The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014)

Feien_sl said:

I think a lot of it has to do with lack of tension and "dramatic" moments in The Hobbit. Compared to LoTR, The Hobbit has barley any of them until close to the very end. For example, we know from the very beginning that Frodo, Gandalf, and in this case Legolas are going to be ok, so their action sequences become more of a "HOW are they getting out of this?" rather than the suspense of "ARE they getting out of this?"

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That's not it. In the case of LotR we enjoyed the movies having read the books and knowing exactly what happens. They've made plenty of good Bond films, and it's not like you ever wondered if James Bond would live.

The Ancient_sl said:

That's not it. In the case of LotR we enjoyed the movies having read the books and knowing exactly what happens. They've made plenty of good Bond films, and it's not like you ever wondered if James Bond would live.

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I'll give you that, but I definitely didn't want that to be my main point. The Hobbit movies so far barely have any dramatic hook when compared to LoTR. And I think that can be pointed to a lot of different factors. For example:

-In LoTR we have a great friendship developed between Frodo and Sam. Which is why in each movie most people are moved by that final beat between them in each movie. In FoTR we have Sam running after Frodo when he's on the boat. In TT we have Sam reminding Frodo why it is good to keep on fighting. In RoTK we have him carrying him to the end. Those three beats are already better than anything we have seen in The Hobbit so far.

- Like it has been argued before, the stakes are much higher in LoTR than in The Hobbit so far, at least in this last movie we are going to see the stake of the Hobbit be considerably higher than in the previous two movies with the battle of the 5 armies and what's happening at Dol-Guldur and some characters being presented with the death of those whom they love.

- In The Hobbit, I don't think we end up rooting for the characters as much as we do in LoTR. Thorin comes off as mean and even selfish which makes it hard for us to support this quest, almost as if we had to root for Boromir in LoTR. And I know that is how it is in the book too, but at least in this point of the book I think we are at least rooting for Bilbo, which brings me to my next point. Taking a lot of screen time from Bilbo to tell other stories takes our attention from him. So in this type of scenario I think that's where stretching the movies, though it might be cool at times, it's also hurting our focus on Bilbo. We don't get see him developing as much as we did Aragorn, or Frodo. We do see it, but it's just spread out a bit too much among other stuff.

- Also something we can't avoid is that the awe and wonder of Middle Earth have worn off a bit. In The Hobbit there just isn't that many new things to see. When we watched LoTR everything was new and we were introduced to an incredible world. Coming back to it, though still wonderful, it doesn't quite have that new smell anymore. We'll end up being more critical even about the new things we are shown, such as Smaug, which though I think has been the most badass creature of Jackson's movies, it's overshadowed by all these other little imperfections.

- Sadly The Hobbit with it's rabbit chasing, barrel thumping, half-baked romantic stories, makes it feel more cartoonish and less epic than LoTR

Now all that to say, I do like The Hobbit movies, and have big hopes for this last one. I think Jackson did what he thought was right in his book, which was to show us as much of the story as he could. Bring us to this adventure like many had never experienced it before, through his imagination. I don't know if in the end it would have truly been better to just make one or two movies, we'll get to see some fan cuts at some point, so I guess it's nice we have a lot of footage to play with instead of being limited to make those edits.

Feien_sl said:

- Sadly The Hobbit with it's rabbit chasing, barrel thumping, half-baked romantic stories, makes it feel more cartoonish and less epic than LoTR

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That's actually a very strong argument for claiming that Jackson is sticking to the spirit of the source material.

Gavinrad_sl said:

That's actually a very strong argument for claiming that Jackson is sticking to the spirit of the source material.

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I actually agree with that, so I probably shouldn't have used the word "sadly"

The Hobbit book and The LoTR books are much different in tone too, The Hobbit being more of a bedtime story, and LoTR being more of an epic, with The Silmarillion going even further. But we rarely compare them as we do the movies. I think part of that has to do with Jackson giving us this hybrid of a fun adventure with a more kid-friendly feel, but wanting to tack on the epic qualities of LotR while also trying to keep most of the elements of the book intact (except Beorn who kinda got the shaft so far), and it ends up being this odd mix that though it works to a certain extent, it definitely doesn't work as much as we would hope.

It's not the source material. Yes, it's more light-hearted, but fans knew this. In this trilogy (which shouldn't have ever been a trilogy at all), you can just tell they didn't care as much. The whole circus scene with Smaug was just beyond retarded.

Sauron


Faenor


Tom Bombadil


Melkor


Thurin


Fingolfin

I'm excited to see it, minus the

oh is it that time of year already?

it feels like as a nerd i am obliged to go see this movie even though its been nothing but forgettable CGI now both times

there wasn't even a dragon in that trailer, did sherlock holmes fly off the movie set or something?

shoulda been a single movie, I guess maybe before I die the remake of LOTR and Hobbit in 20 years will fix that.

Smaug who?

Holy crap it took over 8 hours for you guys to start bashing this movie... Everyone OK?

spronk_sl said:

oh is it that time of year already?

it feels like as a nerd i am obliged to go see this movie even though its been nothing but forgettable CGI now both times

there wasn't even a dragon in that trailer, did sherlock holmes fly off the movie set or something?

shoulda been a single movie, I guess maybe before I die the remake of LOTR and Hobbit in 20 years will fix that.

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This. Except this time, I won't be suckered into seeing it in the theaters. I'll wait till it comes out on HBO three months later.

That most recent trailer has me super excited to see this. It looks fantastic.

I've skipped the first two until I could see all 3. Think it'll be worth it to rent them on blu-ray and see the third one in the theater?

might as well wait and watch all 3 at home, it'll be on an extended edition bluray release in early 2015

the desolation of smaug bluray had 25 minutes added to it I guess so I'd expect something similar with #3

if you eat a lot at red robin you can buy a $25gc and get a free ticket to the hobbit
Gift Cards | RedRobin.com

if you eat enough maybe you'll look like a hobbit

if you eat enough maybe you'll look like a hobbit

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Yeah Denny's Hobbit Slam should be back soon. Love the lemon cake french toast!

I think it will be an entertaining enough film, but don't go expecting to see The Hobbit.

lurkingdirk_sl said:

I think it will be an entertaining enough film, but don't go expecting to see The Hobbit.

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true, it looks very much more LOTR tone and that's expected... I mean, wasn't the actual battle 2-3 pages of Bilbo being knocked out?