Critics review 'The Battle of the Five Armies'

He's definitely right about the dividing points between the movies. And two should absolutely have been the maximum.

I have a strange sense of ennui, its odd that its all over but the film has left me with nothing. You know when you watch a great film and the day after you think about it and want to discuss it, well the BO5A has left me feeling empty and dissatisfied. Junk food, ok at the time but you really wish you hadn't indulged afterwards. I have no feelings about it, just odd that theres nothing left to moan about. I saw one or two glimpses of what it could have been, but its submerged under an ice flow of plastic. kind of like Azogs face under the ice, now and again theres a flash of what the Hobbit could have felt like. I liked the shadows of the Eagles flying and circling over the mountainside, and I liked the sparks flying out of the chimney at Baggend, butterflies in the treetops. small crumbs.

Mrs Figg wrote:I have a strange sense of ennui, its odd that its all over but the film has left me with nothing. You know when you watch a great film and the day after you think about it and want to discuss it, well the BO5A has left me feeling empty and dissatisfied. Junk food, ok at the time but you really wish you hadn't indulged afterwards. I have no feelings about it, just odd that theres nothing left to moan about. I saw one or two glimpses of what it could have been, but its submerged under an ice flow of plastic. kind of like Azogs face under the ice, now and again theres a flash of what the Hobbit could have felt like. I liked the shadows of the Eagles flying and circling over the mountainside, and I liked the sparks flying out of the chimney at Baggend, butterflies in the treetops. small crumbs.

I agree Figgs, when the credits rolled on BOFTA (well I assume they did, I left as soon as the actual film ended) I felt nothing (beyond a vague sense of being hungrry ) not dissapointment, anger happiness or anything.

Michael C Drout's Review:

http://wormtalk.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/the-hobbit-battle-of-five-armies.html

It's as if he and screenwriter Philippa Boyens had heard an oral traditional version of the story of Bilbo Baggins, which they supplemented with information from some partially burned leaves of the text in a museum and a few chapters of a very old Chinese translation, but had never actually read The Hobbit for themselves.

Petty has been gone for 4 days. Is that how long it takes to get to NZ?

Drout's review is great, it is nice to see some Tolkien scholars speaking against the film - for some reason many like Olsen and even Ratliff and Kane are intent on defending it. I 'spose they enjoy it. Good for them.

OK well after swearing up and down I was not gonna see the dawn film, my wife literally lied to me about where we were going and pre ordered the tickets at matinee price. All I can say was it was a waste of 12 dollars, (2 tickets). Both my wife and myself hated it. Plus I loved the fact opening day we were 2 of 15 people seeing it. I listened to people in front of us and behind us talking about how stupid several scenes were.

Today I seen this... I'm sure some already posted it but looks like with all the poor reviews Jackson is throwing the studio under the bus...
http://www.cinemablend.com/m/new/Wait-Peter-Jackson-Thinks-Other-Directors-Rely-Too-Much-Technology-68760.html

But seeing the last hobbit film once was too much IMO

malickfan wrote:Michael C Drout's Review:

http://wormtalk.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/the-hobbit-battle-of-five-armies.html

It's as if he and screenwriter Philippa Boyens had heard an oral traditional version of the story of Bilbo Baggins, which they supplemented with information from some partially burned leaves of the text in a museum and a few chapters of a very old Chinese translation, but had never actually read The Hobbit for themselves.

Yeah I loved that article, right to the point and honest from a Tolkien scholar...

Tell your wife thanks from all of us in Forumshire, Sin!

And @ PJ's technology comment

Eldorion wrote:Tell your wife thanks from all of us in Forumshire, Sin!

And @ PJ's technology comment

Yeah she wanted to get me out of the house cause since the surgery I haven't been able to do anything or go any where. So she thought kidnapping me and taking me to a movie would be a good idea. Gotta admit I had fun just hated the movie. I did try and just think about it completely separate from the book but this film was worse than the others IMHO. Dialog was awful and the CGI was just bad, I mean really bad. And Legolas's  stunts just got worse and worse, I mean really running up a falling building like it's nothing? Dain was just a touch better than I imagined but was still horribly obviously fake looking. Beorn was in the film for a whole 5 seconds, and Tauriel's whole crap scene about love hurting was so horrible I felt like crying because of how bad it was, not how emotional it was. And the were worms? When did Dune come into middle earth? I mean I know Tolkien mentioned them as a myth but did PJ really need to include them? The movie was just really bad. I had more fun listening to the others in the theater saying how stupid the OTT action was. But since it was technically a date with my wife I had a good time. I will say I won't be watching this film ever again. The wife has already said she is gonna buy me the EE blueray  cause of the behind the scenes stuff. Which with these films I find much better than the actual film.

 its unbelievable how can PJ say that about technology. He was going on and on about how 48fps was going to revolutionize film making

The NotP is proud to present- dragged unwilling and screaming from the depths of his barrel, at great personal danger to our staff and risk of infection- Petty Tyrant's fulfilling his contract obligations by being strapped into a cinema seat in front of BOFA and made to review it for your pleasure.


Note from Petty Tyrant- I should warn you if I am gong to have to endure this you are too. So this will be part review and part analysis of the film, more or less scene by scene as I can remember it- meaning given how drunk I had to be, some scenes might be in the wrong order, or missing entirely.
Anyway- this wont be short and will hurt- pour yourself some buckies and hunker down for the official NotP Review of The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies.



Who stole my game pad?

TH films have been accused before now by some of having more than a hint of the aesthetic of a video game about them.
This is not to compare one to the other in terms of graphics versus cinema cgi, a cinema director versus the average game director.
Cinema wins on all counts even TH films too, but its a closer call this time than in any film I've seen before.

BOFA stands most accused of being like a video game. And not just because it take its values, style or its cues for action from that genre, they have all done that. No its worst sin is it takes video game structure for its narrative and applies it to film.

At its most basic BOFA is- action section/cut scene/action section/cut scene.
A formula overly familiar to the fatigued gamer.

But I think its worse than that.

Like every episode of Call of Duty made on any machine ever called 'Next Gen' BOFA opens with an action sequence which is at best only tangential to the rest of the game/film.
This style of opening is immediately familiar to the gamer.

In this case we have Smaug attacking Lake Town.

It opens with a cut-scene, sorry the film begins, showing the secondary bad guy of the level, sorry, the Master of Lake Town, exemplifying his greed and selfishness by fleeing with his servants laden with gold and gems.

We are then reminded of who all is still in Laketown; Tauriel, staring ahead in silence into the night, because they cant think of anything meaningful for her to do or say.
And Bards children and the other dwarves, in case you had forgotten they had stayed behind, or hoped it had been a bad dream brought on by a unexpected vegetable in Dave's Seasonal Cranberry Surprise Sauce.

So with the family, dwarves and Tauriel all aboard and setting sail, as is the Master (will their paths cross, despite two completely different starting points and all either have to do is sail outwards from the centre in any direction? Go on guess?) the stakes are set.

Bard, hero of level 1 and who in a game you would get to play as, implausibly gets a small boat to pull down half a wall and so conveniently escapes the jail he was now pointlessly thrown into at the end of film 2. And there the cut scene, sorry narrative, ends.

The problem here is in film 2 they spend some time setting up the politics of Laketown between the Master, Alfred and Bard. They even go as far as to have Bard imprisoned.
But nothing comes of it all. There are no consequences to this triangle.
Bard and the Master never meet again. Alfreds subsequent appearances are reduced to comic relief.
Immediately at the start of the film its all undone, the Master dies, and would have done no matter what had preceded these events, regardless. Bard gets no direct revenge, or even interaction, the plot gets no resolution. It is in fact just gotten out the way. Something which happens a lot to plot in this film.

Radagasts appearance in the films? No pay off. Events would have remained the same had Gandalf just gone to Dol Guldur on a hunch once he saw the state of Mirkwood.

Beorn's created animosity to Azog and the destruction of the entire Beorning race? Forget about it, the film makers do.

Thranduil and his strongly hinted they mean more than he is saying necklace? Forget about it, the film has by the end.

The Arkenstone and all its Talisman powers to unite the dwarves? Never to be mentioned again after we see it in Bards hand- did he just keep it? And in the end not needed at all to unite anyone.

The windlass and its importance in taking down a dragon?- completely pointless set up.

And that's not including all the stuff which just padded out the previous two films which have no meaning once you've seen all three films- the entire witchking blade subplot- never gets a mention again.

The invented tombs of the ringwraiths- serve only the purpose of setting up the clues for Gandalf- but the clues are unneeded, had Gandalf just gone to Dol Guldur all the ringwraiths are there anyway. It would have had no effect at all on the narrative.

Bilbo spotting the missing scale? Forget it, it has nothing to do with the solution to Smaug.

The dwarves left behind at Laketown? Pointless, they just leave and meet back up with the others right at the start of this film anyway whilst doing nothing of any consequence in-between.

Bard thrown in prison?? Undone immediately.

The inexplicable interchange of villains with Azog and Bolg in DOS? To no purpose.

The third film is full of, or rather lacking in, all these areas. Story threads created by the writers which go nowhere, were unneeded to begin with, or are simply forgotten about as soon as their purpose has been served.
A sloppier script I have never seen. And I include the remake of the Wickerman in that list!



Press Start to Continue.

Level 1.

The astute gamer already recognises this level. Its an escort mission.

Hold off the dragon long enough for the good guys to flee. And just as they are reaching safety, then and only then, will the game actually let you kill the dragon. Via a cut scene.

We get some platform action as you, sorry Bard, leap from rooftop to rooftop evading the incoming dragon fire.
We get some Assassins Creed style tower shenanigans and a fps shooting section where you, sorry Bard, take pot shots at the dragon to distract it in order to meet your level objective, sorry emotional narrative reasons; Bard's family, some dwarves so important you cant remember who is still there and its starting to bug you because the camera keeps moving and cutting and you never seem to get a clear shot of them all, and Tauriel escaping.

We are again clumsily reminded, in case you have forgotten the last scene the Master was in, of the Masters unpleasant personality- his boat barging civilians and little old ladies on fire out the way, and nearly colliding with the smaller boat of our hero's family. Its Scrooge McDuck levels of character development.

And to cap off this cut scene the Master throws the games, sorry films inept comic relief, Alfred, into the water to lighten the load, in a villainous act so old its been found on pyramids.

Meantime back with the playable character, sorry Bard, his tower is now on fire and his son is dangling from it because not enough people- except for Bilbo, three times in the Misty Mountains, oh and Thorin there too, and everybody in the trees, and the trees themselves off the cliff, oh and Bilbo, again, in Mirkwood- dangle off things in these films.

Anyway, as PJ knows only to well - if you cant write any proper drama or reasons for people to care about your characters, dangle them off something very high, preferably above lava or something on fire. That always works, every single time, no matter how often you use it in the same trilogy of films to wring false emotion out of your audience.

Smaug, who hasn't noticed Bard has been pinging arrows off him up till now is still destroying Laketown. Well remember, this is video game logic, and Bard hasn't got Smaug's health bar low enough yet. So when his health is low enough, or in this case the script requires it now, Smaug does finally notice. But why now?

Well now Bard has emotional investment thanks to his sons appearance, so its time for Smaug to pay attention and to stop setting everything on fire long enough to threaten Bard for a bit, be a bit overly cocky, and expose his one weakness (because The Hobbit of the title having anything to do with the end of the dragon is just silly isnt' it?) .
And in particular Smaug is keen to threaten Bard's son, so rather handy for Smaug that Bards son choose just then to turn up otherwise Smaug wouldn't have had anything good to taunt Bard with. Did I hear someone say 'contrived'? If so I'd like to add 'self-serving' to that adjective list, as a lot that happens in this script is only there to service other parts, regardless of narrative sense.

Mind you, as far as Smaug knows it could be any Lake Town teenage lad. In fact given all the chaos its not that likely it would be Bard's son. Maybe along with knowing Oakenshield was Thorin's assumed name Smaug has some sort of little black book of names and family relationships. Maybe film Smaug is just big on making assumptions.

Anyway Bard comes up with a plan to scrape of his sons left ear, half his cheek and a sizeable chunk of his shoulder by using the lad as a bow to fire the rather large black arrow from.
The A-Team would have been high fiving each other with this one.
I don't know if anyone told Pj but when you fire an arrow it spins. That thing should have spun hunks of meat off that lads face.

But this aside, the game, sorry scene ends with the player, sorry Bard, firing his arrow into the dragon and Smaug falling in spectacular fashion onto the aflame Laketown, and specifically onto the Master's boat and crushing it into the Lake, for bonus points, sorry I meant pathos.

Cue game/film credits before the main game starts properly and is about something else all together.

Overly long establishing cut-scenes- and no skip button!!

So the dwarves who were in Laketown return to the Lonely Mt, proving there was no point for them remaining behind in the first place and it would not have made a jot of difference if they had not, to find that Thorin, in the space of time between the dragon attack a few hours ago and now, has utterly succumbed to Dragon Sickness.
Something we don't actually get to see but are told about by Bilbo informing the arriving dwarves of the fact. And its just that, a fact, a thing, that happened. Off camera.
'Thorin has gone bonkers, there is no talking to him, we must have been trying for anything up to an hour and a half by now.'

Meanwhile at Laketown the first effective piece of cinema is underway, the shots of the surviving inhabitants of Laketown making their distraught ragtag way ashore. Its well shot with the cgi used properly- to add to the scene not overwhelm the point of it- the shock confusing and pain of the people. It is a tiny reminder in a sea of fakery that PJ can in fact do realism and real pain when he has a mind to. And that shooting in a real location and then using cgi to compliment the scene beats any amount of tomfoolery on a green screen set.
Enjoy its brief appearance, its the last you will see of any such real drama, or sense of physical reality for the reminder of the film.

Unfortunately its almost immediately ruined by the arrival of Alfred, getting his full on introduction as cowardly comic sidekick to Bard.
And again in keeping with similarity of a game the humour is just awful and so old it has mould growing on it, and that mould has mould growing on it, and it has mould growing on it which has evolved far enough to be complaining loudly to the other two layers of mould, about how old these gags are.
The character is so broad strokes that nothing new or interesting can emerge from him. Within the first few minutes of his dialogue you know everything about the sort of character he is and the manner in which he is likely to say or do anything.
He does what it says on the tin- 'comic relief, to be applied between moments of angst or prolonged fighting, nothing original shall be forthcoming. Wears off quickly. Guaranteed. No Refunds.'
Oh and given the mood of the crowd when they dragged him off, why was he still alive at all after that?

Anyway Bard is more or less elected by the people as de-facto leader of the survivors of Laketown, but reluctantly of course, you know like Aragorn was too.
Which is a shame as PJ and Co seem to have missed something important Tolkien says about power and position among humans. Which is it is ok to desire it. In Pj's version all those who take on the role of King or leader of a people have to do so reluctantly to qualify as a good guy.

Book Aragorn however or book Bard have no such hesitation. They both accept the power and their right to rule over others. Because what Tolkien was saying was not its bad to seek power at all, but there are two ends of a spectrum of those who do.
Aragorn and Bard and co are the exemplars of those who take on power to increase the betterment of all as far as its within their power to do so.
The Master, Wormtongue ect are the opposite end those who seek power only for their own betterment and those they favour, and to the detriment of the masses in service to the ruler.
PJ not once in his ME films gives us a King who sought power, was unflinching in achieving it, and desired it and was a good guy throughout.
And that's a shame as I say, because its something else Tolkien was telling us about ourselves that is missing from these retelling of his tales.

Oh and Gandalf is still hanging in a cage in Dol Guldur, just a brief shot of him, hanging out, groaning a bit, like the earlier shot of Tauriel staring its only purpose is to just to remind you that they are there, and it wasn't a bad dream after all, sadly.

We are then reintroduced to Legolas talking with Bard, Legolas basically has bad vibes, and Tauriel also has bad vibes but seems to have mistaken them for falling in love with a dwarf she has known collectively for about ten minutes, and eight of those were in one scene.
Nevertheless she seems on the verge of taking him up on his offer of going with him to the Mt, or perhaps just finding out what is down the front of his trousers, when Legolas turns up and looks unhappy and grim about it all and she changes her mind. Always a pleasure to see strong willed women not cowed by dominant male ego in a film, shame such a woman isn't in this film however.

Also characters conveying meaning in a scene silently by just looking at each other and no dialogue is up by about 100 fold throughout this film, even in some key scenes.
Once or twice I am willing to believe is aiming for artistic effect, but how often it happens tend me towards believing they couldn't think of any dialogue, or had run out of time to write any.

Anyhow Tauriel's display of Girl Power prompts Fili to gift her his family heirloom rock, as if there aren't enough heirlooms and trinkets with symbolic meaning in this film and what it really needs is another one.

So Bard decides also to go the Mt for shelter and to get what Thorin had promised the people of Laketown.
And Legolas and Tauriel decide to follow Legolas' grumbly tummy and investigate Gundabad, which in Pj's ME is not 300 miles away but about five minutes away just on the other side of a small ridge of hills right next door to Erebor. Which is handy for orc army commuting.


Level 2- Which one is the 'special power' button again?


Meanwhile back at Dol Guldur the original Bolg design is throwing Gandalf about when Galadriel turns up barefooted and in slow motion to save him.
The Nine make a weird cgi appearance- so the Wise see them differently again than they are seen in the Ring world? No that cant be right because in AUJ Radagast saw them as they are in the ring world only a bit less swirly. Oh who cares anymore.

What follows is a pointless fight sequence, in which the Wise are not Wise enough to spot that no matter how many times they twat the bad guys they just keep reappearing.
And the final part, where Sauron appears and all Nine rise up alongside him will be eerily reminiscent to any gamer who played the game tie in of TT- the exact same thing happens visually when you meet the King of the Dead Boss at the end of the Paths of the Dead section.

So who out of two wizards who are really cloaked angelic spirits, and two elves, one male who faced Sauron in the Last Alliance and one female who has withdrawn from the wider world to her own realm for centuries, who will be the most powerful?- yup its Galadriel of course- weren't you paying attention, she is the only woman!

Anyway in order to accomplish this banishing of Sauron Galadriel goes all evil entity on his fiery arse. This seems to prompt Sauron into a strobe light seizure.

But its the effects used on Galadriel here which are truly puzzling.
For those who have never read the books what are they to think? That under it all she is really some sort of evil nasty spirit the equal too in nasty or even worse than Sauron? She looks like one.
And to those who have read the book it simply makes no sense at all.

Boyens has attempted to defend this part in an interview by having the temerity to claim the action here draining her power justifies Galadriel's line in FotR- “I shall diminish and go into the West and remain Galadriel'- but that line is in response to something utterly different and much more poignant and personal, not said to cap a fight sequence.

So Gandalf is rescued on the bunny sled, and then decides he has to go to Erebor to warn them of the orc army that left Dol Guldur (but which despite its size no one else apparently saw) and he doesn't think it necessary it seems to tell Radagast to bring the rest of the WC along either. So you can forget all about them from now on they have served their part and you will never hear mention of them again.

That is an inherent problem of bringing the WC into the films, you have to at least try to explain why they don't come and help out at the Mt given the orc army Gandalf is trying to beat there and the huge world changing stakes the film-makers have decided to imbue the upcoming battle with.
But they explain nothing. The WC don't show up at the end because its convenient for the script for them not to, and there is no explanation covering it because they couldn't think of one.

And what was with that final parting shot and exchange between Gandalf and Galadriel?- are they really hinting they are in love in some fashion? It certainly plays that way.

Its a horrible scene in which the Wise act without any wisdom. And the bad guy is defeated by Galadriel going cgi.
For those saying this is the best scene not just in this film, but in the entire body of Pj's ME films, I can only presume the sight of the WC fighting was somehow enough. But narratively its hopeless. Its just another example of where the script glosses over all its deficiencies by slapping a big action scene on top of it to distract attention.

And again its all worryingly close to the structure of a video game- defeat the Nine lesser bad guys, before at an arbitrary point you get a cut scene where the Big Bad Guy of the Level appears, with his Nine lesser Bad Guys respawned, then eventually use the 'special powers' button at the right moment in a quick-time event to defeat the Boss and end the level.
Its not just the fighting is reminiscent of a game, the structuring of the scene is reminiscent of a game design- but in a game there is a point to fighting all the Nine who you know cant be defeated over and over and nuclear evil quick-time event Galadriel- that's the gameplay bit you paid for- but in a film?


Level 3 – Does it matter which character I play as?


Back at the Mt. Thorin is demonstrating how mad he is by acting all mad and shouting a lot about how he is the King. He is also starting to show signs of paranoia over the Arkenstone and where it might be. And Bilbo is getting worried because he has it.

There is a nice scene in here between Balin and Bilbo, yes it concerns the made up dragon sickness, but its at least quiet and is two actors doing their job of acting out their characters and has to be welcome for that alone.

And Armitage does his best with what is at times some ropey dialogue. I have heard his performance called Shakespearean, but as a big Shakespeare fan I am not sure in what fashion it applies. Shouting a lot is not really Shakespeare. I assume they mean it has a certain weight and gravitas and that the dialogue conveys deeper layers of meaning that reveal the character depths.

But then I remember the words-

(Shouted) “It is the King's stone. Am I not the King?
(whispered meanly) Know this, if any of you should find it, and keep it from me. I shall be avenged!”

And I think, boy Richard got to hand it you, you did well with that turning it into anything.

But the most puzzling exchange in the film for me is between Fili and Thorin when Thorin has them rebuilding up the broken door.

Fili- The people of Lake Town have nothing. They came to us in need. They have lost, everything.

Thorin- Do not tell me what they have lost. I know well enough their hardship. Those who have lived through dragon fire should rejoice! They have much to be grateful for. More stone!

What does any of Thorin's reply mean? Especially in the context of building the wall to shut them all in the Mt.
Did they pull words out a hat? It doesn't make a lick of sense.

What is he trying to say? Why does he think they should rejoice if he knows the hardship they are enduing from his own experience? What does it even mean? Is he meant to have gone Hamlet mad now? Where everything he says sounds meaningless, although here there doesn't seem to be any of Hamlet's double meaning. Its word filler- its like a placeholder from an early draft that somehow never got fixed and ended up in the film.

Actually now is not a bad time to talk in general about the actors in this film- they are all very good in that much of the dialogue is laughably poor, particularly the clumsily written love stuff- but Ill get to that at the appropriate time.
But the fact the cast manage to deliver these clunkers with a straight face, let alone some semblance of character and emotion is a credit to their work with poor material.

The Laketowners, having made it as far as the ruins of Dale meet the arriving elf army. Who also turn up with a massive army, like the Dol Guldur orcs, without anyone seeing their approach.

Anyone hoping for a character resembling the book version of Thranduil- aiding the Laketowners, making Bilbo an elf-friend and the like will be sadly disappointed, this is Thranduil the Dick, and that's what we get all film long- he is only there to get his heirloom back, for reasons only hinted at in the film but never made explicitly clear, and he couldn't give a toss about the suffering of others, and he wants to abandon everyone at every possible turn. He, and the Moose he rode in on, are Dicks.

Bard, keen to avoid a war, goes to parley with Thorin- who refuses using the justification he only gave his word to help Laketown to get out of prison- seemingly forgetting it was the dwarves who decided to steal weapons rather than just going to the Master right away as in the book- and in which in the film when they finally do go before the Master, all it takes is a rousing speech to get all the backing they need for the expedition, making the entire need to steal weapons thing completely redundant in the first place when they could have just asked- why were a proud line of noble Royal dwarves stealing weapons in the first place instead of just asking? Good question.
That's the problem when you have a script written for expediency and not for sense. Large chunks of it you later discover were entirely pointless or contradict later new ideas or are just stupid because you had to write them for shooting in an hours time.

The dwarves tool up in the Mt and in another genuinely nice quieter scene Thorin gives Bilbo the mithril shirt- though I was really hoping Bilbo would say “I dont think I should look right in it” as he tells Frodo that was 'exactly what I said' when he first received it.

Its typical of Boyens and co to miss a genuine call between TH and LotR's whilst filling their films with corny misplaced invented calls out to the LotR's films.

Gandalf reappears as if his beating in Dol Guldur never happened, full of doom and gloom and warning about advancing orcs, and he tries to talk Thranduil the Dick out of the war, but being a Dick Thranduil is having none of it.

So Bilbo sneaks out the Mt and gives the Arkenstone to Bard as per the book and Bard takes it to try to parley with Thorin again. And yes I did say 'as per the book' ok not exactly but something very similar happens and that's as good as it gets in these films with regards the book. So enjoy its fleeting appearance.

Now the film misses a trick here. In the book when Bilbo confesses Thorin himself goes to throw Bilbo off the cliff- and this is important because you really feel Thorin would.
In the film however Thorin orders the other dwarves to do it, and the viewer knows that's not going to happen and all the jeopardy and peril is immediately lost- its a damp squib in what should have been a terrible frightening turning point for Thorin and Bilbo's relationship.
It boggles my mind they got this one so dramatically wrong given the near perfect set up provided by the book for it.

Meanwhile at Gundabad, five minutes away or something, Legolas and Tauriel are spying out the old fortress for a scene of entire exposition. Gundabad is a new location they have introduced and need for about a minute of footage later, so obviously it needs an entire three minute scene of exposition explaining why its important in the first place and what its history is.
This obviously works rivetingly in a visual medium like film; two people sitting, telling you stuff.

Back at the Mt just as it looks bad for the dwarves Dain and his army arrive in response to a thrush messenger sent by Thorin all of five minutes ago (ok it was the previous evening – but just how close are the Iron Hills in PJ's ME?)- how does that work? Oh well something else not to think about too hard it seems.

Billy Connolly turns up playing a parody of Billy Connolly. Or a parody of a Glaswegian depending on how you want to look at it, but its a parody whichever way and laid on thick, as is the accent.
Not to mention his constant use of the Glasgow Kiss and his “lets give these bastards a good pounding” or other instances of swearing- why? Because everyone knows Scots swear a lot and Billy Connolly in particular. But they aren't supposed to be Scots or Billy Connolly they are supposed to be Tolkien's dwarves and Dain.

Anyway, dwarves and elves square up but before it can go anywhere the Dol Guldur orcs appear- this time unseen because they have giant Dune worms, complete it seemed to me with rings of Dune worm teeth in their mouths too, digging tunnels, tunnels through which orcs seem able to pass large distances in the blink of an eye.

And the worms are never seen again for no other given reason than the script doesn't need them again- despite the existence of such creatures being a huge advantage to the orc side in undermining enemy ground and defences.

Also I am not sure why they needed an invented secret way for the orcs to appear when they seemed just as invisible just marching, just as the elf army was and Dains. Both of whom manage to turn up unexpected with large armies which no one saw coming.

What follows is the start of one of the poorest executed, poorly explained, messiest, series of battles every committed to film.
Unlike the book where the whole point of the orc arrival is that it forces the other races to combine together against a common foe, here they all fight in their own separate parts of the battle.
And I do mean separate.

The humans seem largely confined to fighting in Dale, the elves sometimes seem to be in Dale, sometimes not, but they never fight alongside the humans and only for one brief flashy sequence of leaping elves, with the dwarves.

Dains dwarf army- frankly who knows? Dwarves pop up fighting here and there, we seen Dain in the middle of a Pelannor style barren field right in front of Erebor's gates fighting and talking to Thorin later (doesn't the river flow from Erebors gates?) but apart from that we know nothing about where or who they are fighting or what effect they have. Or even what happens to Dain in the battle- does he die? Survive? Become King after Thorin's line is wiped out? The film doesn't care enough to tell you. After this point in the film we never see or hear mention of him again.

In the Mt there is half a good scene between Dwalin and Thorin. Dwalin gets the good half and probably the best invented dialogue the film has to offer where he calls out Thorin.
But the second half of the scene where Thorin's response is so break down in tears and then go mad again feels utterly disingenuous.
It is almost like they have an idea of how do this- starting point-descent into madness- mad- realisation of madness- redemption.
But they forgot they have to show how he gets from one state to the other.

What we get is told he has gone mad, seeing him act mad by shouting a lot, and now seeing him break down from madness, then he reinforces his madness by throwing Dwalin out the throne room.
But there is no investment in it because they are just highlighting the sign posts, not taking the viewer on the journey with the character.
And his entire dragon sickness from being consumed by it to shaking it off via hallucination only lasts about three days.
It is much less abrupt in the book because you know what is driving Thorin from the start- his desire to get his gold and treasure back. Its out in the open from the beginning. It never was a noble quest. A noble quest doesn't need a burglar.
Here by their own changes to Thorin's character the writers are left making his descent and rise back out of it all happen in to the very last few events of the story.

Thorin has a hallucination about drowning in gold and comes to his senses and rallies all the dwarves by charging out the mountain and screaming in slow motion.
But then later Thorin decides they have to take out Azog, and he takes Dwalin, Fili and Kili with him, as taking all his heirs seems a good idea at the time. Oh and they get there by way of mountain goat, as some all saddled up and stuff were just sort of hanging about the battlefield from somewhere......yeah.

Oh and I mustn't forget, there is Azog, who as been standing up somewhere very high on a platform, with sweeping cinematic views of the battle field, and has so far spent the film shouting orders everyone is too far away to hear.


Back at Dale Legolas, who had hitched a lift back by hanging onto a giant bats legs- this is Level 4 where its on rails, and you just do the shooting with the bow- warns them a second army is coming from Gundabad.

Bilbo then takes it on himself to go and warn the dwarves, there is a half decent scene here between Bilbo and Gandalf that at least makes some attempt to portray the difference in Bilbo since he set out.

He finds Thorin informs him of the approaching army about to surround them and Thorin brilliantly deduces “It's a trap!”
This is quickly proved to be true when Azog appears, still somewhere up high, dangling Kili who he kills gratuitously by skewering and throwing him off the side of the cliff, where the body lands right next to his brother Fili.

Fili responds by charging out and hacking at orcs. And Thorin soon joins him.

Tauriel, returning from Gundabad, spots Fili fighting with Bolg.

Is he the final boss or is there another one afterwards?

Bilbo is being defended by Dwalin from orcs, and throwing stones just like Merry and Pippin did in FotR, remember, nudge, nudge. And then he gets knocked out- so at least that happens, eventually.

Tauriel hacks her way up the orc tower thing Azog is on- what is that?- it looks solid and like its built there but its clearly orc design, so did they build a big orc tower in sight of Erebor and no one noticed? Is it mobile? Oh I give up!

Legolas meanwhile is leaping from bat to building and building to building, somewhere.

And Thorin gets thrown by Azog out of a doorway onto a frozen lake that is surrounded on all sides by buildings of some sort. Now where are we supposed to be?

And now Legolas is somewhere in the same place, but on top of a big tower, or pillar or something shooting orcs attacking Thorin.
But that's where Tauriel is and Legolas flew away in a bat from that starting point- did he just go round in a big circle? What?!

But its ok because Tauriel is killing stuff and she's a woman, look at the girl power go.
But then she tries to distract Fili who is fighting orcs by shouting his name.
But he gets his own back by shouting hers back, distracting her and getting her side slammed by a burly Bolg.
Silly woman. Fili doesn't get distracted holding off two orcs at once and she does and she is not doing anything.
The assault prompts her to scream like a 50's B Movie regular and cry out Fili's name for help.

Girl Power to damsel in distress in a heart beat. That's Tauriel.

So Fili, who obviously wasn't really trying before suddenly gets properly annoyed and slaughters some orcs in his attempts to get to her. Guess Kili didn't mean as much to him then.

Tauriel is getting beaten up by Bolg until Fili heroically leaps in and lands on Bolgs head.
But Bolg soon gets the better of him and stabs him through with Tauriel having to watch it happen in slow motion.
And having to scream in slow motion.
And cry “Nooooooo!”” in slow motion.
Slow motion makes everything sadder.
As does dropping out all the ambient sound save the actors slow-mo breathing and putting in a nice choral piece of music. Tears guaranteed. Cheap ones at that.

Tauriel gets thrown about a bit until Legolas can spot her, and as a big troll is knocking his pillar down anyway Legolas decides to save her and defeat Bolg.

Here is another problem with making Legolas prominent. He needs a big pay off for so much time invested. And that means giving him something that should have gone to a character from the actual book.
How much more sense if they were going to have Beron the last of his kind, with a personal grudge against Azog, to have made that against the Great Goblin and Bolg, his neighbours. And to have given him Bolg to kill to complete his arc, leaving Azog to kill Thorin and in turn Azog killed by Dain, cementing that characters rightful place in the audiences mind as a suitable next king?

Its a simple change, but the inclusion of Legolas in such a large way means he has to take what could have gone to a book character.
It has a logic, but the manner in which it occurs is the point at which the comparison with a video game merges with the film on screen.
Legolas's antics, his leaping from falling stone to falling stone. It not only has the sensibilities of a game level, it also contrives, I assume deliberately, to look like one.
More slow motion in a sequence of events saturated with slow motion does nothing to help matters. It merely exaggerates the already implausible into parody.

Here in the film the two forms briefly merge and become one.

Of course the big final end of level Boss is Azog and his giant mace. Another clumsy LotR's call back to the Witch-kings similarly ludicrously sized weapon. But just the right sort of thing for cracking ice with. Which explains the location.
This final showdown takes place in a location from Soul Calibur, sorry on a frozen lake that breaks into a big wobbly slippery chunk they fight on. I wonder if Thorin could have won with a RING OUT!

Then in the middle of the fight the eagles arrive.
This is my favourite bit for how stupid Thorin is.
As the eagles arrive, again in slow motion, both Thorin and Azog turn to watch them fly overhead, with Azog at one point standing with is head turned entirely away from Thorin, who is looking right at him- and Thorin doesn't strike. He deserves to die just for that alone.

Radagast is flying an eagle, and then never seen again.

Beorn jumps off an eagle, transforms into a bear halfway down, somehow doesn't go splat upon landing, he is a big bear not a bouncy ball, and then charges some orcs, and is never seen again.

And the eagles win the day by flying really low over everyone every fast, once and never being seen again.

At least I think that's how the battle is won, I don't know because they decided not to show us the actual outcome or how it was won.

Anyway Thorin dumps Azog under the ice, where his body floats about for a bit. In fucking slow motion!!!
Before, like every film in every film made with a bad guy and the word blockbuster attached to it, Azog leaps unsurprisingly from the ice and kills Thorin even as Thorin kills him.

Despite the dwarves being so far away its a bit odd however when Bilbo still manages to be there for the important bit, even though he appeared to be back quite a way away when he was knocked out. Not halfway to Gunabad or wherever the buggery it is the dwarves are supposed to be.

In fact there is no sense of where anything is in relation to anything else let alone the Mt or any clue how events in one part of the battle effect other parts of the battle.
They don't seem to in fact have any effect.

If you want a believable battle within the premise of Tolkien's fantasy world then forget it. What we have here is a series of contrivances strung together with cgi action sequences.
If you are looking for understanding, a point, a conclusion, emotional investment in the characters proper resolutions to plot lines and characters you wont find much of it here.

Not that its entirely absent of such moments, such as Bilbo with Gandalf's exchange, but they happen in such ridiculous confusing circumstances that it undermines all attempts at gravitas and undermines any real emotional investment.

Fili and Kili both play their ends well, but when you know of their heroic endings in the book and see it reduced to a taunt for Thorin, and Fili to seemingly caring more for Tauriel than the brother he just lost, something doesn't sit well at all.

All the contrivances to tug on your emotions, the slow mo, sound drop outs, choral music, where a decade or two ago these were fresh and effective, over use and familiarity is breeding contempt.

There is more cgi here, there is more camera movement with complete freedom in the cgi, but that only jars with the closed off rehashed dullness of the green screen actors who are so obviously confined by set and 3D camera positioning.

Making Fili's ending about Tauriel was all they could have done given how they had set it up- the mistake was in ever setting it up this way, The mistake was in giving Fili something other than love for his family and loyalty as his motivations.

Even the idea of Tauriel was not necessarily a mistake, but everything they have her do and say is.
As a strong female character she fails on every level- her life is determined by the actions of males. She is centre of a bizarre love triangle with two males, her role is determined by what happens to those male characters.
The only thing that could be said to be strong about her is her ability to kill as well as a male.
Is that the message of strong women they wish to send?
One who has to turn into some sort of she-devil to act powerfully, and one who is defined by her emotional state and the men in her life.

The final scene between Bilbo and Thorin is the most emotional the film gets, and Freeman is superb in his grief. But it also reminds you that you might rather have watched a film not which Bilbo is in but which is about Bilbo and his perspective. Then this scene might feel much more raw and powerful.

The tragedy of these films, probably the greatest is that they got a generational best to play Bilbo. Freeman is perfect for the role.

Anyone who has watched his masterful Watson performance can see his range, his tight control over character he possess, and how he can be the heart of a story and carry that throughout when surrounded by unlikeable characters.
Its perfect for Bilbo. But these films sideline Bilbo. Yes he is in this one. Yes he does important stuff, even important stuff he does in the book, such as the Arkenstone.
But he is not the focus. Thorin still is.
Thorin drives the narrative of this film and Thorin is the main character of this film until his death.

Only upon the return home does the film return to this being Bilbo's story, seen from his perspective.

But sadly before we get to the end there is still scenes to endure.

No funeral, no laying the Arkenstone and Thorin's sword upon his breast.
No coronation of Dain, not even word if he survived.
No mention of a giant bear rampaging about anywhere either, or a shit stained wizard looking for a score among the men.

No we have far more important loose ends to tie up- Legolas and Tauriel of course.

How the actors kept a straight face through the following exchange is beyond me-

Tauriel- If this is love I don't want it. Take it from me. Please. Why does it hurt so much?

Thranduil- Because it was real.

I have never read or seen any of the Twilight franchise- but I am willing to bet even their love dialogue is better than this guff.

Bilbo and Gandalf sit together surveying the aftermath of the battle- it seems to be over now anyway just not quite sure how exactly.
And its quite a long scene during which they occasionally look at each other, go to say something but don't, and Gandalf arses about lighting his pipe.

Now on one level this is quite effective. Nothing need be said between them. What is there to say?

But the problem lies in we don't know, and never have known much since he set out, of what Bilbo thinks about anything. He has done stuff, but with the exception of two scenes I can recall, with Balin in the mountain cave, and in the wood before the warg attack and eagle save- he never tells us what he is thinking or feeling.
Specially not in comparison to the book which is told from his perspective through a narrator.

We kind of need in this scene to know what Bilbo is thinking. And the scene goes on long enough that it starts to look just like two actors, one of whom has forgotten their lines and the other who is waiting on a cue, which never comes.

But the sense of completion of Bilbo's journey from hobbit he was to hobbit he is now needs I feel some spoken testimony from Bilbo himself. But he remains mute.
Maybe Boyens and co didn't know what he feels or how he was supposed to have changed.

So all the dwarves gather round Thorin's body, you may have noticed that I have only mentioned Balin and Dwalin besides the royal three of the dwarves and that's because the rest of them are only in this film in the sense the extras of Laketown are- they are there in the background looking at turns angry, unhappy, cheering ect as needed and otherwise don't feature at all.

So you can chalk up Bilbo's seeming growing friendship with Bofur established in AUJ and the individualism of the dwarves along with the other dead end script casualties of these films.

Finally Bilbo says farewell to all the dwarves at the gates of Erebor.
There is a nice but odd scene here between Bilbo and Balin. Odd that in it Bilbo begins to say what Thorin means to him, but despite trying two or three times he keeps breaking off with emotion at “He meant to me....” And its hard to shake of the feeling that line does not break off there just for dramatic effect, but because if you asked the writers to answer it they would not know what to say.

There is an overwhelming sense across this trilogy of a rudderless ship, with no set destination in sight and a constantly changing route to get there.
The changes in number of film, directors, scripts, rewrites, inventions, ect that have been part and parcel of the making of these films is evident for all the wrong reasons in the end product.
Script threads which go nowhere. Characters whose appearances have no meaning left. Changes to tone, focus. Call backs to LotR's. It all turns the whole thing into a mess that feels strung together from many discordant pieces. Pieces done when the script was one thing and not another.
Nothing hangs together across the piece. Not character arcs, not plot threads.

And as at last we come to the end, and the only part of this sorry saga since the smoke embers out the chimney at Bag End at the beginning that feels like it might be an adaptation of the book- Bilbo returning home to the auction.
Typically PJ makes it too big, the line of people with furniture would have emptied even Bag End of its goods. But that aside it feels a hell of a lot more genuine to the book than anything preceding it in this film.
Once Bilbo is alone in Bag End there is a rather nice bit of adaptation I actually liked- finding his neatly folded handkerchief.
It would have worked better had he left it as in the book, and it not being used for an excuse for a joke about a snot dripping rag, but still.
I also liked the symbolism of him putting the picture of his mother, the Took side, back up on the wall alongside his Baggins father.
There you go two things I found to enjoy.

Then of course the Ring comes back into the focus- had this been its only hint at what it would become I would have quite liked it, it makes sense as a transition into the opening of FotR.
Coming as it does however when the Ring has been over emphasised as evil and the One Ring too much already it actually loses some of it effect and power as a scene. Its no longer a revelation, or even a confirmation, its just a repetition of something already long established.

End Credits


And so finally Pj's sojourn in ME is over.

What did I think of BOFA's?
Its a mess.
It has the structure as well as the action content of a video game.
The dialogue is often atrocious and in the hands of lesser performers would be apparently so.
The cgi ranges from superb to down right wonky.
The fight scenes are ludicrous and over long.
The battle is messy unfocused and unresolved in any clear fashion.
Important book characters are sidelined and invented ones promoted over them.
Emotional investment is almost impossible when we are only told what is happening to people, not seeing it happening to them.
The direction uses a string of now cheap emotional tricks to try to get its emotion where the script is failing too and uses action and spectacle to divert attention when the script has nothing to say or do.
There are far too many dead end set ups, plot points and story lines which are never resolved.
Large parts of the invented material turn out to be superfluous to the story and would never have survived a longer writing period still in a script written for three films from the start, and where they knew where they were going with it.
The performances are good within the restrictions of the material they have to work with.

And to return to the game metaphor it has the same sense you get when you finish a triple A blockbuster game- lots of spectacle, lots of flashy graphics, story and characters didn't really make sense and you are left feeling slightly underwhelmed by the whole experience because what there was to enjoy was all just the surface gloss, with no real emotional depth or attachment to anything, and if you are me you also feel more than slightly cheated out of your money too.

Holy shit that's almost 9000 words long!

Thank you for fulfilling your contract so spectacularly, Petty!  Now to settle in and work through all that.

Petty, you have surpassed yourself. You pretty much just drew a line underneath the whole damn trilogy. It really is over now. Thanks for your review; it was a blast.

Read through it all finally! You are amazingly thorough, though I have to say I don't think this film ever stood a chance whether it would have been good or not! Thanks Petty for doing your civic duty to forumshire. You may drown your sorrow in the latest shipment of buckie from Valinor!

I think we are potentially looking at another Kingdom of Heaven case, where the EE is turns the movie from a battle-shaped blob into something that actually resembles a narrative film, though there are a lot of other problems that are beyond fixing at some point.

It kind of reminds me of the ending of LOST: a sort of acceptable ending but not explaining half of the loose ends!

Good god, my mind is doing whatever minds do instead of salivating: that post looks like a winner.
I can't wait until I can see the film and read it!
(At the same time it's funny that you posted this in the "critics" thread instead of where the others have posted their responses Petty. Then again, you deserve it with a work of this magnitude!)

Pettytyrant101 wrote: a bad dream brought on by a unexpected vegetable in Dave's Seasonal Cranberry Surprise Sauce.

{{{He's been into my sauce again. I KNEW IT! }}}

Talk about 'silence before the storm' ! What an amazing review ! How did you manage to keep yourself collected enough to write that ? {{{ how drunk did you need to get ?}}} So well thought thru, Bravo !

I've been reading posts here for a long time... but that review was both epic and thorough.  It sure makes you realize how detailed you have to be (or rather, should be) with an adaptation, especially one as beloved as The Hobbit.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:The NotP is proud to present- dragged unwilling and screaming from the depths of his barrel, at great personal danger to our staff and risk of infection- Petty Tyrant's fulfilling his contract obligations by being strapped into a cinema seat in front of BOFA and made to review it for your pleasure.


Note from Petty Tyrant- I should warn you if I am gong to have to endure this you are too. So this will be part review and part analysis of the film, more or less scene by scene as I can remember it- meaning given how drunk I had to be, some scenes might be in the wrong order, or missing entirely.
Anyway- this wont be short and will hurt- pour yourself some buckies and hunker down for the official NotP Review of The  Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies.



Who stole my game pad?

TH films have been accused before now by some of having more than a hint of the aesthetic of a video game about them.
This is not to compare one to the other in terms of graphics versus cinema cgi, a cinema director versus the average game director.
Cinema wins on all counts even TH films too, but its a closer call this time than in any film I've seen before.

BOFA stands most accused of being like a video game. And not just because it take its values, style or its cues for action from that genre, they have all done that. No its worst sin is it takes video game structure for its narrative and applies it to film.

At its most basic BOFA is-  action section/cut scene/action section/cut scene.
A formula overly familiar to the fatigued gamer.

But I think its worse than that.

Like every episode of Call of Duty made on any machine ever called 'Next Gen' BOFA opens with an action sequence which is at best only tangential to the rest of the game/film.
This style of opening is immediately familiar to the gamer.

In this case we have Smaug attacking Lake Town.

It opens with a cut-scene, sorry the film begins, showing the secondary bad guy of the level, sorry, the Master of Lake Town, exemplifying his greed and selfishness by fleeing with his servants laden with gold and gems.

We are then reminded of who all is still in Laketown; Tauriel, staring ahead in silence into the night, because they cant think of anything meaningful for her to do or say.
And Bards children and the other dwarves, in case you had forgotten they had stayed behind, or hoped it had been a bad dream brought on by a unexpected vegetable in Dave's Seasonal Cranberry Surprise Sauce.

So with the family, dwarves and Tauriel all aboard and setting sail, as is the Master (will their paths cross, despite two completely different starting points and all either have to do is sail outwards from the centre in any direction? Go on guess?) the stakes are set.

Bard, hero of level 1 and who in a game you would get to play as, implausibly gets a small boat to pull down half a wall and so conveniently escapes the jail he was now pointlessly thrown into at the end of film 2. And there the cut scene, sorry narrative, ends.

The problem here is in film 2 they spend some time setting up the politics of Laketown between the Master, Alfred and Bard. They even go as far as to have Bard imprisoned.
But nothing comes of it all. There are no consequences to this triangle.
Bard and the Master never meet again. Alfreds subsequent appearances are reduced to comic relief.
Immediately at the start of the film its all undone, the Master dies, and would have done no matter what had preceded these events, regardless. Bard gets no direct revenge, or even interaction, the plot gets no resolution. It is in fact just gotten out the way. Something which happens a lot to plot in this film.

Radagasts appearance in the films?  No pay off. Events would have remained the same had Gandalf just gone to Dol Guldur on a hunch once he saw the state of Mirkwood.

Beorn's created animosity to Azog and the destruction of the entire Beorning race? Forget about it, the film makers do.

Thranduil and his strongly hinted they mean more than he is saying necklace? Forget about it, the film has by the end.

The Arkenstone and all its Talisman powers to unite the dwarves? Never to be mentioned again after we see it in Bards hand- did he just keep it? And in the end not needed at all to unite anyone.

The windlass and its importance in taking down a dragon?- completely pointless set up.

And that's not including all the stuff which just padded out the previous two films which have no meaning once you've seen all three films- the entire witchking blade subplot- never gets a mention again.

The invented tombs of the ringwraiths- serve only the purpose of setting up the clues for Gandalf- but the clues are unneeded, had Gandalf just gone to Dol Guldur all the ringwraiths are there anyway. It would have had no effect at all on the narrative.

Bilbo spotting the missing scale? Forget it, it has nothing to do with the solution to Smaug.

The dwarves left behind at Laketown? Pointless, they just leave and meet back up with the others right at the start of this film anyway whilst doing nothing of any consequence in-between.

Bard thrown in prison?? Undone immediately.

The inexplicable interchange of villains with Azog and Bolg in DOS? To no purpose.

The third film is full of, or rather lacking in, all these areas. Story threads created by the writers which go nowhere, were unneeded to begin with, or are simply forgotten about as soon as their purpose has been served.
A sloppier script I have never seen. And I include the remake of the Wickerman in that list!



Press Start to Continue.

Level 1.

The astute gamer already recognises this level. Its an escort mission.

Hold off the dragon long enough for the good guys to flee. And just as they are reaching safety, then and only then, will the game actually let you kill the dragon. Via a cut scene.

We get some platform action as you, sorry Bard, leap from rooftop to rooftop evading the incoming dragon fire.
We get some Assassins Creed style tower shenanigans and a fps shooting section where you, sorry Bard, take pot shots at the dragon to distract it in order to meet your level objective, sorry emotional narrative reasons; Bard's family, some dwarves so important you cant remember who is still there and its starting to bug you because the camera keeps moving and cutting and you never seem to get a clear shot of them all, and Tauriel escaping.

We are again clumsily reminded, in case you have forgotten the last scene the Master was in, of the Masters unpleasant personality- his boat barging civilians and little old ladies on fire out the way, and nearly colliding with the smaller boat of our hero's family. Its Scrooge McDuck levels of character development.

And to cap off this cut scene the Master throws the games, sorry films inept comic relief, Alfred, into the water to lighten the load, in a villainous act so old its been found on pyramids.

Meantime back with the playable character, sorry Bard, his tower is now on fire and his son is dangling from it because not enough people- except for Bilbo, three times in the Misty Mountains, oh and Thorin there too, and everybody in the trees, and the trees themselves off the cliff, oh and Bilbo, again, in Mirkwood- dangle off things in these films.

Anyway, as PJ knows only to well - if you cant write any proper drama or reasons for people to care about your characters, dangle them off something very high, preferably above lava or something on fire. That always works, every single time, no matter how often you use it in the same trilogy of films to wring false emotion out of your audience.

Smaug, who hasn't noticed Bard has been pinging arrows off him up till now is still destroying Laketown. Well remember, this is video game logic, and Bard hasn't got Smaug's health bar low enough yet. So when his health is low enough, or in this case the script requires it now, Smaug does finally notice. But why now?

Well now Bard has emotional investment thanks to his sons appearance, so its time for Smaug  to pay attention and to stop setting everything on fire long enough to threaten Bard for a bit, be a bit overly cocky, and expose his one weakness (because The Hobbit of the title having anything to do with the end of the dragon is just silly isnt' it?) .
And in particular Smaug is keen to threaten Bard's son, so rather handy for Smaug that Bards son choose just then to turn up otherwise Smaug wouldn't have had anything good to taunt Bard with.  Did I hear someone say 'contrived'? If so I'd like to add 'self-serving' to that adjective list, as a lot that happens in this script is only there to service other parts, regardless of narrative sense.

Mind you, as far as Smaug knows it could be any Lake Town teenage lad. In fact given all the chaos its not that likely it would be Bard's son. Maybe along with knowing Oakenshield was Thorin's assumed name Smaug has some sort of little black book of names and family relationships. Maybe film Smaug is just big on making assumptions.

Anyway Bard comes up with a plan to scrape of his sons left ear, half his cheek and a sizeable chunk of his shoulder by using the lad as a bow to fire the rather large black arrow from.
The A-Team would have been high fiving each other with this one.
I don't know if anyone told Pj but when you fire an arrow it spins. That thing should have spun hunks of meat off that lads face.

But this aside, the game, sorry scene ends with the player, sorry Bard, firing his arrow into the dragon and Smaug falling in spectacular fashion onto the aflame Laketown, and specifically onto the Master's boat and crushing it into the Lake, for bonus points, sorry I meant pathos.

Cue game/film credits before the main game starts properly and is about something else all together.

Overly long establishing cut-scenes- and no skip button!!

So the dwarves who were in Laketown return to the Lonely Mt, proving there was no point for them remaining behind in the first place and it would not have made a jot of difference if they had not, to find that Thorin, in the space of time between the dragon attack a few hours ago and now, has utterly succumbed to Dragon Sickness.
Something we don't actually get to see but are told about by Bilbo informing the arriving dwarves of the fact. And its just that, a fact, a thing, that happened. Off camera.
'Thorin has gone bonkers, there is no talking to him, we must have been trying for anything up to an hour and a half by now.'

Meanwhile at Laketown the first effective piece of cinema is underway, the shots of the surviving inhabitants of Laketown making their distraught ragtag way ashore. Its well shot with the cgi used properly- to add to the scene not overwhelm the point of it- the shock confusing and pain of the people. It is a tiny reminder in a sea of fakery that PJ can in fact do realism and real pain when he has a mind to. And that shooting in a real location and then using cgi to compliment the scene beats any amount of tomfoolery on a green screen set.
Enjoy its brief appearance, its the last you will see of any such real drama, or sense of physical reality for the reminder of the film.

Unfortunately its almost immediately ruined by the arrival of Alfred, getting his full on introduction as cowardly comic sidekick to Bard.
And again in keeping with similarity of a game the humour is just awful and so old it has mould growing on it, and that mould has mould growing on it, and it has mould growing on it which has evolved far enough to be complaining loudly to the other two layers of mould, about how old these gags are.
The character is so broad strokes that nothing new or interesting can emerge from him. Within the first few minutes of his dialogue you know everything about the sort of character he is and the manner in which he is likely to say or do anything.
He does what it says on the tin- 'comic relief, to be applied between moments of angst or prolonged fighting, nothing original shall be forthcoming. Wears off quickly. Guaranteed. No Refunds.'
Oh and given the mood of the crowd when they dragged him off, why was he still alive at all after that?

Anyway Bard is more or less elected by the people as de-facto leader of the survivors of Laketown, but reluctantly of course, you know like Aragorn was too.
Which is a shame as PJ and Co seem to have missed something important Tolkien says about power and position among humans. Which is it is ok to desire it. In Pj's version all those who take on the role of King or leader of a people have to do so reluctantly to qualify as a good guy.

Book Aragorn however or book Bard have no such hesitation. They both accept the power and their right to rule over others. Because what Tolkien was saying was not its bad to seek power at all, but there are two ends of a spectrum of those who do.
Aragorn and Bard and co are the exemplars of those who take on power to increase the betterment of all as far as its within their power to do so.
The Master, Wormtongue ect are the opposite end those who seek power only for their own betterment and those they favour, and to the detriment of the masses in service to the ruler.
PJ not once in his ME films gives us a King who sought power, was unflinching in achieving it, and desired it and was a good guy throughout.
And that's a shame as I say, because its something else Tolkien was telling us about ourselves that is missing from these retelling of his tales.

Oh and Gandalf is still hanging in a cage in Dol Guldur, just a brief shot of him, hanging out, groaning a bit, like the earlier shot of Tauriel staring its only purpose is to just to remind you that they are there, and it wasn't a bad dream after all, sadly.

We are then reintroduced to Legolas talking with Bard, Legolas basically has bad vibes, and Tauriel  also has bad vibes but seems to have mistaken them for falling in love with a dwarf she has known collectively for about ten minutes, and eight of those were in one scene.
Nevertheless she seems on the verge of taking him up on his offer of going with him to the Mt, or perhaps just finding out what is down the front of his trousers, when Legolas turns up and looks unhappy and grim about it all and she changes her mind. Always a pleasure to see strong willed women not cowed by dominant male ego in a film, shame such a woman isn't in this film however.

Also characters conveying meaning in a scene silently by just looking at each other and no dialogue is up by about 100 fold throughout this film, even in some key scenes.
Once or twice I am willing to believe is aiming for artistic effect, but how often it happens tend me towards believing they couldn't think of any dialogue, or had run out of time to write any.

Anyhow Tauriel's display of Girl Power prompts Fili to gift her his family heirloom rock, as if there aren't enough heirlooms and trinkets with symbolic meaning in this film and what it really needs is another one.

So Bard decides also to go the Mt for shelter and to get what Thorin had promised the people of Laketown.
And Legolas and Tauriel decide to follow Legolas' grumbly tummy and investigate Gundabad, which in Pj's ME is not 300 miles away but about five minutes away just on the other side of a small ridge of hills right next door to Erebor. Which is handy for orc army commuting.


Level 2- Which one is the 'special power' button again?


Meanwhile back at Dol Guldur the original Bolg design is throwing Gandalf about when Galadriel turns up barefooted and in slow motion to save him.
The Nine make a weird cgi appearance- so the Wise see them differently again than they are seen in the Ring world? No that cant be right because in AUJ Radagast saw them as they are in the ring world only a bit less swirly. Oh who cares anymore.

What follows is a pointless fight sequence, in which the Wise are not Wise enough to spot that no matter how many times they twat the bad guys they just keep reappearing.
And the final part, where Sauron appears and all Nine rise up alongside him will be eerily reminiscent to any gamer who played the game tie in of TT- the exact same thing happens visually when you meet the King of the Dead Boss at the end of the Paths of the Dead section.

So who out of two wizards who are really cloaked angelic spirits, and two elves, one male who faced Sauron in the Last Alliance and one female who has withdrawn from the wider world to her own realm for centuries, who will be the most powerful?- yup its Galadriel of course- weren't you paying attention, she is the only woman!

Anyway in order to accomplish this banishing of Sauron Galadriel goes all evil entity on his fiery arse. This seems to prompt Sauron into a strobe light seizure.

But its the effects used on Galadriel here which are truly puzzling.
For those who have never read the books what are they to think?  That under it all she is really some sort of evil nasty spirit the equal too in nasty or even worse than Sauron? She looks like one.
And to those who have read the book it simply makes no sense at all.

Boyens has attempted to defend this part in an interview by having the temerity to claim the action here draining her power justifies Galadriel's line in FotR- “I shall diminish and go into the West and remain Galadriel'- but that line is in response to something utterly different and much more poignant and personal, not said to cap a fight sequence.

So Gandalf is rescued on the bunny sled, and then decides he has to go to Erebor to warn them of the orc army that left Dol Guldur (but which despite its size no one else apparently saw) and he doesn't think it necessary it seems to tell Radagast to bring the rest of the WC along either. So you can forget all about them from now on they have served their part and you will never hear mention of them again.

That is an inherent problem of bringing the WC into the films, you have to at least try to explain why they don't come and help out at the Mt given the orc army Gandalf is trying to beat there and the huge world changing stakes the film-makers have decided to imbue the upcoming battle with.
But they explain nothing. The WC don't show up at the end because its convenient for the script for them not to, and there is no explanation covering it because they couldn't think of one.

And what was with that final parting shot and exchange between Gandalf and Galadriel?- are they really hinting they are in love in some fashion? It certainly plays that way.

Its a horrible scene in which the Wise act without any wisdom. And the bad guy is defeated by  Galadriel going cgi.  
For those saying this is the best scene not just in this film, but in the entire body of Pj's ME films, I can only presume the sight of the WC fighting was somehow enough. But narratively its hopeless. Its just another example of where the script glosses over all its deficiencies by slapping a big action scene on top of it to distract attention.

And again its all worryingly close to the structure of a video game- defeat the Nine lesser bad guys, before at an arbitrary point you get a cut scene where the Big Bad Guy of the Level appears, with his Nine lesser Bad Guys respawned, then eventually use the 'special powers' button at the right moment in a quick-time event to defeat the Boss and end the level.
Its not just the fighting is reminiscent of a game, the structuring of the scene is reminiscent of a game design- but in a game there is a point to fighting all the Nine who you know cant be defeated over and over and nuclear evil quick-time event Galadriel- that's the gameplay bit you paid for- but in a film?


Level 3 – Does it matter which character I play as?


Back at the Mt. Thorin is demonstrating how mad he is by acting all mad and shouting a lot about how he is the King. He is also starting to show signs of paranoia over the Arkenstone and where it might be. And Bilbo is getting worried because he has it.

There is a nice scene in here between Balin and Bilbo, yes it concerns the made up dragon sickness, but its at least quiet and is two actors doing their job of acting out their characters and has to be welcome for that alone.

And Armitage does his best with what is at times some ropey dialogue. I have heard his performance called Shakespearean, but as a big Shakespeare fan I am not sure in what fashion it applies. Shouting  a lot is not really Shakespeare. I assume they mean it has a certain weight and gravitas and that the dialogue conveys deeper layers of meaning that reveal the character depths.

But then I remember the words-

(Shouted) “It is the King's stone. Am I not the King?
(whispered meanly) Know this, if any of you should find it, and keep it from me. I shall be avenged!”

And I think, boy Richard got to hand it you, you did well with that turning it into anything.

But the most puzzling exchange in the film for me is between Fili and Thorin when Thorin has them rebuilding up the broken door.

Fili- The people of Lake Town have nothing. They came to us in need. They have lost, everything.

Thorin- Do not tell me what they have lost. I know well enough their hardship. Those who have lived through dragon fire should rejoice! They have much to be grateful for. More stone!

What does any of Thorin's reply mean? Especially in the context of building the wall to shut them all in the Mt.
Did they pull words out a hat? It doesn't make a lick of sense.

What is he trying to say? Why does he think they should rejoice if he knows the hardship they are enduing from his own experience? What does it even mean? Is he meant to have gone Hamlet mad now? Where everything he says sounds meaningless, although here there doesn't seem to be any of Hamlet's double meaning. Its word filler- its like a placeholder  from an early draft that somehow never got fixed and ended up in the film.

Actually now is not a bad time to talk in general about the actors in this film- they are all very good in that much of the dialogue is laughably poor, particularly the clumsily written love stuff- but Ill get to that at the appropriate time.
But the fact the cast manage to deliver these clunkers with a straight face, let alone some semblance of character and emotion is a credit to their work with poor material.

The Laketowners, having made it as far as the ruins of Dale meet the arriving elf army. Who also turn up with a massive army, like the Dol Guldur orcs, without anyone seeing their approach.

Anyone hoping for a character resembling the book version of Thranduil- aiding the Laketowners, making Bilbo an elf-friend and the like will be sadly disappointed, this is Thranduil the Dick, and that's what we get all film long- he is only there to get his heirloom back, for reasons only hinted at in the film but never made explicitly clear, and he couldn't give a toss about the suffering of others, and he wants to abandon everyone at every possible turn. He, and the Moose he rode in on, are Dicks.

Bard, keen to avoid a war, goes to parley with Thorin- who refuses using the justification he only gave his word to help Laketown to get out of prison- seemingly forgetting it was the dwarves who decided to steal weapons rather than just going to the Master right away as in the book- and in which in the film when they finally do go before the Master, all it takes is a rousing speech to get all the backing they need for the expedition, making the entire need to steal weapons thing completely redundant in the first place when they could have just asked- why were a proud line of noble Royal dwarves stealing weapons in the first place instead of just asking? Good question.
That's the problem when you have a script written for expediency and not for sense. Large chunks of it you later discover were entirely pointless or contradict later new ideas or are just stupid because you had to write them for shooting in an hours time.

The dwarves tool up in the Mt and in another genuinely nice quieter scene Thorin gives Bilbo the mithril shirt- though I was really hoping Bilbo would say “I dont think I should look right in it” as he tells Frodo that was 'exactly what I said' when he first received it.

Its typical of Boyens and co to miss a genuine call between TH and LotR's whilst filling their films with corny misplaced invented calls out to the LotR's films.

Gandalf reappears as if his beating in Dol Guldur never happened, full of doom and gloom and warning about advancing orcs, and he tries to talk Thranduil the Dick out of the war, but being a Dick Thranduil is having none of it.

So Bilbo sneaks out the Mt and gives the Arkenstone to Bard as per the book and Bard takes it to try to parley with Thorin again. And yes I did say 'as per the book' ok not exactly but something very similar happens and that's as good as it gets in these films with regards the book. So enjoy its fleeting appearance.

Now the film misses a trick here. In the book when Bilbo confesses Thorin himself goes to throw Bilbo off the cliff- and this is important because you really feel Thorin would.
In the film however Thorin orders the other dwarves to do it, and the viewer knows that's not going to happen and all the jeopardy and peril is immediately lost- its a damp squib in what should have been a terrible frightening turning point for Thorin and Bilbo's relationship.
It boggles my mind they got this one so dramatically wrong given the near perfect set up provided by the book for it.

Meanwhile at Gundabad, five minutes away or something, Legolas and Tauriel are spying out the old fortress for a scene of entire exposition. Gundabad is a new location they have introduced and need for about a minute of footage later, so obviously it needs an entire three minute scene of exposition explaining why its important in the first place and what its history is.
This obviously works rivetingly in a visual medium like film; two people sitting, telling you stuff.

Back at the Mt just as it looks bad for the dwarves Dain and his army arrive in response to a thrush messenger sent by Thorin all of five minutes ago (ok it was the previous evening – but just how close are the Iron Hills in PJ's ME?)- how does that work? Oh well something else not to think about too hard it seems.

Billy Connolly turns up playing a parody of Billy Connolly. Or a parody of a Glaswegian depending on how you want to look at it, but its a parody whichever way and laid on thick, as is the accent.
Not to mention his constant use of the Glasgow Kiss and his “lets give these bastards a good pounding” or other instances of swearing- why? Because everyone knows Scots swear a lot and Billy Connolly in particular. But they aren't supposed to be Scots or Billy Connolly they are supposed to be Tolkien's dwarves and Dain.

Anyway, dwarves and elves square up but before it can go anywhere the Dol Guldur orcs appear- this time unseen because they have giant Dune worms, complete it seemed to me with rings of Dune worm teeth in their mouths too, digging tunnels, tunnels through which orcs seem able to pass large distances in the blink of an eye.

And the worms are never seen again for no other given reason than the script doesn't need them again- despite the existence of such creatures being a huge advantage to the orc side in undermining enemy ground and defences.

Also I am not sure why they needed an invented secret way for the orcs to appear when they seemed just as invisible just marching, just as the elf army was and Dains. Both of whom manage to turn up unexpected with large armies which no one saw coming.

What follows is the start of one of the poorest executed, poorly explained, messiest, series of battles every committed to film.
Unlike the book where the whole point of the orc arrival is that it forces the other races to combine together against a common foe, here they all fight in their own separate parts of the battle.
And I do mean separate.

The humans seem largely confined to fighting in Dale, the elves sometimes seem to be in Dale, sometimes not, but they never fight alongside the humans and only for one brief flashy sequence of leaping elves, with the dwarves.

Dains dwarf army- frankly who knows? Dwarves pop up fighting here and there, we seen Dain in the middle of a Pelannor style barren field right in front of Erebor's gates fighting and talking to Thorin later (doesn't the river flow from Erebors gates?) but apart from that we know nothing about where or who they are fighting or what effect they have. Or even what happens to Dain in the battle- does he die? Survive? Become King after Thorin's line is wiped out? The film doesn't care enough to tell you. After this point in the film we never see or hear mention of him again.

In the Mt there is half a good scene between Dwalin and Thorin. Dwalin gets the good half and probably the best invented dialogue the film has to offer where he calls out Thorin.
But the second half of the scene where Thorin's response is so break down in tears and then go mad again feels utterly disingenuous.
It is almost like they have an idea of how do this- starting point-descent into madness- mad- realisation of madness- redemption.
But they forgot they have to show how he gets from one state to the other.

What we get is told he has gone mad, seeing him act mad by shouting a lot, and now seeing him break down from madness, then he reinforces his madness by throwing Dwalin out the throne room.
But there is no investment in it because they are just highlighting the sign posts, not taking the viewer on the journey with the character.
And his entire dragon sickness from being consumed by it to shaking it off via hallucination only lasts about three days.
It is much less abrupt in the book because you know what is driving Thorin from the start- his desire to get his gold and treasure back. Its out in the open from the beginning. It never was a noble quest. A noble quest doesn't need a burglar.
Here by their own changes to Thorin's character the writers are left making his descent and rise back out of it all happen in to the very last few events of the story.

Thorin has a hallucination about drowning in gold and comes to his senses and rallies all the dwarves by charging out the mountain and screaming in slow motion.
But then later Thorin decides they have to take out Azog, and he takes Dwalin, Fili and Kili with him, as taking all his heirs seems a good idea at the time. Oh and they get there by way of mountain goat, as some all saddled up and stuff were just sort of hanging about the battlefield from somewhere......yeah.

Oh and I mustn't forget, there is Azog, who as been standing up somewhere very high on a platform, with sweeping cinematic views of the battle field, and has so far spent the film shouting orders everyone is too far away to hear.


Back at Dale Legolas, who had hitched a lift back by hanging onto a giant bats legs- this is Level 4    where its on rails, and you just do the shooting with the bow-  warns them a second army is coming from Gundabad.

Bilbo then takes it on himself to go and warn the dwarves, there is a half decent scene here between Bilbo and Gandalf that at least makes some attempt to portray the difference in Bilbo since he set out.

He finds Thorin informs him of the approaching army about to surround them and Thorin brilliantly deduces “It's a trap!”
This is quickly proved to be true when Azog appears, still somewhere up high, dangling Kili who he kills gratuitously by skewering and throwing him off the side of the cliff, where the body lands right next to his brother Fili.

Fili responds by charging out and hacking at orcs. And Thorin soon joins him.

Tauriel, returning from Gundabad, spots Fili fighting with Bolg.

Is he the final boss or is there another one afterwards?

Bilbo is being defended by Dwalin from orcs, and throwing stones just like Merry and Pippin did in FotR, remember, nudge, nudge. And then he gets knocked out- so at least that happens, eventually.

Tauriel hacks her way up the orc tower thing Azog is on- what is that?- it looks solid and like its built there but its clearly orc design, so did they build a big orc tower in sight of Erebor and no one noticed? Is it mobile? Oh I give up!

Legolas meanwhile is leaping from bat to building and building to building, somewhere.

And Thorin gets thrown by Azog out of a doorway onto a frozen lake that is surrounded on all sides by buildings of some sort. Now where are we supposed to be?

And now Legolas is somewhere in the same place, but on top of a big tower, or pillar or something shooting orcs attacking Thorin.
But that's where Tauriel is and Legolas flew away in a bat from that starting point- did he just go round in a big circle? What?!

But its ok because Tauriel is killing stuff and she's a woman, look at the girl power go.
But then she tries to distract Fili who is fighting orcs by shouting his name.
But he gets his own back by shouting hers back, distracting her and getting her side slammed by a burly Bolg.
Silly woman. Fili doesn't get distracted holding off two orcs at once and she does and she is not doing anything.
The assault prompts her to scream like a 50's B Movie regular and cry out Fili's name for help.

Girl Power to damsel in distress in a heart beat. That's Tauriel.

So Fili, who obviously wasn't really trying before suddenly gets properly annoyed and slaughters some orcs in his attempts to get to her. Guess Kili didn't mean as much to him then.

Tauriel is getting beaten up by Bolg until Fili heroically leaps in and lands on Bolgs head.
But Bolg soon gets the better of him and stabs him through with Tauriel having to watch it happen in slow motion.
And having to scream in slow motion.
And cry “Nooooooo!”” in slow motion.
Slow motion makes everything sadder.
As does dropping out all the ambient sound save the actors slow-mo breathing and putting in a nice choral piece of music. Tears guaranteed. Cheap ones at that.

Tauriel gets thrown about a bit until Legolas can spot her, and as a big troll is knocking his pillar down anyway Legolas decides to save her and defeat Bolg.

Here is another problem with making Legolas prominent. He needs a big pay off for so much time invested. And that means giving him something that should have gone to a character from the actual book.
How much more sense if they were going to have Beron the last of his kind, with a personal grudge against  Azog, to have made that against the Great Goblin and Bolg, his neighbours. And to have given him Bolg to kill to complete his arc, leaving Azog to kill Thorin and in turn Azog killed by Dain, cementing that characters rightful place in the audiences mind as a suitable next king?

Its a simple change, but the inclusion of Legolas in such a large way means he has to take what could have gone to a book character.
It has a logic, but the manner in which it occurs is the point at which the comparison with a video game merges with the film on screen.
Legolas's antics, his leaping from falling stone to falling stone. It not only has the sensibilities of a game level, it also contrives, I assume deliberately, to look like one.
More slow motion in a sequence of events saturated with slow motion does nothing to help matters. It merely exaggerates the already implausible into parody.

Here in the film the two forms briefly merge and become one.

Of course the big final end of level Boss is Azog and his giant mace. Another clumsy LotR's call back to the Witch-kings similarly ludicrously sized weapon. But just the right sort of thing for cracking ice with. Which explains the location.
This final showdown takes place in a location from Soul Calibur, sorry on a frozen lake that breaks into a big wobbly slippery chunk they fight on. I wonder if Thorin could have won with a RING OUT!

Then in the middle of the fight the eagles arrive.
This is my favourite bit for how stupid Thorin is.
As the eagles arrive, again in slow motion, both Thorin and Azog turn to watch them fly overhead, with Azog at one point standing with is head turned entirely away from Thorin, who is looking right at him- and Thorin doesn't strike. He deserves to die just for that alone.

Radagast is flying an eagle, and then never seen again.

Beorn jumps off an eagle, transforms into a bear halfway down, somehow doesn't go splat upon landing, he is a big bear not a bouncy ball, and then charges some orcs, and is never seen again.

And the eagles win the day by flying really low over everyone every fast, once and never being seen again.

At least I think that's how the battle is won, I don't know because they decided not to show us the actual outcome or how it was won.

Anyway Thorin dumps Azog under the ice, where his body floats about for a bit. In fucking slow motion!!!
Before, like every film in every film made with a bad guy and the word blockbuster attached to it, Azog leaps unsurprisingly from the ice and kills Thorin even as Thorin kills him.

Despite the dwarves being so far away its a bit odd however when  Bilbo still manages to be there for the important bit, even though he appeared to be back quite a way away when he was knocked out. Not halfway to Gunabad or wherever the buggery it is the dwarves are supposed to be.

In fact there is no sense of where anything is in relation to anything else let alone the Mt or any clue how events in one part of the battle effect other parts of the battle.
They don't seem to in fact have any effect.

If you want a believable battle within the premise of Tolkien's fantasy world then forget it. What we have here is a series of contrivances strung together with cgi action sequences.
If you are looking for understanding, a point, a conclusion, emotional investment in the characters proper resolutions to plot lines and characters you wont find much of it here.

Not that its entirely absent of such moments, such as Bilbo with Gandalf's exchange, but they happen in such ridiculous confusing circumstances that it undermines all attempts at gravitas and undermines any real emotional investment.

Fili and Kili both play their ends well, but when you know of their heroic endings in the book and see  it reduced to a taunt for Thorin, and Fili to seemingly caring more for Tauriel than the brother he just lost, something doesn't sit well at all.

All the contrivances to tug on your emotions, the slow mo, sound drop outs, choral music, where a decade or two ago these were fresh and effective, over use and familiarity is breeding contempt.

There is more cgi here, there is more camera movement with complete freedom in the cgi, but that only jars with the closed off rehashed dullness of the green screen actors who are so obviously confined by set and 3D camera positioning.

Making Fili's ending about Tauriel was all they could have done given how they had set it up- the mistake was in ever setting it up this way, The mistake was in giving Fili something other than love for his family and loyalty as his motivations.

Even the idea of Tauriel was not necessarily a mistake, but everything they have her do and say is.
As a strong female character she fails on every level- her life is determined by the actions of males. She is centre of a bizarre love triangle with two males, her role is determined by what happens to those male characters.
The only thing that could be said to be strong about her is her ability to kill as well as a male.
Is that the message of strong women they wish to send?
One who has to turn into some sort of she-devil to act powerfully, and one who is defined by her emotional state and the men in her life.

The final scene between Bilbo and Thorin is the most emotional the film gets, and Freeman is superb in his grief. But it also reminds you that you might rather have watched a film not which Bilbo is in but which is about Bilbo and his perspective. Then this scene might feel much more raw and powerful.

The tragedy of these films, probably the greatest is that they got a generational best to play Bilbo. Freeman is perfect for the role.

Anyone who has watched his masterful Watson performance can see his range, his tight control over character he possess, and how he can be the heart of a story and carry that throughout when surrounded by unlikeable characters.
Its perfect for Bilbo. But these films sideline Bilbo. Yes he is in this one. Yes he does important stuff, even important stuff he does in the book, such as the Arkenstone.
But he is not the focus. Thorin still is.
Thorin drives the narrative of this film and Thorin is the main character of this film until his death.

Only upon the return home does the film return to this being Bilbo's story, seen from his perspective.

But sadly before we get to the end there is still scenes to endure.

No funeral, no laying the Arkenstone and Thorin's sword upon his breast.
No coronation of Dain, not even word if he survived.
No mention of a giant bear rampaging about anywhere either, or a shit stained wizard looking for a score among the men.

No we have far more important loose ends to tie up- Legolas and Tauriel of course.

How the actors kept a straight face through the following exchange is beyond me-

Tauriel- If this is love I don't want it. Take it from me. Please. Why does it hurt so much?

Thranduil- Because it was real.

I have never read or seen any of the Twilight franchise- but I am willing to bet even their love dialogue is better than this guff.

Bilbo and Gandalf sit together surveying the aftermath of the battle- it seems to be over now anyway just not quite sure how exactly.
And its quite a long scene during which they occasionally look at each other, go to say something but don't, and Gandalf arses about lighting his pipe.

Now on one level this is quite effective. Nothing need be said between them. What is there to say?

But the problem lies in we don't know, and never have known much since he set out, of what Bilbo thinks about anything. He has done stuff, but with the exception of two scenes I can recall, with Balin in the mountain cave, and in the wood before the warg attack and eagle save- he never tells us what he is thinking or feeling.
Specially not in comparison to the book which is told from his perspective through a narrator.

We kind of need in this scene to know what Bilbo is thinking. And the scene goes on long enough that it starts to look just like two actors, one of whom has forgotten their lines and the other who is waiting on a cue, which never comes.

But the sense of completion of Bilbo's journey from hobbit he was to hobbit he is now needs I feel some spoken testimony from Bilbo himself. But he remains mute.
Maybe Boyens and co didn't know what he feels or how he was supposed to have changed.

So all the dwarves gather round Thorin's body, you may have noticed that I have only mentioned Balin and Dwalin  besides the royal three of the dwarves and that's because the rest of them are only in this film in the sense the extras of Laketown are- they are there in the background looking at turns angry, unhappy, cheering ect as needed and otherwise don't feature at all.

So you can chalk up Bilbo's seeming growing friendship with Bofur established in AUJ and the individualism of the dwarves along with the other dead end script casualties of these films.

Finally Bilbo says farewell to all the dwarves at the gates of Erebor.
There is a nice but odd scene here between Bilbo and Balin. Odd that in it Bilbo begins to say what Thorin means to him, but despite trying two or three times he keeps breaking off with emotion at “He meant to me....” And its hard to shake of the feeling that line does not break off there just for dramatic effect, but because if you asked the writers to answer it they would not know what to say.

There is an overwhelming sense across this trilogy of a rudderless ship, with no set destination in sight and a constantly changing route to get there.
The changes in number of film, directors, scripts, rewrites, inventions, ect that have been part and parcel of the making of these films is evident for all the wrong reasons in the end product.
Script threads which go nowhere. Characters whose appearances have no meaning left. Changes to tone, focus. Call backs to LotR's. It all turns the whole thing into a mess that feels strung together from many discordant pieces. Pieces done when the script was one thing and not another.
Nothing hangs together across the piece. Not character arcs, not plot threads.

And as at last we come to the end, and the only part of this sorry saga since the smoke embers out the chimney at Bag End at the beginning that feels like it might be an adaptation of the book- Bilbo returning home to the auction.
Typically PJ makes it too big, the line of people with furniture would have emptied even Bag End of its goods. But that aside it feels a hell of a lot more genuine to the book than anything preceding it in this film.
Once Bilbo is alone in Bag End there is a rather nice bit of adaptation I actually liked- finding his neatly folded handkerchief.
It would have worked better had he left it as in the book, and it not being used for an excuse for a joke about a snot dripping rag, but still.
I also liked the symbolism of him putting the picture of his mother, the Took side, back up on the wall alongside his Baggins father.
There you go two things I found to enjoy.

Then of course the Ring comes back into the focus- had this been its only hint at what it would become I would have quite liked it, it makes sense as a transition into the opening of FotR.
Coming as it does however when the Ring has been over emphasised as evil and the One Ring too much already it actually loses some of it effect and power as a scene. Its no longer a revelation, or even a confirmation, its just a repetition of something already long established.

End Credits


And so finally Pj's sojourn in ME is over.

What did I think of BOFA's?
Its a mess.
It has the structure as well as the action content of a video game.
The dialogue is often atrocious and in the hands of lesser performers would be apparently so.
The cgi ranges from superb to down right wonky.
The fight scenes are ludicrous and over long.
The battle is messy unfocused and unresolved in any clear fashion.
Important book characters are sidelined and invented ones promoted over them.
Emotional investment is almost impossible when we are only told what is happening to people, not seeing it happening to them.
The direction uses a string of now cheap emotional tricks to try to get its emotion where the script is failing too and uses action and spectacle to divert attention when the script has nothing to say or do.
There are far too many dead end set ups, plot points and story lines which are never resolved.
Large parts of the invented material turn out to be superfluous to the story and would never have survived a longer writing period still in a script written for three films from the start, and where they knew where they were going with it.
The performances are good within the restrictions of the material they have to work with.

And to return to the game metaphor it has the same sense you get when you finish a triple A blockbuster game- lots of spectacle, lots of flashy graphics, story and characters didn't really make sense and you are left feeling slightly underwhelmed by the whole experience because what there was to enjoy was all just the surface gloss, with no real emotional depth or attachment to anything, and if you are me you also feel more than slightly cheated out of your money too.

You have out done yourself this time Petty, a very thorough and entertaining review, I'm surprised you can recollect things in such painfully detail, I forgot quite alot of the film as soon as I left the cinema...

Bagger Vance wrote:I've been reading posts here for a long time... but that review was both epic and thorough.  It sure makes you realize how detailed you have to be (or rather, should be) with an adaptation, especially one as beloved as The Hobbit.

Welcome to Forumshire Bagger Vance! (Stop by the Newbies thread and introduce yourself properly if inclined)

Petty has very...specific views on Jackson's rewrites er 'adaptations' and has a remarkable gift for spotting/pointing out/laughing at the numerous issues Jackson's films have...(not that they are particularly hard to spot)

Why on earth would you quote a post that long just to add a paragraph at the bottom of it? My finger almost fell off scrolling past it on my phone.