"I saw Battle of Five Armies again" Topic

I really wanted to see the gate and the mountain for inspiration for our BOFA game we are putting on at Cold Wars.

As usual the 2nd time around, you noticed stuff you missed the first time.

2 things struck me, this time. First, the character of Alfrid is way more annoying than the elf/dwarf love, WAY MORE. I know he is there for some comic relief but to me he doesn't deliver that. I'd rather have more Tauriel/Kili action than another second of him on screen.

The 2nd thing I noticed is what a great job some of the actors did. Bard, Thranduil, Bilbo(of course), Thorin, Gandalf. They all hit it out of the park. Amazing work on that score.

Xin

I just saw it for the first time last night, and I think of the three it was the weakest, which is odd for me as it's the one with the most (and biggest) battles, but it just didn't grab me. It was a 2.5 hour movie that felt like a 3.5 hour movie.

I agree on Alfrid, he wasn't needed to drive anything in the story.

While I like Martin Freeman, I'm finding he usually ends up playing Martin Freeman, especially with that stutter-step reaction thing he does – initial facial reaction > pauses to catch himself > second reaction/response. I didn't feel like Bilbo was that much different that Watson.

My other overall reaction was that LOTR+Hobbit is now like the six Star Wars movies – after three we thought they were about Luke, Han, Leia, but it turns out after six they're all about Anakin/Vader; here I thought they were about hobbits, turns out it's Legolas resolving his father issues. Did we really need that much of him?

Did we really need that much of him?

The teenage girls did.

We most certainly did NOT need to resolve Legolas' daddy issues.

I, in general, liked it for the Tolkien geekery quotient more than any other reason, though the CGI got extremely heavy handed. I miss the "bigature" models from the first trilogy, they looked much better than CGI renderings on the big screen. I also miss made up Human Beings playing Orcs instead of an army of cartoons. With that said, there were many things I liked. I liked the Dwarven army.. tough as nails, armored to the hilt and ass-kickers. I liked the inclusion of Dain, though not the fact that he was an entirely CGI character. Voice acted by Billy Connelly, who has stated "I hate Lord of the Rings, and I don't like people who LIKE Lord of the Rings" before, when asked why he wasn't in the trilogy. Never say never!

I wish there had been more Beorn in battle scenes. I loved the actor's portrayal of him and wanted him to have more screen time.

How about those Troll siege weapons?

I liked the White Council, and I liked what an Elf from the First Age looks like when she deploys her core essence in a duel with Sauron (e.g., Galadriel). Saruman's "Leave Sauron to MEEEEEE" seemed prophetic-- was he already corrupted, then? I also liked the spectral Nazgul, appearing as they did before withering.

My favorite character was Bard, actually, followed by Bilbo.
Gandalf is nowhere near as present as he was in the original trilogy, I guess that was on purpose.

There were some howlers, like the giant rock chewing worms. Where did the rock go?

All Bard does is fall off an Eagle…in fact I'm not even sure an actor was involved in the role at all, he's just an sfx shot.

Terrible film, terrible trilogy imho.

All Bard does is fall off an Eagle

I think you mean Beorn, and I was disappointed we didn't see more of him. Of course in the book we don't actually get to see him fighting at all, because Bilbo was taking a nap at the time.

The thing that I didn't like about the battle was that most of the battle wasn't about the battle. Instead they spent so much time focusing on Thorin, Bilbo, and a couple of others going after Azog, which I found to be rather boring and annoying.

Alfred is perhaps the worst thing Peter Jackson added to any of the 6 films.

Beorn was badly underused in Battle of the Five Armies – great pity, I'm hoping for more on the extended DVD.

There were some howlers, like the giant rock chewing worms. Where did the rock go?

Where did the rock go? Man, where did the worms go? The orcs appeared out of the tunnels so fast that the worms had to have simply disintegrated to clear the way. *face palms*

At least I got a positive response when I cried aloud "SHAI-HULUD!" in the theater.

My son thought Galadriel was a bit scary when she saw off Sauron and his boys.

My wife does not understand why Jackson didn't have the romance be between Bard and Tauriel rather than the crazy Kili idea. Upon thinking about it, Jackson could have made more of Bard if he was going to play around with the source material to please movie audiences.

This movie gave me my major explanation for the entire Jackson Dual Trilogy: The only thing that can make you fail is you.

PJ was on top form for directing action scenes, assisted ably by the CGI Lon Chaney that is Andy Serkis. However there is very little thought to these action scenes and never a thought of the big picture.

For example, Tolkien provided a series of lovely maps in his books, and in this movie we don't get to see them, despite action taking place in such distant locales as Dul Guldur, Erebor, and even Gundabad. Plus wherever the hell Azog was leading his field army from.

Discussing the battle of Five Armies I must of course discuss the Armies involved. I counted: The Elves, The Dwarves, and Azog's Orcs and Trolls. The Dwarf Elf Combo attack was cool, as was Azog's Command post on Raven Hill, as were some of the Siege trolls. The Giant Were Worms (Wyrms? Wurms? Wirms?) were better left in Bilbo's Apocrypha along with Golphimbul.

Bard and the Men of Laketown did not contribute an army, despite being on the cross roads of Middle Earth and having people from as far away as Far Harad, and being able to promise Dragon treasure to adventurers from Rhun and Dorwinion. Bard's just running around with a sword, despite his proficiency with a bow and the Tendency of the Forges of Laketown to produce maces and axe in the films. Also why would hardy Fisherfolk be reduced to literal Peasants with of all things Scythes and Pitchforks? For the first time I feel that Wetta Workshop let us down.

Side note: Trolls turn to stone in sunlight in these movies, so why didn't Azog have the host of bats that cover the sun in the book?

So The Battle of "Five Armies" is Broken into the Battle of Three armies and the Siege of Dale. For some unknown reason Thranduil's Elves attack the Orcs in Dale leaving the Dwarven Phalanx to die, and even Billy Connolly can't kill conceivably every Orc in existance, when Thorin having finally acted the hell out of the crappy script to go killing orcs. So the dwarves rush out (in their old costumes? what the hell?) and manage to roughly handle the orcs. Thorin see's Azog's command post and goes to attack it with war rams (did they come up with the reinforcements? how did the Dwarf Phallanx outrun their own cavalry? what the hell?)

So they chase Azog off of his command post, and then everybody goes full retard. Thorin decides he needs to find Azog in the Raven Hill complex and kill him there. As opposed to simply wrecking the command post and leading the Dwarves to attack the Orcs in the flank and maybe having all three "Kings"( bard doesn't want the kingship? What the Hell?) fighting together.

So they all split up, and the Ballte of Raven Hill begins. with Dwalin hanging out with Bilbo, and they start fighting the first scary looking Orcs in this movie, until Bolg teleports and knocks out Bilbo. The Pretty dwarves get killed, Tauriel Doesn't. Legolas kills Bolg and I actually go "That'll do Elf. That'll do." And with a cleaver maneuver Thorin drowns Azog with his own flail- actually Azog breaks out of the ice and they mutually kill each other.

The Eagles arrive and attack the army Bolg was leading until he teleported, air dropping Beorn( great pay off that little revenge subplot got huh?) And the Orc army rampaging through dale probably kills everyone but Gandalf because we don't get to see Thorin's funeral and Thorin even flubs the quote in his death scene.

So we go from one, all out, decisive, easily filmed battle, to three separate battles that have little connection and no emotional pay off except for at Raven Hill were all the death of characters take place.

Indeed by killing Azog at Raven Hill, so far away from any off the action taking place at the Lonely mountain, the Orcs don't get the emotional blow of seeing their leader cut down, and the audience doesn't get the rush of seeing Thorin and Dain kill the Orc that has dogged them for decades, only for Bolg's army to appear at both horns of the mountain "Turning Hope into despair and victory to death."

This could have been Helms Deep meets Pelenor Fields, but instead it turned into a longer version of "Aragorn's Magic River Adventure".

This was the best movie I almost walked out of.

My reaction too, the battle was a disjointed, confusing series of set pieces with no relation to each other – a big missed opportunity. Alfrid annoyed me from the get-go – I consider him to be P. Jackson's Jar-Jar.

How exactly did the elves and dwarves pull off a ballet-like joint maneuver when we can safely assume they never drill together due to mutual dislike/distrust? What was with the peasant women arming themselves, then disappearing. Did they go out in a blaze of glory?

Shai-hulud!

Crazyivanov gives a good long version of my thoughts, complimented by Spudeus!

We never did see what happens finally to Alfrid, right? So he's probably going to get his own movie next…

Re alfred, glad they introduced their jar jar in the last film (yes, technically two).

Yep, mixed up Bard with Beorn.

This was simply one of the worst movies I've ever seen.

Yes Peter Jackson has become the modern George Lucas, makes everything he touches worse then the last movie.