So much battle
I finally went to see Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies today. I still cough a little but the battles were so loud even I couldn't hear myself. They were also quite pretty but not worth their own separate movie.
[Spoiler (click to open)]
Because the movie is basically one big battle. There is the actual desolation of Smaug at the beginning when the dragon burns the town and then Bard kills him. And then a long boring bit when Thorin gets swallowed by gold (it's the dragon curse you see, everyone gets all weepy about the dragon curse, before Thorin shakes off the dragon curse). But outside of that it's just one big battle. There was of course preparation for battle and marching towards battle and then returning home from battle (only to battle some relatives over the furniture) but mostly it's battle.
There is land battle and air battle and battle on ice and in the city. There is sword fighting and lance fighting and axe fighting and all other weird weapon fighting and of course a lot of bow action. There is magic battle with three Elven ring bearers and Saruman agains the Necromancer and Ring Wreiths. There are dwarves and people and elves and two armies of orcs and bats and eagles and even Beorn in his bear form.
Everyone who supposed to die dies - the dwarf succession is not to be messed with. I always was sad about Kili the most (and I have a thing for Aidan Turner since his Mitchell days) - but I'm not sure if the whole extra thing with romance made it better or worse. On one hand it was nice to have a female character in the story but on the other the whole thing with Legolas and Tauriel just always felt tucked in. At least it gave lee pace an occasion to do something else than be gigantic dick and have some nice emotional moments with both Tauriel and his son.
This might be unpopular opinion but I like inclusion of some of the events mentioned in Silmarillion like defeating the darkness and delaying Sauron's return. It was nice to see Galadriel and Elrond and Saruman do some real magic and show their badass side. I also always wanted to see more of Radagast the Brown (it's always about Saruman and Gandalf and the other Istari never get the any attention) so I liked his adventures.
What I hated was the fact that Peter Jackson forced turning Hobbit into 3 movies and adding a lot of pointless scenes (I will never forgive that whole stone giant sequence) but we never really get any resolution for most of the characters. Besides Gandalf taking Bilbo home nothing else is really shown. The jewels Thranduil was ready to go to battle for - did he find them?What did dwarves do after funerals? What about humans? Did anybody go back for the gold or did they seal it as cursed? So many hours spend walking through New Zealand and not even a voice over? This one was 20 minutes shorter than all the others - they could've fit a short what happened later narration by old Bilbo in there. They certainly did everything else and then some.
My main thought at the end of all of that was I would really like a book with those drawings from credits. And that Billy Boyd has a really nice voice. Also Billy Connolly's voice is so characteristic I knew it was him the moment I heard him speak even though dwarf make up and helmet made him really hard to recognise.
[Spoiler (click to open)]
Because the movie is basically one big battle. There is the actual desolation of Smaug at the beginning when the dragon burns the town and then Bard kills him. And then a long boring bit when Thorin gets swallowed by gold (it's the dragon curse you see, everyone gets all weepy about the dragon curse, before Thorin shakes off the dragon curse). But outside of that it's just one big battle. There was of course preparation for battle and marching towards battle and then returning home from battle (only to battle some relatives over the furniture) but mostly it's battle.
There is land battle and air battle and battle on ice and in the city. There is sword fighting and lance fighting and axe fighting and all other weird weapon fighting and of course a lot of bow action. There is magic battle with three Elven ring bearers and Saruman agains the Necromancer and Ring Wreiths. There are dwarves and people and elves and two armies of orcs and bats and eagles and even Beorn in his bear form.
Everyone who supposed to die dies - the dwarf succession is not to be messed with. I always was sad about Kili the most (and I have a thing for Aidan Turner since his Mitchell days) - but I'm not sure if the whole extra thing with romance made it better or worse. On one hand it was nice to have a female character in the story but on the other the whole thing with Legolas and Tauriel just always felt tucked in. At least it gave lee pace an occasion to do something else than be gigantic dick and have some nice emotional moments with both Tauriel and his son.
This might be unpopular opinion but I like inclusion of some of the events mentioned in Silmarillion like defeating the darkness and delaying Sauron's return. It was nice to see Galadriel and Elrond and Saruman do some real magic and show their badass side. I also always wanted to see more of Radagast the Brown (it's always about Saruman and Gandalf and the other Istari never get the any attention) so I liked his adventures.
What I hated was the fact that Peter Jackson forced turning Hobbit into 3 movies and adding a lot of pointless scenes (I will never forgive that whole stone giant sequence) but we never really get any resolution for most of the characters. Besides Gandalf taking Bilbo home nothing else is really shown. The jewels Thranduil was ready to go to battle for - did he find them?What did dwarves do after funerals? What about humans? Did anybody go back for the gold or did they seal it as cursed? So many hours spend walking through New Zealand and not even a voice over? This one was 20 minutes shorter than all the others - they could've fit a short what happened later narration by old Bilbo in there. They certainly did everything else and then some.
My main thought at the end of all of that was I would really like a book with those drawings from credits. And that Billy Boyd has a really nice voice. Also Billy Connolly's voice is so characteristic I knew it was him the moment I heard him speak even though dwarf make up and helmet made him really hard to recognise.