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The Hobbit: Battle of Five Armies

Although, I disagree with many of PJ's additions to the hobbit. I love the movies for what they do have. I know I've said this many times before. For someone who has waited more patiently than anyone currently under the age of let's say 20-25 for the technology of cinema to hurry up to provide an adequate means of showing the world in real life. I will take and enjoy pretty much whatever comes to film. I still have the books for re-reading and re-envisioning in my own imagination what I saw as a kid.

Did Warner Bros want to make more money on the franchise? Of course they did, they are first and foremost a movie business. In many ways I think PJ's reason's also may be that he wanted to not have to go do more LOTR movies, and to be finally finished with anything Tolkien related. I mean seldom does a director or producer revisit movies in the same world. Look at the Batman, or Harry Potter franchises for examples. There are exceptions of course like Lucas and Star wars but this is rare.

It's in some ways the small things that can be ignored (imo) that bother me sometimes. Like 1. Not all dwarves have yet gone to Erebor, and in the books none of the dwarves actually see Smaug in Erebor much less get a glimpse on him outside. But hey can I overlook that? sure no problem.

Also would I want PJ (or any other person) to film Silmarillion? No not likely. I think it would be extremely difficult to do in any format. I liked the book but in all honesty in school I hated any course relating to history/geography and only took what courses the schools mandated I take in those subjects. I honestly think however PJ made the movies there would be disgruntled believers some where. Some thrive on contradiction, the whole glass half empty types. Me... I'm the polar opposite.

ok my little rant's done.
 
Honestly I think the only way The Silmarillion could ever work in visual form would be as something like an HBO mini-series, just because of how separated its chapters are in both time and subject matter. It'd basically need to be a GoT-sized undertaking, with a huge ensemble cast, and each distinct story getting its own handful of episodes. It could be done right, but the budget required would probably be too large for the expected payoff.
 
nevik45 said:
I mean, the Hobbit is supposed to be a not-so-action-packed movie about Bilbo going from a stupid cowardly hobbit hiding in a hole to a less-stupid less-cowardly hobbit that hides by turning invisible using a ring. But no, seriously, Peter Jackson completely missed the point of the book, and made a movie that pretty much has a few of the same characters, the same basic storyline, and added a ton of fighting and impossible elves.
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I don't understand this mindset of many movie goers where adding in action and CGI is a mortal sin. The movie has the massive advantage over a book in that it can convey exciting scenes and parts of the story with visual action and effects. I remember so many scenes from the book that were either very exciting or they either glossed over the action, and when the movies came out I couldn't wait to see these things play out on screen.

Obviously when the story is sacrificed for the sole purpose of action (Transformers), then the movie usually becomes bad. However I don't think that is what happened with the Hobbit. Having three movies allowed Peter Jackson the freedom to add in more action scenes and extend or spice up moments in the book that went by very quickly. These three movies also allowed for him to throw in the plot of Gandalf and Dol Guldur along side of the Hobbit events. Yes, the Battle of the Five Armies was essentially skipped in the book because it wasn't central to what the Hobbit was about, but when you are doing a movie along with adding a plot that transcends the story of the Hobbit, then showing the battle is both necessary and will be exciting to see.

Also, I'm tired of hearing people complain about there being 3 movies instead of 2. I'm not really sure how anyone could actually be upset about this. Was this probably done partially to make more money? Yes. Does Peter Jackson putting more money in his pocket effect you? Nope. The fact that they did 3 movies allowed them to include more stuff from the appendices as well as put in more exciting action scenes. As far as I'm concerned, they didn't sacrifice any of the story with the action scenes either. I would agree if you made the point that "this isn't in the spirit of the book", however only the DIE HARD book fans would really see this as a concern. I personally love these action scenes, so to each his own I suppose. (The only scene I thought was pointless was the whole chase-Smaug-through-Erebor-and-pour-gold-on-him scene, but everything else was great).

I think ultimately though, the reason so many people here don't like the movies is because they are die hard book fans. A lot of you have expectations and preconceptions about what you imagined the book to look like visually, and this is the natural response for fans of a book who are watching the movie adaption of it. A lot of you also notice all of the little lore inaccuracies that bug you, but for most movie goers it won't even compute for them. Most movies just can't do a book justice, and the Hobbit is no exception. However, these movies are by no means butchering or ruining the book. It's not as good as Lord of the Rings but these movies are great if you look at it from an unbiased view. If you want to know what it means for a movie to completely butcher a book, go read the Inheritance Cycle and afterwords watch the movie Eragon. Then you might have a better appreciation for these movies.

(Also nevik, I'm not sure why you mentioned Star Wars, since it wasn't based on a book.)
 
Even if i had never read the hobbit i still feel that its a "not so great" piece of film. It just seems to incorporate a lot of cliches and pointless action sequences which are so reminiscent of all the other junk movies ive seen pop up over the years. It's nothing fresh, nor is it really all that beautiful in my opinion. I personally, as well as a good amount of other people, prefer the "organic and folksy" atmosphere intended for the Hobbit, and which Jackson actually did a decent job of creating in the fellowship movie.
And yeah, of course i'm a bit outraged that the movies are not at all faithful to the lore, atmosphere, or even themes of the book. But i'm even more disappointed that the movie is just a clusterf*** of cliches and cgi action sequences that everyone feels necessary to create a movie these days. And because that wasn't what the book was all about, i had high hopes for the films to be something really different from others and refreshing. And as always, to end my rant, i'll remind myself that bitching about Jackson's butchery of the book and box office gluttony doesn't solve anything, and also blah blah blah, and hope for a decent remake by the time i'm 50.
 
I agree with Bevs and Dyno a lot.

I do not find the action sequences to be pointless, but rather quite enjoyable and fun.

A small detail people don't recognize much: being completely faithful to a children's book results in a children's movie, which is not quite what I want.

I am just happy that I have a least 1 more middle-earth-cinema experience to look forward to.
 
I'm not annoyed by the films because they're not 100% lore accurate. I'm annoyed with the films because they're mediocre and would actually be better films if they followed the plot of the book more closely. Nobody's complaining about seeing the Battle of the Five Armies on screen, because as Bevs says, actually seeing it with all the CGI and stuff would be great. People are complaining about ninja elves, invulnerable dwarves, explosions and beheadings, which are exciting if you're a Michael Bay aficionado but fairly dreary for most people, and get tiresome very quickly.
 
nevik45 said:
TWO 2 1/2 hour movies? Then the Lord of the Rings should be, what, 6-7 2 1/2 hour movies? I mean, seriously, as @Indorilian said, 1 90-110 min movie should be enough. PJ didn't need to add Tauriel (it makes me mad that they don't pronounce her name "Towriel," because that's how Tolkien would say it should be. Today I said "Towriel" and someone "corrected" me), include Legolas, make the whole romance-y thing, and include Orcs attacking Lake-town. It's just PJ beefing up the action to squeeze all the money out he can, including everything he thinks will make people like it but actually making all the real Hobbit fans mad, which unfortunately makes me in the minority at my school. And the Elves are not perfect long-blond haired athletic smart people, they can be killed, and will not have low enough of a reflex time to hear a club moving at their head from a foot behind, register that they are about to take brain damage, and bend over backwards to avoid the club, if I remember correctly. Maybe it was forwards, but you get my meaning.
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No its really not pronounced Towriël, its Tauriel while the "a" sounds like in "bath" and the "u" as in "lure". cf. Jords A Noob's Guide to Elvish page 12f: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ywrz4nuji7lseos/A Noobs guide to Lore Elvish.pdf
 
I enjoyed both the movies and the books. They are made by different people, with different opinions on what was important for their separate mediums and which they believed would captivate their audience.
 
Indorilian said:
Considering the animated movie from the 70's managed to fit in almost EVERYTHING necessary from the book in around 90 minutes, 3 3 hour movies is literally just squeezing every bit of money from the franchise.
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You have to keep in mind the difference between animated films and live-action though. Look at the LOTR 1978 film. They got up to the end of the second book and it took only an hour or so. Live-action films tend to depend more on longer scenes than animation.
 
nevik45 said:
And the Elves are not perfect long-blond haired athletic smart people, they can be killed, and will not have low enough of a reflex time to hear a club moving at their head from a foot behind, register that they are about to take brain damage, and bend over backwards to avoid the club, if I remember correctly. Maybe it was forwards, but you get my meaning.
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Why couldn't a race who has slain Balrogs and fought against Morgoth himself not be able to have reflexes fast enough to dodge an orc swinging a club at them from behind? Elves are pretty much THE ultimate bad asses of Middle Earth. I think they can react to an orc attacking them from behind.
 
BevsForBros said:
Why couldn't a race who has slain Balrogs and fought against Morgoth himself not be able to have reflexes fast enough to dodge an orc swinging a club at them from behind? Elves are pretty much THE ultimate bad asses of Middle Earth. I think they can react to an orc attacking them from behind.
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Yeah, but, I mean, any living thing has its limits. A club wouldn't make (much) sound, and assuming they have about half the reaction time of a human being, they still would have hardly enough time to move. So it'd take a lot of luck, which the elves obviously have a lot of. But, I wonder what's gonna happen to Tauriel at the end?
 
BevsForBros said:
Why couldn't a race who has slain Balrogs and fought against Morgoth himself not be able to have reflexes fast enough to dodge an orc swinging a club at them from behind? Elves are pretty much THE ultimate bad asses of Middle Earth. I think they can react to an orc attacking them from behind.
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There is a significant difference between martial prowess and power of the kings and lords of the Noldor in the First Age and that of a Silvan elf in the Third Age. Thousands of Elves died in wars in Tolkien's mythology, which seems fairly surprising if some Silvan elf like Tauriel with a few hundred years of training could kill scores of orcs without breaking a sweat. There was no point, whilst watching DoS, where I thought Tauriel was even close to being killed or injured.
 
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