The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014)

Thorin was a bit of a prick in general. He had the pride to match his station, that being of a line of kings. A pride that was perpetually wounded due to a diminished existence after the loss of Erebor. Take the long running ill will between the dwarves and elves, which was generally more ill on the dwarven side to begin with, add in the personal flavor imparted to it by his imprisonment in Mirkwood and that's really all that's needed to understand why Thorin gave his stubby middle finger to those who he should have considered potential allies.

Outside of Thorin appearing younger than I feel he should appear, I thought he was spot on. He's always cynical, demeaning, and prejudice. He's rude at best except when he realizes that people actually care and respect him. However, before his outer shell softens, he becomes consumed by the mountain and its treasures. I always felt the Hobbit was an underlying struggle of the complexity and greed of the world vs. the simple things that make you happy. To me, Bilbo is the embodiment of how happiness can grow from being content with the simple things in life where greed can fog our senses and corrupt our direction (no matter how noble it may be initially). I say all of that because I felt Martin Freeman did a great job capturing this and Thorin's character playing a great opposite. I thought the dialogue between the two was well written, especially in the third. When Thorin is sick there are moments where you see the corruption vs the incorruptible. In addition to that you have the ring which throws in the nice caveat while Bilbo (and Frodo) are true and sincere, no one is above those powers.

Sorry to be philosophical and I may not share the same interpretation as others but to me this was a positive for the prequels and why I like them more than I hate them. While there was so much stupidity displayed on the screen, the got the central idea and depicted well.

In the book he refuses to deal with Bard or compensate the men of Laketown because the wood elves are there. The gold sickness is pretty much strictly a movie concoction.

Runnen_sl said:

The whole "dragon sickness" business is even more stupid when you take in consideration that the Arkenstone is probably one of the Silmarii, and that alone would explain why it drives people crazy to obtain it. In the Silmarilion, it's explained how the Silmarils shine very brightly and reflect light everywhere (like the Arkenstone) because they were literally forged from the light of the Trees of Valinor. Eventually after many wars over obtaining the Silmarils from whatever owner they had at the time, they ended up eventually scattered, one in the sky made into a star by the Valar, and the other two stolen by the descendants of their original maker, who had become too greedy and despicable to "deserve" them and ended up burned by the Silmarils, so they commmited suicide each with their own Silmaril, one by jumping into the sea and the other by jumping into a "chasm of fire". It's the leading theory in Tolkien lore (post-rewrites) that the Arkenstone is the latter Silmaril, which ended up buried in the earth under the Lonely Mountain.

That movie was still a piece of shit though.

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It isn't a Silmaril.

These are stones that started thousands of years of war with elves invading from heaven to earth, if one was found I think that some major shit would go down. Also Galadriel and possibly Gandlaf would recognise it.

Is not the running theme in all 6 movies (and all 4 books) that power/gold is the heart of evil and will corrupt all? There was a reason it had to be a Frodo, and even he became corrupted. There is lots of good reasons to not like this latest movies, but following the central theme in the epic is not one of them.

No, that is not the running theme. Cirdan, Gandalf, Elrond, and Galadriel were not corrupted by their use of the 3. It's the One Ring and its borderline sentience that causes problem. The gold sickness is a movie fabrication. There is even a fucking deleted scene in the first one where Elrond talks about the line of Durin having a hereditary predisposition towards 'gold lust'.

Thror and Thrain's craziness can be attributed to them owning the mightiest of the 7.

Nester_sl said:

Is not the running theme in all 6 movies (and all 4 books) that power/gold is the heart of evil and will corrupt all? There was a reason it had to be a Frodo, and even he became corrupted. There is lots of good reasons to not like this latest movies, but following the central theme in the epic is not one of them.

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No, the major theme in "the Hobbit" and the LOTR is that courage/heroism can come from even the least likely of people (Hobbits). Basically, the books are an allegory about WWI and WWII. That's one of the things that makes this last movie so horrible. "The Hobbit" was supposed to be about Bilbo Baggins (you know, the protagonist in the story) and instead we get an abortion of a movie that pitches Gandalf and Legolas as the protagonists (and Legolas was never even in "The Hobbit" in the first place), and leaves Bilbo as nothing more than a footnote. PJ completely missed the mark on this one, and no EE is going to help make this movie any better, unless he filmed a completely different movie.

Did you even watch this movie? Bilbo has more to do in this film than he does in the corresponding section of the book, which basically amounted to his smuggling out the Arkenstone, which is in the film, and getting clunked in the head by a rock and spending most of the battle napping. Then he talks to dying Thorin and goes home (also in the film). Of course, after they blew out the story to three movies, they had to beef up his role or he'd have had all of five minutes of screen time.

Also, Tolkien himself vehemently denied that his stories were allegory, though they do contain some allegorical elements.

There was a fantastic National Geographic special about Tolkien and his influences in his writings. World Wars had a significant part in that. Not direct allegory, no.. but certainly influential. Worth a watch when bored.

Here's a web version:

National Geographic Lord of the Rings -- historical influences

By 1918, all but one of my close friends were dead." The reader cannot help but notice that the Dead Marshes of Mordor is eerily reminiscent of World War I's Western Front and its utter devastation of life.

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God damn it movie studios.. and PJ for capitulating.

Evangeline Lilly on The Hobbit films: - Movies News - Digital Spy

Evangeline Lilly was promised there would be no love triangle in The Hobbit, her one stipulation for accepting the role. A year later the actors were called back for reshoots, with a love triangle added in.

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Shes So Hot.

It's been a long time since I read the hobbit, but isn't the King of Iron Mountain's decision basically just explained as, "Dwarves are greedy fucks".

Why invent some sort of "gold sickness"? He's not posessed. The point is more profound than some throw away gimmick. Tolkien himself was fine with "dude is sitting on a mountain of gold and he got greedy. No one really expected that to happen, but in retrospect maybe we should have thought it might. Even great men can falter. Oh well. Still better than a DRAGON".

They're pretty... but there's no reason that The Hobbit should take more than 180 minutes to tell. And that's allowing for a lot of extended visual indulgence of the scenes. There's just no reason to go mucking with the exposition of it. You wind up with what Jackson has made. 3 very pretty, but hollow and soulless, movies.

Greedy fuck sitting on a mountain of gold isnt fantasy anymore, its called Wall street.
Therefor big money funded hollywood studio needed to change that book part into fantastic "gold sickness". So no dumb movie goer could possibly get the allegory to Lehmans.

Zignor 3_sl said:

Also, Tolkien himself vehemently denied that his stories were allegory, though they do contain some allegorical elements.

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He denied it was Christian allegory- and direct allegory for WW1/2 but he stated that the "machine" stuff was quite direct in his feelings - Saurmon's voice over in TTT movie about the machine of war or whatever while making Urik's should drive home the point. And in his talk of allegorical elements within his story he basically says - I am a Christian and it influences me, I cant write anything that will not produce some of "me" in it, and thus Christian elements- this is the same for any author for any religion.-

Yeah when he denied it was allegory I think he just means it wasn't a rewrite of the bible story like the Chronicles of Narnia were.

xadion_sl said:

He denied it was Christian allegory- and direct allegory for WW1/2 but he stated that the "machine" stuff was quite direct in his feelings - Saurmon's voice over in TTT movie about the machine of war or whatever while making Urik's should drive home the point. And in his talk of allegorical elements within his story he basically says - I am a Christian and it influences me, I cant write anything that will not produce some of "me" in it, and thus Christian elements- this is the same for any author for any religion.-

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Just to clarify, at least in regards to my comments about what the Hobbit's theme or underlying meanings may be... I know Tolkkien was clear in his influences and such in writing the Hobbit and even the LotR but I was mainly speaking in terms of the consistency of the writing of the movies as I saw them. When I spoke about this, I even said what I personally take away from the story as I watched the Hobbit series and how the characters developed, I thought they did well keeping each character consistent and developed as I felt they should even if it wasn't as Tolkien intended.

Again, I thought Martin Freeman did very well as Bilbo. I thought Thorin's actor did well. There's a lot of pickiness to be had here. I know the majority did not like the movie or the series as a whole but I wouldn't discredit the movie completely as it did have some good moments.

I'm sure i'm the minority but I thought more good happened than bad. My biggest problem was the wrong were bonehead mistakes in my opinion. It was as if he went out of his way to make stupid decisions.

Muligan_sl said:

Just to clarify, at least in regards to my comments about what the Hobbit's theme or underlying meanings may be... I know Tolkkien was clear in his influences and such in writing the Hobbit and even the LotR but I was mainly speaking in terms of the consistency of the writing of the movies as I saw them. When I spoke about this, I even said what I personally take away from the story as I watched the Hobbit series and how the characters developed, I thought they did well keeping each character consistent and developed as I felt they should even if it wasn't as Tolkien intended.

Again, I thought Martin Freeman did very well as Bilbo. I thought Thorin's actor did well. There's a lot of pickiness to be had here. I know the majority did not like the movie or the series as a whole but I wouldn't discredit the movie completely as it did have some good moments.

I'm sure i'm the minority but I thought more good happened than bad. My biggest problem was the wrong were bonehead mistakes in my opinion. It was as if he went out of his way to make stupid decisions.

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I haven't seen the last movie, although I want to despite reviews etc.

Thorin was even in the books almost light-switchy in his meanness and becoming all anal - the same for Bilbo - he kinda grows a pair while in the keep with Smaug- and shows he is quite insightful to Thorin being a dick- so while reading it you think that Bilbo should have just given Thorin the arkenstone and he would be happy and everything would be fine...but Bilbo knew better.