Topic: The Hobbit: TBOTFA

[Shiroi Koumori]

Peter Jackson announced several hours ago of the name change for the 3rd Hobbit film.
https://www.facebook.com/PeterJacksonNZ/posts/10152332243996558?stream_ref=10

Wow, now the subtitle is a mouthful. The Battle of the Five Armies
I do get his logic since Bilbo is already there.
Since the subtitle emphasizes the armies, I can't wait to see what crazy battle stuff Peter's gonna do. He loves those things so much.

Do you agree with Peter's logic or not? Sound off below.

And, which 5 armies do you think we'll see in the final cut of the film?
I'm guessing: 1)elves, 2)dwarves, 3)humans, 4)eagles and 5)all the baddies

[K.K. Drunkinski]

I guess you never read the novel....there are 5 armies that fight at the end. I wouldn't wanna spoil it for anyone by naming them if these movies are their introduction to the story.

[Shiroi Koumori]

@KK: You may want to write the 5 armies that were mentioned in the book, just use the spoiler tag if you don't want others to be spoiled.

I've read the book way back before so my memory is iffy at best. As far as I know, the ones I listed above are part of the battle, but not necessarily in that order. My knowledge of LOTR is better. But Peter is fond of changing stuff.

And the eagles don't appear until about the middle of the battle along with Beorn, but Beorn no matter how awesome he is, can't be considered as an army.
The baddies can be split into 2 groups, goblins and wargs, but orcs can make an appearance. Then there are bats too, can they be considered as an army? Would Peter put the necromancer scheming behind the scenes?
What about the dwarves? Dain has an army but I don't consider Thorin and co. as an army.

[K.K. Drunkinski]

Here's the Wikipedia article on "The Battle of the Five Armies," all the spoilers are in there. The subtitle of the new movie was already the proper name for that battle in previous publications.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Five_Armies#Battle_of_Five_Armies

[Anglachel]

Does anyone else feel like Del Toro would have done a better job with the Hobbit? 

[Intersection]

The Hobbit's unexpected journey from a mildly interesting namesake to a generic Hollywoodian title. How desolate indeed. Still, now that it's there, don't you wish it would come back again?

[X]

I don't see why they didn't just title the films; The Hobbit: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

[K.K. Drunkinski]

I don't see why they didn't just let it be one two-hour movie. Even the Rankin Bass movie of the book was utterly faithful except cutting out the war, and it's just an hour and a half. Crammin too much junk into this trilogy to stretch out one children's novel.

EDIT: And the Rankin Bass one also left out the part where they go to that dude's house and he turns into a bear.

[Super Waffle]

Does anyone else feel like Del Toro would have done a better job with the Hobbit? 

Pan's Labyrinth is my favorite movie and Del Toro hasn't done anything that has led me to assume he's a complete hack lately, so yes.

[KaZudra]

Hobbit is bloated, I've never read the book, but I can tell Smaug was just hammering in "WATCH LOTR THIS IS IMPORTANT" everytime Gandalf does his sidequest....

Which leaves a giant plot-hole, if Gandalf and crew knew Saron was on the rise, why did everyone just drop their shit for 50 years? makes no sense.

If Jackson just followed the book things would be alot better.

[Super Waffle]

Let's not forget fanfic elf girl and her contrived romance with dwarf guy.

Because that certainly shows how "respectful" you're being toward Tolkein's source material.  By creating characters entirely through focus groups and shoehorning them into a story that has nothing to do with them just for marketing purposes.


The Hobbit book is basically LOTR Lite in terms of basic goals and plot direction.  That's why I like the Hobbit book more than the LOTR books, so the Hobbit movies are especially bad for me.  It's like Jackson went out of the way to take a story I really, really like and forcibly inserted everything I thought was bloated/annoying/boring from LOTR specifically to ruin the experience for me.

dsfjhdsjlfhlfjkdsdfs why couldn't we have just gotten a proper Hobbit adaptation?  Two movies, tops.

[Anglachel]

I would have loved to see Del Toro's art style in the LOTR universe.

[Dracula9]

WHAT? NO! IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THERE AND BACK AGAIN!

If my memory of the novel is serving me correctly (it's been awhile since I've read it), the Five Armies are the Men of Lake-Town, the Dwarves (both the quest company and the other lands' Dwarves, most notably the Iron Hills ones), the Mirkwood Elves, the Goblins, and the Dol Guldur Orcs.

Of course the only other Hobbit thing I've been exposed to in the last year aside from these was when I found and rewatched my old VHS of the '78 (I think it was '78) animated one, and that one was crazy inaccurate to the book.

Hobbit is bloated, I've never read the book, but I can tell Smaug was just hammering in "WATCH LOTR THIS IS IMPORTANT" everytime Gandalf does his sidequest....

Which leaves a giant plot-hole, if Gandalf and crew knew Saron was on the rise, why did everyone just drop their shit for 50 years? makes no sense.

If Jackson just followed the book things would be alot better.

Yeah, but while book-accurate film adaptations would undoubtedly be great for those of use who are familiar with said books...it kind of shafts people who are new to the series. You can either have book-accurate films that are hours and hours long (The Stand, anyone? Dune, anyone?), or you can have a few changes here and there to fit a more reasonable time.

But people are going to bitch regardless of which one is picked - Wah, it's too long! Wah, it's not accurate! - anyway, so it's pretty stupid either way.

Honestly, I fail to see the harm in expanding upon existing characters to make them a little bit more believable and sometimes relatable, especially in instances like the Necromancer; who only had a couple of mentions in the book and isn't revealed to be Sauron until the LotR novella. Oh, shit, Azog's not dead and Bolg's not his kid anymore? Oh golly, Thorin has more inflection and inner turmoil due to being hunted by a bitter rival and coping with the infatuation with the treasure hoard? Wait a minute, why is Gandalf explaining his motives? Wizards aren't supposed to justify things because they just don't give a fuck, why would he explain himself to the people he's stuck with for a year plus? Oh, no, the movie Orcs are more violent than the book Orcs, because The Hobbit is a children's story with absolutely no mature concepts or thought-evoking parallels to our own world!

Yeesh.

What's next, people getting their knickers in a twist because Jackson removed William's talking purse and because Tauriel didn't exist in the book (aw shit, creative liberty, run away)? Too many people are far too engrossed in petty detailing that anything that divulges from their personal idea of perfection is an unnecessary addition; especially if that addition just might actually add a little more depth to otherwise simple (and frankly, rather bland) characters.

Besides, I much prefer the current Company of Dwarves to the book's. Variety and uniqueness is a lot better than a bunch of colorful hoods and oddly-colored beards, IMO.

And Tauriel/Killi works. Fuck you uppity purists and those sticks in your asses. WHAT, AN ELF CAN'T BE WITH A DWARF?! IT'S NOT ABOUT RACE, DAMMIT!

/rant

I would have loved to see Del Toro's art style in the LOTR universe.

It's certainly be something to potentially see he and John Howe collaborate on something like this.

[Shiroi Koumori]

Re. Tauriel and Kili.
This just kills the awesomeness of the Legolas Gimli friendship in lotr.

The dol guldur sublot should not have happened. It just confuses people.
Gamdalf has some idea of Sauron, but he believes what Saruman said that the ring was already somehere in the ocean and thinks that Bilbo got some sort of magic ring that is not the one ring. There are some lesser magic rings in middle earth other than those numbered in the lotr poem.

As for the hobbit book, Tolkien actually wanted to revise it after he published lotr, but he never got to do it. So peter is doing some sort of his own adaptation.

[KaZudra]

WHAT? NO! IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THERE AND BACK AGAIN!

If my memory of the novel is serving me correctly (it's been awhile since I've read it), the Five Armies are the Men of Lake-Town, the Dwarves (both the quest company and the other lands' Dwarves, most notably the Iron Hills ones), the Mirkwood Elves, the Goblins, and the Dol Guldur Orcs.

Of course the only other Hobbit thing I've been exposed to in the last year aside from these was when I found and rewatched my old VHS of the '78 (I think it was '78) animated one, and that one was crazy inaccurate to the book.
Yeah, but while book-accurate film adaptations would undoubtedly be great for those of use who are familiar with said books...it kind of shafts people who are new to the series. You can either have book-accurate films that are hours and hours long (The Stand, anyone? Dune, anyone?), or you can have a few changes here and there to fit a more reasonable time.

But people are going to bitch regardless of which one is picked - Wah, it's too long! Wah, it's not accurate! - anyway, so it's pretty stupid either way.

Honestly, I fail to see the harm in expanding upon existing characters to make them a little bit more believable and sometimes relatable, especially in instances like the Necromancer; who only had a couple of mentions in the book and isn't revealed to be Sauron until the LotR novella. Oh, shit, Azog's not dead and Bolg's not his kid anymore? Oh golly, Thorin has more inflection and inner turmoil due to being hunted by a bitter rival and coping with the infatuation with the treasure hoard? Wait a minute, why is Gandalf explaining his motives? Wizards aren't supposed to justify things because they just don't give a fuck, why would he explain himself to the people he's stuck with for a year plus? Oh, no, the movie Orcs are more violent than the book Orcs, because The Hobbit is a children's story with absolutely no mature concepts or thought-evoking parallels to our own world!

Yeesh.

What's next, people getting their knickers in a twist because Jackson removed William's talking purse and because Tauriel didn't exist in the book (aw shit, creative liberty, run away)? Too many people are far too engrossed in petty detailing that anything that divulges from their personal idea of perfection is an unnecessary addition; especially if that addition just might actually add a little more depth to otherwise simple (and frankly, rather bland) characters.

Besides, I much prefer the current Company of Dwarves to the book's. Variety and uniqueness is a lot better than a bunch of colorful hoods and oddly-colored beards, IMO.

And Tauriel/Killi works. Fuck you uppity purists and those sticks in your asses. WHAT, AN ELF CAN'T BE WITH A DWARF?! IT'S NOT ABOUT RACE, DAMMIT!

/rant

It's certainly be something to potentially see he and John Howe collaborate on something like this.

I think the new characters worked just fine, I just wished Jackson would keep the LoTR content in LoTR (Sauron and such) hinting is good, but this was kinda overdoing it.

Jackson for more Tolkien novels? sure, just leave LoTR in LoTR, Character cameos and reoccurring LoTR characters is fine, but reminding us that it exists every waking moment got old quick.