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

But inflation needs to be figured in when tallying the amounts made between LOTR and the Hobbit films. There's 10 years worth of increases in price. So in truth did the hobbit movies truly make any more if that is figured in. Not to mention higher ticket prices for 3-D, IMAX, and 48fps showings which were less available 10 years ago, but have become substantially more frequent....

The Hobbit movies definitely made noticeably less than the LOTR films did in the US.  The fall-off was obvious after AUJ's opening weekend and the franchise hasn't recovered from it.  It's harder to say worldwide, but considering the massive expansion of the international market, it's a little surprising that neither of the first two Hobbit films managed to gross more than ROTK did internationally (in completely unadjusted terms), so there was most likely an attendance fall-off in many foreign markets as well.

Eldorion wrote:The Hobbit movies definitely made noticeably less than the LOTR films did in the US.  The fall-off was obvious after AUJ's opening weekend and the franchise hasn't recovered from it.  It's harder to say worldwide, but considering the massive expansion of the international market, it's a little surprising that neither of the first two Hobbit films managed to gross more than ROTK did internationally (in completely unadjusted terms), so there was most likely an attendance fall-off in many foreign markets as well.

Is it me or did this particular film get quite a lead time in non US territories first, this time around? Anything to do with being able to say it currently has made X amount of money? Some marketing thing maybe in that being able to add "foreign" (sorry for being American-centric) box office numbers give the film some gravitas or traction?

There's been a bit of an emergent trend lately to open big blockbuster movies in other countries a week or two ahead of the US. I get the sense that it is to build up hype (both through online word of mouth and box office bragging rights) before the US release, but I'm not entirely sure.

Just a few thoughts looking at various comments including from other places, reading links etc.

1. WTF people complaining about Bag End at the beginning of AUJ. It's the best part of the entire trilogy. I honestly think some ass hat reviewer or three complained about this 2 years ago and it has been latched onto by all and sundry ever since then who don't have the intelligence to raise a valid intellectual argument.

......speaking of intellectual.......

2. So many people trying to justify the writers movie decisions with some psuedo intellectual reasoning, speaking like they are quoting some filmmaking mantra. There is nothing intellectual or well thought out about these movies at all. The plot holes in nearly every respect whether it be timing, travel (well f@$#× it i'll just pop over the misty mountains in about 5 minutes to warn a buddy or look at a hole in a hill) character motivation or knowledge of events and the laws of physics, as well as unresolved storylines are too numerous to count.

Unlike the LOTR movies which were very flawed but are still watchable for me, I actually wish these Hobbit films had not been made. Looking at many comments it is clear people have not been introduced to Tolkien. There is such a misunderstanding about his characters out there amongst viewers and some so called Tolkien fans that attempts at discussion have become pointless in many forums etc.

ElendilTheShort wrote:Just a few thoughts looking at various comments including from other places, reading links etc.

1. WTF people complaining about Bag End at the beginning of AUJ. It's the best part of the entire trilogy. I honestly think some ass hat reviewer or three complained about this 2 years ago and it has been latched onto by all and sundry ever since then who don't have the intelligence to raise a valid intellectual argument.

......speaking of intellectual.......

2. So many people trying to justify the writers movie decisions with some psuedo intellectual reasoning, speaking like they are quoting some filmmaking mantra. There is nothing intellectual or well thought out about these movies at all. The plot holes in nearly every respect whether it be timing, travel (well f@$#× it i'll just pop over the misty mountains in about 5 minutes to warn a buddy or look at a hole in a hill) character motivation or knowledge of events and the laws of physics,  as well as unresolved storylines are too numerous to count.

Unlike the LOTR movies which were very flawed but are still watchable for me, I actually wish these Hobbit films had not been made. Looking at many comments it is clear people have not been introduced to Tolkien. There is such a misunderstanding about his characters out there amongst viewers and some so called Tolkien fans that attempts at discussion have become pointless in many forums etc.

Yeah the beginning at Baggend was the best part of all 3 films for me. It had minor deviations but for the most part felt like a true return to middle earth. And then the adventure began, with Bill running thru the shire yelling about "going on an adventure" and it was all down hill from there.

Bag End was pretty awful, really.
The dwarves are rude and disgusting, there's a toilet joke, the dishes song is ridiculous, Thorin is set up as some kind of ominously-threatening cool dwarf leader, and so on.
I mean, it's not even the beginning of the movie. First we have to watch all the flashbacks to dwarf history and Frodo and Bilbo messing about.


But anyway, I finally watched the Battle of the Five Armies tonight!
It was awful!
I don't want to go through time-wise and pick apart everything that went wrong, but here's a few major points:
1. Alfrid should never have had a role in these movies. He is like a more-offensive, less-funny version of Jar-Jar Binks for this trilogy. The cross-dressing was particularly bad. Really, all his screen-time should have gone to Bilbo.

2. Jackson has been playing too much God of War lately!
Legolas grabs onto the legs of one of those bats like Kratos grabs on to harpies. The whole direct-the-troll-by-stabbing-its-head is also straight out of Kratos' bag of tricks.
(And rather poor taste, to boot!)

3. The music was not handled very well. Especially the "Feast of Starlight" theme that kept showing up for Tauriel and Kili. I liked Billy Boyd's song though, so that was nice.

4. The deaths of the three dwarves was just bad. Fili's death was disturbing, Kili's was also quite disturbing, and Thorin's death was just nasty. It reminded me of whats-his-face's death from Saving Private Ryan. On the one hand you can argue that when violent death feels unpleasant in a movie the director is being realistic, but on the other hand, the emotion was missing from the deaths of all three characters.

5. The ring came up too much. The film couldn't even end without using the ring as a sequeue to LotR, which really makes sense, considering how you can't really boost up the tension-factor of the ring's evil and then say that "All ends well" when your main character is left alone with that ring for the next sixty years.

6. Well there's a lot more, but I keep falling asleep as I type this.

Forest Shepherd wrote:Bag End was pretty awful, really.
The dwarves are rude and disgusting, there's a toilet joke, the dishes song is ridiculous, Thorin is set up as some kind of ominously-threatening cool dwarf leader, and so on.
I mean, it's not even the beginning of the movie. First we have to watch all the flashbacks to dwarf history and Frodo and Bilbo messing about.

That's very true Forest. The Bag End sequences can be deceiving, but they really set the tone for the rest of the trilogy. If there's one thing about these movies, it's that the quality has been consistent across all three, unlike LOTR where I felt that the quality was on more of a downward slope after FOTR, with a little uptick at the end of ROTK.

bungobaggins wrote:

Forest Shepherd wrote:Bag End was pretty awful, really.
The dwarves are rude and disgusting, there's a toilet joke, the dishes song is ridiculous, Thorin is set up as some kind of ominously-threatening cool dwarf leader, and so on.
I mean, it's not even the beginning of the movie. First we have to watch all the flashbacks to dwarf history and Frodo and Bilbo messing about.

That's very true Forest. The Bag End sequences can be deceiving, but they really set the tone for the rest of the trilogy. If there's one thing about these movies, it's that the quality has been consistent across all three, unlike LOTR where I felt that the quality was on more of a downward slope after FOTR, with a little uptick at the end of ROTK.

I think Bag End was the best of a bad lot, so relatively speaking looking at the 3 films for me its the least offensive, although I got a sinking feeling as soon as the opening scenes with Gandalf finished. There were a few flashes of niceness in Bagend namely Bilbo asking Gandalf if he would return, or the Misty Mountain song, or the embers in the chimney, but it was ruined by dragging on and on loads of boring exposition, vulgarity and wooden acting. They did set the tone as far as Thorin went and it was downhill from there.

Forest Shepherd wrote:Bag End was pretty awful, really.
The dwarves are rude and disgusting, there's a toilet joke, the dishes song is ridiculous, Thorin is set up as some kind of ominously-threatening cool dwarf leader, and so on.
I mean, it's not even the beginning of the movie. First we have to watch all the flashbacks to dwarf history and Frodo and Bilbo messing about.


But anyway, I finally watched the Battle of the Five Armies tonight!
It was awful!
I don't want to go through time-wise and pick apart everything that went wrong, but here's a few major points:
1. Alfrid should never have had a role in these movies. He is like a more-offensive, less-funny version of Jar-Jar Binks for this trilogy. The cross-dressing was particularly bad. Really, all his screen-time should have gone to Bilbo.

2. Jackson has been playing too much God of War lately!
Legolas grabs onto the legs of one of those bats like Kratos grabs on to harpies. The whole direct-the-troll-by-stabbing-its-head is also straight out of Kratos' bag of tricks.
(And rather poor taste, to boot!)

3. The music was not handled very well. Especially the "Feast of Starlight" theme that kept showing up for Tauriel and Kili. I liked Billy Boyd's song though, so that was nice.

4. The deaths of the three dwarves was just bad. Fili's death was disturbing, Kili's was also quite disturbing, and Thorin's death was just nasty. It reminded me of whats-his-face's death from Saving Private Ryan. On the one hand you can argue that when violent death feels unpleasant in a movie the director is being realistic, but on the other hand, the emotion was missing from the deaths of all three characters.

5. The ring came up too much. The film couldn't even end without using the ring as a sequeue to LotR, which really makes sense, considering how you can't really boost up the tension-factor of the ring's evil and then say that "All ends well" when your main character is left alone with that ring for the next sixty years.

6. Well there's a lot more, but I keep falling asleep as I type this.

Forest!

yeah I noticed the over use of Feast of Starlight, overall the music score has been very disappointing and stale.

I've been trying to find Petty's epic rant but he didn't post it in the right thread and now I seem to have lost it!



Anyway, I noticed the use of musical motifs in a big way with this series. You have a limited number of musical pieces that are always shown when a specific thing happens, and this results in a predictability that disappoints the senses. There were no moments of transcendence, I don't think. The closest the series got was probably the Bag-end Dwarven singing and the [meh] scene between Tauriel and Kili when she talks about the light of the stars.
Remember all the feels we got when Frodo remembers Gandalf's words while alone on the banks of the Anduin, and it gives him enough strength to go on? In the midst of his pain and fear (which the score amplified) there came a comforting variation on the Shire theme or something. The score, coupled with Elijah Woods performance, was amazing! It worked in terms of storytelling and editing and scoring and direction. As others have mentioned already, there weren't really any scenes like that in BoFA. Even when actors were performing well in parts of the movie, it was the fact that the scene wasn't quite as bad as the rest of the film that stood out to us; the emotional impact simply wasn't there.

Petty put his review in the critics thread, which I suppose the NotP made him do since they sponsored it.

But of course...
{{{Bloody NotP putting itself up there with bloggers and regular newspapers. }}}

Forest Shepherd wrote:I've been trying to find Petty's epic rant but he didn't post it in the right thread and now I seem to have lost it!



Anyway, I noticed the use of musical motifs in a big way with this series. You have a limited number of musical pieces that are always shown when a specific thing happens, and this results in a predictability that disappoints the senses. There were no moments of transcendence, I don't think. The closest the series got was probably the Bag-end Dwarven singing and the [meh] scene between Tauriel and Kili when she talks about the light of the stars.
Remember all the feels we got when Frodo remembers Gandalf's words while alone on the banks of the Anduin, and it gives him enough strength to go on? In the midst of his pain and fear (which the score amplified) there came a comforting variation on the Shire theme or something. The score, coupled with Elijah Woods performance, was amazing! It worked in terms of storytelling and editing and scoring and direction. As others have mentioned already, there weren't really any scenes like that in BoFA. Even when actors were performing well in parts of the movie, it was the fact that the scene wasn't quite as bad as the rest of the film that stood out to us; the emotional impact simply wasn't there.

great point about transcendence, you are right, theres nothing even remotely close to anything in LOTR. Even the small moments for example in the EE of TTT theres the House of Healing scen with Eowyn and Faramir, with Liv Tyler singing Arwens Song. That was lovely.

I had forgotten about that scene actually! (I don't own the EEs, so I only watch them every few years).
It does a pretty good job of getting across the idea of Eowyn's supposed death, healing at the hands of Aragorn, and connection with Faramir. It's nice to see the filmmakers developing the peaceful side of Aragorn's kingship, rather than just his skill at war. And at least we get some recognition of Faramir and Eowyn's similar paths to healing.
The only problem I have with it is that not enough time is spent developing these themes, so although the tone of it feels right (and yes, it's nice having another piece of music sung by a cast member), such a light touching on these themes could never do the characters justice.
Then again, of course, it's still far better than the healing of Kili at the hands of Tauriel in DoS.
Going back to parts of LotR after I recently rewatched all three of the Hobbit films demonstrates just how bad The Hobbit is. What a contrast!


(I would have liked to have seen Eomer's reaction developed more; Karl Urban is pretty great!)

OK, so getting back to The Hobbit:
I heard somewhere (on the wiki page) that the Three Rings of the Elves were actually invisible (although this sounds suspect). I can't remember anything from the Lord of the Rings about any of this, for when Frodo sees the ring on Galadriel's finger it is, supposedly, because he has the One in his possession.
Anyway, regardless of that, the elves strove to keep all knowledge of the locations of the Three from Sauron. He did not know where they were, and did not know who possessed them. This being the case, why was Galadriel so brazen with her own ring in DG? She flashes it about quite obviously. Surely giving Sauron this knowledge would be the last thing she'd want to do?


P.S.
Someone over at the Barrowdowns.com was talking about how attached Bilbo and Thorin were. They brought up several good points about how affectionately Thorin looks at Bilbo, their camaraderie, the fact that Thorin trusts Bilbo over the dwarves (even those he is related to), and most importantly the way in which it is Bilbo that finds Thorin as he lays dying. The hesitant manner in which Bilbo is never quite willing to say what his relationship to Thorin was:
"To me, Thorin was..."

When asked by the hobbits back home who Thorin was:
"He was... my friend."

You can't really avoid it, Thorin and Bilbo are kind of in love by the end of the film.
I guess that also explains why Bilbo jumped so high in Thorin's esteem so early on in the trilogy: they needed to get from open dislike to a companionable esteem to full-blown love!

P.P.S.
Illustration of the Death of Smaug by the professor, for your viewing pleasure!

Forest Shepherd wrote:OK, so getting back to The Hobbit:
I heard somewhere (on the wiki page) that the Three Rings of the Elves were actually invisible (although this sounds suspect). I can't remember anything from the Lord of the Rings about any of this, for when Frodo sees the ring on Galadriel's finger it is, supposedly, because he has the One in his possession.
Anyway, regardless of that, the elves strove to keep all knowledge of the locations of the Three from Sauron. He did not know where they were, and did not know who possessed them. This being the case, why was Galadriel so brazen with her own ring in DG? She flashes it about quite obviously. Surely giving Sauron this knowledge would be the last thing she'd want to do?

I'd put it down to poor writing mostly. Not to be flippant or anything, but these "good idea in the moment" ideas that are scattered throughout all six films has really become a bit of a signpost of Jackson, Boyens and Walsh writing.  I don't know whether it's ideas that just seems great cinematicly or it's just seemed a good idea at the time, but there's suprsingly many moments scattered through all six films of alterations or original writing that might make sense in themselves, but not in the context of Tolkiens story as a whole or their own wider writing. I'm guessing a lot of it is down to the oft mentioned script rewrites on the day and making it up as you go along approach Jackson seems to prefere. It certainly doesn't make for a cohesive narrative.  

So you can add Galadriels talk of the hidden elven rings in Fellowship jarring with her flashing it in front of Sauron in the Hobbit to that, I guess.

Forest Shepherd wrote:You can't really avoid it, Thorin and Bilbo are kind of in love by the end of the film.

Cue fan fiction.

Pettytyrant101 wrote: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.

Yeah, I think I'd put a good deal of the praise down to the acting though. THough I guess that's one thing you can give the production some credit for in tese films, the casting. I don't know, I think it mainly was a few things working together, the acting, the writing, the narrative not solely reliant on cgi, that made that part stand out for me. There's certainly a good deal of the criticism and things you pointed out that I agree with even for those parts though.

And, yeah, I think as an adaptation there's not much to be said for these movies. They left Tolkiens story behind long ago. As just a movie though I was perfectly ready to give it a chance. It just kind of failed to do the basics, as in tell a coherent story. Which seems a bit of a shame when some things seemed to kind of work for once.

Hey, listen to me all level headed, unbiased and understanding. Maybe I'll win most liberal at the awards this year.

malickfan wrote:

Bluebottle wrote: and Lee Evans.

Didn't know he was in it!

My indifference has been reestablished.

Forest Shepherd wrote:I had forgotten about that scene actually! (I don't own the EEs, so I only watch them every few years).
It does a pretty good job of getting across the idea of Eowyn's supposed death, healing at the hands of Aragorn, and connection with Faramir. It's nice to see the filmmakers developing the peaceful side of Aragorn's kingship, rather than just his skill at war. And at least we get some recognition of Faramir and Eowyn's similar paths to healing.
The only problem I have with it is that not enough time is spent developing these themes, so although the tone of it feels right (and yes, it's nice having another piece of music sung by a cast member), such a light touching on these themes could never do the characters justice.
Then again, of course, it's still far better than the healing of Kili at the hands of Tauriel in DoS.
Going back to parts of LotR after I recently rewatched all three of the Hobbit films demonstrates just how bad The Hobbit is. What a contrast!


(I would have liked to have seen Eomer's reaction developed more; Karl Urban is pretty great!)

yes Karl Urban is quite heartbreaking in that scene, I have rarely seen an actor look so full of grief, he did a good job.

Eomers response to seeing Eowyn on the battlefield is one of the highlights of all three films for me.
I rate Urban highly as a character actor- he is the best thing acting wise in the St reboot and he as superb as Dredd- nailed the character and deliver to a tee.

But I would dearly have loved to see a proper introduction for Eomer- with the conversation between him and Aragorn closer to the book version. And I would also have loved to have the scene on the battlefield where he and Aragorn meet up again.

Yes, Aragorn-Eomer relations were not overly developed in LotR; that's for sure.
The invented animosity when Eomer first meets the Three Runners continues the lack of politeness and courtesy that is a trademark of inter-person relations in Jackson's Middle Earth. Because of that, you don't get much of anything going on between Eomer and Aragorn that could count as respect or whatever. And then Eomer is kind of sidelined as the faux-love affair between his sister and Aragorn is developed.
Really, there's almost no foundation for the two future King's relationship in either the TT or RotK.
Bard and Thranduil get more meaningful screen-time together.

Someone posted this on IMDB, apparently one of the designs for Del Torro's Smaug (not sure how far aslong it was though, Del Torro stated Smaug would be the first design to be worked on and the last to be finalised):



My initial thought was doesn't look much like a Dragon to me, striking and kinda gothic but not really that Tolkienesque i.m.o. Everything I've read about Del Torro's approach seems rather more outlandish than Jackson's (in terms of design, Del Torro's version sounds kinda like a steampunk esque gothic Fairytale not a LOTR Prequel) but very striking to say the least...

Looks more like Turkey-neck from Doctor Who!



Honestly, that image makes Smaug look like an old flappy-jowled gentleman.