There and back again, a Hobbit's tale...
Finally got around to seeing The Battle of the Five Armies today, so film-specific spoilers
Goodness there was a lot of fighting. I mean, a lot of fighting. First there was Smaug fighting, then there was Necromancer and wraith fighting, then there was an interlude with no violence so Thorin could go mad followed by near-incessant orc fighting until the end of the film. No wonder they changed the title, it pretty much was just battling.
Though I suppose that is a little unfair. There were some lovely moments between Thorin and Bilbo (omg, the acorn!), Thorin's madness was played out rather beautifully by Richard Armitage with all these visible ebbs and swells, and as well it gave Ken Stott something proper to do (which must have been a relief for him) as well as Graham McTavish. Though when Gandalf was teling Bilbo all about how the dragon sickness was a curse over all the gold in Erebor I did quite want Bilbo to ask "So, what made you think sending a bunch of susceptible dwarves to claim it back was a good idea then?" (Though I suppose Gandalf's answer would be that nobody else was going to bother, and possibly he thought if he'd been there as intended he could stop the effects.)
Though it is still a shame that the rest of the dwarves again barely got a line each, except for Kíli who seemed to have stolen everyone else's ration of words and all of Fíli's deathscene time. Poor Fíli got seriously shortchanged there - everyone else had someone to weep over their corpse but him. They could at least have given him Dwalin (I did think for a second he was going to get Thranduil being remotely sorrowful instead, but it was not to be). Anyway, since there was nobody weeping over him, I have decided this means he is not a corpse after all, just resting somewhere and nobody is going to convince me otherwise!
But they did get me crying - first for Fíli, then I was still sniffly for Kíli and proper tears again for longer with Thorin. Now that was a good deathscene. I loved pretty much everything both Freeman and Armitage did in it, but especially Bilbo begging Thorin to hold on after he'd already gone because look, the eagles are coming... I'm actually welling up again just writing that, it really was terribly effective. I was less affected by Kíli's, possibly because I was not totally convinced of the connection with Tauriel, whereas the chemistry with Bilbo and Thorin was extremely strong.
The battle with Azog on the ice was probably the best bit of action for me (apart from the troll headbutting the wall down and then collapsing which was hilarious) - it was inventive and gave Thorin a moment of being clever when he drops the morningstar in Azog's arms so that he goes under. He promptly lost all cleverness points by then following over the ice as Azog slid under it, but the moment between Azog sinking and then where he thinks he's won was possibly the tensest bit for me because Thorin obviously hadn't been mortally wounded yet so I was just waiting for either Azog to re-erupt or an entire legion of orcs to swarm Thorin. And apparently it would take a legion, given he and Dwalin were perfectly happy to hold off a hundred orc scouts by themselves!
What else... Legolas was much more interesting in this part where he's being all rebellious against his father and possibly growing as an elf. He had too much fighting in my opinion but I did really like that he ended up being Thorin's back up against the orcs (and that he returned Orcrist doing it) as well as Thorin giving him a bit of help with Bolg. Galadriel being badass against Sauron was cool, so was Elrond getting some action. And I loved Billy Connolly as Dain - I don't think they gave him a script, they just stuck him on a pig and said "go be Billy Connolly", which was awesome (particularly the headbutting and asking everyone if they could just sod off).
Bard getting an actual confrontation with Smaug was cool, and I really liked the moments of him using his son as part of his improvised bow for firing the black arrow - I thought the kid playing Bain handled that really well. Thranduil was unapologetically the biggest elf bastard around, which was fun. I liked him explaining to Bard that he didn't really give a shit about the Laketown people and that him helping them was just a tangent in pursuit of his jewels, and also the last conversation with Legolas just for the LotR continuity nods (despite being fairly sure that at this point in time Aragorn is a child and not a young ranger at all given this is about 78 years before Frodo leaves the Shire). Ooh, and Bilbo apologising to Thranduil over stealing the steward's keys made me laugh.
The biggest nod of course was the ending with old Bilbo, and I suppose Gandalf calling Bilbo out about the magic ring he'd been hiding (and he so totally knew Bilbo was lying about having lost it) and it did make a nice ending and link up with FotR. I was pleased they kept the auction in too - I would have been sad if that had gone but they added the cherry on the cake to it by having Bilbo describe Thorin as his friend, with that great sad look, right at the last.
So in conclusion: they got a lot of things right, Fíli was robbed, and there could have been a bit less action for my tastes. A good end to the series though, and they have married it fairly successfully to the previous trilogy which deserves some kudos.
And now I'm going to go reread Lost to Life by hitagashi, which has Thorin "No sense of direction" Oakenshield taking a wrong turn in the afterlife to awesome results and is the perfect antidote to too many line of Durin feels...
Goodness there was a lot of fighting. I mean, a lot of fighting. First there was Smaug fighting, then there was Necromancer and wraith fighting, then there was an interlude with no violence so Thorin could go mad followed by near-incessant orc fighting until the end of the film. No wonder they changed the title, it pretty much was just battling.
Though I suppose that is a little unfair. There were some lovely moments between Thorin and Bilbo (omg, the acorn!), Thorin's madness was played out rather beautifully by Richard Armitage with all these visible ebbs and swells, and as well it gave Ken Stott something proper to do (which must have been a relief for him) as well as Graham McTavish. Though when Gandalf was teling Bilbo all about how the dragon sickness was a curse over all the gold in Erebor I did quite want Bilbo to ask "So, what made you think sending a bunch of susceptible dwarves to claim it back was a good idea then?" (Though I suppose Gandalf's answer would be that nobody else was going to bother, and possibly he thought if he'd been there as intended he could stop the effects.)
Though it is still a shame that the rest of the dwarves again barely got a line each, except for Kíli who seemed to have stolen everyone else's ration of words and all of Fíli's deathscene time. Poor Fíli got seriously shortchanged there - everyone else had someone to weep over their corpse but him. They could at least have given him Dwalin (I did think for a second he was going to get Thranduil being remotely sorrowful instead, but it was not to be). Anyway, since there was nobody weeping over him, I have decided this means he is not a corpse after all, just resting somewhere and nobody is going to convince me otherwise!
But they did get me crying - first for Fíli, then I was still sniffly for Kíli and proper tears again for longer with Thorin. Now that was a good deathscene. I loved pretty much everything both Freeman and Armitage did in it, but especially Bilbo begging Thorin to hold on after he'd already gone because look, the eagles are coming... I'm actually welling up again just writing that, it really was terribly effective. I was less affected by Kíli's, possibly because I was not totally convinced of the connection with Tauriel, whereas the chemistry with Bilbo and Thorin was extremely strong.
The battle with Azog on the ice was probably the best bit of action for me (apart from the troll headbutting the wall down and then collapsing which was hilarious) - it was inventive and gave Thorin a moment of being clever when he drops the morningstar in Azog's arms so that he goes under. He promptly lost all cleverness points by then following over the ice as Azog slid under it, but the moment between Azog sinking and then where he thinks he's won was possibly the tensest bit for me because Thorin obviously hadn't been mortally wounded yet so I was just waiting for either Azog to re-erupt or an entire legion of orcs to swarm Thorin. And apparently it would take a legion, given he and Dwalin were perfectly happy to hold off a hundred orc scouts by themselves!
What else... Legolas was much more interesting in this part where he's being all rebellious against his father and possibly growing as an elf. He had too much fighting in my opinion but I did really like that he ended up being Thorin's back up against the orcs (and that he returned Orcrist doing it) as well as Thorin giving him a bit of help with Bolg. Galadriel being badass against Sauron was cool, so was Elrond getting some action. And I loved Billy Connolly as Dain - I don't think they gave him a script, they just stuck him on a pig and said "go be Billy Connolly", which was awesome (particularly the headbutting and asking everyone if they could just sod off).
Bard getting an actual confrontation with Smaug was cool, and I really liked the moments of him using his son as part of his improvised bow for firing the black arrow - I thought the kid playing Bain handled that really well. Thranduil was unapologetically the biggest elf bastard around, which was fun. I liked him explaining to Bard that he didn't really give a shit about the Laketown people and that him helping them was just a tangent in pursuit of his jewels, and also the last conversation with Legolas just for the LotR continuity nods (despite being fairly sure that at this point in time Aragorn is a child and not a young ranger at all given this is about 78 years before Frodo leaves the Shire). Ooh, and Bilbo apologising to Thranduil over stealing the steward's keys made me laugh.
The biggest nod of course was the ending with old Bilbo, and I suppose Gandalf calling Bilbo out about the magic ring he'd been hiding (and he so totally knew Bilbo was lying about having lost it) and it did make a nice ending and link up with FotR. I was pleased they kept the auction in too - I would have been sad if that had gone but they added the cherry on the cake to it by having Bilbo describe Thorin as his friend, with that great sad look, right at the last.
So in conclusion: they got a lot of things right, Fíli was robbed, and there could have been a bit less action for my tastes. A good end to the series though, and they have married it fairly successfully to the previous trilogy which deserves some kudos.
And now I'm going to go reread Lost to Life by hitagashi, which has Thorin "No sense of direction" Oakenshield taking a wrong turn in the afterlife to awesome results and is the perfect antidote to too many line of Durin feels...