(avg. read time: 19–39 mins.)
I went to see this movie out of obligation, just to get it over with. I was determined to have fun, even if the movie would not provide it, so I dressed up in my award-winning Gandalf costume and went with a friend. For my lowered expectations, it still disappointed me.
Beginning at the Ending
What are my problems with this movie? The beginning … and almost everything else. As I mentioned already, the opening scene should have been the ending of the previous movie, instead of the empty ending it had. But it is also badly executed and makes pointless changes from the book that are detrimental to the movie. First, the Master flees the town with a boat full of gold, just in case the audience didn’t know he is supposed to be a cartoonish bad guy. The Master’s attempt to flee with a lot of gold does not happen until the end of the book. Here, he leaves while the town is burning and people who try to get in the boat are pushed away. He dies when Smaug falls on top of him (and it will turn out later that no one noticed this happening). This will create another problem that I will mention later, but it’s a shame he couldn’t have taken Alfrid with him so that two terribly written characters could have exited this movie for the price of one.
Then we have Bard doing his best to stand his ground and fight Smaug. Two problems are created by this storyline. One, it was pointless to put him in prison if he was just going to escape through the most improbable of means before it was too late anyway (I guess it’s a good thing the Master tried escaping by boat down this particular waterway, otherwise Bard might have died in there). Two, he ends up breaking the pointless rule in the second movie that a dragon like Smaug could only be defeated by a black arrow fired from a wind lance. He fires the black arrow, but he has to use a makeshift bow with his son serving as the riser section. And Smaug dies because he spent too much time taunting and charging instead of shooting fire like he has everywhere else in Esgaroth.
Smaug’s death itself is also overdramatic because of the way Jackson decided to shoot it. Bard has to wait until about the last possible second to shoot the arrow while Smaug charges at him. When the arrow hits, he crashes, but he has enough life left in him to thrash around, then fly up high in the air, then plummet to his final resting place, like he is a drama king breathing his last. In the book, all of this is done differently. Bard does indeed stay behind, but it is to organize the last defense of the town and to protect the people fleeing on the lake. He spends all of his arrows in the attempt, except for his favorite (and considered lucky) black arrow, which is exactly as it is described, not a fire poker turned into an arrow. As he prepares to fire it, a thrush perches on his shoulder and—since he is of the race of Dale and able to understand the bird—it tells Bard about the weak spot in Smaug’s armor by his left breast. Bard fires his black arrow and shoots Smaug out of the sky, at which point he crashes down and takes Esgaroth into the lake with him (not before Bard escapes, though). Nothing was wrong with this version of the story, except the filmmakers apparently have a thing against birds talking, since none of the birds that talk in Tolkien’s stories talk in their film adaptations. But since we are supposed to accept that Wizards can speak with insects, I don’t see how this is supposed to be a problem for the adaptation.
We Survived, But Did We Want to?
When everyone gets to shore in the morning, the sunlight reveals a few more bad decisions by the people who made this movie. The first one is the continuation of the comically empty romance between Tauriel and Kili. In this particular scene, Kili not only suddenly learns Elvish so as to speak it to Tauriel, but their overly dramatic blocking (combined with Legolas’s sudden dramatic appearance in the background) looks like something out of a soap opera. I am not creative enough to come up with a good name for this soap opera (though I am inclined toward The Daft and the Senseless), but whatever it is, it would fit better there than in The Hobbit.
The second one is keeping Alfrid in the movie. Even if you didn’t kill him off, it’s not as if he needed to come back. He is another aspect of this movie that accomplishes nothing except to annoy and alienate the audience and to pad out the running time. In this particular scene, he stands in for the Master of Lake-town in the book, who the crowd accuses of being a coward that they would rather replace with Bard. While Bard is willing to abide by the Master’s authority, the Master takes even more pressure off of himself by redirecting the crowd’s anger to the Dwarves who caused Smaug to come out of the mountain and attack them. This was a demonstration of the Master’s shrewd political mind and his skill in crowd manipulation. Alfrid, by contrast, absolutely sucks at this, like he does at everything. He fails in his attempt at crowd manipulation and absolutely no one is buying what he is selling. Even the people in the movie know that Alfrid is a horribly written character who should just leave. Unfortunately, he won’t leave for another hour-and-a-half.
The third one is the confused notions about geography that the filmmakers with ample access to maps seem to have about Middle-earth. Since everything seems to happen quickly after Smaug dies, we have a few characters and armies that move at absurdly fast rates. The book does not precisely indicate how much time passed between Smaug’s death and the Battle of the Five Armies, but it seems to be a few weeks at most. In the movie, it’s like two days. Thranduil and his army arrive the day after Smaug’s death, despite the fact that they live in Mirkwood, specifically the Woodland Realm, probably 100 miles away at most as the bird flies. The Iron Hills are even further away, yet Dáin shows up on the day after a message was sent to him. But the prize for most absurd travel speed goes to a three-way tie that starts here with Legolas, Tauriel, and Bolg. All of them go to Gundabad and come back in the space of two days, even though Gundabad is over 250 miles away as the bird flies. It is possible that this problem has to do with Jackson intending to have more time elapse between these events, but not showing it. But given all of the other problems with adapting Middle-earth characters, history, and other details, I am not willing to give the benefit of the doubt here.
The White Council
But before we can go any further here, we must wrap up the problems in the Gandalf storyline. I skipped over all of this in the last movie because I had already explained my problems with it in Part 2, but in the last movie Sauron captured Gandalf and for some unexplained reason decided not to kill him, even though he is probably his strongest adversary in Middle-earth (or will be, at least). Galadriel—and later Elrond, Saruman, and Radagast—arrive to bust him out. In the process, they have to fight off the Nazgûl. And frankly, they might be the fakest looking thing in these movies. How has over a decade passed and Weta’s visual effects of the Nazgûl have gotten worse? This is one of several fights in the movie that has zero suspense because we know all of these characters survive until LOTR, so nothing bad is going to happen to them here.
But the bigger problem is how overpowered the movie has made Galadriel in this situation. In Tolkien’s story, it takes the White Council’s combined efforts to banish Sauron from Dol Guldur, after which he reemerges in Mordor. Here, Galadriel does it singlehandedly in a form that looks like it came from The Ring rather than The Lord of the Rings. If she is this powerful, it makes you wonder why the others were even there.
In another bit of heavy-handed allusion to LOTR, this whole scene ends with Saruman saying while looking in the direction of the camera, “Leave Sauron to me.” These attempts at transference are just tiresome at this point. Sorry Peter Jackson, actions like this do not make me connect this movie to fond memories of LOTR; they make me want to disown it.
Whiplashing from Best to Worst
When the scene shifts back to Erebor, we see that there is one little bit in the film that is movie-only that I actually liked for its foreshadowing of an important piece of continuity with the book. When Thorin is still maniacally searching for the Arkenstone, even to the point of threatening the lives of his fellows, he happens upon Bilbo and demands for him to show what is in his pocket. Bilbo reveals that it is an acorn he took from Beorn’s garden. Thorin expresses surprise that he has carried it all this way and Bilbo says it is because he plans to plant it in his own garden as a reminder of this adventure. For the first time in the movie and the first time in a long while, we see Thorin soften and show appreciation for Bilbo’s simplicity and how different he is from himself. I will get to what this scene foreshadows later, but let it never be said that I didn’t find something positive in this movie. I liked this short scene and all that it represents. And I love what it sets up toward the end of the movie. It was the best.
But then that is followed up with the worst. There is a thread that runs through this movie concerning the relationship between Bard and Alfrid. Alfrid tries sucking up to Bard because Bard is the new leader of the people of Lake-town and Alfrid’s essential function is that of a remora (that fish that hangs out under various sea creatures, most memorably sharks). And multiple times Bard tries to hand off responsibilities to Alfrid and Alfrid not only resents it each time, but he also intentionally fails in every task he is given. The most egregious example is when Bard tells Alfrid during the battle to take his family to the great hall and to guard them with his life, at which point he abandons them as soon as he is out of sight and goes to dress up as a woman to avoid combat. He even has to throw in a line like, “abandon the cripples,” which is something a child would probably not even dare to write for this character because it is so cartoonishly asinine. Having Bard put so much trust in this man who steadfastly refuses to do anything right also undermines our perception of him. If he is supposed to be such a wise and righteous guy, why does he put so much reliance on a completely unreliable person?
One Awful Character Leads to Another
Speaking of awful characters, movie Thranduil reappears when an Elvish army shows up while Alfrid is supposed to be on watch. He brings food and supplies with him as well, but when Bard thanks him for it, he tells him he did not come to help them, but to take what is his. In other words, the aid is a heartless hearts and minds campaign so that Bard and his people might support his claim. What exasperates me about this scene is that it is precisely the opposite of the book, which had a perfectly good version of this scene. Thranduil and his army do initially show up to take of the treasures in the mountain after they hear of Smaug’s death, but when they see the state of the people of Lake-town (their trading partners), they provide them with aid, including help in building shelters for the winter. Thranduil never callously rebuffs Bard’s gratitude because he is something other than a hippo butt leech. In fact, he supports Bard’s claim on a share of the treasure due to his lineage (being a descendant of the last Lord of Dale), the fact that Smaug had taken treasure from Dale, and the need of the people to rebuild and renew what Smaug had destroyed. Whatever selfish desire he might have had for the treasure in Erebor has been subsumed by compassion, friendship, respect for others, and wisdom.
Dragon Sickness and the Filmmakers Saying, “Who Cares?”
The scene then cuts back to Erebor. At this point, some have questioned why Thorin gave Bilbo a mithril shirt when Thorin had just started a conflict and he certainly could have used it. In the book, in addition to being a preparation for battle (as it is in the movie), this gift is an advance payment for his share of the treasure. It is also said that it was made for a young Elf-prince long ago. This also points to something that is represented visually rather than explained verbally in the film: Dwarves are taller and stouter than Hobbits. While Thorin certainly could have used a mithril shirt, the one he gave to Bilbo does not fit him. Though these movies have plenty of problems in themselves and in relation to the book, this is not one of them.
However, this movie’s portrayal of dragon sickness does have some problems. First, it is too much of a focus in this movie, as it envelops most of Thorin’s character arc in it. Second, it seems heavy-handed to have either Thorin’s voice or Bilbo’s hearing of it receive an undertone of Smaug’s voice to emphasize how much like a dragon he is becoming in his greed. Although the comparison is not untoward, this way of doing it is overly dramatic. Third, though Thorin’s line is apparently more susceptible to dragon sickness, the audience is never given a reason why the other Dwarves are not affected. If dragon sickness itself was better explained and if someone had laid out the means by which one can avoid it—which would not have taken long—this aspect of the film would not be a problem. But no, more time had to be dedicated to padding, padding, and more padding. Fourth, Gandalf says in conversation with Bilbo that dragon sickness seeps into the hearts of all who come near this mountain. That statement is not only manifestly untrue, but it also raises the question of why, if Gandalf knew or thought this, he would encourage Thorin to retake Erebor. With this addition, the movie makes it seem like Gandalf was setting Thorin up for failure. The slightest qualification in his statement—such as, “if they are not careful”—would have made its inclusion more logical, even if not entirely satisfying. This could have even been the point at which Gandalf explains to Bilbo how one avoids dragon sickness. Fifth, Thorin gets over his dragon sickness by replaying lines of dialogue in his mind and having a hallucination on the golden floor. To be fair, the movie is trying to do something that the book didn’t in terms of explaining why Thorin didn’t join the battle at first and why he joined when he did.
They could have done one thing to make this work and bring together the whole trilogy in one moment. Whether someone brings him up or Thorin does it himself, have Thorin think of Bilbo. Bilbo has no desire for the vast horde of wealth; he simply came along for the adventure and he came to care about the Dwarves’ cause. He’s not so concerned to bring back a caravan of gold and jewels to his Hobbit hole. He’s more interested in this acorn he has been carrying and about the home itself. He misses his food, his drink, his furniture, his books. When Bilbo had a chance to leave, he stayed with the group because he wanted to help Thorin reclaim his home, not his wealth. Such reflection would lead Thorin to remember the importance of the simpler things in life and that his word, his bond, and his trustworthiness are more valuable than any physical treasure. This would further build up to Thorin’s last scene and make it even more poignant. But alas, the filmmakers didn’t see it that way.
Earth-Eaters
When we cut back to Azog the Narrator, he mentions these creatures the Orc army is using to lead them through the mountains to Erebor. He calls them the Earth-eaters. Between this name and their appearance later on, it looks like Peter Jackson really wanted to make a Tremors movie and decided he would throw this into The Hobbit to test the waters for how people would receive a Middle-earth spinoff of the Tremors series. You get no points for guessing that these creatures are not in the book, though I have seen an extended edition clip where Gandalf refers to them as “were-worms,” which are never described and may not exist in Tolkien’s world, despite being referenced in The Hobbit. Their invention just creates questions as big as they are. Why were they only used to tunnel through a mountain and not used to wipe out the opposing armies? If they tunneled through the mountain, why couldn’t they be used to tunnel into Erebor so as to make it vulnerable to attack and to create more openings through which to plunder the treasure? Why and how did they immediately disappear after they finished the tunnels for the Orcs? Why include them in the movie just to do something so insignificant? Jackson really went out of his way to insert an Easter egg referencing the creature(s) that ate Andy Serkis in Jackson’s King Kong movie back in 2005. It wasn’t worth it.
This Is the Story of a Boy Who Made a Battle That Drowned the Whole Film
As for the Battle of the Five Armies itself, I have a lot of problems with it that I will lay out over the next many paragraphs. I will have plenty of space to do it because the battle clocks in at 40+ minutes in a movie with a pre-credits runtime of around 130 minutes. Of course, the battle is even longer in the extended edition and I have made the mistake of watching clips from it, with plenty more cases of dumb, overindulgent, yet still unengaging action. But as I said, I am not here to review extra trash.
To stick with the theatrical edition, I will start with some general issues. You remember the Siege of Gondor and the Battle of Pelennor Fields in the Return of the King movie? You remember how well the whole long sequence went over with audiences with how detailed and well-paced it was? Well, this movie essentially tries to redo that battle with a much smaller battle. And though I think that ROTK would have been better served to follow the book more closely in regard to the aforementioned siege and battle, I join the consensus in praising the movie’s supremely well-done battle. It was well paced, tense, had multiple sways of emotion, and felt like it was constantly building by adding new features, characters, and armies into the fray at the right times (rather than all at once). This battle, on the other hand, is horrendously drawn out, lacks tension thanks to the action sequences throughout the trilogy, has little emotional range, and it never feels like it builds; it just continues for a long time in movie terms. It too would have been better served to follow in the book’s footsteps. Rather than summarize the whole battle here, I will make notes throughout the following on where the book did this battle better.
The first problem I have with the details of this battle is that Thranduil is reluctant to be a part of it. He even tries to bugger off at one point when he deems it no longer convenient for him to stay and fight. At first, the movie tries to create suspense as to whether the Elves will fight and then they jump over the Dwarves’ shield and spear wall, completely nullifying its purpose, instead of flanking the enemy. In the book, the Elves, Men, and Dwarves have a council together and hastily draw up a plan to take positions on the mountain after they see tidings of the incoming army of Goblins and Wolves. When the army comes into position to be caught in the pincer attack, the Elves are the first to charge because of their particular hatred for the Goblins. Thranduil is neither selfish nor a coward. I promise, Jackson, it would not have hurt you to follow the book.
The most hilarious problem is with the appearances of the Trolls. The Trolls were not in the book, but as we already established, they were in the battle in ROTK, so they need to be here, too. However, that logic did not manage to rope in an Oliphaunt to this battle; it almost seems like Jackson and co. have some restraint. I say “almost” because the ways the Trolls look say otherwise. Somehow, with over a decade of development in visual effects technology, these Trolls look worse than the Trolls in the original trilogy, and those Trolls weren’t exactly the most dazzling part of the visual effects. The ways they are designed are not only grotesque, but asinine. The first Trolls we see have trebuchets attached to their backs from which the Orcs fire rocks at Dale. I’m just saying, maybe this isn’t the battle for trebuchets (besides, all they do is fire at buildings, not at armies) and these Trolls would certainly be of better use in close combat. Another Troll has this triangular rock attached to his head, which he uses to ram a wall and then die. The Troll that threatens Bard’s family looks like he has been underfed and is especially dim-witted (even for a Troll), as he stops trying to kill the family and then watches Bard come all the way down a long pathway on a cart, as if he is just waiting to die. Maybe this tells a tragic story about the Troll’s life and how he just wants it to end, or I would think that if I could not just attribute what I see to incompetent action direction. The Troll that almost kills Alfrid before last-second save #1362759 is horribly deformed for some reason. It makes you wonder why Azog brought him along instead of a Troll better fit for battle. But the one who takes the stupidity cake is the Troll that Legolas kills. His eyes have been cut out and his limbs have been removed and replaced with giant flails for his arms and giant maces for his legs. How did anyone think this was a good idea? Who looked at this design and said, “Yes, that’s the Troll we need”? Who thought it made any sense whatsoever? How would it be practical? Who wrote this trash?
Now let’s talk about Bilbo’s participation in this battle. In the book, Bilbo does not participate. He disappears, goes up on a high ridge with others to watch the battle, then gets knocked out by a falling rock as the Eagles swoop in to join the fray. He hears about how the battle concluded when he awakens. At that point, he meets Thorin one last time and they have their famous deathbed dialogue. In the movie, Bilbo joins in, but his involvement gets absurd. He somehow climbs up on the high ridge of Ravenhill where Thorin, Dwalin, Fili, and Kili head, but even they did not climb up there because it is a steep ridge covered in ice. So how did he get up there? And when he arrives his participation in combat is especially ridiculous, because not only does he kill several Orcs by throwing little rocks at their heads (no sling or anything, and despite them wearing helmets), but he never misses once. He does get knocked out as Bolg passes by, because for some strange reason Bolg doesn’t feel like killing him, nor does any other Orc, but this unconscious state lasts for a far shorter time than in the book. Honestly, I would not have had a problem with the last part of the battle being told in flashback as it was in the book. And while Bilbo is more active in the movie, his activity is absurd so that it does not present an attractive alternative.
I mentioned earlier how Thorin holds back from the battle and eventually decides to go forth after having an hallucination and replaying lines of dialogue in his mind. As he makes his way to the Dwarves, instead of simply having him apologize and give the command to go forth, Jackson decides to slip in a pointless line from Kili about not sitting behind walls of stone while others fight their battles for them. Though Kili does not yet know that Thorin’s mind has changed, this line is pointless because it doesn’t change anything or affect Thorin in the slightest. It is there because they needed another line for the trailer.
Can You Make It More Absurd? Challenge Accepted!
But how the battle goes from here is mostly out of keeping with the book, because the filmmakers decided to do almost everything wrong in this battle. In the book, the armies of Elves, Men, and Dwarves catch the army of Goblins and Wolves between the hammer and the anvil, and it seems that they would make it out of this affair. But then the main host comes over a hill led by Bolg, at which point the combined armies overwhelm the Elves, Men, and Dwarves, all but guaranteeing the latter’s destruction. But then a wall comes down and Thorin’s company emerges. Thorin rallies the Dwarves and whoever else is around and spearheads a charge toward Bolg in an attempt to seize the tactical advantage. However, he goes too fast, his force is vastly outnumbered, and many of those who followed this charge died in the process, which leaves Thorin and kin surrounded near Bolg and his bodyguards. This failed charge ultimately leads to Thorin’s death, as well as the deaths of Fili and Kili, his nephews. In the movie, the emergence of these thirteen Dwarves is enough to turn the tide of the battle (because remember, though only a few are warriors, they are all nearly invincible commandos). The reinforcement army doesn’t show up until much later and it is cut off at the pass so that it accomplishes nothing (a familiar theme by this point). The book battle is much more dramatic and tense, while giving Thorin a tragic hero’s death, which is also a more sensible one than he got in the movie.
One of the most egregious examples of convenience in this whole trilogy happens after Thorin leads his charge. He meets Dáin in the battlefield and Dáin says he hopes Thorin has a plan. Thorin says, “We’re going to take out their leader.” And I guess those were the words to an obscure spell because super rams suddenly materialize saddled, bridled, and ready to go. Thorin’s company didn’t bring them along for the journey. In the theatrical edition, Dáin’s host didn’t bring them, and neither did the Elves or Men. Thus, if I only saw the theatrical edition, I would be forced to conclude that they materialized out of thin air. And I call them “super rams” because they are the means by which Thorin, Dwalin, Fili, and Kili ascend up the cliff to the high ridge where Azog is, and these goats are able to jump super high and move at incredible speed while carrying Dwarves across the ice-covered cliffs. The apathy of the filmmakers is becoming more and more blatant by this point. They just want this to be over with, like we do.
Though I generally refrain from commenting on the extended editions, there are times when I catch clips online, and this is one of them. In that edition, there was actually a Dwarf cavalry riding rams, and there was even an absurd chariot pulled by a team of them. Thus, there is an explanation of where they came from, although that edition also just accentuates that they must have magical abilities to do the mind-numbing things they do. The problem, then, for the theatrical edition is in the editing because we never once see the goats until this scene. Jackson and co. created this massive convenience through a continuity error that I guess they hoped no one would notice.
This is more minor, but when Gandalf sees the four Dwarves on their super rams, he seems to show that his eyesight is as good as Legolas’s, because he can tell who all four Dwarves are from such a great distance. When he names them off, he tells Bilbo that Thorin is taking his best warriors with him. This has clearly been proven by precisely zero action sequences over the span of the trilogy. At no other point have the filmmakers prepared the audience for thinking that Dwalin, Fili, and Kili are any better warriors than the other practically invincible commandos. The real reason why these four are going is because three of them are going to die—since the movie will follow the book on at least this point—and there needed to be an extra Dwarf up there to protect Bilbo when the writers decided to put him in greater danger. Why Dwalin? I have two guesses and they may not be mutually exclusive. One, Dwalin was thought to stand out as particularly burly and surly. Two, the writers put the names of the other ten Dwarves in a hat and drew out Dwalin. Also, the super rams have Earth-Eater Syndrome, because they disappear when the plot no longer deems them as necessary.
When I first watched these movies, a scene near the end of this movie captured for me what was wrong with so much of the action, especially involving the Dwarves. Dwalin warns Thorin of an incoming band of Goblin mercenaries, no more than a hundred, to which Thorin responds, “We’ll take care of them.” That hit right on the head of the nail what was my major problem with the action. If there is no tension, no concern that two Dwarves are about to fight 100 Goblins, then what could be a threat to these guys? If nothing is a real threat to them until the plot absolutely requires it, why should I get invested in the action? What’s worse is that Thorin and Dwalin kill all of these Goblins off-screen, which reinforces just how little of a threat they posed.
As an aside, I know a potential pushback here could be with reference to Legolas and Gimli in the LOTR trilogy. In the Battle of Helm’s Deep they kill 85 Uruk-Hai between them (83 in the book). The difference is that they never had to kill all of them at once with no one to back them up. They were two elite fighters surrounded by hundreds of comrades in a night-long battle. Since they were in a fortress facing an oncoming charge from an advantageous position with multiple times where their enemies were bottlenecked, they were also in favorable circumstances to take down so many over a much longer time span. And they also didn’t kill them all off-screen as if they were never going to have problems.
After this, the film cuts back to Thranduil attempting to leave the battlefield with a small band of other Elf warriors. Tauriel stands in their way to stop them from leaving. In the course of the dialogue Thranduil tells Tauriel, “What you feel for that Dwarf is not real.” I have given this adaptation of Thranduil a lot of flak, but I will give him partial credit for saying what the audience is thinking about her romance with Kili. It is only partial credit because of what happens later in the movie.
We also get here our sendoff for a truly awful character. I already mentioned Bard saving Alfrid, but I did not give the context for that scene. After intentionally failing at some other tasks, Alfrid has dressed up as a woman. And while some of the women go off to help the men in combat, Alfrid is gathering up a pile of gold coins he found and putting them into his breasts. This is how he looks when he walks out of the movie (he dies in a stupid fashion in the extended edition where he ends up partially in the mouth of a Troll, but who cares?). His arc ends as pointlessly and unsatisfyingly as it began, which I suppose is befitting for this pointless and awful character. One thing that amused me about his exit was something my friend noted when we saw it on opening night. The dialogue, the way Alfrid poses, and the fact that Bard’s kids are in the background makes it look like Alfrid is breaking up with Bard. It is as if he is saying, “I’m fed up with you, Bard. You can keep the kids, I’ll take the money.”
As noted before, Fili and Kili die in this part of the movie. In the book, they die beside their uncle while defending him from the Goblin hordes that surround them. They give their last full measure in dedication to their uncle and receive honorable burials with him in keeping with how they died. In the movie, their deaths are significantly less dignified as both of them die restrained and helpless, overcome by the power of a single Orc, despite killing them by the droves thus far. And neither are by Thorin’s side when they die. This was all to serve a greater purpose of … who knows.
I want to comment more on Kili’s death scene, but before that, I want to make a note about Legolas in this battle. It is simply amazing how many awful over-the-top stunts they fit into such a small space of his scenes. First, he hitches a ride on a large bat, which he uses to cast death from above, until he decides he doesn’t need the bat anymore, shoots it in the head, and continues to ride it as it kindly drops him off at a nearby tower before it crashes. Then, when the aforementioned CGI abomination loosely considered a Troll tries attacking his tower, he leaps onto it, stabs his swords into its brain, and the Troll responds by politely taking a couple steps and falling forward into the tower so that Legolas will have a bridge just long enough to cross the gap before the Troll falls down the cliff as a corpse. At this point, he has a fight with Bolg. Then after it initially seems like he won, he throws the sword Orcrist at an impossible angle so that it will go through an Orc’s chest tens of feet above him in order for Thorin to use it. But the undeniably worst stunt is when the tower that Legolas is standing on begins falling apart under his feet. Again, this whole battle he has with Bolg has zero tension, because we all know that he survives. But that lack of tension does not excuse the portrayal of Legolas as the long-lost Mario brother when he bounces off of the falling rocks to get to higher, more stable ground. This sequence was not impressive, it was just insulting to the audience’s intelligence. They might as well have played Mario music over it to confirm that they were having a laugh.
Speaking of insulting, let’s go back to the final chapter of this atrociously written sham of a love story. Before Legolas decided to show off one last time that he was un-killable and better than everyone, Tauriel had been engaged in a fight with Bolg. What was so off-putting about this fight was how unnecessary it made Tauriel’s character feel. In the previous movie, she was set up as an Elvish super warrior that was at least on the same level as Legolas. But we have a contrived tragic love story to tell, so she must lose her powers when the plot needs her to. She becomes completely useless in her final battle. She is so incompetent now that she is the reason for Kili dying (as he would not have swooped in to save her if she wasn’t getting her butt handed to her by Bolg, who has no reason to be a match for her), she could not save him when she screwed up, and she could not avenge him after he died. She has to rely on Legolas for that, since he lands the killing blow. Aren’t you so glad they invested so much time into this character and giving her a particular set of skills, skills designed to be taken away when the plot requires it?
I do not have as many problems with Thorin’s fight against Azog (besides the overall criticisms of this storyline I laid out in Part 2). In fact, as they are fighting on ice while Azog constantly swings a rock at the end of a chain around, Thorin actually has a smart moment when he picks up the rock, tosses it to Azog, and steps off the ice sheet, allowing Azog to sink into the freezing water as it tips over. But a modicum of faithfulness to the book requires that Thorin must die. And instead of having him die of mortal wounds in a desperate charge straight into the heart of the enemy, hacking at the Orcs around him until he can no longer lift his limbs, like in the book, the movie has Thorin be smart and stupid in consecutive moments. After he forces Azog under the ice, Thorin decides that he wants to follow Azog as he floats underneath only to discover too late that Azog is playing possum and he gets a sword-hand through his foot for his trouble. This leads to the final struggle in which Thorin and Azog kill each other. This change also makes another part of the battle much less significant. And now at long last I must address it.
Beorn the Pointless
The Eagles and Beorn feature in the Battle of the Five Armies, but not like they do in the book. When the Eagles show up in the movie, their appearance is simply a final assurance of victory. Beorn has but a brief cameo that amounts to nothing. The fact that he ends up doing nothing of significance raises the question of why the movie even kept him in the adaptation process. In the book, the Eagles show up after seeing the massive Goblin army marching from Gundabad. Though their presence certainly helps, the battle remains in doubt for the Free Peoples. The one who gives the battle its final turning point is Beorn, who arrives alone and unexpectedly. He is in bear form and his power has grown so that, at least in the context of this battle, no armor can resist him and no weapon can harm him. He rescues the mortally wounded Thorin, kills Bolg—who was the Goblin leader in the book—and proceeds to go on a tear through the Goblin ranks that no one can stop. Though Beorn is neither friend nor foe, this whole story has shown that he can be a good friend and a terrifying foe. This is the character that Jackson and co. decided to demote to a meaningless cameo appearance in the climactic battle at the point that the result was assured. At least when Tolkien revealed that Beorn can turn into a massive bear, he put that fact to good use. When Jackson and co. portrayed the fact that Beorn can turn into a massive bear, they decided they didn’t have a real use for it (other than as protection for a pursuit they contrived, because the Orcs tracked and kept up with the Eagles for no apparent reason). Then they throw it in one more time at the last second as a mere visual effect.
Thorin’s Not-so-Bad Ending
Despite these terrible changes to the book, I liked how the movie handled the last scene of Thorin and Bilbo. The dialogue does not perfectly replicate the book (e.g., there is no reference to the halls of waiting or renewal of the world, more’s the pity), but it is close in its essence. Thorin talks of parting in friendship and asking for forgiveness while Bilbo does not wish to part with him and is happy to consider him a friend who was gracious enough to bring him on an adventure with him. Thorin wishes Bilbo farewell and encourages him to go back to his simple life and he tells him that if more people valued home above gold, the world would be a merrier place. This echoes, but does not replicate, this line from Thorin in the book: “There is more in you of good than you know, child of the kindly West. Some courage and some wisdom, blended in measure. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.” Naturally, the movie emphasizes home because of a running theme throughout the trilogy, but the message of the line and the context of it strike at the essence of the line from the book. This scene with the performances of two of my favorite actors in this trilogy is one of the trilogy’s few shining moments. It was just a shame that it had to be surrounded by so much garbage. It was a diamond in the rough, to be sure. Another shame was that this scene did not lead into the honorable burials of Thorin, Fili, and Kili because the movie had to feature several layers of fluff, but not an important ritual of closure (except in the extended edition).
But This Was Bad
Instead, we have to go back to finishing off this dreadfully written love story by showing how Tauriel reacts to Kili’s death (I already commented on the Legolas scene preceding this one in Part 1). The superficiality of this romance shines through as the audience cannot buy Tauriel’s reaction. It all seems like checking items off of a list or painting by numbers. We need to have a mournful reaction here because we are committed to featuring this love story, but not adequately telling it. I honestly could not help but mock it. When Tauriel says, “If this is love, I do not want it,” I could only respond, “Don’t worry, it’s not.” When she has to have her dramatic pause and say, “Why does it hurt so much?” I could only respond, “Because the plot requires it.” Another sad feature of this scene was that Thranduil—who had stood in for the audience in doubting that what Tauriel felt was real—now has to stand in for the writers trying to convince the audience when he says that what she felt was real after all. The only way I can make sense of this change is that he was overcome with memory of his wife dying (not paralleled in Tolkien’s work), his grief for the events of the day, and his own idiocy, which clouded the sense he was talking earlier.
But This Was Okay
Fortunately, this scene is followed by another simple, but good one. Bilbo and Gandalf just sit together quietly as Bilbo is sad and Gandalf fills and lights his pipe. It was a kind of inclusio for the beginning of the adventure when Gandalf comes up to Bilbo while Bilbo is smoking his pipe. It was nice to see these two just sit and enjoy each other’s company—as well as a simple pleasure—for a short while after a long battle. They don’t even say anything to each other; they simply exchange looks. And yet this scene is of better quality than so many other scenes of this trilogy decked out with all the bells and whistles of special effects, booming noises, and grand music.
It’s Finally Over
Still, the movie had to change the final lines of the book by expansions and a different tone and emphasis. The context is different because this is not the very end of the story Bilbo tells and it comes at the border of the Shire before Bilbo arrives at Bag End rather than at Bag End itself. They are also not talking about the fallout of the adventure. Instead, the filmmakers must force another connection to LOTR. Bilbo starts by saying that it’s a shame to part with Gandalf because it seems that Wizards bring good luck. The rest of the dialogue plays out like this:
Gandalf: You don’t really suppose, do you, that all your adventures and escapes were managed by mere luck? Magic rings should not be used lightly, Bilbo. Don’t take me for a fool, I know you found one in the goblin tunnels and I have kept my eye on you ever since.
Bilbo: Thank goodness. Farewell, Gandalf.
Here is how the book ends after Gandalf tells Bilbo of the fulfillment of prophecy that I mentioned in Part 3:
Gandalf: You don’t really suppose, do you, that all your adventures and escapes were managed by mere luck, just for your sole benefit? You are a very fine person, Mr Baggins, and I am very fond of you; but you are only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all!
Bilbo: Thank goodness!
The former scene is a statement of suspicion on Gandalf’s part and Bilbo being thankful for his vigilance. The latter scene is Gandalf’s statement of the larger reality in which Bilbo’s adventures have taken place and how he himself is only a small person in that large world, and Bilbo being thankful that he is so small so that he may enjoy his simple life. In this comparison, it becomes plain that a scene that perfectly fits a major theme of the story has been altered so that it fits better with LOTR than The Hobbit. And that characterizes the (unsuccessful) efforts of this entire trilogy.