The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies

WARNING: Yarr, Thar Be Spoilers Ahead!

Aspects of The Hobbit: BOTFA I Enjoyed:
~Characterization: Luke Evan’s acting is brilliant, I loved watching Bard and his kids on the screen, proof that child characters are capable of contributing positively to the plot/story-line, I also loved Billy Connelly as Dain Ironfoot and the Tauriel/Thranduil’s scenes. I also have a great fondness for Orlando Bloom’s facial expressions.

~Romantic Sub-plot: I am a shameless and unapologetic Thilbo Bagginshield shipper and have been so since AUJ and good lord the feels, I don’t usually cry in films but that scene between Thorin and Bilbo at the end had me sobbing.

As did the scenes with Tauriel and Thranduil after Kili’s death. I particularly loved the dialogue scenes between Tauriel and Thranduil before and after the battle. Tauriel is young but her main weakness is inexperience, heart-break is something you build up resistance to by handling it in small doses and it was obvious from Tauriel’s dialogue that she was being thrown into the deep end.

Most people could consider the “If this love, then I don’t want it, please take it from me.” line to be her most powerful line of dialogue, but I would consider line “They want to bury him.” to be just as significant and it’s all in the way she says it, the mixture of misery, pain and confusion, as though the concept of a burial is just too painful and alien for her to comprehend at that point in time. Some damn good acting on Evangeline Lily and Lee Pace’s behalf.

Action Scenes: In The book, Bilbo is hit in the head by a rock at roughly the beginning of the battle and isn’t found and dragged to Thorin’s deathbed until after the battle is over, so I really enjoyed the action scenes (though some of Legolas’s scenes were ridiculous, however they were an enjoyable sort of ridiculous) and seeing Bilbo put up a decent fight before being knocked out was pretty good.

Aspects of The Hobbit: BOTFA I Had Problems With:
~Alfrid: This character didn’t exist in the original book, he wasn’t interesting or engaging, yet took up an unreasonable amount of screen-time that could have been devoted to already established canon characters.

~Mountain Rams/Goats: Where the fuck did they come from and why are they only now being introduced? Horses and ponies are very high maintenance, Mountain Rams/Goats would have been a much better option from the very beginning, which is why Peter Jackson shouldn’t have introduced them as an option.

~Geographical Problems: Now, I know that Balin implies Thorin & Co. live in the Dwarf settlement Thorin has created for them in the Blue Mountains, however Dain Ironfoot got to The Lonely Mountain rather quickly, why didn’t Thorin & Co head towards the Iron Hills first, then go towards the Lonely Mountain. It kinda seems like they went the long way around for the sake of plot rather than practicality.

~Anti-climatic resolution of Sub-Plots: There was a lot of build-up for the Smaug and Sauron sub-plots, however putting aside the cgi problems with the ring wraiths, both sub-plots were resolved very quickly and early on in the movie.

~Kili’s Death Scene: Fili’s Death Scene was like a punch to the gut, sharp and sudden, however Kili’s Death scene with the slow motion action was utterly ridiculous and completely over the top, I almost started laughing at the sight of the single tear.

Stupid Pointless Love Triangle: In an interview, when Evangeline Lily first signed up for the movie, she signed on with the condition of no love triangles, the studio went back on its word and Peter Jackson introduced a Stupid Pointless Love Triangle. In another interview, Peter Jackson revealed that his motivations for adding the Stupid Pointless Love Triangle was “Something for the girls”

Of Course! Why didn’t I see it before? Because I’m female, I must automatically enjoy viewing misogynistic lazily written subplots *sarcasm*, especially ones that involve having two men fight over one woman like she’s an Oedipus prize to be won *double sarcasm*. It couldn’t be possible that women actually like action movies *multi-sarcasm*. I have said it before and I will say it again, Peter Jackson is fucking awful when it comes to writing female characterization.

My interpretation of the whole situation is that Legolas didn’t actually have a thing for Tauriel, my theory is that Thranduil tried to make the situation awkward because he wanted Legolas to spend less time with Tauriel because:
01. Thranduil thinks she’s a bad influence on Legolas (he did end up defying his father on Tauriel’s behalf)

02. Thranduil is clearly mentally unbalanced (and probably has good reason to be so) and is also a single dad, some single parents can be insecure and act possessive of their children (sometimes well into adulthood) and Legolas is the only family Thranduil has left.

That’s why I think that last scene between Thranduil and Legolas is so significant, Thranduil is letting his only son go out into the world, it’s a reality most parents have to deal with eventually.

Overall, I feel The Hobbit should have just been two movies (The Unexpected Journey and There and Back Again respectively), the pacing of the third movie was just all over the place. In retrospect, I also think Beorn should have been cut from the movie, while I’m aware that Peter Jackson had planned on expanding Beorn’s role in the 3rd film, he didn’t really contribute that much to the movie trilogy overall. However, I suppose the real reason I’ve been delaying posting this blog-post up is that deep down I’m aware that once I do, it will all be over, but that’s okay, all journeys must come to an end.

Links:

Wish She Could Be Apart of Your World: On Tauriel-hate and Original Material by The Mary Sue

Fan-art and Fan-fiction

The Hobbit – Fan-fiction:
~TV Tropes: The Hobbit Fanfiction Recommendations

The Hobbit and LOTR – General Pictures/Fan-art:
~The Hobbit: Elf and Dwarf Appearances
~The Eagles
~The different types of Bows and Archery styles of The Hobbit
~LOTR Meta: Legolas’s Facial Expressions
~The Colbert Report: Tolkien Showdown
~Top Ten Gigolas Moments
~And They Became Best Friends Forever
~Skyrim Physics
~The Hobbit Meta: Ruining Aiden’s lines
~Hobbit Week – An unexpected compliment (spoilers) by yourparodies
~Hobbit Week – Of elves and dwarves I (spoilers) by yourparodies
~Lord of The Rings Tarot Cards
~More Realistic Titles for The Silmarillion
~The Tomb of Balin