just came back from watching it

*** OBVIOUSLY SPOILER ALERT DONT PARTICIPATE IN THIS THREAD IF YOU HAVENT WATCHED THE MOVIE YET OR YOU'LL SPOIL IT FOR YOURSELF***


It's been a while since I read the book, so I assume by the end of the 2nd movie there was not much book left to cover except the battle itself.

But gee, I dunno, I read the book some 10 years ago and as an impressionable kid I remember a huge epic battle taking place. 1 year later when I was 11 I read the LotR trilogy and only remembered a battle happening on the fields of Pelennor and had completely forgotten about the one at Helms Deep (or maybe because TTT was so boring in certain places that I had skipped some chapters while for example I had always found the Frodo, Sam and Gollum story far more adventurous and interesting).

In any case the rendition of the Helms Deep and later Pelennor Fields battle absolutely blew my mind during the films, while in the books I had never imagined it to be that epic, but while reading the Hobbit I had very much imagined the Battle of the Five Armies to be that epic.

But now that I saw the final film...I dunno. I just felt meh. I dont think it is becasue we are spoiled as we're living in the era of CGI rather than at the start of it (like in LotR). Even today when I rewatch the battle in TTT or RotK, I feel it is epic.

Hell, that one scene with the cart sliding across the ice in the BotFA trailer? That didnt even make it into the final film. A stupendously awkward Alfrid character that doesnt fit into Middle Earth, some weird closeup shots of characters that should have transitioned sooner, too much screentime wasted dealing with Thorin's sickness that ultimately didnt make anything more interesting, etc. etc.

tl;dr - I felt BotFA was the worst middle earth film to date.

Anyone else?

While it has not been released in my country yet, I will say that you cannot compare the books to the movies, either Hobbit or Lotr. The books and the movies are telling two different stories and are drastically different than one and other. There is no fair comparison

I wouldn't say they are drastically different. There are some minor differences, yes, and a few things added or removed, but they are telling essentially the same story.

 Sir Arun wrote:

tl;dr - I felt BotFA was the worst middle earth film to date.

This helps confirm this films place on the do not watch list.
I will wait until its on TV, and wont mind how long that wait is.

I can appreciate how you feel this film is at the tail end of a gratuitous CGI genre which was new when LotR came out. However I don't entirely agree. The Star Wars prequels were contemporary to Jacksons first trilogy, the CGI wasnt old then yet, but Lucas dropped the ball in so many ways, of which the CGI was one.

With all the extra content, bs and stretched out sword-porn I really think that Jackson has had his Lucas moment. While there was no Jar Jar equivalent, just about all the other mistakes of the Star Wars prequels were strongly apparent in the Hobbit. The first film was half decent, that is to say the bits that were basically true to the story. The second was just a Hot Mess. Jackson even thrw away most of the gifts in Tolkiens plot.
I was looking forward to Bilbo fighting the spiders, one excuse to really throw in some action scenes, but we got precious little of that. Instead we got the barrels rollercoaster with extra orcs (and elves).
even more criminal was a very simple scene descibed by Tolkien about the time when the were showing off Legolas and his elf floosie, which could well have includeed Legolas - quite honestly, and would have made for much better cinematyography.
i am refering to the scene where Bilbo is wearing the Ring and is very near an elf search party, trouble is the exposure to cold has caused him to go into a sneezing fit. With elves being as agile and sharp eared as they are, and Bilbo not being able to control his nose; that scene was a total gift. It could be anything a skilled film maker wants, bhigh tension or comic relief. It never even made the cut, but its not like the film didn't run on long enough to include it, and there was plenty of extraneous crap that could have been parted to make room for it. A waste of a great story, in part and in whole.

All in all a total waste, watch-once-on-video job. The trailers made me feel that the final nail in the coffin/film of the trilogy is more of the same.

It's totally fine if you didn't like it, but it really wasn't that bad.

Just watched it.

Its like a cartoon. Just in case you want the silliness a surprise...



In my opinion, its bad. I watched the original trilogy for the first time a few months ago, this movie was by far the worst of them all. People complained about the barrels in one of the movies, the battle of 5 armies is the barrel scene for hours...

 Orlanth wrote:


With all the extra content, bs and stretched out sword-porn I really think that Jackson has had his Lucas moment. While there was no Jar Jar equivalent, just about all the other mistakes of the Star Wars prequels were strongly apparent in the Hobbit.

Are you sure? The Alfrid character was so hard to watch in the 3rd film that it made Jar Jar Binks almost like a seamless part of the Star Wars universe. I almost left the theater when he stuffed his corset with gold and juggled it around in front of Bard.

 Orlanth wrote:
All in all a total waste, watch-once-on-video job. The trailers made me feel that the final nail in the coffin/film of the trilogy is more of the same.

Given how the Hobbit is about 300 pages long, and the 3rd book only had 65 pages to cover, yeah, there was not much story left to tell.

But by god there have been epic battle films made in history where the director focuses on camaraderie, the wounded, heroic deeds, and of course the right choice of music to underscore such moments amidst combat. In tBotfA, none of those happened. Rather, it felt like you were running a high quality mod on a Total War game where you let several armies clash and watch with a mildly bored expression on your face.

I liked the part where the dwarves create a shieldwall. I also liked most of the fighting. But amputee trolls with iron wires for arms and legs? Reminds me of 300...and those huge ass worms that open the tunnel for the Orc army to spill out of...why didnt the worms take part in the battle as well? Would have been epic to see them burrowing through the battlefield and then dwarves riding atop their backs and hacking away.

What a terrible film. I'm saying this now- do not waste your money on this. I'm a huge middle earth fan, massive fan of the books and the original trilogy. I kinda thought the first Hobbit film was okay, and the second could have been okay with some editing. This one is an unsalvageable mess.

 Da Boss wrote:
What a terrible film. I'm saying this now- do not waste your money on this.

<snip>

Terrible dialogue, terrible direction, just all round terrible movie. Really disappointed in Peter Jackson.[/spoiler]

So the long and the short of it The Battle of the Five Armies is not The Hobbit III, its Bad Taste II. Got it.

Much preferred the working title of The Hobbit, Are we there yet?

Cheers

Andrew

A flawed trilogy bloated by greed.

The giant battle does remind me very much of playing a game of Medieval 2 Total War with the Battle of Middle Earth mod turned on.


Seeing as that battle, and the run up, is what makes up 90% of the film. I could have made it at home.

I got a bit bored really, it didn't really bring much that was new to the series.

The best bit was the White Council and Sauron IMO
It's not that it's a bad film, it's just got too much competition from the rest of those films.

I saw Paddington last week and I think I enjoyed that more

I don't know really the whole film seemed a bit hyperactive. We're doing this! Now this! Now this!!!
To be honest the film would have benefitted from being 2 films like it was originally intended.
The first film was supposed to end with the barrels on the river. The second would have been the Smoug and the battle.
Would have been a tighter film I think.

As it is now to quote Bilbo, it's "like butter scrapped over too much bread"

I just got back from watching and I was rather let down, I agree about the white council scene that was definitely my favourite scene of the film.
There were other good parts on the film but I'm really disappointed with the actual battle of the five armies bit, it just seemed over the top and the cgi wasn't really the best either... And some things didn't really make sense, where did those rams come from!?

I think the extended edition will hopefully make it a slightly better film, to maybe fill in the holes that really hurt the film.

How have we come from the seige of helms deep to this...

White council was the most badass thing I've seen in ages. I've been looking forward to watching Galadriel get her war face on for ages, and I was not disappointed - and Christoper Lee hitting stuff with a stick was awesome. I really liked that during the White Council fight,
Frankly, I could have watched an hour of that, and then gone home happy. But Bard was well-acted, and I liked that they didn't flinch from being accurate with the deaths in the book.
Beyond that, It could have been better in places - not nearly enough of Beorn going berserk for my liking, and it seemed to jump around a bit too much, as if the cutting process was a bit rushed - but the one thing that really infuriated me was at the start of the battle of 5 armies when:



I mean, come on. Did they just use old footage from Dune for that bit?
And I think Billy Connoly, although funny, was miscast. Thorin was doing so well showing us a dignified, proud warrior-dwarf, and then Connoly turns up riding a pig and telling people to sod off. It just cheapened it for me.

But there were some decent bits, so maybe it'll be like the others, and I'll enjoy it more watching it a second or third time on DVD.
At the very least, I don't feel like I wasted my time or money going to see it.

I agree with you on enjoying it more the second or third time, I did really enjoy alot of it but there was just some parts that irked me or were not really well done.

Peter Jackson doesn't do restraint. Which is awesome when you are making schlock horror stuff in NZ on no budget. It doesn't work as well when you are making serious movies.

I enjoyed the battle, but the end section where Thorin goes after Azog was overlong.

Also was it just me or where the Eagles the equivalent of the Army of the Dead in RotK? By which I mean a nice plot device used to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. All looks lost when suddenly they turn up and wipe the orcs out.

Overall I think I was put off by the cartoonish look and feel of the whole Hobbit trilogy. Everything looked like it was in 'Heroic' scale and it actually felt allot like the imagery from Warhammer or Warcraft as opposed to LOTR and I can't really reconcile it with the Middle Earth we saw in the first LOTR trilogy.

That not to say they are 'bad' films, they just don't resonate with me in the same way as the original. In fact there is a good case for comparing them to the Star Wars prequels.

Well, it was an end to the Tolkien saga.

How much of TBOTFA was made-for-the-movie padding? The tunnels and Gundabad looked out of place, but it's been a long time since I read the book.

Lots of CGI? Yep.
Some silliness from Dane? Yeah.
Predictable deathscenes? Lots.

This was the worst of the 6 movies, and the Missus wasn't too chuffed with it, either.

 LuciusAR wrote:
I enjoyed the battle, but the end section where Thorin goes after Azog was overlong.

Also was it just me or where the Eagles the equivalent of the Army of the Dead in RotK? By which I mean a nice plot device used to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. All looks lost when suddenly they turn up and wipe the orcs out.

Overall I think I was put off by the cartoonish look and feel of the whole Hobbit trilogy. Everything looked like it was in 'Heroic' scale and it actually felt allot like the imagery from Warhammer or Warcraft as opposed to LOTR and I can't really reconcile it with the Middle Earth we saw in the first LOTR trilogy.

That not to say they are 'bad' films, they just don't resonate with me in the same way as the original. In fact there is a good case for comparing them to the Star Wars prequels.

There's a brilliant case for comparing the hobbit films to the Star Wars prequels and it goes like this:

Pre-Star Wars

Studio: We don't like George Lucas, we don't trust him with our money, and these scenes have been filmed badly.

Fast forward hundreds of millions of dollars in profit and some years later

Post Star wars

Studio: we love you George, sure include Jar Jar all you want, add a thousand jar jar characters if it makes you happy, and did we say we loved you.

Substitute Lucas for Jackson. It's the old problem of somebody successful getting his own way and not having somebody next to him saying this a load of bull. It's why the wheel of time books are so long and boring, because Jordan's editor was his wife.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Wolf wrote:
I agree with you on enjoying it more the second or third time, I did really enjoy alot of it but there was just some parts that irked me or were not really well done.

Let's be honest - Jackson really wants to do the Dam Busters and the Hobbit films got in the way.

While Jackson deserves a lot of the blame for the Hobbit films, I would also put a lot of blame squarely at the door of his screenwriters. I remember watching the special features and finding out that all my least favourite alterations and additions came from his screenwriters.

My issue with the Hobbit series has mostly been the overuse of CGI. The orks don't feel real like they did in LOTR. It's not that they used CGI, it's that they used it poorly.

I'll be seeing this with a buddy this weekend. Don't care if it's good or not. I'll probably rate it a meh. But I've seen all of them in theatres and our local theatre is fairly cheap. Plus it's an excuse to hang with a buddy

Oh, and BATTLE GOATS!!!!!!!

Are people not aware of the main reason why the Hobbit trilogy sucks?

It's the music, people. The music!

A soundtrack makes or breaks a movie, this is a fact.

And I dont know why, but Howard Shore is a far cry from what he used to be 10 years ago.

The same man who gave us ethereal masterpieces that I still love to put on my system today so it can take me to a different world the moment I close my eyes, this same man has been unable to produce a single meaningful track for the entirety of the 3 Hobbit films with the exception of the one main Leitmotif (Far over the Misty Mountains Cold).

Well LotR had its own distinct and epic sounding Leitmotif as well. But it had a dozen other awesome themes. Like the Shire theme. The Rivendell theme. The Moria theme. The Lothlorien theme. The Isengard theme. The Rohan theme. The Gondor theme. geez, almost every location covered in the lotr had its own epic theme!

In the Hobbit, does Mirkwood have a memorable theme? Nope. Does Dale/Laketown have a memorable theme? Nope. Dol Guldur? Nope. Hell, Erebor???? Nope.

Here's an example of how the 1st Hobbit film can have its film footage transformed to a much more epic looking film just though the right choice of music:

Alright so to start off I'd like to explain that since the hobbit films have been coming out, I reread the Silmarillion, the Hobbit, and then the LotR trilogy at the start of school to prepare.

I had an issue with Desolation when Legolas literally sees a picture of Gimli and is told his name. Legolas would probably remember something like that, or talk to Gloin at the council of Elrond since they'd already met.

The White Council was pretty awesome, and I'll accept that the changes there were kind of necessary and I guess I can think of how they made sense in the lore.

Now on to my real issue with the movie.



Alright on to my other lesser issues that I don't think need to be spoiler tagged, since people reading this should've seen the movie anyway.

Where did the worms come from? Why didn't the worms help in the battle? Why didn't the worms wreck the city? Where were they in LotR helping to destroy Gondor?

The trolls should've turned to stone or an explanation be given as to why they didn't.

That one troll looks like one of the Cephalyx's wrecker things, with the two flails for hands.



This might seem kinda harsh on PJ but I feel taken advantage of. He knew he wouldn't have to make any more movies so he could mess with canon more than usual. I might think of more after sleeping on it. That is if I can get any sleep. Fething neighbors have christmas music on literally 24/7 set to their lights and I can hear it.

I assumed the trolls were proto-Olog-hai, who can move around in the sunlight.

It's not just the trolls, I thought only Uruk-Hai could move by daylight and normal Orcs where restricted to raiding by night, hence Sauron having to blacken the skies over Pelanor in order to move his army against Minis Tirith. Yet this battle took place in bright daylight.

I know these Orcs where from Angmar and Gundabad as opposed to Mordor but I didnt think it made a difference.

 LuciusAR wrote:
It's not just the trolls, I thought only Uruk-Hai could move by daylight and normal Orcs where restricted to raiding by night, hence Sauron having to blacken the skies over Pelanor in order to move his army against Minis Tirith. Yet this battle took place in bright daylight.

I know these Orcs where from Angmar and Gundabad as opposed to Mordor but I didnt think it made a difference.

I think it was that the Orcs preferred not to move in the daylight. They were able to, but they hated the sun. There's a part in TTT (page 47 in my copy) where the northerners don't want to run in the sunlight, but Ugluk forces them to anyway.

So it isn't like the trolls in TH that turned to stone. I don't know about the trolls in the battle, I guess they were of a breed that could be in the sun.

In the book, the purpose of the huge cloud of bats was to block out the sunlight if I remember correctly. They came at the very start of the battle, not at the end as in the movie, and created a shadow for the orcish troops to move under.

There were no trolls present at the battle in the book, and for all the good they did in this movie (did you see them dropping dead at Thorin's charge?) they may as well have not been there. I figured some of the baddies we saw were Giants rather than trolls, as they looked pretty different.

The "fifth army" in the book was the wargs, though they were also not much in evidence in the final battle, sadly, despite being a fairly big feature through the three movies due to the chase idea (which I've actually warmed to, as I've grown used to it.)

I always felt the 5 armies were Man, Elf, Dwarf, Orc, and Eagle. I always thought any goblins/wargs were considered part of the Orc forces. Basically that armies were under someone's command. The orcs were actually united facing 4 seperate armies. But maybe I misread it. It's been years.

Saw The Hobbit and found it to be an overlong, poorly paced mess that couldn't decide if it was trying to be LotR or an episode of Looney Tunes. Skipped the other two films. After reading this thread, I do not regret my decision in any way.

 Hulksmash wrote:
I always felt the 5 armies were Man, Elf, Dwarf, Orc, and Eagle. I always thought any goblins/wargs were considered part of the Orc forces. Basically that armies were under someone's command. The orcs were actually united facing 4 seperate armies. But maybe I misread it. It's been years.

You could be right! I haven't got my book here with me to check.

I just remembered my biggest issue with the movie. Kili and Tauriel being in love. They added a she-elf and brought Legolas back. Okay, I don't think Legolas fits but as long as the she-elf doesn't go against canon in LotR whatever.

I saw desolation of Smaug last year and was put off by the Tauriel Kili thing there. Now in this they were basically about to marry and have kids. That is until Kili gets a blade through the chest. It was like Tauriel was in there just to feth with a story, and let's not forget she was also one of many things added to stretch the movie to a trilogy.

Actually while I hate the idea, what would a dwarf/elf child look or be like? Would they, like Elrond and his brother, have to choose between mortality and immortality? Would they just be as tall as men, elves, or dwarves, or would it completely vary on a per child basis?

I have no idea, but that romance was really badly handled in the script. I mean, if you're making a movie for kids and that's your defense for things being cartoony and unrealistic, fine. But then don't put in a mawkish romance that wasn't present in the book at all. And if you're going to put in a romance, perhaps it deserves some more development than about 20 lines of dialogue.

It was totally unbelievable that they were suddenly madly in love after about 4 encounters and only a few words spoken.

 Da Boss wrote:
I have no idea, but that romance was really badly handled in the script. I mean, if you're making a movie for kids and that's your defense for things being cartoony and unrealistic, fine. But then don't put in a mawkish romance that wasn't present in the book at all. And if you're going to put in a romance, perhaps it deserves some more development than about 20 lines of dialogue.

It was totally unbelievable that they were suddenly madly in love after about 4 encounters and only a few words spoken.

In Hollywood time, that’s quite the extended courtship...

 Nevelon wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
I have no idea, but that romance was really badly handled in the script. I mean, if you're making a movie for kids and that's your defense for things being cartoony and unrealistic, fine. But then don't put in a mawkish romance that wasn't present in the book at all. And if you're going to put in a romance, perhaps it deserves some more development than about 20 lines of dialogue.

It was totally unbelievable that they were suddenly madly in love after about 4 encounters and only a few words spoken.

In Hollywood time, that’s quite the extended courtship...

I don't know sometimes in some romance movies, it takes a few months or even weeks for a relationships to develop. I mean Beauty and the Beast was over a few years. (I.E. Stockholm Syndrome)

But most movies are pretty good, the bad ones are over the course of a few days.

I mean the most famous love was between buttercup and her farmboy, and that developed since childhood. And the movie was more about what you would do in the name of love.

But yeah I get that. I hated the romance thing and thought it cliched and stupid.

Actually I didnt mind the Fili Tauriel love story. I kinda liked how two so different people could be drawn to each other.

What made the whole thing sorta weird though is the love triangle that Legolas also had a romantic interest in her.

At the end though, not killing off Tauriel was bad since she obviously has no trace in the LotR trilogy despite her being best pals with Legolas at the end of the film

Dang, I feel odd now because I loved the Hobbit movies and thought this was the best of the three.

Yeah Tauriel did seem out of place and the love story was just silly. On the other hand she was very easy on the eye.

Hopefully the Extended edition will elaborate on Tauriel's fate, among other things.

Maybe she'll choose to give up her life out of grief, like Arwen did following Aragorn's death.

Or perhaps she'll go AWOL and exile herself from Mirkwood (Thranduil's pardon notwithstanding), wandering to the far corners of Middle Earth and therefore taking no part in future events.

Or maybe Legolas and Tauriel's friendship is irrevocably strained, ending any possibility for a romantic relationship. She did friend zone him in the end after all, prompting him to leave Mirkwood disillusioned and in search of a certain young Dunedain (following Daddy's advice).

Little OT here... but this is cool.

The Lord of the Rings Mythology Explained

Any one else feel like a warhammer fan was the one behind King Dains interpretation? It felt like watching the slayer king in action.

Any way a few things I noted while watching it.

I felt like Tauriel should of been killed off as well. And that there should of been a scene showing the tribute to the dead with Thorin, Fili and Kili and maybe an afterward with what happened to the mountain. There was also no mention of Balin's reason why he went to Moria.

I have a feeling there is going to be a mid-quel finally bridging the gap's or at least something else to fill in the blanks/

I agree with most, although the movie was beautiful, i was watching the movie and thinking constantly, this was not like in the original book.

Mortally wounded Thorin was carried of the battlefield by Beorn in the book but was shown like 3 seconds in the movie, the whole love story and Legolas.
Also that bard get's the information of the impending attack of smaug by a bird is also let out.

As a CGI fan i enjoyed the movie but as a Tolkien fan i have this message for peter Jackson;

There were just to many WTF moments to stay completely in the movie.



It was just to much. A little common sense editting would have gone a long way in making it a much better movie. I will say Dain was my favorite part of the movie. Best shot and done part was the Council against Sauron and the Wraiths but favorite part was any part with Dain. He was just awesome. Also any scene Martin Freeman was in was excellent.

I enjoyed most of the movie. That said it's a middle of the road movie. I'm glad I went to see it with a buddy and not my wife or I'd have been paying back in movie choices for months.

Yeah... just got back. The best compliment I can pay it was that it was tolerable viewing. Otherwise, it was the worse entry in the LoTR film saga. Shame, because I thought The Desolation of Smaug was pretty good.

The mistake here was leaving a few pages of the book to serve as the basis for one film. It sagged badly even during the final battle scenes, much of which was just endless hitting orcs over the head with swords.

They should have stuck with two films (breaking just after the spider fight where the wood elves have captured the dwarfs and Bilbo is locked outside). I would not have bothered with Sauron/Necromancer at all.

 Flashman wrote:
Yeah... just got back. The best compliment I can pay it was that it was tolerable viewing. Otherwise, it was the worse entry in the LoTR film saga. Shame, because I thought The Desolation of Smaug was pretty good.

The mistake here was leaving a few pages of the book to serve as the basis for one film. It sagged badly even during the final battle scenes, much of which was just endless hitting orcs over the head with swords.

They should have stuck with two films (breaking just after the spider fight where the wood elves have captured the dwarfs and Bilbo is locked outside). I would not have bothered with Sauron/Necromancer at all.

Now you know why I refuse to see the hobbit movies or even buy them. I will buy LOTR but I will not buy the hobbit. The Hobbit is a shameful example of what not to do in film making or screen writing.

I cringe half the time the lines are read or hell when ever anything happens.

But that is what is expected for a franchise that is hyped to all hell.

 Hordini wrote:
It's totally fine if you didn't like it, but it really wasn't that bad.

No, to any fan of Tolkien the hobbit movies especially are just an abomination and bear little similarity to Tolkien's world. The LOTR Movies suffered somewhat in the same manner, although they at least tried, even if they did screw up Aragorn's character.

I enjoyed it a bit more than I was expecting, but that was probably because I'd spent a couple days listening to people whinging about how bad it was.

Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment.

I really enjoyed the entire movie until the actual BoFA started.

Watching the Dwarves line up in a shield wall, spears at the ready, bracing for impact against the oncoming Orc horde was really awesome to see.

.... aaaand then the Elves literally jump over the Dwarves to get sandviched inbetween Orcs and Dwarves. Wait, what? Why didn't you shoot with the arrows (Which literally no elf did this entire movie, save Legolas).


All in all, I enjoyed the first hour/hour and a half of the movie, probably making it my favorite in the series; it had a lot of story while we already knew what was going on, but was relatively simple.

And then the Earth Eaters showed up....

Even pre-battle, the film is pretty dumb IMHO.

Case in point, Legolas and Tauriel go to Angmar, get there, wait outside doing nothing and then come back again.

Yeah, that was a total distraction, and a pretty big stretch to my suspension of disbelief.

 Flashman wrote:
Even pre-battle, the film is pretty dumb IMHO.

Case in point, Legolas and Tauriel go to Angmar, get there, wait outside doing nothing and then come back again.

Had to lol at this one.

hopefully in the EE we will see more of Gundabad.

For me, the key difference between the film adaptations of LoTR and the Hobbit is the respective treatment of the Fellowship and The Company of Dwarves.

In the first trilogy, each member of the Fellowship was nicely fleshed out, so that when you came to the later battles, Jackson was able to focus on them (and a couple of other key individuals like Eowyn) and you had someone to root for.

Most of the Company of Dwarves barely registered as distinct individuals and after the 1st film, Jackson switched focus to other characters who weren't even in the book. By the time we got to the BotFA, their screen time was negligible and you were left to root for... well, who exactly?

I'd wager you see more of Bard's kids in the final battle than you do most of The Company of Dwarves.

Yeah I feel like Thorin and Balin got all the screentime, Bombur was merely used for comic relief and Fili for the love interest. Everybody else in the company was just an extra, with Dwalin e.g. only being remembered for his head-butt with Balin in the first film.

 Slarg232 wrote:


Watching the Dwarves line up in a shield wall, spears at the ready, bracing for impact against the oncoming Orc horde was really awesome to see.

.... aaaand then the Elves literally jump over the Dwarves to get sandviched inbetween Orcs and Dwarves. Wait, what? Why didn't you shoot with the arrows (Which literally no elf did this entire movie, save Legolas).

.

It would of worked as if they showed a volley of arrows just skimming the top of the Dwarves heads Helms Deep style rather then the elves jumping in. That scene annoyed me a bit as well. Watching Dain running around head butting every orc he saw was amusing though.

All I want to know, is does Beorn feth a massive, monolithic, cyclopean, almost incredulous amount of gak up.

Because if not, i know right then and there i don't need to see this in theatres.

 Haight wrote:
All I want to know, is does Beorn feth a massive, monolithic, cyclopean, almost incredulous amount of gak up.

Because if not, i know right then and there i don't need to see this in theatres.

Yes.

...

...

Saw it tonight. I thought it was pretty good.

Was it a cinematic masterpiece?

No.

Was it a good popcorn movie?

Absolutely.

Personally I thought it was the best of the 3 films, as excepting for the Alfrid comic relief most of the over the top sillyness was absent.

I didn't have a problem with the Sandworms, or the Legolas "Batglider"..Actually I thought both of those were pretty cool. A lot cooler than the absurd barellrider scene in part 2.

I will say though that the movie felt like basically one long fight scene, with patches of dialog in between. I thought I would not like a movie like that, but for me...some reason it worked.

GG

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 Haight wrote:
All I want to know, is does Beorn feth a massive, monolithic, cyclopean, almost incredulous amount of gak up.

Because if not, i know right then and there i don't need to see this in theatres.

Yes.

...

...

Spoiler:

For about 5 seconds.

Yay !!! *Reads spoiler*.

 Da Boss wrote:

 Hulksmash wrote:
I always felt the 5 armies were Man, Elf, Dwarf, Orc, and Eagle. I always thought any goblins/wargs were considered part of the Orc forces. Basically that armies were under someone's command. The orcs were actually united facing 4 seperate armies. But maybe I misread it. It's been years.

You could be right! I haven't got my book here with me to check.

The tree armies of Elves Dwarves and Men fought the two armies of Goblins and Wargs. Wargs being intelligent and allies of the golbins, rather than juast steeds count as an army.
The Eagles were effective but were not considered an army, Beorn was in a way an army by himself but doesn't count either.

Overall I liked it, however did anyone else feel like the first half with all the traveling around felt off. I mean I know where all these locations on the map are for Middle Earth, I read the books and played War of the Ring, but I don't know if the average person watching it did. The first half of the movie made it feel like everything between Angmar, Erebor, Dol Guldur, etc. were all a short ride away from each other. I mean I think there was supposed to be large time jumps between the Dragon dying and the elves/humans arriving at Erebor, and the elves siege and the final battle, etc. but I am not sure the average Joe watching the movie would have caught that.

That and quite a few times the movie did boarder on the ridiculous but I still enjoyed those moments.

I was a bit disappointed that Gandalf didn't get wounded in the battle. In the book, Bilbo is knocked out by a stone just as the Eagles showed up and he woke to see Gandalf with his arm in a sling and telling him that Thorin was dying and asking to see him.

The naysayers will hate me, but I thought it was a perfectly fine movie. Lots of the "inconsistencies" can be more easily explained than some of the nerds are making them out to be.



I was only bummed that the section on Gol Dulgur was wrapped up so quickly. It was great to see the White Council fight, but it was just like it was a footnote in a storyline that had been developing over the last two movies.

@AegisGrimm

I enjoyed it and thought it was perfectly fine. But it could have been a couple grades better for me without the absolutely rando ridiculousness. I don't mean worms that are actually explained in the movie. I mean things like mounts, ogre headbutting battering ram, peg legged ogre, and pretty much the entire Bolg/Legolas fight. All things an editor could really have fixed by just saying "no, it's ridiculous" They just took me out of an otherwise solidly flowing movie.

Does anyone else kinda wish that Bard had taken his kids head off with that bow stunt, just so we wouldn't have to pay attention to the kid in the final battle?

Cause that's what should have happened.

Saw it in the whole high frame rate 3d thing and I think that made it feel even cheesier. The scene with the elf chick banishing Sauron felt like it was something right out of Journey Quest. I burst out laughing in the theater when Legolas ran up the falling rubble. The Dwarves setting up a solid phalanx/shield wall, and the stupid elves jumping over it and thus invalidating it. The whole thing just felt really really hokey.

I enjoyed it, but the film felt like it actually should have been longer. None of the characters got enough screen time (...except bloody useless Legolas), and would disappear as soon as their allotted screen time was up. Tauriel was also extremely poorly handled in comparison to the Desolation of Smaug. The battle also kind of fizzles out in favour of the smaller skirmishes after only a few minutes of epic-ness, making the overall level of epic feel significantly lesser compared to Helms Deep or Minas Tirith. My real complaint though is that it feels like the movie won't actually be "complete" until the Extended Edition is out (eg, What happened to Alfrid/Beorn/Dain? What happens with the treasure? Or Dale?). I wouldn't be surprised if there's 30-40 minutes of additional footage in the wings, just waiting for the Extended cut to actually flesh the damn thing out for real. Until then, I feel like I can't really give a full review. :/

Anyway, like the first film, the movie is in serious need of some fan-editing. I already did my own cut of An Unexpected Journey and there's enough issues here that I know I will do one here as well (and then probably do a one or two movie cut of the trilogy as well for fun).

Watched it yesterday, and as someone who's defended the previous two hobbit films massively, this third one was... not that good.

There were a few awesome moments (the dwarf shield wall, the white council fighting, Dain Ironfoot), and most of the silly parts I can excuse with the whole "it's a children's book" spiel, but there were just so many silly moments it's way more out of balance than any of the others. Alfrid being the pantomime villain, the baby-faced troll things, anything and everything involving Legolas, and Thranduril decapitating about half a dozen orcs with one single-handed swing. The acting overall other than Bilbo, Gandalf and Balin was pretty ham-fisted.

The actual battle itself was way too convoluted, with it constantly cutting between about four settings.
Thorin's whole death scene was pretty stupid. In the book, he died against the vanguard of Azog's army, with about a dozen spears impaling him, with Fili and Kili dying trying to protect his body, before Beorn rocks up, crushes Azog, picks up Thorin and puts him outside of the battle before charging back in again. In the film, he dies in a 1vs1 fight where he could easily have won if he wasn't so obsessed with staring at Azog. I went in hoping for a death scene that rivalled Boromir's, and instead got one that gave me as much sympathy for the character as "miscellaneous orc #1643".

The wind-down as well was much quicker than I'd expected- in the book there's a good 20-30 pages worth after the battle ends, of laying Thorin, Fili and Kili to rest, having Bard be a new leader, Bilbo having to buy back all his stuff at Bag-End, but after the battle there was maybe 5 minute's worth of screen time dedicated to all of that, preferring to throw a ham-fisted reference to Aragorn and Tauriel's despair. I'd have thought with such a stretched-out film they'd have time for that, but I suppose 10 more minutes of Legolas freerunning and goblins getting the crap beaten out of them is more important than looking at the end result the battle actually had.

Pretty much everything was over the top; the fighting, the CGI, the acting, everything. Really disappointed with it. It's great for kids, but as an adult you have to watch without thinking about it much, and reminding yourself throughout that it's a children's book, and it's saddening that that's the case, coming from such a legendary trilogy.

There was way too much focus on the smaller one-on-one battles and not nearly enough on the epic scale it gave towards the start of the battle as well, which considering it's easily the most fight-heavy film out of the hobbit and lord of the rings, is really odd. Beorn was a massive factor in the books (as were the bats blocking out the sun), but they both got a combined screen time of maybe two minutes.

I'll still definitely buy the DVD and so on, and on its own it isn't too bad, but it's just such a decline when you compare it to the LotR. I genuinely believe he's almost done a George Lucas with it.

I thought all of the hobbit movies were decent.....

I think it was an okay movie (though I second the 'where da feth did these goats come from?'). It's defenitely my least enjoyed of the Hobbit movies, but I liked it. Dain was epic (expected).

I still vote for another movie about the battles of Erebor and Dale during the War of the Ring.

LordofHats wrote:I think it was an okay movie (though I second the 'where da feth did these goats come from?'). It's defenitely my least enjoyed of the Hobbit movies, but I liked it. Dain was epic (expected).

I still vote for another movie about the battles of Erebor and Dale during the War of the Ring.

There is no "lose" button on having a dwarven mohawked Billy Connolly with a giant hammer riding an armoured boar
And yes, that is one massive plus side to the Hobbit - more dwarves. Love the aesthetic way more than Rohan, Gondor, or the Elves.

Smaug's dead five minutes in. Sauron's banished by the half hour mark. ...

It was decent. The people I was with hated it. Frankly it could have done with a few more scenes to tie things up (ie what happened to the main characters other than Bilbo and to tie scenes together better-what happened to the worms, why was the goat charge cut), but I'll expect to see those in the DvD release in a couple of years (still waiting for the the ninety odd hours of deleted scenes that are still to be released for the other trilogy). What I did like was seeing an expansion on the world. All the new armour styles, the different uses for trolls, and the like. Just generally stuff that wasn't shown in The Lord of the Rings. Still, need me those deleted scenes, even if it does mean marathoning the whole thing for like twelve hours.

This movie would have been great if the director of the battle for Helms Deep or Minas Tirith had showed up. Peter Jackson directed those. I am fairly certain the Farrelly brothers directed this one. Peter Farrelly could likely impersonate Peter Jackson easily with a bit of hollywood makeup

I liked the film, even if it had its flaws. Someone should have told the director "oh, sure, absolutely no one will ever guess that the white ork is immune to drowning in ice water and is just faking it". And why so much of weasely unibrow? But if you let a few of those things go, there's no reason you can't have fun watching it.

 DarkLink wrote:
I liked the film, even if it had its flaws. Someone should have told the director "oh, sure, absolutely no one will ever guess that the white ork is immune to drowning in ice water and is just faking it". And why so much of weasely unibrow? But if you let a few of those things go, there's no reason you can't have fun watching it.

Thorin tossing Azog the rock and then watching him sink was an awesome way to end that fight. It was one of the few moments in the battle that I thought was pretty cool. And then they ruined it by having him come back for one last scare.

 Flashman wrote:

 DarkLink wrote:
I liked the film, even if it had its flaws. Someone should have told the director "oh, sure, absolutely no one will ever guess that the white ork is immune to drowning in ice water and is just faking it". And why so much of weasely unibrow? But if you let a few of those things go, there's no reason you can't have fun watching it.

Thorin tossing Azog the rock and then watching him sink was an awesome way to end that fight. It was one of the few moments in the battle that I thought was pretty cool. And then they ruined it by having him come back for one last scare.

yeah, that whole under the ice thing was so stupid. Almost every aspect of the fighting that I liked in the film was cancelled out by something stupid happening immediately after. Dwarf shield wall immediately rendered completely useless by the elves jumping it (could've at least had a moment of impact like in 300 before they vaulted it), the smaug destroying the town scene was then ruined by the human bow, and the mood of the White Council fight was ruined with the arrival of the rabbit sled.

also, just realised that of the 13 dwarves, I only saw Fili, Kili, Dwalin and Thorin actually fighting that I can remember. I'd much prefer it to be as in the books, where they all sally out and fight (and die) together in the thick of it, rather than four of them on the other side of the battlefield fighting (and dying) pretty much alone, and the other nine doing, as far as I can remember, nothing much.

 Flashman wrote:

 DarkLink wrote:
I liked the film, even if it had its flaws. Someone should have told the director "oh, sure, absolutely no one will ever guess that the white ork is immune to drowning in ice water and is just faking it". And why so much of weasely unibrow? But if you let a few of those things go, there's no reason you can't have fun watching it.

Thorin tossing Azog the rock and then watching him sink was an awesome way to end that fight. It was one of the few moments in the battle that I thought was pretty cool. And then they ruined it by having him come back for one last scare.

100% agree.
another problem with that scene is this... it takes Azog 15 - 20 hits with that giant rock on chain to break up the ice enough to let him fall through. yet he is able to jump back threw the ice instantly from underneath where it has not been broken up?

Have Thorin be mortally wounded by gettin hit with the rock, then while dazed tosses the rock to azog and falls back off of the ice block onto the unbroken ice. azog slips under and the scene is over. thorin dies from the wound and azog does not make a stupid hulk jump from under the ice. it is a much more "cunning over brutality" type of win that way.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/hobbit-battle-of-five-armies-lord-of-the-rings/

It's a 2.5 hour long movie based on 72 pages of source material.

Nothing to see here.

The wind-down as well was much quicker than I'd expected- in the book there's a good 20-30 pages worth after the battle ends, of laying Thorin, Fili and Kili to rest, having Bard be a new leader, Bilbo having to buy back all his stuff at Bag-End, but after the battle there was maybe 5 minute's worth of screen time dedicated to all of that, preferring to throw a ham-fisted reference to Aragorn and Tauriel's despair. I'd have thought with such a stretched-out film they'd have time for that, but I suppose 10 more minutes of Legolas freerunning and goblins getting the crap beaten out of them is more important than looking at the end result the battle actually had.

But on the other hand you have all the people who screamed about how long the end of the Return of the King was, even when it didn't even include the Scouring of the Shire. Noone will ever be happy completely with the LOTR movies.

Although I am tired of Wood Elven parkour. Is it a new racial ability? Two over the top scenes in LOTR, and now all Wood Elves everywhere have perfect situational awareness. Ugh.

AegisGrimm wrote:

The wind-down as well was much quicker than I'd expected- in the book there's a good 20-30 pages worth after the battle ends, of laying Thorin, Fili and Kili to rest, having Bard be a new leader, Bilbo having to buy back all his stuff at Bag-End, but after the battle there was maybe 5 minute's worth of screen time dedicated to all of that, preferring to throw a ham-fisted reference to Aragorn and Tauriel's despair. I'd have thought with such a stretched-out film they'd have time for that, but I suppose 10 more minutes of Legolas freerunning and goblins getting the crap beaten out of them is more important than looking at the end result the battle actually had.

But on the other hand you have all the people who screamed about how long the end of the Return of the King was, even when it didn't even include the Scouring of the Shire. Noone will ever be happy completely with the LOTR movies.

Although I am tired of Wood Elven parkour. Is it a new racial ability? Two over the top scenes in LOTR, and now all Wood Elves everywhere have perfect situational awareness. Ugh.

I was pretty fine with the endings of the LotR, there's a lot of gak to wrap up. Only criticism there was just that each ending seemed like it was going to start playing the credits, and then the next one would start. The hobbit barely had an ending whatsoever, just Bilbo rocking up to Bag End and telling everyone he's not dead. No explanation on what happened to Thorin's company, Dain, The White Council, Bard, Beorn or Thranduril.

Just came back from it an not reading every post leading up to it so I'll just say I enjoyed it for the most part, with some caveats. Unlike the LotR which I thought were even better with the extended editions (though not necessary) these films actually could use a bit of paring down. If they had cut 20-30 minutes off each one it would have been far better. As it was it seemed a bit bloated, but still fun and far from the worst things I've seen. Not the best thing I've seen, but not the wost.

Cut out the majority of the Ettenmoor/Rhudaur warg Chase scene, Goblin Town Chase scene, barrels out of Bond Chase scene, and Erebor Smaug Chase scene, and a lot more space would have been freed up for more direct from the book scenes and dialogue and to embellish the Dol Guldur storyline.

I wanted to see a host of Elves storming the Citadel and clearing the way of Orcs for the White Council to enter and confront the Necromancer.

Azog should not have had a jet pack.

Peter Jackson has 0 sense of geography. Legolas and Tauriel travelled to Gundabad in the far northern Misty Mountains and back in just a couple days, a journey that should have taken weeks.

Most or the trolls in the battle should have turned to stone without the bats blotting out the sun.

Saw it tonight all i have to say is how the feth did we get from the LOTR trilogy to the hobbit trilogy

it really beggars fething belief

Watched it and quite enjoyed it - yes three films was way too long, the Smaug bit could have been at the end of the last film rather than chasing the Dwarves round for half an hour, the battle seemed disjointed and badly put together sadly.

but it did have - Gladrial being awesome - loved her first appearance, walking barefoot into the heart of the enemy.
Fine with Legolas being that great - Elves in Tolkein are not D+D Elves they are in fact superhuman............
Tauriel was great - the "romance" was a major stretch - there was little chemistry between her and the dwarf but it was ok - my firend and I thought she was goign to end up with Legolas's dad actually given their final scene.

Dwarves on goats was bad....Dwarf on war pig - quite enjoyed. The worms crossing over from Dune was .....unexpected...............

Would have loved the final battle more if Azog had not somehow used his own superpowers to leap out of the ice - it was a cooly good way to kill him.........but guess it was not exctiting enough?

I'm surprised at people being surprised by Legolas running up the breaking bridge. It has been shown in both film series (and the books) that elves are capable of insane feats because of their supernatural nature and Legolas has that "royalty therefore more awesome than awesome" theme that runs through all of them to boot.

I also agree that the ending of the Azog/Thorin fight should have been when Azog went through the ice. Not just for the reasons mentioned already by some but it had a nice theme going for it in that Thorin finally won by letting go of his hate whereas Azog could not and therefore was consumed by it. Then they went and ruined that moment.

 Ahtman wrote:
Then they went and ruined that moment.

That has kind of been the theme for The Hobbit trilogy.

I saw it earlier this week and it was okay... There was just so much lazy CGI and I had a hard time getting past it. I too got pretty excited with the worms. When I saw them bursting through the ground I thought, "Sweet, the shai hulud are going to start tearing up!" But nope, just kidding, we're just going to make an awesome entrance and then immediately leave because, hey, why not?

I actually enjoyed The Desolation of Smaug better than this one.

I enjoyed the movie overall. I felt the movie started too fast (compared to Prologues in the first two). Smaugs death also seemed very fast but that may have been down to my first comment.Though that's really the only thing that got on my nerves big time, the battle was awesome and I really enjoyed the end. The whole going back to the beginning of fellowship just as the first hobbit movie was a great way to end it all off. 4.5 Stars from me!

I enjoyed it.

It was certainly not the best movie and it could have used a little more stuff. Given that some of the things we saw in the teaser didn't make it into the film I am hoping the extended edition adds some more stuff.

Sauron's banishment seemed a little rushed but it was well executed in the time it was given. I think making it an actual full on battle with Elrond, Galadrial, Sarumon, and an Elven army assaulting Dol Guldur(occupied by some orcs) would have made it a little more complete. Fighting to the top and saving Gandalf and banishing Sauron would have been epic. It could have used a good 20 minutes devoted to this.

Taurial should have died too IMO. I think that would have been the only way to satisfactorily resolve that silly love thingy she had going with Kili. The best would have been have her killed first and then Kili goes into a rage and gets killed as a result.

Smaug dying in the first 5 minutes was an ok thing, although I personally would have preferred a 10 minute flashback at the beginning to hold the suspense in.

I am slightly disappointed they didn't have Thorin die like he did in the book. Would have been epic to see Beorn bear hug Azog to death and then drag him to safety and have him die in the tent. Not a huge issue for me though.

What a steaming pile. I feel like Lucas must have been haunting the shoot/CGI studio muttering "yes! yes! there is another!"

The wife and thoroughly enjoyed all the LOTR movies, generally enjoyed the first Hobbit, and sort of thought the second one was ok. We were hoping this would at least be a RotK equivalent return to form.



Horrible, horrible movie. Ignoring any lore inconsistencies or mischaracterizations, just a horrible piece of cinema.

I've not really enjoyed these Hobbit films. in particular the Battle of the Five Armies. The special effects were nauseating- what made the LOTR battle great was you could actually visually keep track of what the hell is going on. In the battles throughout this trilogy I've almost felt like hurling due to the swirling and frankly unrealistic fights happening before me at their own ridiculous pace.

Also talking about pacing, this film had probably some of the worst pacing ever. I couldn't recall any one instance to support this assertion, partly because it seemed to me that the whole film was a consistent article of poor pacing. Worryingly I felt constantly bewildered by a story I have been very familiar with since I was eight, simply due to the jarring flow of the whole film.

As for stuff in the film there have been bits I do not like- obvious stuff like the Kili-Tauriel love shenanigans and the plain stupidity of some of Thorin's Company (don't get me wrong, I loved most of them- Dwalin, Balin and Bombur for instance, but some like that one who I can't even remeber with the axe in the head really irks me).

As for the battle- it felt too small, and I think that is because it was. In fact looking at the battle scenes, the dwarves only brought just over a hundred warriors, and even the mighty goblin hordes only had a few thousand at most. Regardless it pales in comparison to something like the Pelennor Fields, and certainly in comparison to the way I imagined it ( it may just be who thinks this, but the people I have talked to about the film with agree that the battle is but a skirmish in comparison to the battle they'd imagined) Also the trolls looked stupid- a minor point I know. The consistent and bestial look of the trolls in the LOTR made them seem like threatening beasts of war- I understand the trolls in the first Hobbit film needed to be more human and to be fair they were executed nicely, but I do think they should have reverted to LOTR trolls thereafter, rather than the ridiculous bobble-headed giant babies that were scaling the walls of Dale in the Battle of the Five Armies (talking about Dale, I absolutely LOVED Erebor and Dale- indeed Dale reminded me distinctly of Osgiliath).

As for the most important question, that is to say 'too what extent has Tolkien's Hobbit been well adapted?' I would have to say very poorly. Faithfulness to the plot excluded, as I'd be thoroughly concerned if the plot were not captured in its entirety across three films, I'd say that the worst thing about the films is that it really felt like they'd dragged the whole story and Middle Earth to boot through the muck. Laketown irked me- what happened to the pragmatic yet noble people of laketown, that they were replaced by a completely sleazy bunch of weasels, to the point where they were ridiculous caricatures (see Alfred and the Master of Laketown)? Since when did the lord of the Iron Hills start telling people to 'sod off'? This is Tolkien, there is an element of everything being of a higher level than reality- remember Gondor and Rohan? I reckon if they were shown today, Minas Tirith would be some city of corrupt officials, brutal law enforcement and a thriving black economy or something. Also while I enjoyed Martin Freeman's acting, I felt there were times that he overplayed his 'I'm the everyday bloke in an extraordinary situation' card to the point where it really undermined scenes that where supposed to be perhaps poignant or moving or even just dramatic.

With respect to the dwarves also- WHERE WERE THE BEARDS? One of the defining things about dwarves is their beards, yet half of them merely (I say merely) had impressive moustaches, and in the case of Kili only a stubble. For Christ's sake, dwarves must have stubble in the womb or something, no self-respecting dwarf is going to make do with anything less than a sizeable beard.

Also Thorin's 'madness' was single malt stupid.

Grey Templar wrote:It was certainly not the best movie and it could have used a little more stuff. Given that some of the things we saw in the teaser didn't make it into the film I am hoping the extended edition adds some more stuff.

Sauron's banishment seemed a little rushed but it was well executed in the time it was given. I think making it an actual full on battle with Elrond, Galadrial, Sarumon, and an Elven army assaulting Dol Guldur(occupied by some orcs) would have made it a little more complete. Fighting to the top and saving Gandalf and banishing Sauron would have been epic. It could have used a good 20 minutes devoted to this.

Taurial should have died too IMO. I think that would have been the only way to satisfactorily resolve that silly love thingy she had going with Kili. The best would have been have her killed first and then Kili goes into a rage and gets killed as a result.

I am slightly disappointed they didn't have Thorin die like he did in the book. Would have been epic to see Beorn bear hug Azog to death and then drag him to safety and have him die in the tent. Not a huge issue for me though.

Everything you just said here I fully agree with.

Banzaimash wrote:The special effects were nauseating- what made the LOTR battle great was you could actually visually keep track of what the hell is going on. In the battles throughout this trilogy I've almost felt like hurling due to the swirling and frankly unrealistic fights happening before me at their own ridiculous pace.

Also talking about pacing, this film had probably some of the worst pacing ever. I couldn't recall any one instance to support this assertion, partly because it seemed to me that the whole film was a consistent article of poor pacing. Worryingly I felt constantly bewildered by a story I have been very familiar with since I was eight, simply due to the jarring flow of the whole film.

I agree on everything here.

As for stuff in the film there have been bits I do not like- obvious stuff like the Kili-Tauriel love shenanigans and the plain stupidity of some of Thorin's Company (don't get me wrong, I loved most of them- Dwalin, Balin and Bombur for instance, but some like that one who I can't even remeber with the axe in the head really irks me).

Bifur is the one with the axe in his head, and maybe it's because he doesn't really do anything unique. Difficult to give each guy his own "thing" when there's 13 of the same species with very little individuality even in the book.

As for the battle- it felt too small, and I think that is because it was. In fact looking at the battle scenes, the dwarves only brought just over a hundred warriors, and even the mighty goblin hordes only had a few thousand at most. Regardless it pales in comparison to something like the Pelennor Fields, and certainly in comparison to the way I imagined it ( it may just be who thinks this, but the people I have talked to about the film with agree that the battle is but a skirmish in comparison to the battle they'd imagined) Also the trolls looked stupid- a minor point I know. The consistent and bestial look of the trolls in the LOTR made them seem like threatening beasts of war- I understand the trolls in the first Hobbit film needed to be more human and to be fair they were executed nicely, but I do think they should have reverted to LOTR trolls thereafter, rather than the ridiculous bobble-headed giant babies that were scaling the walls of Dale in the Battle of the Five Armies (talking about Dale, I absolutely LOVED Erebor and Dale- indeed Dale reminded me distinctly of Osgiliath).

As for the most important question, that is to say 'too what extent has Tolkien's Hobbit been well adapted?' I would have to say very poorly. Faithfulness to the plot excluded, as I'd be thoroughly concerned if the plot were not captured in its entirety across three films, I'd say that the worst thing about the films is that it really felt like they'd dragged the whole story and Middle Earth to boot through the muck. Laketown irked me- what happened to the pragmatic yet noble people of laketown, that they were replaced by a completely sleazy bunch of weasels, to the point where they were ridiculous caricatures (see Alfred and the Master of Laketown)? Since when did the lord of the Iron Hills start telling people to 'sod off'? This is Tolkien, there is an element of everything being of a higher level than reality- remember Gondor and Rohan? I reckon if they were shown today, Minas Tirith would be some city of corrupt officials, brutal law enforcement and a thriving black economy or something. Also while I enjoyed Martin Freeman's acting, I felt there were times that he overplayed his 'I'm the everyday bloke in an extraordinary situation' card to the point where it really undermined scenes that where supposed to be perhaps poignant or moving or even just dramatic.

yup.

With respect to the dwarves also- WHERE WERE THE BEARDS? One of the defining things about dwarves is their beards, yet half of them merely (I say merely) had impressive moustaches, and in the case of Kili only a stubble. For Christ's sake, dwarves must have stubble in the womb or something, no self-respecting dwarf is going to make do with anything less than a sizeable beard.


To be fair, all the dwarves I saw had beards besides Kili (which I am annoyed about). On the flipside, I did like Dain's beard, but I can't recall the actual length of it, because I was focused on the tusk-like pointed bits.

Kili is supposed to be a fairly young Dwarf in the film who is just starting his beard. The lack of beard is a clue to his youth and naivete. His brother is a bit older which is why he has a bit more facial hair but both are quite young by dwarven standards.

Saw it with my girlfriend last night. liked it, didn't love it. and have nop idea WTF happened when the white council attacked thingy thing.

 Ahtman wrote:
Kili is supposed to be a fairly young Dwarf in the film who is just starting his beard. The lack of beard is a clue to his youth and naivete. His brother is a bit older which is why he has a bit more facial hair but both are quite young by dwarven standards.

I know they're supposed to be the youngest but they should still have pretty impressive beards by human standards, sort of down to their chest or something- stubble for any dwarf is inexcusable.

I've heard one scene features a Dwarf Billy Connolly riding a ram? That 100% confirms that I will go and see this movie

 Pacific wrote:
I've heard one scene features a Dwarf Billy Connolly riding a ram? That 100% confirms that I will go and see this movie

nope a boar.

 the shrouded lord wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
I've heard one scene features a Dwarf Billy Connolly riding a ram? That 100% confirms that I will go and see this movie

nope a boar.

More of a hairy pig...

 Flashman wrote:

 the shrouded lord wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
I've heard one scene features a Dwarf Billy Connolly riding a ram? That 100% confirms that I will go and see this movie

nope a boar.

More of a hairy pig...

Which is what a boar is.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 Flashman wrote:

 the shrouded lord wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
I've heard one scene features a Dwarf Billy Connolly riding a ram? That 100% confirms that I will go and see this movie

nope a boar.

More of a hairy pig...

Which is what a boar is.

Oh, I'm not getting into this too much, but boars have much longer snouts. The snout of Dain's mount is squashed similar to a Vietnamese Pot Bellied Pig.

You are welcome to your own view however

I am disappointed. I wanted ram cavalry.

 guardpiper wrote:
I am disappointed. I wanted ram cavalry.

That was probably one of the things cut for the theatrical release, but will be added back in with the Extended Edition. In the battle, Thorin, Dwalin, Kili and Fili mount up on goats that suddenly appear out of nowhere in the middle of the battle. My guess is that there is actually Dwarven Battle Goat Cavalry present in the battle, and Thorin & co. simply commander some of those goats (Thorin is the King after all and can do that).

I watched the movie this Christmas, and I thought it was grand.
Dain's 'speech' was epic.
I also liked Alfrid. He added some good laughs.

The things I really didn't were those ridiculous goats appearing out of nowhere (as if Rhosgobel Rabbits weren't bad enough already) and Legolas defying the laws of physics even more than in the previous movies. The previous times I didn't mind it so much, but that scene in which Legolas defies gravity by jumping up on falling rubble pushed it too far.
The Battle of the Five Armies also was severely lacking in Wargs.
Also, the deus ex machina ending with the Eagles was horribly anticlimactic, but that is more Tolkien's fault.

I also would have liked to see more of Saruman and Sauron. That was an interesting part they could have expanded upon.


Also, the Battle of the Five Armies was supposed to be small in comparison to battles like Helm's Deep or the Pellenor Fields. After all, in the book, the Elven army only has 1000 soldiers and the Dwarves 500. The Humans are not mentioned but with Lake Town (the only significant human settlement in the North) destroyed their army probably would not be so large either. The Orc/Goblin/Warg is also not given any numbers, but it does say that three-quarters of all Orcs in the North were destroyed that day.
Tolkien's Middle Earth was meant to be on a Dark Ages level, which means that Middle Earth's total population is really rather small, and battles are not all that large either. Saruman's 10.000 strong army in the Lord of the Rings was supposed to be really special because something of that size had never been seen before in the Third Age.

The White Council vs. Sauron felt a bit off. Galadriel's stood waving Nenya in the face of Sauron (which in itself is probably not too clever TBH), and Saruman and Elrond just stand there while she takes Sauron down on her own. If they've already decided to use their Rings of Power, why not have Elrond and the leader of the Istari help Galadriel out a bit? Old as she is, Saruman and Sauron are on a wholly different level.

 Banzaimash wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:
Kili is supposed to be a fairly young Dwarf in the film who is just starting his beard. The lack of beard is a clue to his youth and naivete. His brother is a bit older which is why he has a bit more facial hair but both are quite young by dwarven standards.

I know they're supposed to be the youngest but they should still have pretty impressive beards by human standards, sort of down to their chest or something- stubble for any dwarf is inexcusable.

Eh, I'm ok with Dwarves not walking out of the womb with a beard, and as was stated earlier you have to differentiate thirteen different Dwarves visually in a visual medium.

I don't mind that Legolas did the common thing of elves breaking the laws of physics so much as I wish it hadn't been in slow motion. It would have looked better and been more elvish to show it at regular speed.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
The White Council vs. Sauron felt a bit off. Galadriel's stood waving Nenya in the face of Sauron (which in itself is probably not too clever TBH), and Saruman and Elrond just stand there while she takes Sauron down on her own. If they've already decided to use their Rings of Power, why not have Elrond and the leader of the Istari help Galadriel out a bit? Old as she is, Saruman and Sauron are on a wholly different level.

Tolkien does describe Gladariel as "mightest and fairest of all the Elves that remained in Middle-earth" - so at this point with Sauron not having the bulk of his power which is tied up with his ring, she may just be using her own inherent powers - hence being "diminished"" when she banishes Sauron- her roles in the hobbit films are some of my favouite

The men of laketown are mentioned several times in the book, they were definitely present in the battle.

I wish I COULD enjoy the film to be honest. It's unlikely I'll get another Middle Earth screen adventure any time soon, and the original trilogy are some of my favourite films despite their flaws.

 Da Boss wrote:
The men of laketown are mentioned several times in the book, they were definitely present in the battle.

I wish I COULD enjoy the film to be honest. It's unlikely I'll get another Middle Earth screen adventure any time soon, and the original trilogy are some of my favourite films despite their flaws.

Yeah, they were present during the battle, but what I meant was that there is no mention of their exact numbers apart from there being 200 deployed on the same mountain spur as the dwarves.

Ah cool, sorry I misinterpreted your post.

I've been trying to figure out how you make these movies into two movies. Battle of The Five Armies is just one long climax, not a movie unto itself, but I'm trying to figure out what the climax of the first film would be if there were two movies.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I've been trying to figure out how you make these movies into two movies. Battle of The Five Armies is just one long climax, not a movie unto itself, but I'm trying to figure out what the climax of the first film would be if there were two movies.

Being captured and imprisoned by the Elves.

Or escaping in the barrels.

Having just seen The Hobbit 3, I am devasted.

Or I should be, if the first 2 episodes had not already numbed my mind...

Uninspired, anti-epic, intolarable caricatures, bad editing/timing/pacing, bad dialogues, bad, bad screen-writing.

I also have no idea why the title was still The Hobbit, since he plays no role whatsoever - and when he does appear, MF conveys all emotions through nose wriggleing...

All the things that kept LOTR from being masterpieces blown up by factor 100, basically.

We were really relieved when it was over...

To be fair, the Thorin's madness story line was good in comparison, Balin a very likeable character and I had no problem with the love story (except for the kitsch daddy-love ending).

Martin Freeman is really gak.

After two years of objection I recently watch the first Hobbit film, and then the Second. I didn't really enjoy it at all. There's far too much derp in it. I'm glad The Lord of the Rings turned out pretty well. The Fellowship will still be my favourite though.




The look of the LOTR's is just infinitely superior to The Hobbit films. Jackson really is a hack. A lot of people reason that it is because Christopher Lee wasn't around as must to keep his BS in check.

The LotR films, made by Peter Jackson, is infinitely superior to the Hobbit films, but Peter Jackson is a hack? I don't think Christopher Lee had much to do with it. I'm not saying actors can't have any effect on directors, as filmmaking is a collaborative art form, but last I knew Christopher Lee didn't have anything to do with the set and costume design, editing, cinematography, screenwriting, etc.

PJ was definitely channeling George Lucas when he made The Hobbit. But at least we can take consolation that his Prequel trilogy wasn't quite so disastrous as Lucas'.

 Hordini wrote:
The LotR films, made by Peter Jackson, is infinitely superior to the Hobbit films, but Peter Jackson is a hack? I don't think Christopher Lee had much to do with it. I'm not saying actors can't have any effect on directors, as filmmaking is a collaborative art form, but last I knew Christopher Lee didn't have anything to do with the set and costume design, editing, cinematography, screenwriting, etc.

If you watch the behind the scenes on the LOTR's you can see Christopher is a massive Tolkien fan. He re-reads the books every year. He might not have designed things but he did have the pulse of the setting.

There seems to have been much more effort put into those films. There are hours of special features on the extended box sets of the LOTR. I'm sure there's a segment where it talks about Lee complaining about elements of the script to Jackson.

Any movie that does not have Christopher Lee suffers for it.

 Medium of Death wrote:

 Hordini wrote:
The LotR films, made by Peter Jackson, is infinitely superior to the Hobbit films, but Peter Jackson is a hack? I don't think Christopher Lee had much to do with it. I'm not saying actors can't have any effect on directors, as filmmaking is a collaborative art form, but last I knew Christopher Lee didn't have anything to do with the set and costume design, editing, cinematography, screenwriting, etc.

If you watch the behind the scenes on the LOTR's you can see Christopher is a massive Tolkien fan. He re-reads the books every year. He might not have designed things but he did have the pulse of the setting.

There seems to have been much more effort put into those films. There are hours of special features on the extended box sets of the LOTR. I'm sure there's a segment where it talks about Lee complaining about elements of the script to Jackson.

I'm not surprised - Christopher Lee actually met Tolkien prior to the authors death.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 Medium of Death wrote:

 Hordini wrote:
The LotR films, made by Peter Jackson, is infinitely superior to the Hobbit films, but Peter Jackson is a hack? I don't think Christopher Lee had much to do with it. I'm not saying actors can't have any effect on directors, as filmmaking is a collaborative art form, but last I knew Christopher Lee didn't have anything to do with the set and costume design, editing, cinematography, screenwriting, etc.

If you watch the behind the scenes on the LOTR's you can see Christopher is a massive Tolkien fan. He re-reads the books every year. He might not have designed things but he did have the pulse of the setting.

There seems to have been much more effort put into those films. There are hours of special features on the extended box sets of the LOTR. I'm sure there's a segment where it talks about Lee complaining about elements of the script to Jackson.

I'm not surprised - Christopher Lee actually met Tolkien prior to the authors death.

as apposed to meeting him post-death?

He also sang a lot of songs from LotR.
Saruman singing Treebeard's song is kinda funny:

 Medium of Death wrote:

 Hordini wrote:
The LotR films, made by Peter Jackson, is infinitely superior to the Hobbit films, but Peter Jackson is a hack? I don't think Christopher Lee had much to do with it. I'm not saying actors can't have any effect on directors, as filmmaking is a collaborative art form, but last I knew Christopher Lee didn't have anything to do with the set and costume design, editing, cinematography, screenwriting, etc.

If you watch the behind the scenes on the LOTR's you can see Christopher is a massive Tolkien fan. He re-reads the books every year. He might not have designed things but he did have the pulse of the setting.

There seems to have been much more effort put into those films. There are hours of special features on the extended box sets of the LOTR. I'm sure there's a segment where it talks about Lee complaining about elements of the script to Jackson.

Because he love Tolkien doesn't mean he had any say over anything being done in the film. You also have to remember that he was absent from all on-location filming, having filmed all of his parts in England because he was unable to travel (health concerns, you know, because he is freaking 92).

Also, actors typically don't see anything thing they film while it is in post-production; they film their scenes and that's it.

 Flashman wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 Flashman wrote:

 the shrouded lord wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
I've heard one scene features a Dwarf Billy Connolly riding a ram? That 100% confirms that I will go and see this movie

nope a boar.

More of a hairy pig...

Which is what a boar is.

Oh, I'm not getting into this too much, but boars have much longer snouts. The snout of Dain's mount is squashed similar to a Vietnamese Pot Bellied Pig.

You are welcome to your own view however

Boar is the term for an intact male Porcine.

Pigs and Wild Boars are also the same species, just one has been selectively bred for certain traits.

So yes, he is riding a Boar. As for the snout, pigs can have very short noses. It depends on the breed or the individual animal.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 guardpiper wrote:
I am disappointed. I wanted ram cavalry.

That was probably one of the things cut for the theatrical release, but will be added back in with the Extended Edition. In the battle, Thorin, Dwalin, Kili and Fili mount up on goats that suddenly appear out of nowhere in the middle of the battle. My guess is that there is actually Dwarven Battle Goat Cavalry present in the battle, and Thorin & co. simply commander some of those goats (Thorin is the King after all and can do that).

Indeed. We actually saw Ram Cavalry and Dwarf Ballistas in the teaser.

The extended edition of the movie will definitely be better as it will add necessary padding to a lot of areas.

And maybe the film will feel less like the end of another film and more like a complete film.

Given how the theatrical versions all turned out, they probably would have been better served as two 4 hour movies instead of three 2 1/3 hour movies.

I agree.

I'm one of those people who doesn't mind all the extra stuff from the appendices being put in, nor do I mind characters like Legolas being inserted into the narrative (the movies aren't the books, something so many people don't seem to understand). Nevertheless, there was something off about the first and third films.

The first film doesn't really have a climax (they get in trouble, fight some Orcs, and the Orcs are still there at the end) and the third film doesn't really have a beginning (it just picks up where the last one ended and never slows down).

The Lord of the Rings got better with the Extended Editions. I fear that the Hobbit films need to the Extended Editions to make them make sense.

All in all I didn't hate it, but the studio had their fingers deep in the second trilogy and this film most of all. Too many set pieces and stunts to sell merch, and not enough of the gritty beauty from the first trilogy.

The ending was rushed, the dialogue overdramatic and I suspect a lot of the best scenes were cut to make room for the swordporn. I did actually like Connolly as Dain; it's almost as if the license deal with GW cross pollinated a WFB TrollSlayer into Middle Earth.

Hoping the extended directors cuts will show us the films Jackson wanted to make.

Of course it didn't help that I was seated next to a comically stereotyped giant nerd who provided sotto voice commentary throughout the whole film and moaned whenever Tauriel came onscreen.

Connolly was my fav part of the third film. I loved him telling the Elves to "Sod off!".

The big where eyebrows tells Leggy to look for 'Strider' felt like a rushed "Quickly, wipe the droid's memory so that this makes sense in Episode 4" kind of moment.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
He also sang a lot of songs from LotR.
Saruman singing Treebeard's song is kinda funny:

haha Tolkien ensamble right? i have all those albums.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I think Evangeline Lilly made a great Elf. Shame about the stupid romance and writing though.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Connolly was my fav part of the third film. I loved him telling the Elves to "Sod off!".

The big where eyebrows tells Leggy to look for 'Strider' felt like a rushed "Quickly, wipe the droid's memory so that this makes sense in Episode 4" kind of moment.

Actually, its not a plot hole. It ties directly into the Fellowship of the Ring.(or at least, PJ's version). At the Council of Elrond, when Boromir is brusque with Aragorn, Legolas leaps up to defend Aragorn.

Legolas "This is no mere Ranger! This is Aragorn, son of Arathorn. You owe him your allegiance".

Clearly (in PJ's universe), Legolas had prior knowledge of Aragorn's indentity and they were on somewhat friendly terms. That suggests they'd know each other for some time, so this is actually a cool Easter Egg. Legolas did in fact seek out Aragorn following the Battle of Five Armies, and found him. They must have become friends prior to the Fellowship.

I'm pretty sure Legolas knew Aragorn and was already friends with him in the book as well.


In terms of little Easter eggs, one thing I liked was that when the Dwarves were all armored up, Gloin was wearing the helmet that Gimli wears all throughout LotR. I thought that was a nice touch.

 Hordini wrote:
I'm pretty sure Legolas knew Aragorn and was already friends with him in the book as well.


In terms of little Easter eggs, one thing I like was that when the Dwarves were all armored up, Gloin was wearing the helmet that Gimli wears all throughout LotR. I thought that was a nice touch.

Really? Feth. Its a shame the GW miniature lacks that helmet.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Actually, its not a plot hole.

I didn't say it was a plot hole. I said it felt rushed.

Then why th comment about "wiping the droids memory"?

Hordini wrote:The LotR films, made by Peter Jackson, is infinitely superior to the Hobbit films, but Peter Jackson is a hack? I don't think Christopher Lee had much to do with it. I'm not saying actors can't have any effect on directors, as filmmaking is a collaborative art form, but last I knew Christopher Lee didn't have anything to do with the set and costume design, editing, cinematography, screenwriting, etc.

from what I remember watching the behind the scenes, Christopher Lee was a consultant of sorts for PJ because he knew the books as well as, if not better than, anyone else there. I doubt he was a massive factor in reigning in PJ for the LotR and why the Hobbit was pretty OTT, but he did have a role there outside of just acting.

ruprecht wrote:All in all I didn't hate it, but the studio had their fingers deep in the second trilogy and this film most of all. Too many set pieces and stunts to sell merch, and not enough of the gritty beauty from the first trilogy.

The ending was rushed, the dialogue overdramatic and I suspect a lot of the best scenes were cut to make room for the swordporn. I did actually like Connolly as Dain; it's almost as if the license deal with GW cross pollinated a WFB TrollSlayer into Middle Earth.

Hoping the extended directors cuts will show us the films Jackson wanted to make.

So much this. Everything I didn't like was either stated to be down to the producers (Tauriel/Legolas/Kili love triangle) or exactly the kind of thing I'd imagine producers like to shoe-horn into films (emphasis on action and cheap humour over acting and plot).

I really enjoyed The Hobbit trilogy. I think a lot of people are going in to this film expecting the LoTR movies and forgetting that The Hobbit was written before the LoTR books as a childrens book.

I like my childrens movies to be quirky, goofy, and nonsensical at times.

 ruprecht wrote:
All in all I didn't hate it, but the studio had their fingers deep in the second trilogy and this film most of all. Too many set pieces and stunts to sell merch, and not enough of the gritty beauty from the first trilogy.

This definitely sounds like the root of the problem to me. Mo' money, mo' problems, and all that. On top of that, PJ just didn't have his heart in it, and was probably only in charge because the money was good.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Then why th comment about "wiping the droids memory"?

This is also not a plot hole. He is referring to C3PO's memory being wiped at the end of Episode 3 because as of Episode 4, he apparently has no knowledge of the events which preceded it.

However, the moment is executed in a rushed off hand manner that jarred somewhat for most people, hence HBMC drawing a parallel between that and Legolas being sent to look for Strider.

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:

 ruprecht wrote:
All in all I didn't hate it, but the studio had their fingers deep in the second trilogy and this film most of all. Too many set pieces and stunts to sell merch, and not enough of the gritty beauty from the first trilogy.

This definitely sounds like the root of the problem to me. Mo' money, mo' problems, and all that. On top of that, PJ just didn't have his heart in it, and was probably only in charge because the money was good.

It also had a lot of starts and stops at others hands before Peter Jackson was essentially forced to do the project. Guillermo Del Toro had already done a bunch of work on the preproduction to the point of getting credited in the film. Between studio want and filtering multiple viewpoints you get a bit of an unfocused mess.

All the doom and gloom here, I thought it was going to be a letdown. But I thoroughly enjoyed it. My only issue was that Sarumon says "Leave Sauron to me", setting up the showing of his fall to the dark lord. And then they didn't show it!!! All it would have taken is a 3 second clip of him approaching The Eye and kneeling in front of it!!

Seriously, that's my only complaint.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Then why th comment about "wiping the droids memory"?

Because that also felt rushed. What about this aren't you getting?

 timetowaste85 wrote:
But I thoroughly enjoyed it.

It is possible to enjoy a thing and still be critical of it.

Indeed it is. I enjoyed Battle of the Five Armies and I still think the movie was a mess - a giant climax with no beginning or middle.

The major problem I had was the really creepy CGI of Legolas in shots that could have perfectly used Orlando Bloom in makeup. There were a couple of shots were he has a strange arngry/stern expression that totally stuck out, uncanny valley-wise. I could kind of explain Dain, as Conolly is old? Maybe?

 AegisGrimm wrote:
I could kind of explain Dain, as Conolly is old? Maybe?

The man is 72 years old.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
The major problem I had was the really creepy CGI of Legolas in shots that could have perfectly used Orlando Bloom in makeup. There were a couple of shots were he has a strange arngry/stern expression that totally stuck out, uncanny valley-wise. I could kind of explain Dain, as Conolly is old? Maybe?

Conolly, I heard has Alzheimer or something similar so he could actually act the part properly without forgetting his lines and so on, he also couldnt travel to NZ or something similar.

Not sure if true though, but apparently thats why he was CGI.

So I watched FOTR today. I have to admit that I prefer the brown eyed legolas to the blue eyed freak legolas.

Kind of like how I felt when Jessica alba went blue eyed freak in FF 2.

GG

 Swastakowey wrote:
Conolly, I heard has Alzheimer or something similar so he could actually act the part properly without forgetting his lines and so on, he also couldnt travel to NZ or something similar.

Parkinsons, and not (thank God) Alzheimers.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
Conolly, I heard has Alzheimer or something similar so he could actually act the part properly without forgetting his lines and so on, he also couldnt travel to NZ or something similar.

Parkinsons, and not (thank God) Alzheimers.

I did not know that. I have really enjoyed him for decades and immediately recognized the voice.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
I could kind of explain Dain, as Conolly is old? Maybe?

The man is 72 years old.

Well, yeah. But what was Bloom's excuse?

Saw it today finally.

I enjoyed it for the most part but felt it suffered from a severe lack of Beorn.

I hope the extended cut features more frenzied shapeshifting bear-man action.

 Alex C wrote:
Saw it today finally.

I enjoyed it for the most part but felt it suffered from a severe lack of Beorn.

I hope the extended cut features more frenzied shapeshifting bear-man action.

Ewww. We don't want to hear about your sexual fetishes.



On a serious note, yes. Beorn's 5 second cameo was pretty appalling.

I believe that the problem with all the movies of the lord of the rings saga is, that the source material makes for a horrible movie. What makes tolkiens writing unique is the fact that he thoroughly describes every singly thing in the story, but doing that in a movie is hard if not impossible. Because of this, it is almost impossible to create a movie, that would be loyal to the source material.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Actually, its not a plot hole.

I didn't say it was a plot hole. I said it felt rushed.

Assuming the scene says what it reported to say on Dakka it is a plot hole.
At this time Aragorn was ten years old and living in secret in Rivendell under the pseudonym Estel. His identity was secret even from himself and he was a ward of Elrond.

Aragorn had plenty of time to meet Legolas during his travels, it is almost certain that by the time of the Council of Elrond, Legolas knew exactly who Aragorn was.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Flashman wrote:
hence HBMC drawing a parallel between that and Legolas being sent to look for Strider.

Hold on, Gandalf sent Legolas to look for Strider.

Looking for Aragorn was enough of a plot hole.

Aragorn wasn't even called Aragorn for another ten years, and he took up his labours when he took up his name. Arathorn was never 'Strider' he lived openly under his own name as Chieftain of the Dunedain, which is how he got hunted, and was dead by this time.
Aragorn was named Strider by the Breelanders when they got to know him, we could assume he might have started that part of his job early. Though it appears he first started by squiring in Rohan, it coincides with the timing of when he was seen there. I cant remember his pseudonym from Rohan, but there was once mentioned in the appendixes IIRC.

At the time of the Battle of the Five Armies even Gandalf would not have heard of Strider.

Just got back from seeing it. It was, in short, just as amazing as I had expected and hoped, and sits proudly among its fellows in both trilogies as the best set of films ever made. Brilliant acting all round, visually stunning and an excellent soundtrack as well. Honestly, it's hard to pick favourite bits, but the standouts for me were:


Yeah, twas epic.

Well at least someone likes it, other than Peter Jackson.

 Orlanth wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Actually, its not a plot hole.

I didn't say it was a plot hole. I said it felt rushed.

Assuming the scene says what it reported to say on Dakka it is a plot hole.
At this time Aragorn was ten years old and living in secret in Rivendell under the pseudonym Estel. His identity was secret even from himself and he was a ward of Elrond.

Aragorn had plenty of time to meet Legolas during his travels, it is almost certain that by the time of the Council of Elrond, Legolas knew exactly who Aragorn

Gandalf would not have heard of Strider.

Except that by the events in LotR, Aragorn was 87 years old and the events of The Hobbit were set +/- 50 years before that. So Aragorn/Strider would have been 37 or so and already being active in the wilderlands. Also you are forgetting that he grew up in Rivendell, so his identity was well known to the elves. Not only Elrond but undoubtedly also the highest tiers of elven nobility, Cirdan, Thranduil, Celeborn, Lady Galadriel; considering he was of the house of Arathorn and thereby one of the last of the Numenorians. Not only that but those "in the know" would have wanted to keep an eye on him (two eyes as often as they could, I'm sure) as he was the last king of Gondor and the only real challenger to Sauron's power considering what his granddad did. He was destined for a showdown, why else would he carry around Narsil?

The elves knew this, and only reluctantly did Aragorn accept this destiny.

Aragorn was 87????

 the shrouded lord wrote:
Aragorn was 87????

It's good to be the king.

Or more accurately it is good to come from a noble line of humans that age incredibly slow and live longer than other humans.

 Ahtman wrote:

 the shrouded lord wrote:
Aragorn was 87????

It's good to be the king.

Or more accurately it is good to come from a noble line of humans that age incredibly slow and live longer than other humans.

oh ok...that makes more sense.

One more point that I missed in Orlanth's post above was that Gandalf wouldn't have known Strider/Aragorn/Elessar at the time of the BOFA.

I submit that he would have indeed known him and quite well, I imagine, because of Gandalf's being a) a Maiar spirit in human form that was sent by Eru to help guide the free peoples of M.E. And was very active in this regard, being seen as a meddeler and troublemaker by many, and b) Had known the elves for many years even before Aragorn came to be in Rivendell. Undoubtedly because of his pedigree Gandalf and even Saruman would have had an early interest in the scion of the house of Arathrain.

So you see it is not a plot hole or failure to make a connection between Legolas and Strider, in fact it enhances the story and gives quite a bit of depth by saying so much in a mere two sentences.

Notice that Thranduil does not give up Strider's true name, he knows what it would mean if that were leaked at the wrong time. Aragorn could have been hunted down and ended before coming to power as his father was hunted down.

 the shrouded lord wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 Medium of Death wrote:

 Hordini wrote:
The LotR films, made by Peter Jackson, is infinitely superior to the Hobbit films, but Peter Jackson is a hack? I don't think Christopher Lee had much to do with it. I'm not saying actors can't have any effect on directors, as filmmaking is a collaborative art form, but last I knew Christopher Lee didn't have anything to do with the set and costume design, editing, cinematography, screenwriting, etc.

If you watch the behind the scenes on the LOTR's you can see Christopher is a massive Tolkien fan. He re-reads the books every year. He might not have designed things but he did have the pulse of the setting.

There seems to have been much more effort put into those films. There are hours of special features on the extended box sets of the LOTR. I'm sure there's a segment where it talks about Lee complaining about elements of the script to Jackson.

I'm not surprised - Christopher Lee actually met Tolkien prior to the authors death.

as apposed to meeting him post-death?

You have to clarify - can imagine Christopher Lee being into some dark stuff!

This made me chuckle

I've got to say, I enjoyed this film more than the other 2. I'm not exactly one to complain about a film being made up of one long extended battle sequence.

In saying that, something really did seem a bit wibbly about the timeline of it all.

The goats/rams are shown in the trailer charging over a hill, but the shot did not appear in the movie (and neither did the Chariot and a few other lines/shots from the trailer). I expect the Extended version will clear that up well enough, though.

I was surprised Tauriel made it, but at the end of the third film the character was actually good enough that I was quite pleased she did. I did also like the idea of all three Elves basically going through the same lonliness and coming out of it in rather different ways. Thranduil's bitterness is explained by the loss of his wife, Tauriel attempts to move away from typical Elven aloofness/restraint and suffers for it, and in the end, Legolas starts down the road to becoming more like his father, before the companionship of Aragorn and Gimli rehumanises him in LotR.

 Sienisoturi wrote:
I believe that the problem with all the movies of the lord of the rings saga is, that the source material makes for a horrible movie. What makes tolkiens writing unique is the fact that he thoroughly describes every singly thing in the story, but doing that in a movie is hard if not impossible. Because of this, it is almost impossible to create a movie, that would be loyal to the source material.

I'd say the Lord of the Rings is much trickier to make into a film than the Hobbit; much more detail, much larger scale, and a much larger source material. I think the problem with the Hobbit is that the excuse of "film adaptations of treasured books are hard" seems a lot shakier after how good the LotR was. If it had happened to that trilogy, people would have gone with that excuse and defended it for all its worth, but after managing such a successful adaptation the first time round, PJ set one hell of a high bar for the Hobbit which he simply couldn't match, and it looks much worse for it.
It's a very similar situation to that of Star Wars, but maybe not to the same extent.

 the shrouded lord wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:

 the shrouded lord wrote:
Aragorn was 87????

It's good to be the king.

Or more accurately it is good to come from a noble line of humans that age incredibly slow and live longer than other humans.

oh ok...that makes more sense.

Yup. In the Two Towers he tells Eowyn how old he is after she asks how he could have fought alongside her grandfather.

IIRC he died around the age of 200.

If you've only seen the films, and haven't seen the extended Two Towers, then I guess you could be forgiven for not knowing how old Aragorn is.

Dunedain are long-lived, but still mortal.

xraytango wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:


Assuming the scene says what it reported to say on Dakka it is a plot hole.
At this time Aragorn was ten years old and living in secret in Rivendell under the pseudonym Estel. His identity was secret even from himself and he was a ward of Elrond.

Aragorn had plenty of time to meet Legolas during his travels, it is almost certain that by the time of the Council of Elrond, Legolas knew exactly who Aragorn

Gandalf would not have heard of Strider.

Except that by the events in LotR, Aragorn was 87 years old and the events of The Hobbit were set +/- 50 years before that. So Aragorn/Strider would have been 37 or so and already being active in the wilderlands. Also you are forgetting that he grew up in Rivendell, so his identity was well known to the elves. Not only Elrond but undoubtedly also the highest tiers of elven nobility, Cirdan, Thranduil, Celeborn, Lady Galadriel; considering he was of the house of Arathorn and thereby one of the last of the Numenorians. Not only that but those "in the know" would have wanted to keep an eye on him (two eyes as often as they could, I'm sure) as he was the last king of Gondor and the only real challenger to Sauron's power considering what his granddad did. He was destined for a showdown, why else would he carry around Narsil?

The elves knew this, and only reluctantly did Aragorn accept this destiny.

You have been watchng the movies without the book then.

Except that by the events in LotR, Aragorn was 87 years old and the events of The Hobbit were set +/- 50 years before that.

The Lord of the Rings occurs over an extended time period. Bllbo's leaving party was seventeen years before the events of the rest of the story. In the book this is clear, in the film it is not.

xraytango wrote:

The elves knew this, and only reluctantly did Aragorn accept this destiny.

Pter Jackson modernised the character by removing Aragorns inherent selflessnes and added measure of tiredness and a case of 'whats in it for me'.
Aragorn did not reluctantly take up his burden, he had already taken up the burden decades before the events of he War of the Ring, though he did sit on a rock in Rivendell summoning his courage before marching with the Fellowship.

Though my main peeve with Peter Jacksons depiction of Aragorn is that he murdered Saurons ambassador during a parley, something Aragorn would never do.

xraytango wrote:
One more point that I missed in Orlanth's post above was that Gandalf wouldn't have known Strider/Aragorn/Elessar at the time of the BOFA.

You also missed the age given. He is a timeline for you:

The War of the Ring was 3018-19
Bilbo's eleventy-first birthday party was in 3001
Thorin's Quest & Battle of the Five Armies was in 2941
Aragorn was born in 2931

IIRC he died around the age of 200.

Aragorn reigned for 120 years, and gave up his life before he became too old to rule. At least twice in his life he was rejuvenated, once from his gift in Lorien and once at his coronation.
So he died at an age of 207 or 208 depending when in the year he died. He was very long lived even for a Dunedain, due to the rejuvenation of his youth endowed o him from Galadriel.
Yet as one of his line he was nevertheless relatively short lived, his ancestor Elros, brother of Elrond, first King of Numenor lived five centuries, and most of the Numerorean line lived at least three centuries. Though the years lessened over the generations due to the dilution of elf blood.
It is likely that Aragorn's children, including King Eldarion, who succeeded him lived as long as Elros, if not longer, and one or more if his children might have been allowed to count themselves amongst the Eldar and become immortal, because first generation half elves are given that choice.

 Sienisoturi wrote:
I believe that the problem with all the movies of the lord of the rings saga is, that the source material makes for a horrible movie. What makes tolkiens writing unique is the fact that he thoroughly describes every singly thing in the story, but doing that in a movie is hard if not impossible. Because of this, it is almost impossible to create a movie, that would be loyal to the source material.

I take it you've never heard the saying "A picture's worth a thousand words"? Film is inherently description-dense - you can depict the characters, their surroundings and their actions all at the same time. If the problem with The Hobbit was really that Tolkien was too descriptive, why the feth would you exacerbate the problem by putting more stuff into the movie?

 AlexHolker wrote:

 Sienisoturi wrote:
I believe that the problem with all the movies of the lord of the rings saga is, that the source material makes for a horrible movie. What makes tolkiens writing unique is the fact that he thoroughly describes every singly thing in the story, but doing that in a movie is hard if not impossible. Because of this, it is almost impossible to create a movie, that would be loyal to the source material.

I take it you've never heard the saying "A picture's worth a thousand words"? Film is inherently description-dense - you can depict the characters, their surroundings and their actions all at the same time. If the problem with The Hobbit was really that Tolkien was too descriptive, why the feth would you exacerbate the problem by putting more stuff into the movie?

Because Peter Jackson was seen as the new George Lucas after the runaway success of The Return of the King, and it went to his head.

So after ten years of ego he knew better than Tolkien, in his own head at least. This is what Jackson truly lost sight of. Lucas deserves his status because he made Star Wars, he made the film universe and lore and imagery. Jackson was riding on Tolkien's masterwork, and in general his films worked best when they sticked to the story.

Now post Hobbit Jackson truly is the new Lucas, post-prequels. Jackson had to have his Jar Jars.

Actually Orlanth, I read Hobbit - LotR every five years.

I forgot that there were 17 years in there.

It would have been better if Gandalf had taken leave from the Shire and done his research, then had a caption "17 years later" when he shows up again in the FotR movie.

Ever since the movies I see those in my head when I read the books.

Orlanth wrote:Because Peter Jackson was seen as the new George Lucas after the runaway success of The Return of the King, and it went to his head.

So after ten years of ego he knew better than Tolkien, in his own head at least. This is what Jackson truly lost sight of. Lucas deserves his status because he made Star Wars, he made the film universe and lore and imagery. Jackson was riding on Tolkien's masterwork, and in general his films worked best when they sticked to the story.

Now post Hobbit Jackson truly is the new Lucas, post-prequels. Jackson had to have his Jar Jars.

It's overly harsh to portray Jackson as some arrogant slimeball who thought he knew better than Tolkien. He had a lot more pressure on him this time around, from an older age, attempting to mix together several source materials into one cohesive story, with more control from meddling producers, trying to simultaneously appeal to the target audience of the book (kids), the hardcore fans of the original trilogy and books, and casual watchers (adults).
He tried to add in all sorts of imaginative ideas to try and appeal to the much more visually-stimulated audiences of film, and that unfortunately just didn't work. PJ didn't write the universe or lore, but the imagery was pretty vague, whether from Tolkien's own hand or of the countless pieces of art from the likes of Dan Hennah and Alan Lee. He wasn't "riding on Tolkien's masterwork" with the Lord of the Rings, he directed an incredibly difficult and ambitious film adaptation of a Goliath of a book which many had deemed to be far to great an undertaking to even consider - and he did it well.

As for "his films worked best when they sticked to the story", it really wasn't the case for the Lord of the Rings. For instance, excluding Tom Bombadil was a very good decision and Boromir's rewritten death was easily one of my favourite scenes in the entire trilogy. The ending of the Return of the King, much-criticised for its length, was even longer in the book.

I'd say that the only parts where he deviated from the LotR books in a bad way was the army of the dead fighting at the Pelennor Fields, where it would've taken far too long explaining who, how and why Imrahil, the Knights of Dol Amroth, Halbarad, The Dunedain, and all those coastal villages turned up to fight, and Faramir/Boromir/Denethor's relationship with one another, which again would have taken a lot of time and the extended edition of the Two Towers goes some way into covering that anyway.

What I was most disappointed by Was the complete exclusion of the Grey Company. At the very least they should have done a few cameos of nameless non speaking rangers every once in a while sitting with Aragorn in the prancing pony at bree (while he was watching the Hobbits), at the Council of Elrond, and at Aragorns coronation. You know, just to remind viewers that Aragorns not the last living dunedain in middle earth.

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:

Anyway, like the first film, the movie is in serious need of some fan-editing. I already did my own cut of An Unexpected Journey and there's enough issues here that I know I will do one here as well (and then probably do a one or two movie cut of the trilogy as well for fun).

Want to try your hand at a 2 hour cut of the whole series so it can be one movie, LIKE IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN?

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
LIKE IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN

I can't give you a gold star as you didn't show your work.

 Orlanth wrote:
You have been watchng the movies without the book then.

Why should he need to? The books =/= the movie, and vice versa.

 Orlanth wrote:
The Lord of the Rings occurs over an extended time period. Bllbo's leaving party was seventeen years before the events of the rest of the story. In the book this is clear, in the film it is not.

Because it's not 17 years in the movie. It's however long it took Gandalf to ride to Minas Tirith, do some research, and ride back.

 Orlanth wrote:
... something Aragorn would never do.

Never do... in the books, which, as we have established, are not the movies.

 shrike wrote:


I'd say that the only parts where he deviated from the LotR books in a bad way was the army of the dead fighting at the Pelennor Fields, where it would've taken far too long explaining who, how and why Imrahil, the Knights of Dol Amroth, Halbarad, The Dunedain, and all those coastal villages turned up to fight, and Faramir/Boromir/Denethor's relationship with one another, which again would have taken a lot of time and the extended edition of the Two Towers goes some way into covering that anyway.

So you thought the changes to the Entmoot were a smart call? I cannot wrap my head around the constant pleas expressed for 'more' in this thread and others. I am constantly told that X or Y was too much for the LotR trilogy; it would have complicated things or taken too long to explain. And yet there was time for PJ to add in things he wanted that tied up great chunks of time.

The fact that there are people waiting for an extended version of the hobbit movies to make sense of them is insane. You are looking at a 300 odd page book given 450 plus minutes of screentime in theatrical release. If you cannot tell a decent cohesive story with that, you are objectively a bad filmmaker.

 Bromsy wrote:


The fact that there are people waiting for an extended version of the hobbit movies to make sense of them is insane. You are looking at a 300 odd page book given 450 plus minutes of screentime in theatrical release. If you cannot tell a decent cohesive story with that, you are objectively a bad filmmaker.

Or, in fact, you are trying to make a film that not only expands on a rather shallow book (let's face it, as a novel, The Hobbit has nothing like the depth of LotR) to make it worthy of standing alongside it's predecessors, but also to draw on dozens of pages of additional source material to expand the setting, tie the two trilogies together and make the most of the last chance to make a film in this setting. Which I think PJ has done an admirable job of; I don't see how The Hobbit films are any worse than LotR. Different, yes, but not worse.

And for the record, I'm waiting for the EE not to make sense of the film but because it is a great movie and I would like to see more of it.

I just got back and it was as big a let down as I thought it would be.

If the the Peter Jackson fanfiction with Legolas et al was removed from the 3 movies and it had been 2 it would have been a rollicking good pair of movies.

Just because you can doesn't mean you should...

The first trilogy kept your interest the whole way, within 10 minutes I was just feeling flat and uninterested.

Also at this stage gandalf's powers seem to be 'ride horse', 'smoke pipe' and 'smack Orc with sword or stick'.

 Orlanth wrote:

 AlexHolker wrote:

 Sienisoturi wrote:
I believe that the problem with all the movies of the lord of the rings saga is, that the source material makes for a horrible movie. What makes tolkiens writing unique is the fact that he thoroughly describes every singly thing in the story, but doing that in a movie is hard if not impossible. Because of this, it is almost impossible to create a movie, that would be loyal to the source material.

I take it you've never heard the saying "A picture's worth a thousand words"? Film is inherently description-dense - you can depict the characters, their surroundings and their actions all at the same time. If the problem with The Hobbit was really that Tolkien was too descriptive, why the feth would you exacerbate the problem by putting more stuff into the movie?

Because Peter Jackson was seen as the new George Lucas after the runaway success of The Return of the King, and it went to his head.

So after ten years of ego he knew better than Tolkien, in his own head at least. This is what Jackson truly lost sight of. Lucas deserves his status because he made Star Wars, he made the film universe and lore and imagery. Jackson was riding on Tolkien's masterwork, and in general his films worked best when they sticked to the story.

Now post Hobbit Jackson truly is the new Lucas, post-prequels. Jackson had to have his Jar Jars.

Jackson has fallen into darkness.

However, the books aren't exactly immaculate works. Some of the story changes in the LotR movies were improvements, IMO.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Bromsy wrote:
The fact that there are people waiting for an extended version of the hobbit movies to make sense of them is insane. You are looking at a 300 odd page book given 450 plus minutes of screentime in theatrical release. If you cannot tell a decent cohesive story with that, you are objectively a bad filmmaker.

Agreed.

Bromsy wrote:
So you thought the changes to the Entmoot were a smart call? I cannot wrap my head around the constant pleas expressed for 'more' in this thread and others. I am constantly told that X or Y was too much for the LotR trilogy; it would have complicated things or taken too long to explain. And yet there was time for PJ to add in things he wanted that tied up great chunks of time.

The fact that there are people waiting for an extended version of the hobbit movies to make sense of them is insane. You are looking at a 300 odd page book given 450 plus minutes of screentime in theatrical release. If you cannot tell a decent cohesive story with that, you are objectively a bad filmmaker.

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:I just got back and it was as big a let down as I thought it would be.

If the the Peter Jackson fanfiction with Legolas et al was removed from the 3 movies and it had been 2 it would have been a rollicking good pair of movies.

Just because you can doesn't mean you should...

I call this the Adaptation Death Spiral.

You adapt a work into a movie and you start making changes and adding new content. But then those changes or new story elements create new plot problems that the original story obviously doesn't answer so you have to add more new content to try and write out of your own mess. If left unchecked the cycle repeats until it spirals out of control and you're left with something unrecognizable.

E.g The entire second half of World War Z where they mount a mission for a magic serum was only required because they wrote themselves into a corner with super fast, super strong zombies that can infect and turn people in 10 seconds with the smallest bite or scratch. They are so ridiculously doomed without this magic serum. Half the movie spent solving the problem they created by deviating from the type of zombies described in the book...

Same thing with the hobbit movies - constantly having to check in with Legolas and Tauriel and giving screen time to PJs creations when the obvious solution is just to not include them in the first place...

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
You have been watchng the movies without the book then.

Why should he need to? The books =/= the movie, and vice versa.

Because he had the license to make the films and claimed intention to tell the story.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
The Lord of the Rings occurs over an extended time period. Bllbo's leaving party was seventeen years before the events of the rest of the story. In the book this is clear, in the film it is not.

Because it's not 17 years in the movie. It's however long it took Gandalf to ride to Minas Tirith, do some research, and ride back.

Still a plot hole.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
... something Aragorn would never do.

Never do... in the books, which, as we have established, are not the movies.

Film makers have artistic license, they can remove or amalgamate characters to clarify and better fit screen time, they can add scenes not seen in original point of view etc etc.
But each change should be accompanied by a reason for the change.
Rewiring Aragorn's moral compass because Jackson felt like it is no reason, it made no change to the overall plot or allowed time or number of characters presented to the audience to change Aragorn's character.

A good director will only change original source material to make a plot more filmable, and not to rewrite the source material,with exception of propaganda film makers, which doesn't apply here.

Bromsy wrote:

 shrike wrote:


I'd say that the only parts where he deviated from the LotR books in a bad way was the army of the dead fighting at the Pelennor Fields, where it would've taken far too long explaining who, how and why Imrahil, the Knights of Dol Amroth, Halbarad, The Dunedain, and all those coastal villages turned up to fight, and Faramir/Boromir/Denethor's relationship with one another, which again would have taken a lot of time and the extended edition of the Two Towers goes some way into covering that anyway.

So you thought the changes to the Entmoot were a smart call? I cannot wrap my head around the constant pleas expressed for 'more' in this thread and others. I am constantly told that X or Y was too much for the LotR trilogy; it would have complicated things or taken too long to explain. And yet there was time for PJ to add in things he wanted that tied up great chunks of time.

I can't remember what was changed about the Entmoot, so I can't say.
PJ added very little in the LotR, he just changed or cut things. Almost everything that PJ put into the film that wasn't in the book wasn't on top of something else, it was a replacement, very few of which took up more time than the original.

 Waaagh_Gonads wrote:
I just got back and it was as big a let down as I thought it would be.

If you went in thinking it was going to be a big disappointment why did you go?

 Ahtman wrote:

 Waaagh_Gonads wrote:
I just got back and it was as big a let down as I thought it would be.

If you went in thinking it was going to be a big disappointment why did you go?

Closure.

I was exactly the same. It looked rubbish from the trailer, but it's the Scheherazade effect i.e. leave a big cliff hanger and make them come back for the last bit. If you're basically at the end, you just want to see it through.

I went in thinking it was going to be bad, based on the dakka reviews. However I had read some other reviews on rotten tomatoes that said it was good, so I went with trepidation (I mean how could my fellow dakkites be so wrong right?).

Glad I went.

GG

It was awful.

I stopped caring about the book-to-film liberties about twenty minutes in but couldn't enjoy it as a movie in it's own right.


Such a disappointment.

I enjoyed it. But I went in with very low expectations. And those expectations were met.

I'm going to see it for a 2nd time tomorrow, and the last time until the Extended Ed is out - which I'll be getting more for the special features.

 Orlanth wrote:
Because he had the license to make the films and claimed intention to tell the story.

And he did. He made adaptations. He was never going to take what was on the page and put it on screen. Virtually no one does that with adaptations of books, and it is unreasonable to assume or expect him to do that.

 Orlanth wrote:
Still a plot hole.

How? In what sense?

 Orlanth wrote:
Film makers have artistic license, they can remove or amalgamate characters to clarify and better fit screen time, they can add scenes not seen in original point of view etc etc.
But each change should be accompanied by a reason for the change.
Rewiring Aragorn's moral compass because Jackson felt like it is no reason, it made no change to the overall plot or allowed time or number of characters presented to the audience to change Aragorn's character.

A good director will only change original source material to make a plot more filmable, and not to rewrite the source material,with exception of propaganda film makers, which doesn't apply here.

Nah. Film makers change source material all the time. Why people are more precious (no pun intended) about LOTR makes no sense.


I am so sick of book purists.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Nah. Film makers change source material all the time. Why people are more precious (no pun intended) about LOTR makes no sense.


I am so sick of book purists.

I think it's because it's (arguably) the most important, well known and detailed fictional work of the past hundred years, some people are always going to have qualms about any adaptation of anything, especially when it's such a treasured book as the LotR. Some people can't (or won't) understand that it's completely impractical to have an exact copy of a book in film form without changing stuff from it, and fans of the original will generally say that it's better - It's a similar situation with classic songs covered by other artists or rebooted film/TV franchises.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:



I am so sick of book purists.

I am not a 'book purist'. I would admittedly prefer the film to be as faithful as possible, but can expect some changes for filmability, it's a reasoned approach rather than a doctrinal one.
Jackson didn't stick to that, he went all over he place with the Hobbit.

My niggles with LotR were just niggles, things I would have preferred different in otherwise excellent films. However with theHobit the more Jackson went off piste, the more it sucked.

 shrike wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Nah. Film makers change source material all the time. Why people are more precious (no pun intended) about LOTR makes no sense.


I am so sick of book purists.

I think it's because it's (arguably) the most important, well known and detailed fictional work of the past hundred years

Oh that is rich.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Orlanth wrote:
I am not a 'book purist'.

Walk like a duck, talk like a duck, act like a duck and unsurprisingly people will think you are a duck.

 Ahtman wrote:

 shrike wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Nah. Film makers change source material all the time. Why people are more precious (no pun intended) about LOTR makes no sense.


I am so sick of book purists.

I think it's because it's (arguably) the most important, well known and detailed fictional work of the past hundred years

Oh that is rich.

Ahem

Yes it is. Tolkien is accreditted as being the one to really open the doors for the fantasy genre.

LOTR really hit the nail on the head and was one the biggest influences in terms of writing and the genre it works in.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Orlanth wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:



I am so sick of book purists.

I am not a 'book purist'. I would admittedly prefer the film to be as faithful as possible, but can expect some changes for filmability, it's a reasoned approach rather than a doctrinal one.
Jackson didn't stick to that, he went all over he place with the Hobbit.

My niggles with LotR were just niggles, things I would have preferred different in otherwise excellent films. However with theHobit the more Jackson went off piste, the more it sucked.

Can I actually say that one of the reasons why I didn't like this movie series at all was because I felt it stayed too close to the book.

The Screen Writing was horrible. The Dialogue not as well written as it should of been. The Shots were extremely inelegant. An over reliance on CGI and not enough on practical effects. Compare for example the Goblins in LOTR The Fellowship of the ring and The Hobbit An Unexpected Journey.

Look at the differences in armor choices and everything. Notice how everything is much cleaner in the newer one?

Notice how there is more characterization in the older film compared to the newer?

Notice how they made the female character.. Kind of a joke compared to the other stronger female characters in the LOTR series.

Evangelical Lily was fantastic though, I loved her character minus the love triangle.

You can see more emotion in the older characters than in the hobbit.

 Ahtman wrote:


Oh that is rich.

Ain't that the truth.

 Asherian Command wrote:
IAhem

Yes it is.

No, it really isn't. If they had said one of the most important fantasy works then I would probably agree but it was said that it was "the most important, well known and detailed fictional work of the past hundred years". When looking at the whole of literate in the last one hundred years it isn't even in the top five.

 Ahtman wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:
IAhem

Yes it is.

No, it really isn't. If they had said one of the most important fantasy works then I would probably agree but it was said that it was "the most important, well known and detailed fictional work of the past hundred years". When looking at the whole of literate in the last one hundred years it isn't even in the top five.

If you can find a more detailed fictional world than middle earth then I will be very surprised.

 Ahtman wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:
IAhem

Yes it is.

No, it really isn't. If they had said one of the most important fantasy works then I would probably agree but it was said that it was "the most important, well known and detailed fictional work of the past hundred years". When looking at the whole of literate in the last one hundred years it isn't even in the top five.

Don't you dare say what I am thinking you are thinking about.

Martin and many fantasy writers credit tolkien for his lingusitics and world building. That is beyond even the Game of Thrones and many others works.

(Except Maybe LoveCraft)

 shrike wrote:

Bromsy wrote:

 shrike wrote:


I'd say that the only parts where he deviated from the LotR books in a bad way was the army of the dead fighting at the Pelennor Fields, where it would've taken far too long explaining who, how and why Imrahil, the Knights of Dol Amroth, Halbarad, The Dunedain, and all those coastal villages turned up to fight, and Faramir/Boromir/Denethor's relationship with one another, which again would have taken a lot of time and the extended edition of the Two Towers goes some way into covering that anyway.

So you thought the changes to the Entmoot were a smart call? I cannot wrap my head around the constant pleas expressed for 'more' in this thread and others. I am constantly told that X or Y was too much for the LotR trilogy; it would have complicated things or taken too long to explain. And yet there was time for PJ to add in things he wanted that tied up great chunks of time.

I can't remember what was changed about the Entmoot, so I can't say.
PJ added very little in the LotR, he just changed or cut things. Almost everything that PJ put into the film that wasn't in the book wasn't on top of something else, it was a replacement, very few of which took up more time than the original.

 Bromsy wrote:


In the book the Entmoot is basically "Saruman has been cutting down the forest that we have been protecting for millennia and are magically connected with. Weird, he used to be a good friend to us. What should we do? Oh, these Hobbits say he's evil now, let's go to war with him."

In the movie, for some reason the Ents have no idea that Saruman has been cutting down their forest. They decide not to go to war. The hobbits trick them into carrying them south, Treebeard walks south for like a day and then sees the cut down trees. He gets mad, yells, and every single Ent in the forest emerges from it in a single giant wave, despite Treebeard having spent a day walking south by himself. It added nothing to the movie. It took longer and made less sense than if they'd have gone with the book version. It made the Ents look weaker/stupider and the hobbits dishonest.

And all the time he spent on the warg fight and Haldir & co chatting it at the Hornburg up could have been used to quickly introduce Imrahil and Dol Amroth and the fact that Gondor in fact consisted of more than Minas Tirith, which as far as I remember isn't brought up at all in the movies.

 Asherian Command wrote:
Don't you dare say what I am thinking you are thinking about.

I was thinking about what I am going to drink later.

 Asherian Command wrote:
Martin and many fantasy writers credit tolkien for his lingusitics and world building. That is beyond even the Game of Thrones and many others works.

You are, at best, still stuck in one genre. No one has said the the book isn't important, but the most important book in the last 100 years? No.

 Mr Morden wrote:
Watched it and quite enjoyed it - yes three films was way too long, the Smaug bit could have been at the end of the last film rather than chasing the Dwarves round for half an hour, the battle seemed disjointed and badly put together sadly.

but it did have - Gladrial being awesome - loved her first appearance, walking barefoot into the heart of the enemy.
Fine with Legolas being that great - Elves in Tolkein are not D+D Elves they are in fact superhuman............
Tauriel was great - the "romance" was a major stretch - there was little chemistry between her and the dwarf but it was ok - my firend and I thought she was goign to end up with Legolas's dad actually given their final scene.

Dwarves on goats was bad....Dwarf on war pig - quite enjoyed. The worms crossing over from Dune was .....unexpected...............

Would have loved the final battle more if Azog had not somehow used his own superpowers to leap out of the ice - it was a cooly good way to kill him.........but guess it was not exctiting enough?

It's unfortunate that all the copycats of LOTR turned elves into tree-hugging hippies, when originally in the LOTR/Silmarillion works the Elves were absolute monsters in combat, especially during the First Age. It was the Elves after all that first fought Melkor at his fullest might and killed Ancalagon the Black, the greatest of dragons.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
I watched the movie this Christmas, and I thought it was grand.
Dain's 'speech' was epic.
I also liked Alfrid. He added some good laughs.

The things I really didn't were those ridiculous goats appearing out of nowhere (as if Rhosgobel Rabbits weren't bad enough already) and Legolas defying the laws of physics even more than in the previous movies. The previous times I didn't mind it so much, but that scene in which Legolas defies gravity by jumping up on falling rubble pushed it too far.
The Battle of the Five Armies also was severely lacking in Wargs.
Also, the deus ex machina ending with the Eagles was horribly anticlimactic, but that is more Tolkien's fault.

I also would have liked to see more of Saruman and Sauron. That was an interesting part they could have expanded upon.


Also, the Battle of the Five Armies was supposed to be small in comparison to battles like Helm's Deep or the Pellenor Fields. After all, in the book, the Elven army only has 1000 soldiers and the Dwarves 500. The Humans are not mentioned but with Lake Town (the only significant human settlement in the North) destroyed their army probably would not be so large either. The Orc/Goblin/Warg is also not given any numbers, but it does say that three-quarters of all Orcs in the North were destroyed that day.
Tolkien's Middle Earth was meant to be on a Dark Ages level, which means that Middle Earth's total population is really rather small, and battles are not all that large either. Saruman's 10.000 strong army in the Lord of the Rings was supposed to be really special because something of that size had never been seen before in the Third Age.

Legolas being incredibly hax in battle actually falls more in line with Tolkien. Elves are supposed to be incredibly powerful superhuman gods of warfare.

I see a lot of people on here are pissed about the movie in general. I feel sorry for all of you. It was fun. Yeah, minor issues, like what I mentioned on pg1 about Sarumon. PJ made an adaptation in the same way that comic book movie directors made changes when they adapted them to the big screen. Who wants to see a 100%, fully identical movie that matches the book you've read 50 times? That's...well, boring. Personally, I PREFER PJ's depiction. I find Tolkien's writing to be dry, boring, and in the case of the Hobbit, insulting (as it assumes anyone reading it has kids involved somewhere). The movies liven the story up and make it an actual fantasy story.

Of course, I won't change your mind, and you won't change the minds of those of us who liked it. Neither opinion is wrong, but trying to force each other will be. So...yeah. Some of us loved it, some hated it. Just the way it is.

Earendil the Mariner killed Ancalagon the Black.

Earendil was human but was made into an honourary elf.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Watched it and quite enjoyed it - yes three films was way too long, the Smaug bit could have been at the end of the last film rather than chasing the Dwarves round for half an hour, the battle seemed disjointed and badly put together sadly.

but it did have - Gladrial being awesome - loved her first appearance, walking barefoot into the heart of the enemy.
Fine with Legolas being that great - Elves in Tolkein are not D+D Elves they are in fact superhuman............
Tauriel was great - the "romance" was a major stretch - there was little chemistry between her and the dwarf but it was ok - my firend and I thought she was goign to end up with Legolas's dad actually given their final scene.

Dwarves on goats was bad....Dwarf on war pig - quite enjoyed. The worms crossing over from Dune was .....unexpected...............

Would have loved the final battle more if Azog had not somehow used his own superpowers to leap out of the ice - it was a cooly good way to kill him.........but guess it was not exctiting enough?

It's unfortunate that all the copycats of LOTR turned elves into tree-hugging hippies, when originally in the LOTR/Silmarillion works the Elves were absolute monsters in combat, especially during the First Age. It was the Elves after all that first fought Melkor at his fullest might and killed Ancalagon the Black, the greatest of dragons.

Ancalagon was killed by Earendil who was half human, and due to the sheer impossibility of the act I have to assume it was due to the power of the silmaril. Now Fingolfin actually fighting Melkor hand to hand and crippling him up is far more bad ass. Fingolfin rules.

 Orlanth wrote:
Earendil the Mariner killed Ancalagon the Black.

Earendil was human but was made into an honourary elf.

Oops, I always forget how he was an honorary elf.

Either way, Elves during the First Age were utter hax supermen, as were the Numenoreans during the Second Age. While the power of the Elves has diminished by the Third Age, as power being lost with time and usage is a theme within Tolkien's works, they should still be incredible warrior gods equal to the likes of Achilles or Diomedes in Greek Mythology.

Although, that barrel scene in the second movie was just stupid.

 Ahtman wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:
Don't you dare say what I am thinking you are thinking about.

I was thinking about what I am going to drink later.

Burbane, Vodka, Scoth, White Whine? Or maybe a Genetonic or maybe A cup of milk.

Is probably perferable for a night cap. Starting the new year right is by getting drunk, slammered, burned, wasted, flabber ghasted, laid happy with drinks.

 Asherian Command wrote:
Martin and many fantasy writers credit tolkien for his lingusitics and world building. That is beyond even the Game of Thrones and many others works.

You are, at best, still stuck in one genre. No one has said the the book isn't important, but the most important book in the last 100 years? No.

In terms of the Fantasy Genre yes. But in terms of all books. Nah. I think the most important Book of all time was probably the book of ethics.

 Bromsy wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Watched it and quite enjoyed it - yes three films was way too long, the Smaug bit could have been at the end of the last film rather than chasing the Dwarves round for half an hour, the battle seemed disjointed and badly put together sadly.

but it did have - Gladrial being awesome - loved her first appearance, walking barefoot into the heart of the enemy.
Fine with Legolas being that great - Elves in Tolkein are not D+D Elves they are in fact superhuman............
Tauriel was great - the "romance" was a major stretch - there was little chemistry between her and the dwarf but it was ok - my firend and I thought she was goign to end up with Legolas's dad actually given their final scene.

Dwarves on goats was bad....Dwarf on war pig - quite enjoyed. The worms crossing over from Dune was .....unexpected...............

Would have loved the final battle more if Azog had not somehow used his own superpowers to leap out of the ice - it was a cooly good way to kill him.........but guess it was not exctiting enough?

It's unfortunate that all the copycats of LOTR turned elves into tree-hugging hippies, when originally in the LOTR/Silmarillion works the Elves were absolute monsters in combat, especially during the First Age. It was the Elves after all that first fought Melkor at his fullest might and killed Ancalagon the Black, the greatest of dragons.

Ancalagon was killed by Earendil who was half human, and due to the sheer impossibility of the act I have to assume it was due to the power of the silmaril. Now Fingolfin actually fighting Melkor hand to hand and crippling him up is far more bad ass. Fingolfin rules.

Don't forget how Fingolfin routed Melkor's entire army before engaging him in combat.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
I see a lot of people on here are pissed about the movie in general. I feel sorry for all of you. It was fun. Yeah, minor issues, like what I mentioned on pg1 about Sarumon. PJ made an adaptation in the same way that comic book movie directors made changes when they adapted them to the big screen. Who wants to see a 100%, fully identical movie that matches the book you've read 50 times? That's...well, boring. Personally, I PREFER PJ's depiction. I find Tolkien's writing to be dry, boring, and in the case of the Hobbit, insulting (as it assumes anyone reading it has kids involved somewhere). The movies liven the story up and make it an actual fantasy story.

Of course, I won't change your mind, and you won't change the minds of those of us who liked it. Neither opinion is wrong, but trying to force each other will be. So...yeah. Some of us loved it, some hated it. Just the way it is.

I perfer the cartoon and puppet version that played in Sydney australia back in 1999.

The Puppet Version of The Hobbit. Is without a question the most faithful, awesome rendition of the Hobbit I have ever seen. Plus I got to see it in the Sydney Opera House. Infact I think we have a video of it on a VHS.

Don't forget how Fingolfin routed Melkor's entire army before engaging him in combat.

Personally I perfer Glorfindel (Or who ever that elf guy that starts with a g) fought against a Balrog by himself and slew it...

As a side note Its one of the reasons why I actually perfer the movie to the book because in the book. Because Glorfindel has a very minor part in the Fellowship of the ring, and his part was then taken by Arwen, which I much more prefer than the book version where Glorfindel defeats all the nine by himself. (Or maybe it was gandalf, who knows.)

 Orlanth wrote:
Earendil the Mariner killed Ancalagon the Black.

Earendil was human but was made into an honourary elf.

Earendil was a half-elf. His father was Tuor, a man, but his mother was Princess Idril of Gondolin.

 Wyzilla wrote:

Don't forget how Fingolfin routed Melkor's entire army before engaging him in combat.

That whole scene is my favorite of the Silmarillion.

 Asherian Command wrote:
In terms of the Fantasy Genre yes.

I specifically said earlier that it was probably the most important fantasy book.

Also, for all the Silmarillion talk, here's the metal album adaption of the Silmarillion.

 Ahtman wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:
In terms of the Fantasy Genre yes.

I specifically said earlier that it was probably the most important fantasy book.

Ah yee did.

huh.

A great discussion point is that what is the most important book in the past a hundred years.

Anyway back on topic. The Silmarillion is one of my favorite books. God damn i love all the history in it. Its why I want George RR Martin to write all the history and mythology of his world down. I mean I am writing my own books history down FIRST then I will write down my book.

The Hobbit being another favorite.

 Asherian Command wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:
In terms of the Fantasy Genre yes.

I specifically said earlier that it was probably the most important fantasy book.

Ah yee did.

huh.

A great discussion point is that what is the most important book in the past a hundred years.

Anyway back on topic. The Silmarillion is one of my favorite books. God damn i love all the history in it. Its why I want George RR Martin to write all the history and mythology of his world down. I mean I am writing my own books history down FIRST then I will write down my book.

I love it because while admittedly dry, Tolkien managed to write a creation story that puts to shame all others written previously, Greek, Christian, possibly even the epics of Hinduism.

When your story involves a boat flying through the air carrying the brightest holy light on Middle-Earth and spearing through the breast of a dragon the size of British Isles or bigger, I think you've reached the level upon which nothing can ever be more awesome.

Ironically, a highly action orientated film like the Hobbit series would have actually far better suited the First Age of the Silmarillion then the Hobbit. It would have also probably made a lot more money as well.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:
In terms of the Fantasy Genre yes.

I specifically said earlier that it was probably the most important fantasy book.

Ah yee did.

huh.

A great discussion point is that what is the most important book in the past a hundred years.

Anyway back on topic. The Silmarillion is one of my favorite books. God damn i love all the history in it. Its why I want George RR Martin to write all the history and mythology of his world down. I mean I am writing my own books history down FIRST then I will write down my book.

I love it because while admittedly dry, Tolkien managed to write a creation story that puts to shame all others written previously, Greek, Christian, possibly even the epics of Hinduism.

When your story involves a boat flying through the air carrying the brightest holy light on Middle-Earth and spearing through the breast of a dragon the size of British Isles or bigger, I think you've reached the level upon which nothing can ever be more awesome.

Ironically, a highly action orientated film like the Hobbit series would have actually far better suited the First Age of the Silmarillion then the Hobbit. It would have also probably made a lot more money as well.

Please don't tempt my brother and I into making the films.

I've tried to with my writing too, but eh. Tolkien is on a whole other level than where I am on. I am on the bottom of the barrel in terms of writing and the best stuff is on the top of the barrel.

I think the parts where tolkien made some of the best mythology. But I don't think it is the greatest. I mean my favorites will always be The Celtic and Anglo Saxon Creation Myths. Or the norse Mythologies are all quite wonderful.

I am also a sucker for the King Arthur Tales which is why most oy my stories involve knights or something equalivent to a knight.

But when I protray a knight in my book I make them quite rude and often an a jerk. Because thats how most knights were.

I think Bahamut though is my favorite dragon. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahamut)

 Asherian Command wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:
In terms of the Fantasy Genre yes.

I specifically said earlier that it was probably the most important fantasy book.

Ah yee did.

huh.

A great discussion point is that what is the most important book in the past a hundred years.

Anyway back on topic. The Silmarillion is one of my favorite books. God damn i love all the history in it. Its why I want George RR Martin to write all the history and mythology of his world down. I mean I am writing my own books history down FIRST then I will write down my book.

I love it because while admittedly dry, Tolkien managed to write a creation story that puts to shame all others written previously, Greek, Christian, possibly even the epics of Hinduism.

When your story involves a boat flying through the air carrying the brightest holy light on Middle-Earth and spearing through the breast of a dragon the size of British Isles or bigger, I think you've reached the level upon which nothing can ever be more awesome.

Ironically, a highly action orientated film like the Hobbit series would have actually far better suited the First Age of the Silmarillion then the Hobbit. It would have also probably made a lot more money as well.

Please don't tempt my brother and I into making the films.

I've tried to with my writing too, but eh. Tolkien is on a whole other level than where I am on. I am on the bottom of the barrel in terms of writing and the best stuff is on the top of the barrel.

I think the parts where tolkien made some of the best mythology. But I don't think it is the greatest. I mean my favorites will always be The Celtic and Anglo Saxon Creation Myths. Or the norse Mythologies are all quite wonderful.

I am also a sucker for the King Arthur Tales which is why most oy my stories involve knights or something equalivent to a knight.

But when I protray a knight in my book I make them quite rude and often an a jerk. Because thats how most knights were.

I think Bahamut though is my favorite dragon. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahamut)

Well there is Götz von Berlichingen. While still a Merc, he's pretty much a hero for the disabled due to building a fully funcitonal prosthetic arm in the 15th century after losing his right arm to a cannon, yet continued to fight and lived to the long lived age of 80.

Well there is Götz von Berlichingen. While still a Merc, he's pretty much a hero for the disabled due to building a fully funcitonal prosthetic arm in the 15th century after losing his right arm to a cannon, yet continued to fight and lived to the long lived age of 80.

There is also the greatest knight in history Sir Godfrey the man who took Jersualem from the Arabs and became its king. And died of old age. If I remember correctly.

We are getting off topic though.

I think its interesting that the LOTR movies outright ignore the other Dundain.

 Asherian Command wrote:

Well there is Götz von Berlichingen. While still a Merc, he's pretty much a hero for the disabled due to building a fully funcitonal prosthetic arm in the 15th century after losing his right arm to a cannon, yet continued to fight and lived to the long lived age of 80.

There is also the greatest knight in history Sir Godfrey the man who took Jersualem from the Arabs and became its king. And died of old age. If I remember correctly.

We are getting off topic though.

I think its interesting that the LOTR movies outright ignore the other Dundain.

To be fair, during the events of LOTR, the Dunedain did drop off the face of the planet practically until Aragorn united them at the Fourth Age under his banner.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:

Well there is Götz von Berlichingen. While still a Merc, he's pretty much a hero for the disabled due to building a fully funcitonal prosthetic arm in the 15th century after losing his right arm to a cannon, yet continued to fight and lived to the long lived age of 80.

There is also the greatest knight in history Sir Godfrey the man who took Jersualem from the Arabs and became its king. And died of old age. If I remember correctly.

We are getting off topic though.

I think its interesting that the LOTR movies outright ignore the other Dundain.

To be fair, during the events of LOTR, the Dunedain did drop off the face of the planet practically until Aragorn united them at the Fourth Age under his banner.

Yeah but it was they who fought at the battle of pelenor fields along with Elrond's two sons, not the Ghost Army of (Forgot their names)

They had such a minor part I actually forgot their name in the books.

 Asherian Command wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:

Well there is Götz von Berlichingen. While still a Merc, he's pretty much a hero for the disabled due to building a fully funcitonal prosthetic arm in the 15th century after losing his right arm to a cannon, yet continued to fight and lived to the long lived age of 80.

There is also the greatest knight in history Sir Godfrey the man who took Jersualem from the Arabs and became its king. And died of old age. If I remember correctly.

We are getting off topic though.

I think its interesting that the LOTR movies outright ignore the other Dundain.

To be fair, during the events of LOTR, the Dunedain did drop off the face of the planet practically until Aragorn united them at the Fourth Age under his banner.

Yeah but it was they who fought at the battle of pelenor fields along with Elrond's two sons, not the Ghost Army of (Forgot their names)

They had such a minor part I actually forgot their name in the books.

You mean the Ghosts of the Dunharrow/Oathbreakers?

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:

Well there is Götz von Berlichingen. While still a Merc, he's pretty much a hero for the disabled due to building a fully funcitonal prosthetic arm in the 15th century after losing his right arm to a cannon, yet continued to fight and lived to the long lived age of 80.

There is also the greatest knight in history Sir Godfrey the man who took Jersualem from the Arabs and became its king. And died of old age. If I remember correctly.

We are getting off topic though.

I think its interesting that the LOTR movies outright ignore the other Dundain.

To be fair, during the events of LOTR, the Dunedain did drop off the face of the planet practically until Aragorn united them at the Fourth Age under his banner.

Yeah but it was they who fought at the battle of pelenor fields along with Elrond's two sons, not the Ghost Army of (Forgot their names)

They had such a minor part I actually forgot their name in the books.

You mean the Ghosts of the Dunharrow/Oathbreakers?

Yes that Army. Though I can see why they wanted to show a really bad ass army of ghosts vs giant elephants.Its still probably one of the best scenes in the whole film. Minus the bit with the mouth of sauron and the entire ending.

I feel like we should start a thread about this.

 Asherian Command wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:

Well there is Götz von Berlichingen. While still a Merc, he's pretty much a hero for the disabled due to building a fully funcitonal prosthetic arm in the 15th century after losing his right arm to a cannon, yet continued to fight and lived to the long lived age of 80.

There is also the greatest knight in history Sir Godfrey the man who took Jersualem from the Arabs and became its king. And died of old age. If I remember correctly.

We are getting off topic though.

I think its interesting that the LOTR movies outright ignore the other Dundain.

To be fair, during the events of LOTR, the Dunedain did drop off the face of the planet practically until Aragorn united them at the Fourth Age under his banner.

Yeah but it was they who fought at the battle of pelenor fields along with Elrond's two sons, not the Ghost Army of (Forgot their names)

They had such a minor part I actually forgot their name in the books.

The Mouth of Sauron scene had Tolkien spinning in his grave so fast that he could have powered New York City for a week.
You mean the Ghosts of the Dunharrow/Oathbreakers?

Yes that Army. Though I can see why they wanted to show a really bad ass army of ghosts vs giant elephants.Its still probably one of the best scenes in the whole film. Minus the bit with the mouth of sauron and the entire ending.

I feel like we should start a thread about this.

 Wyzilla wrote:


To be fair, during the events of LOTR, the Dunedain did drop off the face of the planet practically until Aragorn united them at the Fourth Age under his banner.

They fought at both Dol Amroth and Pelennor Field.

 Asherian Command wrote:


Yes that Army. Though I can see why they wanted to show a really bad ass army of ghosts vs giant elephants.Its still probably one of the best scenes in the whole film. Minus the bit with the mouth of sauron and the entire ending.

I feel like we should start a thread about this.

This is literally the worst scene in the entire series. It makes the entire effort of Rohan at the Pelennor completely irrelevant. It makes all of the time watching Rohan fight pointless. It makes Aragorn an inconstant leader at best - he is willing to murder under a parley flag but keeping the magic ghost army that can kill everything in a second for an extra week to make sure that the greatest evil in the world is defeated is dishonorable.


Frankly all of Pelennor Fields is a terrible scene that was written by someone who doesn't either doesn't know or doesn't care to show how actual battles work delivered unto people who don't care or care to know how actual battles work.

 Bromsy wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:


To be fair, during the events of LOTR, the Dunedain did drop off the face of the planet practically until Aragorn united them at the Fourth Age under his banner.

They fought at both Dol Amroth and Pelennor Field.

 Asherian Command wrote:


Yes that Army. Though I can see why they wanted to show a really bad ass army of ghosts vs giant elephants.Its still probably one of the best scenes in the whole film. Minus the bit with the mouth of sauron and the entire ending.

I feel like we should start a thread about this.

This is literally the worst scene in the entire series. It makes the entire effort of Rohan at the Pelennor completely irrelevant. It makes all of the time watching Rohan fight pointless. It makes Aragorn an inconstant leader at best - he is willing to murder under a parley flag but keeping the magic ghost army that can kill everything in a second for an extra week to make sure that the greatest evil in the world is defeated is dishonorable.


Frankly all of Pelennor Fields is a terrible scene that was written by someone who doesn't either doesn't know or doesn't care to show how actual battles work delivered unto people who don't care or care to know how actual battles work.

Eh I think that is just a nitpick in all honesty.

Considering I could nitpick the fact everyone is using swords instead of axes, maces, or spears. But hey I am not one that put that stuff in. In fact Most of the soldiers on horse back should have maces and axes and spears. And the Gondor Knights should have lances. But eh whatever.

 Bromsy wrote:
And all the time he spent on the warg fight and Haldir & co chatting it at the Hornburg up could have been used to quickly introduce Imrahil and Dol Amroth and the fact that Gondor in fact consisted of more than Minas Tirith, which as far as I remember isn't brought up at all in the movies.

Yes. 'Cause the movies needed more characters and nations to confuse general movie-going audiences.

The dunedain aren't exactly that hard to establish, in fact they already did, with one sentence from a bartender, 'he's one of them rangers...'

They're even (and to bring it back on topic) expanded on in the hobbit with Thandruil bit at the end now.

So, have a few sentences of character introduction in FOTR of Halbarad.

Get rid of random Elrond showing up with anduril. Halbarad and mates show up with Gandalf and Eomer.

There was already talk in ROTK about Denethor not sending for Gondor's armies. Namedrop a few of them. Eg Swan Prince.

Army of the dead come out of hill. Establishing shot of a large Gondor army (we already know what Gondor armour looks like by now), surrounded by pirates, have a large banner showing the swans. AOTD swarm, then cut away.

Back to hobbits etc for a while as normal. Return to aftermath of battle. Aragorn releases AOTD as before. Tweak some dialogue a bit.

Add in some lines about "Denethor waited too long, gondor is in flame, how can we ever reach minas tirith before its too late"

Have intact ships in background of that line.

----------

It seems to me that it could be done with adding a few seconds to the films over all, with most of the scenes just outright replacing others.

 Ahtman wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:
IAhem

Yes it is.

No, it really isn't. If they had said one of the most important fantasy works then I would probably agree but it was said that it was "the most important, well known and detailed fictional work of the past hundred years". When looking at the whole of literate in the last one hundred years it isn't even in the top five.

Out of interest, which books would be in the top 5 then? Seeing as both the Hobbit and the LotR trilogy have sold over 100 million copies each (counting LotR as one book split into three volumes).

Wyzilla wrote:I love it because while admittedly dry, Tolkien managed to write a creation story that puts to shame all others written previously, Greek, Christian, possibly even the epics of Hinduism.

When your story involves a boat flying through the air carrying the brightest holy light on Middle-Earth and spearing through the breast of a dragon the size of British Isles or bigger, I think you've reached the level upon which nothing can ever be more awesome.

Ironically, a highly action orientated film like the Hobbit series would have actually far better suited the First Age of the Silmarillion then the Hobbit. It would have also probably made a lot more money as well.

I think the Silmarillion (admittedly I've not even read all of it, man that book is tough to get through) would be better made as a sort of miniseries, like Band of Brothers, Sharpe or Sherlock. Much less worry over how to connect the various stories and battles.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Bromsy wrote:
And all the time he spent on the warg fight and Haldir & co chatting it at the Hornburg up could have been used to quickly introduce Imrahil and Dol Amroth and the fact that Gondor in fact consisted of more than Minas Tirith, which as far as I remember isn't brought up at all in the movies.

Yes. 'Cause the movies needed more characters and nations to confuse general movie-going audiences.

Exactly the reason that though I was (and still am) annoyed about that, I can understand why it was simply more practical to have the Army of Dunharrow rock up to the Pelennor instead. Couldn't really stretch out a 4 hour long movie (extended edition) any more.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:

Anyway, like the first film, the movie is in serious need of some fan-editing. I already did my own cut of An Unexpected Journey and there's enough issues here that I know I will do one here as well (and then probably do a one or two movie cut of the trilogy as well for fun).

Want to try your hand at a 2 hour cut of the whole series so it can be one movie, LIKE IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN?

2 frakkin' hours? I'm actually a proponent of the "2 movies, 3 hours each" idea to really do the book justice. A single 2 hour movie would have to cut all lot of material from the book and suffer from much weaker characterization of everyone but Bilbo.

 shrike wrote:
It's overly harsh to portray Jackson as some arrogant slimeball who thought he knew better than Tolkien. He had a lot more pressure on him this time around, from an older age, attempting to mix together several source materials into one cohesive story, with more control from meddling producers, trying to simultaneously appeal to the target audience of the book (kids), the hardcore fans of the original trilogy and books, and casual watchers (adults).
He tried to add in all sorts of imaginative ideas to try and appeal to the much more visually-stimulated audiences of film, and that unfortunately just didn't work. PJ didn't write the universe or lore, but the imagery was pretty vague, whether from Tolkien's own hand or of the countless pieces of art from the likes of Dan Hennah and Alan Lee. He wasn't "riding on Tolkien's masterwork" with the Lord of the Rings, he directed an incredibly difficult and ambitious film adaptation of a Goliath of a book which many had deemed to be far to great an undertaking to even consider - and he did it well.

As for "his films worked best when they sticked to the story", it really wasn't the case for the Lord of the Rings. For instance, excluding Tom Bombadil was a very good decision and Boromir's rewritten death was easily one of my favourite scenes in the entire trilogy. The ending of the Return of the King, much-criticised for its length, was even longer in the book.

Amen. I was thinking about this the other day, and (in the extended editions anyway) the Boromir/Faramir/Denethor dynamic was actually an improvement on the book. And excising the Scouring of the Shire and Tom Bombadil, while often complained about by book readers, was much needed.

Finally saw it. Jackson has truly jumped the Lucas shark. The movie was just terrible. I won't see another Jackson film unless that reviews are like the second coming of Cecil B.

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:

2 frakkin' hours? I'm actually a proponent of the "2 movies, 3 hours each" idea to really do the book justice. A single 2 hour movie would have to cut all lot of material from the book and suffer from much weaker characterization of everyone but Bilbo.

Have you read the hobbit recently? The book is very short, simple, and straight forward. It is Bilbo's story, about how he transforms into a hobbit unsure of himself and wishing he was back home to the unofficial leader of the company. It is not, I repeat NOT, a story about how Biblo is a part of much larger story. No one other than him really gets any real characterization or background. The only real memorable thing about Fili and Kili for example. Bard is just some guy who is introduced in the same paragraph that he kills the dragon.

A 2 hour movie that focused almost entirely on Biblo and how he evolves would have given the book justice.

 Blood Hawk wrote:

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:

2 frakkin' hours? I'm actually a proponent of the "2 movies, 3 hours each" idea to really do the book justice. A single 2 hour movie would have to cut all lot of material from the book and suffer from much weaker characterization of everyone but Bilbo.

Have you read the hobbit recently? The book is very short, simple, and straight forward. It is Bilbo's story, about how he transforms into a hobbit unsure of himself and wishing he was back home to the unofficial leader of the company. It is not, I repeat NOT, a story about how Biblo is a part of much larger story. No one other than him really gets any real characterization or background. The only real memorable thing about Fili and Kili for example

Spoiler:

is that they die

. Bard is just some guy who is introduced in the same paragraph that he kills the dragon.

A 2 hour movie that focused almost entirely on Biblo and how he evolves would have given the book justice.

And at the same time, been a collossal waste of the chance to do more with the setting and follow the majesty of LotR. Bilbo's journey is perfectly well represented (and excellently performed by Freeman), but we also have the backstory for LotR established, a ton of depth added to the faceless and flat characters in the book (in the novel, Thranduil is more a plot point than character, Thorin is just there to lead the quest and the Necromancer is simply an excuse for Gandalf to vanish so the Dwarves can get into trouble in Mirkwood), and a story that is far more varied and compelling than the frankly rather one-dimensional novel.

And as I have said time and time again, almost every major 'change' to the plot is taken from or at least based on Tolkien's writing (the only exceptions being Tauriel and Azog surviving Moria). There is a wealth of information and story behind The Hobbit that has been drawn on here, and you can bet that, had Hobbit been written after LotR, would have been included.

 shrike wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Bromsy wrote:
And all the time he spent on the warg fight and Haldir & co chatting it at the Hornburg up could have been used to quickly introduce Imrahil and Dol Amroth and the fact that Gondor in fact consisted of more than Minas Tirith, which as far as I remember isn't brought up at all in the movies.

Yes. 'Cause the movies needed more characters and nations to confuse general movie-going audiences.

Exactly the reason that though I was (and still am) annoyed about that, I can understand why it was simply more practical to have the Army of Dunharrow rock up to the Pelennor instead. Couldn't really stretch out a 4 hour long movie (extended edition) any more.

Don't get me wrong, I think the Wave'o'Ghosts super-weapon was a supreme let down, basically making everything the people of Gondor and Rohan did over the previous couple of days completely pointless, but I'll take that over introducing the Army of the Dead just so they can use them to introduce more forces no one's heard of (Dol Amroth, the Rangers, etc.).

Except people had already heard of them, there already was a subplot of 'where are Gondor's armies?' And Aragorn had already been referred to as leader of the rangers.

So that really doesn't hold water with me.

 Paradigm wrote:

 Blood Hawk wrote:

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:

2 frakkin' hours? I'm actually a proponent of the "2 movies, 3 hours each" idea to really do the book justice. A single 2 hour movie would have to cut all lot of material from the book and suffer from much weaker characterization of everyone but Bilbo.

Have you read the hobbit recently? The book is very short, simple, and straight forward. It is Bilbo's story, about how he transforms into a hobbit unsure of himself and wishing he was back home to the unofficial leader of the company. It is not, I repeat NOT, a story about how Biblo is a part of much larger story. No one other than him really gets any real characterization or background. The only real memorable thing about Fili and Kili for example

Spoiler:

is that they die

. Bard is just some guy who is introduced in the same paragraph that he kills the dragon.

A 2 hour movie that focused almost entirely on Biblo and how he evolves would have given the book justice.

And at the same time, been a collossal waste of the chance to do more with the setting and follow the majesty of LotR. Bilbo's journey is perfectly well represented (and excellently performed by Freeman), but we also have the backstory for LotR established, a ton of depth added to the faceless and flat characters in the book (in the novel, Thranduil is more a plot point than character, Thorin is just there to lead the quest and the Necromancer is simply an excuse for Gandalf to vanish so the Dwarves can get into trouble in Mirkwood), and a story that is far more varied and compelling than the frankly rather one-dimensional novel.

And as I have said time and time again, almost every major 'change' to the plot is taken from or at least based on Tolkien's writing (the only exceptions being Tauriel and Azog surviving Moria). There is a wealth of information and story behind The Hobbit that has been drawn on here, and you can bet that, had Hobbit been written after LotR, would have been included.

This. The Hobbit films are far from flawless, but their main issues seem to be excessive bloat, insufficient characterization and tonal inconsistency with LOTR. A 2 hour version deals with the bloat well enough (and perhaps excessively even - you wouldn't have a lot of time for world building, riddles, etc), but the characterization will still be insufficient... perhaps even moreso (aside from Bilbo of course) and the tone will still be different. People would still be complaining, because adapting a book without making structural changes is difficult.

This may not be the best example, but think of the Clash of the Titans remake. The focus is entirely on... Pericles... or whoever the hell the lead is in that crappy film. Anyway, he gets all the focus, and while we get introduced to a bunch of secondary characters when they go out on their quest, none of them get anything beyond an introduction. Like, they don't even get any real moments to shine and are basically just background noise the whole time. I remember thinking "who the hell are these and why should I even care about them?"

Basically, in a book you can get away with undeveloped background characters because they're not going to be focused on all that much, whereas in a movie they're going to be on-screen and in the action all the time (plus they have to get cast, paid, made-up, etc). As a result, a 2 hour film is probably just too little if you're looking to make the most of the material... IMHO anyway.

Compel wrote:Except people had already heard of them, there already was a subplot of 'where are Gondor's armies?' And Aragorn had already been referred to as leader of the rangers.

So that really doesn't hold water with me.

The Rangers are mentioned as existing - that doesn't mean that they don't need to be introduced. They're almost halfway across middle earth from Minas Tirith (over 1000 miles), so they'd have to have one hell of a lot of advance warning (which, though I haven't seen RotK for a while, they only had when the Mordor armies began marching from Minas Morgul, about 50 miles away). Who is Halbarad, Elladan, and Elrohir? How did they get to the Pelennor Fields? How did they gather all the Rangers, what with them being constantly on the run, spread out, few in number and possibly the most elusive folk in middle-earth?

Dol Amroth is another 400 miles away, how did they get there so fast? Who are they? Who is Imrahil? Is there a beacon system in place over there too?

So many new characters, new locations, and new factions to be introduced into an already very long film, it'd be too much. I much prefer the idea of several good armies of middle earth uniting (Rivendell, Minas Tirith, Dol Amroth, Rohan, the Men of Dunharrow, all those coastal settlements, and even the remnants of the lost kingdom of Arnor), but the time it would take to bring them all together would be too long to fit in, as well as the fact that the battle would become a visual clusterfeth with too many characters and factions to focus on.

 Paradigm wrote:

And at the same time, been a collossal waste of the chance to do more with the setting and follow the majesty of LotR. Bilbo's journey is perfectly well represented (and excellently performed by Freeman), but we also have the backstory for LotR established, a ton of depth added to the faceless and flat characters in the book (in the novel, Thranduil is more a plot point than character, Thorin is just there to lead the quest and the Necromancer is simply an excuse for Gandalf to vanish so the Dwarves can get into trouble in Mirkwood), and a story that is far more varied and compelling than the frankly rather one-dimensional novel.

And as I have said time and time again, almost every major 'change' to the plot is taken from or at least based on Tolkien's writing (the only exceptions being Tauriel and Azog surviving Moria). There is a wealth of information and story behind The Hobbit that has been drawn on here, and you can bet that, had Hobbit been written after LotR, would have been included.

Yea we have to agree to disagree. I didn't want background info on the setting, I wanted to see probably my favorite book that I read when I was a kid made into a cool movie that gave the book justice and honestly this series overall didn't do it for me.

My favorite parts of the trilogy was a dinner party at the very beginning, the riddles in the dark and scenes with Biblo and Smaug. All the added stuff was a best something I tolerated.

When you take a simple straight forward story and try to put all this extra stuff in it, it just doesn't work. I would have rather just had more scenes with Freeman, which I also agree did a good job, and less about the white council and the love triangle.

Edit: Also if you just add things in an attempt to fill out the settings for people then what you get is the scene with Legolous and tameril at Angmar. I know Angmar is important to the setting but what real purpose did it serve for the movie?

I'm not a "book purist", though I am a big fan of the books. Some of the changes made to the LOTR movies were good changes- like leaving out Bombadil, and condensing several Rohan leaders into Eomer. These changes helped with the translation from book to film.

Other changes were fairly neutral, like cutting the wolf battle at the mountain and adding a wolf rider battle into the Two Towers.

Still other changes were negative. The changes to the Entmoot, the Elves at Helm's Deep and the changes to the character of Faramir are negatives in my view, as is Aragorns murder of the Mouth of Sauron under parley, and the ghost army at Pelanor. A big annoyance for me was cutting Shelob out of the Two Towers, when the cliffhanger ending from the books is so awesome. Overall though, the adaptions are really good, and I rewatch them regularly. I am a big fan of the movies. I especially liked Fellowship, which has some pretty huge changes but I feel stays true to the spirit of the book and the characters and is better for it.

The Hobbit films also had a lot of changes. Some of these were good changes too- I was initially against the addition of Azog as an antagonist throughout the series, but with a bit of distance I can see it is actually a good choice. Likewise, making Bard a bit more of a character is a good choice in principle, even if I didn't like the execution much.

But lots of the changes make a worse film by far in my opinion. I've gone into them enough at this point.

If you are sick of "book purists", I'm sick of valid criticism being shouted down by people yelling "ADAPTION!" . I'm aware that it's an adaption, but that doesn't automatically mean it's a GOOD adaption.