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The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

21 Dec 2014 22:38 - 21 Dec 2014 22:39 #39472 by arvin sloane
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies was created by arvin sloane
Not such a great movie IMHO, nothing here that the original trilogy haven't done better years ago. But anyway, we get some more cool action scenes with Tauriel, and an AWESOME scene with Galadriel, now that´s worth yout ticket

She
Warning: Spoiler!

"If you threaten our son again, I'll put my heel through your skull"
Last edit: 21 Dec 2014 22:39 by arvin sloane.

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21 Dec 2014 23:12 #39473 by erikhandel
Replied by erikhandel on topic The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
Mostly agree with you, but it was the best of the Hobbit trilogy by far

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22 Dec 2014 02:45 #39477 by shadar
Replied by shadar on topic The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
Given Galadrial's lineage (she's many thousands of years old) one would expect her to be a fearsome opponent. There are only a very few people in Tolkien's universe that you don't fuck with, and Galadriel is definitely one of them.

They captured just a hint of that in LOTR, where she had this slightly scary edge to her.

Peter made her far too nice in first Hobbit movies. Good to see her true self arising in Hobbit 3.

As a point of note, Tolkien's premise for all his races, and the elves in particular, is that the oldest blood is the strongest. All his races weaken over time due to mixed blood or whatever. That was his view. Galadrial is from the time before any weakening. And she has a ring of power. Nenya.

Tauriel is almost a throw-back to the elves of old, at least in her fighting skills. Wisdom, on the other hand, isn't her strong point. Always nice to see quasi-superheorine roles, although her romance with Kili was a bit much. Elves and Dwarves are the most opposite races imaginable.

One lives mostly underground, mining and smelting and forging, smoke billowing from furnaces, along with their love of gold. Short, stocky and dark and very hairy. Wielders of a massive battle axe.

The other prefers to live in trees and sing songs all day while they craft things from plants and trees. Tall and fair and slender. Wielders of the bow, and secondarily a light, slender sword.

Wonderfully drawn characters, with extremely distinct race. And, as one would expect, they distrust each other at best, and hate each other easily enough.

But the romance and jeolosy was an obvious addition to appeal to female viewers. Tolkien was very poor at portraying women, other than in submissive, domestic roles or as warriors. Peter has tried to fill in that huge gulf between extremes.

Shadar

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22 Dec 2014 10:13 #39484 by Woodclaw
Replied by Woodclaw on topic The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
I have very mixed feelings about this movie.
On it's own it's not a bad movie, it surely has a better pacing than its immediate predecessor. While it has a lot of WTF moments, the action is there and it works. It reminded me a lot of Avengers under this profile, there's so much happening on screen that one scarcely has the time to metabolize the events. While some of the characters were a bit off for me the unfolding of the vents is excellent and I think there are two really excellent highlight: the attack on Lake Town really showcase the devastation that a dragon can unleash, something that I don't remember seeing in this much detail in any other fantasy movie; and the madness of Thorin, it's very rare to see madness portrayed with such clarity and effective imagery in a movie.

Given those, I still don't like Jackson's take on the Middle Earth -- call me purist if you wish -- but I think he missed one of the main points. I know that it's very difficult, if not downright impossible, to put a book on screen as it was written, so I usually try to see if the director was able to keep the message and the key ideas of the original author alive. Here I think Jackson did a really bad job in that sense.

Still i think it's an enjoyable movie and I don't regret watching it.

PS: on the subject of Tolkien and his portrayal of women, it's a really complex and convulted subject, while he never portrayed women in any kind of active role in his published works (save perhaps for Lobelia Sackville-Bagging, who tried to take on Saruman's minions in the Shire all by herself) they were usually the driving force behind many events in the Middle Earth.

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22 Dec 2014 19:20 #39493 by shadar
Replied by shadar on topic The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
I should probably have said, more accurately, that his portrayal of women doesn't play well with modern sensibilities. Your point about women driving things behind the scene, with only men on the stage, as I see it, is more a reflection of Tolkien's era. He's truly a 19th century man who never quite felt at home in the 20th century. I'm sure they 21st would have driven him mad.

(One of the few benefits of our limited lifespans is that we don't live too far beyond our sensibilities, as the old, angry white men in American politics remind us.)

As far as the purist camp of Tolkien fans, I decided early on (for mental health reasons) to consider the movies to be "inspired by" Tolkien's writing, and not intended to be movie portrayals of the books. That allowed me to keep my sanity.

I've long considered writing a superhero movie set in the Tolkien universe, but thankfully didn't try. In any case, as you infer in your post, that's more or less what Jackson has done.

So I enjoy the movies and I enjoy the books (even more, but the two do not compete. In the end, I'm a 20th century man who still prefers books to movies.

That said, I'm about to binge watch the original three Star Wars movies with my grandkids. I plan to enjoy them greatly from a nostalgic perspective. I introduced my young kids (born in '76 and '78) to SciFi through Star Wars. Feels good to corrupt their children the same way I did mine. <grin>

Shadar

Woodclaw wrote: I have very mixed feelings about this movie.
On it's own it's not a bad movie, it surely has a better pacing than its immediate predecessor. While it has a lot of WTF moments, the action is there and it works. It reminded me a lot of Avengers under this profile, there's so much happening on screen that one scarcely has the time to metabolize the events. While some of the characters were a bit off for me the unfolding of the vents is excellent and I think there are two really excellent highlight: the attack on Lake Town really showcase the devastation that a dragon can unleash, something that I don't remember seeing in this much detail in any other fantasy movie; and the madness of Thorin, it's very rare to see madness portrayed with such clarity and effective imagery in a movie.

Given those, I still don't like Jackson's take on the Middle Earth -- call me purist if you wish -- but I think he missed one of the main points. I know that it's very difficult, if not downright impossible, to put a book on screen as it was written, so I usually try to see if the director was able to keep the message and the key ideas of the original author alive. Here I think Jackson did a really bad job in that sense.

Still i think it's an enjoyable movie and I don't regret watching it.

PS: on the subject of Tolkien and his portrayal of women, it's a really complex and convulted subject, while he never portrayed women in any kind of active role in his published works (save perhaps for Lobelia Sackville-Bagging, who tried to take on Saruman's minions in the Shire all by herself) they were usually the driving force behind many events in the Middle Earth.

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