1943

Best thing about the movie was that it extended at exactly 11:59pm…other than that, wow. I guess I’ll watch the extended edition some day and see if that changes anything. I pretty much agree with all the criticisms above - just too many to recount. I was kind of rooting for the orcs near the end for some reason. And I was fully expecting Alfred to die in some embarrassing T-Rex/toilet-like scene. He was setting that up the whole movie and then just forgot to do it? Like maybe Bard shoots the fat troll and it keels over onto poor Alfred-in-drag, its big fat troll balls smothering him to death.

1944

Just got back from seeing it in 3D (only show available). I disliked the first movie, liked the second one… and this one fell somewhere in between. It was about as good as you might expect, and better than you might hope for given that it’s a two-and-a-half hour movie based on like 30 pages in a 150-page book.

Really, the movie is like 45 minutes of dialog and just under two hours of CGI-combat. The highlight of the movie (oddly) might have been the first ten minutes in which poor Cumberbatch the Dragon tries to go out to a barbeque and is mercilessly slaughtered by a random schnook. Everything more-or-less goes downhill from that scene, though there were some highlights:

All the Big Guys for the LotR movies get to come back for cameos and generally kick some ass in a few sequences, so if you didn’t want to go see this movie because Agent Smith the Uber Elf wasn’t in it, or you don’t think a Middle Earth movie without Christopher Lee is worth your time, rejoice! Everybody gets a paycheck from Peter Jackson!

My wife - who was the one that demanded that we see it in the theater - said that the best thing about the movie was trying to guess which “war animal” would make and appearance next. There were War Dogs, War Pigs, War Goats, War Elks… E-I-E-I-O.

And though Jackson stuffed a VAST amount of extra stuff in there, like forbidden intra-speicies eye-gazing and Dune-like giant worms that apparently no one realized lived not five miles from the fucking lonely mountain, he still managed to remain largely true to the book in several key aspects that pretty much everyone hoped he wouldn’t: Bilbo manages to miss the majority of the titular battle, and the goddamned deus ex machina giant eagles manage to swoop in and save the day apropos of nothing.

For those keeping track, that’s three movies out of six that have giant fucking eagles coming out of nowhere to save the day, completely un-earned by the heroes. And that’s not even counting all the times they save Gandalf simply because he knows how to speak to moths.

They say that if all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail. But sometimes when you are surrounded by nothing but nails, you have to start asking yourself why you don’t start using the hammers you have in the shed. And by hammers, I mean Giant Fucking Eagles. If I were a human, dwarf, of elvish commander in Middle Earth, Giant Fucking Eagles would be my first and perhaps only answer to every problem.

“Sir! We’re being attacked by orcs!”
“Send in the Giant Fucking Eagles.”

Sir! We need to get some random civilian to Mount Doom!"
“Get me a Giant Fucking Eagle and an air-sickness bag.”

“Sir! Balrogs are selling unlicensed dwarf-on-elf porn!”
“I’ll need a Giant Fucking Eagle, a four-foot length of twine, and a staple gun.”

1945

After the Sandworms, and Troll-a-pults, and the Advanced Orc CnC, I didn’t mind Eagles coming in dropping a Beorn Bomb on Orc Army#2.

After some time and distance from seeing the movie, I am mostly over being sour about Battle of Five Armies. Thinking back on the trilogy as a whole, I love the actors in their characters so much that I can forgive almost all of the Jacksonisms. When the extended editions come out, though, I may be motivated to hack-edit my own versions without all of things I was bitching about earlier. Dave is spot-on when he writes that in the case of The Hobbit, less is certainly more. I will repeat my lament that the comparatively stripped-down Jackson of the LotR would have made these movies much better. No one is going to miss a minute of Azog-on-Ice here and Alfrid-in-drag there.

In the end, after watching the behind the scenes stuff I wonder how much of Jackson going back to the director’s chair was the result of Jackson and/or the Studio(s) not being happy with Del Toro and having a thousand people and $500m for New Zealand depending on you to get these movies made.

1946

Hahahah. Well put. Those were similar to my thoughts back when I first read the books too. But by the time the movies came out, I’d forgotten all about them, so the Eagles are a surprise to me every time.

I’m still wondering if I want to go see this movie in the theaters.

1947

Saw this on Saturday with my son. Overall we both liked it. I could have done without the romance angle and think it took more away from the movies than it added. Dwarves and Dragons are my two favorite things in Fantasy so I wish we could have had more of both. When Dain (Warpig!) and the Dwarven army showed up I almost let out a little squee of joy.

1948

Clearly either you or Peter Jackson himself “borrowed” the idea from the good old LOTR HISHE. ;)

rezaf

1949

But even if you have a instant win button for everything, you don’t want to push it too often lest it breaks upon the furious pounding. And then maybe the more they see the unstoppable eagles, the more they will react and develop counter measure, like wraith lord with uber drake pet, or just focus firing.

1950

This doesn’t need an extended version, it needs a minimized version. Reduced to maybe 3-4 hours would work.

1951

I don’t know, man, I could have easily watched another 10 or 20 minutes of that barrel ride down the river.

1952

Dammit, I done been trolled.

1953

I saw it yesterday.

Overall, I liked it. Having seen the first two I kinda knew what to expect going in and it met those expectations (for good and ill).

I did not have much of a problem with the new additions, especially Tauriel and the big bad orcs. The Hobbit as Tolkien wrote it would be been more of a Bromance. The LotR tie-ins were nice, too. I remember reading a long time ago the whole idea of Bilbo’s ring being the “one ring” happened long after he wrote the Hobbit, so I don’t mind the George Lucas retcon.

That said, the LotR movies have the same lasting impact to me that the original Star Wars trilogy has. I’m not sure I’ll watch these again intentionally – unless I do some crazy Peter Jackson Middle Earth marathon, but I enjoyed the ride.

The only time I got thrown out of Martin Freeman as Bilbo was at the end when he was explaining his thoughts on Thorin. I expected him to say, “Well, you know… he’s just this guy.”

1954

Also saw it yesterday (haven’t had time). Overall I liked it - not great, but adequate entertainment. Didn’t mind Tauriel, though the last dialogue there is cringeworthy.

A pity they had to spoil the movies by making them a trilogy. I think this could have been done easily - and much better - as two movies.

1955

I heard there’s a fan edit that cuts the trilogy down to 4 hours. Basically, it gets rid of all of the non-Bilbo parts.

1956

Honestly, I didn’t mind the non-Bilbo bits. They work - for me at least - in the context of all the films. Besides, it helps make sense of why Gandalf is absent all the time.

What I would like to see is to trim the excessively lengthy bits which add nothing to the narrative or even enjoyment of the film - e.g., the bunny chase, the barrel ride,…some bits at the end which 1. everyone knows is coming, and 2. employs the oldest action movie cliche ever and just drags on and on.

The cardinal sin - to me - of the Hobbit trilogy is that at many times during these films I’ve sat and thought “ok, let’s get on to the next scene” and been bored. I can live with weird narrative choices and inconsistencies as long as I’m well entertained. At it’s core, the films are great popcorn entertainment (and a decent retelling of the book). They just need some tighter editing.

1957

This is completely due to having to fill out three movies. I mean, I understand the allure of an extra $500m+ that another movie would make but that required a lot of stretching, as well as other story elements to add a quadrant. I didn’t mind these too much in the movies themselves but will look forward to seeing something like this or making my own when the Battle of Five Armies comes out.

Here are the notes the editor posted:

So, over the weekend, I decided to condense all three movies (An Unexpected Journey, The Desolation of Smaug & The Battle of the Five Armies) into a single 4-hour feature that more closely resembles Tolkien’s original novel. Well, okay, it’s closer to 4.5 hours, but those credits go for ages! This new version was achieved through a series of major and minor cuts, detailed below:

•The investigation of Dol Guldor has been completely excised, including the appearances of Radagast, Saruman and Galadriel. This was the most obvious cut, and the easiest to carry out (a testament to its irrelevance to the main narrative). Like the novel, Gandalf abruptly disappears on the borders of Mirkwood, and then reappears at the siege of the Lonely Mountain with tidings of an orc army.

•The Tauriel-Legolas-Kili love triangle has also been removed. Indeed, Tauriel is no longer a character in the film, and Legolas only gets a brief cameo during the Mirkwood arrest. This was the next clear candidate for elimination, given how little plot value and personality these two woodland sprites added to the story. Dwarves are way more fun to hang out with anyway :P

•The Pale Orc subplot is vastly trimmed down. Azog is obviously still leading the attack on the Lonely Mountain at the end, but he doesn’t appear in the film until after the company escapes the goblin tunnels (suggesting that the slaying of the Great Goblin is a factor in their vendetta, as it was in the novel).

•Several of the Laketown scenes have been cut, such as Bard’s imprisonment and the superfluous orc raid. However, I’ve still left quite a bit of it in, since I felt it succeeded in getting the audience to care about the down-beaten fisherfolk, and the struggles of Bard to protect them.

•The prelude with old Bilbo is gone. Like the book, I find the film works better if the scope starts out small (in a cosy hobbit hole), and then grows organically as Bilbo ventures out into the big, scary world. It’s far more elegant to first learn about Smaug from the dwarves’ haunting ballad (rather than a bombastic CGI sequence). The prelude also undermines the real-and-present stakes of the story by framing it as one big flashback.

•Several of the orc skirmishes have been cut. I felt that the Battle of the Five Armies provided more than enough orc mayhem. If you pack in too many before then, they just become monotonous, and it lessons their menace in the audience’s mind. I was tempted to leave the first Azog fight in (since it resembles a chapter in the novel), but decided to cut it for a variety of reasons. Mainly, because it was tonally jarring to jump from the emotional crescendo of Thorin being saved by Bilbo (and the sense of safety the company feels after being rescued by the eagles), straight back into a chase sequence again. Plus, I think the film works better if Bilbo is still trying to earn Thorin’s respect the entire journey, as he was in the book. Not to mention the absurdity of Bilbo suddenly turning into John McClane with a sword!

•Several of the action scenes have been tightened up, such as the barrel-ride, the fight between Smaug and the dwarves (no molten gold in this version), and the Battle of the Five Armies. Though, it should be noted that Bilbo’s key scenes—the encounter with Gollum, the battle against the Mirkwood spiders, and the conversation with Smaug—have not been tampered with, since they proved to be excellent adaptions (in no small part due to Freeman’s performance), and serve to refocus the film on Bilbo’s arc.

•A lot of filler scenes have been cut as well. These are usually harder to spot (and I’ve probably missed a couple), but once they’re gone, you’ll completely forget that they ever existed. For example, the 4-minute scene where Bard buys some fish and the dwarves gather up his pay.

My main goals in undertaking this edit were to re-centre the story on Bilbo, and to have the narrative move at a much brisker pace (though not so fast that the audience lost grasp of what was going on). Creating smooth transitions between scenes was of particular importance in this regard. I even reordered a few moments in the film to make it flow better. The toughest parts to edit were the barrel-ride and the fight on Ravenhill (since Legolas and Tauriel kept bursting in with their gymnastics routine). If you have any further questions over what was taken out and what was left in, please post them in the comments section.

When in doubt, cut more Laketown. From the comments, this version of the movie(s) would have broken into parts 1 and 2, with the 1st ending at the trip across the lake after making the deal with the Master and people of Laketown to share the wealth of the Mountain, and part 2 starting with the arrival on the far shore.

1958

That sounds like an enormous improvement, one that might make the trilogy watchable. I’ve only seen the first two and don’t plan on viewing the third, but edits like this would change my mind and I’d give it a go.

1959

Yup. Just don’t ask where he got the Five Armies footage.

1960

The fan edit sounds good and is something I was considering teaching myself to do as I do think there is a good movie to be found in all of this mess.

Personally I would have left in some of the Tauriel material but I know I’m in the minority on this one. I also would have left in the White Council scene from the first movie as it was eluded to in the book, wasn’t it? I think that scene plays well but none of the rest of the Dol Gulder plot-line does. Where ever possible I would have removed any over the top action sequences that play more like a cartoon than a live action film and break immersion accordingly.

1961

O.k., I finally saw this, just before it leaves theatres. There is probably the least “wrong” or annoying in this movie of the trilogy, but it’s amazing how light and vapid the whole trilogy was - there was actual tension and drama in the Helm’s Deep fight, while the Five Army battles just feel unengaging and uninspired.

I was actually completely fine with at least the intentions behind much of the additional content in the trilogy - as long as the material was consistent with what Tolkien wrote happened. So I enjoyed all the White Council material, and it was great to get the opportunity to see even stunt double/CGI Christopher Lee kick ass one last time. And I was fine with the addition of Tauriel, since if ever material was in need of diversification by adding some female roles, it was Tolkien’s writing, and an elven warrior fit the material. Same with the inclusion of Legolas, since we know he was likely involved in at least the Battle of Five Armies. And the creation of Azog, since movies work better with identifiable protagonists.

But so much was just pointless and wretched, including almost all of Laketown, the expansion of Bard’s role to the point where the first half of this movie made him the primary character and the resulting marginalization of Bilbo and his role, and Jackson’s constant heavy-handedness and over-simplification when dealing with things like Thorin’s greed, the “black arrows” of Bard (and the omission of Bilbo’s role in finding Smaug’s weakness) and constant slapstick crap. Radagast. I also disliked the treatment of the ring - in the Hobbit, the ring is supposed to be a consequence-less magic item fortuitously found, which Bilbo happily employs whenever desirable. I really wish these movies had been released in chronological order, so that the reality of the ring’s nature could have been revealed to moviegoers as intended. I also remember being really disheartened when reading the beginning of Lord of the Rings, to discover that Bilbo was too old to participate, which would have come across far better in the LotR movies if we were already acquainted with Martin Freeman’s Bilbo, as he did an amazing job with the character - perfect.

There were some other things I liked: the look and character of Smaug (and related action scenes) were perfect in both movies (although his story should have ended last film); I liked the Tolkien fan service by mentioning Morgoth and Angband; I liked what little we saw of the Dwarf army and the discipline of the Elf army (although they seemed like clowns during the battle - and what was with them joining the battle by charging the Dwarf rear, as if they wouldn’t have been savaged given the immediately prior scene?), I liked the Elf King and the White Council as previously mentioned, and Martin Freeman and Richard Armitage really brought their characters to life in unexpected ways.

This really could have been the best of the movies, if it was a single 3.5 hour movie, and I think cutting it down to that duration would be surprisingly easy (although couldn’t always be done with the existing footage). A lot of the significance of various character arcs was lost when split - this movie, in particular, just doesn’t work as a stand-alone movie, and it’s hard to appreciate the love triangle when it’s difficult to even remember.

I guess I’m more glad than not that these movies were made — but it’s close, and I’m not sure I’ll ever watch them again. Which makes for an interesting comparison to the Star Wars prequels, which I definitely wish were never made – but there are many scenes in them that I’d enjoy rewatching.

1962

I didn’t think Tauriel was even at the top of the list of things I would like removed from these movies. I mean I don’t know she was necessary, but there is probably a good 30 minutes or so from each movie I would remove, maybe a little more. I can’t even imagine an extended version.