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[Cindres]

I could probably say more but I only just saw it so I'll need to think about it a bit more and read more impressions to jog my memory a bit. A couple of points, however:
Arthir; figured he'd either get killed satisfyingly and hilariously so we'd get some satisfaction or he'd have a turn of heart and do some good, also possibly before getting inevitably killed. Instead he just keeps being a prick, over and over again, he keeps completely ignoring orders and yet every time he reappears they're just like "oh yeah mate, could you do this for us. Knob."
Comedy moments during fights, the big one that got us in our showing was that huge troll thing diving headfirst into the wall, maybe it wasn't meant to be funny but we couldn't help but laugh.
Billy Connoly being all CGId was incredibly distracting.

I did actually enjoy the movie, preferred it to the second but it was not without its faults.

 

[Cheebo]

You've gotten into the wrong series.

No, the long run times for half the series was well earned and needed. LOTR earned those run times. The source material required it. The Hobbit did not require it at all. They had to make up a lot of material to get to those long run times.

The Hobbit is not LOTR and was never meant to be.

Why didn't Sauron use the worms ever again? He could've sunk Minas Tirith immediately.

Because he never used them until Jackson decided to add them to this movie for no reason other than because it looks cool. In the actual legendirum they are considered imaginary beasts made up by Hobbits. They weren't actually real.

 

[~Kinggi~]

Just saw it. Wasn't crazy about it. Very meh a times. Almost the whole movie was action and no story, which at this point I didn't mind since the action was actually fairly inventive. It had some nice moments to it. I don't think the Hobbit as a series of 3 movies tarnishes the LOTR in any way but it kind of just exists and is there for people wanting more...


One thing I did really like was they definitely had some inventive uses of the different armies. Some nice army related action going on. Still nice to see the whole group again.

 

[Link Man]

I guess I'm the only one who views Alfrid being a jerk and getting away with it as realistic. Not every jerk/crook/villain gets his comeuppance.

 

[jtb]

I guess I'm the only one who views Alfrid being a jerk and getting away with it as realistic. Not every jerk/crook/villain gets his comeuppance.

It can be realistic and still be a ridiculous waste of time.

regardless, I'm just amazed that Peter Jackson made an 8-9 hour film and somehow managed to include almost zero closure to any of the plot arcs. I couldn't believe how rushed the ending felt considering we had just witnessed two hours of largely incoherent CGI action scenes.

 

[Turin]

I guess I'm the only one who views Alfrid being a jerk and getting away with it as realistic. Not every jerk/crook/villain gets his comeuppance.

His character was just a waste of screen time. Screen time that could have gone to Thranduil or Bilbo or, hell, more Christopher Lee would've been cool.

 

[Link Man]

It can be realistic and still be a ridiculous waste of time.

regardless, I'm just amazed that Peter Jackson made an 8-9 hour film and somehow managed to include almost zero closure to any of the plot arcs. I couldn't believe how rushed the ending felt considering we had just witnessed two hours of largely incoherent CGI action scenes.

Well, in the book, Bilbo gets knocked out partway through the battle, and we only hear about the end, so that kind of makes sense.

 

[foxtrot3d]

I saw it and thought it was a fun summer blockbuster romp, but it was pretty brain dead and nonsensical. I think others have accurately and in more words explained why these movies, and specifically this last one are a disappointment. However, I never really cared about "realism" or staying true to the source material, especially after the first two movies, I just cared on whether or not it was a good time and it was.

 

[DrForester]

I guess I'm the only one who views Alfrid being a jerk and getting away with it as realistic. Not every jerk/crook/villain gets his comeuppance.

Realistic? Sure.

A total waste of time? Absolutely.

In the end, Peter and team went deep into appendices and other books to pad this. And to be honest, there is plenty of stuff to do that. That's why the "new" stuff came off so off for me. Why not focus with what you got? If you need to expand, why not expand one of the major deficiencies int he book, namely give the dwarves some characterization.

 

[DeathyBoy]

Realistic? Sure.

A total waste of time? Absolutely.

In the end, Peter and team went deep into appendices and other books to pad this. And to be honest, there is plenty of stuff to do that. That's why the "new" stuff came off so off for me. Why not focus with what you got? If you need to expand, why not expand one of the major deficiencies int he book, namely give the dwarves some characterization.

Dwarves should've been dropping left and right in the first two films to really sell that Thorin was failing, so when they finally took the mountain his dragon madness and self loathing would be amplified by his failure to his people. I mean if it did nothing other than piss off the Tolkien estate, it'd be worth it.

 

[TacticalFox88]

Movie was okay.

Smaug is a Badass motherfucker like always.

Is it sad though, that I thought the coolest part of the film was how completely disciplined the Elven Army was? Getting in formation. Drawing their weapons at the exact same time. Showing Teamwork?

Pretty legit.

 

[Turin]

This is probably just me but I think it'd be pretty cool if they made the next Middle-Earth game about Thranduil. Obviously unlikely though.

 

[rezuth]

Movie was okay.

Smaug is a Badass motherfucker like always.

Is it sad though, that I thought the coolest part of the film was how completely disciplined the Elven Army was? Getting in formation. Drawing their weapons at the exact same time. Showing Teamwork?

Pretty legit.

This was the coolest part of the LOTR intro, now it just kinda felt EH because it was so obviously CGI'ed

 

[Vashetti]

This was the coolest part of the LOTR intro, now it just kinda felt EH because it was so obviously CGI'ed

?

I watched FOTR EE on Blu-ray the other day, and it all looked stunning.

 

[Yrael]

Wow, pretty disappointing. Weak third outing. This REALLY shouldn't have been three movies. They stretched everything thin as they possibly could have.

I agree. The trilogy felt...thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.

Spoiler

I did enjoy the movies, but only as light popcorn fare - the magic and heart of the LotR movies is long gone. It's a real shame...The Hobbit was one of my favourite books when I was growing up.

 

[Mr_Zombie]

I saw the movie yesterday. Overall, it was OK. Costumes, sceneries and effect were spot on, as usual and Martin Freeman as Bilbo stole the whole movie. Every single scene he was was great.

The movie opened with Smaug attacking the city - and that was epic; you could feel the threat, you could feel the helplessness of people from the city. But then the movie moved on to the titular battle of five armies and everything went downhill.

I think there was not enough material in the book to cover the whole movie and the battle itself wasn't as big and epic as the one from The Return of The King. So Jackson started adding scenes and sub plots, and those were awful.

I couldn't help but roll my eyes at all those "look, this is a LOTR prequel!" scenes that otherwise went completely nowhere. The whole Sauron scene, everything regarding Legolas (especially the "find the man they call Strider" ending), replacing army of goblins with army of orcs -- it was way too much. I was OK with little fan service in the first movie (haven't seen the second one >_>) because those were only small scenes, wink here, nudge there; but here there were too much of them and they ended up completely changing the story and the overall tone of the movie.

Also, all the other changes from the book, too much unnecessary fluff: Thorin's madness, Legolas' mother backstory (why should I care?), the love triangle between Legolas, Kili and what's her name (finished with the cringe worthy "why does love hurt so much?! can you please take it away from me!" scene), Alfrid as a joke character (a scene or two with him should be enough; but not pushing him every now and then through the whole movie) etc.

They really shouldn't stretch this 200-pages novel into three 2.5 hours movies.

 

[rezuth]

?

I watched FOTR EE on Blu-ray the other day, and it all looked stunning.

Oh I meant that it looked shit in the Hobbit by comparison, looks fucking amazing in FOTR.

 

[Turin]

My only real criticism on rewatching LotR is that Sauron's early scene where you see him inside Mount Doom is horribly shot.

 

[Alpende]

Saw it yesterday and I was underwhelmed. It was okay and some stuff was ridiculous (Tauriel love line, Legolas' Super Mario jumping blocks sequence). Other stuff was just disappointing, only show Beorn for 5 seconds. What the hell?

I read the gist of it back as it was in the book and that was way better than what they did in the movie. Overall it was just an okay film imo.

Dwarves were badass, Elves were badass and that battle with those Ringwraiths was neat. Galadriel going berserk was cool too.

One last thing, the CG was spotty at times. Smaug looked great but some CG stuff was just too obvious and bad. Too bad they didn't mix real life actors with CG like they did in LOTR.

 

[Ogni-XR21]

Just got home, will now read some impressions from this thread (been looking forward to that). Here's my first thoughts:

- Why could they not end the second movie with the attack on Lake Town? A cliffhanger for what would have been a MUCH better ending than what DoS had with that silly chase sequence?

- One of my biggest issue with these Hobbit movies is the overuse of CGI and the plastic "fake" look it creates. There is a certain studio look (that already started in ROTK) that I find really distracting and this whole movie was all looking like that. The world now feels very Hollywood-like, too artificial and missing that down to earth feel of the LOTR films.

- Some dialogue was really cringe worthy.

- Bilbo was reduced to a side character, even more than in the previous movies.

- Alfrid was just annoying.

- It wasn't really a bloom effect, but something like that which made the movie look even more fake than the 2 other movies.

 

[JB1981]

The color palette was particularly ugly. PJ going nuts with post process digital grading

 

[Red_Man]

I enjoyed the first two quite a bit, and saw this today and hated it. Everything about it was terrible, what a shame too.

Also, am I crazy or was the giant army of Ram riding Dwarfs missing from the movie? What the hell

 

[Curufinwe]

I think you might be the first person I've seen say the ending was terrible.

 

[DrForester]

I would have liked a more proper epilogue. Show Balin and the others going off to reclaim Moria at the end. Show Legolas meet Aragorn, heck, show them capture Gollum.

 

[Cheebo]

I would have liked a more proper epilogue. Show Balin and the others going off to reclaim Moria at the end. Show Legolas meet Aragorn, heck, show them capture Gollum.

You would have never gotten Viggo in this film after he trashed the first The Hobbit film and Peter Jackson's post LOTR output in general. He seems very unwilling to work with Peter Jackson again.

 

[RobbieNick]

Finally saw it today.

Out of all the Hobbit films, this is the one most stretched thin.It's a 90 minute movie turned into 2&1/2 hours.

Outside of comic relief, Alfrid brings NOTHING to the plot. Why is he even there?

Each army has to be shown prepping and then every battle take forever to go through just so they can show some "cool" moments.

There's no real epilogue. Did the humans stay in the dwarf city? Did the dwarves share the wealth? What happened there?

I'd love to see a "book cut" that takes out all the bullshit and just leaves in what was in the book.

 

[Nether!]

Saw this this afternoon.

I guess I'll say what I am sure many people have already said - I think there's a passable movie that can be whittled out of these bloated monstrosities.

 

[DrForester]

There's no real epilogue. Did the humans stay in the dwarf city? Did the dwarves share the wealth? What happened there?

Dain (the dwarf who came to The comapny's aid) became King, and he and Bard rebuilt Dale. Both cities were incredibly prosperous, and the Dwarves and Men were good friends. Even relations with the Woodland elves was good. War would come again, during the War of the Ring, in which the Dwarves and Men retreated into the Mountain. They withheld a long siege, and eventually pushed back and won once word of the defeat of the Moria army at Minas Tirith dispirited the army besieging them. Dain was killed in this time, as well as Brand (Bard's grandson) who was at that point King of Dale. Both their sons would assume rule of Erebor and Dale.

 

[EulaCapra]

Just saw it. My theater decided not to tell us that the 3D showings were all 48fps. This one was MUCH better than the shitty first one for 48fps. Maybe I knew what to expect this time around but the special effects looked much smoother. My problem with the first Hobbit was that some sequences looked like Discovery Channel dinosaur recreation specials. The only problem areas were the beginning with Smaug and all the fire and water that looks more like a video game sequence and somehow the ending where Gandalf parts with Bilbo in that very real bright yellow-green forest. Holy shit that looked like a BBC America 1996 TV movie.

And what was up with that ending? It didn't feel right for a movie trilogy closer. This is what I heard in the audience once Peter Jackson's name popped up on that map:
"Huh?"
:single clap:
"That's it? Was that it?"
"Uh..."
eople SLOWLY get up:
"Check if there's something after this."

 

[R-User!]

I agree. The trilogy felt...thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.

Spoiler

I did enjoy the movies, but only as light popcorn fare - the magic and heart of the LotR movies is long gone. It's a real shame...The Hobbit was one of my favourite books when I was growing up.

Your beggining to feel old Yrael!

But did you see their faces!!!

 

[D23]

Just saw it. Feels like a summer blockbuster.

Was okay to say the least

 

[Curufinwe]

You would have never gotten Viggo in this film after he trashed the first The Hobbit film and Peter Jackson's post LOTR output in general. He seems very unwilling to work with Peter Jackson again.

56 year old Viggo couldn't play 27 year old Aragorn anyway. Not without Tron Legacy-style face altering.

 

[Moff]

saw it and thought it was pretty meh and well... I don't know, irrelevant? I don't really know why I feel like this about the hobbit and LOTR movies. I love fantasy, they look amazing, have good actors, but somehow it just doesnt click. they somehow feel like the movies they play at school in history lessons. you know what's on there is interesting, but you just can't manage to not fall asleep.
fellowship stays the only middle earth movie I really liked.

 

[Mighty Chin]

You would have never gotten Viggo in this film after he trashed the first The Hobbit film and Peter Jackson's post LOTR output in general. He seems very unwilling to work with Peter Jackson again.

Yup and Chris Evans is quitting acting too. I love how these things snowball.

 

[Crisco]

I enjoyed it immensely, definitely better than that piece of shit Hunger Games 3. AUJ is best of The Hobbit but these were all entertaining, well made movies. Fan service at it's finest.

 

[fallengorn]

And what was up with that ending? It didn't feel right for a movie trilogy closer. This is what I heard in the audience once Peter Jackson's name popped up on that map:
"Huh?"
:single clap:
"That's it? Was that it?"
"Uh..."
eople SLOWLY get up:
"Check if there's something after this."

There was definitely more filmed. This whole movie has an issue of excessive padding but also excising a lot of material that would've made the movie work better.

 

[Mario]

Went to see this last night in 3D HFR. Overall, disappointing but I kind of knew it wasn't great going in (figured I'd watch it on a free night to at least have seen them all).

My high level thoughts

- I enjoyed a few of the action scenes.

- the last film should have totally ended on the slaying of Smaug, ending that film on a high note but still with the "cliffhanger" of the impending attacks by multiple forces. Felt so unnecessary to have held that back, and actually made the whole start of the film feel rushed, even if this was a great sequence in an of itself.

- Gandalf had been captured and caged, only for a single orc to be tasked with killing him at an arbitrary time later, allowing him to be rescued just in the nick of time. This made no sense to me other than weak writing to create a convenient situation. I obviously missed something here. And while I enjoyed the fight there (with proto-ringwraiths?), I've felt throughout the whole series that the all the "Necromancer" scenes including these could have been cut and the story would have lost nothing (apart from unnecessary fanservice).

- the Laketown survivors arriving on shore looked terribly out of place with the rest of the film grading and lighting wise, probably because it was likely one of the few scenes filmed outdoors under (somewhat harsh and flat) natural light. Looked like a cheap historical re-enactment.

- Thorin's madness was just terrible. We've done this thing 3 times now to varying degrees, and finished on the worst example of it. Thorin's "will you follow me one last time" speech felt like Jackson begging the audience to hang in there. Gandalf even has that chat with Bilbo in Dale where he is all like "Anyone coming into contact with that dragon gold was going to go mad, I pretty much saw this coming". Wait, what? Didn't think that was a useful thing to better prep the company for?

- Alfrid continuing to betray and skirt responsibility only to be given more responsibility over and over made Bard seem weak and gullible. And it just never went anywhere.

- Giant underground worms that allow orc armies to just pop up anywhere? With no closure to explain why some 60 years later Sauron doesn't use that little ace in the hole?

- Azog "jumping" up through the ice was both predictable and terrible. They could have ended up at the same result without relying on a worn action and horror movie trope. Thorin being mortally wounded before Azog slips under the ice would have been much better.

- Very glad they cut that icy river chase featured in the trailer because that looked ridiculous.


All in all, I'm glad its done. I won't be watching these again, unless there is a fan edit that cuts it down to a single good film.

 

[Wanderer5]

Eh there were a lot of enjoyable moments, through I was especially not happy that they had Smaug over with so fast. Makes me hate how they ended the second movie even more if Smaug was going to get kill within like 10 mins. Why not finish that there instead of having people wait for a year only for it to be done and over with in a few mins?:\ The cliffhanger could have been the armies on the move or such.

 

[y2dvd]

I probably liked it more than the first two Hobbit movies, but that isn't saying much. It just pales compared to any of the LotR movies.

+It was short

-Smaug story should've ended in the 2nd movie.
-Smaug simply letting Bard shoot at him was silly.
-That weasel character got way too much screen time.
-Nothing felt earned:
*Thorin turning good after a random dream
*Thorin's and Bilbo's friendship. Frodo's and Sam's friendship felt genuine.
*Tauriel and that Kili being in love
-The love triangle between Tauriel, Legolas, and Kili.
-Legolas was simply a pouty bitch this entire trilogy and didn't have any memorable action scene. The platforming scene is memorably bad I guess.
-What was the 5th army? Mens, orcs, drwaves, elves and...the eagles? The bats? The trolls? The goblins? What?!
-For a movie called The Hobbit, the one hobbit sure didn't have much screen time. He was a side character in his own movies.
-There were pretty much only two settings in this movie - Laketown and Erebor.
-It bothered me how distracting the dwarves prosthetic were and how spotty some of the cgi were.
-Bilbo was too pouty. At least show us some of that joyful hobbit spirit a little.
-In the battle of armies, the elves kept cocking their bows and arrows at the dwarves, but never shot off. The orcs comes around and initiates the battles. I expected to see arrows fly as a surprise. Nope! Elves jumps to the front line of battle instead. OK!
-I didn't care for anyone. Not even Bard who was probably the most likeable out of the bunch.

I actually thought this movie was average at best but the more I'm thinking about it, the worse it's getting.

 

[LiveFromKyoto]

I had a ball watching this. It was a fun, epic widescreen end to a fairy tale, I enjoyed it much more than the first two. My brain refuses to entertain any detailed nitpicking of it. I see no point.

 

[Hazanko]

Well it was very awkward, wasn't it?

"They call him Strider. Here is his dad's name. You must find out his real name by yourself."

why

why cant you just tell me you turd

I felt bad for the actor for having that say that.

 

[Mr_Zombie]

-What was the 5th army? Mens, orcs, drwaves, elves and...the eagles? The bats? The trolls? The goblins? What?!

In the book it was men, dwarves, elves and eagles vs goblins. But because Jackson wanted so much to replace goblins with orcs for some unnecessary drama/LoTR fanservice while still using goblins, the title stopped making sense since we now have at least 6 armies.

 

[Griffevent]

Earth-eaters (really ?), old Legolas, cheesy lines, terrible pacing, video-games variations of orcs/trolls, unnecessary additions, horrible CGI and expedited ending did it for me.
LOTR marathon scheduled in order to forget the cr*p I've just seen.

 

[Blablurn]

I'm gonna watch it today Pray for Blablurn

 

[Korey]

What was the Orcs' motivation for attacking?

 

[Griffevent]

What was the Orcs' motivation for attacking?

Ordered by Sauron because it's supposedly a crucial place for the conquest of the rest of Middle-Earth (it is not).
In the book, the original reason was because there was a shitload of gold in the now dragon-free mountain (and these were goblins, not orcs).

 

[Atruvius]

Was I the only one who liked Alfrid? I always had a decent chuckle or two in his scenes. I really enjoyed how awful he was.

 

[JBuccCP]

I found myself really enjoying it up until the battle proper started. Smaug was great again, should have been the end of the second one but hey this movie needed some good action somewhere. I was almost rooting for Azog in the battle. Thorin and Thranduil were stubborn greedy dicks. Azog has some personal motivation and was a far better general than the others. He sprang a great trap and had that neat flag thing to command his troops. So of course Peter has him go out like an idiot smashing the ice he's standing on with a big rock.

 

[Curufinwe]

Was I the only one who liked Alfrid? I always had a decent chuckle or two in his scenes. I really enjoyed how awful he was.

I thought he was fine.

Spoiler

But they should have showed him getting his comeuppance.

 

[CapitalismSucks DonkeyBalls]

Cross-post from the OT:

Just saw it this past Saturday. Easily my favorite of the three, although I have yet to see the EE of DoS.

Opening battle was fantastic, Dol Guldur was kickass, and Martin Freeman was again the brightest spark of the film. I thought his interaction with Thorin and then Gandalf at the end were very moving. Lee Pace was very good as was Armitage.

CGI was awful and detracting, as has been the bane of the entire trilogy. Anyone else notice Billy Connolly was almost entirely CG? Took me out of the movie in several spots.

Lastly, I loved the callbacks to LotR. Between the Dunedain mention and the beginning of Fellowship (along with the subtle music cue), I appreciate PJ's fan service in those moments.

As a whole, it was a decent trilogy. It will never be a cinematic landmark like the OG trilogy, but at least it's over.