The battle is HUGE, and done surprisingly with some restraint, key word is "some." It's a lot of fun where it needs to be, tense where it needs to be, and appropriately epic. It's a lot of fun. Bard has one OTT moment at an emotional moment in Dale where he saves his children that would have been better served more subtly, but it's hardly an "eye-roller." It;s just an example of PJ not remembering that sometimes less is more with action scenes. That said, the scene is fine and won't upset anyone.
RE: CGI Dain. This seems to have upset a lot of people. To be honest the CGI is very good. But it does seem seem like an insane move, especially given the fact they reportedly shot stuff with him in the full suit. I'm not sure what happened but they must have been up against the wall. It seems like a move they wouldn't do unless they had to. The character has a nice introduction, he's only in the film for a short while. I didn't have an issue with his character or screen time. I would have liked his character to have been better utilized (especially over Legolas) but was happy with what was given. Regarding the actual CGI. It's odd, yes. But this segment has so much CGI to it that it's not something that will throw you off. Billy's voice is very big and "animated" which kinda makes it work on a "I guess I've got to roll with this" level. It didn't bother me too much, oddly enough. It's weird, and they limit his screen time (likely because of the CGI), so it doesn't derail the movie. It's a weird misfortunate for what should have been a bigger presence, but it's something we'll have to accept in these adaptations.
Re: Tauriel/Kili. I've never had an issue with Legolas and Tauriel being in these films. I think my main problem in DOS is Tauriel's healing scene, but not because of the Kili love story, but because it just isn't directed or edited well. I quite like Evangeline but that's her weakest scene in DOS, acting wise. t's the only scene in DOS that still irks me. I do however like the dialogue between Kili and Tauriel about starlight that follows the healing scene. I honestly don't have an issue with the way their romance is played out in that film. In BOTFA their romance starts out just the way you'd want it. They have one lovely scene early on and then they part ways. It's at Ravenhill that she tries to find him (after being told he's in danger). It starts with her in danger from Bolg, Kili jumps in to the rescue. I'll leave the rest to the imagination. This actual skirmish isn't bad. It's effective. A big detractor of this is that it's intercut with Legolas but more on that later. My issues with Tauriel in this movie that come after Kili's passing. It's a bit hammy, and I don't quite buy Evangeline's performance here. This is another scene that would have been better served with more subtlety. The ruin stone makes a nice comeback in this film and has a nice moment at the end. Unfortunately it drags on a bit, there's a kiss involved, lots of crying from her, and eventually a rather heavy handed scene between her and Thranduil, I'm sure these moments will improve on repeat viewings but it's disappointing that these scenes lack emotional bite. I quite liked Kili/Tauriel's feast of starlight scene in DOS, so it was sad for me that nothing matched that hear, especially in the pivotal moments of that storyline. All in all, the romance adds very little in hindsight. I would have preferred that they had used the screentime to beef up the relationship between FilI and Kili, and left Tauriel as the bad ass elven warrior.
Legolas. I'm not sure what happened to him between BOTFA and FOTR but his stunts became a lot less extravagant (sarcasm). To be honest, one of my main issues with this character in these films is not that he's in them. I like the relationship between him and his dad. My issue stems from PJ's need to make him into a Marvel superhero. If you thought his stunts in DOS were over the top, you are in for a treat in this film. It's literally a joke at this point, and treated as such in this film. The issue is that his big heroics come at the most pivotal part of the movie and serious undermine the hole thing. He's saving Thorin, He's saving Tauriel. He's killing Bolg. He's slaying orcs. He's tossing Orcrist up 100ft into an orc to pass it along to Thorin. It gets absurd, and is unforgivable. I grew to like his fight scene with Bolg in DOS, largely because it's his only grounded and real fight scene in the film. In this film, we are not so lucky. It is literally a James Bond, Matrix style fight scene on a crumbling tower suspended across a glacier. When the ground caves out beneath them, Legolas literally hops along the falling bricks, creating his own path to safety. The audience laughed at how stupid it was. It reminded me of the slow motion CGI sequences in the recent Die Hard movies. It's a dumb moment. A gritty Lurtz style fight scene would have sufficed (but in all honesty, why wasn't Beorn given the chance to dispatch Bolg? there are bear paws on his shoulders, I thought this was a set-up for that. I guess not). Anyways, these Legolas moments are dumb. He literally rides a bat up a mountain and then shoots it mid-flight and lands perfectly on a tower where he proceeds to "save Thorin's skin"
Re: Ravenhill. The battle was huge, epic, fun and tense at all the right moments, Ravenhill was a chance for PJ to go intimate, brutal and personal. Instead he goes the other route and goes over the top, bombastic and insane. It turns an emotional part of the story into the climax of an Iron Man movie. The aforementioned Legolas stuff is intercut throughout this sequence and seriously drags down any emotion you might be trying to build at this moment. The actual fight between Thorin and Azog is undermined because halfway through it Legolas is dispatching Azog's bodyguards from afar. I hope a clever fan one day manages to remove Legolas from these scenes, I do wonder if they'll play better without him. I don't want to say too much about the final bit of the duel. I'll leave that for you to discover. I will say that I felt less would have been more for me.
Side note: Bilbo does get knocked out. I think PJ and the writers missed a wonderful opportunity to have Thorin die defending Bilbo's unconscious body from orcs. It would have been a very emotional moment. Instead they went for the battle on thin ice route because it looked cool. Which is a shame. I didn't feel anything when Azog and Thorin's duel came to an end. I feel like the added element of Thorin defending Bilbo would have gone a long way. That said, Bilbo is knocked out at a convenient moment for me. It's just around the moment that things get hammy and mishandled. I hope one clever fan can fade this sequence out when Bilbo is knocked out and then fade back in when he wakes up at the end of the battle.
Post battle: Again, I hope a clever fan cuts a bulk of the Legolas and Tauriel stuff. There are a couple nice shots of Tauriel mourning Kili, which is all that was needed. Instead we get a scene a drawn out scene that seems to go on and on to the point of "we get it, move on!" Legolas has that weird scene with Thranduil about Aragorn. I really almost laughed because it's the exact scene I was joking with my friends would never / should never be included. It's essentially the Tony Stark / Nick Fury scene in Iron Man, but Thranduil tells Legolas to go find the son of Arathorn in the north, "he goes by the name of strider." Isn't he just a kid at this point? How the heck does Thranduil know about him and why would he tell his son to go after him? It's a dumb scene. What immediately follows is another scene with Tauriel beside Kili where she complains that love hurts. Thranduil says "because it's real." It could have been a nice scene but it feels overacted, and a weird use of valuable screentime.
Post Post Battle: There isn't much here which was very upsetting. Dain disappears before Ravehill happens. Bard doesn't get much of any resolution, and neither do our dwarves. There is a small scene between them all and Bilbo but I won't spoil it. It's nice but doesn't feel like nearly enough for all that we've gone through with them. The journey home, while lacking any stops, is quite lovely. As is the return to the Shire. No narration. I was actually a bit disappointed with the Ian Holm bit, it was something I guessed a while ago but hoped they would do something a bit more interesting. That said it's a solid finish to this trilogy.
RANDOM THOUGHTS
-I hope the EE pads out the return journey and the post battle sequences. I'm sure it will, because it is very brisk.
-Legolas and Tauriel are well utilized up until when they race to Ravenhill. Their plot with Gundabad is the perfect use for them, it takes them away from the main action but adds a layer of tension to the story and allows us to see something we otherwise wouldn't have a chance to see. The stuff post-Laketown is also quite nice, as is their scenes in Dale. It literally goes down hill the moment Legolas grabs the leg of a bat and fetches a ride up the mountain. Part of me wanted the bat to fly off and take Legolas out of the movie.
-I still am amazed at Gundabad. So cool. Short, but I was not expecting it in the movie. Loved it.
-Worms. very odd, they tunnel through part of a hill allowing the orcs to sneak in around Dale. They are in four or five shots. It's a weird inclusion. They look like those in Dune. It didn't bother me. I thought it was weird, but I rolled with it.
-CGI is quite good throughout the movie, but I prepared myself for it after letting it sway my opinion of DOS so much. I didn't want the CGI to sway my opinion of BOTFA, and it didn't. In fact, there are lots of sets and practicals in the pre-battle scenes.
-Howard Shore's soundtrack never really gets room to shine. Even Dain's arrival isn't given a musical moment which was sad. I haven't listened to his track on the soundtrack (avoided samples), but I know people said his theme was quite good. I didn't notice it in the film, but that might have been because my jaw was on the floor b/c of CGI Dain, haha. There are lots of nice choral moments but it all seems second fiddle to the sound effects.
-Beorn. Not sure what the heck happened or why he was cut. Very odd. It's literally 15 seconds of footage. I wonder why they even bothered to include him in the TE. I have little faith that he'll get much more to do in the EE, given how expensive his VFX shots must be. That said, there HAS to be more for him elsewhere. A huge disappointment and a big insult to fans who have to sit through Legolas defying gravity. It was a punch to the gut after they mishandled Ravenhill.
-Radagast. Definitely will get at least part of a scene more from him. They use only a small portion of a scene outside Rhosgobel that clearly has more to it.
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
