keeps the momentium going in my opinion.

While I do not like the way they treat Dain a bit as a madman, though his actual actions isn't to much of a diversion from the book plot, I quite like Billy Connolys performance.  Maybe this is the reason his role as future King after Throins death isn't covered in the moovive.

I have a major problem with the cgi look of the armies though. Having a massive amount of cgi created warriors looking exactly the same really drags you out of the moment. And as for being introduced to new groups Middle Earth people, Azogs army has the look of Sarumans army from Two Towers. Thranduils army has the look of the elves of the Last Allience in Fellowship. This goes far in exemplifying a  a general lack of imagination in these movies in my opinoon.

The Battle itself though when the orcs sudddenly appear quickly turns away from any semblance of a real battle as the men adn elves race off to Dale, while hte dwarves stay to protect the gate of the Lonely Mountain. So you get no real battle. No dwarves, elves and men standing together against the orcs. No long fight through the night. All of which diminishes ther occasion. Boyens said in an interview Jacskon didn't want to repeat himself, in as much as repeating the narrative structure of the Battles of the LotRs movies, and I guess the thinking must have been following the book would have been too similar to Hlems Deep. Not a decision i support though as what they ended up writing turned into an uncohesive semblance of and not actually a Battle of Five Armies.

It gets worse though.

At this point only ther dwarves of the Iron Hills are protecting the gate of the Lonely Mountain. The elves and Men of the Lake having gone off to fight the orcs in the streets of Dale for some reason. But even if it's just his kin outside the gate now, who came for the sole purpose of aiding him, Thorin still hesitate to come to their aid, which seems rather odd.

After having come to the decision to finally go aid his kin, Thorin then decides that what is needed is a command mission to take care of Azog who commands the Orcs from the top of Ravenhill. And from the cgi movie of completely similar dwarves four riding goats turn up from  nowhere. And Thorin, with Fili, Kili and Dwalin, in his words his best fighters, ride off to take care of Azog.

And that's pretty much it for the battle . I think the overreaching problem at this point in the film is that there isn't actually a Battle of Five Armies going on, and that's not what the writing handles. The battle for Jackson and co seem secondary to put in a lot of personal showdowns for important characters, and as such become secondary to major showdowns of important characters.

After that the movie pretty much consists of what you've read. Kili dies first without much time lent to it, being thrown by Azoig from the top of the tower on Ravenhill. Taurielø fghts Bolg being soundly defeated, Kili fights Bolg and is killed by him in front of Tauriel, Legolas fight Bolg, and.. it's just as ridiculous as you've heard,

It's is both spectacular, in lack of a better word, overblown and attempts to be emotionally manipulative, without really succeding.

I reallly think telling the Battle of Five Armies in this fashion was a mistake. I think they should have incorporated the single battle, going on overnight and it would have built some great tension and made some pretty epic images to portray on film. The way it is, there's not much of a battle. And in the end it's littlemore to it than a Thorin Azog grudge match.

And that is pretty much it.

After the individual fights are done, we do not revisit the battle. We are meant to assume it's won, I guess. Though how I'm not sure. Tranduil reappears for a talk with Tauriel about love and to send Legolas off to find Aragorn, Bard appears for a couple of seconds on the walls of Dale, In what is Thorins funeral, I guess. Dain is not seen again. Not even grieving over his cousins corps, while all the dwarves of the company do.

In about five minutes, Bilbo and Gandalf say goodbye to the dwwarves, returns to the Shire in a travelling montage, somewhere along the way Bilbo picks up the chest from the Troll cave off screen, and then Gandalf leaves Bilbo at the boarders of the Shire. Bilbo returns to find the auctionn of his belonging in progress, short scene wit iain glrenn the end.

I kind of fell of at this point, because one minute theres a full blown battle going on and then suddenly Gandalf and Bilbo are travelling home. No end to the battle. No explanation to the outcome. Just some expository scenes of some of the combattants grieving. To put it concisely the movie felt like it ended before I even realized it was ending. Or perhaps even more harshly, the movie lacks an ending. Or are the writers expecting us to make all that must have happened off screen up for ourselves?

In the end, while the movie has some great character moments it fails at what it basically meant to do as a movie. Tell the story of the Hobbit. Which is why I'm not surprised it's not been much appreciated by critics. There is no comprehensive narrative. The movie leaves the audience to do that job of making one up themselves. It seems disticntly odd to me, and I have no idea what Peter Jackson could have been thinking when he made the final cut.

So, in conclusion, the Battle of Five Armies has some of the best parts and certainly best acting of all three films, but it fails at the basics both as a story and as an adaptation. To tell a story. More specifically the story of the Hobbit. There are probably more things I could critisize, but that was my overriding impression of the movie.

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!


Oh. Where are my manners? Hello, everyone.

Welcome Stig you'll fit in rather well around here

Bluebottle wrote: and Lee Evans.

Didn't know he was in it!

Agree with you more or less Blue, the quieter character driven moments were great, the battle was a mess. It's kinda weird in such a CG heavy film the acting was the highpoint...

Stig wrote:Read this. It's obvious we're dealing with a director that "cannot see what he has become" and has "The Oscar Sickness":
https://www.yahoo.com/movies/the-hobbit-director-peter-jacksons-next-act-105871825637.html

Good one

goose wrote:Thanks for the reply. I am just reading your review now in the other thread.

Man, these movies have been a major let down. I remember being excited when they were first announced. I was skeptical of the division to three films, but still thought it might be good.

Talk about crushing disappointment. Barring some incredibly stupid changes in the original trilogy (with my most hated being The Two Towers), I like them overall. I can barely find any redeeming qualities in these movies, however (other than the dwarves singing in the first movie).

The dwarf/goblin war is one of my favourite moments in Tolkien, and to have that butchered like it was is unforgivable in my eyes, especially for an asinine reason like "he has a cool name", which they gave for keeping him alive. Ugh.

I tried to talk about it on the One Ring.net forums, but it seems any dissenting opinion is shouted down or removed altogether. It is a wretched hive of scum and villainy (or PJ apologists and fanboys/boot-lickers). Sad.

Welcome Goose, yeah I've noticed over on TORn posts that are apologetic towards the film or point out how truly bad they are tend to disappear. You'll notice a wide array of feelings here but none leaning the direction of that "other" website

Very thoughtful review Blue and I enjoyed reading it.
I agree with all your points I think, though I would be harsher on some bits you seem to have enjoyed more (I hesitate to go as far as liked!).
But as an analysis of what is wrong with it just as a movie, adaptation merits aside, I think you pretty much nailed the issues.

''And that's pretty much it for the battle . I think the overreaching problem at this point in the film is that there isn't actually a Battle of Five Armies going on, and that's not what the writing handles. The battle for Jackson and co seem secondary to put in a lot of personal showdowns for important characters, and as such become secondary to major showdowns of important characters.'' Blue

great review Blue, you are spot on about the battle scenes they just fizzle out to nothing with no resolution.

Great review blue. I'm not writing a review for it everyone has pretty much said exactly my feelings. No sense in reliving something like that. Course it's my wife's fault she's the one who kidnapped me and dragged me to see it, buying matinee tickets without my knowledge

http://boxofficemojo.com/showdowns/chart/?view=daily&id=vs-lotr.htm

BOFA is faring better than DOS at the US box office. BOFA's six day total is ahead of DOS's by about 8 mil, however it trails AUJ's 6 day total by 8 mil.

Current domestic gross is $98,138,554.

Day-to-day comparisons are still a bit tricky since BOFA opened on a Wednesday and the first two opened on Fridays, but each subsequent days makes it easier to compare.  It is looking rather likely at this point that BOFA will finish its run in between the first two Hobbit movies, which would rank it fifth out of PJ's six Middle-earth movies at the North American box office (adjusting for inflation would not change this ranking).

Yeah it's clear just from looking at how LOTR's box office haul increased with each film, that The Hobbit movies are not the cultural phenomenon that LOTR was.

It always bugs me when people try to defend not adjusting for inflation while comparing box office totals. For domestic box office it makes perfect sense to adjust for inflation. They should also release the number of tickets sold, but they don't do that. It would be very telling, especially now that 3D and IMAX tickets are taking up a good portion of box office revenue.

I love box office tracking, it's basically my favorite spectator sport right now, but there are a lot of misconceptions about it. The way that people (and Wikipedia pages) crow about a film reaching the top 50 or top 25 biggest movies ever in terms of worldwide gross is pretty silly when you look at how overloaded that list is with recent films. It has even more recency bias than the domestic list because the global film market has exploded in the past 10-15 years. But on the other hand, you can't just adjust the global totals like some people try, because you have to take into account exchange rates and varying levels of inflation for all the different countries, which would be a massive pain in the ass. But yeah, domestically, I hardly ever look at anything but adjusted totals at this point.