You mean to show other things going on in middle-earth at the same time that are mentioned in other Tolkien works (some of which that fans also wanted to see), to expand the cast of female characters, and yes, to mesh with the LoTR trilogy, which you are free to your opinion about, but others would disagree with you.
Hobbit: Battle of Five Armies
- Thread starter Mathias
- Start date
That would have been a great angle. It would have made some of it more palatable.
I didn't like this series much at all. It really should have been one movie only or at the most a 2-parter.
It needs a serious edit:
- Any scene with Tauriel/Legolas needs to go.
- Any non-dwarf scene should probably go or get cut down.
- Any scene with Radagast needs to go.
- Green orc guy with the sword arm needs to go.
Yeah, but saying he was made whole cloth isn't true, which is especially when we actually do have a made up character that is at the centre of a really unnecessary, also made up, romantic triangle.
And Bolg wasn't really a major villain, he was more of a deus ex machina so the "good" races don't kill one another over treasure.
No, but they are in the appendices of LotR, in the part about how Gandalf is fucking Batman / Xanatos and setting up all sorts of stuff for the War of the Ring during the Hobbit... adding that stuff would have worked fine, even for a children's movie, if done with less melodrama-action hollywood style and more like in the book, with a little whimsy hiding a pretty hefty tale about what greed does to people.
I mean the Battle of the Five Armies was some heavy geopolitical shit when you actually thing about it a little...[DOUBLEPOST=1420734907,1420734802][/DOUBLEPOST]
No, the real problem was that they made him way too goofy... HE'S A FUCKING ANGEL FOR ILU'S SAKE!
This is basically my feeling. All the added scenes and characters stand out for one reason. They were added to increase sales, not further the story.
I disagree, a lot of the changes were for the benefit of the story. Showing what Gandalf's up to gives him a reason to not be around, rather than looking like he's a plot device to swoop in when the party needs him then leave to prevent having to actually do anything with his character. Setting up the Orcs from the beginning makes their arrival not a random "Oh look, orcs!" moment. They show what's going on when Bilbo isn't there/unconscious because making a film like a first person perspective novel doesn't work as well. The dwarves' scene with Smaug serves to give characters the audience will care about more and come off more as main characters (since as I said, it's not a first person novel anymore) some narrative closure over them never actually facing him at all.
Adapting a work to a different medium almost always involves changes to make it work with the constraints, expectations, and format of the alternate medium. There's no need to take them so personally.
Dave
Staff member
I take personally the fact that Jackson felt he needed to change the story to such a massive degree in an obvious ploy to extend the movies and make money, then deliver a sub-standard, boring product anyway. I take personally the dumbing down of media while asking me to pay more money to consume the same.
Dave
Staff member
As you shouldn't. It's what them opinion things are made of.
Just because you didn't like it doesn't make it a malicious ploy. As I mentioned, there are narrative reasons for a lot of the additions that extend the length, it's a short book with a very deep story, there's a lot going on sort of behind the scenes of the novel that someone can feel is worth including without it being because they're all "Mwa-ha-ha, now I'll get your money for THREE movies! Ha ha ha!".
I think this falls more into the "wiping while sitting/standing" motif.
Ah, but if you like it, are you standing or sitting?
Well, yeah. Sitting in a comfy chair while watching a good movie. You, on the other hand, are standing outside in the cold, protesting.
I, for one, wasn't a big fan of the movies and felt they were needlessly stretched out - the book plus some of the appendices could've easily been made into two long movies.
I, for one, wasn't a big fan of the movies and felt they were needlessly stretched out - the book plus some of the appendices could've easily been made into two long movies.
Leggless was in the book, but he was just named the king's son. All the White Council stuff happened in the appendices of LotR, which would have happened during the time of the Hobbit.
The tone of the movie was just off.
The worst CGI of the movie had to be the hallucinated, gold whirlpool.
The tone of the movie was just off.
The worst CGI of the movie had to be the hallucinated, gold whirlpool.
A helicarrier descends upon The Shire, Nick Fury hops out....What I hated was the 15 minutes of credits and NO end sceneI've been spoiled dammit, I want an after credits scene!
I... AM... TREE... BEARD...
Before the latest trilogies, my biggest sustained memory of anything involving Gandalf was The Hobbit 1977 cartoon, and all I could remember about him was that he kept just showing up, leaving, showing up, leaving, and then showing up again, over and over, that for the longest time I forgot what the point of him was.
I meant the ones that came from nowhere. Legolas, the completely forgettable elf lady, the love story, and incredibly inflated action scenes.
I'm OK with adding some of the backstory that was there all along, it had a purpose.
figmentPez
Staff member
angelus ex machina
Dude. That' stuff is mentioned in the Appendices in LotR.
I still don't get the absolute venom over Tauriel. So PJ added a character to mourn for Kili after he died. So. Fucking. What. What it does is allows the audience to understand elves a little better. They don't experience loss much and their emotions run much much deeper than humans. It helps to understand and flesh out Arwin's position in LotR, and just how devastating her loss would be to Elrond.
I really think most people just hopped on an internet hate train for these films and never got off. They're really not far off from how the original trilogy was handled.
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So, just reread the Hobbit.
I have to say, as a prequel to the original trilogy, fine, the movies are OK (though they really aren't on the same level). As the movie version of the Hobbit, they absolutely suck monkey balls. The tone is way off, the way of speaking, the way the world is perceived and presented....No. Insofar as you watch the movies without thinking of the book, they're commercial fodder made to milk the fans of the LotR trilogy, and they work, somewhat. But frankly, calling them "The Hobbit" is ridiculous.
I have to say, as a prequel to the original trilogy, fine, the movies are OK (though they really aren't on the same level). As the movie version of the Hobbit, they absolutely suck monkey balls. The tone is way off, the way of speaking, the way the world is perceived and presented....No. Insofar as you watch the movies without thinking of the book, they're commercial fodder made to milk the fans of the LotR trilogy, and they work, somewhat. But frankly, calling them "The Hobbit" is ridiculous.
Personally, my only issue with the added material is how it affected the pacing of the movies. By trying to make sure they had enough material for 3 movies, it feels like pivotal scenes got oddly placed or minimalized. I really wish the killing of Smaug had a bit more build-up instead of being taken care of in the first five minutes of the last movie. Maybe instead of the "let's drown him in gold" (...oy.) dwarf plan, Smaug takes off, goes after Lake-town, gets shot, and the next movie picks up with the after-math?
Maybe you forgot, but there was a lot of hate over the added scenes in and story changes in Two Towers. It's just that it feels flat and out of place. It's there only to add a love story. She comes off as a damsel in distress who cracks under pressure and needs to be saved. This isn't the strong female characters Tolkien worked to put in this story. She's a cheap throw away character that serves no purpose other than to push the movie into a trilogy.
Honestly, the movies were fine. I really don't care that much, but the fact that you can't see why people dislike the character shows that we are simply two different audiences. We'll never agree on it, which is fine.
I think we read different books.
Why's that? Eowyn, Arwen , Galadriel, all seemed to be pretty strong women who didn't have to be saved by the knight in shining armor.