Battle of the Five Armies is a soulless end to the flawed Hobbit trilogy

Ars' resident Tolkien nerd on Peter Jackson's problematic final chapter.

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[Wickwick]

The LotR trilogy is really six books and in three movies with 9? hours of film they couldn't even work in Tom Bombadil.

The Hobbit, is a children's book with more deus ex machina scenes that I dared remember. And that was stretched into an equal number of hours.

And enough with the tie-ins between LotR and The Hobbit already! Elrond, Gandalf, Bilbo, and Gloin (father of Gimli) should have been enough.

 

[Wickwick]

Dilbert[/url]":2wmacnmw]Hobbit should have been made into one movie. Could have been awesome that way. But noooo they tried to milk it by making three. You know there isn't enough story for three movies when they turn the Bilbo/Gollum riddle scene into a drawn out scene that lasted good 15-20 minutes, or solid 10 minutes of dwarfs running for their lives with the rocks crumbling down on them. So stupid.

Tolkien always had a terseness with language that conveyed so much with so little. There were references to battles or historical events that suggested a real world with as complex a history as ours but no more than a line was spared - the details were never forthcoming (No - Christopher Tolkien's expansion of that doesn't count!).

That's part of what made reading these books worthwhile. Things were left to the imagination, the prose was short and the pace was fast.

If only Peter Jackson had learned that lesson from the author.

 

[Wickwick]

And what happened to the songs?

Ok, so LotR didn't have all the songs. I don't even recall that they had any. But if you're going to start the first Hobbit movie with a massive song and dance then that should carry through. That song/dance scene from the first Hobbit movie is probably the most faithful thing to the source material (well, except for the juggling of plates but you get the idea).

 

[Wickwick]

flunk[/url]":31ty8avy]

Wickwick[/url]":31ty8avy]

Dilbert[/url]":31ty8avy]Hobbit should have been made into one movie. Could have been awesome that way. But noooo they tried to milk it by making three. You know there isn't enough story for three movies when they turn the Bilbo/Gollum riddle scene into a drawn out scene that lasted good 15-20 minutes, or solid 10 minutes of dwarfs running for their lives with the rocks crumbling down on them. So stupid.

Tolkien always had a terseness with language that conveyed so much with so little. There were references to battles or historical events that suggested a real world with as complex a history as ours but no more than a line was spared - the details were never forthcoming (No - Christopher Tolkien's expansion of that doesn't count!).

That's part of what made reading these books worthwhile. Things were left to the imagination, the prose was short and the pace was fast.

If only Peter Jackson had learned that lesson from the author.

Tolkien wrote an entire book of background information called "The Silmarillion", kinda defeating the point you're trying to make there. I don't recommend you try to read it, it's very dense.

I have read it And it is very dense. So dense, in fact, that his son spent another 12? books expanding it to normal pace? That's exactly my point - to a ridiculous degree even.

The Silmarillion was published after JRR's death. It's even got some sections where the history was repeated as it was just a collection of his notes that hadn't really been cleaned up.

My point was the JRR didn't bog down LotR with those details but they were in his head when he wrote.

 

[Wickwick]

Alienfreak[/url]":37rbqx6p]Did anyone notice that they completely edited out a scene out of the trailer? You saw the elven army shoot arrows at somewhere where the dwarven one was. But in the movie the whole elven army didnt fire a single arrow. They were busy jumping over some defensive lines, I guess.

Also it breaks the whole LOTR plot by them knowing it was Sauron that has returned. You didn't even mention that in your review!

Seriously! It made the council at Elrond's kind of pointless if they knew Sauron had returned.

 

[Wickwick]

Hesster56[/url]":5ra09zrt]I don't mind having this discussion, but it could be a bit off topic.

Bombadil doesn't work in the movies.

There's nowhere between A Shortcut to Mushrooms and The Sign of the Prancing Pony to drop "and then our characters spend a long weekend having brunch with God."

He's only as much God as Gandalf. He reigns supreme over his garden but not (necessarily) outside of it. At least the Ents did ask about Entwives in the movies. That's about all we get in reference to Bombadil. Oh, and the Barrow Wights swords just happen to show up in Strider's hands.

 

[Wickwick]

Faramir[/url]":s239o8py]

Hesster56[/url]":s239o8py]I, for one, am waiting for the De-Extended, one-movie edition. I watched the first, could see the level of cgi "hijinks" they were embracing, and hit the eject button. The LotR movies are nigh-perfect, this series crumbled under its own needless expansion.

The Fellowship of the Ring extended edition was excellent (notwithstanding the tragic elimination of Bombadil). In the Two Towers and especially in the Return of the King, you can tell that PJ was already getting bored of the source material and the quality suffered.

The first hobbit movie was a travesty, and I after that I stopped paying attention.

I will admit that every time since the first read through I do flip pages past the trip of the two Hobbits and Gollum through Mordor.

Woe is me. I'm so tired. I'm so Thirsty. Woe is me.

There are certainly some pacing issues with that.

 

[Wickwick]

ardent[/url]":3trh5p7u]This really demanded two films and not three.

The primary story is in four parts: the unexpected party and the journey east to Rivendell. The journey over the Misty Mountains. Mirkwood and Smaug. The Battle of the Five Armies.

If you'd done two in each film it would have been fantastically paced and exciting. I hope they edit that together for a release in a few years.

Or better yet, a single movie with 40 minutes per section.

 

[Wickwick]

Hesster56[/url]":151rb6x7]

Wickwick[/url]":151rb6x7]

Hesster56[/url]":151rb6x7]I don't mind having this discussion, but it could be a bit off topic.

Bombadil doesn't work in the movies.

There's nowhere between A Shortcut to Mushrooms and The Sign of the Prancing Pony to drop "and then our characters spend a long weekend having brunch with God."

He's only as much God as Gandalf. He reigns supreme over his garden but not (necessarily) outside of it. At least the Ents did ask about Entwives in the movies. That's about all we get in reference to Bombadil. Oh, and the Barrow Wights swords just happen to show up in Strider's hands.

Or Gandalf said "Aragorn, you'll be meeting between two and five Hobbits at the inn. Please have some sort of weapon for them; they need to learn how to defend themselves."

And Bombadil has been referenced as "older" than the the rings, which puts him as outside of the effects of the Ring's powers and the world around him.

The 5 are also older than the ring (Gandalf, Radagast, Saruman and two unnamed) . They're direct agents of the Valar to oppose Melkor/Morgoth.

 

[Wickwick]

ardent[/url]":7vbok8bh]

Wickwick[/url]":7vbok8bh]

ardent[/url]":7vbok8bh]This really demanded two films and not three.

The primary story is in four parts: the unexpected party and the journey east to Rivendell. The journey over the Misty Mountains. Mirkwood and Smaug. The Battle of the Five Armies.

If you'd done two in each film it would have been fantastically paced and exciting. I hope they edit that together for a release in a few years.

Or better yet, a single movie with 40 minutes per section.

I don't know that would be the best pacing, but you could try it. I'd like to see both tried.

When I said two films I meant two 110-120~ minute films. Not two 160 minute films.

No, I meant a single 160 minute movie. That would have been just enough to fit the material, not miss anything major, and not have to introduce any characters not in the book.

And to leave the off-scene action off-scene.

 

[Wickwick]

tombraun[/url]":sv3dez54]99% of the reviews of this film that I've seen, including this one, basically go in determined to dislike it because turning this book into three movies is, by geek consensus, a money-grubbing cash grab.

Well, maybe.

But that aside, I enjoyed this movie quite a bit. More than the second by far, and at least as much as the first. The conflict between Thranduil and Thorin actually IS at the heart of the last section of the book, so the fact that the movie focuses on it is quite accurate. And I thought the battle scenes were top notch for the most part (though I didn't care about the Laketown Master's cowardly sidekick - ugh). The climactic fight out on the ice was stunning.

I think this is a fine wrap-up to a trilogy that is not as good as LOTR but not as bad as people have made it out to be. YMMV.

My 13 year-old son (who's never read anything written by any of the Tolkiens) likes the three Hobbit movies as much as he loves the LotR movies. I think the clamor amongst us nerds is how little the movies share with the book beyond the name.

 

[Wickwick]

zebostoneleigh[/url]":2urnw4a9]You say it's the "end." Perhaps it can be the end of middle earth films in general.

Well, unless they're just going to completely make up source material they've run out. Everything else from JRR and his son covers material earlier than Middle Earth.

 

[Wickwick]

ElectricBlue[/url]":1p7rp8et]

solomonrex[/url]":1p7rp8et]

arcite[/url]":1p7rp8et]

Taesong[/url]":1p7rp8et]The Hobbit worked as a story because it was a small tale about a small person (literally) taking on big things. It hinted there were even greater things going on, but because it focused on a likeable and relatable main character we were drawn into the story along with Bilbo on his journey. Bilbo is told that what happened to him is part of a much greater whole, but it is also clear that that greater whole is made up of many little stories just like Bilbo's.

I get where Jackson is trying to show the things going on behind Bilbo's adventure and what is happening fits with what we suspect would have been going on. However it drastically changes the narrative of the story, now everyone's story and fate is overshadowed by "epic events" and the "big picture". The attempt to make an epic out of a tale undermines the whole point of the tale in the first place.

This here. The battle of the five armies is not much more than a couple paragraphs in the novel. Tolkien, a survivor of the trenches of WWI would have no doubt been horrified to see what was done to his small children's tale by Jackson.

That's just not realistic. Peter Jackson is not making a movie without a big battle scene in the end, and normal people wouldn't sit through even a 2 hour movie if the screen blacks out during the action. Literature isn't cinema and cinema isn't literature. PJ made many mistakes, but that wasn't one of them. Tolkien did have battle scenes in his other work, it's not completely foreign, either.

Nonsense. It is completely foreign to the nature of the work PJ is adapting. There's a condensed version of the Hobbit that could've made an okay movie. The book is not terribly exciting but it has plenty of suspense that would've transferred well to a movie but instead they removed any sense of danger the movie could've had with over the top effects and what's left? a soulless boring trilogy even the most die hard LOTR fans don't want to see.

Oh, I don't think the battle could have been skipped as it was in the book (essentially). There are some things the movies convey well that the books couldn't. For instance, the visualization of Erebor was far superior to anything Tolkien wrote in the book. He wasn't big on 12 page descriptive manifestos. I think a movie of the Hobbit would necessarily include some of the highlights of the battle.

It did not need to be shot the way it was. It could have been used to advance the characters in the way that the scene between Pippen and Gandalf did as the troll was about to break down the gate in Gondor.

 

[Wickwick]

심돌산[/url]":13blrmli]

Hesster56[/url]":13blrmli]

Wickwick[/url]":13blrmli]

Hesster56[/url]":13blrmli]I don't mind having this discussion, but it could be a bit off topic.

Bombadil doesn't work in the movies.

There's nowhere between A Shortcut to Mushrooms and The Sign of the Prancing Pony to drop "and then our characters spend a long weekend having brunch with God."

He's only as much God as Gandalf. He reigns supreme over his garden but not (necessarily) outside of it. At least the Ents did ask about Entwives in the movies. That's about all we get in reference to Bombadil. Oh, and the Barrow Wights swords just happen to show up in Strider's hands.

Or Gandalf said "Aragorn, you'll be meeting between two and five Hobbits at the inn. Please have some sort of weapon for them; they need to learn how to defend themselves."

And Bombadil has been referenced as "older" than the the rings, which puts him as outside of the effects of the Ring's powers and the world around him.

There are many characters older than the rings -- Galadriel for one. That doesn't put her outside of the effects of the ring's powers.

In fact, as a bearer of one of the rings made for Elves she's inextricably tied to the One. Though she was powerful herself, with her ring she was even more so. Everything she did with that ring was eventually tied up in the One Ring such that when it was destroyed so too did all her former works fade.

That said, it was made abundantly clear that she felt she could keep Sauron's influence out of her woods unless the Ring of Power was restored to him. Had that happened she would have been enslaved to him instead.

 

[Wickwick]

multimediavt[/url]":7yas1k2o]

심돌산[/url]":7yas1k2o]Here's the only review that matters to me, from my 11-year-old: "That was great!"

That's a nice review. Too bad none of Tolkien's stories were ever intended for children.

The Hobbit was most certainly meant for children. He asked his own son to review it - quite young.

As with any good children's story there's a lot there for adults too but it's light reading for anyone past age 14.

 

[Wickwick]

Ushio[/url]":96x95qa2]

Wickwick[/url]":96x95qa2]

Tolkien always had a terseness with language that conveyed so much with so little. There were references to battles or historical events that suggested a real world with as complex a history as ours but no more than a line was spared - the details were never forthcoming (No - Christopher Tolkien's expansion of that doesn't count!).

That's part of what made reading these books worthwhile. Things were left to the imagination, the prose was short and the pace was fast.

If only Peter Jackson had learned that lesson from the author.

Fast pace? is The Hobbit that different from The Fellowship of the Ring as that's the only one I have ever read and it makes the 13 books of the Wheel of Time feel brief.

The Hobbit was fluff. The Lord of the Rings was JRR's masterpiece.

Fellowship is actually jam-packed and quite fast paced (compared to Jordan). You may just have to read the other 2 books of the trilogy (and maybe the Hobbit) to realize just how dense it is. In fact, over the course of ~25 years I've probably read the trilogy 8 times.

 

[Wickwick]

kvndoom[/url]":1boigm2e]Much like Transformers 2, I left the movie theater quiet and with nothing to say. It was empty calories, not memorable at all, and not something I'd ever volunteer to watch again.

I didn't mind bringing back the LOTR alumni solely because I could see the value in watching this "prequel" directly before Return of the King (except for Legolas needing 60 years to find Aragorn, who didn't look quite that old in "Fellowship"). But wow, no closure at all after introducing so many important characters.

Long story short: Aragon isn't really human. He's part of the last bloodline of the Numenoreans - not quite immortal but close enough. They were a race so powerful they challenged the Valar (gods) themselves. Ok, so they lost and got banished to Middle Earth but you get the picture.

Though Legolas was not in The Hobbit he would not have needed to go looking for Strider/Aragorn in that time frame. Aragorn was well known amongst the elf folk. Only the men seem to have forgotten who the king of Gondor was.

 

[Wickwick]

BigDragon[/url]":16od4of8]I saw this movie on Friday. It easily is the worst movie I've seen all year. They should not have killed wyvern Smaug as part of the title sequence. 5 to 10 minutes in and the most dynamic character on the screen is wiped out in a completely unbelievable fashion. From then on it's 2-hours worth of "How to Kill an Orc" and watching completely flat characters do the same thing over and over again. Seriously, I'm surprised they found so many different ways to slice and smash those orcs up.

This is me being disappointed. The Hobbit had so much more potential than this. The characters could have been made deep, properly brought to life, and a timeless story could have been realized. Instead we got stuck with action sequences so forced and drawn out that people just started pulling out their phones in the middle of the movie and never looked back. Someone should post the movie's script online. I bet you could read through all the dialogue in 10 to 15 minutes if you ignore the [fighting], [some more fighting], and [even more fighting] sections. So much potential wasted.

Unfortunately, Smaug dies right about where he's supposed to - and just the way it was written in the book (ok, I don't recall any "black arrow" stuff - just a regular arrow that finds the soft belly where a scale had fallen off). Then again it was one book not a trilogy and the final battle was only a few pages.

The resolution of the characters AFTER the main events was big in The Hobbit and LotR. None of that made the Hobbit trilogy and very little made the LotR movies either.

 

[Wickwick]

demonbug[/url]":1dt17uym]

Wickwick[/url]":1dt17uym]

BigDragon[/url]":1dt17uym]I saw this movie on Friday. It easily is the worst movie I've seen all year. They should not have killed wyvern Smaug as part of the title sequence. 5 to 10 minutes in and the most dynamic character on the screen is wiped out in a completely unbelievable fashion. From then on it's 2-hours worth of "How to Kill an Orc" and watching completely flat characters do the same thing over and over again. Seriously, I'm surprised they found so many different ways to slice and smash those orcs up.

This is me being disappointed. The Hobbit had so much more potential than this. The characters could have been made deep, properly brought to life, and a timeless story could have been realized. Instead we got stuck with action sequences so forced and drawn out that people just started pulling out their phones in the middle of the movie and never looked back. Someone should post the movie's script online. I bet you could read through all the dialogue in 10 to 15 minutes if you ignore the [fighting], [some more fighting], and [even more fighting] sections. So much potential wasted.

Unfortunately, Smaug dies right about where he's supposed to - and just the way it was written in the book (ok, I don't recall any "black arrow" stuff - just a regular arrow that finds the soft belly where a scale had fallen off).

Haven't seen the film (thought the first was poor, the second downright bad, not planning to go to this one - though I may be dragged to see it), but the black arrow is very definitely in the book - Bard goes on about how it came from his own father, who got it from his father, etc. Of course, it is more or less a normal arrow by the description - certainly doesn't do anything special (besides kill Smaug). And he does exhort it to fly true or some such as he fires it, so if that is in the movie, it is at least accurate in that respect.

Thanks. For as many times as I've read the LotR trilogy I never felt the need to reread The Hobbit after 7th grade (that was a long time ago...). I couldn't recall anything particularly "different" about the arrow. It was shot from a bow like any other (not some dwarvish windlass thingy).

 

[Wickwick]

demonbug[/url]":3s67qnj2]

androticus[/url]":3s67qnj2]The LOTR trilogy was brilliant--perhaps the best motion picture (considered as a whole) of all time.

But I sadly have to agree with Andrew on The Hobbit--the most damning evidence: I am barely motivated to even go see part 3.

One thing Andrew didn't mention was the TERRIBLE look and feel of The Hobbit, seemingly a by-product of the 48fps technology. Every scene looks brightly lit, even ones that are supposed to be in dark shadow. You can't feel fearful when everything is bright as daylight! That aspect was the most annoying to me, even more so than the many artistic and adaptational flaws. I've lost a lot of respect for Peter Jackson over this series.

Having been dragged to it last night, I agree with the remarks on the high-frame rate seeming to reduce the cinematic quality - I had the added "pleasure" of 3D, which just made it so much worse. The depth of field was generally too great, meaning characters were rarely if ever isolated from the background - everything was in sharp focus, sets looked like sets, computer models looked like toys. I can only assume this is done to prevent eyestrain from things being out of focus in 3D or something, but it was really noticeable and detracted greatly from the cinematic look. Instead of being blown away with the opening scenes of Smaug, it created more of a comical effect - look at the animated dragon attacking the toy town! No feel of danger or suspense when everything is clearly just a toy. The high frame rate seems to catch too much motion detail, as the difficult problem of giving computer-generated characters and sets the feel of physical weight and inertia are made even worse, as every wiggle and bounce and not-quite-right impact is clearly visible and discernible and destroys any suspension of disbelief.

There also seemed to be very little range in the way scenes were lit, though I think that was partially an artistic choice - everything for most of the movie was a drab grey, not too bright, not too dark... just a melancholy grey. When all the scenes look the same, it just makes a jumble in your memory (though mostly forgettable characters shoehorned into meaningless scene after meaningless scene don't help).

Speaking of 3D, I wish someone would realize that you can't go changing lenses willy-nilly and get proper stereopsis. Wide-angle lenses and super telephotos are great for various cinematic purposes but when you're saddled with a 3D movie the only way to shoot the movie and not make it feel fake is to shoot with a single, normal lens the entire movie that matches our eye (basically a 50 mm lens on 35 mm film or double that on 70). Too often in the close ups there was just too much sense of depth between the characters and the room behind them. Everything felt like I was looking at a butterfly on a needle through a magnifying lens not with my own eyes.

 

[Wickwick]

Doc Spector[/url]":111yu1kk]The only flaw I really noted was Thranduil sending Legolas off to find Aragorn about 30 years before he's born. Oops.

Except Aragorn is probably already about 100 years old. I don't recall exactly when he's born but you recall in The Two Towers (maybe Return of the King) movie that the king of Minas Tirith Rohan remembered Aragorn fighting alongside his father as a boy?

As I noted before, Aragorn isn't truly human. He's one of the last of the line of Numenoreans. They weren't immortal but very long lived men.