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

I'm in the minority that believes that the three-movie decision was not a simple cash-grab by the filmmakers. I think they are certainly as passionate and as hard-working as they were with LoTR. Watch the endless behind-the-scenes material that was put together for these films and it'll be made clear that any issues with them are not the result of Jackson missing the desire, drive or energy needed to make a good movie. He and the writers really think they are making the best films that they can, which brings me to what I think is at the heart of the issue: Lucas Syndrome.

Part of why the original Star Wars was so good was because George Lucas was forced to limit himself. There was a documentary included with one of the billion DVD releases of Star Wars years ago that really delved deep into the constant troubles with the production of the original movie - which, for a long time, was clearly heading for complete disaster. These issues forced the production staff and film crew to eek out every ounce of creativity possible, a lot of which meant telling Lucas to go fuck himself. Once a couple of decades passed by and Lucas had more money than God, he had free-reign to shit out every silly thought rolling around in his head (and beard-goiter) and throw them up onto the screen, and we got the prequels as the result.

Now that Jackson and Co. are kings of Fantasy Film Mountain, they're in the same boat, and so we get hours of Orc chasing, wizards covered in bird-shit, Elf romances, etc. I definitely think there will be a solid 1-1/2 - 2 films within the trilogy once it's all done. It's just a shame that all of the power is in the hands of the writers and director now, with no one left with the pull necessary to tell them to go fuck themselves, especially in the editing room. It's the opposite issue they had with the original trilogy, where convincing the studio to even allow three films for the much larger story of LoTR was an epic battle unto itself. Why is it so hard to find some middle ground these days?

Zignor 3_sl said:

I'm in the minority that believes that the three-movie decision was not a simple cash-grab by the filmmakers. I think they are certainly as passionate and as hard-working as they were with LoTR. Watch the endless behind-the-scenes material that was put together for these films and it'll be made clear that any issues with them are not the result of Jackson missing the desire, drive or energy needed to make a good movie. He and the writers really think they are making the best films that they can, which brings me to what I think is at the heart of the issue: Lucas Syndrome.

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No, I agree completely. I don't think it was a simple cash grab, I think Jackson honestly believed he could make The Hobbit better by making his vision of it.

True that, if the original trilogy was done today, it would be at least 6 movies.

Not sure what everyone is complaining about, saw the trailer for the new hobbit movie in imax before gotg and this latest movie looks a-mazing. Its cases like this where I'm glad I didn't read the book so I can just enjoy a movie with a bunch of high fantasy in it and not be pissed they changed or added x/y/z.

mures_sl said:

True that, if the original trilogy was done today, it would be at least 6 movies.

Not sure what everyone is complaining about, saw the trailer for the new hobbit movie in imax before gotg and this latest movie looks a-mazing. Its cases like this where I'm glad I didn't read the book so I can just enjoy a movie with a bunch of high fantasy in it and not be pissed they changed or added x/y/z.

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If you're inclined to like The Hobbit movies, then I would doubt that having read the book ahead of time would put a dent in your enjoyment of them. It's not changes "defiling" the story that are the problem for a lot of those finding fault with them. It's changes producing in the end what are, sadly, movies that are just bad on their own merits.

I completely forgot about that stupid chase scene as the fled the goblin cave. Thanks for bringing up bad memories.

mures_sl said:

I'm glad I didn't read the book so I can just enjoy a movie with a bunch of high fantasy in it and not be pissed they changed or added x/y/z.

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This may be the issue... The books are high fantasy. The movies are not.

You should read the book.

j00t_sl said:

This may be the issue... The books are high fantasy. The movies are not.

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Except the Hobbit isn't high fantasy, it's fairly low fantasy. There is a ring that turns you invisible, trolls with proper English names, a hobbit sized sword that glows blue around orcs, and a dragon. Oh and Gandalf casts like two spells.

Royal_sl said:

If you're inclined to like The Hobbit movies, then I would doubt that having read the book ahead of time would put a dent in your enjoyment of them. It's not changes "defiling" the story that are the problem for a lot of those finding fault with them. It's changes producing in the end what are, sadly, movies that are just bad on their own merits.

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I disagree. I highly doubt people who like The Hobbit movies know how to read in the first place.

Gavinrad_sl said:

Except the Hobbit isn't high fantasy, it's fairly low fantasy.

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This is an interesting statement. Tolkien is like...the father of high fantasy.

Royal_sl said:

If you're inclined to like The Hobbit movies, then I would doubt that having read the book ahead of time would put a dent in your enjoyment of them. It's not changes "defiling" the story that are the problem for a lot of those finding fault with them. It's changes producing in the end what are, sadly, movies that are just bad on their own merits.

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Yeah, most of the things that I would consider bad about these movies aren't bad because they're book deviations, they're just...bad. I'd be fine with 12 hours worth of The Hobbit if all of the extraneous stuff was actually compelling and made sense within the context of the world. Snot jokes, endless chases, bird shit, seemingly being unable to go 5 minutes without yet another fight with orcs, etc...all terrible. I have no problem with them including the Necromancer stuff, for example, because it's actually been decent to watch, and it makes sense, because it actually occurred within the timeline of the story. There was zero reference to the Necromancer or Dol Guldur in the LoTR movies, so they were pretty much forced to put that stuff into The Hobbit, and I'm perfectly fine with changes like that.

It's a pretty fine line. If you consider LotR high fantasy you can't really put The Hobbit in the same category. To me, it's a different style entirely. I can sit down and read my 6 year old The Hobbit.

I must be the minority here but I love what Jackson has done. I thought I would get a pretty "kid" version of the movie but I think he's done fairly well adding some epic feelings to the movies teamed with making me feel like a kid again. Is it perfect? NO. As an avid fan of the series, I could pick it to death but I keep telling myself, it could have been worse.

Umm, yeah, the Dwarf that looks like a 21-year-old male model looks just like the giant fat one with the giant braided beard...

Making the Dwarves all very distinct in look and personality (well, the ones that actually speak) is something I think they actually did fairly good with.

And there should be plenty of Dwarf carnage in the next film.

I'm going to see this movie in every available format just to make sure it gets plenty of money and make up for you no-fun fuddy-duddies who can't find joy in anything.

etchazz_sl said:

I disagree. I highly doubt people who like The Hobbit movies know how to read in the first place.

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I enjoy them because they have awesome moments within them, I don't think anyone, anywhere has ever argued they are good movies.

lanx_sl said:

no one has a problem connecting with these assholes? 1, there's too many of them, 12 same heighted white dwarves all look the same and all act boisterous, and fat. i'm not even asking to cheat by making a black dwarf, an asian dwarf and a girl dwarf, they're just asshole dwarfs.

here look at them.

they all look the same and act the same, like dumb assholes. look at their stupid names, nori, dori, ori? wtf it works in book form because you can read over the name 5x, but not when nori is calling ori and you're like who the fuck is that?

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This is a pretty crappy complaint. I dunno, even in the books it was like...there is Bombur the fat one, Thorin the leader, Gloin who starts fires and...I think Oin who sees really well(oops no it was Balin the old one, goes to show that even one of the more major dwarves in the book I still didn't remember really well)? I think they fleshed out the Dwarf personalities fairly well in the movie. Balin certainly gets a big boost (I'm basing this all on the first movie btw, it's the only one I watched).

Not everything added in sucked either. Balin telling how Thorin got the name Oakenshield? Pretty badass. I still had fairly high hopes for the film at that point, the dwarves arriving at Bags-end was pretty good too although not an addition. It's just after that...everything went to shit, starting withchangingthe troll scene completely.

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?"

Same thing with the Dwarves, for those who have read the Hobbit, which I think is a lot of it's viewers know that none of the Dwarves will suffer any consequences until near the end. So here you have Two 3 hour movies with very little tension or Dramatic moments to keep us as engaged as LoTR did. I don't think that's necessarily Jackson's fault but just how the story is written. He decided to add all the stuff from the Timeline of the Appendices so those who haven't read that would have a larger insight which they may not have had after just doing a readthrough of the Hobbit, and I personally love that, unfortunately to add those things he has to make some changes to make the movies more engaging for most audiences by adding non existant action sequences. Especially a younger audience.

This third movie will end up killing characters, and that is a very good thing. Right away I think we'll feel more involved in the story and it will most likely be the best of the 3 by a longshot. (At least I really hope so)

I'm pretty sure we would enjoy this movies much more if we didn't have LoTR to compare them to.