Tag Archives: the hobbit

Setter’s ‘Spectives: Criticizing ‘The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies’ … a Lot

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Setter Drawing for Blog 082613Somehow I knew The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies wasn’t going to be good.

Oh, sure, I hoped it would be magnificent. Better than its predecessors. A real winner.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t. It was a mess. And it had none of the soul that director Peter Jackson’s previous installments in the series featured, despite its sizable length and myriad characters.

It’s a shame. I would’ve liked a greater film. But I expected this, sadly. Drawing out the last part of J.R.R. Tolkien’s book didn’t seem like a good idea to me, and the picture felt bloated, padded. It didn’t feel real.

The battle scenes had little excitement. The dialogue seemed stilted. And there was the introduction of a fight to save the wizard Gandalf that smacked of falseness, artificiality. It didn’t work.

Too bad. I wanted it to succeed. I like Jackson’s work a lot. I just didn’t like this one.

And that makes me sad. I don’t know why, but it does.

Will I see it again? Who knows. Maybe it’ll be more interesting on second viewing. I doubt it, though. The idea of that doesn’t appeal to me.

I wish it did.

Skip’s Quips: Not Getting Excited for ‘The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies’

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Blog Sketch 082813Have I lost that lovin’ feeling for the characters of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth?

I just can’t seem to get too psyched over the prospect of seeing The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies in the theater today, and I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because the last film in the series, The Desolation of Smaug, has some sloppy filmmaking moments in it. To be sure, they are countered by strong sections and some terrific sequences, but overall, I feel like director Peter Jackson’s Hobbit installments don’t have the immediacy of his previous Lord of the Rings pictures.

I miss that. Yet there’s no way to go back and recover it.

The subject matter is part of the problem. The Hobbit is the precursor to the LOTR books, and so we already know what’s going to happen. I also think Jackson’s Hobbit films feel stretched out in being spread over three films … a quality his LOTR movies didn’t have.

I think I’ll have to be content with the fact that Jackson made three terrific LOTR flicks, and that they can’t be replicated. Not even with many of the same characters from Middle-earth. It’s sad to think about, but it’s also truthful. And in this case, I have to face the truth.

So it goes.

Setter’s ‘Spectives: What Is It About ‘The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies’ That Bothers Me?

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Setter Drawing for Blog 082613For some reason, I’m not as excited at the prospect of watching The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies as I was before, say, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King debuted.

Is it because I already know where the One Ring will end up? Perhaps the suspense is not as great as it was more than 10 years ago, when the LOTR trilogy was entering its final stages.

There’s also the issue of the Hobbit movies not being as great as the LOTR films. There’s not as much riding on the protagonists, it seems, as there was in the later books and movies. I mean, once you have Sauron and Ringwraiths pursuing you, being tense becomes an everyday thing.

I think another problem is the fact that the Hobbit pictures have been stretched out to three cinematic chapters, whereas the three LOTR books just made three movies. There seems to be a lot of filler in the former films: lots of battle scenes that are fun to watch but aren’t as insistent as the ones in LOTR.

I suspect The Battle of Five Armies will be enjoyable. Just not the instant classic that The Return of the King is.