The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

[Telemachos]

As Tele once said, he paints Mona Lisas and then scribbles smiley faces all over them.

Wait, what?!

[Passdagas the Brown]

It's a comment you made at TORC some time ago when discussing PJ's style. You said it. Trust me!

[Elentári]

The hand-wringing about not enough Beorn, for example, is a little insane, as Beorn appears for a mere few sentences at this stage of the book. .

Wait - what? Just because he only gets a few sentences means nothing...it is what he DOES that is important , and would have been cinematic magic...

[Elentári]

And mishandled in AUJ, in my opinion, which I think was primarily a result of the 3-film split, and the perceived need to create a false resolution of their relationship in the first film (which in retrospect I consider perhaps the biggest misstep in the series).

Very much agreed.

[Smaug's voice]

The hand-wringing about not enough Beorn, for example, is a little insane, as Beorn appears for a mere few sentences at this stage of the book.

The said 'hand-wringing' is actually due to the preference for characters who are not at all mentioned (Legolas) or even created (Tauriel) by Tolkien over characters who are in fact mentioned in the book (Beorn and Dain) - one of them having quite an enigmatic presence in the whole legendarium.

And since this is not an adaptation of The Hobbit but of the War of the Ring, the number of mentions in the book: the total screentime ratio is irrelevant imo.

[Smaug's voice]

And mishandled in AUJ, in my opinion, which I think was primarily a result of the 3-film split, and the perceived need to create a false resolution of their relationship in the first film (which in retrospect I consider perhaps the biggest misstep in the series).

Nice to see you finally reaching that conclusion V. I do recall disagreeing with you about the same scene during the release of DoS.

[Smaug's voice]

I don't know if this has already been shared here, but a PJ-interview with The Daily Beast.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... earth.html

You’ve mentioned wanting to distinguish the battle in this film, which is this really large, 45-minute fight scene. There are so many moving parts. How do you keep something like that together, narratively speaking? I assume it’s difficult.

Um, yes. It is. But in a way, the battle is almost a distraction. It’s not really the problem. Because really you could have these characters running through the streets of New York and you can have the same issues. It’s that you have multiple storylines heading towards a climax and you kind of want them all to climax at the same time, or certainly in the right order. So you’ve got the classic narrative puzzle that you’re trying to weave and shape. So the battle is almost irrelevant, in a funny way. The battle is really a setting and that’s the action that they’re doing. But it doesn’t make it any easier or harder… Our characters are just in the thick of the story. So we have all these narratives now, which are thundering towards a conclusion and we are just having to weave them all together so that you feel like the pace is working.

I don’t mean to undervalue the battle, they could be holding a knife and fork with their hands and be sitting at the table eating, or they can have a sword in their hand and fighting for their lives, it’s still the storytelling and the narrative that these guys are on that you’re really focused on.

It is. In fact, and correct me if I am wrong, I feel like there are way more beheadings in this trilogy than Lord of the Rings, many of which come at the hands of Legolas.

There probably are. See, the trick too, as a filmmaker, you’ve got guys fighting with blades. They don’t have guns or machine guns or grenades. So when you want to kill people, you’ve got limited options. One of the weird things with these films, which I must confess I actually quite enjoy, we sit around thinking how we are going to kill an Orc. You actually turn into a psychopath. And actually I can think of a hell of a great way to kill Orcs but I am always restricted by PG-13, unfortunately.

What would you have done if you had the R rating?

Oh all sorts of great things. I will tell you what, you wait for the extended cut of this film. There are a few Orc killings that we actually got knocked back. Because when we submitted this to the MPAA we got an R. So what you’re seeing is the result of heavy editing to even just get the PG-13. But there will be a little bit of Orc killing to be seen in the extended cut.

Let’s talk a bit about Evangeline Lily’s character Tauriel, who isn’t in the books. There was a bit of an uproar from Tolkien purists about her being included in...

Yeah, there’s negative reaction from Tolkien fans, but then you have a nine-year-old girl who goes to the movie and she’s delighted that there’s a character she can relate to. So it depends on what side of the track you want to come from. But sorry, I interrupted you…

...I was just going to ask that you had to have expected that response from some, right?

Oh yes. But look, let’s forget hardcore Tolkien fans. I think it’s humanly impossible to make a movie that everyone rejoices and praises. You know, Citizen Kane, you’re going to find some people who sit there saying “What a load of boring crap.” You know what I mean? So you sort of don’t even worry about it and just go for it. There can’t be a committee who decides these things.

We had a very thin book that we had to create characters with some different complexity. And there aren’t that many you can do. The dwarves move from one place to the other. So the elves in the Woodland Realm were an obvious [choice]. In The Hobbit, Thranduil [an Elven king] isn’t even named. He’s just called the Woodland King. And there are no particular elf characters––you just have this one guy. And we obviously know there’s a son, because in The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien names Thranduil and reveals that he had a son [Legolas]. So that gave us a clue. Everybody thinks that Orlando [Bloom] came to these films as a sexy box-office [draw], but we actually needed characters, and he was such an obvious character, it’d be nuts if we didn’t use him. Then you’ve got the king and you've got a son, and stories are best told with three people, not two, because then you can create conflicts and triangles. So we wanted a third elf character. Was this a chance to put a female role in the story? Because there are so few female roles. Also you do have a lot of young girls seeing this film, and they should have somebody in there who they can empathize with. It was a very cold-blooded decision. Yes, OK, a female elf. And that was how it came about…

You have to be aware of your audience or otherwise you’re just not doing your job. I just think of all those eight-year-old, nine-year-old, 10-year-old girls who come to see these films. Who are they going to actually empathize with? At least they have Tauriel. At least they know how to kill Orcs now. So that could come in handy one day. We are teaching girls good skills!

I think this quote:

But the thing with The Hobbit I will tell you... I went into it very unprepared. Because Guillermo [Del Toro, the original director] had 18 months of prep, and he couldn’t do the films and I took them over and I only had six months of prep. I didn’t have time to highlight any storyboards, and then it was just suddenly dumped into three movies.

supports my previous claim that the 3-film split was not PJ's decision.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

And mishandled in AUJ, in my opinion, which I think was primarily a result of the 3-film split, and the perceived need to create a false resolution of their relationship in the first film (which in retrospect I consider perhaps the biggest misstep in the series).

Nice to see you finally reaching that conclusion V. I do recall disagreeing with you about the same scene during the release of DoS.

I don't recall ever liking the "hug" and Thorin's faux anger. Or really very much of the Into the Fire scene, actually. Of course I could be wrong.

As Tele once said, he paints Mona Lisas and then scribbles smiley faces all over them.

Wait, what?!

Funny, I always thought that rascally [deleted] said that.

[Beutlin]

Funny, I always thought that rascally [deleted] said that.

Self plagiarism!

[Telemachos]

I think this quote:

But the thing with The Hobbit I will tell you... I went into it very unprepared. Because Guillermo [Del Toro, the original director] had 18 months of prep, and he couldn’t do the films and I took them over and I only had six months of prep. I didn’t have time to highlight any storyboards, and then it was just suddenly dumped into three movies.

supports my previous claim that the 3-film split was not PJ's decision.

No, I think it was PJ's all along. What that does reveal is he didn't have a great grasp on exactly what he wanted, which explains the huge amount of material he shot and the somewhat haphazard way it was all introduced. Only when he was settling into post on the first film did he fully realize how much stuff he'd shot (and how much he wanted to retain).

Btw, in terms of minor book characters: Beorn may be a bit shortchanged but Dain is a significant screen presence when he shows up. He makes the most of those few minutes.

[Elentári]

I don't know if this has already been shared here, but a PJ-interview with The Daily Beast.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... earth.html

Yeah, I did post it a couple of days ago, and was surprised it got ignored, actually. Some revealing comments in there, as you say.

Have to say, regarding the blather about Tauriel, I interviewed a representative of the supposed target audience (my 12-year-old daughter) on what she thought of Tauriel, and whether she would still have liked TH without the character and she said:

"she's all right but doesn't really add anything..."

From the mouth of babes...

[Voronwë the Faithful]

She adds a lot for me in DoS, even if I don't like everything she is in, regardless of whether I am the 'intended audience' (and actually I think I am, even if they don't talk about that part if the intended audience).

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Sent from my LG G3 using tapatalk

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Following up on that, I think I am part of her intended audience in two ways. The way I meant was as a heterosexual male, with her being eye candy to balance the extensive eye of attractive males. But I also think I am part of her intended audience in a more subtle way as a fan of Tolkien's full legendarium, and particularly of the Elves of the Silmarillion.

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Sent from my LG G3 using tapatalk

[Elentári]

Oh definitely....I totally agree it is more likely Tauriel was added for heterosexual males, but of course none of the team ever came out and said that up front since it wouldn't be PC. Instead we are fed the line that she's for impressionable younger girls (PJ's target audience in the interview!)

[Telemachos]

I think it's possible (and even likely) for both reasons to be valid.

[Passdagas the Brown]

The hand-wringing about not enough Beorn, for example, is a little insane, as Beorn appears for a mere few sentences at this stage of the book.

The said 'hand-wringing' is actually due to the preference for characters who are not at all mentioned (Legolas) or even created (Tauriel) by Tolkien over characters who are in fact mentioned in the book (Beorn and Dain) - one of them having quite an enigmatic presence in the whole legendarium.

And since this is not an adaptation of The Hobbit but of the War of the Ring, the number of mentions in the book: the total screentime ratio is irrelevant imo.

You miss my point, SV. I am perfectly fine with the hand-wringing over all the added Legolas stuff (especially as I remember being shouted down in the early stages of this production when I suggested that the inclusion of Legolas in these films would be a mistake, and that he would end up being far, far more than a minor character).

What I find amusing is that lots of the hand-wringing about his scenes (and Tauriel's) are placed in context of limited screentime for Beorn and Dain, rather than limited screen time for the Bilbo-Thorin relationship, which is far more important IMO. No matter how well the latter is treated in BOFA, the truth is that PJ and company botched the development of their characters through AUJ and DOS, and that this is not wholly correctable. For me, if all that Legolas, Tauriel (and even Dol Guldur) stuff was removed, we could have had a very rich three films following Bilbo and the company.

My dream is for a future film (or films) that stick with Bilbo's POV (and perhaps only departing from it, as Tolkien did, for the burning of Laketown). In such a version, you could add female elves and all sorts of additional characters without compromising the heart of the story. Another version I would embrace would be one where we have a "two POV" film, focused on Bilbo and Thorin.

Instead, we got important Middle Earth residents' greatest hits during the time of the Hobbit...

- PtB
P.S. I also have to say that the elves are indeed a more important part of the story, in a strict narrative sense, than Beorn or Dain. The elves, led by Thranduil, help precipitate the conflict that highlights Thorin's growing pride, and creates the great rift between him and Bilbo. In that context, I understand why the filmmakers fleshed out the elven story, while diminishing the story of characters like Beorn and Dain. Am I happy with that decision? Not at all. I love both Beorn and Dain, and have been dying to see them on screen. But it's mostly disappointing for us book fans alone, because we like these minor characters from the book (not because they are essential for the story). But I think it far more worthwhile to argue that PJ and company's elven digression took away from the Bilbo-Thorin character process, rather than the screen time of Tolkien's minor characters.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I think it's possible (and even likely) for both reasons to be valid.

All three reasons. And while I find her to be purdy (and certainly have no problem with that!), I am particularly grateful for the third reason. I am still amazed at the feast of starlight scene and the incorporation of the Elves' love of starlight into her character, as well as much she reminds of one of my very favorite so-called minor characters from the Silmarillion (which I am convinced was not accidental.

Beyond that, wat PtB sed.

[Alatar]

I still think Legolas is a pretty minor character in the movies? Aside from his "action" scenes, he's doesn't do much. Not really seeing the big issue here.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Interview with Martin Freeman (language warning):

http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2014/12 ... ering-net/

[Dave_LF]

Interview with Martin Freeman (language warning)

Putting "language warning" on a Freeman interview is a little like putting one on a Jay and Silent Bob film.