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The Hobbit part 3!!! Oh boy!!! (Spoilers for part 2)
DarthCaligula
Elite Ranger
Gee golly I'm sure looking forward to the next Hobbit movie. I can't wait to see how they stretch this thing out even more. Oh boy, that part with Legolas killing a bunch of Orcs was so necessary, but I think we can all agree that the long ass fight with Smaug was the best part of the whole movie. That's right, Bilbo talking to Smaug while wearing the One Ring and using his wits to survive is too boring, we need to add a 30 minute fight that makes Smaug look like a chump. "DUR HUR HUR! We just jumped out of the way of the fire AGAIN!" Yessiree, that's some quality adaptation work right there.
That's right, The Hobbit: The Search for More Money will go down in history as the greatest adaptation ever made.
That's right, The Hobbit: The Search for More Money will go down in history as the greatest adaptation ever made.
Comments
I too have a lot of problems with it being a trilogy, the main ones being:
- the action sequences are far too long all
- every line of dialogue seems to be designed/intended to be of "epic" importance
- far too much reliance on CGI
- too much comic relief
That said, I do like seeing more of Middle Earth. In fact, I'd say seeing the world has been the highlight for me; all across LotR and The Hobbit the art/concept has been pretty close to what I imagined Middle Earth to be like. It's just a shame that what's gone in it hasn't matched expectations!
Naturally I'll see Part 3, but I'm not expecting it to be anything that good
And since I just love to complain about Smaug, really, if they wanted to show him in action, all they had to do was show a flashback of him destroying Dwarven civilization. Instead, somehow this nightmare creature that's pretty much an ender of worlds can't kill a few dwarves and a hobbit.
I don't mind the orcs, they give a bit of tension and consistency to what is otherwise an unconnected set of "we're attacking you cause we're orcs/goblins!" enemies.
I also don't mind the extra stuff added from The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, The History of Middle-earth, etc. I think it adds a lot of depth to a simple tale. It wasn't needed but it does make the movies more interesting.
What I really don't like is major changes to the story, such as leaving dwarves in Laketown who shouldn't be there or adding an ambiguous love story between an elf and a dwarf. I also don't like the unnecessary action sequences, like the barrel chase and that bloody awful fight with the dragon (which is completely contrary to how any of the characters involved would behave according to the book), added probably to "increase excitement" but also likely to stretch it out to three movies. If they had cut them out, left the bit with the elves as short as it is in the book, and not insisted on showing the entire Battle of the Five Armies (which I'm sure they will), then it could fit into two three-hour movies. The extra stuff from the Appendices, etc. could have gone in the extended editions.
The Hobbit Trilogy is fun, and that's all I expect from it. I do appreciate the added story of Gandolf and other Wizards and the fights between great Evil sorcery and all that.
None of these are ever going to be as good as the books and what your mind creates for the story when reading them.
I honestly don't understand why everyone hates JCOM either?
Yakety Sax Smaug!
I think calling it the battle of 5 armies though is a bit injustice. More like 4 1/2 armies. Seriously I don't know how the men of laketown had so many people left to fight. By right, they should have been slaughtered by the orcs invading the castle.
Smaug is short lived of course, which is a shame, I think they did an amazing job creating him.
Lee Pace is making a name for himself in action movies. He's come a long way from the pie maker. I have no idea how he has the time to shoot all the things he is in.
It's strange to say that a single book turned into three movies feels rushed, but this one actually does.
Some things do bother me. Shadow Dancer is correct that every piece of dialog is played up to be of epic proportions, especially from Thorin. The fight sequences get to be monotonous and hard to follow. The dwarven armor the iron dwarves wear looks a lot like the orc armor. So for a while, I couldn't tell who was killing whom. The elves simply aren't very smart in battle. Since I don't remember the book, I don't know if that part of the battle followed it. But the iron dwarves set up a phalanx style system against the oncoming orcs. What do the elves (known for having the best archers in the land) do? Do they shoot over the dwarves? No of course not, they charge over the dwarves for hand to hand combat. Tactical suicide.
The fallen dwarves were correct, it was Thorin, Fili, and Kili, but the way they died was a bit different. Azog of course was not in the book, but Thorin went against Bolg, got mortally wounded, and Fili and Kili died protecting his fallen body. It was Beorn who killed Bolg, although you only saw Beorn for literally 5 seconds in the movie.
I was expecting the showdown at Dol Gulder to be awesome, and it was. We finally got to see Galadriel for the badass she truly is, and Elrond and Saruman rocked the house too. Though since they made a big deal about Galadriel's ring, why wasn't anything said about the fact that Gandalf had an Elf ring too? Of course, then if they did that they couldn't justify having him be a prisoner.
Overall pretty good, and finally shorter than 3 hours! The only part that felt like it dragged on was Thorin being all "GOLD GOLD GOLD GOLD ARKENSTONE I'M EBENEEZER AND NO ONE WILL LIKE ME" that could have been cut in half.
I'll definitely watch them again, but after watching 'Five Armies' in the cinema I'm definitely not in a hurry to watch them all again any time soon....which is a shame really!
"I seriously want to edit the films down" ... "I'll just have to wait for all 3 extended editions to come out. "
https://tolkieneditor.wordpress.com/2015/01/13/i-have-recut-peter-jacksons-hobbit-trilogy-into-a-single-4-hour-film/