Battle of the Five Armies - Extended Edition

Eldorian wrote: Unfortunately the guy's Tolkien lore isn't the strongest (he seems to mistake Goblin-town for Moria and is unaware of the existence of the lesser Rings)

By 'lesser Rings' are you referring to the Elf/Dwarf/Man rings, or the ones that Gandalf refers to as "Still perilous to a mortal, to my mind" in Shadow of Past?

If the second, I'm not aware of any other mention of these rings, and would be very interested in any such lore. All I recall is something about Celebrimbor forging other rings as "mere essays in the craft".

halfwise wrote:By 'lesser Rings' are you referring to the Elf/Dwarf/Man rings, or the ones that Gandalf refers to as "Still perilous to a mortal, to my mind" in Shadow of Past?

If the second, I'm not aware of any other mention of these rings, and would be very interested in any such lore.  All I recall is something about Celebrimbor forging other rings as "mere essays in the craft".

The elf/dwarf/man rings were all Great Rings.  The lesser rings were the ones made by the smiths of Eregion other than the 19 important ones we hear about. Although it was only the first sixteen (the ones that ended up in the hands of men and dwarves) that were made by the smiths more or less collectively, the final three rings were made by Celebrimbor by himself IIRC.  Anyway, I can't think of any additional references to the lesser rings (other than the two you mentioned) offhand, unfortunately.

malickfan wrote:Looks like the EE versions are getting a limited cinematic release (in North American at least) in October, if anyone is interested  


http://www.slashfilm.com/the-hobbit-trilogy-extended-edition/

I saw this during my break earlier and was wondering if anyone would have posted about it here by the time I got home. I've expressed my opinions about the EEs at length already; I expect this one to be much like the previous two. I'll see it, no doubt, which means I will end up spending money on this trilogy one last time, but I plan to just stream it via Amazon. Semi-relatedly, I kinda miss that brief period where movie releases were synchronized around the world. Now not only are we back to different territories getting films at different times, but the multitude of formats (disc, streaming, and now re-releases) are all on different dates too.

Fake edit: I suppose the confirmation that half an hour of footage was added to BOFA-EE is news, unless this was already announced and I missed it? That means it'll have the beefiest additions (though only five minutes more than DOS), even though it'll remain the shortest of the films.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey – 182 minutes (theatrical: 169 minutes)
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug – 186 minutes (theatrical: 161 minutes)
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies – 174 minutes (theatrical: 144 minutes)

Half an hour more of cgi nonsense no doubt and the story of Thorin star of the films.

Maybe he'll get a funeral this time around.

My money's on Beorn still getting fuck all though.

Mine too. Mainly because they clearly filmed stuff for Beorn that was for a storyline that was abandoned midway though filming, so his importance is so reduced in either a version of the original, or even their own telling that there is no reason to greatly expand on him- and if they do it will probably be somehow incorporating footage originally shot for stuff around the useless Dol Guldur storyline, which will be even worse than leaving him out.

I still can't get over how inconsequential Dol Guldur ended up being? That was what they were hyping up for half a decade? It was also a tiny portion of running time. The lion's share of the bloat in the second and third movies went into Lake-town.

The thng is when they ere bragging about they had a totally different storyline involving Beorn at Dol Guldur, and Bolg being his torturer ect setting up the animosity for the ending- but then Pj gave Legolamb more and more stuff and eventually Bolg to kill as his adversary- and all the Bolg stuff, the torturer stuff went.
But they had nothing else but the Beorn footage they'd shot, so we got in DOS Beorns giving the Dol Guldur back-story but with no follow-up and even though it was now irrelevant but it was all they had- and at the battle we got his arrival presumably fresh from the battle at Dol Guldur with Galadriel and co but no pay off with Bolg as it was no longer set up for him.

In short the chopping and changing and lack of scripts or even full story narratives that ruined LotR's by their end destroys Beorn's story line in the Hobbit before it even got going and leaves a disjointed mess in the finished films that no longer serves any narrative purpose at all.

Harshly worded but rather accurate!

Interesting stuff Petty. I enjoy reading the post mortem. Did they talk about the Bolg torturer stuff in the EE documentaries? I never actually watched any of those.

When I read about a torture scene involving Beorn several years ago, I assumed Beorn was the torturer and would be torturing the goblin whose head and warg pelt winds up on his front door.

Turned out they made Beorn into a total wimp.

From what I can piece together the original plan was that Radagast would have seen Bolg at Dol Guldur torturing a captured Beorn before they both escaped- setting up Bolgs and the Nazgul's presence there (this was the original live action design Bolg, this also sets up this Bolg for when Gandalf is captured, as the audience would know he was a torturer increasing the threat)- Beorn then fills in the background on Bolg to the dwarves and Bilbo, how Bolg hunted and killed all his people. Then Beorn joins the attack on Dol Guldur to get at Bolg, but finds he is not there and so goes with Radagast and the eagles to the Lonely Mountain where Beorn would have avenged himself upon Bolg.

All that's left of all this in the finished film is Beorn giving the back story to the dwarves, torturer version Bolg making a brief appearance as Gandalf's unnamed torturer and Beorn love bombing the battle from the eagles.

That still seems like a mess. God, these movies, there's just no words.

Apparently the Bofa EE is rated R...what the flying fuck.

bungobaggins wrote:Apparently the Bofa EE is rated R...what the flying fuck.

I've given up trying to understand some of PJ's ideas.

Well that makes PJ sense- make 6 films based on Tokien- 3 dealing with a terrible war and 3 dealing with a light hearted children's adventure- and he makes the latter the R rating.

Eldorion wrote:I suppose the confirmation that half an hour of footage was added to BOFA-EE is news, unless this was already announced and I missed it?  That means it'll have the beefiest additions (though only five minutes more than DOS), even though it'll remain the shortest of the films.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey – 182 minutes (theatrical: 169 minutes)
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug – 186 minutes (theatrical: 161 minutes)
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies – 174 minutes (theatrical: 144 minutes)

Good point, didn't pick up on that, more than I was expecting.

My Guesses:

The funeral of Thorin and Coronation of Dain
More Beorn, probably him meeting with Radagast after Dol Guldor
More Hero shots and ninja antics from the supporting Dwarves at the BOTFA (maybe explaining where Dwalin went during the Azog battle)
Extended Dol Guldor, probably including some badly scrambled 'appendices' nonsense about the Nazgul and Three Rings
More Bolg and Dain
More of the Journey home, maybe even a cameo by Estel to tie in with the Stider mention by Thrandypants
A tribute to Sir Lee and Andrew Lesnie

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Well that makes PJ sense- make 6 films based on Tokien- 3 dealing with a terrible war and 3 dealing with a light hearted children's adventure- and he makes the latter the R rating.

R for random and really boring?

malickfan wrote:

Eldorion wrote:I suppose the confirmation that half an hour of footage was added to BOFA-EE is news, unless this was already announced and I missed it?  That means it'll have the beefiest additions (though only five minutes more than DOS), even though it'll remain the shortest of the films.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey – 182 minutes (theatrical: 169 minutes)
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug – 186 minutes (theatrical: 161 minutes)
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies – 174 minutes (theatrical: 144 minutes)

Good point, didn't pick up on that, more than I was expecting.

My Guesses:

The funeral of Thorin and Coronation of Dain
More Beorn, probably him meeting with Radagast after Dol Guldor
More Hero shots and ninja antics from the supporting Dwarves at the BOTFA (maybe explaining where Dwalin went during the Azog battle)
Extended Dol Guldor, probably including some badly scrambled 'appendices' nonsense about the Nazgul and Three Rings
More Bolg and Dain
More of the Journey home, maybe even a cameo by Estel to tie in with the Stider mention by Thrandypants
A tribute to Sir Lee and Andrew Lesnie

Folks at torn are saying only 19 minutes of extra footage.

My guesses:

random fighting with the violence and gore ramped up to 11
More Alfred

bungobaggins wrote:
random fighting with the violence and gore ramped up to 11
More Alfred

I might just watch the extra scenes on youtube anyway, so 19 minutes dosen't bother me much either way.

As for Aflrid I remember reading a rumour he accidentally gets fired out of a catapault and dies, yes really

From the rating I suspect a bloody Beorn rampage. Or a Legolamb, Kili, Tauriel threeway


Malick- I believe the full version is that he gets catapulted straight into the mouth of one of the giant worm things, or possibly a huge trolls mouth.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:


Malick- I believe the full version is that he gets catapulted straight into the mouth of one of the giant worm things, or possibly a huge trolls mouth.

Yeah, I will definitely not be purchasing this. Youtube or torrent.

bungobaggins wrote:Yeah, I will definitely not be purchasing this. Youtube or torrent.

I bought DOS EE, I watched it once out of a sesne of obligation (though I regret listining to the waffling, grating commentary) I remember thinking it was better than I remembered, but I've more or less forgotten it entirely, and I can't even face watching the behind the scenes stuff...

I'll probably force myself to slog through it, at least's it over at long last...

I'm not even interested in the BTS stuff anymore. I've no desire to rewatch them. I'll watch the BOFA EE for the crabbit, but that's it.