The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (Post-release)
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SmilingOtter
Master Member
I enjoyed it more than the 2nd film. It probably deviated the least from the story. And yeah, I loved the White Council scene. It was nice to be able to root for Saruman, and Galadriel's display was fantastic.
Edited to add: Having Billy Boyd do the closing song was a nice surprise.
Edited to add: Having Billy Boyd do the closing song was a nice surprise.
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I just got back from seeing this. At the very least it was better than Desolation of Smaug, which I suppose is damning it with faint praise. I'm not a fan of this trilogy. I love the book, and LOTR, and the LOTR films, but this was just badly adapted and thoughtlessly made. Far too much CGI, far too much padding of the story with silly little scenes, massive mischaracterisations, and a lot of it didn't even look good. The whole of the second film looked like they let the work experience kids design it. I'd be here all night if I went into an in depth review of it, but the fact that it differed from the book isn't one of my criticisms. I've come to accept that books and movies are just a different medium, and wanting the same experience from two different things just isn't going to happen.
It feels like PJ wanted to remake LOTR with these films, and in doing so has failed to make either the Hobbit, or remake LOTR. They're just poor, and all the more disappointing for how good they could have been.
It feels like PJ wanted to remake LOTR with these films, and in doing so has failed to make either the Hobbit, or remake LOTR. They're just poor, and all the more disappointing for how good they could have been.
SmilingOtter
Master Member
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joeranger
Sr Member
I liked it. Although, I kept laughing to myself every time a fisherman killed an armored orc, bred for war.I kept expecting one of the orcs to say" This armor is useless, why do we even wear it?"
From blue harvest...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=aqoDL4KlxvY
From blue harvest...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=aqoDL4KlxvY
Rupp66
Well-Known Member
And what was with Legolas and the War Bat(flying monkey) at first he's holding on to bats ankles, when we next see him he's upside down, is the bat holding his ankles? What happened there? Don't get me started on the fallen tower Jenga...
That being said, I still kinda enjoyed the film. I am willing to wait for an extended edition set of the Hobbits.
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I didn't like the "evil witch" effects when Galadriel was chasing Sauron away from Dol Guldur. I disliked them in FOTR, and even more here. I understand that it was probably a style choice to display her power. I just wish that they had chose some other way to get that across to the audience. She is a very powerful being, a ring bearer and one of the most ancient elves still in Middle Earth at the point the Hobbit and LOTR take place. Her powers are definitely not being able to speak in a deep voice and change her appearance to look like a photographic negative. :facepalm:unsure
I dunno... Her ring gave the power to preserve, persevere, and resist evil. Between that and the phial that held the water from her fountain that contained the Light of the Two Trees, I don't know how else one would show she was deeply tapping the powers of one of the Three Rings that the Elves had taken pains not to use actively lest Sauron be able to find and bind them to his will. Same as the flash in Fellowship. Since we know the Nine didn't look like they do now before they started using their Rings, I had no problem attributing that effect to the corrupting nature of the Rings themselves, even though the Three weren't forged y Sauron directly, but made using his taught arts.
--Jonah
--Jonah
allosaur176
Sr Member
Wolfsburg
Master Member
I thought it was awful. The vast majority was just made up and I suspect PJ was finally able to do something he's wanted to do for a long time: make a movie that is basically just one big battle. Obviously there are gonna be deviations any time a book is adapted for the big screen but this entire trilogy has figuratively been on a different planet! Even disregarding the books, these just haven't been very good movies. Very boring at times and the action a very hamfisted attempt to keep things interesting. Just a mess and frankly I'm just glad it's over. What a wasted opportunity...
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Laspector
Master Member
Wow, has anybody ever heard of this Finnish 1993 version? It was some kind of tv series. I've been watching them--beyond bad!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Koj0V7G46fs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Koj0V7G46fs
J EM
Well-Known Member
That was quite enjoyable. I didn't think it was all that bad. I mean, yeah, it looks real bad and it confused me since its called The Hobbit yet its the telling of LotR, but it seems like the people who made that tried to put some effort into it. I lol'd at Boromir. Looks like a man of Dunland. Laughed more at the music that plays when Smeagol kills Deagol, and Deagol's slow reaction towards getting killed.
Gonna give the Russian Hobbit a try.
Riceball
Master Member
I'm definitely in the minority here when I say that I enjoyed this last movie and actually enjoyed it more than the first two. I felt that it dragged less, overall, than the first two and had much better pacing. I had no real problems with the CG work, I don't care whether something is CG, practical, or claymation, all I care is that it's good and except for a few scenes I thought that the CG was good and well used. My one nitpick with BotFA is during the big battle scene and we see Thorin and friends ride out to the Orc CP on these giant mountain goats, not only did the goats look fake but my biggest beef with them is that they came out of nowhere. We never saw anybody bring those goats in but all of a sudden when Thorin & co. need a ride there they are.
My complaints with the series as a whole, aside from the usual complaints about it feeling padded, are the stylistic choices with the dwarves, they just don't look enough like the dwarves we saw in LotR, granted we mostly saw Gimli but we did get glimpses at the beginning of the Fellowship at Elrond's and during the scene explaining the dwarven rings. I also noticed that they did a lot fewer scenes of either Bilbo or the dwarves standing next to humans or elves, it's almost as if PJ went out of his way to avoid showing them standing side by side and instead would cut back and forth when they were in the same scenes together or do closeups of them.
My complaints with the series as a whole, aside from the usual complaints about it feeling padded, are the stylistic choices with the dwarves, they just don't look enough like the dwarves we saw in LotR, granted we mostly saw Gimli but we did get glimpses at the beginning of the Fellowship at Elrond's and during the scene explaining the dwarven rings. I also noticed that they did a lot fewer scenes of either Bilbo or the dwarves standing next to humans or elves, it's almost as if PJ went out of his way to avoid showing them standing side by side and instead would cut back and forth when they were in the same scenes together or do closeups of them.
clancampbell
Sr Member
My daughter, who is 18, saw this the other night...I picked her up and she said, "Bot5A was REALLY good!!!" ....she then proceeded to talk about scenes, set pieces, fx, characters, and finished by saying, "actually, now that i've thought about it properly...it was actually pretty crap...." :lol (true story!)
Rich
Rich
Wolfsburg
Master Member
Totally agree. For the most part they did a terrible job with the dwarves. I know PJ wanted to make each of them distinct from one another and easily recognizable, but when you have several, including Thorin, that literally just look like humans, that is going too far.
I agree with the last several criticisms. I wanted the Dwarves to be like the LOTR Dwarves. They got Thorin's age way wrong (indeed, Balin is younger than Thorin). I don't get why they altered the Azog/Bolg element. And I've been pissed since Fellowship that Glamdring and Orcrist don't glow. It would have stood fine, or better, as it was. Some of the padding was appreciated -- like the storm giants -- but other padding was extraneous to the point of boring (Bilbo's waaaaay extended conversation with Smaug, the gold statue, Dwarves fighting Smaug, the very dramatic escape down the river, Super Mario Legolas, were-worms, and so on and so on...).
Some of the intercuts didn't really work either. I think a better pacing would have been:
-End the first film with them getting captured by the Wood-Elves.
-Have the second pick up with Gandalf leaving them at the edge of Mirkwood and the whole Dol Goldur storyline, ending with him hastening back to rejoin the Company and seeing the Orcs marching on Erebor.
-Then the third being the escape from the Wood-Elves, flushing of Smaug, and Battle of Five Armies. It's not that much, content-wise, if you trim much of the padding del Toro and PJ put in that was not drawn from the ancillary works (mainly the LotR Appendices).
Alternatively, flip the latter two, so we pick up the third film right as Gandalf appears to the three armies that are about to converge, after his warning Bilbo asks him where he was for so long, then flash back to him leaving them at the entrance of Mirkwood and tie the ending up a bit better to have him leaving to warn the Company about the Orcs and Saruman leaving to run Sauron to ground. From there the story picks up in Fellowship of the Ring.
In all honesty, though, I think the perfect approach would have been to bring it back as Saturday Morning cinema serials. There are enough action points and cliffhangers that one could break the whole of Hobbit and LotR into at least a score of one-hour shorts. More, if one wanted to include First Age stuff, with Morgoth and the Goblin Wars of Gondolin and all that. *heh*
--Jonah
Some of the intercuts didn't really work either. I think a better pacing would have been:
-End the first film with them getting captured by the Wood-Elves.
-Have the second pick up with Gandalf leaving them at the edge of Mirkwood and the whole Dol Goldur storyline, ending with him hastening back to rejoin the Company and seeing the Orcs marching on Erebor.
-Then the third being the escape from the Wood-Elves, flushing of Smaug, and Battle of Five Armies. It's not that much, content-wise, if you trim much of the padding del Toro and PJ put in that was not drawn from the ancillary works (mainly the LotR Appendices).
Alternatively, flip the latter two, so we pick up the third film right as Gandalf appears to the three armies that are about to converge, after his warning Bilbo asks him where he was for so long, then flash back to him leaving them at the entrance of Mirkwood and tie the ending up a bit better to have him leaving to warn the Company about the Orcs and Saruman leaving to run Sauron to ground. From there the story picks up in Fellowship of the Ring.
In all honesty, though, I think the perfect approach would have been to bring it back as Saturday Morning cinema serials. There are enough action points and cliffhangers that one could break the whole of Hobbit and LotR into at least a score of one-hour shorts. More, if one wanted to include First Age stuff, with Morgoth and the Goblin Wars of Gondolin and all that. *heh*
--Jonah
J EM
Well-Known Member
I just finished watching this for my second time. And I still don't like it. I thought I had a bias against it first and foremost because the HFR Imax 3D may have affected my opinion, but nope.
. . .
These were new thoughts on top of my old ones which were more or less similar to what has already been said by two people.
It also shouldn't take additional scenes in an extended edition to make the movie's ending completed. People criticized RotK's 'many endings' but at least it was completed. It gave closure to everyone it really needed to.
Does anyone know how the extended edition for AUJ and DOS hold up against their theatrical releases? Just curious.
. . .
HOW THE **** COULD ANY OF THE PEOPLE WRITING THE SCRIPT FOR THIS THOUGHT THIS WOULD ACTUALLY BE WORTH DOING? THIS WAS TERRIBLE! Not worth the "last trip" to Middle Earth! I can't stand how Kili gave his life defending Tauriel. Bros before hoes, *******. That's how it had to be...somewhat! I take issue with 6 dwarves not ever saying a single word, and my least favorite dwarf only said 3 words. So. 6 dwarves. Without saying a single word. Yet Alfrid has a ****load amount of time focused on him in comparison, for a non canon character. I can understand the amount of time given to the love triangle and all the other bs, but why him? It doesn't make any sense whatsoever and seems as if his only purpose is to remove you from immersion. Because he sure as **** isn't entertaining and appears when you least expect and want him to. He should've died with the master of Laketown.
That was stupid and unnecessary and it shouldn't take an explanation in the extended edition for something like that when all that could've been shot was have Legolas hanging onto the bat's legs and let go when he needed to. The only thing I can think of to make sense of that scene would be another bat who grabs him by the legs. OR. Legolas lets go earlier onto another platform, lays there with his feet in the air, and waits for a bat to pick him.
It also shouldn't take additional scenes in an extended edition to make the movie's ending completed. People criticized RotK's 'many endings' but at least it was completed. It gave closure to everyone it really needed to.
Does anyone know how the extended edition for AUJ and DOS hold up against their theatrical releases? Just curious.
FrontaLittle
Active Member
I could quote many of the posts here, basically it was horrible for me to watch this movie. Reminded me of the feeling I had watching the Star Wars Prequels for the first time.
However, there's one thing that bothers me the most which I'd consider a break of character.
Thranduil threatening Tauriel pointing a sword (or dagger) at her throat. So Thranduil is a Sindar and even though he has never seen the light of the two trees, he should be well aware of the Noldor, what they did to their kin and the banishment from Valinor this act caused. With this in mind, wouldn't it be an enormous betrayal to the elven race and the Valar themselves to threaten another, even a "lower" elf's life ?
However, there's one thing that bothers me the most which I'd consider a break of character.
Thranduil threatening Tauriel pointing a sword (or dagger) at her throat. So Thranduil is a Sindar and even though he has never seen the light of the two trees, he should be well aware of the Noldor, what they did to their kin and the banishment from Valinor this act caused. With this in mind, wouldn't it be an enormous betrayal to the elven race and the Valar themselves to threaten another, even a "lower" elf's life ?
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