Note: All but this note and the next paragraph contain spoilers, so if you haven’t read the book and want to find out what happens in the movie yourself or if you’re a Tolkien purist and don’t want to hear how Peter Jackson massacred J.R.R. Tolkien’s masterpiece, don’t read anything except the next paragraph.
To get it out of the way, I’m first going to say that I really liked this movie and the trilogy as a whole. Not as much as The Lord of the Rings, but I would voluntarily rewatch any and all of the three Hobbit movies. It is worth noting that I've read both The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit (as well as The Silmarillion, The Children of Húrin, and Smith of Wootton Major and Farmer Giles of Ham, which has nothing to do with Middle Earth, but was surprisingly entertaining).
Because it’s all in the book, I didn't have initially have the complaints that people had about the ending of the movie lacking any sort of closure. Then I thought about it and while the ending still isn't my biggest problem, it is true that only two characters have the movie definitively state where they go after the battle. Thranduil and the elves presumably go back to Mirkwood and Gandalf does whatever Gandalf does, but that still leaves the treasure that Bilbo and the dwarves spent two movies trying to get, not to mention the dwarves and the entire remaining population of Laketown. It’s only known that Bilbo goes home to the Shire and Legolas goes to find Aragorn. And Legolas isn't actually in (the book) The Hobbit, though he could technically have been hanging around when the dwarves came to visit his father in Mirkwood.
Unlike, say, Tauriel, who is mentioned exactly zero times in all of Tolkien’s work, maybe because her character was made up? Regrettably, because without her, The Hobbit really doesn't have any major female characters*, I didn't end up liking her role in the plot. At first, I was willing to look past the elf-dwarf romance. And then Ravenhill happened. Kili was doing fine until Tauriel arrives and starts yelling around for him, at which point they both run around yelling for each other until Bolg shows up and kills Kili. Kili and Fili do both die in the book, but they’re protecting Thorin, not running around to find the elf they’re inexplicably in love with. So when all was said and done, I would have preferred less (read: no) time spent on the elf-dwarf romance, which might have allowed a more developed ending and maybe some actual lines for the dwarves. It would have been an improvement over Tauriel’s “Why does it hurt so much?” Sorry Legolas, guess she never loved you after all.
*Galadriel makes an appearance and the women of Laketown have a scene where they prepare to join the men in a last stand. This is pretty consistent with what would be expected in Middle Earth – the (human) men go and fight while the women stay back, dwarf women are never seen, and it’s technically not specified whether Thranduil’s elf army is completely male.
My main problem with the third movie is the same as it was for the first two. One word, Peter Jackson: gravity. Maybe the mountain goats the dwarves ride to Ravenhill can spring up near vertical faces, and maybe the giant bat can carry a fully grown elf (though I refuse to believe the bat was steered by a knife plunged into its brain), but that scene with Legolas leaping up a crumbling bridge? No. Just, no. And really, there can be epic fights without the participants falling twenty feet every thirty seconds.
Ignoring the lack of an ending, unrealistic romances, and the apparent disregard to physics, the conflict between the elves, men, and dwarves was done well, and overall I liked the forty-five minute long battle scene. Like I said at the beginning, I’d watch the movies again, and enjoy them.
No comments:
Post a Comment