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

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Figg, again I don't intend to belittle your experiences or to try to make you change your feelings.

The world is not one truth that suits all. Each individual comes to form their opinions from their own unique viewpoints which has been formed through the sum total of their experiences and sensitivities.

What is great for some is perhaps dreaded by another. Some people love blue more than red, that doesn't make blue better or worse...

You are perhaps more fortunate than I in that you are able to enjoy and be touched by both the film and the books. I don't believe you are wrong for that, I don't feel that every person with sense should dislike the films just because I can find such little joy in them.

You are able to disassociate the two I guess, I am not able to do that.

I only see how my anticipation for a potentially wonderful new dimension of enjoyment of one of my favorite stories was disappointed through what I see as ignorant revisions on the part of the director and his clan.

I could have forgiven things like cutting parts out because the film would have been too long, condensing things, changing things even that would have been to hard to portray.
Even perhaps his inability to capture the high Tolkien spirit.

But, boat loads of unnecessary revisions just because some fool thinks he is a better writer, that he can improve a bad story line is more than I personally can stomach.

I think they did capture the high Tolkien spirit though. In spades. Obviously LOTR was not perfect, far from it, but there were only a few times where I would have made radical changes. The most frustrating for me is the Paths of the Dead. I thought it was brilliant until they actually walked through the Door, then it went Disney funfair ride, green toilet bubbles, ridiculous, it lost all the majestic horror of the army of the Dead following them through the land, that I would have completely refilmed. I would also have got rid of a lot in TT, like the ridiculous Warg battle falling off a cliff nonsense. Faramir taking them to Osgiliath. So you see, I am capable of objective criticism. I don't think everything was great, but on the whole 95% captured my imagination, and in 9 and so hours that's not bad.

Mrs Figg wrote:I think they did capture the high Tolkien spirit though. In spades. Obviously LOTR was not perfect, far from it, but there were only a few times where I would have made radical changes. The most frustrating for me is the Paths of the Dead. I thought it was brilliant until they actually walked through the Door, then it went Disney funfair ride, green toilet bubbles, ridiculous, it lost all the majestic horror of the army of the Dead following them through the land, that I would have completely refilmed. I would also have got rid of a lot in TT, like the ridiculous Warg battle falling off a cliff nonsense. Faramir taking them to Osgiliath. So you see, I am capable of objective criticism. I don't think everything was great, but on the whole 95% captured my imagination, and in 9 and so hours that's not bad.

For the most part I tend to agree Figgs. I was unimpressed however with a few scenes in LOTR but overall I feel they nailed it. My biggest gripes are Faramir's poor character development compared to the book, Aragorn's whole reluctant king bit, the whole Osgiliath nonsense. I mean I completely understand why some things were changed and were left out. But Overall I think LOTR was rather well done considering they had to adapt it for those who had never read the story. Thank god the Hobbit is much simpler to do.

I totally understand Mrs Figg's points. Totally sympathetic to her viewpoint. I've seen lots of remakes, sequels and adaptations of movies and books that I thought missed the mark - sometimes badly but I just kinda went oh well and forgot about it. Appreciated them for having a different vision. Or was impressed with things they got right. I was suprised how much stuff in LOTRO bothered me. I didn't realize that I loved the books that much. Kinda makes me think of directors that can't watch their own movies since they see the construction of it, the making of it, and not just the movie. I can't see the movie and forget the book.

Since we're on the topic of LOTR...

Today my Latin Professor explained that she wanted to hit PJ with her book for using the phrase "from whence it came" as grammatically it should be said "whence it came" the "from" being redundant. I feel like that's one of many simple grammatical mistakes made in these films that shows how much of the made up dialogue is baseless.

Tinuviel wrote:Since we're on the topic of LOTR...

Today my Latin Professor explained that she wanted to hit PJ with her book

Tell her to get in line!

I admit LotR was disappointing, not incredibly bad and with some redeeming qualities (yes, I admit it, Mrs Figg! ) , but The Hobbit was incredibly abysmal and not just abysmal - so abysmal, I couldn't bring myself to suffer through Movie 3. You know, I thought parts of Bag End were surprisinly how I imagined it from the book. I suspect Del Toro's work were the bulk of the Bag End parts I liked, with some obvious PJ touches that weakened what was quite good, but from Bag End on it went from bad to worser! I thionk the greatest disappointment for me was that in bits here and there PJ did capture Tolkien, but not anywhere near enough - and his own "addings" were incredibly bad, worse in The Hobbit but bad enough in LoTR. Overall, PJ made his own movies, not Tolkiens books.

Tinuviel wrote:Since we're on the topic of LOTR...

Today my Latin Professor explained that she wanted to hit PJ with her book for using the phrase "from whence it came" as grammatically it should be said "whence it came" the "from" being redundant. I feel like that's one of many simple grammatical mistakes made in these films that shows how much of the made up dialogue is baseless.

Interesting, I did not know that. I suspect it was thrown in just for the sake of sounding archaic, but yeah. I can see why it would bug a linguist, and I'm sure JRRT would have agreed with your professor.

Orwell wrote:. You know, I thought parts of Bag End were surprisinly how I imagined it from the book. I suspect Del Toro's work were the bulk of the Bag End parts I liked, with some obvious PJ touches that weakened what was quite good, but from Bag End on it went from bad to worser! I thionk the greatest disappointment for me was that in bits here and there PJ did capture Tolkien, but not anywhere near enough - and his own "addings" were incredibly bad, worse in The Hobbit but bad enough in LoTR. Overall, PJ made his own movies, not Tolkiens books.

I'm sad that Del Toro never got to finish his adaptation - I have a sneaking suspicion that it would have been wonderful, and far more in tune with the tone of the book (especially the fairytale elements) than Jackson's hideous "adaptation" ended up being. A true loss to Tolkien fans and to cinema fans, I feel.

It's funny when (and I've seen this on torn) someone (a person who likes The Hobbit movies overall) finds something that they don't like or is just off about these movies (in terms of creature/character designs, script, etc.) and then chalks it up to del Toro. We wouldn't want to blame Jackson, would we.

Personally I suspect there's enough blame to go around for both PJ and GDT.

I doubt GdT would have turned in anything better than Jackson did, but his would have been at least contrasted visually with PJ's take. And there's something to be said for that. What it would have looked like, we will never know.

I'll go farther and say that either pure GTD or pure PJ would have been a better movie than the hybrid of the two.  I seem to remember quotes from del Toro  when he was doing the early designs that he was going for looks that were superficially familiar but on further inspection were shockingly disturbing.  

So from the first design drawings of orcs with metal plate in their faces and armor made of bloody bones, or dwarves that looked like homeless men with axes in their heads, I assumed I was looking at the fruits of GdT's labor.  

He also spoke more than once about not wanting to use CGI, going more for a Pan's Labyrinth style I presumed. It would have been interesting to see what he actually came up with, but I don't thing it would have matched my image of The Hobbit at all.

On the other hand, if Jackson had been left alone to envision ME, I'm betting we would have gotten dwarves that looked a lot like those at the Council of Elrond in LotR, and  we'd have gotten a lot more New Zealand landscapes.

What GdT's early artwork did IMO is give PJ permission to envision things way outside the box, and then 3D CGI gave him no common sense limits.  

I don't think that turned out well for anybody.

Bought the blu-ray last week. Watched the extras but not the film yet. Must admit the music is growing on me.
Love the Laketown theme and even the Kili and Tauriel music isn't to bad.

TranshumanAngel wrote: I'm sad that Del Toro never got to finish his adaptation - I have a sneaking suspicion that it would have been wonderful, and far more in tune with the tone of the book (especially the fairytale elements) than Jackson's hideous "adaptation" ended up being. A true loss to Tolkien fans and to cinema fans, I feel.

I have the same suspicions, Mr or Ms THA. I mean - we got the dishes song and the caverns song for a start, which was promising. The feel - the tones, both comic (mostly) and seriouser (mostly) were okay by me at the beginning. Sadly, Del Torro (it appears) left too early. Why? I suspect PJ was sticking in his "I know better than Tolkien" nose, while Del Torro was saying: "But the book isn't like that, it's like I'm trying to portray, with only the adaptations absolutely required from transference of book to film. Tolkien sure told a great rollicking story - very visual and easily transferred to film. What? Gimmickry? No, the only gimmickry we need is what brings Tolkien's world to life: sensible ogres and suchlike... And why would you replace excellent perfectly described Tolkien visuals and effortlessly natural dialogue with your shit, PJ? Oh - and could you get those witches out of my ear. I dare say, they're full of shit... Oh one of them's your Missus! ... Sorry - but it's still shit..."

That's my Conspiracy Theory.

I think Del Toro will play the neutral card & say that he had other commitments & time restraints to conform to, whilst inside he could be thinking " that Peejers ! hes a fooking nutter !" I dont know but, I am curious still how his input would have looked ? Ive seen GDT in interviews & I feel he has his own goals & views on how he wants a story to go, & that he seems very precise in HIS mind, & while he may listen to others over ideas & such, his ideas are kept to the fore & its him, not a cackling hybrid, that will make those changes. On the whole ( how can you sit on a whole ? there's nothing there ? ) I agree with Orwells theory

azriel wrote:I agree with Orwells theory

Any sensible woman would, methinks.

Weta concept art-

Seems originally Dain had his red axe!





I wonder whose bright idea it was to change it to a massive hammer.

Glad they didnt go with this design- the goats were stupid enough as is-



Missing scene (fortunately!) where the dwarves get attacked by bats, presumably on their way to Ravenhill-



Bat design- not that you get to see them in the film close enough to tell he design-



Good Galadriel, shitty Ring style Galadriel-



And these fall into the Eru knows category-

WTF ???????

Hmm...

From the interviews I read Del Torro made it very clear he wanted a more heightened fantasy feel to the films and seemed more interested in a fairytale esque film rather than a tie-in to the tone of LOTR (perhaps one of the reasons why he left, could explain the messy tone of PJ's version) , with heavily styilized designs and a greater emphasis on practical effects and nature based designs, Steampunk and Hg Lovecraft were rumoured to be influences. Several comic book illustrators worked on his version, and I've read he only hired Alan Lee and John Howe for architectual designs, and at the insistence of Jackson no idea if any of this is true of course.

Personally, I don't think Del Torro's version would have turned out that differently to Jackson's (although he made it very clear it was only planned as 2 films), though I have a sneaking suspicion it may have been closer to the tone of The Hobbit as a standalone fairytale rather than the tone of Tolkien's wider mythology.

Not sure about the Designs though, looks both brilliant and bonkers.


Changing Dain's Axe to a Hammer was just one of many utterly pointless changes...

I am not sure which stage of development those concept art works are from, so not sure if it Del Toro, PJ or a mix of the two.

My problem with putting severe fantasy elements in there- invented beasts and the like is that it is not Tolkien.
Even in the Hobbit which is much more fairytale than LotR's in style it doesn't shirk reality- its still the basis for connecting reader to story- think of all the times Tolkien emphasis how cold it is, how wet, how miserable or afraid Bilbo is. They are near starving on two occasions.
You need that sense of a real solid world with real recognisable relatable effects on people to sell the fantasy elements- if its all over the top fantasy you lose that sense of engagement with the world and so care less about what happens to characters in it.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:I am not sure which stage of development those concept art works are from, so not sure if it Del Toro, PJ or a mix of the two.

My problem with putting severe fantasy elements in there- invented beasts and the like is that it is not Tolkien.
Even in the Hobbit which is much more fairytale than LotR's in style it doesn't shirk reality- its still the basis for connecting reader to story- think of all the times Tolkien emphasis how cold it is, how wet, how miserable or afraid Bilbo is. They are near starving on two occasions.
You need that sense of a real solid world with real recognisable relatable  effects on people to sell the fantasy elements- if its all over the top fantasy you lose that sense of engagement with the world and so care less about what happens to characters in it.

That is a good point, but (as Del Torro did as well it seems) I always tend to view TH as more of a stand alone Children's book rather than a LOTR prelude, I never got the sense he was as big a fan of the source material as Jackson, but perhaps more in tune with the spirit of the book.

I recall reading other rumours about using different colour grading , aspect ratios and digitial sky replacement being used to mark the passage of seaons.

I tend to be more of a tone purist than plot purist when it comes to adaptations, so whilst much of Jackson's design work seems to be more in keeping with TH than Del Torro's, PJ's humour and overblown set pieces are more offensive to me than incomplete artwork extrapolating from the vague detail in TH book.

As long as it 'felt' like The Hobbit I love, I would probably be prepared to forgive it dosen't necessary look like it.

I agree there Malick- its why I still prefer Bakshi's attempt over PJ's despite some, em, questionable design choices in Bakshi. Its tonally much closer to the source materiel than PJ's ever manages.

But I think that sense of reality is still required, you have to use the original as a guide to what the author was doing on a technical level- and its quite clear from TH book that keeping a relateable connection to reality through, well mainly suffering, is one of the main techniques Tolkien uses to sell his world- he takes it to a whole other level in LotR's of course, with constellations from the real world ect but the basic technique remains the same- sell the world as a real place first, then add in the fantasy elements once you're audience is convinced of the reality. Its the bedrock on which everything else is built.