Author Topic: The Battle of Five Armies - reactions?  (Read 9183 times)

Jubal

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The Battle of Five Armies - reactions?
« on: December 17, 2014, 01:42:06 AM »
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.
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Lady Grey

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Re: The Battle of Five Armies - reactions?
« Reply #1 on: December 18, 2014, 11:42:50 PM »
^ 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 )

Lady Grey

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Re: The Battle of Five Armies - reactions?
« Reply #2 on: December 18, 2014, 11:43:48 PM »
Ooh, also, I'm glad they've run the two franchises together :) My brother was very excited about it ending where LotR starts :P

Lady Grey

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Re: The Battle of Five Armies - reactions?
« Reply #3 on: December 18, 2014, 11:47:17 PM »
This is about the second film, but can I just leave this here....?


Jubal

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Re: The Battle of Five Armies - reactions?
« Reply #4 on: December 19, 2014, 12:31:31 AM »
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.
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Lady Grey

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Re: The Battle of Five Armies - reactions?
« Reply #5 on: December 19, 2014, 08:53:46 PM »
THE WHITE COUNCIL THOUGH.

Jubal

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Re: The Battle of Five Armies - reactions?
« Reply #6 on: December 19, 2014, 09:12:37 PM »
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.
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Lady Grey

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Re: The Battle of Five Armies - reactions?
« Reply #7 on: December 19, 2014, 10:34:01 PM »
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

Jubal

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Re: The Battle of Five Armies - reactions?
« Reply #8 on: December 19, 2014, 10:37:38 PM »
Yeah, I think Aragorn's 11 at this point.
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Lady Grey

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Re: The Battle of Five Armies - reactions?
« Reply #9 on: December 19, 2014, 10:51:55 PM »
That's what we worked out as well :P

TTG4

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Re: The Battle of Five Armies - reactions?
« Reply #10 on: December 23, 2014, 03:51:31 PM »
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!

Jubal

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Re: The Battle of Five Armies - reactions?
« Reply #11 on: December 23, 2014, 09:40:32 PM »
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.
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Cuddly Khan

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Re: The Battle of Five Armies - reactions?
« Reply #12 on: December 25, 2014, 11:26:22 PM »
Might want to put a spoiler warning in the title Jubs, just to be safe. Not everyone has seen it yet.
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Jubal

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Re: The Battle of Five Armies - reactions?
« Reply #13 on: December 26, 2014, 10:23:43 AM »
Is that not implied by the thread title asking for reactions?
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Lady Grey

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Re: The Battle of Five Armies - reactions?
« Reply #14 on: December 26, 2014, 01:50:27 PM »
I liked the phalanx too actually :P looked cool :P