Surprised no one has commented on the 3rd Hobbit movie yet. I just saw it today. Thoughts are mixed.

Mostly, I wasn't expecting it to be so damn depressing. Yes, the deaths were in the books, but Jackson really lingered over them and made them as painful as possible. There was very little sense of victory at all at the end of the movie. Even the arrival of the eagles, normally so triumphal, was bitter.

My biggest criticism of the movie was its inconsistency though. For a whole movie centred around a battle, it really failed to depict said battle in a way that made sense. The logistics and tactics were all over the place.

First you had the combined Elven and Dwarven armies fighting the first orc army, the two forces seemingly of equal strength (especially when you take into account how badass Elves are). But then a moment later the orcs were winning massively and were rushing into Dale, which had no defenders.

Yet somehow the orcs failed to massacre everyone within Dale before the human forces reached it to defend it, even though we saw the orcs entering the city. And somehow a tiny inexperienced human force was able to hold the orcs off... even though they had already entered the city before the humans.

From there it gets even messier. The Dwarves are retreating, massively outnumbered, and then are joined by Thorin and gang... still massively outnumbered. Yet somehow they hang on until the eages arrive. When you see the eagles arrive the numbers of Dwarves and orcs seems entirely unchanged, despite them having been fighting for a long time since the last shot.

It's just a disaster.

The movie did, however, have two things I liked.

First was the sheer awesomeness that was the Dol Guldur scene. I could (and probably will) watch that scene over and over again. <3 Galadriel.

To the people above talking about characters' "power levels" I think you're interpreting things too strictly. Power in Tolkien's works is a funny thing, and what type of being you are is only the starting point. For a start, the power of beings who rule domains seems to be inexorably tied in with that domain: the ruler's power infuses all of their followers, but in turn the strength of the domain increases the ruler's strength. This is true at least of Sauron, and I think it likely to be true also of Galadriel, who rules the greatest of the Elven realms in Middle Earth. Factor in the power of the Nenya, her royal descent, her age, her knowledge of magic lore, and finally the context of events (Sauron's hour had not yet come), I think it entirely believable that Galadriel could banish him.

The other thing I liked about the movie was Thranduil. I like the depiction of a more "worldly elf", demonstrating the difference in culture and "spiritual stature" between the Noldor like Galadriel and Elrond and the Sindar (Thranduil, Legolas, etc). He's a much more physical being -- mighty in his own way, but not of the same order as the Wise.

One final comment: I actually didn't mind the Kili/Tauriel romance so much in this one. In Hobbit 2 it veered dangerously close to being a clone of Aragorn/Arwen, but Hobbit 3 distinguished it successfully.

 

Anyone remember the LotR videogames? I played them on the PS2. They were quite fun, in a fairly mindless sort of way; you played one of Aragorn, Legolas or Gimli (with the second adding in the Hobbits and Gandalf) one-man armying their way through armies upon armies of orcs, Nazgul and the like for each set piece of the trilogy and a few more besides.

Watching Battle of the Five Armies felt rather like watching someone play a next-gen version of those games. Especially the moments that focused on Legolas, because holy shit some of his stunts were stupid. It was all entertaining enough, I guess, but not enough so to justify an entire film for one battle.

 

I thought it was great. Except for all those times when people were talking.

 

I am stilled pissed of at the changed deaths of Fili and Kili, I wanted to see their last stand defending a dying Thorin, but instead we got crap, I do not care to hear people defending it, what happend in the movie was crap.

 

Just came back from the movie. Pretty entertaining overall.

My only complaint is that, throughout the Hobbit films, orcs are nothing like the orcs as we'd come to know them. Which is a nice way of saying that all the orcs were CGI-cloned, identical, buffed hulks, nothing like orcs from the original trilogy.

I guess another complaint can be the Kili/Tauriel thing. Not really a complaint so much as a pet-peeve. Poor Legolas can't catch a break.

Battles were appripriately awesome, Smaug was badass (however long he lasted), Thranduil was badass, Legolas was badass, Elrond was badass, Galadriel was badass, that Dwarf dude (Dain or something) was badass, hell even Saruman was badass.

Well worth the money.

 

The troll headbutt-ram has to be the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen in a Tolkien movie, and that includes all of Legolas's loveable bullshit. I honestly couldn't stop laughing when I saw the troll hit the wall.

 

Does anyone else think that Alfrid (Master's grovelling underling) met the fate that the Master did in the book?

 

I thought they were leading to a conclusion on those lines. Might be in an extended edition, still.


I remember those games fondly, Savage. It definitely felt like the main heroes were more like characters from a video game, casually murdering enemies by the hundreds - there was a moment when the goblin mercenaries start swarming the hill, and one of the dwarves said, "We'll hold them off. There's only a hundred of them!" which just felt like the movie becoming self-aware.

I dunno, maybe there was the same level of comic-book style heroship in the LotR films, but it simply didn't get in your face because they didn't focus too much on it, and there was more death shown.

 

I was pretty disappointed by this one. Don't get me wrong, it was a decent action movie and as the final battle I can understand the lack of character development. That said....pacing was crap. Taure nailed it on the head about the battle being unclear. My sister kept asking, so is that other army of orcs the fifth army? Is thorin and company the fifth army?

Book knowledge allowed me to supplement most of the battle with context, but my non geek friends were confused. It was similar to a Michael bay flick.

I liked seeing the wise fight the ring wraiths though. Thorin's death lacked impact I felt. Also the kili/fili deaths was lessened due to romance IMO.

It's a good time waster, but poor last Middle Earth movie unless someone breaks out the Silmarillion.

 

Huh, I loved it.

Loved the romance between Kili/ Tauriel, I really liked Bard (something infinitely more respectable about fighting for one's children rather than because Fate said he should) and I loved Freeman's Bilbo.

I'm very much a characters > story person, which is probably why I preferred (probably controversially) Hobbit over LOTR.

Even with all those logical failings Taure pointed out, and the ones he didn't.

 

Wasn't a fan of the way Bard killed Smaug, but I suppose that couldn't be helped with the way the previous movie set the character up. Also echo comment about the deaths of Fili/Kili, the book version would have been more awesome, the same with the intervention of Beorn. But again it probably couldn't be helped with the way the previous films had set things up.

The battle was confusing and half the time I couldn't help but think of how much better I would have done if I was playing that scenario in Battle For Middle Earth or a Total War game or something. Which is weird. And what the hell happened to the rear column of the Dwarf army? Dain took the first column and the other one just sat there. You also can't help but feel that if the LotR movies had those kind of orcs, Sauron would have ended up with everyone else over a barrel.

On a related note, Dain must have killed at least a dozen orcs on screen with his head, which was fairly amusing.

Worth seeing.

 

Not much said about the Stag Charge over the bridge culminating in a pentakill! Lol

 

RIP Stag forever in our hearts.

 

Amen

/10char

 

I did lulz when the orcs nydus'd their main, though. That was some epic shit.

 

The Silmarillion wouldn't make for a good movie, or even trilogy.

The Children of Húrin could work, though.

 

I'm guessing I'm the only one who downright hated the movie? I really enjoyed the others; I just thought this was by far the worst of the lot. Nearly every bit of dialogue not in the original novel (most of it) was on the level I'd expect from fanfiction. Waaaay overdone slow motion and CG effects: Peter Jackson was definitely trying to outdo himself and in my opinion failed because of it. There was no flow, no cohesion to the storytelling. Things just kind of happened, with a bunch of different characters going through character arcs that are never really tied together and almost seem to come out of nowhere with how abrupt they are.

Since the Michael Bay comparison was tossed out there, I am going to -- perhaps controversially -- assert that the first Transformers movie was considerably better than this. (The second Transformers movie was so awful I stopped watching a third of the way in and I never saw the third or fourth.)

 

Overall decent movie, with a couple changes that did keep me on the edge of my seat (there was a brief moment when I thought Thorin would actually live).

That said I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as I should have due to the many, many, many immersion breaking moments (especially once the BoFA started). Its like the writing team spent an afternoon coming up with the most ridiculous over the top sequences they could imagine and Peter Jackson filmed them exactly as written.

 

If I remember correctly, he and his wife were on the writing team as well. So that might not be too far from the truth.

 

Watched this again today.

I think LOTR is a more satisfying trilogy and nothing can beat Fellowship for taking us from that innocent Shire into some dark stuff.

For me the last Hobbit film was the best overall (in the Hobbit trilogy) in terms of narrative. The first one I thought could have 20 min. cut down (and in theaters I was on my phone during some of the boring parts). Second one suffered from being in the middle and ending at an odd point. Third one though was just satisfying overall where I was engaged throughout even through some of LOLish moments (like Legoals using the falling bricks like video game style) or why Tauriel and Killi didn't get a final goodbye...missed moment there for closure.

Freeman was great as Bilbo, Bard was wonderful (and as someone who is not a big fan of dwarves..nice to see humans having a role). And I don't remember the book but the scene with Galadriel, Elron and Saruman rescuing Gandalf was a nice touch too.

LOTR still the best cinematically (couldn't get into the books) and Hobbit is in like a second tier but still ended well.