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Old 12-30-2014, 12:28 PM   #1
Earniel
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The Battle of the Five Armies - thoughts?

I take it someone must have seen it by now, right?

(Don't look at me, I only just found time last week to see The Desolation of Smaug for the first time.)
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Old 12-31-2014, 02:58 AM   #2
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It was ok - better than I thought it would be (I thought it would be pretty bad). Lots of fighting, but some good moments, too. Some dialogue straight out of the book, too - yay! It's worth seeing to finish off the book, IMO.

I wish they would have shown Thorin being buried with the Arkenstone, though
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Old 12-31-2014, 11:33 AM   #3
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I saw it just over a week ago. Hesitated to post so as not to spoil.

Rian - I agree with what you say. I hadn't even thought of what you put in spoiler text, but that's quite true!

I found them to be quite directionally challenged with references to north, south, east and west. I mean - JRRT supplies plenty of maps. It's easy to see where things are. And a few other totally un-necessary (but minor) deviations - like the amount of time Bilbo was away. Don't see why it was so important to change it...

In some ways all the battle stuff... well, they DID have a deal to make three movies out of the one book. And since the book doesn't tell us exactly how each of those who die meet their ends - those liberties taken there could all be fair game. Never did appreciate Legolas' crazy battle stunts though.

There - maybe said too much already.
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Old 01-01-2015, 01:40 AM   #4
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I don't mind them making up ways that people died if it wasn't mentioned specifically in the book, and seems to be consistent with JRRT.

I didn't notice the directionally challenged issue, because ... well, I'M directionally challenged!
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Old 01-05-2015, 10:54 AM   #5
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I thought it was ALMOST so bad as to be good. I honestly believe that certain parts were conceived during a drunken brainstorming session, and somehow were never cut afterwards. The most enjoyment I got from it were the OMG and WTF moments, which were plentiful.
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Old 01-08-2015, 10:57 AM   #6
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Heh, there were quite a lot of those. I enjoyed them too. Hence I would give it a 4.5 out of 5.

On reflection, the Death of Smaug should have been the end of the second film. It was a bit of a flop (ha!), even with all the mad effects.

I also missed the thrush

But other than that, it was great fun. Even Radagast and his bunnies.
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Old 01-09-2015, 07:13 PM   #7
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My personal view of it was that plotwise, there aren't many ways they can screw up a mostly-action-oriented movie (after all, action is what they LOVE... and running). I wasn't too disappointed with the general plot of the movie. There were times I laughed out loud (in the theater) at the dialogue. I think they hired a soap opera writer, maybe?


"And you know what that means."
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I LOVE LOVE LOVE Martin Freeman. He is funny without being overly comedic (unlike Pippin in FOTR or Gimli in TTT movies, whose lines were clearly there for relief purposes). I love Lee Pace also.

Cracks me up that they had that guy that looks like Orlando Bloom, only much manlier, be Bard the Bowman.

All in all, I thought there weren't many problems with it. But when Dain showed up and started shouting, all I heard was "Mordu, Mordu, Mordu, Mor-du!" (with the tune, of course)

Oh, and thanks to the HISHE, when Radagast showed up, I really wanted Gandalf to point at him and shout, "YOU... have bird poop!"
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Old 01-11-2015, 03:54 PM   #8
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I really enjoyed it overall. The written-for-movie dialogue wasn't great, but it wasn't half as bad as I expected, and the storytelling was successful insofar as it made me feel sad when Thorin died, and since it was his character arc carrying the plot this movie that was important.

Could have done without the swirly pool o' gold sickness, and the Alfrid scenes.

Dol Guldur was... kinda cool? Except they really didn't tie it to the rest of the story at all, and Galadriel, where are your shoes?! No knowing what sort of poisoned blades might be scattered on that floor. Would also have like it if they'd made her post glow-battle swooning a little less visually ridiculous. Jackson also needed to double-check his timelines. Thranduil apparently has really accurate foresight now.

Also, Thranduil charging on a reindeer. Its worth it for that.
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Old 01-12-2015, 05:20 PM   #9
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Could have done without the swirly pool o' gold sickness, and the Alfrid scenes.

...and Galadriel, where are your shoes?! No knowing what sort of poisoned blades might be scattered on that floor. Would also have like it if they'd made her post glow-battle swooning a little less visually ridiculous.

Also, Thranduil charging on a reindeer. Its worth it for that.
I second all of these!

P.S. I really really hate it when they try to hearken back to previous LOTR movies by using THE EXACT SAME SHOT. This includes scary green-woman Galadriel AND that shot where the ring lands directly on both Bilbo's and Frodo's fingers...)

P.P.S If I were Cate Blanchett, I would kick those guys' butts. "You included a shot that made me look like THAT?" I'm impressed that Jackson is able to take such a beautiful woman and make her look pasty and double-chinned and haggard.
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Old 01-14-2015, 04:05 AM   #10
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Also, Thranduil charging on a reindeer. Its worth it for that.
I loved loved LOVED the special choreographed move to avoid the antlers that Thranduil's army had for when Thranduil had to pass thru the ranks from back to front
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Old 01-31-2015, 12:09 AM   #11
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Rian - the thing you put in spoiler text - I'm hoping that goes into the Extended Edition.
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Old 02-03-2015, 02:48 AM   #12
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A 9-year-old was suspended from school for telling a classmate he could make him disappear with a toy replica of Bilbo's ring. His family had recently been to see The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies. His family had recently been to see The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies.

That movie must be dangerous!
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Old 02-04-2015, 04:46 PM   #13
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Jackson also needed to double-check his timelines. Thranduil apparently has really accurate foresight now.
I thought about that as well, while reading about it in spoilers, before having seen the movie (I saw it on Monday this week). But then I remembered that Jackson is using his own timeline anyway. He has chopped off the 17 years that pass (according to the book) between Bilbo's Birtday Party and Frodo's leaving the Shire, so Aragorn is 87 when Bilbo is 111, not 17 years later.

This makes Strider 17 years older at the events of the Hobbit movie than he is in the book, and then not so much foresight is needed.

I quite liked the movie, btw - but the fighting scenes could have been shorter, for my taste. I think it was a good idea to involve Bilbo in some of the battle scenes, though, and not have him passed out during so much of the battle as the book says.

In the book it lets you skip those scenes - but when in the movie they are not skipped , Bilbo may as well be around for some of them. And I liked the scene of the parting between Bilbo and Thorin - beautifully sad ...
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Old 02-08-2015, 12:56 AM   #14
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Yeah, I hadn't read about the adjusted timeline before seeing the film... now that I have it's a lot less jarring in hindsight.

The movie had all sorts of pacing issues, but the battle scenes were some of the most enjoyable parts for me - fight choreography makes me happy, as does visually parsing the strategies that have to be there for the battle to happen, but that Tolkien got away with glossing over.
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Old 05-07-2015, 07:51 AM   #15
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Also, Thranduil charging on a reindeer. Its worth it for that.
...it's an elk I just had to. You know, Finland and reindeer...
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Old 02-11-2016, 06:12 PM   #16
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I was very "eh". The whole CGI thing.. I don't know, it was just ugly. A
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Old 08-05-2018, 05:57 AM   #17
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I finally managed to see the Five Armies while on holiday. I had extremely low expectation since neither of the previous Hobbit movies left much of an impression (apart from annoyance) with me. In that view, the movie didn't disappoint but still left me feeling 'meh' about it. Frankly, I didn't feel like I gained much by viewing it. If this hadn't the name 'the Hobbit', this might be a totally forgettable movie with too much needless dragging out and too much unbelievable CGI. I've actually seen better B-movies that I would more likely be re-watching that any of the Hobbit movies.

Settings and costumes were awesome as always, (I loved Dale!) but just not enough to carry such long movies if everything else is weak. Fight choreography, which I usually enjoy a lot, lost much of its appeal with its pointless flaunting of basic physics! One elf and orc being flung about by one another sends giant stone-work crumbling? Come. on. The entire Hobbit trilogy is plagued by thinking one can ignore physics to have more visually-appealing imaginery. It doesn't work for me. I think it is lazy and shows poor imagination.

The actors did worthy jobs, don't get me wrong, but there were too many of them needing to do too many scenes that added little to the story and which mostly strayed far from the source material in tone. Except for Bilbo, for the titular character, he was barely enough in his own movie.

The only scenes that cracked a smile were those with Alfrid in, and really if the one thing that makes you smile is something that isn't even in the books, you're doing your book adaptation wrong.
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