"The Battle of the Five Armies." Topic

Waiting for it!? (smile)

YouTube link

Amicalement
Armand

Well despite all of the padding and addition of things not in the book I think this will be a fun sit back with a box of popcorn and turn off your mind film.

Hmm…appears from the last photo that those are dwarves mounted on giant rams. That is kind of sheepish.

Steven Colberh did a hilarious "Where's Waldo" send-up to the full sized movie poster last night on his show.

I liked the more realistic style of LOTR better, but I`m warming to the Hobbit movies.

I still have not seen the second movie.

Looking forward to it.

But why is Pippin singing in it ? He hasn't even been born yet….

But why is Pippin singing in it ? He hasn't even been born yet….

I noticed that at the end of the second movie and I came to conclusion that Jackson was making a connection between the events that are taking place in The Hobbit and how they will later impact what takes place in The Lord of the Rings.

I'm looking forward to it. The trailer we saw before Guardians of the Galaxy was enticing.

Doug

I have no problem inserting events that were happening in greater world at the time of this story but the ONLY resemblance between the story told in the book and the first movie was the title. I walked out before it was over, I did b=not see the second movie, NOR will I see this. ALL of Jackson's LOTR movies have been utter TRASH and he will never get $1 USD out of me again to watch his garbage.

Gee, CRW…why don't you tell us what you REALLY think about the LotR/Hobbit Trilogies!

I have rather enjoyed both Hobbit films (even if both could have done with at least an hour edited out) although I was a bit surprised at where the second one ended.

Love them.

Dan

I have been thinking about comments about how little the first movie resembled the book. So let's take a look:
The first meeting between Gandolf and Bilbo is almost exactly right out of the book. The dinner party is pretty close.
The meeting with the trolls is also pretty close
The addition of Radagast and his trek into Dol Guldur and the journey to Rivendell is almost completely fabricated. I didn't mind, although the rabbit pulled sled may have been over the top. There were hints in the book about a meeting that would pull Gandolf to Dol Guldur so the meeting with Saruman, Elrond and Galadriel worked fine for me.
The trek over the high pass, the capture of the dwarves and the fight out of Goblin Town was really pretty close as well. There were variations especially getting Bilbo to Gollum's location but ultimately I think it worked out quite well. Some of Bilbo's motivations and contrived but I think it worked into his character pretty well. The conversation after leaving Goblin town between Gandolf, Thorin and Bilbo was almost completely reversed but otherwise okay. Chasing the Dwarves into the trees and the rescue by the Eagles pretty close to the book other than Thorin being wounded and of course the presence of Azhog (who really did die at the battle for Moria). I think the introduction Azhog was a bit contrived but it certainly served to move the plot along and provide an additional antagonist. Overall I got pretty much what I expected from the first film. I think they have been quite well done so far. I haven't seen the second film since its release in the theaters so I can't really comment on that one. I certainly realize that others may completely disagree with me on these viewpoints,

Haven't seen the first and only watched portions of the second (DVD) at my brother's.

My nieces were appalled at the extraneous material in the second. As was I. Major rewrites of existing sequences as well.

Not sure how much of Smaug I will watch if my brother does get it (Netflix).

P.S. Watched 'Day of the Siege' right after watching the second Hobbit movie. Would love to have seen what they could have done with that if they had had the money spent on the Hobbit movie…

Good thread my friend Heisler!

Amicalement
Armand

Heisler's pretty much got it right. Yeah, the Barrel Ride was a complete farce, I got it.

But, a lot of the extraneous/supporting material either comes (or can be derived) from the LOTR (book) appendices and a few other Tolkein efforts.

So, there are certain parts of the movies that make me wince, but overall there not that terribly far off the mark either.

Gang;

Heisler wrote

"I have been thinking about comments about how little the first movie resembled the book. So let's take a look:

(snipped) … The dinner party is pretty close. … (snipped)

It is somewhat remarkable that so many feel this way because, in fact the meeting with the dwarfs in the movie is absolutely nothing like the one in the book.

* In the book, the dwarfs arrive differently and at a decidedly different time of day

* The Unexpected party is less than one day in the movie when in the book it is considerably longer, and Bilbo provides far more meals and snacks

* The method in which the party leave Bag End to begin the expedition is entirely different to the point that it reflects nothing written in the book

As for the rest of the mnovie – as far as I watched…

* As for the trip between Bag End and Rivendell, again there is nothing more than a surface resemblance between the book and the movie, and what happens at Rivendell itself is utter nonsense

* The entire sequence in the goblin caves so utterly different (and absurd) in the movie that I, and my family walked out

* The arch villain orc in the movie does not even appear in the book.

In fact, the ONLY scene I liked in the movie was the meeting of the White Council – a scene not in the book – but appropriately added to the story line to like events to which Bilbo was unaware.

In my opinion, the fact that so many folks believe that the movie(s) reflects anything of the tenor and story as actually written is extremely sad because the book was GREAT.

Msrk

I've read The Hobbit so many times I've lost count (last count was thirty, and that was over twenty years ago…). I disagree with your assessment if the dinner party sequence, CRW. Though compressed for time (necessarily so in a visual medium), the dinner party is close enough to the book as makes no difference, and your quibbles there are exceedingly minor. (Time of day? Really???)
I thought the hidden path to Rivendell was an interesting approach, if not quite what I had imagined. Elrond's hostility towards the dwarves was ill thought, I agree, but PJ was trying to establish the distrust between elves and dwarves that is central to the Mirkwood plot. While Tolkien could simply say in a line or two that the elves of Mirkwood weren't like the elves of Rivendell, in a film such things need to develop more smoothly, so the elf-dwarf rivalry must be established earlier. (It also fits the film's emphasis on Gandalf's account regarding the quest of Erebor from the LOTR appendices and the need for unity of the Free Folk against the rise of evil.)
As for the rest, I don't understand the dislike for the goblin town sequence. Yes, it was intentionally over-the-top (hello, children's movie of a children's book), but it served as a way to compress a desperate running fight into a single sequence while allowing audiences to see the fight with a wide perspective not possible if the filming had been restricted to confined tunnels. All things considered, the details of the battle are not the significant point in the book, rather that the battle is a desperate, running fight with a lot of confusion in a complicated region where Bilbo can easily be lost in the chaos. As it is, I thought PJ's approach was quite fun and in the spirit of Tolkien's book, and rather enjoyed it.
My main area of dislike in the film centered on Azog (correct spelling), who I agree is a great departure from Tolkien in almost every respect, and quite unnecessary to the story. And, of course, Bilbo's orc fight, which IMHO broke his own character arc.
But the Gollum sequence was terrific in every way.

Since you obviously didn't like the first PJ LOTR films, I'm trying to figure out why you spent money to see the beginning of this series.

Parzival;

Why did I go see it? I never would have gone except my daughter wanted to see it. My wife and I brought her up on the Hobbit and TLOTR. First read her the comic when she was three (she was 18 when the movie came out). We had just read the Hobbit together as a family the day we went to the movie. The ONLY enjoyable part was listening to my daughter complain at every change in the story that "that is/was not in the book!" And when she said to me, "this is ridiculous, let's go" it was music to my ears!