The third film from Peter Jackson"s trilogy based on The Hobbit is often considered khổng lồ be the worst of the bunch. But it"s not all bad.
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There has been a significant re-emergence of tín đồ interest in The Lord of the Rings lately as a result of Prime Video’s new Middle-Earth series, The Rings of Power. While that series is depicting the legends of Tolkien’s Second Age, the Third Age of Middle-Earth has already been greatly explored on-screen through Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films. Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films are widely regarded as one of the best trilogies of all time, but the Hobbit films have a more complicated legacy. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey started the trilogy off on a decent note, and things got a little better with The Desolation of Smaug, before everything came khổng lồ a close with the final chapter, The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies, in 2014.
The Battle of Five Armies, just like its two Hobbit predecessors, is well-over two hours long. It picks up immediately after the events of the second film, with the long Smaug having been awoken by the Dwarves of Erebor, & now on his way khổng lồ burn the nearby settlement of Laketown. The final installment of the Hobbit film trilogy is certainly the biggest of the three in terms of scale và action, yet it is widely considered lớn be the weakest of the bunch. It unfortunately ended the series (and Jackson’s reign over the franchise) on a bit of a sour note. Here are some of the good và not-so-good things about The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies.
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Not-So-Good: Not Enough Material
The biggest flaw in The Battle of Five Armies is one that had been slowly building with each film in the Hobbit trilogy, but it comes fully into the light in this final chapter. That issue is that there just fundamentally was not enough story in The Hobbit to support a trilogy of films. There was barely enough material khổng lồ make complete stories out of An Unexpected Journey and The Desolation of Smaug, và The Battle of Five Armies sees the story finally crumble under the weight of nearly nine hours of film. The film plays more as a fantasy show’s series finale rather than as a cohesive film in and of itself. Several of the remaining plot threads of the trilogy are unceremoniously and too-easily wrapped up in the first act of the film, and then the rest of the film is building toward và then enacting the titular battle, which isn’t all that exciting to lớn watch.
While the previous two Hobbit films are full of various adventures và different predicaments ranging from stone-trolls to lớn riddles with Gollum và forest spiders to a fire-breathing dragon, The Battle of Five Armies spends most of its time just sitting around an empty mountain while characters debate over what they should be doing instead. The lack of material lớn sustain such a lengthy adventure was a major concern for many fans going into the Hobbit trilogy, as the original book is merely 300 pages in length. Jackson supplemented the trilogy with a lot of material taken from the Lord of the Rings appendices, but even with that, The Battle of Five Armies is an empty shell of a movie. While there is interesting material và ideas on its surface, the further into its runtime you get, the more lifeless và hollow the movie feels. Each scene is squeezed for every ounce of material it can provide, và the result is a film that feels devoid of any passion. Khổng lồ quote Bilbo Baggins from later in his life, The Battle of Five Armies feels thin, sort of stretched, lượt thích butter scraped over too much bread.
Despite what the following two hours bring, The Battle of Five Armies gets off lớn an excellent start with the long attack on Laketown. It’s the climactic moment that everything in The Desolation of Smaug was building toward, and it’s the first và only time in this entire trilogy of films that the audience sees Smaug really let loose his immense destructive power. This power nguồn was teased in the opening flashback of An Unexpected Journey, và then The Desolation of Smaug showed a bit of it as the dragon chased the Dwarven company around Erebor. But it is in the opening of this film that the Hobbit trilogy finally delivers the crazy dragon-breathing kích hoạt that it had been promising for so long.
Smaug is one of the most iconic dragons in fantasy literature, and his depiction in these films really lives up to lớn that reputation. Though he isn’t given a ton of dialogue, as he’s too busy breathing fire, the moments in which Cumberbatch speaks as Smaug are just as incredible as they were in the previous film. He’s intimidating, clever, vain & just an overall terror khổng lồ behold. It is in this opening sequence that the fear so many characters in the series hold regarding the rồng is justified. He utterly decimates Laketown, burning the entire settlement khổng lồ the ground (or lớn the water?) along with so many of the people that called the town home.
The sequence is also the standout moment for Luke Evans as Bard the Bowman. It’s the defining moment for the character và the one big action sequence he is given. The second half of The Desolation of Smaug did a lot of work to set the stage for the sequence, as there is a lot of talk about Bard’s family history with đen arrows & dragons. Actually seeing Bard bring Smaug to his kết thúc is supremely entertaining to watch. It's satisfying lớn watch because the moment is earned, as so much of the previous films were spent building up the conflict with the fiery menace. It's a great way to xuất hiện The Battle of Five Armies, even though it deprives the rest of the film of one of the best aspects of this whole trilogy, the dragon.
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Just because Smaug is killed off in the opening sequence doesn’t mean there isn’t still talk of dragons all over The Battle of Five Armies. Thorin Oakenshield, the leader of the Dwarf company and King Under the Mountain, is inflicted by “dragon sickness” in the film. He becomes obsessed và overly possessive of the gold, jewels and other riches of Erebor, taking on a sickly and reptilian aura. He’s blinded by his greed, & as such, he refuses khổng lồ honor his agreements to Bard và Bilbo, & he refuses khổng lồ barter with the Elves of Mirkwood. He abandons his kin and just generally turns into a really rude dude. Thorin’s sickness is a key part of the Hobbit book and it’s a compelling direction to lớn take the character; unfortunately it’s not very well done in this film.
Firstly, Thorin’s rồng sickness sets in about as suddenly as the second Hobbit movie ends. The last we see of the character in The Desolation of Smaug, he’s being a anh hùng leading his company in a desperate fight against the dragon. But, from the first moment he’s seen in this third film, he has already been overtaken by this greed. Everybody except Bilbo seems to lớn be aware of it already in the opening moments of the film. It’s a change that happens off-screen, & it leaves the audience with a bit of whiplash as the character is instantaneously different from the last time he was on-screen. The change in Thorin’s character is only briefly set up in the previous films, so when it happens in this movie it feels unearned & only included because it was in the book.
This sudden change could be forgiven if the long sickness worked as a story device in the movie, but it’s so poorly handled that it just fumbles most of the film's first half. Instead of developing & exploring Thorin’s obsession through his actions, his dialogue, or any other more concrete avenues, the movie mostly just relies on dramatized dreamlike sequences. There are moments where his voice is altered khổng lồ sound like a dragon, and another where he dreams he’s being swallowed by a lake of gold. Frankly, it’s a bit of lazy screenwriting. Instead of doing the work khổng lồ establish Thorin’s sickness as a real và genuine obsession, Jackson and the other writers just throw in a few dream sequences and call it good. Beyond that, Thorin comes out of his sickness just as quickly (and conveniently) as he entered it. There’s no dramatic scene of someone getting through lớn him, or of him seeing the consequences of his greed; he just has another dream và then decides to get over it.
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Thankfully, Thorin’s dragon sickness isn’t the only focus of the first half of The Battle of Five Armies. The film also spends this time thoroughly establishing the various armies alluded khổng lồ in its title. It's setting up the piece on the chessboard before they eventually clash swords in the film’s climax. The five armies that are depicted in the film differ slightly from those in the original novel. Tolkien states in the novel that the armies were those of Goblins, Wild Wolves, Elves, Men, and Dwarves. The film swaps out a few of these armies for one that made more sense within the story of this trilogy adaptation. The five armies depicted in the film are the Dwarves of Erebor (and the Iron Hills); the Elves of the Woodland Realm; the Men of Laketown, Azog’s army of Orcs from Dol Goldur, and the separate army of Orcs from Mount Gundabad, who were lead by Bolg.
The Battle of Five Armies firmly establishes each of these armies' reasoning for joining this battle. There are differing motivations for each group. It is Thorin's refusal lớn honor his previous agreements that lead to the conflict between the Dwarves, Elves, và Men. Meanwhile, all the time spent in Dol Goldur in the previous two films finally pays off as Azog the Defiler leads an army of orcs sent from there by Sauron himself. As for the orcs from Gundabad, they are less well-defined than those from Dol Goldur, but the subplot of Legolas and Tauriel visiting Gundabad & discovering the army is one of the more interesting parts of the film.
Jackson & the writers behind the Hobbit films certainly had their work cut out for them in defining the different armies of the film’s title. Following five different forces can be a lot lớn ask of an audience, & the orc and wolf armies in particular aren’t super well-established in the original novel. There was a lot of restructuring và maneuvering that had lớn be done in order to make this grand battle make sense within the context of this trilogy. However, the writing team was able to pull through và set the stage for the Battle of Five Armies in a surprising amount of detail. As for the battle itself, well, that’s a little different.
Considering all the work that was put into establishing the five different armies of the battle, it’s immensely disappointing khổng lồ see the actual battle be little more than just a slew of different CGI creatures and people slashing at each other. This is the only major battle of the entire trilogy (not including the Battle of Azanulbizar that was briefly seen in an Unexpected Journey flashback) và unfortunately, it really disappoints. The entire second half of the movie is dedicated lớn the Battle of Five Armies, & the entire thing lacks any sense of focus, direction and overall dramatic weight. There are a few somewhat entertaining moments, but on the whole, the entire battle just washes over the audience without leaving any real impressions of just about anything.
The battle sequences in Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films are some of the best ever put to screen. The Battle of Five Armies from this final Hobbit film, however, pales in comparison to what had been done in those films a decade prior, whether it be khổng lồ the Battle of Helm’s Deep in The Two Towers or either of the major battles of The Return of the King. There’s just way too much going on in the fight for any of it khổng lồ receive the focus it needs. The film jumps from the fighting between Dain’s Dwarves and Azog’s Orcs at the doors of Erebor, khổng lồ a separate fight between Elves, Men & Orcs in the ruin of Dale, and then things only become more complicated when Bolg arrives with his army from Gundabad. It's a mess of different storylines colliding, and the result is what feels like two hours of nonsense exploding on the screen.
There are a few dramatic moments that occur within the battle, such as Thorin’s showdown with Azog, but the rest of the fight is almost entirely made up of silly moments strung together with battle shots composed of incomprehensible CGI. Moments such as Bard riding a cart down a hill and launching it into a troll; Legolas defying gravity by running up bricks from a falling tower, or Dain running down legions of orcs while riding a pig are just so hokey that it’s hard khổng lồ take the battle seriously at all (well, the pig is a little fun at least). The majority of this battle, however, is just a disaster of CGI creatures attacking one another with no real stakes behind it all.
The Battle of Five Armies in this movie happens not from a logical story sense, but from a misplaced need to kết thúc this trilogy with a bang that evokes the grandiosity of the Lord of the Rings films. At the kết thúc of the day, the battle just feels lượt thích a sad bootleg of those previously seen in Jackson's more beloved Middle-Earth trilogy. The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies is not memorable; it’s not all that entertaining, và it’s not a good foot to end this trilogy on. It is certainly the worst of the three Hobbit films, và it’s the clearest illustration showing that The Hobbit should have only been two films rather than a trilogy.
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The Battle Of Five Armies is probably the worst film that Peter Jackson has ever made. As the climax of The Hobbit novel, I don’t think it’s particularly good either. Bilbo bumps his head và Tolkien doesn’t bother khổng lồ write the details for the culmination of the battle. Battle scenes weren’t really his thing – that’s probably where Tolkien & Jackson differ the most – so it’s probably for the best, but still. It feels lượt thích a bit of a cop out.
When you’re asking which armies were in the Battle of Five Armies in The Hobbit though, there are a couple of differences and a little discussion around what is actually quite a clear cut answer. First, we’ll consult Tolkien, và then I’ll go into the nitty gritty details around what often makes people confused.
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“Upon one side were the Goblins và the Wild Wolves, and upon the other were Elves & Men & Dwarves,” writes Tolkien in The Hobbit. So what’s all the confusion about? A lot of it, as is often the case with this sort of thing, comes from the films. Firstly, the nature of the Wild Wolves differs in book và film. In the Jackson, Walsh, và Boyens movies, Wargs và Wild Wolves are nothing more than Orc Horses, as much a character as Brego or Asfaloth. In the books, however, Wild Wolves have a society all of their own. They’re far cleverer, & some even talk. In the books, it’s clear that they are separate from the Goblin force, even though they’re fighting together.
Another point of confusion that stems from the film is that nothing is as explicit on screen. Without an omniscient narrator, why would someone, say, Bilbo, turn to the camera or a Dwarf & say, “And so the Battle of Five Armies begins. Those armies are the Dwarves, Elves, Men, Orcs, và Wild Wolves.” It’s bad dialogue & the film is better off without it. However, it still remains unclear despite being the title of the film.
You have to lớn dive into the appendices khổng lồ really understand which armies are involved in the film version of the battle, Appendix 12 to lớn be precise. These exhaustive behind the scenes documentaries are the best part of the Hobbit trilogy, & even though it feels strange lớn have the film’s title explained in some nook that few will even watch, Jackson’s ngắn gọn xúc tích fits with his trilogy’s expanded vision. While Men, Elves, và Dwarves remain central lớn the alliance of ‘good’, the Wild Wolves are pushed out of the evil picture, forfeiting their place for the Orcs of Dol Guldur và the Orcs of Mount Gundabad.
Go further afield still, and more confusion rears its head. In the 1977 Rankin/Bass animated film of The Hobbit, the good armies are again the same, but joined by the Eagles, while the evil force comprises simply of Goblins. Much like the Jackson, Walsh, và Boyens film, Wargs are just a part of the Orc/Goblin army, rendered useless và forgotten.
If you just read the book, then I understand if you don’t get where the confusion comes from. However, when you địa chỉ the film into the mix, things get a lot more convoluted. Besides, Beorn, Gandalf, and Bilbo are also present in the battle in both the book & the film (Extended Edition only for half a second of Beorn). Why isn’t it therefore the Battle of Eight Armies, including Wizards, Hobbits, and Beornings? I don’t know for sure, but one man (or bear) hardly constitutes an army. Is it unfair that these fighters’ races aren’t represented in the battle’s name? Perhaps, but I think the Eagles have more reason to be aggrieved, being omitted in all but the 1977 animation.
