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

The characters still go on the physical journey, but their internal journey, the character development, is lost.

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Bluebottle wrote:The characters still go on the physical journey, but their internal journey, the character development, is lost.

They pretend to go on the same journey, but very little about that journey resembles the original.

I guess the success of LOTRO doomed the Hobbit on ever being the Hobbit. It then invariably had to have a big budget and Jackson attached and had to connect and have a similar tone to the earlier films. I wish it had come first and had been more of a bold experiment. They may as well reduce the movies to a couple of flashbacks that can be inserted into a couple of Bilbo's scenes in a LOTRO Ultimate edition.

'It then invariably had to have a big budget and Jackson attached and had to connect and have a similar tone to the earlier films.'

This is the bit I have a problem with - what PJ did was the easy thing to do, the expected thing to do and the completely wrong thing to do.

If he was half the independent brave film maker his fans like to claim he is he would have known this and realised that the only way to do TH justice and successfully was to make a film set in the same world but with a completely different tone and style. But he is either incapable of changing his style to suit the material and instead has to shove the material into his mould, or he didn't understand the nature of the material he was working with, or he just didn't care about the tone and style of the work being adapted and why it was important.

But then I have been arguing since his LotR's films that he doesn't actually understand or have any real appreciation for the material- he just likes all the spectacle it offers and big vistas and battles. I still think he was more interested in remaking Bakshi's version, but 'fixed' as he saw it far more than he was interested in adapting the book.

This talk of tone, SFX and whatever else is all very well but the simple fact is these Hobbit films were mostly crap because of all the added stuff, and by this I do not mean the inclusion of the so called appendices content which was all changed anyway, but crap like Alfrid, Tauriel (which could have been ok but was terrible) and Thranduil's increased antagonist role meaning he was portrayed as acting like an asshole. When the writers extrapolated or interpolted storylines based on the writing they got it wrong, they created situations that could not exist in Tolkiens world, whether they were written such as TH book or were largely unwritten such as Dol Guldur. This trilogy makes the LOTR trilogy (which is better on all accounts but still terrible at times and well short of what Tolkien wrote) look like a masterpiece.

well I wont argue with LOTR as masterpiece

ElendilTheShort wrote:This talk of tone, SFX and whatever else is all very well but the simple fact is these Hobbit films were mostly crap because of all the added stuff, and by this I do not mean the inclusion of the so called appendices content which was all changed anyway, but crap like Alfrid, Tauriel (which could have been ok but was terrible) and Thranduil's increased antagonist role meaning he was portrayed as acting like an asshole. When the writers extrapolated or interpolted storylines based on the writing they got it wrong, they created situations that could not exist in Tolkiens world, whether they were written such as TH book or were largely unwritten such as Dol Guldur. This trilogy makes the LOTR trilogy (which is better on all accounts but still terrible at times and well short of what Tolkien wrote) look like a masterpiece.

I happened to like Thrandypants acting like an asshole actually,  just like I prefer the grumpy selfish Thorin in the book, it was easier for me to accept selfish flawed characters who don't act that human than perfect heroic Archetypes who are almost to easy to trust, it's a fantasy film I don't really want to be force fed sympathy on the characters, ambiguity and darkness is often something I enjoy in characters (probably explains why I'm such a miserable bugger) I feel the same way about Doctor Who. At least he seemed genuine and had some canon backing in being grumpy, unlike 'look how far my eyebrows are raised' Elrond in the LOTR films, Lee Pace was probably my second favourite performance in the film, after Ken Stott)

I agree. The acting was one of the best parts of BOFA in particular, especially Lee Pace and Richard Armitage (though I hated what he was acting, the how was very good) and Martin Freeman was much less gimicky in this film. The material sucked, but what they did with it was pretty admirable.

Tinuviel wrote:I agree. The acting was one of the best parts of BOFA in particular, especially Lee Pace and Richard Armitage (though I hated what he was acting, the how was very good) and Martin Freeman was much less gimicky in this film. The material sucked, but what they did with it was pretty admirable.

Yes, Jackson has always been rather good with actors, (kinda surprising since he isn't a very good one himself ) I think it was certainly a necessary skill in making fantasy films, even if you try and ground things in a 'realistic' basis like he did on LOTR, it is all too easy for things to become heightened and to swept up in the scale of things, he did very well in grounding things, and though the performances weren't always great *Orlando Bloom* they mostly felt real to me (more so in The Hobbit ironically, I think casting more actual Brits with TV and Stage experience this time around helped, experienced character actors rather than big names made things a little less gimmicky I think).

I still maintain Ian Mcshane would have been the best choice for Tolkien's Thorin, but that obviously wasn't a character Jackson and co really wanted to portray, Armitage did very well in giving a multi layered, commanding performance (and I certainly appreciate his enthusiasm for the source material) but it wasn't one that moved me at all personally, and reminded more than I liked of Mortensen...

malickfan wrote:
Yes, Jackson has always been rather good with actors, (kinda surprising since he isn't a very good one himself )

Hardly! Most of the best directors are not actors themselves, nor acted in the past. Your namesake was a philosophy teacher!

malickfan wrote:
I still maintain Ian Mcshane would have been the best choice for Tolkien's Thorin, but that obviously wasn't a character Jackson and co really wanted to portray, Armitage did very well in giving a multi layered, commanding performance (and I certainly appreciate his enthusiasm for the source material) but it wasn't one that moved me at all personally, and reminded more than I liked of Mortensen...

Ian McShane could have been quite lovely, yes. Armitage is fine and all, but he's so clearly Jackson's Thorin that I can't enjoy his portrayal.

This is pretty good.

http://middle-earth.thehobbit.com/map

Ian McShane would have been a kick ass Thorin. I think he has some of the same characters Thorin had, which would have made for a better character on screen IMHO

Chris.. that map is good, I like the soothing music too

Sinister71 wrote:Ian McShane would have been a kick ass Thorin. I think he has some of the same characters Thorin had, which would have made for a better character on screen IMHO

(Although I have frequently pointed out Mcshane was my top choice for the role, I do find it kinda hard to picture a 72 year old man selling a blockbuster film to the masses (Mcshane is definitely suited to the Darker Thorin of the book, hell he looks kinda Dwarvish imo), or being able to get the insurance or stamina required for such a punishing shooting schedule)

Mcshane certainly has the beetling brows for the job.

5 ?!

I like this song its quite catchy.

Bluebottle wrote:5 ?!

I know, right?

"The 5 major problems of Azog as a cgi character" more like.

And that's just for a start.

How can Azog as a CGI character have Five Major Problems? CGI is one word...

Oh, I thought five was being conservative.

The whole concept of Azog in the film as a main character is a MAJOR problem. To me it shows the script was not well thought out and put together rather poorly... Just an opinion though

Azog was filler, padding, something to bung a hole with, to stretch the films out more, to bore my fooking arse off