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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.