The J.R.R. Tolkien Topic (publications and adaptations)

Perhaps it did not have enough overview shots. ;) The armies came from various sides, and the directions weren't always that clear indeed. The focus was more zoomed in.
 
Forostar said:
How was this one less tactical? Why less scary?
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In the battle of Helm's Deep scene from Two Towers, Jackson conveyed clearly how the battle played out. He figured out how the siege weapons would look and conveyed how the Uruk-hai planned their attack and executed on those tactics. There was a very real sense of dread and doom, even if you had read the books and knew who survived. In Return of the King, you got the same thing, though the "ghost army smokes everybody instantly" scene was a little too convenient and sort of made all the stuff that preceded it pointless. In Five Armies, the armies pretty much just lined up and fought each other, and you had the surprise appearance of a dwarf army and a rather unimpressive and unsurprising appearance of the second Orc army, which looked like an army when Legolas and Tauriel watched them leave the fortress, but when they showed up at the battle there appeared to be only a few dozen. Loosey described it well, the battle was disjointed. To Foro's point, the name of the damn movie was Battle of the Five Armies, so make the battle itself compelling. It wasn't, to me. I did think the Thorin scenes were all very good, but Bilbo was kind of an afterthought in this movie.
 
In the book, the various leaders had a quick conference and laid out their battle plans. Had they done something like this, it might have worked better.
 
Who knows. I still doubt if it can match the expectations that some of you had generated by a different film, a different book and a different approach by Jackson.
 
My view, as a fan of Tolkien first and Jackson second, is that the naysayers are judging the films for what they’re not.
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Hell yes.

Thank you mckindog. That is a very good piece. Excellent, reasonable (still critical) take on the film, by someone who understands the differences between the books and films very well.

EDIT:
Also read his comments beneath, which are reactions to the readers. Here's a good one:
Yes, I do feel that the films and the books need to be considered separately. But as someone invested in the source material, I still have opinions about what was done vs. what could have been done. I can't justify everything Jackson decided.
Some I flat-out disagree with, but most I can at least understand. One of my major points, though, is that the existing source material wasn't actually stretched into three movies. If Jackson really covered the source material (The Hobbit) and intended to fill in all the gaps as they exist in the book—where did Gandalf go, what's the significance of the Necromancer, what's the deal with the Elvenking, where was Thorin all this time before the quest, how did Gandalf get the key to the Lonely Mountain? etc.—then this could have been five films or more, easy.
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Honestly, I would have liked to have seen more of that stuff, and less of the actual Battle of the Five Armies. Overall, I liked The Hobbit trilogy, and find them worthwhile. I just find the final one tests my patience from time to time.

All of the Jackson movies have stuff that is stupid. Except, maybe, for FotR.
 
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Bah. Continuity.

I still haven't seen this film. I might go tomorrow or see if I can get a day off midweek
 
Just found out the Hobbit won't be showing in this area after Thursday, and I can't get time off until Friday. So I guess I won't be seeing this one at the cinema. :(
 
LooseCannon said:
In Jackson's continuity, everything pre-War of the Ring happens 17 years later.
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Not quite everything...

Aragorn, at the time of The Hobbit, is supposed to be ten years old and growing up at Rivendell. However, PJ has him fully grown, living in the wild, and already known as Strider.
 
I guess I should have said, the War of the Ring happens 17 years earlier. In the books, Bilbo gifts the Ring to Frodo on his 111th birthday, which happens to be Frodo's 33rd. But it isn't until Frodo's 50th birthday that he starts out on his quest, the same age as Bilbo was.

This is further evidenced by the fact that Bilbo's life goal became to outlive the Old Took, who lived to 130. When Frodo was back from the War of the Ring, during the final chapter of RotK, he remarks that Bilbo beat the Old Took on a certain day, presumably, Bilbo's 131st birthday.

The 17 years of Frodo just chillin, Ring-Ownin, Shire-Pimpin' didn't happen in Jackson's interpretation. So it is perfectly logical for Aragorn to be, instead of 10, 27 - in order for him to be in his 80s during TTT, when he informs Eowyn of his age.

Which, we will recall, is 60 years hence (Bilbo being 51 when he returns from Erebor, and then his 111th birthday being the trigger for the War of the Ring....60 years later).
 
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