Looks like great fun. I'll be there, no question. Unmissable.
"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." Thomas Pynchon, GRAVITY'S RAINBOW
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Philip K. Dick
My blog: http://www.roscoewrites.blogspot.com/
Peter Jackson points out something interesting in the extras for the extended Smaug blu-ray... The Battle of the Five Armies is the only one of the six Middle-Earth films that isn't about traveling somewhere. Everyone is already set and ready to go. We don't leave Erebor till Bilbo goes home to write his book.
I saw the movie tonight and it was an epic finale to this series. Most of the actors really gave powerful performances in this movie. Spoilers below:
* Galadriel showed her dark side again and it was pretty scary.
* Thorin, Killi, and Filli's deaths were so sad.
* The final scene was the perfect way to end it all. It was the scene during 'The Fellowship of the Ring' where Bilbo saw Gandalf for the first time in years.
Thank you Peter Jackson and everyone involved with Middle Earth for bringing these stories to life.
I really liked THE HOBBIT trilogy despite it's flaws, it was a great way for kids in this generation to know about the Peter Jackson Middle-Earth films. THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES' ending was freaking perfect.
There were a handful of poor decisions that resulted from deciding 80% through production to turn two films into three. Among them was the odd way to use Smaug heading to Laketown as a cliffhanger for film #2. The payoff is so anticlimactic and feels so weird as the start of film #3. I have such an affection for these movies, but there is no denying it should have stayed as two instead of three, even with the Lord of the Rings appendices information thrown in.
Also was it me, or did The Battale of Five Armies feel more like a showcase for CGI Legolas. I forgot I was watching the Hobbit for a while and the "running up the falling stones" bit he did.... ooof.