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Author
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Topic: The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
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Stu Jamieson
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 524
From: Buccan, Qld, Australia
Registered: Jan 2008
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posted 01-03-2015 08:44 PM
Wow, there's no Hobbit thread yet?
Tolkien made several retrospective revisions to The Hobbit throughout his life in order to bring the story into line with his subsequent Lord of the Rings trilogy. His last revision reportedly had him shift the tone of his children's book into line with it's adult-targeted successor. After receiving criticism for this shift, Tolkien elected not to publish this edition.
Unperturbed by this, Peter Jackson has attempted to do the exact same thing with his Hobbit films bar the good sense to realise prior to publishing that destroying the tone of the original book is, in fact, a bad idea. Is it arrogance or egoism on Jackson's part to presume that he can improve upon Tolkien or is it economic studio interference to produce a cash cow? I suspect a fair portion of both but the result is the same: a three hour movie extravaganza of a children's novel which numbers but a few hundred pages that is more bloated than Bombur's belly.
The film begins with a pre-credit sequence showing the destruction of Lake Town by the dragon, Smaug. That this sequence ought to have been the grim finale of the previous film speaks again to the dishonourable, money-grabbing intentions of Jackson and studio alike. It is the literary equivalent of finishing a book mid chapter, which is precisely what Jackson did with the previous instalment, The Desolation of Smaug.
Time and time again throughout this trilogy Jackson has departed from Tolkien's script in ways which substitute the economy and elegance of the source material for Hollywood tropes favouring slapstick comedy, bombastic action, invented villains and fabricated romances. In his attempt to reinvent the wheel, Jackson and co have delivered a fully pimped out 16 wheel limousine replete with bar service, 8 TVs and a swimming pool. In case there's any doubt, I'm saying this is a bad thing. An exquisitely crafted horse drawn sulky would have been more appropriate.
As was the case in the previous two films, CG is on full tilt here. There's a CG sheen to just about everything in the film, from the rocks to the orcs to the faces of the stars. There's something very unnatural about it all; it all looks very "shot in a studio". Which, of course, much of it would have been. But since The Wizard of Oz major advancements have been made in cinema to make films look like they were not shot in a studio but Jackson has disregarded this almost completely. Like a dwarf in gold he seems to revel in all this shiny new (unrealistic looking) technology. The result is a film which doesn't even look like it's trying to look real. Add in the HFR (high frame rate) component and it all looks astoundingly fake, sticking out like the voice of Billy Connolly in a crowd - wait, that happens too!
Martin Freeman is miscast as Bilbo. There, I said it! The problem with Freeman is his inability to overcome his natural comedic nervous shtick. As a result, you never know whether he is being serious or playing a scene for laughs. His performance is devoid of the childish fuddiduddiness that typifies the character of Bilbo, a characteristic which Ian Holm nailed with aplomb. Freeman would have done well to impersonate Holm.
Performances from the ex-Rings cast of McKellen, Blanchett, Lee and Weaving are naturally splendid though these guys must be sleepwalking these roles by now. Other performers seem cast for their personality rather than their acting chops - Stephen Fry, Billy Connolly - and this is distracting, extricating you from the on-screen fantasy.
The film ends hopelessly unresolved. The movie is called "The Battle of the Five Armies" and the battle is fought for the riches left behind from the slain dragon but what happens to the treasure in the end? What happens to the all-important Arkenstone? Do the Elves get their share of the loot? How do the broken men of Dale and Lake Town fare. What happens to the Dwarven Kingdom? Will Billy Connolly become king? It seems that the most important thing to happen after these three lengthy films is that Bilbo gets to go home.
Jackson has done to The Hobbit what he inflicted on King Kong: he's taken a much-loved classic and ruined it with self indulgence. After his excellent Lord of the Rings adaptation, Jackson ought to have been the man to author the definitive Hobbit film. Sadly, that film remains unmade.
2 out of 10
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 01-04-2015 08:38 AM
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. Or rather: The Hobbit: Yet another year later and HFR still looks like shit ![[Wink]](wink.gif) .
It's rather striking how this movie failed to create any considerable amount of buzz. Yeah, it still drew quite a public, but compare this to what happened during the last Lord of the Rings.
quote: Stu Jamieson
Wow, there's no Hobbit thread yet?
I guess we all waited for you to spend so many words on this thing .
Also, you probably already said it all. And most of it has already been said about the last two parts. Unfortunately, this last part ends up being even worse than the previous two parts.
Maybe we shouldn't blame it all on Peter Jackson though, apparently he didn't even want to do those movies, but since everybody else walked out, he took it up. I guess he didn't need to do it for the money. Then again, when you know you cannot deliver, why even try?
I've seen this in dual 6P laser 3D in HFR and in "vanilla HFR". The 6P laser-shark-tank-enabled version looked even more fake than the "vanilla version", but at least it was bright. Like I've said before, it's probably not just the HFR at work here, but it doesn't help.
quote: Stu Jamieson
The film ends hopelessly unresolved. The movie is called "The Battle of the Five Armies" and the battle is fought for the riches left behind from the slain dragon but what happens to the treasure in the end? What happens to the all-important Arkenstone? Do the Elves get their share of the loot? How do the broken men of Dale and Lake Town fare. What happens to the Dwarven Kingdom? Will Billy Connolly become king? It seems that the most important thing to happen after these three lengthy films is that Bilbo gets to go home.
What? You seriously want to add another 4 hours to the story? ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
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Stu Jamieson
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 524
From: Buccan, Qld, Australia
Registered: Jan 2008
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posted 01-04-2015 05:56 PM
Yes, Jackson has the right to make the movie he wants, just as we have the right to judge his efforts.
But I agree with you in principle, Carsten. Jackson did a great job of LOTR despite the changes to it because he maintained it's spirit. With the Hobbit, however, he changed it's spirit. Now again, in principle, I'm cool with that. But if you're going to call your movie "The Hobbit" - and trade off it's name! - then people are entitled to expect The Hobbit. If you're going to do something different, maybe call it something else.
But my main issue with the films is that, in almost every instance, Jackson has changed the set pieces to something which is less than what Tolkien scribed and it's all for the purpose of Hollywoodising the story with more action and comedy to fill out 3 movies.
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 01-04-2015 06:15 PM
quote:
^ No! But if they cut all the crap out of it they'd probably find time to put in the important stuff!
If they'd cut out all the crap, it would've ended up like the first five minutes of Man on the Moon (1999) .
quote:
#1 of the year for us.
While it doesn't perform badly around here, The Hunger Games did a whole lot better up until now.
Some interesting fact is that, while HFR was highly advertized during the last two releases, it has now seemingly become the default if available. Several locations around here are showing it in HFR without even advertising it as such.
quote: Carsten Kurz
If Jackson has the legal rights to use the book, why shouldn't he make it into the movie he wants? I never get why a book should only be put into a movie following a (hypothetical anyway) straight line.
I guess nobody *here* is even remotely claiming this. For example, Kubrick's interpretation of The Shining (1980) outshines the "more true to the story" direct-to-video version we got in 1997 on all levels possible. Movies and books are obviously different things and many great movies have been either inspired or loosely based on books.
The problem with The Hobbit movies is just that the original source material is rather limited and you can literally feel the story unnaturally being stretched. And I guess Tolkien is just a better story-teller than Peter Jackson and his team of writers.
The need to directly connect this to the Lord of the Rings movies, the fact that the original material differed greatly in tone and the already limited source material... they got themselves into so many constraints right from the start, in my opinion it was an almost impossible task to make some real good movies in this net of constraints. Maybe that's also why Guillermo Del Toro quit after spending more than two years almost full-time on the project already.
quote: Carsten Kurz
What actually struck me was the notion of Jacksons pain to actually finish the story at the end. You could nearly physically feel him trying to put another shot, another line, just to keep Bilbo on the screen for another few seconds. Must have been hard for him to finally finish with it.
From what I've read about it, between the lines, it sounded more like he was more than happy to finish it. But after all those years it might still be a somewhat bittersweet conclusion to it all.
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