An Erstwhile Reflection on "The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies"

I've been trying to write more since leaving my serving job. To an extent, I've been pretty successful at this. I'm ahead of pace on the second draft of a new play I'm working on - which is scary because now I have to start thinking about letting people read the thing. I've begun outlining (in my head) a new book that's part writing down a story that I think will help me grow really well and part therapy in a certain way.

Meanwhile, the Addison Recorder is blossoming in ways I couldn't have imagined before - we're posting seven to eight articles a week at the moment, and I don't see that ebbing anytime soon. There are more contributors on staff than I can immediately keep track of - anything beyond counting on my fingers is amazing, in my mind. We have business cards, and I have a mug I use at work with our website's logo - not to mention a nifty little notebook with the name of the website and my job title on the front. (Have I mentioned that I love my staff?)

Basically, the first month has worked fantastically in terms of getting shit down on paper. Were it not for a fairly sizable library fine, I'd be reading more, too. That being said, I'm always looking for more ways to boost what I'm getting down on paper. Writing is a muscle that must be worked out if it's to be any good, and I'm making efforts at writing at least for half an hour every day. With a play, novel, and website, in addition to working on small sketches and shorter works as they strike my fancy, I keep pretty close to that goal. With that being said, I like changing it up every now and then. Which is where this blog will hopefully come back into play.

Last night, I took in The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies. I broke down why I was anxious about seeing the film at the Recorder (insert link here) and don't really want to write a straight-forward review. Needless to say, you will get out of TBOFA what you bring into it. If you've already been let down by the movies, you'll be let down again. If these flicks are your bag, baby, then this one will reallly be your bag, baby. If you're indifferent and immune to any sense of childlike wonder, you'll probably keep doing what you're doing until your best friends makes you sit down and watch it with him. (Here's looking at you, Bean) I'll be honest and upfront - I enjoyed it. Is it as good as LOTR? Nope. Is it a fun trip through Middle-Earth? Yup. And now with 50% less bird-poop wizards!

I've been mulling a post of '10 Things I Loved/10 Things I Hated', and have ultimately settled upon the following compromise: '10 Thoughts I Have About the Movie, Speaking as a Tolkien Nerd'. I'm gonna do my best not to dive into technical/cinematic merits or demerits, because I viewed it as a giant Tolkien geek - and this movie was made to cater to folk like me. So, I'm approaching it from that angle. (This kind of post might have had a home at the Recorder, but we're honestly a little full up at the moment, and while I'm officially in charge, I think the site works best when I'm writing in smaller portions...and I've written three articles so far this week. I'm backing off there.)

Here we go...

Oh, SPOILER ALERT.

1.  The Political Geography is flawed. When Gandalf makes his return to the ruins of Dale to hold war council with Bard and Thranduil (leaders of two of the respective five armies), he discusses why the goblins and orcs would expend so much efforts and energies in trying to claim the mountain kingdom of Erebor for their own. It's essentially a geopolitical offensive by Sauron/the Necromancer to open up a wider campaign in the North - meaning Eriador at large. As Gandalf describes it, it would mean desolation in kingdoms such as Lothlorien, Rivendell, and protectorates such as the Shire and Bree. This is based largely off of a line from the Appendices of Return of the King, where Gandalf warns of what might have happened if Thorin & Co. had not reclaimed the mountain from Smaug.
   
   
   I have a few problems with this line of thinking, and it bugged me for much of the movie. To begin with, the main efforts by the enemy are to unite the forces of Dol Guldur and Mount Gundabad, recast in this movie as the entrance to the kingdom of Angmar as opposed to a big fucking mountain full of goblins. Angmar is situated on the western side of the Misty Mountains, far to the north of the Ettenmoors and the portions of Arnor that make up Rhudaur. Moving it is fine...except that it makes the wars that destroyed the north kingdom a little more geographically hard to fathom. (Simply put, getting around mountains for constant warfare would be challenging for any legions, no matter who's in charge) I get that the armies of Dol Guldur would rather take an unopposed trip around Mirkwood to make their way north, and the eastern corridor is far enough away from the girdle that Lorien puts on the Anduin corridor. Granted, there is Thranduil's elven kingdom to reckon with, but as The Hobbit repeatedly shows, his is an isolationist nature - he'd probably leave any passing orc army alone if it meant holding tight to his own little forest realm.
   My chief complaint comes from the fact that it takes what is fairly straightforward in the book (Goblin 1: HOLY SHIT, GOLD. Goblin 2: YES SUCH GOLD. Goblin 1: LET US TAKE GOLD WOW. Goblin 2: YES TAKE GOLD KILL DWARVES GOOD. Goblin 1: YES WOW. Goblin 2: WOW) and turns it into an orchestrated move by two legions of orcs who probably were not all that interested in conquest anyway. Sauron, at the time, was busy rebuilding his strength, and not looking to challenge his foes. The appendices also mention that the Battle decimates the goblin armies so much that the Misty Mountain orcs essentially sit out the War of the Ring. The Hobbit movies make that argument, but they argue that the Battle is, in essence, a precursor/first salvo of the War of the Ring rather than an isolated incident, much like the Five Battles in the First Age. Turning the Battle into a geopolitical moment raises the stakes a little too high, bloating it with false importance...kind of like taking a 250 page childrens book and turning it into three epic movies.
2. The Battle Field Choreography is Brilliant. We see elves doing Elvish things, decimating legions of orcs with barrages of arrows and their sweet Elvish/Japanese swordplay. The Dwarves, whom we've never seen fighting en masse before, fight like Roman legions of old, with phalanxes that brush aside goblins like waves against a sandcastle. The orcs mob and mass and swarm like ants, much like in the books. And we see why the coming of the Eagles changes the battle as much as it does, revealing what happens when giant fucking condors are unleashed upon said ants marching in rows. It's awesome, and Peter Jackson is one of the few working directors with a capacity for staging battle on a grand scale. We never get to see why the Eagles are so seldom involved in major conflicts, but explaining that would require nearly a half-hour chunk of exposition on how the Valar relate to the world of Middle-Earth. It's also nice to see Radagast make a difference in a way that makes sense, seeking out the aid of the birds and beasts he is friends with rather than riding around on a bunny-sled. It was a nice redemptive moment, in my mind.
3. Not Enough Time is Spent Discussing the Elves' Motivations. It's not that we don't see enough Legolas-kicking-ass spectacle, but rather than several nuggets have been dropped into the films that aren't fleshed out enough. Like - oh, Legolas's mother died in Angmar? Well, what the fuck was she doing there in the first place and not in Mirkwood? Is that the underlying reason why Thranduil hides out in the woods? Because he stupidly took his wife with him when fighting Angmar? Also, he was fighting Angmar? That's news. And what was up with his face in DOS? Was it dragon-inflicted scars? Or did he take an orc-mitt to the cheek? Too many questions. Not enough answers. That's not normally a problem I have, except that these questions were not part of the original canon - if you're going to add history to what's already been recorded, at least have the graces to explain yourself.
4. Galadriel Breaking Dol Guldur. I have two thoughts about this. One - that was pretty damn awesome. Her laying bare the pits of the fortress was mentioned in the appendices (though at the end of the War of the Ring, not pre-BOFA) and the way Peter Jackson visualized it (Galadriel as Banshee/Demon War Queen we glimpse in FOTR) worked for me. I also get that she would expend a great deal of power banishing Sauron back to Mordor, and that this would tax her. After defeating a Maiar in openly declared combat, she could probably use a protracted siesta. HOWEVER, she's the most powerful elf on Earth - you'd think she would not need to pass out after casting one spell, saving Gandalf's ass, and fending off a couple of Nazgul. That concern is my second thought: they needlessly weaken her character, and in a story so utterly devoid of strong female roles that they had to invent one for the movies, you'd think that Galadriel would be able to, I dunno, lean against a wall or rock and catch her breath instead of flop onto the ground and look all pasty and exhausted. Like I said, two thoughts.
5. There's No Resolution to Saruman/Elrond Finding Out They Were Wrong. Sure, Elrond and Galadriel are shooed away by Saruman with the kick ass line "Leave Sauron to Me". But I could use maybe a little bit more to show the leader of the Istari turning to the Dark Side, so to speak. Maybe a little wink in the direction of Sauron (imagine for a second what Sauron winking looks like). I mean, we're talking about a major shift in thinking by the leader of the White Council, a complete reversal in policy. They made it out that Saruman was plotting his ascent to the throne of Middle Earth for the entire trilogy with a few key glances by Lee in AUJ, but I wanted more. Maybe a scene of Saruman watching the proceedings from a palantir in Orthanc whilst tapping his fingers together evilly? I dunno exactly what it would be, but I wanted more.
6. I Came Around to Tauriel...but again needed more. I wasn't sold on ANY part of the Elf/Dwarf love triangle in DOS between Kili, Legolas, and Tauriel. But the moments in BOFA made it work for me. It was small, it was nuanced, and the emotional work by Evangeline Lilly and Aiden Turner (Orlando Bloom needs work at playing nuance) was good enough to make me buy the tragedy. However, with Tauriel mourning over dead Kili (and sharing a little necrophiliac kiss), I wanted more than the crappy lines about "WHY DOES IT HURT TO LOVE". Maybe something about her heart being so broken that she no longer wanted to live in Middle Earth, and then Thranduil mentions that no one knows where mortal spirits rest, but that in the West, there might be something, and she says something about seeking the Havens to Valinor. You know, something that would explain why she's NOWHERE TO BE FOUND ONCE THE WAR OF THE RING STARTS. It's that simple. It solves your problem, ties up her relevancy in the plot with a neat little bow, introduces the idea of the elves' flight to the movies, and does away with the hands-down worst lines of the movies.
7. Bilbo's Role was Handled/Expanded Upon Nicely. In the book, Bilbo has nothing to do after pilfering the Arkenstone, and his decision is handled weakly - he mews uncomfortably and cringes when Thorin threatens him before sitting out the Battle of Five Armies. It would have been weak to play it that way, but would have stuck with his relative inaction for much of the previous movie. However, here, Martin Freeman makes him an active character, one whom affects the outcome of the battle in a nuanced way while still retaining the key moment of...Bilbo getting knocked unconscious and being unable to do anything for the rest of the battle. Martin Freeman's been an excellent anchor to these movies, playing a different hero than I expected - his Bilbo is cheeky, adventurous, and loyal to a T, yet the corrupting influence of the ring is shown throughout. I was sad, yet happy (work that one out), that the final shot of Freeman we get in Middle Earth is him lording over his precious. It's ominous tones of what's to come.
8. The Deaths of Major Characters were handled...well-ish. In the book, we know Thorin dies. Fili and Kili are mentioned as having died during the battle. Everyone else of note lives - and the movie sure made a spectacle of their deaths. It should hurt when a character dies - and these deaths hurt, surprisingly so at times. The death of Kili, in particular, was difficult, evoking a small memory of Adam Goldberg's demise in Saving Private Ryan. The death of Thorin was a good moment, as it showed Thorin abandoning hopes of glory and riches in favor of ridding his household/line/race of that stupid fucker Azog. His scene with Bilbo - with fine acting by Freeman and Richard Armitage, as well as dialogue lifted straight from the book, was particularly tear-jerking, producing even more tears from me than when Boromir kicked it in FOTR. This one hurt because the whole series to this point had been about their developing friendship - Bilbo pointing out the eagles with innocent excitement as he fights off the feels was what broke me. It hurts to say goodbye.
9. Alfred can go and die in a tire fire. The Master's servant was an unnecessary timeline/plot device. It's nice to know that the Laketown villagers reject him in favor of King Bard, but his actions were stupid, the comedy bits he was involved in weren't funny, and the acting and characterization were drawn on the side of a barn. I don't mind having some attempt at comic relief, but after the destruction of Laketown, the humans weren't given very much to do besides hang out in the ruins of Dale. I get that Alfred is a way to show Bard and his family doing things, but there's plenty of humans in the War of the Ring. Let us have more Billy Connolly as Dain, more bits with Thranduil, and more with the company fighting in the battle. I'm fine enough with the tantalizing bits about some Dunedain named Strider at the end. (Although I could reallllly do without Thranduil's whole "You must find his name out for yourself" line. It's terrible, awkwardly delivered (because it's terrible), and makes no sense (because it's terrible). Seriously, if I'm Legolas, I'm all like "Thanks for the quest, Dad" and I pop over to Gandalf and I'm like "So, who's this Dudedain kid I'm hearing about? Got a name? No, no, no reason, just curious, kay thanks bye."
10. Saying goodbye is hard. There's two moments where you can consciously feel PJ saying goodbye to Middle Earth. One is Bilbo's farewell to the dwarf company at the gates of Erebor - his line about tea always being at four might get framed and hung on my wall should I get my hands on a good printout. The other is the beginning of Bilbo and Gandalf's farewell, coupled with Gandalf the Grey, one of Sir Ian McKellen's finest creations, walking away on a hillside in silhouette. Both of these moments hurt because of the finality of their existence. The adventure has ended. We shall not see these characters again. We've gotten everything from them that we will get. And saying goodbye hurts. But, at the same time, the movie is serviceable, and we shall definitely return again and again. It's a good feeling.

There you have it.