The Battle of the 5+ Armies

[Estelyn Telcontar]

I just got back home from the theatre, and I'm not yet sure what to say. I found the impressions to be overwhelming in a negative way - too much food for the eyes, not enough time to digest it. A few first thoughts:

I saw the movie in my local theatre - the seaside resort town I live in is very small and sleepy during the winter months, so there were only five people viewing the film on this weekday evening! That doesn't make for much atmosphere, but it also doesn't make for distraction. Here in Germany, all movies are translated and dubbed, so I didn't hear the original voices and dialogues, which is always a loss.

There were too many things going on and I think there are a number of loose threads that need to be taken care of in the extended version. For example, what happens to Alfrid (and his golden bosom )?!

My supply of willing suspension of disbelief (of which I do have a considerable amount!) was completely used up: by the absolutely overwhelming number of enemies who were still kept in check by the good guys, for example; by Legolas' gravity-defying stunts; by Bard's leading his people from the mild lakeside to higher snowy ground looking for shelter from the cold - and why on earth is an old city called "Dale" on the mountainside?!

Some elements (like the Dwarven/Elven romance) I could have accepted in an original story by someone else, but not in an adaptation of Tolkien's book.

The drawn-out battle scenes - I found myself wishing I could be knocked out like Bilbo and wake up when it was all over! It was all just too much.

Thorin's characterisation I did not like.

Martin Freeman's Bilbo was very good.

Why did it take evil Galadriel to banish evil Sauron?

Would a good leader of his people like Bard allow himself to be constantly distracted by his concern for his own family?

What was it about the Eagles that turned the tide of battle?

So many questions, so few good answers...

One more thing: the ending with Bilbo coming back to his ravished home was very bittersweet. It felt like a substitute for the scouring which was not included in LotR - returning to the place you think
is safe, and finding it taken apart.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

Why did it take evil Galadriel to banish evil Sauron?

Well, you can't just have a good person be victorious! Evil people have to win!

Originally Posted by Esty

What was it about the Eagles that turned the tide of battle?

They didn't want to discourage all the memes popping up.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

One more detail occurs to me - the Arkenstone doesn't look like what was described in the book:

It was like a globe with a thousand facets; it shone like silver in the firelight, like water in the sun, like snow under the stars, like rain upon the Moon!

The stone used in the movie looks like a rather flat, not quite regular shape, and it has the appearance of an opal, with various colours. No globe, no facets. Tolkien's description sounds like a diamond solitaire, albeit an unusually large one. There is no mention of intrinsic colour, just splintered light. The stone Bilbo finds in the book also seems to be larger than the one in the movie - Tolkien says his hand would not close around it. The film prop gem seems rather anticlimactic to me - I expected something more spectacular.

Edit to add one more question: Has anyone seen a PJ cameo in this movie?

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

Would a good leader of his people like Bard allow himself to be constantly distracted by his concern for his own family?

That's a very good point I forgot to mention. That is the thing which very often happens in all kinds of films and does not really make much sense.

What was it about the Eagles that turned the tide of battle?

Actually, I think that was shown. I believe there were a few shots of a single eagle landing in a row of cca 300 Orcs and killing half of them just by sweeping by.

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

Edit to add one more question: Has anyone seen a PJ cameo in this movie?

I haven't and I had been expecting it there. I noticed, however, several peculiarly specific zooms at a couple of people - most of all (several times) some guy in a red hat (which I thought at first was just a modern-world winter hat and that's what puzzled me originally) being sort of second-next to Bard when leading the charage against the Orcs inside the city. Any ideas, might that be PJ's son, protegé, some other screenwriter, fan who got lucky, something?

[Thinlómien]

Originally Posted by Esty

Would a good leader of his people like Bard allow himself to be constantly distracted by his concern for his own family?

I'd say getting distracted despite trying not to would be humane (and therefore, risking your own life to save them even if the battle morale and thus the fate of your people depend on you personally), but I do remember my eyebrows moving quite high when he gives the order to go to the marketplace (where his children had reputedly last been seen) which is supposed to be swarming with the heavily armed orcs, thereby leading dozens of men on a suicide mission to rescue his children, who may or may not be there - and I didn't really hear him asking if the guys want to come along. Then again, maybe this is supposed to be a character flaw??

I feel like an averagely written blockbuster would have had him declare "I don't care the marketplace is full of orcs, I will go there and find my children!" and a bunch of foolhardy loyal guys be like "We will come with you, King Bard!" That way, it would have been at least their own decision to risk their lives for Bard's children, but I think PJ & co didn't give this a single thought.

Originally Posted by Aganzir

In any case, it's not necessarily uncanonical that Bilbo had feelings for Thorin - after all, he was referred to as queer more than once in the books!

Thanks for making me crack up again! But yeah, honestly it did seem like a romance in this movie. Like, I don't think Thorin is like a hyper special person for Bilbo in the book, like obviously Bilbo is fond of him (and he displays no similar grief for Fili and Kili) but I feel like his heartbreak is also largely because of what Thorin symbolised, at a sad end for the adventure, as the King who never reclaimed his throne. As the leader, Thorin was some kind of personification of the adventure, too.

While in the movie, it is obviously Bilbo's personal feelings for Thorin as a person that motivate his actions (like giving the Arkenstone away so it couldn't corrupt Thorin) and his grief (don't tell me the "you can't be dead" stunt isn't something normally reserved for lovers and close family members). Not to mention that in the end of the movie it is Thorin as a person that Bilbo grieves, not all the dead dwarves and people nor the fact that the adventure ended in a bloodbath. They keep underlining Thorin's significance as a person to Bilbo way too much.

As for Thorin's feelings for Bilbo, seriously look at Richard Armitage's face in any scene they are in together. If he's not acting being in love, I don't know what he's doing. (His smile for Bilbo is like entirely different than the one he has for his dear nephews or Balin and Dwalin. He literally glows and looks like he might swoon any minute. Seriously.) Also, when Thorin is having his drug trippy dragon sickness episode, it's not his own words or Dwalin's (or his nephews' or Balin's) that make him struggle free from the all consuming greed, it's Bilbo's voice berating him.

This movie totally passes my gaydar test, which is basically: if the main characters were a male and a female, would the audience assume without a question that they were in love? Like totally yes in this case.