The Hobbit films, previously to be directed by Guillermo del Toro and now to be directed by Peter Jackson again.

Maybe he will put out a director's cut of just Hobbit stuff.

There's just something really unappealing about a film called 'The Battle of Five Armies' especially when it seems one of the armies is a pack of bats? How are they going to spend three hours on elves and dwarves fighting bats?

It'll be like the bit in The Fellowship with the Crebain but 50 minutes long

How are they going to spend three hours on elves and dwarves fighting bats?

Probably the same way people spend hundreds of hours playing "Call of Duty" or whatever.

It'd be cool if the movie started with a tutorial level... ease you into things, learn how to fight lesser bats before you have to send the whole Hobbit army against the whole bat army.

If I remember correctly from the book Gandalf casts a spell that causes the bats and hobbits to combine as hobbats that fuck everybody up.

Watched the trailer & was all, "Is this a trailer for the second movie? Because I think I've seen every moment of this before, portentously uttered dialogue and all."

Still planning on angrily watching the third one at Cinerama, just like the first two, can't really account for it.

― heck (silby)

(THIS POST HAS SOME SPOILERS FOR THE NEW MOVIE, THOUGH IF YOU'VE READ THE BOOK, MOST OF IT ISN'T REALLY SPOILING ANYTHING.)

So I just saw the new movie, and thought it was okay. Not as good as the first Hobbit, which I thought was a totally fun romp, but roughly on the same level as the second one. The problems were pretty much the same as with the second movie too: everything was a bit too serious and grey, not much fun and adventure anymore, though I guess it was more acceptable for the grand finale than the middle episode. There were also some overtly extended fight scenes: in particular, Legolas gets a final battle that goes on waayyy too long, it feels more like a special effects showcase than something organic to the movie. On the other hand, Thorin's last stand was done nicely, it had an well-staged, effective setting (an icy lake that slowly keeps crumbling around Thorin and his opponent), and it doesn't overstay its welcome.

As with the previous movie, the 48FPS/3D combination is disracting at first, but it makes the more complex action scenes look really good. The actual Battle of the Five Armies is probably the best part of the movie, the way the technlology allows Jackson to create this layered canvas where you can follow every moving piece in this whole grandiose choreography is still breathtaking. And, while the story of the trilogy as a whole is kinda directionless and incoherent, there are some individual scenes where Jackson manages to show he's still a very competent visual storyteller. In particular I liked the scene where Thorin growing greed/madness is illustrated via a clever scenic metaphor; I don't want spoil it any more, but you know what I'm talking about if you've seen the movie.

On the minus side, I thought the cliffhanger with Smaug from the previous movie was resolved a bit too easily and quickly in this one. I guess it's cool they stayed truthful to the book and got rid of Smaug before the actual climax of the story, but all in all we got more of talking Smaug in the previous flick than Smaug in action in this one, which is a bit sad, because he was so well realized as a CGI character. Like in the previous movie, the 48FPS/3D thing really makes him come alive here too; with Smaug it doesn't matter if the technology makes everything look a bit fake, because a dragon isn't supposed to feel realistic anyway.

After having finished this movie, I can also say that the whole Dol Guldur/Sauron subplot was completely pointless. It doesn't really have anything to do with the main Erebor plot, it's there just to tie these movies to LotR. (IIRC none of that stuff was in the book?) However, it does provide two of the most impressive visuals in the movie. First, we get a new design for the Ringwraiths, which is really creepy and impressive, in that it actually uses the "unrealness" of CGI and 3D effects to its advantage. (Sadly there's also an overtly long fight scene involving the Wraiths, I think Jackson should've realized that they'd be more effective if he didn't show them so much.) And then there's a confrontation (not an actual fight, thank god) between Galadriel and Sauron, which is just awesome! In The Fellowship of the Ring, I hated the scene where Galadriel is tempted by the Ring and her voice gets weird and screechy and her face is altered with special effects, because I thought Blanchett could've conveyed her temptation with, you know, just acting. Well, here we have variation of the same thing, but in this case I think it works, because we are actually witnessing a magical battle of wills between two superbeings. It's totally over-the-top and really cool, and Sauron's new visual is also much better than the spotlight-vagina-eye from LotR.

So yeah, if you didn't like the previous movies and/or felt that they pissed on Tolkien's work, you're not gonna feel differen about this one either. But if you thought (like me) that they were uneven and incoherently plotted but also thrilling and cool-looking roller-coaster rides with some decent actors and occasional touching character moments, well this is more of the same stuff. It's not as good as the LotR movies (or even the first movie in this trilogy), but worth the admission? Hell yeah.

I hated the scene where Galadriel is tempted by the Ring and her voice gets weird and screechy and her face is altered with special effects,

lol u nuts this is one of the best scenes/most effective uses of effects in the original trilogy

I gotta add that besides the Dol Guldur stuff, Legolas was also completely extraneous to the whole trilogy, they could've left him out without the story suffering a bit... Looks like they wanted to have some familiar faces besides Gandalf in these movies, but they just didn't manage to find a way to properly integrate the elements that weren't in the book. To make things worse, Legolas's radical elvish parkour stunts are just as prominent and irritating as they were in the LotR movies... Like, in this one there's a scene where a bridge is collapsing under Legolas and he's jumping on bricks that are literally hanging in the air, like fucking Super Mario or something.

is there a hobbit in this one?

I heard they're going to add the hobbit to the the director's cut.

I remember thinking the Galadriel temptation thing was great in the theater, it really was startling and weird and she sounded so booming and nuts, it was of a piece with Bilbo's reaction to the Ring in Rivendell. But on DVD the cheapness of the effect kinda overpowered the scene - IIRC this is one where they had farmed some effects out to some outside studio whose work they didn't end up liking at all but they had to keep it.

The new one is unbelievably boring.

what I'm prepared to believe might surprise u

After having finished this movie, I can also say that the whole Dol Guldur/Sauron subplot was completely pointless. It doesn't really have anything to do with the main Erebor plot, it's there just to tie these movies to LotR. (IIRC none of that stuff was in the book?)

Lightly. Even in the original version Gandalf leaves Bilbo et al because he has to fight the Necromancer elsewhere, as is discussed briefly at the end of the book on the way back. Tolkien essentially developed and partially retconned it later in LOTR's appendices by having it be the culmination of spying by Gandalf over time and realizing that Sauron had come back, thus partially his urgency about taking care of Smaug via the dwarves; he had already discovered Thrain in Dol Guldur and received the key and map from him before he died. The White Council attacks Dol Guldur, Sauron puts up a slight resistance and then flees eastward in a feint, he ends up back in Mordor etc. etc. From there Jackson and team fleshed it out and reworked it in the version we now have, only here things are more sudden and ad hoc, Gandalf actually gets captured and rescued etc., there's an attempt to REALLY create a new overarching demi-mythology that's not really anywhere in the stories -- the High Fells as a tomb, the origin of the Ringwraiths, Gundabad as the capital as such of Angmar, and so forth. Not the end of the world but it almost felt more like a series of explanations and stories from the Iron Crown Enterprises role playing games instead. (And the geography of the whole story is all *over* the map at this point, but they really only needed to keep things vague for the film anyway, I guess.)

Anyway! Saw it tonight and...pleasantly surprised? If only because it was so SHORT. Shortest of all the six films at two hours and change. I went in lowballing all expectations, honestly, and it worked better than I might have guessed. Even though I kinda figured Thorin and Bilbo's final scene would be more 'dramatic' as such than the book, which I appreciate for its quiet gravitas, they at least kept in a good chunk of the actual dialogue, including a reworked key line about what should be better valued. And while they're nowhere in Tolkien at all beyond a vague reference in LOTR about strange creatures gnawing in the 'deep places of the world,' those sandworm cousins in the battle scene, while kinda ridiculous, still looked pretty great. More tomorrow but hey, at least this is all over bar whatever the extended version turns out to be.

Gonna see this on xmas day I think

Saw this on Xmas eve as per the last two, thank god I can lay that tradition to rest. Thought it was ok for a long while, light on the ridiculous rollercoaster set pieces, bard the bowman jumping on a cart to take out a troll the most absurd but very brief (interestingly the POD RACING on ice I complained about in the trailer four months ago seems to have vanished entirely). Then the battle scenes started, and dragged on, wasn't v convinced by thorin's sudden change of heart managing to turn the tide. Just as I was metaphorically looking at my watch the whole absurd overlong non canonical "this time it's personal" fight against the white orc up on the watchtower started, and went on and on and on... oh look here's legolas hanging from a bat, there's the orc playing whack-a-mole with thorin on some ice forever while a whole orc army looks on, here's legolas running up a collapsing bridge "like fucking super Mario or something" thankyou tuomas, there's the orc coming back from the dead what a surprise...

Ringwraith fight was lame but yeah I liked the bad acid strobe trip of galadriel v sauron. Would've been happy to see more of radagast's rabbit sledge. "Alfred lickspittle" was crap invented comic relief. So much of the look of the orc and dwarf battle stuff seemed like a direct lift from Warhammer which idk seems a bit like the lazy option.

Oh yeah, and ten foot tall orcs with metal armour actually embedded into their flesh can be felled by a stone thrown by a three foot high hobbit. I know, old man yells at action movies.

HFR still looks great though.

Oh yeah, and ten foot tall orcs with metal armour actually embedded into their flesh can be felled by a stone thrown by a three foot high hobbit.

I guess the Hobbits are just the Ewoks of these movies... But I did like the fact that Bilbo was mostly useless during the actual battle (IIRC it was the same in the book?) and didn't do much action hero stuff, it did emphasize the "average person" aspect of Bilbo, the fact that he was more of an observer who couldn't really do that much to affect the larger-than-life forces at play here. Though sadly this meant there was less of Bilbo in this movie than the previous ones, Thorin and Bard essentially became the protagonists here. It would've been nice to have more of Martin Freeman, he's so good at playing the "everyman observer" character (having already done two iconic versions of it in Arthur Dent and John Watson)... But with an epic climax like this, I guess such a character can't by definition have much to do. Bilbo's return to Shire was really nice done though, and I liked that it was far more prosaic and bittersweet than the ending of LotR, which closed with a similar scene.

Martin Freeman, he's so good at playing the "everyman observer Martin Freeman" character (having already done two iconic versions of it in Arthur Dent and John Watson).

what ledge said up there, yeah. was fairly diverting, except for a 30-40 minute midfilm "now begins the BATTLES!" stretch, during which i became distracted by theatrical speaker placement, ceiling design, and the likelihood of interesting lobby posters were i to go for a stretch.

Haha yeah, I guess Freeman gets typecast, but he does do the type well.

If you went to watch this after seeing the first two, I don't know what to say.

"Hope you enjoyed it?"

raccoon tanuki if you went to watch the second after seeing the first you are complicit

COME AT ME

Could have done without the Kili lovestory, i never gave a crap about them in any of the installments

Thorin was p boss in this one. Like how they "smauged" his voice as he got more consumed with greed

agreed not enough bilbo
i didnt need the LOTR bow on the end but i guess i get why they had to

So the battle just kind of... ended. While everyone was doing their one on one computer game orc fights. Who even won the battle of five armies?

Best bit was the first ten minutes, after Smaug died the rest kind of felt like an epilogue.

Could have done without the Kili lovestory

Yeah this was shit.

can't muster up the energy to see this

like it just seemed like it was some version of this expression ALL the time with Tauriel/Kili with wistful music and everyone knew they were doomed from the start ...it just seemed like they were desperate to to Aragorn and Arwen redux but there was nothing to care about

http://www.silverpetticoatreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/tauriels-face-on-it-was-just-a-dream-lighting.jpg

because fanfic hobbit

u_u

let's be honest, there was nothing to care about with Aragorn and Arwen either.

Who even won the battle of five armies?
― the joke should be over once the kid is eaten. (chap), Tuesday, December 30, 2014 7:50 PM

that was my question after it ended. 3 hours of fighting over a pile of gold and they don't tell u who gets to keep it

I don't recall any giant piles of gold in the Lord of the Rings movies. Peter Jackson should go back and add them in.

You forgot to check his bank account

Every penny is on the (computer) screen.

Bus advertising over here is using the tag #onelasttime - have to assume they spent some time arguing back and forward about that vs #sunkcost

def what this needed was an extended version. the new R rating will reel nerds in I guess?

http://comicbook.com/2015/08/25/the-hobbit-the-battle-of-the-five-armies-extended-edition-is-r-r/

I'm sad that three-hour edited version of the trilogy is gone from Vimeo. I had a lot of fun with it.

It was also released on BitTorrent so I'm sure it's floating out in the wilds.

Is it weird that I watched the third film that way instead of actually watching it all the way through

Ha, couldn't blame you. The Killstein edit really did do a great job of turning the films back to as much of the actual source narrative as possible; I'm surprised at how effective the overall editing choices were. A couple of unavoidably clunky moments where you could feel it was an edit and not something plausibly 'as filmed/released' but on balance, nicely handled.

I missed out on the third movie. Saw the first two in the theater, in 3D, and just forgot about the third. Is it any good?

if you thought there wasn't enough screen time for Bard's children in the second movie, you'll like the third one

Also if you thought the master's henchman needed a lot more screen time.

And if you thought Ornaldo Bloomps bringing down the Elephant hardcore in ROTK was too gritty and realistic.