The padding of The Hobbit trilogy makes me think of this line from Bilbo in The Fellowship of the Ring:
"I feel... thin. Sort of stretched, like... butter scraped over too much bread."
I wasn't impressed with TBOTFA.
And the battle itself... Nothing special, especially compared to Helm's Deep in The Two Towers or Pellenor Fields in The Return of the King.
Original stuff... half the reviews of the Hobbit films have brought up that line. Admittedly it was a nice little piece of irony when it was first used in relation to the Hobbit films back in 2012 (even before the first film had released).
Not saying I disagree mind you, just a bit of a pet hate of mine when others try to pass off pretty well known material/observations as their own .
I'd honestly not heard anyone else say it before (or don't remember it), but it is clearly a very obvious thing to say.
It came to me having watched the whole LOTR trilogy this week (extended editions, of course), which made me really think about how superior it is to The Hobbit trilogy.
I'd honestly not heard anyone else say it before (or don't remember it), but it is clearly a very obvious thing to say.
It came to me having watched the whole LOTR trilogy this week (extended editions, of course), which made me really think about how superior it is to The Hobbit trilogy.
In that case sorry to ruin your moment .
Yes there is a gulf in class between the two trilogies, personally I think one of the main reasons I was able to have fun with The Hobbit is that I never expected it to come close to the quality of LOTR.
As something of a PJ fanboy I was originally OK with the split into 3, the end result is simply more time spent in ME for me to enjoy after all. I definitely don't think you could do the book justice in a single film but after BOTFA I've now been converted to the 'should have been 2' camp. The battle really needed to be epic to justify the 3rd film... but like you said, it simply wasn't.
I actually found myself just sitting there waiting for the film to end
And the battle didn't have anything of what made Helm's Deep or Pellenor Fields so great... Didn't have the stakes that they did, didn't have any of the "crowning moments of awesome", it was all just... flat.
I found the last film started in a strange place with the continuation of Smaug the dragon destorying the town. It seem to belong more in the second film which could then of had a better ending. I guess they had to break the story into two films somewhere of similar length.
A rant I know, but in case anyone can be arsed, here's what I thought was bad:
- Alfrid, the panto villian, was really overdone. He just did the worst possible thing in every scenario, but despite this, it's him Bard turns to to protect his children? And Gandalf trusts him to watch Bilbo? And Bard gives him the responsibility of the night watch?
- Didn't the whole quest seem a bit pointless? So the plan was to sneak a burgler in and take the Arkenstone, then what? It's not like the Dwarves had any chance of getting their home back until Smaug was dead. What exactly was their plan after taking the Arkenstone? It's a problem with the whole trilogy, but it comes to a head here.
- Gandalf suddenly reveals 'dragon sickness' can drive people mad, so why did he send Thorin there? Surely a plan to send a party in to try and slay the dragon would have made more sense? Instead, Gandalf helps them to recover a stone he knows full well can drive people crazy, and with no proper plan on how to recover their homeland after they get the stone, due to the fact that there's still a massive dragon guarding the area! At the very least, you'd think Gandalf would be wanting to track down Bard first and secure the black arrows, before he even thought about tracking down Thorin. And then you know, maybe ambush the dragon before it lays seige to an entire town? Again, a problem with all three films, but it seems most glaring once it's fully realised.
- When Thorin and the other Dwarves baracaded themselves in, what where they eating and drinking? A big deal is made out of the fact that the men who left the beseiged city had no food or water, which the Elves then bring them, but what about Thorin? I know he's supposed to be affected by the Arkenstone, but seriously, what where they eating, gold?!
- I know the film mentions the stubborness of Dwarves, but why were the Dwarves so stupid, once it was obvious Thorin had lost his mind? Not one of them makes any effort to come up with any sort of contingency plan, even when Bard tells them they are about to be attacked by an army that massively outnumbers them? Surely they respected Bard since he'd saved their lives and had just slayed the dragon they unleased! They accepted Bilbo, so why did they just ignore Bards plea?
- Why was Thorin and his tiny company of Dwarves smashing their way out of the keep such a game changer? The Elves, Men and Dwarves had a huge combined army as it was, half a dozen extra Dwarves would be nothing but a splash in the ocean. I'm surprised they even managed to get out of the main battle to get to their final mission, but apparently horses, goats and other ridden animals just mean you ride through and anniihilate everything in your path...
- When Thorin is told there are a hundred or so Goblins approaching him and he just says he'll 'handle it'... really?! A hundred Goblins vs three or so Dwarves?! I understand these are the cream of the crop when it comes to the Dwarf warriors, but 3 vs 100 is ridiculous no matter which way you look at it.
- Is it only me who struggles to believe even a like for like army of Dwarves would be able to take on the Orc and Goblin armies? I mean look at the Orcs, they tower above the Dwarves! And whenever it shows a Dwarf hitting an Orc in full heavy armour, it just looks like the impacts are so soft They'd barely be able to knock out such a big, armoured brute with a blow like that, let alone kill them with one! They could make it work if the Dwarves had some clever tactics, but they don't. In fact, it's actually the Orcs that have the clever tactics... and the physical size advantage... and the army size advantage, but the Orcs still lose, because Eagles.
- Further to that, the sense of danger from the enemies- the Orks, Trolls, Goblins etc... has never felt so low. Remember when that one cave troll from the fellowship gave the whole fellowship so much trouble? The Orcs too- they always seem to outnumber their opponents, but it looks like they really need to learn to fight! Even a small child is able to kill several of them in this film, single handedly and half a dozen dwarves can slay literally hundreds of them. It really takes away the tension, fear and impact when the enemies seem to be such a walkover, apart from the main two villains of course, who for some reason are massively more powerful.
- Note to the CGI guys, less is more. What was with the land eater worms? They show up for a couple of seconds, then don't do anything else. Where they just a piece of CGI eye candy? Also, I would have preferred toned down fight scenes that looked real, instead of incredibly elaborate fight scenes which do not. By going for the elaborate stuff, all you do is show up the limitations of the CGI, it really is poor in places, but it'd probably look fine if they didn't try doing so much with it.
So yeah, I was disappointed overall, but not really surprised, that's kind of why I put off seeing it for so long, but my girlfriend twisted my arm. Incidentally, she also dislikes the love triangle and doesn't see the need for Tauriel and thought this one was by far the weakest of the trilogy. As I said, I'm not surprised because I did think Peter Jackson was pushing it, making it into three films.
Agree with a lot of your post Ænima, but some of those problems are rooted in the source material unfortunately (Tolkien's fondness for Eagles as a Deus ex machina and the dwarves setting out on a quest without a real plan to deal with Smaug for example).
The whole Gundabad/second army thing was very poor and should have been scrapped... no doubt it is yet another product of having such little plot to work with here in this third instalment. Considering they are essentially dealt with offscreen it really just felt like a waste of time (time which imo would have been better spent giving closure to the actual Hobbit characters and not just setting up LOTR in the end).
I think I gave this film a 7/10 in my first post here, but I've found that BOTFA is one of those films where your opinion of it decreases the more/longer you think about it (coincidentally another 3rd film in a major franchise TDKR is another good example of this sort of film imo).
I think I can now safely conclude that it is by some margin my least favourite Middle Earth film.
True, and I have read The Hobbit too, albeit ages ago, so I couldn't really remember much about it. Perhaps that plot issue was explained with more nuance in the book? I can't remember, or maybe it is just a flaw with the original.
Still, Jackson seems to have changed so many things from the book to the point at which I've heard people say it's only really loosely based on the book. In fact, this whole film is nothing more than a chapter or two in the book, but the things he has kept, such as the eagles just get more tiresome every time they are used.
I read one review which summed it up as Jackson taking an anti-war children's book and making it all about war, and that they couldn't help feeling he'd missed the point. For me, it's obvious cash in. Of course, big studios, writers and directors always want to make money, but you could at least tell with LOTR, that Jackson had a genuine passion for the source material and tried to recreate the warmth of the books, as well as bringing the characters to life, and all the costume and stunts that went into the films mean they actually look better in my opinion than this big budget CGI.
I think after all the issues he's had with Christopher Tolkien, there'll be a lot of people now agreeing with Christopher after that.
Yes, I think much of the problem is with the original story. Let's face it, 'The Hobbit' is basically a story for children. I loved it as a child, but must admit that I was quite shocked when I went back to it as an adult and read it again after many years. My memories of it had been through the lens of LOTR, and I hadn't realised how simple and childish it was in comparison. Nothing wrong with that of course, it was a story JRRT had made up to tell his own children. But it's easy to forget that it's really quite separate from the other works, and there was no plan at the time to continue the story.
I know a number of people who have given up on reading LOTR because it does start in a similar style and tone to The Hobbit. It takes a while for the more serious, adult tone to kick in.
I really enjoyed it but I was slightly disappointed the rest of the Dwarfs barely got a look in for screen time. I mean I like Thorin and Fili and Bilbo and Gandalf (not so much Kili) but the others were just so sidelined after going through the same stuff everyone else had.
Seemed like one long battle scene with not much story. Spectacular to look at but I did find I was losing interest. And no humour like there was in the first two films. So maybe it should have been two films.
And the battle itself... Nothing special, especially compared to Helm's Deep in The Two Towers or Pellenor Fields in The Return of the King.
Those are my thoughts too. It was incredibly underwhelming with no emotional impact at all. They spent half the film bigging up the big army of orcs that was on its way from Gundabad and when they do turn up, they're only on screen for 10 seconds before being wiped out by the eagles.
They might as well not have bothered having the character of Beorn as he didn't do anything, whereas in the book he is a major player in the battle. The CGI Dain was awful. Alfrid was pointless and irritating.
Tolkien's middle-earth is high-end fantasy. It isn't dwarfs riding wild boars or mountain goats. It isn't trolls with lumps of concrete on their heads smashing down walls. That belongs in the world of Warhammer fantasy gaming.
In my opinion, Jackson's heart wasn't in these films. He didn't want to direct them in the first place, but was forced into it after Del Toro left and so much money was at stake. The whole thing seems like a CGI-rushed bloated mess.
In my opinion, Jackson's heart wasn't in these films. He didn't want to direct them in the first place, but was forced into it after Del Toro left and so much money was at stake. The whole thing seems like a CGI-rushed bloated mess.
I'm still glad Peter Jackson took on The Hobbit over Del Toro (though it was a mistake to make a trilogy, at least for non-financial reasons). Unlike most people I'm not a fan of Guilermo Del Toro (I love Pan's Labyrinth but that's it), I don't like his 'quirky' style and I don't think his designs would've suitted The Hobbit in any way shape or form. Though yeah, these films are nonetheless a significant step down from The Lord of the Rings. I still enjoyed the trilogy and looking back at my own ratings, I look like an apologist
I accepted your answer because it made sens despite the fact it wasn't stated clearly in the movie, i thought.
But i just looked at Benedict Cumberbatch's Wiki page for another movie (i know, not always reliable) but in his filmography, where they give what role he was playing, they say this;
-The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey The Necromancer
-The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Smaug / The Necromancer
-The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies Smaug / The Necromancer
If it turns out Sauron was also Smaug in disguise, i would be surprised!
Probably missed something and i'll have to check better next time i see it but at this point i'm still uncertain who was the Necromancer!
For now, i still tend to think it was Sauron and Wiki is wrong but...if someone can confirm,
thanks.
I accepted your answer because it made sens despite the fact it wasn't stated clearly in the movie, i thought.
But i just looked at Benedict Cumberbatch's Wiki page for another movie (i know, not always reliable) but in his filmography, where they give what role he was playing, they say this;
-The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey The Necromancer
-The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Smaug / The Necromancer
-The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies Smaug / The Necromancer
If it turns out Sauron was also Smaug in disguise, i would be surprised!
Probably missed something and i'll have to check better next time i see it but at this point i'm still uncertain who was the Necromancer!
For now, i still tend to think it was Sauron and Wiki is wrong but...if someone can confirm,
thanks.
No, Smaug wasn't Sauron in disguise, and the page is correct. You're possibly misinterpreting it. Cumberbatch peovides the voice for both, but they are different characters. It's not that usual for actors to play more than one role if doing voice work.
Are you maybe forgetting the scene in Desolation when the Necromancer changes shape to the Eye of Sauron (when he's confronted by Gandalf), I thought that was a prety clear statement about the Necromancer's true identity.
No, Smaug wasn't Sauron in disguise, and the page is correct. You're possibly misinterpreting it. Cumberbatch peovides the voice for both, but they are different characters. It's not that usual for actors to play more than one role if doing voice work.
Are you maybe forgetting the scene in Desolation when the Necromancer changes shape to the Eye of Sauron (when he's confronted by Gandalf), I thought that was a prety clear statement about the Necromancer's true identity.
Just goes to show how imperfect forums are to size up someone.
-on some threads, like Masterchef, i was almost ignored
-on others, like Sherlock, i was (i'd like to think) respected and made people think
-and here, on the Hobbit, i look (at first glance) like a moron who lacks concentration! haha
Well, in my defense, i did go to the bathroom during Smaug (Jackson's movies are long after a meal), so it's probably when i missed it.
But... it doesn't explain why i misread the Wiki bit! Ah well, nobody's perfect.
Thanks
By the way, i was on Cumberbatch's wiki page for 'the imitation game'.
As a movie, i highly recommend it. Perhaps not as a reference for the true story but a great movie.
The last 75 minutes were such a bore, I got fatigued with the whole CGI battle scene extravaganza.
My favourite parts were Bard slaying Smaug . Also loved when Galadriel went baddass, summoned all her power, and banished Sauron from Dol Guldur to Mordor. Saruman fighting the nine was cool too.
That was all over pretty soon though, and the rest was just padded out nonsense.
Third film started strangely and felt like that should have been the end of the second.
The problem I had was that there were too many characters so I didn't really care for any of them. In Lotr we had clear characters to root for, all with individual characteristics. I started watching the third one and honestly couldn't remember who half of them were, so when any were killed off, I didn't really care.
It really felt like the first 2 were pointless films. All that build up to get to smash only for him to get killed off at the beginning of the third with relative ease.
Agree with a lot of your post Ænima, but some of those problems are rooted in the source material unfortunately (Tolkien's fondness for Eagles as a Deus ex machina and the dwarves setting out on a quest without a real plan to deal with Smaug for example).
To be fair, when the dwarves started they had a wizard on their side; they didn't plan for him abandoning them half way through. Also, no-one had seen the dragon for decades. They at least wanted to check it was still there and alive.
The extended edition of The Battle of the Five Armies has been given an R rating in America for "some violence". This presumably means it'll be 15 here. When all else fails, try violence! Well "some violence".
I did think it was very violent, given that it was based on a story written for young children. But then a lot of traditional fairy tales are quite violent and disturbing! I think they should have abandoned any intent to sell these films to a family audience right from the start. It was an uncomfortable mix.
As an analogy I would say that the entire trilogy feels like taking a classic car and going ram raiding in it.
Not a patch on the book and there was too much crap shovelled in. The necromancer/dol guldur stuff happened 500 years before the time of the film.
Comments
Original stuff... half the reviews of the Hobbit films have brought up that line. Admittedly it was a nice little piece of irony when it was first used in relation to the Hobbit films back in 2012 (even before the first film had released).
Not saying I disagree mind you, just a bit of a pet hate of mine when others try to pass off pretty well known material/observations as their own
It came to me having watched the whole LOTR trilogy this week (extended editions, of course), which made me really think about how superior it is to The Hobbit trilogy.
In that case sorry to ruin your moment
Yes there is a gulf in class between the two trilogies, personally I think one of the main reasons I was able to have fun with The Hobbit is that I never expected it to come close to the quality of LOTR.
As something of a PJ fanboy I was originally OK with the split into 3, the end result is simply more time spent in ME for me to enjoy after all. I definitely don't think you could do the book justice in a single film but after BOTFA I've now been converted to the 'should have been 2' camp. The battle really needed to be epic to justify the 3rd film... but like you said, it simply wasn't.
And the battle didn't have anything of what made Helm's Deep or Pellenor Fields so great... Didn't have the stakes that they did, didn't have any of the "crowning moments of awesome", it was all just... flat.
I think Radagast defeated them.
With a little help from the giant eagles and the bear guy of course.
The Orc second army did appear to be easily defeated in a few minutes compared to the battle with the first army!
My compliant with LOTR was that the ending went on for ever whearas The Hobbit ending seemed to be too short.
- Alfrid, the panto villian, was really overdone. He just did the worst possible thing in every scenario, but despite this, it's him Bard turns to to protect his children? And Gandalf trusts him to watch Bilbo? And Bard gives him the responsibility of the night watch?
- Didn't the whole quest seem a bit pointless? So the plan was to sneak a burgler in and take the Arkenstone, then what? It's not like the Dwarves had any chance of getting their home back until Smaug was dead. What exactly was their plan after taking the Arkenstone? It's a problem with the whole trilogy, but it comes to a head here.
- Gandalf suddenly reveals 'dragon sickness' can drive people mad, so why did he send Thorin there? Surely a plan to send a party in to try and slay the dragon would have made more sense? Instead, Gandalf helps them to recover a stone he knows full well can drive people crazy, and with no proper plan on how to recover their homeland after they get the stone, due to the fact that there's still a massive dragon guarding the area! At the very least, you'd think Gandalf would be wanting to track down Bard first and secure the black arrows, before he even thought about tracking down Thorin. And then you know, maybe ambush the dragon before it lays seige to an entire town? Again, a problem with all three films, but it seems most glaring once it's fully realised.
- When Thorin and the other Dwarves baracaded themselves in, what where they eating and drinking? A big deal is made out of the fact that the men who left the beseiged city had no food or water, which the Elves then bring them, but what about Thorin? I know he's supposed to be affected by the Arkenstone, but seriously, what where they eating, gold?!
- I know the film mentions the stubborness of Dwarves, but why were the Dwarves so stupid, once it was obvious Thorin had lost his mind? Not one of them makes any effort to come up with any sort of contingency plan, even when Bard tells them they are about to be attacked by an army that massively outnumbers them? Surely they respected Bard since he'd saved their lives and had just slayed the dragon they unleased! They accepted Bilbo, so why did they just ignore Bards plea?
- Why was Thorin and his tiny company of Dwarves smashing their way out of the keep such a game changer? The Elves, Men and Dwarves had a huge combined army as it was, half a dozen extra Dwarves would be nothing but a splash in the ocean. I'm surprised they even managed to get out of the main battle to get to their final mission, but apparently horses, goats and other ridden animals just mean you ride through and anniihilate everything in your path...
- When Thorin is told there are a hundred or so Goblins approaching him and he just says he'll 'handle it'... really?! A hundred Goblins vs three or so Dwarves?! I understand these are the cream of the crop when it comes to the Dwarf warriors, but 3 vs 100 is ridiculous no matter which way you look at it.
- Is it only me who struggles to believe even a like for like army of Dwarves would be able to take on the Orc and Goblin armies? I mean look at the Orcs, they tower above the Dwarves! And whenever it shows a Dwarf hitting an Orc in full heavy armour, it just looks like the impacts are so soft
- Further to that, the sense of danger from the enemies- the Orks, Trolls, Goblins etc... has never felt so low. Remember when that one cave troll from the fellowship gave the whole fellowship so much trouble? The Orcs too- they always seem to outnumber their opponents, but it looks like they really need to learn to fight! Even a small child is able to kill several of them in this film, single handedly and half a dozen dwarves can slay literally hundreds of them. It really takes away the tension, fear and impact when the enemies seem to be such a walkover, apart from the main two villains of course, who for some reason are massively more powerful.
- Note to the CGI guys, less is more. What was with the land eater worms? They show up for a couple of seconds, then don't do anything else. Where they just a piece of CGI eye candy? Also, I would have preferred toned down fight scenes that looked real, instead of incredibly elaborate fight scenes which do not. By going for the elaborate stuff, all you do is show up the limitations of the CGI, it really is poor in places, but it'd probably look fine if they didn't try doing so much with it.
So yeah, I was disappointed overall, but not really surprised, that's kind of why I put off seeing it for so long, but my girlfriend twisted my arm. Incidentally, she also dislikes the love triangle and doesn't see the need for Tauriel and thought this one was by far the weakest of the trilogy. As I said, I'm not surprised because I did think Peter Jackson was pushing it, making it into three films.
The whole Gundabad/second army thing was very poor and should have been scrapped... no doubt it is yet another product of having such little plot to work with here in this third instalment. Considering they are essentially dealt with offscreen it really just felt like a waste of time (time which imo would have been better spent giving closure to the actual Hobbit characters and not just setting up LOTR in the end).
I think I gave this film a 7/10 in my first post here, but I've found that BOTFA is one of those films where your opinion of it decreases the more/longer you think about it (coincidentally another 3rd film in a major franchise TDKR is another good example of this sort of film imo).
I think I can now safely conclude that it is by some margin my least favourite Middle Earth film.
True, and I have read The Hobbit too, albeit ages ago, so I couldn't really remember much about it. Perhaps that plot issue was explained with more nuance in the book? I can't remember, or maybe it is just a flaw with the original.
Still, Jackson seems to have changed so many things from the book to the point at which I've heard people say it's only really loosely based on the book. In fact, this whole film is nothing more than a chapter or two in the book, but the things he has kept, such as the eagles just get more tiresome every time they are used.
I read one review which summed it up as Jackson taking an anti-war children's book and making it all about war, and that they couldn't help feeling he'd missed the point. For me, it's obvious cash in. Of course, big studios, writers and directors always want to make money, but you could at least tell with LOTR, that Jackson had a genuine passion for the source material and tried to recreate the warmth of the books, as well as bringing the characters to life, and all the costume and stunts that went into the films mean they actually look better in my opinion than this big budget CGI.
I think after all the issues he's had with Christopher Tolkien, there'll be a lot of people now agreeing with Christopher after that.
I know a number of people who have given up on reading LOTR because it does start in a similar style and tone to The Hobbit. It takes a while for the more serious, adult tone to kick in.
Those are my thoughts too. It was incredibly underwhelming with no emotional impact at all. They spent half the film bigging up the big army of orcs that was on its way from Gundabad and when they do turn up, they're only on screen for 10 seconds before being wiped out by the eagles.
They might as well not have bothered having the character of Beorn as he didn't do anything, whereas in the book he is a major player in the battle. The CGI Dain was awful. Alfrid was pointless and irritating.
Tolkien's middle-earth is high-end fantasy. It isn't dwarfs riding wild boars or mountain goats. It isn't trolls with lumps of concrete on their heads smashing down walls. That belongs in the world of Warhammer fantasy gaming.
In my opinion, Jackson's heart wasn't in these films. He didn't want to direct them in the first place, but was forced into it after Del Toro left and so much money was at stake. The whole thing seems like a CGI-rushed bloated mess.
I'm still glad Peter Jackson took on The Hobbit over Del Toro (though it was a mistake to make a trilogy, at least for non-financial reasons). Unlike most people I'm not a fan of Guilermo Del Toro (I love Pan's Labyrinth but that's it), I don't like his 'quirky' style and I don't think his designs would've suitted The Hobbit in any way shape or form. Though yeah, these films are nonetheless a significant step down from The Lord of the Rings. I still enjoyed the trilogy and looking back at my own ratings, I look like an apologist
I accepted your answer because it made sens despite the fact it wasn't stated clearly in the movie, i thought.
But i just looked at Benedict Cumberbatch's Wiki page for another movie (i know, not always reliable) but in his filmography, where they give what role he was playing, they say this;
-The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey The Necromancer
-The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Smaug / The Necromancer
-The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies Smaug / The Necromancer
If it turns out Sauron was also Smaug in disguise, i would be surprised!
Probably missed something and i'll have to check better next time i see it but at this point i'm still uncertain who was the Necromancer!
For now, i still tend to think it was Sauron and Wiki is wrong but...if someone can confirm,
thanks.
No, Smaug wasn't Sauron in disguise, and the page is correct. You're possibly misinterpreting it. Cumberbatch peovides the voice for both, but they are different characters. It's not that usual for actors to play more than one role if doing voice work.
Are you maybe forgetting the scene in Desolation when the Necromancer changes shape to the Eye of Sauron (when he's confronted by Gandalf), I thought that was a prety clear statement about the Necromancer's true identity.
Just goes to show how imperfect forums are to size up someone.
-on some threads, like Masterchef, i was almost ignored
-on others, like Sherlock, i was (i'd like to think) respected and made people think
-and here, on the Hobbit, i look (at first glance) like a moron who lacks concentration! haha
Well, in my defense, i did go to the bathroom during Smaug (Jackson's movies are long after a meal), so it's probably when i missed it.
But... it doesn't explain why i misread the Wiki bit! Ah well, nobody's perfect.
Thanks
By the way, i was on Cumberbatch's wiki page for 'the imitation game'.
As a movie, i highly recommend it. Perhaps not as a reference for the true story but a great movie.
My favourite parts were Bard slaying Smaug . Also loved when Galadriel went baddass, summoned all her power, and banished Sauron from Dol Guldur to Mordor. Saruman fighting the nine was cool too.
That was all over pretty soon though, and the rest was just padded out nonsense.
The problem I had was that there were too many characters so I didn't really care for any of them. In Lotr we had clear characters to root for, all with individual characteristics. I started watching the third one and honestly couldn't remember who half of them were, so when any were killed off, I didn't really care.
It really felt like the first 2 were pointless films. All that build up to get to smash only for him to get killed off at the beginning of the third with relative ease.
action was amazing but it just doesnt comapre to the darker battles of LOTR
the thorin moody stuff went on forever too
but a good film imo
Not a patch on the book and there was too much crap shovelled in. The necromancer/dol guldur stuff happened 500 years before the time of the film.