So Long, PJ, And Thank You For the Visuals...

[perelleth]

...but please, please, do stay away from The Silmarillion.

So I went to see The Battle of the Five Armies on Christmas Day.. The she-balrgogling loved it. Me, I almost fell asleep in places.

Comments

[clodia_metelli]

I just got back from this! Agree on all counts, and I rather fear the way my sister and I howled with laughter at the back may have undercut some moments that were probably meant to be serious. I will add a couple of things

[elliska]

The elves jumped OVER a dwarven SHIELD WALL!!!! (?!)

My husband lost it when they did that. He almost left the theater. PJ definitely didn't hire a military consultant and thank God he never fought in a war himself.

And I agree about the HD too. The makeup really was bad for that. Especially on Legolas.

[clodia_metelli]

I am glad someone else felt strongly about the shield wall. For a supposed "battle of five armies", it was really just a disappointing brawl. Particularly disappointing from the elves, who seemed so well trained and disciplined when they first showed up. Did you notice how Principal Orc Antagonist directed his side from his command post, showing a grasp of generalship and tactics that was totally missing on the other side? I thought he deserved to win for the semaphore system alone. (Though his battle-orcs were very badly designed. How on earth does it help to replace all four limbs with maces? Especially when you're not fighting and they need constant help with basically everything?)

I thought Tauriel's makeup was distractingly obvious too. And I always notice when the roots of the hair aren't the same colour as the rest. (Come to that, some of the dwarven beards looked a little carpety, and I'm not sure about all the blonds with thick black eyebrows.)

[perelleth]

lolol. Yes. There are many things I didn't even mention... and that's one of them. So ridiculous, it got us laughing so helplessly someone made us shut up!

[perelleth]

the high definition/frame rate was really annoying.
I too quite liked Tauriel's character though not really sure what she added, except points for having females. Not only being kicked around but causing dwarf's death by distraction was a bit of the low, then having the king condescendingly catalogue her feelings "not love" then "oh well it hurts, then yes, true love" It was all so ridiculous that made me laugh as well.
To me it was a guilty pleasure, but I was more bored more time than I expected. Sigh.

[perelleth]

Ninja Thranduil was good, I agree.
Also was puzzled about those jewels. I was hoping it would be part of BIlbo's parting gift, but hey, what do I know? The editing was really choppy work, storywise.