Film: The Hobbit : Battle of the five armies (December 2014)

[LoathedVermin72]

also, lads, i do recommend watching Desolation of Smaug again before you see this.
it helps.

Just did that like a month ago.

[Rangi Guy]

also, lads, i do recommend watching Desolation of Smaug again before you see this.
it helps.

Just did that like a month ago.

Watched that and the first one a couple of weeks back

[LoathedVermin72]

I almost hate seeing these in theaters because I know I'm basically watching incomplete versions. Extended Edition or GTFO

[Monkey_Driven]

I don't think I could subject myself to the extended versions of these movies. That is coming from someone who owns and adores the extended versions of the LOTR trilogy.

[LoathedVermin72]

A Middle-earth movie that is under 2.5 hours just seems wrong

[dimejinky99]

MonkeyD, as flawed as these are, the Extended cuts do actually add a lot of worthwhile stuff..


god i cant wait for the fan edit..

[dimejinky99]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/fil ... e22105497/

[dimejinky99]

ooooouch
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies Is Final Proof That Peter Jackson Has Lost His Soul
http://www.vulture.com/2014/12/movie-re ... book_nymag

[dimejinky99]

Ive just put on disc 2 of fellowship randomly and realised something we all know. The score in LOTR adds SO much to the whole thing. You're looking at amazing helicopter shots on mountainsides but that's not what comes in. It's the music, rousing and powerful, down to Gandalf at the walls of Moria, warning Frodo about the effect of the ring on the others, subtle and effective.
The score was hugely important in the LOTR films. And sadly none of the hobbit films have a score that conjures those feelings or helps imply what you are meant to be feeling, in anything like the same way. Real loss.

[dimejinky99]

Also, a warning to avoid the higher frame rate version. If you can find a cinema with just the regular frame rate showing, see that. People are falling asleep in the HFR theatres apparently

[LoathedVermin72]

Okay.

Spoiler: show

Here are my two big problems with this movie.

1. The pacing/editing. Those first 20 minutes or so are vvveerrryyy awkward. And so is the falling action and ending after the battle. Not only did I feel like important scenes of information and character/relationship development were missing, but the actual ebb and flow of how scenes fit together and cut between each other seemed extremely sloppy. Basically, the movie felt hacked to shit. It felt unfinished. Luckily, I have a feeling the eventual extended cut is going to assuage most (hopefully all) of these problems.

2. The CGI. The fucking CGI EVERYWHERE. It was already excessive in the first two, but it is so pervasive here that it becomes a massive distraction. The most egregious usage is the orcs. I was already annoyed that we went from the terrifying, practical make-up of LOTR (Seriously, the Uruk-hai are the scariest looking things ever) to the weightless, plastic-y CGI of Azog and company, but in this chapter, nearly the entire film is spent watching characters fight orcs...and ALL of the orcs are CG. It totally robs the scenes of any tactility or threat. It takes me out of the immersion, and that's a big problem in a fantasy movie. (This is rendered even more frustrating by the super-brief glimpse of what appears to be the original, practical-make-up version of Azog seen beating up Gandalf before he is rescued by Galadriel at the beginning of the film. He looked awesome...for about 2 seconds.)

And they don't just apply this to orcs, either - elves are sometimes CG, too. And even Billy Connolly's dwarf is (totally unnecessarily) CGI-enhanced. It's a baffling visual decision, and probably one done out of laziness. A real shame.

But all that said, I, of course, still really enjoyed this. Jackson's world-building prowess is still present, and I think this probably has the best action of all six films. And not being familiar with what happens in the novel, I was genuinely shocked at some of the deaths. I really had no idea Thorin was gonna bite it. His whole showdown with Azog was fucking great; totally satisfying, and the image of Azog's body floating beneath the ice is striking.

There are also two notable things that separate this from the other five films:

1. The confined sense of space. Almost all of this film takes place in one location - the gates of Erebor. This is a huge shift from the other films, which were very sprawling and journey-based. And while this makes the titular battle feel much less "epic" than the final battle in ROTK, it does make it feel urgent and claustrophobic. You really feel the sense that there's no escape.

2. Thematic interest. As much as I love the other Middle-earth films, they tend to be kind of thematic "dead zones." As I've said before, they're aesthetic exercises and I enjoy them as such, but they are problematic if you try to dig beneath the surface. But I felt some genuine weight not only in Thorin's descent into madness here, but also in the film's focus on consequences and aftermath, which is not something we've seen in other Middle-earth films. You get to stew in the wreckage of the dwarves' reckless disturbance of Smaug. You get to watch the greed and corruption set in. You get to sit with the death and destruction.

Jackson also does some nice visualizing of internal conflict and emotion. The obvious one is when Thorin rejects the crown and the treasure after seeing himself drown in a morass of gold (which we have just seen Smaug's silhouette swimming through). A little on-the-nose, for sure, but I thought it was suitably powerful. There was a visceral satisfaction in that moment (at least to me). But my favorite visualization is actually a subtle one at the end - when Bilbo returns to Bagend, and his neighbors have auctioned off his belongings. His home is empty and ransacked. He's home, but it's not the same home he departed from. His life can never be the same. This is a pretty poignant concretization, and a keen callback to Gandalf's warning in the first film: "And if you [come back], you will not be the same."

So, anyway, it's flawed. It has some problems. But I still thought it was pretty great. Now bring on that Extended Edition so I can have the proper experience.

[dimejinky99]

ok

LV


ive just seen you replied and havent read your post...i am about to..and colour me intrigued!

[dimejinky99]

You're on fuckin drugs...

there no climax or resolution for ANYONE! even Bilbos homecoming is deeply flawed! gah!! i had so much hope youd see this for the pile of shit it is..


woe is me

[LoathedVermin72]

Like I said, it has problems. And I agree the resolution is not what it should be. But, again, I have hope that the EE will fix a lot of that.

But, as I explained, I DO love Bilbo's homecoming. I have no problems with that.

[LoathedVermin72]

Oh, and you're right about the score; I was REALLY longing for the emotional pull of the LOTR score during this.

[BurtReynolds]

maybe I'll just wait for the DVD.

[dimejinky99]

if it had been given a great score, you could almost forgive its continuous missteps....

as it is, it is insipid..a thought out loud..'shit, we really made a total balls of this..lets go all out war for the last one!'

and they screwed even that up..



Extended editions i will usually vouch for them, LV, but in this case? theres nothing the EE can do to save it,

how can 30 minutes of more battle carnage and nameless/faceless orcs and dwarves, help matters?


if that extra 30 minutes is spent on the scene at dol goldur, that might help..

speak about that scene...galadriel...again????? wtf???


shes sailing the verdant tide it seems

[LoathedVermin72]

I don't think the battle stuff is going to be extended very much; it seems like that survived largely intact. I think there's gonna be an extra 30-45 minutes at the beginning and end. Not more action. And that would help a lot.

[dimejinky99]

'best action scenes of the six films'


i can make a video of some pocket calculators fighting, would that get you off??

hehe

[dimejinky99]

the rating on rottentomatoes and meta for this film, is dropping daily..

Rotten Tomatoes score now 66%. Metacritic score now 58%.

Wonder what it will be next week...