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.

Read the whole story

 

[MasterRanger]

Poppycock. This was the best of the Hobbit films. The rescue of Gandalf was an awesome display of the power of Galadriel and completely needed to be in there. Too much CGI at the big battle is agreed upon. But when Thorin and company charged out of Erabor, if I'd had a sword in my hands I would have been right there with them.

Ignore the haters here. This is a great movie by the guy that brought Geek to the masses.

 

[wally626]

I expected the overly long battle scenes, but like previous movies things are dropped from the books and things added that do not make much sense. The battle of the five armies actually has some strategy going on in the book, seemed like a random fight in the movie. Then the extra orks coming from the north and attacking the lookout post, when it is on the south east side of the mountain???

I was hoping after all the money LOR made New Line they would be able to put out some good movies, that failed, I hope the Hobbit money gets put to better use.

 

[Knobby]

page six and nobody posted this yet?

 

[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.

 

[enilc]

caldepen[/url]":2yhdt1bm]

Given that the alternative is James Franco and Seth Rogen schlock

At least they don't pretend it is anything else...

"The people have spoken! Freedom has prevailed! Sony didn't give up!"
-Seth Rogen

yeah....I think they have an over-hyped opinion of themselves.

 

[araczynski]

meh, whatever, wannabe's always gonna hate. never read the books, never will, could care less about them, but did enjoy the first 3 and the hobbit 3 movies. the first 3 were better in my book (ha), but anytime i get to watch dwarfses/hobbitses/and orcses going at each other is a good day.

i made the mistake of seeing the first hobbit movie in that 60fps (or whatever). JFC that ruined the movie for me like nothing ever has. felt like i was watching some daytime soap opera, everything looked so fake to me.

looking forward to the extended edition bluray set on amazon next black friday

 

[mycroftxxx]

Random thoughts (my flaky cable modem ate yesterday's more focused comment):

Martin Freeman was great; his acting chops made Thorin's death scene actually moving, and the scene where he gives the Arkenstone to Gandalf / Bard / Thrainduil was really good - and very true to the book as well. There's a lesson there...

That said, the whole "dragon sickness" explanation for Thorin's assholery was stupid on stilts; Tolkien is explicit in all of the lore of Middle-Earth that the Dwarves have this weakness for treasure waiting to express itself, and sometimes it can affect even the best among them. On the subject of the Dwarves, PJ continued his abysmal treatment of them: Gimli was used mostly as comic relief in the LOTR films, and here only Thorin and Kili were treated as other than buffoons (and Kili only because he was saddled with the made-up love interest).

All in all, I wasn't that disappointed because my expectations were so low. And...frankly, that was in part because, IMHO, Peter Jackson made a hash out of LOTR too. I know that's a minority view, but I stand by it. PJ and the screenwriters never got the true nature of Frodo specifically and hobbits in general; they are much weaker and buffoonish than in the source material. And one example of many: having the army of the Dead win the Battle of the Pellenor Fields was unforgivable. The places where Jackson's LOTR succeeds are where he hews closest to the books: e.g., the Mines of Moria.

As far as a potential movie of The Silmarillion goes, it's my understanding that the film rights to it are not expected to be sold / licensed in the foreseeable future, and certainly not to Peter Jackson - it is said that Christopher Tolkien abhorred PJ's films. And The Silmarillion would take an enormous amount of work to be filmable anyway: almost all of the dialog would have to be invented (the book is written in a "legend / myth" style with very little dialog); much of the narrative is written as episodes instead of an actual story (the tale of Turin Turanbar is a good example); and it is quite compressed - as a movie, it would be 20+ hours easily. I dearly love The Silmarillion, but as a movie, I can't see it working. Maybe some visionary will come up with a workable proposal and convince JRRT's estate to go along, but said visionary will NOT be Peter Jackson.

 

[jafac]

Me to Peter Jackson: "Get off my lawn!"

When I saw the second film (haven't seen the third, might not) - I began to think about, how long-revered these books have been, as literature in our culture. How long, filmmakers have dreamed of making film versions, and all the technical and creative, and especially financial hurdles had to be overcome before it finally came to fruition. I was initially grateful that PJ was able to make LOTR; and much of it was predicated on being able to convince the studios that producing three movies was going to generate a long-term revenue stream - (theatrical release, re-release ahead of the next segment, DVD, directors cuts, extended editions, collectors editions, etc. etc.) - and that if it had been just a single movie, perhaps nobody would be willing to front that kind of money. So I decided to take the good with the bad; at least where LOTR was concerned.

But where The Hobbit is concerned, I began to get the creeping feeling that the studios KNOW that audiences have decided to "accept the good with the bad". And they just decided that there's no way their professional reputations are going to suffer - doesn't matter; made money.

So here we are, 75 years later. We can look back with fondness and very much enjoy reading the hobbit. In 75 years, what will future movie audiences be thinking of these movies? Are they going to dismiss and forget them like previous LOTR attempts? Will that be because of technical issues? (like, we don't speak of the Ralph Bakshi atrocity; let alone the Rankin-Bass attempts). Will movies be so "advanced" by then, that like we shun black-and-white or traditional animation today, we'll be shunning 3D 60fps? Or will we shun these movies because of their godawful pacing, poor character development, and "slap you in the face" money-grubbing? I think audiences 75 years from now are going to look at these movies as an example of everything that had gone wrong with early 21st century movie and media production, and see it as a harbinger of the industry's inevitable collapse, and the end of movie-making as an artform.

 

[caldepen]

In 75 years, what will future movie audiences be thinking of these movies?

No one will watch them. Like the wine industry in the 21st industry, products are meant to be immediately consumed. Very few movies will hold up and these certainly won't. I can't even sit through the Lord of the Rings and they were much better.

It ties into the industry being far more interested in opening weekends over total sales. The success of a film is measured in how well it does opening weekend with very few exceptions. For example, The Day After Tomorrow was originally considered a flop and the studios expressed their disappointment. But after many weeks it saw a resurgence or at least a steadiness you don't see often. Because it was good, and had depth. Movies like Avengers and Skyfall are made so you are initially impressed but once you stop and consider things like how the hell did the bad guy know where to make the train fall through and why did Dench become MacGuyver, or why did I watch 2 hours of a stupid floating aircraft carrier, you realize they are not very good. By then the studios have made their money and they don't care what you think. They have heavily marketed the film to do well opening weekend, longevity be damned.

Watch The Hobbit in 75 years? Not likely.

 

[Borgmeister]

All I can really say, not having paid as close attention to the source (have read it, but it's just a story to me) I enjoyed the film as a piece of stand alone action (same way I can enjoy the 3rd modern Star Wars). But really there were times I literally felt that a cursor would appear on screen - it was like watching an RTS at times (and developers - just don't go there, please).

Surprised I didn't see the Fremen appear at one point quite frankly. Went home, observed the predictable uptick in people riding Rams in WoW (I think all the possible iterations of "Legolas" have probably run out ala IPv4). I also have a distinct impression I'm not taking this nearly seriously enough perhaps.

Was a good evening out though!

 

[yogsodoth]

MasterRanger[/url]":1utnflfb]Ignore the haters here. This is a great movie by the guy that brought Geek to the masses.

Well said. I'm sick of these jaded b*tches who forget that 20 years ago, there were NO decent epic fantasy movies. We were lucky to get a B movie starring some dude you never heard of with a $20,000 budget every few years. We all sat waiting for decades for these movies to be made, and they're pretty f*cking visually awesome and entertaining. But, spergs gonna sperg.

 

[Wraithe]

I'm sorry, Mr. Cunningham, I just want to make sure I understand part of what you're proposing here;

Are you seriously suggesting that these large scale CGI-driven "battle sequences" need to either be included so as to show character growth OR if they truly advance the story in some way?

Well, with all respect to your "BA in Classics", I'm going to have to politely suggest that you don't understand modern filmmaking. You see, you have to..wait...I know...I have someone on tap who can explain to you how an epic movie like this is supposed to work. (my apologies, there's some profanity at the end of the clip).

Rick McCallum: "It's so dense, every shot has so many things going on...."

THAT'S how you make an "epic".
(Ok, Sarcasm off)

Part of me wonders if this is an editing issue, in that the people who make these have viewed the scenes SO many times while editing, they don't get just how soulless these constant set-piece battles get once they're viewed straight?
Every movie has "great" special effects now, and it's like the big films just don't know what to do with them. It reminds me a little of the 60's & 70's with the giant crowd scenes; most of them were just there to show how many people they could manage to get on set, with a few movies (frex: "The Three Musketeers") where action actually happened within the crowd scenes themselves.

You can lump me in with the people waiting for "The Hobbit, An Unexpected Edit" to see what can be made from this morass.

 

[jbee]

First things first: I liked the Hobbit movies (all three of them), though not as much as the LotR trilogy.

I understood even before the first Hobbit movie that Peter Jackson would create movies from of the book which would fit in "look&feel" to the existing LotR movies look&feel, so a lot of things would HAVE to be changed. A 1:1 book->movie transition just would not have worked.

The Hobbit is a book for children. It is full of silly rhymes and songs and totally different in style to the more serious, „grown-up“ Lord of the Rings books. Also, Tolkien wrote The Hobbit years before Lord of the Rings and had not even fully created all of the background story of the world. In fact, you can think of the LotR world as a „darker and edgier“ version of „The Hobbit“.

So Peter Jackson now agreed to make a movie out of „The Hobbit“. I guess pretty much the first decision he had to make was whether he wanted to make a movie of the book as it was, or whether he wanted to adjust everything to the established (via the LotR movies) look&feel of Middle Earth. Well, you cannot really tell a „what happened before“ story to the LotR movies if the whole world looks and feels completely different, so it was inevitable that people who read „The Hobbit“ and wanted a 1:1 adaptation of the book would be disappointed. I personally like the changes - I enjoyed „The Hobbit“ as a book, but I liked the look&feel of the LotR movies (they are pretty much what I imagined Middle Earth to look like when I read the books and when we played MERP - of course it helped that John Howe and Alan Lee worked on the design for the movies), so I wanted more of the same.

And of course people also have to understand that these three new movies are not only an adaptation of the one single book, Peter Jackson and his crew also went into the Silmarillion and the appendices of LotR to get additional, canon, material. So these new movies are not only about the book, they are also about what else happened during this time, i.e. also stuff which is not in this one particular book, e.g. the whole Dol Guldur storyline. You cannot really blame them for adding stuff which Tolkien himself said happened at this time.

Now, are these movies perfect? No, of course not. I think they are definitely weaker than the LotR movies. And I agree that they should have made only two movies, not three. They could have streamlined the first two movies a bit and WAY shortened the battle of the five armies, then it all would have fit into two movies. As the movies are right now, they feel too stretched.

 

[dorklord]

agree with review - these movies felt thin, like butter spread over too much bread.

 

[2stepbay]

mycroftxxx[/url]":7oc4uho4]
As far as a potential movie of The Silmarillion goes, it's my understanding that the film rights to it are not expected to be sold / licensed in the foreseeable future, and certainly not to Peter Jackson - it is said that Christopher Tolkien abhorred PJ's films. And The Silmarillion would take an enormous amount of work to be filmable anyway: almost all of the dialog would have to be invented (the book is written in a "legend / myth" style with very little dialog); much of the narrative is written as episodes instead of an actual story (the tale of Turin Turanbar is a good example); and it is quite compressed - as a movie, it would be 20+ hours easily. I dearly love The Silmarillion, but as a movie, I can't see it working. Maybe some visionary will come up with a workable proposal and convince JRRT's estate to go along, but said visionary will NOT be Peter Jackson.

I’d like to see on the big screen the beginning chapters of the Silmarillion up to Feanor’s return to Middle Earth. Another choice is the chapters about Akallabeth…the Downfall of Numenor.

And if you want to listen to an excellent audio version of the Silmarillion, you can find it here:
https://archive.org/details/J.r.r.Tolki ... lmarillion (scroll to the bottom to download the various chapters). Intro music for each chapter is rather strange, but Martin Shaw's narration is excellent.

 

[sephula]

I disagree with every point the author has made. The Dwarves got the short end of the stick in LotR, where Gimli was used as the comic relief. The Hobbit is their redemption. Finally, heroic. Elves down, Dwarves up! Humans and Orcs are downplayed a bit, because it's been covered, already. I loved the special effects, and amazing, emotionally-captivating scenery. And especially, the "trippy rescue sequence", and only wish it had been longer. I felt the dragon attack was a tad short, as well, but it still managed to get the point accross in a mildly satisfying way. Although, the end of the second film seemed to fill us with some false hopes and assumptions. Also, where was the BLOOD? Do Elves and Dwarves not bleed when a sword penetrates all the way through their chest and into the icy depths below? Not even a tiny little whisp of red bloody-goodness? Really?

 

[truth serum]

i didn't care for the last two Hobbit movies AT ALL. But I am going to commit sacrilege here and say that I enjoyed Five Armies more than every other Lord of the Rings movie except for Fellowship of the Ring.

Five Armies is basically a better version of The Two Towers. Five Armies has the better opening sequence (which was the best part of TTT imo ). The huge battles in Five Armies were better. Five Armies had climactic one on one fights while TTT had none. Every single scene with Bilbo was amazing, Thorin was great and Thrandull deserves extra praise for commanding the screen in every scene he was in. The scene with The Middle Earth Justice league totally wrecking sh*t was better than anything in TTT as well. There is also actual loss in Five Armies while no one important actually died in The Two Towers. (No, that elf guy that showed up for five minutes doesn't count).

I think nostalgia goggles and the bad taste from the last two Hobbit films have clouded a lot of peoples judgement. I wasn't expecting to enjoy the movie at all and only went to see it because f*ck it I saw the last two so I might as well finish the series. However I have to give credit where credit is due and say that Jackson made a comeback with Five Armies.

 

[Meathim]

I've never bothered with the Hobbit, even though I love Freeman, but they really do sound stupid. But then I think LotR and that universe is terribly overrated. I mean I like it, but ... it's not brilliant.

 

[sephula]

The invented adult-oriented romance element, which is entirely absent the source material, simply doesn't belong in a children's fairy tail. The Hobbit is supposed to be a fable, about moral-dilemas, heroism, and never turning your back on a friend in need.

Also, who would ever seriously believe that a tall, thin, and radiant young Elf Princess would find herself falling head over heals for a short, fat, and smelly Dwarf soldier-man? It was sooo "Romeo and Juliet" meets "Beauty and The Beast". Give me a friggin break! In real-life, that NEVER HAPPENS!

Hollywood needs to quit filling our kids' hearts with false hopes, and homophobic exclusivity. It's blatant indoctrination, which doesn't jive at all with anyone's reality. This can only lead to disappointment, later in life, and possibly even self-destructive thoughts or behaviors. KNOCK IT OFF, HOLLYWOOD!!! We don't need you cramming heterosexuality down our kids' throats at a young age. It added nothing, and was a complete distraction form the plot, completely wasting our time; where more dialog, and better action could have made for a better movie.

 

[pqr]

Bilbo's scenes form the kernel of what could have been a smaller, quieter, but ultimately more narratively successful series of films, one where Bilbo's personal journey isn't swallowed whole by loud Lord of the Rings-movie-style battle sequences.

FTFY. In my book it doesn't bode well at all for a movie if Jackson directs it. He managed to kill the LotR triplet already especially #2. Yeah the medium is primarily visual, we get that. And sure you didn't write the script, we get that too. But the books are just so much better that it's not even a joke. Not that there aren't some good scenes there (e.g., in Lothlorien). But ridiculous CGI battles don't cut it, there is a story, you know (multiple lines of it actually). After LotR I didn't even bother seeing what he did to The Hobbit.

 

[The Master]

jafac[/url]":1vvd1tw5]In 75 years, what will future movie audiences be thinking of these movies?

these movies really are the product of their times..

some sentimental people.. fire up battletoads or how about "double dragon" and somehow have fun..? (nostalgia is the word) button mashing (or maybe configuring your controller for turbo?) but these movies will be forgotten in 75 years (mostly) and more so there will be such wonders available that these are the product of a primitive people.. and that's all I can say.. I think describing iphones to cavemen is a tough trick

 

[grapseotithes]

I re-watched the first two Hobbit movies a couple of days before going to see the last one. While I was disappointed when I saw the first two at the cinema, re-watching them at home, I noticed some more details and decided that they weren't actually bad. But they were nowhere near the LOTR trilogy's level. And their feeling was all wrong.

The Hobbit is not an epic story about saving the world. It's a little story about a band of dwarves, trying to reclaim their homeland and encountering magical beasts and creatures of legend along the way. With the help of a wizard and an unprepossessing little guy, setting the stage for the larger events of the future. It is children's fantasy and should be taken as such. The movies, however, made it seem as though the whole world stands in the balance and tried to force a sense of doom if the dwarves' quest failed.

In any case, the third movie sucks.

It is essentially a long, plodding, drawn-out battle with no soul and countless demands for suspension of disbelief. It made me long for the skyscraper scene in Transformers 3. It was so bad. And in the end, after all this self-seriousness, we don't really get closure on any other plot thread, other than Bilbo returning home. As the article says, nobody explains what happens to the dwarves of Erebor, or the people of Laketown after the battle. My guess is, nobody cares, since they are never even mentioned in the LoTR, so they must be irrelevant, right?

PS: Don't even get me started on Legolas' exploits in battle. The stuff he does in this movie is ridiculous from any point of view. It's like he used a cheat code to switch on god mode and then some. If he was able to do the same stuff in LoTR, he could have won most battles single-handedly, while the rest of the army would be eating popcorn and cheering him on for sport...

 

[ktwebb68]

Interesting book. Entertaining. Movies, all 6 or 25 or whatever it was....unwatchable. Completely.

 

[DCexplorer]

People that log into a movie review and comment about how they haven't seen the previous movies, and they're not going to see this movie, are as annoying as those folks who have to interject into any conversation that they don't have a television in their house, and how much better their life is since they gave up gluton.

 

[truth serum]

DCexplorer[/url]":2p1zvc6e]People that log into a movie review and comment about how they haven't seen the previous movies, and they're not going to see this movie, are as annoying as those folks who have to interject into any conversation that they don't have a television in their house, and how much better their life is since they gave up gluton.

The internet is a raging cauldron of negativity. It feeds off it.

Think of internet as that floating alien creature in the original Star Trek series that fed off of the rage between the Enterprise crew and the Klingons. Also just like in that episode the best thing we can do is simply sit back and laugh at it.

 

[cvnk]

I knew this was going to happen when Guillermo del Toro had to back out after extensive production delays and Jackson stepped in. The announcement that it would be stretched over 3 movies (each of which is excessively long) did not surprise me one bit. When I heard del Toro was going to direct I had high hopes for something different from the LotR movies. Something concise and unique (although this was before I saw Pacific Rim so I guess he's perfectly capable of producing predictable garbage).

 

[truth serum]

fazalmajid[/url]":62d2jfpb]Sandworms? Really?

Totally jumped the shark with this one.

I don't agree at all.


EVERY movie should have giant sandworms in it......not even joking.

 

[spoof]

It's late to be adding a mere 2 cents to the pile of indignation, and someone probably pointed it out already that:

Nothing exceeds like excess. Or, as Hollywood would have it:

Nothing succeeds like excess.

Do they ever reach a saturation point? No, because film, regardless of what it's based on, is a visual entertainment medium.

Spielberg completely massacred the original Jurassic Park story to suit his own (personal) ends. But, the original author Crichton was well paid to do it, and it was a great movie so, all's well that ends well, right?

Except in Hollywood and the motion picture industry, it never ends. The cash cow must drop over dead from dehydration before they move on to something else, culture sucking vampires that they are.

 

[JaneDoe]

bdp[/url]":qt1coxoo]The Hobbit movies are just long and boring, in defiance if how much action is packed on the screen at all times.

Best summary for the Hobbit movies.

Edit: No, I have to correct myself. The best one is of cause "It felt like butter scrapped over too much bread".

 

[Sir Christopher Ducksworth]

I really hope Topher Grace is also a huge Tolkein fan.

 

[spoof]

JaneDoe[/url]":1ese0kh4]

bdp[/url]":1ese0kh4]The Hobbit movies are just long and boring, in defiance if how much action is packed on the screen at all times.

Best summary for the Hobbit movies.

Edit: No, I have to correct myself. The best one is of cause "It felt like butter scrapped over too much bread".

HOLLYWOOD EXEC: It'll be like buttah.

DIRECTOR: Scraped over too much bread?

HOLLYWOOD EXEC: Let us worry about that. We've got a target demographic that doesn't even care about bread or butter, they care about shiny things, monsters and explosions, so, do you want the job or what?

 

[razman]

Great movie. Just got done watching it. Yes it is a bit longer than needed, but you already knew that going in so why whine about it now? lol...I see one guy wrote that life is too short to waste on this movie? And yet you wasted time writing all that non sense? lol hilarious. There's people saying 'oh some people said the movie is really long and boring therefore I will not watch it'. Way to live your life guys! The way of the sheep.

 

[tesseractive]

Yeah, this review pretty much nails it for me. I liked the set piece with Legolas on the fallen tower across the chasm -- the "Don't Break the Ice" bits felt fun and inventive. I kinda liked Kili and liked Bard ok. And that was pretty much it -- otherwise it was just a bunch of random crap up on the screen for way too long.

Honestly, I had more fun watching the new Night at the Museum movie -- which I never would have seen if my kids hadn't dragged me to it.

I pretty much agree -- the best that can be said for it is that it's better than the Star Wars prequels.

 

[Hack-n-Slash]

Solomon Black[/url]":38zxyb37]To those wondering why the Hobbit is three movies the answer is unsurprisingly... money.

Not just greedy cash-grab milk it for all you can money, but as in "wait you spent how much!?" money. Thanks to choices like shooting in 3D and using 48 fps filming or such is the story.

If you don't appreciate how this is risky next to their box office returns consider that studios only take home about 50% of the actual box office gross after splitting with theaters domestically and while overseas grosses are generally bigger they return even less of that.

(An enlightening article on how movies make less then you probably think, though still LOTS of money when successful of course)

Counter-article.

 

[Hack-n-Slash]

bullshit[/url]":3u2l32pn]This is then continued into the ridiculous roller coaster scenes in the hobbit.

I've disliked that sort of scene since Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

 

[Snazster]

Why on earth (or even Middle-earth?) do all these people who -- BY THEIR OWN ADMISSION -- have not seen the film insist on chiming in with their two cents? This is a review and comments are a way of adding to the review or commenting on the review and if they have not seen the movie no one is interested in reading their opinions because they have no way of having any that are relevant to the subject at hand. It's either a way to troll or evidence of narcissistic personality disorder. I can't decide which.

For myself, I agree the ending did not tie up enough loose ends. Why even bother with Legolas when they did not address Bard and Dain and so on?

The scene with fighting the spirit Nazguls was over the top and just silly they way it was done -- could have been cooler than Dumbledore dueling Voldemort -- failed. The dwarf-elf relationship would have actively annoyed Tolkien so why have it? The collapsing tower bridge with Legolas was a bridge too far (or too over the top). Not to mention that nothing that crumbly would have survived falling down by even half a second. The female elf spent most of her time escorting kids and being a victim. Too many scenes where two dwarves were easily a match for a hundred goblins but sometimes a single orc could be an extended battle. The 3D made things look like models sometimes. All that time and it was never even explained why those gems were important to the elves or that the elven royalty was a different species of elf than the elves they ruled. And really, the Dune crossover with the giant worms was unnecessary in the extreme. Dune (the books) may be science fiction's Lord of the Rings (or not) but neither one can steal from the other and be better for it.

That said, yes, I want the extended version because I hope it has some of the things we are missing. Then I want someone with some serious skills to cut the three movies down to around the length of two or maybe two and a half -- I think there could be some serious awesome here once that is done.

That said, I enjoyed the special effects for what they were but was a bit embarrassed my wife, who is not a big fantasy fan, was having to see the weak story line, character development, and sheer over-the-top jump-the-shark feats that had me laughing out loud at their silliness when I know that was not the director's aim.

 

[dooner]

I pray that Jackson does not decide to make The Simarillion..

 

[Doc Spector]

sephula[/url]":2erf3avm]

Also, who would ever seriously believe that a tall, thin, and radiant young Elf Princess would find herself falling head over heals for a short, fat, and smelly Dwarf soldier-man? It was sooo "Romeo and Juliet" meets "Beauty and The Beast". Give me a friggin break! In real-life, that NEVER HAPPENS!

Tell that to Billy Joel.

 

[Doc Spector]

Put me down as someone who enjoyed the movies. Yes, I know they're not the same as the sacred texts. Don't care. Yes, expanding The Hobbit into 3 films really feels like a cash grab. Don't care.

I have the same question for Jackson as I had for Tolkien... where are the Dwarf's rings? This seems like the sort of situation where you might bring one or two. Elrond, Galadriel, and Mithrandir had the three Elven rings, Bilbo had the one Ring, and the Nazgul had the Nine. Why didn't any of the Seven show up?

 

[Ilfring]

A-men. Despite the lengthy run time, there was no story, just snatches of this and that strung together. Important story lines reduced to 5 minutes. Non-existent story lines paraded for days and then suddenly ended. I could go on, but recalling the flaws is dispiriting. TBoFA was overall, dissatisfying and disappointing. I really want to like it but....
I too would love to see a "de-extended" version that contained only the Hobbit proper, but I don't think there is enough material in those 8-odd hours to do so. :/


Edit: I just went back and read Snazster's post and had to say that I agree completely