It's official: TABA is now "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies"

Yeah I think that is very likely indeed.
And the orcs will not be those from the Misty Mountains, if they are there they will just be auxiliary. The main orcs will be the sort that have been chasing Thorin and hanging about Dol Guldur, so I also expect the two sets of events- Battle of everyone bar the orcs and WC versus the giant smoky vagina to be intercut before the final part of the battle when the orcs turn up.

I do hope the third hobbit film does not win any oscars next year so i can enjoy myself over at Torn and see Peter Jackson fanboys get angry and start throwing a hissy fit for there movie not winning any awards.

I see DoS only got nominated for sound this year....and didn't even win that.    Did ToRN go bonkers?

Yes they did halfwise http://newboards.theonering.net/forum/gforum/perl/gforum.cgi?post=720202;search_string=oscars;#720202

Read there reaction on Dos not winning nada and losing.

In the book, was the fifth army the wargs? I thought it was the eagles... I have to go back and re-read so I don't get brainwashed by these films! But I thought it was men, elves, dwarves, goblins, eagles + Beorn?

I think its, Dwarves, Elves, Men, Orcs, Wargs. But not sure.

Yeah wargs- in the book they are autonomous and team up with goblins sometimes, and sometimes let them ride them- but they are independent, not just ridding beasts for goblins.

I would love to see this movie make less money than DOS. And then see the mental gymnastics that the fanboys do in order to prove that it actually made the most money of any Middle-earth movie.

Elves, men, dwarves, goblins and wargs, I think. I'm getting uncertain here with so many different versions

Yeah, that was always my imporession. Somehow noone seems to count the eagles or the bats.   

Lotr wikia sums it up like this, not sure how accurate all of that is though.


http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Battle_of_the_Five_Armies

I find it amusing that they use the same template as they use for historical battles on wikipedia.  

Eldorion wrote:

Bluebottle wrote:They never actually came to blows there though. So it might be an indication of one thing they are changing, I guess.   

Yeah, like Halfy says, it's just a stand-off until Gandalf stops it at the last minute.  So it's definitely something I could see PJ changing.  That said, I don't think Billy Connolly's comment is necessarily conclusive evidence on that.

Yeah, it's only speculation of course. And a seemingly throwaway comment by Billy Connoly is quite a flimsy basis for it.

That line does really stand out though.

I can't remember bats Time to reread TH again!

From "The clouds burst"  :

JRR Tolkien wrote:Still more suddenly a darkness came on with dreadful swiftness! A black cloud hurried over the sky. Winter thunder on a wild wind rolled roaring up and rumbled in the Mountain, and lightning lit its peak. And beneath the thunder another blackness could be seen whirling forward; but it did not come with the wind, it came from the North, like a vast cloud of birds, so dense that no light could be seen between their wings.

“Halt!” cried Gandalf, who appeared suddenly, and stood alone, with arms uplifted, between the advancing dwarves and the ranks awaiting them. “Halt!” he called in a voice like thunder, and his staff blazed forth with a flash like the lightning. “Dread has come upon you all! Alas! it has come more swiftly than I guessed. The Goblins are upon you! Bolg* of the North is coming, O Dain! whose father you slew in Moria. Behold! the bats are above his army like a sea of locusts. They ride upon wolves and Wargs are in their train!”

Guys, the five armies of the name are explicitly stated in the book in the same passage that introduces that name:

The Hobbit, Chapter 17 wrote:So began a battle that none had expected; and it was called the Battle of Five Armies, and it was very terrible. Upon one side were the Goblins and the Wild Wolves, and upon the other were Elves and Men and Dwarves.

Douglas A. Anderson notes in The Annotated Hobbit that the Rankin/Bass film states that the Eagles were one of the armies and fails to mention the Wolves.  This might have contributed to the confusion surrounding the identity of the five armies.  (Anderson also states that "This lapse is a very minor transgression compared to the major failings of that production", which made me burst out laughing just now. )

While The History of The Hobbit couldn't be a cause for confusion, since it was only published in 2007, John D. Rateliff does include a note in which Tolkien made a list of armies that might be involved which were: (1) woodelves, (2) dwarves, (3) eagles, (4) men, and (5) bears vs. (6) goblins, and (7) wolves. The numbering was Tolkien's.  The inclusion of an entire bear army is probably a relic of an earlier plot outline in which the climactic battle of the book actually occurred in the Vales of Anduin during Bilbo's return journey.  In this idea, Thorin and Company did not participate at all (having remained at Erebor after capturng it from Smaug) but Beorn led a troop of bears into battle.  Tolkien apparently never considered the bats, ravens, or the singular Hobbit to be contenders for the status of "army" in the battle.

It's almost like reading different opinions from scholars on real history.

It's strange that even in fiction "reality" is more complicated than commonly held beliefs.

Do the bats actually do anything in the book- from memory dont they just make it dark and spooky flying above the goblins?

So much ambiguity, and SO MUCH room for excess! PJ's going to have a field day!!!! 

Edit: a bear army would be kinda cool though....  

The bats are only mentioned twice in "The clouds burst" (Chapter 17).    Where I posted above, and here:

JRR Tolkien wrote:Day drew on. The goblins gathered again in the valley. There a host of Wargs came ravening and with them came the bodyguard of Bolg, goblins of huge size with scimitars of steel. Soon actual darkness was coming into a stormy sky; while still the great bats swirled about the heads and ears of elves and men, or fastened vampire-like on the stricken. Now Bard was fighting to defend the Eastern spur, and yet giving slowly back; and the elf-lords were at bay about their king upon the southern arm, near to the watch-post on Ravenhill.

"or fastened vampire-like on the stricken"

I can see PJ taking that and running far to far with it.   

Well, Richard Armatige has already announced

"It's been put aside until next year, thankfully," he joked. "It's this big thing looming over us. I'm predicting about ten weeks for the shoot because it's an extensive battle and each character is going to have their 'hero' moment on the battlefield. It's a manic fight in the air - the eagles are fighting vampire bats - and on the ground, and I can't wait to see what Pete does with that."

and said

"It's going to be intense beyond belief. It's going to be extraordinary - that's all I can say."

Oh man, I hadn't seen that quote before. I can only begin to imagine what it will be like.

Sadly I can imagine it all too well, but whats really horrifying, is no matter how bad and cheesy and ridiculous and over the top I do imagine it there will be a moment in it somewhere I know, where even then PJ still manages to do something far worse than my worse imaginings.   

I suspect that there will be eagle-riding that occurs during the battle.

Oh how could he not! Imagine the 3D dangling potential that would be lost!  

"It's been put aside until next year, thankfully," he joked. "It's this big thing looming over us. I'm predicting about ten weeks for the shoot because it's an extensive battle and each character is going to have their 'hero' moment on the battlefield. It's a manic fight in the air - the eagles are fighting vampire bats - and on the ground, and I can't wait to see what Pete does with that."

"It's going to be intense beyond belief. It's going to be extraordinary - that's all I can say."