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Paulo Gabriel
Lorien
Mar 8 2019, 10:40am
Post #76 of 125
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I could rant on and on about this, but you said all that was basically needed.
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kzer_za
Lorien
Mar 8 2019, 7:39pm
Post #77 of 125
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My review of Battle of Five Armies (EE)
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I finished rereading the book, and watched this one again, also looked a bit at the appendices and commentary. My first impression from years ago has improved - it is now my favorite in the trilogy. It is not without flaws, even major ones, but Bilbo and Thorin are fantastic and really carry it. And in some ways it has a strong understanding of Tolkien’s themes I think. Apologies for the length.
Opening Moves
I love the opening at Laketown. Stunning visuals, "look at me", Smaug's taunting. In contrast to the end of DoS, Smaug comes across really well as a villain here.
Dol Guldur is decent. I don't like dark Galadriel (and I'm afraid it dilutes her FotR temptation scene). However, the visuals there are excellent as always, and Saruman’s line is a clever way to end it. I actually kind of like Radagast in the latter two movies; he's toned down some from AUJ.
Politics, madness, and greed
After Fire and Water, there is very little action for the next hour.
Bilbo and Thorin make this movie. AUJ is Bilbo's film, DoS is Thorin's, B5A is both though favoring Bilbo. Thorin’s descent into madness is compelling to watch, and Bilbo’s reaction. Both the dialog and scene staging show that Bilbo is the one Thorin keeps some human contact with in his downward spiral. I would even say Bilbo and Thorin have the best character relationship in all the Jackson movies - yes, including Frodo and Sam. The movie establishes them well before all the action starts, and then it all comes back to them.
So many great small character scenes in Erebor - the acorn, Bilbo and Balin worrying about Thorin’s fate, Bilbo and Bofur’s conversation, Dwalin’s “you are less now…” Jackson & co. are certainly uneven as writers, but they can also do great original scenes at their best, and this might have the most good original scenes out of all six (not to deny to deny there are some bad ones too, though not in Erebor). The interior of Erebor is also just beautifully photographed, keeping just the right balance of grandeur and claustrophobia.
I like the politics/refugee/arkenstone stuff, the treatment of greed, and the dynamics between various characters, Alfrid aside. Bard and Thorin's keyhole dialog is cleverly staged. For all the flaws of Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy, I’m glad he takes the story seriously. Thranduil's "I see you don't have experience with wizards" speech is great.
The Battle
Generally I enjoy the battle. The EE makes it flow a lot more coherently and I like that most of the dwarves get some little moment now. The dwarves vs. elves clash improves the movie a lot. There are so many wild ideas from PJ’s mind in the battle, and some excellent choreography. Some of the action especially in the extended scenes is pretty over the top but I generally enjoy it, including the chariot chase in all its Mad Max insanity. I would probably remove or tone down a few extreme moments, but generally nothing before Ravenhill comes across as silly as the end of Pelennor in RotK with its bubble surfing and Mumak takedown.
This is the most CG-heavy of the movies, partly because the production was so turbulent under a rough schedule (the appendices are remarkably candid), so much of the battle was done in pickups. Some of the CG could be touched up, but overall I generally find it only a minor issue, and Dale is a very impressive set (the EE has a 30-minute feature on it!)
I really like the sequence of Dwalin dressing Thorin down, then Thorin’s surreal gold vision, then “will you follow me one last time?”
Ravenhill
The first time I saw this movie, I hated Ravenhill so much that I gave up on the trilogy for years. And well, I still hate Legolas's involvement. A couple of Leggy CG shots are rather infamously stupid. Also, Bolg has no reason to be treated as a major villain with Azog kept alive (an understandable adaptive decision, IMO). After Legolas and Tauriel arrive, it drags and generally feels too much like Marvel until Bolg finally dies. Ravenhill needs about 5 minutes cut, and putting Legolas there is the biggest misstep in the movie for sure. He doesn't ruin the movie but he certainly tries. Also the "Goblin mercenaries” line is stupid.
However, now that I knew what to expect there is a lot I like about Ravenhill too. First of all, the visuals with the snow and ice and mist are great and atmospheric. Fili’s death is great, Kili’s is decent. And I quite like Thorin's duel with Azog, it has a simple elegance to it after the tedium of Bolgolas & co. There's also something very fitting about the image of the heroic warrior dying locked in a struggle with his archenemy on an icy peak. I do think narrowing the focus of the battle and having the two protagonists alone at the very end makes sense here. The eagles and Beorn arrive in a fleeting and almost dreamlike way, as is fitting from Thorin and Bilbo’s perspective.
The end
I love the ending. The parting scene between Thorin and Bilbo is sad and very well-acted. All the time spent on Bilbo and Thorin’s relationship in the first half of the movie (and the first two movies) really pays off at the end. That wonderful silent scene with Bilbo and Gandalf (where they had dialog written but decided to throw the script out!) starts bringing us back down to earth from the heroic archetypal heights of Ravenhill. As Gandalf (in Grey form) goes between both Thorin’s and Bilbo’s worlds, it is fitting that he is the one to do this.
Then more great scenes with Thorin’s funeral which should have been in TE, Bilbo’s goodbye, the journey home, the auction, etc. “Thorin wasn’t that [a legend] to me, he was a…” shows a subtle understanding of the relation of Hobbits with the mythic world I think, especially the way he can’t quite finish it until he gets home. The auction scene shows both that he’s still a Hobbit and that he is no longer the same. Some of the LotR prequel stuff in this trilogy is clunky, but the Ring is generally handled well.
Miscellany
Tauriel...well. I can see what they were trying to do with the Kili relationship, an unfulfilled longing to reach past their cultural limitations as shown in DoS's starlight scene. It could have been pretty Tolkienesque with a lighter hand, should have been kept mostly implied. For sure the execution is fumbled with some bad dialog, like “because it was real.” But this controversy is overblown. It's a minor subplot that doesn't get much screentime, and you'd only need to remove a few lines of dialogue (and the glow on the healing) to fix it. Shore's theme is great too.
But Lilly does a good job, and her character actually still keeps more depth than just the romance. Hot take: even with some bad lines, Lilly's Tauriel feels more like an actual elf than Bloom’s Legolas. Yes, LotR included.
Alfrid I won't defend at all. He's definitely annoying and I his EE death scene is so stupid (but at least the EE reduces his time proportionally). Too bad, I like him in DoS. Should have kept the Master alive.
The Strider namedrop is dumb (also “go north” is geographically absurd). The Ecthelion namedrop is cute though.
(This post was edited by kzer_za on Mar 8 2019, 7:42pm)
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Chen G.
Gondor
Mar 8 2019, 9:28pm
Post #78 of 125
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Your impression of this particular film is almost similar to mine. I actually think that the Tauriel/Kili romance suffers from having as little screentime as it does, but it also removes much of the offending nature of it. Indeed, fast-forwarding through a couple of cheesy lines and slow-motion does wonders to that plotline.
I just generally mind Legolas superhero moments: In The Lord of the Rings or The Desolation of Smaug, but here its a bit too much. I do like the crumbling bridge bit, but all the stuff leading up to it should've been trimmed. Again, fast-forwarding through most of that stuff works magic, although because its so intristically linked to how Thorin reacquires Orcrist, not all of it can be disposed of.
As for focusing on Thorin and Azog. Well, that's what happens. Its not quite as well structured as the end of The Desolation of Smaug (where the subplots are stripped one by one), but eventually there does come a point where we're left only with Thorin and Azog.
I like Ravenhill as a stage. Its icy and grim, there's forground action in the frame thanks to the snow in the wind. Fili's death, which ushers the third age, is immensly effective, because its curiously lean on histrionics: its almost as though Clint Eastwood directed that piece.
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kzer_za
Lorien
Mar 8 2019, 9:51pm
Post #79 of 125
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Right, I meant that narrowing the focus is what the movie does
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With mixed results in practice, because Ravenhill gets pretty cluttered, particularly a certain elf. But, while I was very critical of moving to Ravenhill the first time I saw it rather than following the book battle more closely, now it makes sense to me. The Thorin/Azog duel has a certain archetypal quality to it.
(This post was edited by kzer_za on Mar 8 2019, 10:01pm)
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Chen G.
Gondor
Mar 8 2019, 11:50pm
Post #80 of 125
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Its a neat contrast to the battle in the Misty Mountains, too
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Ice as opposed to fire; Azog lunges at Thorin instead of the other way around previously, etcetra.
I like at as the stage of the third act. In terms of the different plot-threads that happen up there, I like Dwalin coming to rescue Bilbo. The way he enters the frame is a good-old action-film beat. Love it!
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Paulo Gabriel
Lorien
Mar 9 2019, 8:24pm
Post #81 of 125
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Fili's death, which ushers the third age,
What third age? You mean third age of Middle Earth?
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VeArkenstone
Lorien
Mar 20 2019, 12:23am
Post #83 of 125
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I love the movies, for the most part.
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For me, the Goblin sequence is the absolute worst sequence in all six of PJ's movies, followed by "out of the frying pan, into the fire, which is my absolute favorite sequence in all six of PJ's movies. Thorin does not only look like he running through hell to meet Azog, he really is running through hell. Luv the Eagles!
Please, call me Ve.
(This post was edited by VeArkenstone on Mar 20 2019, 12:28am)
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Solicitr
Gondor
Apr 11 2019, 2:34am
Post #85 of 125
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Was almost great, but then PBJ had to ruin it with Bilbo's preposterous linebackering of an Orc.
While the LR movies were a mixed bag of good and bad, the Hobbit fiasco amplified the bad and left out almost all the good. PJ's adolescent self-indulgence running unrestrained, and PBJ's "original" (that is, cliched) material which was bad enough in LR: in Hobbit we get heaping helpings of it.
"Aragorn goes over a cliff? Hey, we can get a whole movie's worth of that stuff this time!"
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Solicitr
Gondor
Apr 29 2019, 6:49pm
Post #88 of 125
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the LR was good in part. Certain things PJ - helped in great part by Fran Walsh, a talented and nuanced screenwriter - rendered very well. Other things he did badly, and some of them were throw-heavy-objects-at-the-screen horrible.
But TH had no redeeming features. Walsh had no part in it, nor was there anyone to restrain PJ's adolescent tastes and tendency toward self-indulgence. As much as anything, the LR at least had the solid armature of Tolkien's actual writing to support it - where PBJ just made stuff up it was almost without exception dreadful - and TH was about 2/3 stuff PBJ made up.
It also meant a much larger screenwriting influence/presence for Philippa Boyens, whose Hack Screenwriting 101 approach never met a cliche she not only didn't like, but didn't prefer to actual Tolkien. "But you can't do that" is her tagline throughout her video interviews- meaning that she thinks she (in other words the hackneyed Rules of mass-market cinema) can tell Tolkien's story better than he could. Well, she can't. It's like (to repeat an analogy), Frank Frazetta "improving" the Sistine Chapel.
(This post was edited by Solicitr on Apr 29 2019, 6:53pm)
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Paulo Gabriel
Lorien
Apr 29 2019, 11:00pm
Post #89 of 125
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That still doesn't answer the question...
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Do you dislike LR?
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Solicitr
Gondor
Apr 29 2019, 11:12pm
Post #90 of 125
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On the whole, I like FR more than not, and dislike RK more than not. But each is a mixture. One can certainly give a mixed review! I like Return of the Jedi... except any time Ewoks are on screen; then it's horrible.
I think had Hollywood done LR, it would have been much, much worse... is that a good or a bad thing? If were as bad as Lynch's Dune, then it would be forgotten entirely except as a cult thing.
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Paulo Gabriel
Lorien
Apr 30 2019, 2:08am
Post #91 of 125
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therefore Hollywood made it. Just because it was filmed in New Zealand doesn't mean its not blockbusterian-Hollywood at its core.
Look at this quote: ''Jackson was sold to us as an independent, and is defended as such — but he's as cliche and stereotypically H'wood in his direction as anyone based in California. In fact, he makes Steven Spielberg look restrained and understated in terms of bathos or emphasis on action. Now, I keep reading the choices to eviscerate the plot and characterization being defended by supposed book-fans as "necessary" to make the films work as films. When was the last time you heard someone argue that a film was improved by being dumbed down? Or a character, by taking out all his conflict and depth? Or that a plot was made stronger by taking out all the options that make for uncertainty and therefore suspense?''.
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Otaku-sempai
Immortal
Apr 30 2019, 4:41am
Post #92 of 125
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But TH had no redeeming features. Walsh had no part in it, nor was there anyone to restrain PJ's adolescent tastes and tendency toward self-indulgence.
I'm not sure what you mean by that since Fran Walsh is credited as a producer and screenwriter for all three Hobbit films.
"I reject your reality and substitute my own." - Adam Savage
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Solicitr
Gondor
Apr 30 2019, 12:32pm
Post #93 of 125
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Jackson had a foot in both camps. New Line gave him an astounding amount of latitude on the LR; that project was practically on the auteur model. The key person in that may well have been producer Barrie Osborne, who was far less the studio's overseer than he was Jackson's enabler. 12,000 miles of distance didn't hurt!
But then Jackson himself, when given free reign, fell back on his influences, which are all Hollywood popcorn fare. When asked to list them, he usually gives out King Kong and Clash of the Titans. Rarely named but significant were a multitude of grindhouse shlock horror flicks, of the kind he emulated early in his career. NOT named, ever, are names like Eisenstein, Murnau, Ford, Welles, Kurosawa, Godard or Kubrick; and it's plain from what he did in LR that PJ's watching fare is heavy on the Spielberg and light on the Scorsese.
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Solicitr
Gondor
Apr 30 2019, 12:35pm
Post #94 of 125
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Credited, yes; involved beyond a name-check, no.
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Otaku-sempai
Immortal
Apr 30 2019, 2:53pm
Post #95 of 125
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...what, exactly? Her lack of participation in the commentary tracks? Do you have more substantial evidence?
"I reject your reality and substitute my own." - Adam Savage
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VeArkenstone
Lorien
May 30 2019, 2:15pm
Post #96 of 125
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I do love this scene. I enjoy watching Bilbo gut this murderous, dwarf-beheading orc. Never underestimate the element of surprise. I think Howard Shore's majestic score during this sequence plays so well with what is going on.
Please, call me Ve.
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Chen G.
Gondor
May 30 2019, 2:43pm
Post #97 of 125
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The key person in that may well have been producer Barrie Osborne, who was far less the studio's overseer than he was Jackson's enabler. 12,000 miles of distance didn't hurt!
Barrie Osborne wasn't the studio's overseer. He was in charge with keeping the production - on an adminstrative level - going on schedule. So he was the one setting meetings and dates, but I don't think he had a say in a single, overriding creative decision. Almost like a line-producer.
There was never any substantial studio interference in the screenplay or the cut of any of the films. Jackson is an auteur. Remarkably, he never worked as a "filmmaker for hire" - always initiating the projects he's involved in, and deciding his own level of involvement in them. Even renouned auteurs like Coppola can't claim to have done that.
Just recently, he turned down the CEO of Warner Brothers TWICE for doing Aquaman. I find that hysterical, and admirable.
it's plain from what he did in LR that PJ's watching fare is heavy on the Spielberg and light on the Scorsese.
Eh?!
Peter Jackson is immensly influenced by Martin Scorcese. He says that whenever he's shooting, he watches Goodfellas just about on-loop. You can really see it in the perpetual motion of his cameras.
Jackson is also influenced by Sir David Lean, Kubrick, Leone (just look at both directors' fondness for the extreme close-up) and others - as well taking quite a few pages from the astounding Braveheart.
Literally couldn't ask for a better set of influences.
...what, exactly? Her lack of participation in the commentary tracks? Do you have more substantial evidence?
Exactly.
Might I point out that Fran Walsh is Peter Jackson's W I F E. When we say "Peter Jackson", we're really talking about him and Walsh, as a creative couple. He's never done anything without her, and vice versa.
In the Behind-the-scenes documentary, you can hear him consulting with her on the composition of individual shots.
She's just camera-shy, is all.
(This post was edited by Chen G. on May 30 2019, 2:58pm)
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Paulo Gabriel
Lorien
May 30 2019, 11:35pm
Post #98 of 125
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Cultural influences of Peter Jackson.
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Peter Jackson is immensly influenced by Martin Scorcese. He says that whenever he's shooting, he watches Goodfellas just about on-loop. You can really see it in the perpetual motion of his cameras.
Jackson is also influenced by Sir David Lean, Kubrick, Leone (just look at both directors' fondness for the extreme close-up) and others - as well taking quite a few pages from the astounding Braveheart.
Literally couldn't ask for a better set of influences.
That reminds me of another quote: ''[Seven Samurai] is a film that gets better with every watching (and I have never watched it without crying, hypercritical hater of sentimentality that I am.) If Akira Kurosawa and his crew could manage it, in 1954, in B/W, with no digital paint programs at hand — it's not too much to ask the same of Peter Jackson. (Jackson could have learned even more lessons regarding color cinematography, stage gore, and the handling of both grand massed-cavalry battle scenes, and intimately-intense interpersonal exchanges, from Kurosawa's last epic, Ran (1985), a recasting of King Lear in the setting of feudal Japan. Kurosawa was a great fan of Shakespeare, but I have never heard the same said of Jackson. I think it shows.'')
Joan Barger, November 2003.
(This post was edited by Paulo Gabriel on May 30 2019, 11:38pm)
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kzer_za
Lorien
May 31 2019, 1:22am
Post #99 of 125
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Well, Tolkien wasn't much of a Shakespeare fan either!
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Paulo Gabriel
Lorien
May 31 2019, 7:41am
Post #100 of 125
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I will have to reread some of his letters to properly understand this issue. There was a typo on my previous post, by the way.
(This post was edited by Paulo Gabriel on May 31 2019, 7:53am)
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