Nothing too significant in An Unexpected Journey. There some extended Rivendell scenes, prologue is longer, explaining the arkenstone better. In Desolation of Smaug the Beourn scene is much longer and better. Thorin's Dad is also in a couple scenes randomly. Smart he was cut out. They definitely are not as good as LOTR extended editions which added key scenes that made the films better. In fact, I don't even watch the theatrical LOTR anymore.
I got my tickets today. Times have changed with movie releases I guess. It used to be the first showing was at midnight the night before the release. Now there are all these options. The official release date of The Battle of the Five Armies is December 17th. However, on December 15th you can see it first if you buy tickets for The Hobbit Marathon which will show "An Unexpected Journey", "The Desolation of Smaug" and then the premiere of "The Battle of the Five Armies". Then on December 16th you can get 7:00 showing tickets some places. 8:00, and 10:00. Then normal showings start all day on the 17th. That is new to me. I chose the 7:00 in 3D on the 16th. Can't wait to go to Middle Earth..............One Last Time............
The Battle of Five Armies was great. Honestly it felt like The Desolation of Smaug and The Battle of the Five Armies were just one movie broken into 2. It picks up right where the last one left off. Can't wait for the Extended Edition: November 2015.
I was very mad at how they ended the second film...It will probably piss me off at the start of the film that they had Smaug flying over that town. It was bullshit thats where they ended the film. It felt like an end to a TV episode
They clearly just wanted to have Smaug in 2 films. Now that the trilogy is over, those who complained 3 films were too many have proven to be correct. They really could have made a solid, 3-hour, Hobbit film. Or 2 Hobbit films at 2 hours each. 3 Hobbit films at over 8 hours was too much. Still, there is more good than bad in each of them.
Saw the last one and I liked it even though it had some 3 movie filler in it. It was more good than bad, even with the stupid Legolas/Tauriel added in. I didn't seem to mind them as much in this one. 1st and 3rd were good. 2nd I still do not like. Seeing the final film did make me want to go back and watch all 3 in a row. I agree that if it was just 2 movies as originally planned, they would have been excellent.
Apart from a couple of dodgy CGI moments that didn't work and the Dwarf/Elf love-in moments I thought Battle of the 5 Armies was very good. The Thorin dragon-sickness bits were a bit overdone as well. The pace rarely let up and it was probably the closest these movies have got to the quality of LotR. It's clear that this should have been 2 3-hour films though, with a lot of the other stuff thrown in special extended edition releases. It's a shame because it had the potential to be very good by adding just a limited amount of Sauron/Gandalf stuff. Ultimately, as a trilogy, a missed opportunity as far as I'm concerned. Fairly good and entertaining but not great. Personally I'd have preferred it if the story had kept closer to the original book. Add the Gandalf (and even Radagast bit) in Dol Guldur, because that needed to be told, but keep it more of a hinted threat than the great reveal it became. I wouldn't have bothered with the white orc much at all and kept it as a vendetta between the dwarves and goblins rather than the first great battle for the future of Middle Earth. I suppose adding the second wave of orcs from Angmar could have worked out and completed the Thorin back-story that way. The worms and trolls didn't really add anything either - how come the trolls in the first film get turned to stone by sunlight and the ones in the last don't? I'll leave the last bit of criticism to my 10-year-old daughter: "I was sad that some of the dwarves died Dad, but I suppose it had to happen because it would have been really silly if they had all lived through everything that happened in the 3 films. Really some of them should have died a long time ago."
I LOVED Azog the defiler. I thought he was excellent. Maybe I'm in the minority on that, I don't know, but I thought he was just perfect. The Smeagol of this film imo. Dragon sickness was too much, the whole Laketown moving up to find shelter taking 20 minutes was too much. Making poor 92 year old Christopher Lee battle the Nazgul was a bit much too. What the hell was with Billy Connelly? He was weird. Another stupid part was when there were 200ish cornered Dwarves and those armored bad ass trolls came running up and the dwarves all cower in fear. Then Thorin comes out with his 12 other dwarves and they just spear the trolls to death instantly, no competition at all. Also, that cave troll in LOTR: FOTR must have been one bad ass. He survived longer than most other trolls, and he was in a room with literally 5 of the best warriors in Middle Earth and almost stopped them. I want more back story on HIM!
If you read the Appendices in Return of the King, Sauron is much more than just hinted during The Hobbit's timeline. Peter Jackson did a great job of adding what Tolkien wished he could have to his original children's book.
Just saw it, fuck me...I hate the CGI overkill. I also swear everything right before the title of "Battle of Five Armies" could have been used as the ending to the 2nd film. Just bullshit, it had some good parts but overall I am so pissed at the lame CGI and weak ass score and stupid plot. I am sure die hard fans will love it, but I am a die hard fan of the original trilogy and I so fed up with CGI sets and characters...The Fucking Dwarf cousin was full blown CGI too FUCKKKkk. Peter Jackson and the Wachowski Brothers are all on board with it, I saw the trailer for Jupiter Ascending and I was shaking my head that these fruitcups made the wonderful Matrix
What they should have done is combined these last two movies into one finale and been done with the LOTR franchise. This is what happens when it goes one movie too long. Same with MockingJay. To quote Kenny Rogers: "gotta know when to fold..."
Just finished watching The Battle of the Five Armies extended edition. Much better than the theatrical version, but still the worst of the series. The Hobbit really should have been two films.
