MovieChat Forums > The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014) Discussion > Good but almost totally misses the point...

Good but almost totally misses the point of the book.

posted 8 years ago by BrickNash
19 replies | jump to latest

Just finally finished watching all three films and did a nine hour back to back viewing.

Hugely enjoyably but totally unnecessary trilogy. The Hobbit was a simple children's book and that was it's charm but they managed to bloat a lovely little story in to this huge spectacle, half of which never happened. The Hobbit was never meant to be an epic, just an adventure.

Other things like the terrible pantomime make up, handsome dwarves (What?) and absolutely everything being totally over stylised with CGI just brought it down even further.

I did enjoy the ride as it was very well made but it almost totally resembles nothing like the lovely little book I used to read as a child.

One simple 2-3 hour drama would have done beautifully but they pumped it full of steroids and sent it out with an axe in it's hands.

Highlights were the songs and quieter sections in the first film and a brilliant Smaug in the second.

The rest was tacked on trash. Enjoyable trash but trash nonetheless.

[–] liscarkat (18886) 6 years ago

Is this the thing about magic midgets with swords, who live in tree stumps? Do they make cookies?

[–] GreenGoblinsOck8 (7789) 6 months ago

I couldn't disagree more with this old imdb topic. Frankly I think a single movie would have not have done the story justice. Although I do enjoy the old animated movie from the 70s it too didn't do the story justice. It left a lot of stuff out. I mean lets look at the story.

You got the intro of Bilbo, Gandalf, and the dwarves, you got them traveling until Gandalf leaves them. You got the scenes of the trolls with Gandalf coming back to save them, and then the trolls' cave of plunder they take. You got the scene where they go to the elvish village and the elf who translates the map. You then have them going through the mountain and ending up with the goblins. You got Gandalf coming in to save them from the Goblins. You got the scene of Bilbo going under the mountain, finding the ring, and then meeting Gollum where he plays the riddle game with him. You got Bilbo escaping Golum and ending up back with Gandalf and the dwarves.

You got them all meeting Beorn and eating/sleeping in his home. You got them going into the woods and getting lost in them with the spiders capturing everyone but Bilbo which was unfortunatley left out of the 2nd movie. You got them running into the elves in the woods and the elves running away. You got them all except Bilbo getting arrested and put in jail by the Elvish King. You got Bilbo releasing everyone from jail and putting them and himself into Barrels on the river. You got them arriving at the Lake Town and meeting the master of the town. And then you got them recuperating for about a week and going up the Lake Mountain.

And at this point I've spent several minutes going on about the plots of the book and how it's too much for one movie. I can only imagine how much more than the spiders scene and Beorn's role in the Battle of Five Armies would have been cut if it was just a single movie. Yet the foolish TC thinks a single 3 hour film would have done it justice. :(