The Battle of the 5+ Armies

[Aganzir]

As time passes, I'm less and less impressed with the film. It was, very literally, fast food for thought (which is more than can be said of the Desolation, which can rather be compared to a lukewarm pint of low quality beer that leaves your head throbbing) - enjoyable for the most part while it lasted, but in the end I didn't get anything out of it.

The purpose of this trilogy is to be mindless action, marketed under the guise of a good and well-loved book.

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

Especially since in the first film, we already had the flashback to Thrór/Thráin, which made it clear that the Arkenstone is important, and made it seem like that it's something akin to the Rings of Power in its both positive and negative influence.

I think this has a lot to do with PJ's decision to stretch the story into three films. FotR was his best Tolkien adaptation because it more or less followed the original script - after that he got carried away altering the scripts as he went, and it really shows in the lack of cohesion. In the Hobbit it seems he got so hung up on the details (many of which were only added after he decided to milk it out) he forgot all about the bigger picture.

Originally Posted by Legate

And I would highlight Fili's death, that was so horrible and sad (from the point of view of Bilbo and the rest of the Dwarves, especially his brother), that actually made me remain silent for a few minutes.

We obviously knew what was coming when the younger dwarves entered the tower, but I found myself very indifferent to his death (apart from the shock value of being the first to die). Did this character have more than one or two lines in the entire film? Why am I supposed to care about whether he lives or dies? Because he's good-looking, is the answer.

Now I liked Dean O'Gorman's performance well enough even though he had little to work with because he managed to give Fili an air of personality, even if he was mostly hanging in the back (yes, I was constantly checking out his facial expressions and posture because it's not often that I see somebody who has my looks and my swagger). But I think it's sad that the film makers didn't even make an effort to make us care about him as a person, especially if his death was meant to move us. They left it all to the actor (and his appearance). And instead of real emotions, real reactions to his death, we saw two shocked faces and then hey ho to the action scenes we go. You know, if somebody stabbed my brother to death and dropped him in front of me, I would beat bloody anything and everything that came between me and the killer, but if you made a film of that, you'd focus on my ravaged face in slow motion, not on the fight choreography. If you wanted to show that my brother and his death meant anything to me, that is.

I understand very well that you can't give in-depth screentime to all the 13 dwarves, but it would have taken so little to make us care even a bit, or show that somebody else within the story cared.

Originally Posted by Legate

One loved a mortal Man, another a mortal Dwarf, both shared this tragedy, oh how sad.

I actually didn't think about the Tauriel/Arwen parallel until I read your post! Very good point, and very annoying. The Hobbit is different from LOTR but good in its own right - why bring everything over and try to tell the same story twice? You know the way they've done it, they could actually market it as LOTR with new and improved recipe, now with a little less conversation, a little more action (and a lot more fanfiction)!

Tauriel and Kili's romance was made very shoddily and unrealistically, and the whole Hey I just met you and this is crazy drama seems like something that could only happen to, or be taken seriously by, indiscriminate teenagers. Then again they seem to be the target audience.

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

She will be in a sequel: The Return of the Shadow.

I am very, very worried this will actually be the case. The film left way too many loose threads. There's still material they have the rights for, and the way it ended for Legolas, I think we'll be seeing an actual fanfiction film loosely based on the Tale of Aragorn and Arwen. And I'm willing to bet that despite a budget 50 times bigger, it won't come even close to Born of Hope.

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

- the generally stupid Grimafrid ruining what could've been a cool feminist moment

I don't actually think it's very funny to do the old "Here's a man in women's clothes, now laugh" trick, even if "Not every man would wear a corset [to escape the battle]" is a good comeback to being accused of cowardice.
Alfrid was even more distinctly Gríma in this film though - and we get back to what I just said about recycling LOTR themes in the Hobbit films. It's lazy and boring. By this point it seems the biggest difference between Gríma and Alfrid is that one doesn't have eyebrows and the other has a lot.

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

- Legolas's quest to find Aragorn (what the actual ???), oh and btw apparently his mother died in on a campaign against Gundabad???

Perhaps they're incorporating Elladan and Elrohir into Legolas, having him replace them as Aragorn's companions in the sequel.
To be honest I still don't see what Legolas's outpour about never knowing his mother was supposed to achieve, or how Thranduil's acknowledgement that "Your mother loved you very much" contributed to his character development.

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

One more thing: the ending with Bilbo coming back to his ravished home was very bittersweet. It felt like a substitute for the scouring which was not included in LotR - returning to the place you think is safe, and finding it taken apart.

I completely agree here. Narrative-wise it makes sense to have it here because the transition to the beginning of FotR is so smooth - it reassures the audience that no matter what happened to your home, you can still make it safe and cosy. The Scouring obviously serves an entirely different purpose in LOTR and while I would have preferred to see it in the film, I understand why it was left out. I'm happy about this scene though.

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

They didn't want to discourage all the memes popping up.

You know I actually think the fact that the eagles have become such a huge joke among the uneducated played a part in why their role was so small here! PJ can only blame himself though since he never bothered to explain a few elementary things about the eagles.

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Aganzir

I understand very well that you can't give in-depth screentime to all the 13 dwarves, but it would have taken so little to make us care even a bit, or show that somebody else within the story cared.

The thing is though, they've had three films to develop the Dwarves and have utterly failed to do so. Most of them have few or no lines, and only Thorin, Balin and Kíli have any substantial characterisation. Instead we've been given characters who weren't in the book, like Legolas and "Tauriel" as well as endless cutaways to Azog, Radagast and the like.

Of course the Dwarves other than Thorin really aren't developed in the book - even Balin is mostly just a cheery old lookout man overall - but that didn't matter because we were focused on Bilbo. In the film, however, they're trying to expand everything, and went to all this effort to given the Dwarves unique designs (and even invent backstories for them) which all amount to absolutely nothing. Why bother? Marketing, I suppose, but that's no excuse. I'd rather have characterisation over thirteen increasingly silly haircuts.

[mhagain]

I'm actually quite amazed that nobody has highlighted Alfrid's running around shouting "The children! Won't somebody please think of the children!" as a minus. Maybe it was so horrifying that you all blanked it out. But yes, that happened.

Anyway, I couldn't possibly even pretend to take the movie seriously after that. About the only real plus was that I noticed a resemblance in some of the Death of Smaug scenes to Tolkien's own painting of the same name.

[Tar-Jêx]

Originally Posted by Zigûr

The thing is though, they've had three films to develop the Dwarves and have utterly failed to do so. Most of them have few or no lines, and only Thorin, Balin and Kíli have any substantial characterisation. Instead we've been given characters who weren't in the book, like Legolas and "Tauriel" as well as endless cutaways to Azog, Radagast and the like.

Of course the Dwarves other than Thorin really aren't developed in the book - even Balin is mostly just a cheery old lookout man overall - but that didn't matter because we were focused on Bilbo. In the film, however, they're trying to expand everything, and went to all this effort to given the Dwarves unique designs (and even invent backstories for them) which all amount to absolutely nothing. Why bother? Marketing, I suppose, but that's no excuse. I'd rather have characterisation over thirteen increasingly silly haircuts.

I don't even think half of them have been mentioned by name since the first movie. It seems ridiculous that they tried to characterise some of the dwarves, and leave the rest to rot. I understand trying to add some interest to Balin to make his 'appearance' in Lord of the Rings have more weight to it, but who the hell cares about Fili and Kili?

At least Bilbo is having some good character progression, but I have yet to see how he is done in the last movie.

Another sin that was committed was trying to explain Gandalf's absence for half the story. We didn't need to see what Gandalf was up to. We just needed him to tell us in a really vague manner what happened, and have a few 10-15 second flashes of what was going on. In the book, Gandalf told us that he was going to go to Dol Guldur because he had business there, and that was enough for us, as we had enough interest in the main plot to not wonder what was going on.

The lack of understanding of why things were happening in the book seems to be the cause of this mess, but similar to those mediocre Narnia movies, the director wanted to make it more exciting by changing stuff and adding their own substance to it which was completely unrelated to the story.

[Kuruharan]

Originally Posted by Aganzir

The Hobbit is different from LOTR but good in its own right - why bring everything over and try to tell the same story twice?

PJ and Co are lazy and lacking in imagination.

Originally Posted by Zigûr

The thing is though, they've had three films to develop the Dwarves and have utterly failed to do so. Most of them have few or no lines, and only Thorin, Balin and Kíli have any substantial characterisation.

And Bombur fat jokes.