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

Yes, Figg I agree. Celeborn was wooden and lifeless. I suppose even in the books he was a near non entity, overshadowed by Galadriel at least in my mind. So his treatment didn't really bug me much in the film.

In the book I felt Lothlorien to be a happy place, though under siege but still, joyous. The most green healthy non corrupted Elven space remaining in M.E.

Lothlorien was one of my favorite parts of the book. A peaceful and powerful refuge after the horrors of Moria and the startling blow of the loss of Gandalf. A place of healing power where the hand of the enemy had never reached or tainted. Jackson didn't show this well at all in my opinion. Again, the Spirit was missing.

I agree that Galadriel couldn't be all smiles and silly. That would've been bad too. But, my minds eye sees her as a Stunningly beautiful, Noble and Earthy elf queen with a shining light Pouring out of her Kind eyes walking in a bubble of power as flowers spontaneously sprung up in her wake.

hahaha that should be easy to portray They should have done something with her hair too, I don't see Feanor lusting after her locks from the film version. In TH she just looks tired and Blahhhh,

I hated the Dol Guldor scene, even though it made me laugh so hard I was gasping. Elrond and Sauruman just taking a break in the shadows while she fights, only to stroll up from different directions in no big hurry, Geeze guys, lend a hand could ya? So Pathetic. The wraiths popping in and out of physical being, knocked off the cliff only to re materialize, Good god of all that's absurd. ... leave Sauron to me... weak weak weak!

However, that should be expected since there wasn't any help from JRR's inspired story telling, to bastardize and save their clueless arses. Left to their own muse, and talent to come up with a story, they failed and failed again.

How I wish they could have just done the Hobbit as it was written! The world is lacking in quality children's movies. Blind and greedy fools we don't have a shortage of sadly.


Forest Shepherd Today at 6:29 pm

Speaking to the comment earlier by Halfy about how this next young generation being introduced to Tolkien through the Hobbit films, I have to say that it goes further than that in my own experience! My two nephews have seen the hobbit films, or at least one of them, and haven't been interested at all in watching either Lord of the Rings or finishing the trilogy.

This is what I was talking about earlier too, how these dreadful films will pollute the waters of Tolkien Lore.
How many will judge the Tolkien stories from these foul Hobbit films. Who could blame anyone for NOT wanting to delve further into M.E.?
Your nephews seem to be responding in a very reasonable fashion.
I begged my daughter to not let my grandson see TH before he had read them first. I am proud of her, though she was read the hobbit as a bedtime story and has read it and LotR many times, after hearing my reaction to TH films, she has never watched any of them yet.

I was about to start a huge post about reddit's shifting attitude towards the hobbit movies. I just decided it wasn't worth my time to finish.

Are they becoming more negative about them in the same way that a lot of Tolkien forums have?

Yeah. Lots of comments on early posts of the first AUJ trailers are all hype, and how great it is that "we're getting three movies instead of two." "We're gonna have so many hours of Middle-earth films to watch in a marathon, etc."

The DOS trailers are all hype about how great Breaded-dick Cucumbersack is going to be as not one, but TWO villains!! OMGZ! Some people being a little cautious; not liking all the cgi orcs (and some trying to justify the use of cgi orcs because "Tolkien made the hobbit for kids, and Peter Jackson is trying to get kids to like the movie because of cgi orcs?"

I remember the BOFA comments on the trailers were more positive and hopeful: "I know reddit hates the hobbit movies, but I'm going to enjoy this one sooooo hard!" Then when the movie came out the general consensus was disappointment/"WTF was that?"

All the above quotes are paraphrases.

{{{And I take full credit for "Breaded-dick Cucumbersack."}}}

bungobaggins wrote:

The DOS trailers are all hype about how great Breaded-dick Cucumbersack is going to be as not one, but TWO villains!! OMGZ! Some people being a little cautious; not liking all the cgi orcs (and some trying to justify the use of cgi orcs because "Tolkien made the hobbit for kids, and Peter Jackson is trying to get kids to like the movie because of cgi orcs?"

Actually, here's that quote about CGI orcs and kids and Tolkien and Jackson and whatever:

Orc costumes > Orc CGI

Now that thats off my chest - WOAH this is gonna be fun. It looks like they added in some action to the Barrel Escape, and Smaug with Benedict Cumberbatch's voice is gonna make me have a meltdown.

EDIT: Yes, The Hobbit is a children's book, so the CGI heavy goblins make sense when you think that Jackson is targeting kids with this trilogy more so than the LoTR trilogy. When Tolkien's publisher's son wrote a review of the Hobbit before it was published, he mentioned that he thought 14 year olds would really enjoy it. BUT, I know that when I was 14, the Hobbit was quite a bit over my head. I've read it 3 times now and adore the book, but when you look at what passes as kids books these days, The Hobbit is a bit much.

http://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1g4q62/the_hobbit_the_desolation_of_smaug_trailer/cagpzce

Just to be even that much more of a nit-picker I remember that Rayner Unwin stated in his childhood review of The Hobbit that it would be suitable for children between the ages of 5 and 9. Not sure where he's getting stuff about 14 year olds.

I specifically remember this from watching the FOTR EE special features!

Yeah The Hobbit was aimed at a significantly younger audience than 14 year olds...

I think I was about 7 or 8 for TH. Somewhere between graduating from Enid Blyton's Famous Five to Lewis's Narnia.

I have vague memories of being read part of the TH aged 9 or 10 in school, but I didn't properly read the book the whole way through until I was 16 or 17.

Music of the Ainur wrote:

In the book I felt Lothlorien to be a happy place, though under siege but still, joyous. The most green healthy non corrupted Elven space remaining in M.E.

Its funny how everyone views these things differently. I don't find Lothlorien a happy place, to me its a bitter-sweet soul piercing type of place, not very comfortable for ordinary Hobbits to bear for long before it does something odd and queer. I think Rivendell is a happy place though and not so dangerous.

Figg, I didn't mean Lothlorien was a light bouncy, silly,happy place. Yes, I agree Rivendel would be more light hearted. But, still a joyful place, the old spirit of days long lost in the general world preserved and kept alive through the power of Galadriel and Nenya. Certainly with a cloud on its heart with the storm threatening, certainly a sweet sad flavor of impending loss.
But,in the film I was not strongly given the idea of it being a healthy, healing, place. It did give a sense of being somewhat outside of time to Jacksons credit. But, it felt too sterile and dry for my tastes.

Again, I understand how hard it is to try and create these magical places and events. I don't judge the creators too harshly on points like that. It is hard to even put these images you get in your head after reading them into words let alone physically manifest them into a movie set.

It is the diminishing of the quality of the characters and the dialog and spirit that trouble me most.

I liked the twinkling Elven twilight, I thought it was beautiful.

I liked the twinkling Elven twilight, I thought it was beautiful.- Figg

Its at complete odds with the books description and feel for the place- which is all sunlight and green grass.
I still dont get why they shoehorned in something like the ludicrous Aragorn over the clifff thing just to contrive a way to get Arwen in there when situations like Lothlorien- and Frodo seeing a vision of Aragorn in white with Arwen pledging their troth on the green grass mound gets left out. It completely speaks to the mystical, magical, beautiful green and growing sense of life that book Lothlorien is filled with, and shows it a place of resistance, a defience against the Shadow- a place of beauty and life and hope.
The anger in Lothlorien is two fold- time runs differently there and you cant hide your innermost thoughts.
But the place itself should be green, bright, sunny, summerlike, growing and alive.
It should not look like a cheap version of the ewok village in perpetual blue starlight.

"I always thought elves were all for star and moonlit, but this is more elvish than anything I ever imagined. Its like being inside a song, if you take my meaning"- Sam on how sunny and green and alive Lothlorien is (more or less quoting from memory).

Pettytyrant101 wrote:


I still dont get why they shoehorned in something like the ludicrous Aragorn over the clifff thing just to contrive a way to get Arwen in there when situations like Lothlorien- and Frodo seeing a vision of Aragorn in white with Arwen pledging their troth on the green grass mound gets left out. It completely speaks to the mystical, magical, beautiful green and growing sense of life that book Lothlorien is filled with, and shows it a place of resistance, a defience against the Shadow- a place of beauty and life and hope.

I couldn't agree more about the Aragorn over the cliff crap, I was stunned when I saw that. How very silly, 'where is lord Aragorn?'  boo hoo  he has fallen my lady...  More than that I hated the whole suggested love interest between Eowyn and Aragorn, it gave me the feeling he was leading her on when I saw it. Like he was being unfaithful to Arwen. Of course in the books she was wanting him but he never fed that desire  willfully. I guess Jackson thought he was not believable and needed to be made "more human". More character degrading, I puke on him and his. And surely the powerful Green life filled spirit was lacking in the film.

Yeah I have a huge dislike for how film Aragorn leads her on- to the point where even Theoden seems to think its on  And it means we lose some great book stuff- like moving her declaration of love to before the battle has even happened rather than at their parting where it has meaning and intensity, in the film it just makes her out like a silly litle girl with a teenage crush- and we lose Aragorn explaining to Legolas and Gimli that there is nothing more grievous to a man than seeing a genuine love that can never be responded to. Or the description of him as they ride away with Arwen standing almost frozen in time watching them, and how Tolkien tells us only those who knew Aragorn well could read the pain and sorrow in his face over the situation- all gone for a cheap and easy to write contriveg drama love triangle- wait where have I seen that again?

Well, the gift of brilliant story weaving is not all that common in men or women. Rarely they flash across the sky. Fools who chose self indulgent service to their own less gifted  egos are a dime a dozen.

Sadly all too often they find themselves in a position of power and given the opportunity to "improve" and "make it their own" they diminish the brilliance they were entrusted with. It is human perhaps, but less than praiseworthy to say the least.  

Jackson should have stuck to what he was good at and left the word and spirit craft to the master. How dare he believe he had the right or lights to improve on Tolkiens stories.  What a fool.

He did fine with many aspects of bringing it to film and if he would have just refrained from the pointless/ ill-inspired and unnecessary revisions and stuck to the spirit of it, it could have been a timeless classic. There are many things he did perfectly well. But, the things he changed are well above what I can ignore or forgive.

A golden opportunity that he spoiled through his desire to improve a story he believed unpalatable, coupled with poor taste and bad story crafting skills. Replacing a strong story with weak, tired, trite cliche'.

well I for one think LOTR was perfect. It could hardly have been better done. Arguments about green lighting will not take away its majesty or its beauty.

If only it were just the lighting- but its bad enough- not also is it the complete opposite of how the place is presented in the book its cheap looking.
The blue/starlight night filter they use seems to be right out the box- I use an almost identical filter to turn part of the ents attack on Isengard to a night scene becuase of where its moved to - just as Pj did with the scene where Pippin searches the battle field for Merry, which was also filtered from day to night.
Thats fine for a quick fix, or an amateur like myself working with limited tools- but for professionals? Its cheap and nasty looking.

But there is so much more that is wrong- Galadriel for a start- there is queenliness yes, and stiffness, and aloofness, but there is no warmth, no sign of the elf maid dressed in simple white- she is all airs and graces in the film, no sense of her down to earth nature from the books that goes hand in hand with her great dignity and power.
And why does she talk like she is in a dream all the time? That in large part goes a long way to draining the character of any personality or spirit.

I'll take the BBC version everytime- even with the music! There is a lightness, a musical quality to Galadriels voice in this version which the dream delivery just cant match- Id have loved to see what Blanchett could have done with the part without the slow talking and being covered in sfx for her big speech.

9.35 for them meeting Galadriel and Celeborn

18.40 for the Mirror scene-

John Hurt is still my favourite Aragorn voice- just suits the character to a tee for me.

Blanchett might have a musical voice with undertones of power but if she does I don't hear it in her performance as Galadriel- its destroyed by the stupid slow way of talking and the dreamy quality to it all- not to mention her scrpting is rubbish, lacking all the subtle lines of the original, and the significance of the 'your coming is as the footsteps of doom' is completely lost in PJ's despite it being absolutely crucial to understanding Galadriels and the elves in general position, especially in light of Frodo when offered the Ring.

I can imagine the BBC version both being imperious and frightening and equally laughing and dancing on the grass beneath the sun- I cant see any of PJ's elves doing much dancing in any circumstances. There is no joy in them.

Celeborn talks so much! (I mean, in comparison to his neutered character in Jackson's work).

And as for John Hurt... Well, I have trouble separating him from his appearance in the Film-that-Shall-Not-Be-Named.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:

But there is so much more that is wrong- Galadriel for a start- there is queenliness yes, and stiffness, and aloofness, but there is no warmth, no sign of the elf maid dressed in simple white- she is all airs and graces in the film, no sense of her down to earth nature from the books that goes hand in hand with her great dignity and power.
And why does she talk like she is in a dream all the time? That in large part goes a long way to draining the character of any personality or spirit.

While I agree Galadriel was pretty much a joke in the movies, I don't think she was entirely without warmth - I always liked her line "even the smallest person can change the course of the future", and when she gives Frodo the light Ëarendil. What bothered me the most was and is Jackson's decision to add that ridiculous slow-mo effect to everything she does and says - made her look retarded, in the true sense of the word (if I recall correctly, retard derives from the French word for slow). Pisses me off every time I see it, it's just that stupid.