1903

I actually like how the hobbit movies are a bit silly at times. That is kind of how I felt about the dwarves in the hobbit book, vs. the fellowship in the LOTR. Adds a bit of distinction between the two trilogies.

That being said, I really liked the movie. I didn’t mind the “because it was real” line because elves are kind of bad at knowing/dealing with emotions, so a corny line wasn’t so out of character.

Definitely worth seeing if you liked the first two. Tons of really cool battle scenes in this one, and some really excellent acting/scenes between Martin Freeman and Richard Armitage.

I have always loved the themes of greed/power corrupting even the most upstanding of people in the Tolkien novels, and that theme is heavy in this film.

1904

Just got back from this. Allow me to damn with faint praise: It was pretty good. I actually liked it, and really enjoy the characters. It’s the shadow of Return of the King, though. I wouldn’t expect this to win any Oscars. It’s in the same theme as the faults with the other Hobbit films, and I could probably look back and see myself writing the same thing about Smaug. It very much seems that Jackson took the wrong things from the LOTR to bring to the series. Or overused them, I should say, perhaps as crowd pleasers and padding such that they overshadowed the rest of the story. I would have really liked to have seen this made by pre-Fellowship Jackson, or at least pre-ROTK Jackson.

I really didn’t like the 3D this time. I don’t remember disliking it so much (at all) for the other two but other than a few moments was mostly distracting.

I really liked a number of the performances, Martin’s and Richard’s especially. I thought Lee Pace and Luke Evans did well with their roles as well. I didn’t have any issue with Billy Connelly; I love the dwarves as Scots, although it does play into the stereotype in a few ways.

Anyway, I would give it an 8 out of 10, probably varying down to a 7 and up to a 9. Hmmm, that seems familiar.

My reaction, on the edge of mixed, didn’t seem to be shared by my audience, which was more full that I had expected for a 10:50PM showing on Thursday: There was lots of applause when the credits came up. Not that I have an issue with the practice but I don’t know if the movie deserved it.

Things I disliked, in spoilers:

]
-The gold-drunk Thorin. Part of this is because they needed an arc for him but sweet Maker, he is almost as between extremes as Hawkeye in “The Avengers”. See also: Any movie with an alcoholic father.

-Everything in ruins. When the most-kept location in the movie is Lee Pace’s tent, something is wrong. This isn’t Mad Max: Lonely Mountain Road. Even if its accurate, I found it distracting that every scene in the movie takes place in a ruin or next to a ruin.

-The pacing was not great, and by that I mean terrible. The dragon is barely dead and the elves show up to get [this specific thing

[spoiler]. I thought I would welcome the shorter length of this movie but it is almost too short. The movie needed more time to breathe in places and less slow-motion reaction shots on faces in others.

-The whole sequence on Ravenswhatever. Basically, any time you see ice, the movie mostly sucks. I really disliked the divergence from the book here. I know they wanted to move the action from the battlefield (where in the book most of that stuff happens “off-screen” as it were) but it felt really kludgy to me. Another example of Jackson’s changes being worse than the book. I know you have to do this without resorting to Bilbo getting hit on the head and then having the battle/ending recounted to him but still… I didn’t like the choices here.

-The NBA Orc who seemed written only to give Legolas something to do in this trilogy and make Tariel cry. I actually don’t mind the Legolas moments where he does ridiculous things; what I don’t like is when everyone does Legolas-like things. Or Peter Jackson puts in an extended action-sequence. Inevitably, Legolas-like things happen and the shtick gets old.

-The battle. It really works great, and I love the precision of the Kiwi army guys, right up until the second Orc army starts to approach and everything becomes muddled. Was it really clear to everyone else and I just missed it? It didn’t seem like a clean transition at all. Beorn and the Eagles were good but seemed kind of hand-wavy in stopping an entire second Orc army, who were incredibly numerous leaving Gundabad or whereever but easily dealt with on top of Ice Mountain. I know the Eagles are the fifth of the Five Armies but it seemed like it was given short shrift. It clashes pretty heavily with my conceptualization from the book.

-Almost everything involving people from Laketown who aren’t named “Bard”. Luke Evans was great and yet again, I keep expecting someone to start yelling “Can’t you see the repression inherent in the system!!??!!” I could do with a cut of the movie that completely gets rid of “Alfred” and somehow makes the Men in the movie seem less like a mob from Young Frankenstein, which leads me to:

-The men of Dale/Laketown looking like Middle-Age comic relief and yet somehow being effective against the giant body-builder Orcs. At least the Men in LOTR had a vague semblance of dignity.

-Kili and Tariel; I didn’t know where it was going and as it turns out, neither did the movie. Kili and Fili’s deaths were terribly disappointing to me, though.

-Azog on/under the ice. Come on.

-The assault on Dol Goldur. There wasn’t anything really, I don’t know, wrong with it. The White Council are in some measure the “super heroes” of Middle Earth, its heaviest hitters on the side of good. There were touches of what I had hoped for but they seemed too spread out, and I guess Jackson, et al were worried about having too much happen at this point. This scene just seems less than what it could have been. Which really is kind of a fitting summary of the both the movie and the trilogy.

EDIT: Forgot that I had a knee-jerk major negative reaction to the damn definitely not sand-worms as well. Really? Please.
[/spoiler]

1905

Caught this yesterday with my wife and we were both kind of meh on it, despite copious amounts of Legolas being Legolas (and my wife loves Legolas’ antics). I can’t really point to one thing wrong with Five Armies over the others…it’s more just a general feeling.

Spoilers Ahoy

Likes:

I’m probably one of the few who liked the rescue of Gandalf. I’m not sure how much the canon allows for such thing, but it was kind of cool to watch several of the big players in Middle Earth (Elrond, Saruman, and Galadriel) actually do something other than talk.

The battle scenes. Yes, there’s a lot of posturing, and Dain is a little too goofy, but I got chills watching the dwarves make lines against the initial orc rush. The ride of Thorin’s group with the rams was great too. Battle moose. Beorn as the ultimate dropbear.

Dislikes:

The pace of the movie gets completely thrown off right at start with the battle with Smaug. I agree with the previous comment that this really should have been at the end of Smaug’s Desolation, but given the mandate to make Five Armies a separate movie, they needed a cliffhanger there instead.

They overdid Thorin’s “Dragon’s Sickness”, and the scene with him standing in the hall with the floor of gold was just weird.

The battle scenes. Too heavy on the weird troll designs. Legolas’ bat ride and subsequent orc fight on the fallen tower. The fighters from Dale seem really competent with so little training and time to recover.

Any scene with Alfred. Too bad he got thrown off the boat in the beginning.

Wormsign!

Real love hurts.

And finally…any of the ham-fisted foreshadowing for the Lord of the Rings trilogy. When Thranduil asks Legolas where he was going, they should have just left it as “I’m not sure.” There was no need for him to shove him towards Aragorn “who might some day be a great man” or whatever. Ugh.

Other stuff…

I will say that I’m really surprised that Tauriel didn’t get killed off. Given Legolas’ feelings for her, I thought it would be near essential to ensure some measure of continuity with LotR, where she isn’t mentioned or seen anywhere.

Were there any extra scenes during/after the credits? I haven’t left a theater before the end of the credits in years, but they showed a full 20 minutes of trailers before the movie, and if I’d stayed through them I risked missing an appointment afterwards.

Ultimately I think this was my least favorite of the 6 Jackson/Tolkien movies (although it comes mighty close to a tie with Desolation of Smaug). Parts of it really seemed like Jackson just didn’t care about tone or pace and wanted to be done with it.

1906

Man, I really liked Armitage as Thorin. I think that the gold-lust in this movie was a bit too far, but only because the pacing of this whole series has been a bit off. If the dragon sickness had been alluded to more in the previous film, or if they had more time to build up his change in attitude, it would have been more believable. I really did like how crazy he did get with the dragon sickness mixed with the general dwarven stubbornness and gold lust, but the character changed too quickly.

I really was touched by the moments at the end of the film he had with bilbo though.

There is so much good in this movie, but also a lot of clunky stuff. I do like the addition of Tauriel, as there are now like 4 memorable female characters in the 6 movies, but they could have done a bit more with her to make her look badass in this film.

I loved Billy Connolly as the dwarven cousin! Tolkien’s dwarves have always been the more cartoonish of the peoples in Middle Earth, and I like how they are portrayed in the Hobbit films. The Dwarves are fun, but they can get serious when they need too.

I would probably 8/10 this one as well. The battle scenes were just so darned epic, especially in the IMAX screen. Martin Freeman is a perfect burglar/Bilbo, Legolas kicks some ass, Lee Pace is really cool as Tharanduil, and you get to see a lot more of Middle Earth. It was a nice way to end everything. I am kind of sad we will never see this universe in film again. For all its faults, Jackson’s attempts to re-tell LOTR and the Hobbit were as grandiose and epic as the novels themselves. In many ways Tolkien the author, and Peter Jackson the filmmaker are similar storytellers. Both artists are a bit clunky in some parts of their works, but in the end they both made extremely memorable pieces of art.

1907

Not taking away from your post (which is valid, regardless of the books the movie should be taken on it’s own merit first and foremost), but it is clear you haven’t read the Hobbit from this snippet.

1908

Just got back from watching the new one. Aside from the joy I find whispering “forbidden love” to my wife during the film, it was otherwise fairly enjoyable. For a Hobbit movie.

If you don’t remember who Alfred was from the last film, you certainly well after this one - I’m expecting big things from that one in a Jar-Jar Binks meme sort of way. Also, you’ll get to see one of the laziest character arc cliches of bad tv grace the silver screen in all its glory.

The orcs really grew on me. Sad they didn’t get a happier ending. :(

1909

The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies… is one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. Peter Jackson managed to go back in time and ruin my childhood.

1910

FORBIDDEN LOVE!

1911

It’s not like the world needed the Hobbit turned into three movies, but I enjoyed them. They’re not comparable with the LotR trilogy, but still pretty fun and decente, in a regular movie kind of way.

1912

As I told my brother after he bought Culture Club’s “Color by Numbers” album, you just forfeited all rights to criticism for the remainder of your natural life. Subjective opinions truly can be wrong and this one is a shining example of that truth.

Taking my 7yo son to see the movie here in an hour. I’m sure he’ll love it.

1913

Ive liked all of the Tolkien adaptations of Jackson. Ive understood that adapting the books and pleasing everyone was always going to be impossible. Reading is far too subjective and every individual that reads a book takes something different from it and has a different vision of what it should be. This was Jackson’s vision and I accepted that. All that aside, I found The 5 Armies to be the least enjoyable of the 6. It was mostly due to pacing. The story was jarring and lacked fluidity. It was a visually impressive movie and there were many good parts but things just didn’t seems to flow together well. Maybe watching the movies marathon style would help.

1914

That’s how you know it’s real.

1915

They are similar though, in the way that both creators, Jackson or Tolkien are particularly great at doing one specific thing, and that is world building, but not perfect storytelling. They both are imperfect at telling their stories. Jackson is bad at pacing his stories and is a bit fanboyish, and Tolkien is bad at turning his deep and epic world into a good novel. Like, they both have high ambitions for their works, but they can’t 100% translate to their medium (film or book) perfectly.

I read the hobbit about 16 years ago. I don’t remember much, I remember it was hard to read.

Like, I greatly prefer learning about Middle Earth like I like reading history books of great wars. Tolkien is bad at the minutiae of the dialogue and character, but great at making a deep fantasy world. I think that Jackson is somewhat similar in that way.

1916

The Hobbit is actually a pretty easy read. It’s not at all Epic on the same scale as LOTR. I am waiting for a few others to tell me what they think two. I will probably wind up with some special edition of the six extended movies together, eventually. I do enjoy them, but I really think the movies would have been better as two. Dain was a bit of silly fun.

Spoiler

Deaths seemed a bit anti-climatic for me though for such important characters

1917

I just returned from seeing it, in 3d. For someone who isnt a Jackson fan, the movie is what I thought it was going to be for me, painful.

I was hoping to get some enjoyment from the fight scenes but they were so ridiculously over the top I found myself laughing at how goofy they were. Why cant modern directors even try to make action scenes plausable? Any suspension of disbelief I forced onto myself was lost every encounter.

Dont even get me started on how torturous it was to sit through 20+ mins of goofy looking cgi over the top action movie previews (furious7, madmax, and a few other forgettable drivel). 20 mins if previews. WTFF? Yet another reason not to go to the theater.

1918

I’m a big fan of Jackson’s LOTR movies, I think he did a commendable job with the challenging task of bringing those books to the screen, something I’ve wanted to see done well since childhood. Fellowship was the best, and while both Two Towers and Return were good they began to show questionable choices and the beginning of Jackson’s penchant for silly CGI / over the top action. I think Legolas leaping onto the warg in Two Towers was the first sign of this. For me, CGI was Jackson’s Ring of Power, and like most wielders he was incapable of keeping it under control, and by the time The Hobbit movies came along he had already been corrupted by it, letting CGI take over his storytelling. This is pretty much what Viggo Mortensen pointed out in an interview earlier this year and I think he’s right.

1919

The Hobbit really isn’t hard to read - I think you may be confusing your experience with some other books from your posts?

1920

The Hobbit and LotR have very different tones and stories. One is an (the first?) epic fantasy with a fully fleshed out mythology and history, the other is a svelte and timeless children’s novel.

You said the two were broadly the same when they couldn’t be more different, apart from sharing the same world and a few characters.

1921

I haven’t read either in 10 years, but I would say that both LOTR and the Hobbit are difficult to read for the era they were written.

1922

I really liked this one. It didn’t feel dragged out like the first two. I was annoyed one villain got away scot-free.