So, what did we think, those of us who (now including me) have seen it?
I enjoyed it, there wasn't a great deal of the Tolkien in there but there were some nice references and I thought Richard Armitage (Thorin) really played the character arc well and made the whole thing hang together on that thread.
Pet peeves:
- The love triangle, enough said
- Real continuity issues - the bell thing that lets the company out for the sally battle, the sudden unexpected goats, etc.
- The whole "let's make Alfred cross-dress for a cheap joke" thing felt a bit pointless, I'd have rather had more of the laketown-women being cool and hitting Orcs with spades or whatever.
- I felt that Dain really jarred with my image of him - perhaps more than for any other character in Jackson's movies. I don't think Conolly's Dain Ironfoot will be the one I carry in my head, which is a pity.
- The geography was, um. Arrrrgh.
Best moments:
- Thorin's dying words. Really beautifully played.
- The negotiations & Thorin's character arc were also very neat indeed.
- Bard was actually well played and in-character throughout, I thought the performance there was very good and the Thranduil/Bard/Thorin trio dynamic was worked out well.
- The auction at Bag End was done gloriously
- The giving of the mithril shirt - nice touch.
^ This is why we're seeing a gallery viewing with unlimited drinks and snacks :P I'll eat so much i'll forget the bad parts :P
I'm kind of disappointed that Tauriel wasn't killed off. (It was the first thing I asked my brother after he'd seen it).
Possibly the only thing that could've redeemed her unnecessary addition was watching her die. (I really don't like the character, in case there was any doubt. :P )
Ooh, also, I'm glad they've run the two franchises together :) My brother was very excited about it ending where LotR starts :P
This is about the second film, but can I just leave this here....?
And thus, in screaming, terrified agony, another poor soul is hooked into the world of J.R.R. Tolkien :P
It's quite a funny video. I advise not looking at the comments though because oh god people are horrible.
And yes, I'd have rather seen them play Thorin's death straight - having him fall first against Azog AND Bolg (or possibly him and Azog killing each other, then Bolg killing Fili, Kili and Tauriel defending his corpse before being run over by Beorn). I was sad we didn't get more Beorn in both DoS and BoFA, the character was much underplayed given how pivotal he is to the Hobbit's storyline.
THE WHITE COUNCIL THOUGH.
That was pretty cool. I would have tweaked it a bit, I felt Radagast deserved a bit more badassery than he got, and Saruman should have perhaps been a bit less "obviously gonna turn evil as soon as you're looking the other way". But it was a fun scene.
Galadriel though. She's awesome.
Kind of feel like Legolas' naive- ishness in LotR is somewhat spoiled by the film.
Also, is he not going to find Aragorn as a child in Rivendell...? :P
Yeah, I think Aragorn's 11 at this point.
That's what we worked out as well :P
I was pleasantly surprised, I was worried the battle was going to just be focused mostly on the main characters killing an obscene number of things rather than how the wider battle played out, and since kind of the whole point was the different groups playing different alliances it would have annoyed me if we didn't see that.
Slight annoyance, elves jumping over the dwarven phalanx, just why, it made no sense.
Though it did make me reinstall battle for middle earth, which middle earth things always seem to do!
I came round to the phalanx idea pretty quickly - Tolkien's dwarves are more usually depicted with axes, but a pike wall does make a lot of sense for dwarves in warfare and it was nice to see what that should/could actually look like.
Might want to put a spoiler warning in the title Jubs, just to be safe. Not everyone has seen it yet.
Is that not implied by the thread title asking for reactions?
I liked the phalanx too actually :P looked cool :P
Also, Mirkwood Elves apparently draw heavy inspiration from MCU Heimdall for their battle outfits. Or maybe that's just me :P
Film was not as bad as the 2nd but still very stupid.
My enthusiasm is pretty much all from the White Council :P Also possibly the fact we were watching in the Odeon Gallery and was unlimited nachos and cheese :P
Well, I saw it a few days ago in 48fps VMAX (bigger screen, comfortable seats, leg room, comfy arm rests etc.)
I enjoyed it. The love triangle was annoying, and it's certainly very different to the book.
But it was fun. The action was fast paced, fairly well choreographed and the 48fps made it even better.
Legolas had many stupid moments (running up falling rocks - really?) but it was fun to just sit back, relax and watch him be a badass.
So yeah, I liked it. And I liked the 48fps, but many others don't, and I could see why they wouldn't.
The white council was probably the biggest disappointment about the whole trilogy for me. It was covered fairly well in the first one and then the rest was just utter armadilloe.
^ I just really like Galadriel and was grateful of her screen time. They did make it a little too obvious that Saruman was a villain though, you think someone would've noticed xD
I hated the fact that Gandalf was as subtle as a porn film in the second film and I hated the fact that the white council scene in the 3rd film was just yet another stupid action scene. And the fact that it seems Saruman manages to banish Galadriel to Lothlorien as soon as she's saved their arses.
Really I think what you have to do is accept 2 and 3 as action films, not the fantasy adventure of the first.
Quote from: Pentagathus on January 05, 2015, 08:33:05 PM
...And the fact that it seems Saruman manages to banish Galadriel to Lothlorien as soon as she's saved their arses.
I must admit, it did annoy me that they seemed to limit Galadriel - if she'd accept Saruman basically telling her to go home. Also why she needed to 'charge up' was a bit beyond me...
But still, what with Tauriel being around, I was glad of a proper Tolkien lady :P
I enjoyed it personally.
Negatives:
- The love triangle. It was not needed. But, on the other hand, I kind of liked Tauriel.
- How little we saw of Beorn.
- The GOATS!? What was that about?
- Dain II wielded the Red AXE. (Barazantathul I think?) Not a hammer. A minor difference sure, but ultimately pointless. Why change it?
Positives:
- Armitage and Pace got Thorin and Thranduil down to an absolute tee. Pace in particular was exceptional.
- Dain Ironfoot made me laugh. Not what I expected, but I was happy enough with it.
- The god-damn score. Again, Shore stitched me up right at the end.
- Billy Boyd's Last Goodbye. Holy crap, the waterworks were bad.
I was gently weeping for the entire credits sequence.
I only have one sentence concerning The Battle of Five Armies:
Every possible scene was ruined, even if it started well.
This rant sums up my whole Hobbit experience:
Every part of the movie is over-exaggerated to the point that it's unconvincing. Too many over-the-top scenes and deal-braking changes were made (at least IMO).
CGI was overly abused and ended up looking worse than LotR in some parts (released more than a decade ago).
The whole Hobbit experience was quite dissapointing for me. Especially because I've had and treasured the book since my childhood.
And after LotR I expected so much more...
Maybe I was just expecting too much, but the Hobbit fails to capture my attention.
I simply can't see past it's constant flaws.
The part which made me especially nervous is when Fíli and Kíli die before Thorin. They should have died protecting mortally wounded Thorin in the thick of the fight.
In my point of view, the movie was robbed of it's strongest and rawest scene.
Sure, LotR had some similar changes too, but they haven't felt that wrong...
Theoden being killed by a Nazgul and Eowyn standing besides his crushed body instead of Eomer, Elves defending Hornburg, Aragorn/Arwen romance scenes (which weren't over the top and fit nicely into the story)...
The third part of the Hobbit didn't follow the book at all. >:(
I've never been so disappointed by a movie in my life... But in life there's a first time for everything. It's too bad that it had to be the Hobbit. :-\
Having a LotR marathon at least once every year has been my long tradition and I was hoping to include three more movies in it...
But I'm afraid that I won't be watching them again. Once was more than enough.
Rare parts that I liked:
- The first two movies at least followed the story for the most part
- Bilbo was well portrayed
- I liked how Thorin and Balin were portrayed
- Giant spiders of Mirkwood
- Dwarven armours (not the company, though) and phalanxes
- The encounter with Gollum was perfect
- Silvan armours (palace guards especially)
- Goblins and their armory (as always)
- Erebor architecture and design
- Dol Gudur architecture
- The part in which Thorin sallies out (ruined immediately afterwards by them not wearing their new armor as in the book)
- LotR reference on the end
I think the reason I don't seem overly mad about Kili dying defending Tauriel and not Thorin is because I saw it coming from DoS. I was fully expecting it having seen the second film. I was hoping they'd kill her off to explain her not appearing/being mentioned in LotR but oh well. I'm just seething internally about it now. (Not to mention the fact I'm pretty offended that Hollywood seem to think women will not watch films without a romance sub-plot at least). :P
I actually thought the second was the worst film :/ Beorn's part being so changed, the addition of Tauriel and the ridiculous love triangle introduction, the 'Super Mario' barrel scene - ugh - the fact that Fili, Kili and Bofur didn't go up to the Lonely Mountain with everyone else - to me, that was the film that got everything wrong. Oh, and no spider song!
There was a definite lack of songs after the first one. Or the first half of the first one really.
Quote from: Pentagathus on January 08, 2015, 06:18:19 PM
There was a definite lack of songs after the first one. Or the first half of the first one really.
There definitely was. I felt that with LotR too though.