Good review, couldn't agree more
The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies Grade/Discuss (Spoilers)
- Thread starter DimesDan
- Start date
Well, even in the second film he had the damage ( apparently normally hidden by magic ) from some kind of dragon battle in the past, possibly during the War of Wrath.
Way to bury the biased lead, dontcha think?
Did it bother anyone else how much geography and distance were either severely truncated or ignored altogether?
Examples have been given above above Legolas speeding up to Mount Gundaband to see the BREDFORWAR bats but there's also the issue of the Dwarfs travelling from Laketown to the mountain in (apparently) a morning's boat ride, not mention Gandalf warp-speeding over to the "high fells of Rhudaur" and then back to Dol Guldur in the couple of days (at most) it takes the Dwarfs to make their way across Mirkwood.
And why does the Lonely Mountain have an enormous cliff face adjacent? I assume it is meant to be the start of the Ered Mithrin mountain range but if so why the "lonely" moniker? The damn thing can be reached by hopping onto a passing war-goat!
There are many other examples throughout Jackson's Hobbit and LOTR and the overall effect is the "epic-ness" of the legend gets diminished. Where is the challenge of "the quest" if you can get anywhere in the world in a mere afternoon's ride?
Examples have been given above above Legolas speeding up to Mount Gundaband to see the BREDFORWAR bats but there's also the issue of the Dwarfs travelling from Laketown to the mountain in (apparently) a morning's boat ride, not mention Gandalf warp-speeding over to the "high fells of Rhudaur" and then back to Dol Guldur in the couple of days (at most) it takes the Dwarfs to make their way across Mirkwood.
And why does the Lonely Mountain have an enormous cliff face adjacent? I assume it is meant to be the start of the Ered Mithrin mountain range but if so why the "lonely" moniker? The damn thing can be reached by hopping onto a passing war-goat!
There are many other examples throughout Jackson's Hobbit and LOTR and the overall effect is the "epic-ness" of the legend gets diminished. Where is the challenge of "the quest" if you can get anywhere in the world in a mere afternoon's ride?
Saw it on Tuesday and while I did enjoy it, I kind of feel a little hollow about it all. LOTR was superior than The Hobbit though some of that was down to LOTR just being a more epic story with the fate of all Middle Earth on the line. I was also a little dissapointed by the actual battle as the term five armies is a little inaccurate IMO and the whole battle seemed a little aimless if you get my meaning.
While its laughable to suggest the book could of been done in 1 movie, I think 2 should of been stuck with as the plan. I would of loved 2 movies at around 3 hours (not including end credits) though the 2nd movie could of ran a little longer to 200 mins if needed. The 1st movie could of cut a little of the shire stuff and cut out the mountain things fighting each other for some brief examples and end just after the barrell stuff. I would of cut out Legolas but kept Tauriel as I did enjoy her and also keep the extra Sauron stuff
An Unexpected Journey (B+)
The Desolation of Smaug (B+)
The Battle of the Five Armies (B)
The Fellowship of the Ring (B+)
The Two Towers (B+)
Return of the King (A-)
While its laughable to suggest the book could of been done in 1 movie, I think 2 should of been stuck with as the plan. I would of loved 2 movies at around 3 hours (not including end credits) though the 2nd movie could of ran a little longer to 200 mins if needed. The 1st movie could of cut a little of the shire stuff and cut out the mountain things fighting each other for some brief examples and end just after the barrell stuff. I would of cut out Legolas but kept Tauriel as I did enjoy her and also keep the extra Sauron stuff
An Unexpected Journey (B+)
The Desolation of Smaug (B+)
The Battle of the Five Armies (B)
The Fellowship of the Ring (B+)
The Two Towers (B+)
Return of the King (A-)
http://www.tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Battle_of_Five_Armies
This place seems to consider the Wargs to be the fifth army, but that doesn't make sense since they were just the beasts of the Orcs...
This place seems to consider the Wargs to be the fifth army, but that doesn't make sense since they were just the beasts of the Orcs...
^ Nah, it still considers them one army:
"Soon the Orcs and Wargs arrived (and now the fourth army was on the field)..."
The fifth army is the Eagles:
As the battle was turning fully against the Free Folk, a large army of Giant Eagles of the Misty Mountains arrived...
In an earlier version, the Eagles refused to perform Hotel California, so they were boo'ed off the stage and they counted Beorn and his bears as the fifth army instead.
In its first versions, the conflict around Erebor ended after the Siege. While Bard and the Elvenking laid siege, Gandalf would arrive and negotiate a peace treaty. The actual Battle, dubbed by John D. Rateliff the "Battle of Anduin Vale", would be on the return journey, in what would later be known as the Vales of Anduin. There, Orcs and Wargs would waylay Bilbo. The Five armies in this incarnation were the Orcs, the Wargs, the Woodelves, the Woodmen, and Beorn Medwed leading a troop of bears.
"Soon the Orcs and Wargs arrived (and now the fourth army was on the field)..."
The fifth army is the Eagles:
As the battle was turning fully against the Free Folk, a large army of Giant Eagles of the Misty Mountains arrived...
In an earlier version, the Eagles refused to perform Hotel California, so they were boo'ed off the stage and they counted Beorn and his bears as the fifth army instead.
In its first versions, the conflict around Erebor ended after the Siege. While Bard and the Elvenking laid siege, Gandalf would arrive and negotiate a peace treaty. The actual Battle, dubbed by John D. Rateliff the "Battle of Anduin Vale", would be on the return journey, in what would later be known as the Vales of Anduin. There, Orcs and Wargs would waylay Bilbo. The Five armies in this incarnation were the Orcs, the Wargs, the Woodelves, the Woodmen, and Beorn Medwed leading a troop of bears.
THERE...ARE...FOUR...ARMIES!!!!!!!
Pretty much it.. the Hobbit movies were an overall disappointment for me given that they "spin out" of the LotR movies which are mostly brilliant.
When i learned that they would split them into three as opposed to two movies i had a feeling it may affect them negatively and it did.
Senseless characters addedd, too much focus on others and a ridiculous amount of CGI action scenes. It got so bad that i got George Lucas vibes off a Peter Jackson movie.
I didn't expect much from this movie other than near constant action but even that got boring after a while.
The initial part of the battle was awesome though.. the Elves with their robot like precision (seriously.. are they all telepaths or did they do a massive battle/flashmob rehearsal prior to the battle to be able to do stuff without a single officer issuing commands?), the Dwarf Shieldwall and the Elves jumping over the backs of the Dwarves to engage the Orcs.
Besides that most of it was disappointing.. that coward character got too much screentime and what was his purpose? We knew after 2 scenes with him that he was a coward, liar, cheat and thief so why show us repeatedly? he wasn't even funny.
Thorins descent and recovery from madness also felt very hollow and kind of came from left field. We know he was always driven by his desire to retake Erebor but we are led to believe that 1-2 days would be enough to drive him mad (dragon's sickness my ass).
Everything else was just big CGI extravaganza with very little story meat in between.
I doubt even an EE version may save it and it's definitely not a Blu Ray preorder set for me like it was with LotR.
I don't know if Peter Jackson's head/ego got too big for him when he broke into A List status with LotR but even though LotR was also CGI heavy in parts it never lost track of the story and everything felt natural and believable.
The Hobbit movies were nearly the exact opposite.
I thought they couldn't get the army assembled because Don Henley couldn't stand the sight of Joe Walsh?
No.
Maybe.