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Get Ready For the Trailer For The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies!

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Get Ready For the Trailer For The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies!

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Get Ready For the Trailer For The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies!

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Published on July 28, 2014

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The trailer for The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is here, and it looks like it’s going to be a doozy, for sure.

The use of Pippin’s version of “The Walking Song” is particularly effective. *tears*

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JLaSala
10 years ago

Can I purchase a ticket right now? Like, right now? :)

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Family Christmas movie for sure.

Kato

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mutantalbinocrocodile
10 years ago

OK, so we’ve been badly faked out by Hobbit trailers before (remember the first one???). But maybe, just maybe, is it possible that someone knocked into Jackson’s head that the end of the story is actually pretty black and that Thorin was never heroic?

Too bad no one ever knocked into his head to just make a 3-hour movie without extensions, and with plenty of tonally appropriate humor at the beginning to modulate the shift into this. But I more or less enjoyed the last one, even though I hated the first–maybe they are getting better? Or this (plus the Gollum scene) was the part Jackson always really wanted to make?

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10 years ago

I particularly love the moment when the dwarves are marching single-file past Bilbo. That, and “I will have war.” Wow.

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10 years ago

Two words: War Goats

JLaSala
10 years ago

Thorin is far less heroic as portrayed in the pre-Rings book, to be certain. But Thorin’s role at large in Tolkien’s legendarium is a bit more. I do hope that he’s portrayed (as he’s already ramping up to be) as greedy as he is heroic, though. He does get his comeuppance, after all.

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10 years ago

I have to laugh in general anytime I see a headline that starts with “Get Ready For….”

Like, I have special shoes I’ve been saving for this occasion or something.
Ok, I’m ready.

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mutantalbinocrocodile
10 years ago

@6, you certainly have a point, but (and I know I may be on controversial ground here), I think that the end of The Hobbit portrays Thorin’s one-sided traditional epic militarism and revenge mentality, however well they come across in fictive historical documents in the legendarium, as deeply morally flawed compared with the (ironically less archaic) values that Bilbo brings to the battle and ending. Doing conventionally heroic deeds in the legendarium is no absolute guarantee of moral value. Túrin? The sons of Feänor, for the most part? If we really want to get into the whole Elf/Dwarf mess, Thingol? (One of the few things I have really liked about the Hobbit movies is that we actually, without Jackson violating any of his intellectual property agreements that keep him away from The Silmarillion, get to see some Elves who are morally suspect instead of paragons who literally shine with white light into the lens.)

JLaSala
10 years ago

Mutantalbinocrocodile, you certainly make some excellent points! But I would actually rather see Elves portrayed more true to their literary counterparts, being generally more virtuous and by no means as vain-seeming as the movies suggest. I think already, in all the movies, Jackson has shown them to be more morally flexible. Elrond was never that standoffish in the books. He was a figure of healing and benevolence, but he’s a bit more brooding and bitter.

But I’m also generally happy to see new portrayals that reinterpret.

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Colin R
10 years ago

I can’t help be a bit sad that a third of the, what, 9 hour hobbit experience, is basically going to be taken up with dragon battles and the Battle of Five Armies. Neither of which really had much role in the novel, because our viewpoint Bilbo was absent for one and unconscious for the other! Tolkien had mercy on us; Jackson has none.

JLaSala
10 years ago

I don’t know….The Hobbit wasn’t written in first person limited. Tolkien followed Bilbo’s path throughout but related plenty of things Bilbo had no firsthand witness of, including the dragon’s attack on Lake Town and the Battle of the Five Armies. It would be weird to go without.

Colin, can I ask a genuine question: Did you like seeing the attack of the Ents against Isengard in the film of The Two Towers? Or would you have preferred we only hear Pippin and Merry talk about it, as they do in the book? I’m genuinely curious! No wrong answer here.

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10 years ago

Hey, who’s that tiny character in the back row of the picture?

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10 years ago

I’ll see it, not with high hopes, but to help wash out memory of the first two (I think psychiatrists call this seeking “closure”)…

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10 years ago

so so so so so so perfect a trailer.

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R.J.
10 years ago

It looks and feels like the first two Hobbit movies. For some reason they look less realistic than the Lord of the Rings, despite the years between. I thought the first Hobbit movie had a few descent scenes. The second one I would’ve walked out of if I hadn’t company.
And STILL I’ll be there watching the third one. Bah.

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10 years ago

JLaSala @@@@@ 11: Jeff, I’d like to respond to that question as well. While I did enjoy the Ents battle scene, I hated that Jackson had Merry and Pippin essentially force the Ents into battle. Treebeard certainly knew what was going on around Isnegard and could/should have made the decision to fight on his own without being pushed into it by the two hobbits.

But of course, that is what Jackson does: Can’t leave well enough alone, has to stick in extra action scenes. And don’t get me started on characters!! Legolas? Tauriel??!?? And Kili (or is it Fili? I can never keep them straight.) Really?? REALLY???

That said, I’ll go see it, although not on opening night. And, yes, I will probably rewatch it later on, especially after the rumored six pack of Blu-Rays comes out with yet more deleted scenes from both LOTR and Hobbit.

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quinne
10 years ago

There’s a short scene in this trailer where Bilbo is driving a huge (for him) wagon on the frozen ice of the lake and Wargs are pursuing him. That is the kind of cynical, self-indulgent crap that Peter Jackson has been engaging in far too much of.

What I want out of this, mercifully, last Peter Jackson middle-earth movie is a huge chunk of the running time devoted to Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel, Saruman and Radagast taking on Sauron (HOWEVER, IT’S OUTRAGEOUS THAT PETER JACKSON HAD GANDALF IDENTIFY SAURON IN THE PREVIOUS MOVIE – it totally f***s up the Fellowship of the Ring). I don’t care about all the crap Jackson has polluted the Hobbit movies with. I’d like to remind everyone that the White Council is in possession of all the Elven Rings Power and Sauron has maybe one Dwarven Ring of Power.

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quinne
10 years ago

Check that. I forgot that Sauron should have the nine human rings of power, although, considering that he’s still immaterial I doubt he has them on him

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10 years ago

The trailer did what it was supposed to, made me look forward to the movie (although I was an easy sell). At least there are no scenes where they attempt to defeat the dragon by producing a giant molten gold statue (that whole bit still has me scratching my head). Nice to see Bilbo appear at least once or twice in his own trailer.

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10 years ago

@18 quinne- It’s unclear if Sauron has the Nine Rings or if the ringwraiths have them always…both are stated in Toklein’s books, but I always thought the 9 have had their rings all along.

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Colin R
10 years ago

From a technical perspective I enjoy Jackson’s films; they are well-made, and the battles are generally visceral and stirring. But they leave me cold as interpretations of Tolkien.

I was literally checking my watch during the end of the second Hobbit movie though. I know it was kind of exciting for my wife since she has never read the book, but I was aware that Jackson was essentially killing time until the next movie. The goofy dwarf battle against Smaug didn’t add anything useful to the story, and I don’t think Jackson understands the dwarves at all. Their natures are essentially static–It is Gandalf and Bilbo who actually prod them into action at all. They are not inclined to fight a dragon.

JLaSala
10 years ago

AlanBrown, I agree about the gold statue. That entire sequence was unnecessary. But I also think many of the additions are for moviegoers unfamiliar with the books. If Peter Jackson’s adaptation (and that’s become loosely defined, to be sure) was the only one in the history of book-to-film adapations where changes were made from the source material, I’d be complaining more. I’m not sure why Jackson gets more heat than anyone else.

Colin R, that is the way of it, right? Although fans of Tolkien have helped make the movies popular, most moviegoers were ignorant of Tolkien and so I think they’ll have more fun with the movies and not be bothered by scenes like the dwarves in the mountain. Still, that was just too much.

I don’t agree that Jackson doesn’t get the dwarves, though. I think he does. The dwarves are not portrayed as heroes; in most of their encounters, they run away. Bilbo isn’t a prod. His heroism is purely reactionary, which I find fascinating and I love that about him. He’s spurred into courage only when he has no choice, or when it’s to save someone. He doesn’t boldly lead them into action.

Gandalf is quite another matter. It’s his job to push people this way and that, to kindle their hearts into acts of courage, and in all ways steer the good-hearted against the works of Sauron.

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Colin R
10 years ago

Biolbo does prod the dwarves into action though; most of the action after Gandalf leads is initiated by Bilbo. He is unofficially the leader of the expedition at that point–until Smaug is dead and Thorin, who hasn’t done much, re-asserts himself, much for the worse for everyone. The dwarves, during most of the Hobbit, sit around and complain or fall into trouble.

Jacksons dwarves are still brawny and tough in ways that seem more D&D than the Hobbit.

JLaSala
10 years ago

Colin R: Wasn’t Gimli, son of Gloin, brawyn and tough, or at least a hearty warrior? I should think it would be silly to portray Thorin and Co. as the only dwarves in all of the legendarium who are not in any way warriors? Certainly Tolkien hadn’t them pegged as brave warriors in The Hobbit—he specifically didn’t, calling them “not heroes, but calculating folk with a great idea of the value of money; some are tricky and treacherous and pretty bad lots; some are not, but are decent enough people like Thorin and Company”—but he later established a warrior’s lineage among them. Thror, Thráin II, the battles in Moria against orcs, these are the larger histories that Jackson’s dwaves tie into (even if he messed with the chronology, etc.), and that makes it more consistent with the Rings trilogy. So I’m cool with that. Tolkien started The Hobbit with one idea and it morphed gradually into another. He’s said as much himself.

BillinHI, regarding Treebeard, Jackson definitely sped things along and had Merry “trick” Treebeard into seeing the devastation of the forest. That’s movie pacing for you. Slowly having the Entmoot and watching the Ents deliberate and finally conclude to oppose Saruman just wouldn’t work so well in a movie that already has impatient movegoers. It’s the spirit of the thing that’s intact in the films. It may have been Ents’ decision to finally assault Isengard, but it was the coming of the halflings and their influence which began it.

In The Two Towers (the book), Gandalf says to Aragorn: “It was not in vain that the young hobbits came with us, if only for Boromir’s sake. But that is not the only part they have to play. They were brought to Fangorn, and their coming was like the falling of small stones that starts an avalance in the mountains. Even as we talk here, I hear the first rumblings. Saruman had best not be caught away from home when they dam bursts!”

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Colin R
10 years ago

Absolutely! But Gimli is uniquely heroic, very much unlike other dwarves, which is highlighted by his friendship with Legolas (and Galadriel). He is serving both as a redemption and a finale for the dwarven people. He is their last hero, and the one who mends the icy relationship between elves and dwarves.

Contrast this with the dwarves of the Hobbit; their unlucky band of thirteen is a pretty pitiful endeavor to recover the lonely mountain from Smaug, and basically the entire hapless operation hangs its hopes on Bilbo’s burglary. They couldn’t round up ANY other dwarves to help out with this operation; Dain and his people only show up at the end to claim their share of the gold.

This curmudgeonliness goes back to the beginning and runs throughout the story. The dwarves show up for Nírnaeth Arnoediad, stand up to Glaurung, then retreat when Azaghal is killed and they hole up for the remainder of the age, only really coming out for the sack of Menegroth–not a proud moment.

And sure, The Hobbit is of a different tenor than The Lord of the Rings. But, that’s my issue with the adaptation! It has no conviction in the source material.

JLaSala
10 years ago

Excellent points. I’ll concede most of that! And I do agree that dwarves should shy from battle whenever it is not their own direct cause (Gimli being something of an exception, as you point out). But bear in mind that even in The Hobbit, when it comes to claiming what they believe to be theirs, the dwarves are all for war. Thorin was content to take on Men and Elves both, and Dáin II arrived with his forces to join the fight.

I’m actually more concerned that in this third film, the dwarves, Men, and Elves will ally too quickly against the baddies. I really want to see some racial conflict and old grudges burn hot first. That would be the right way to go.

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Colin R
10 years ago

Sure. I don’t really mean that dwarves can’t or won’t fight; I’m picking at the tendency to frame Thorin in these heroic stance shots, the language of action heroes. Thorin is a proud man who thinks of himself as a noble hero, but he’s not really. The movie doesn’t capture that, because it wants him to be that action hero too. It’s going to make his end awkward, because Thorin’s tragedy is that he achieves the kingliness he craves only in death.

I get that they wanted prequels to LOTR, but I don’t think it had to be this way. The Harry Potter films took books aimed at children and turned them into faithful (if a little uneven) adaptations that were entertaining for kids and adults. The Hobbit films could have tried to do that.

JLaSala
10 years ago

Well, let’s see how the third movie handles Thorin. You might be right, but I also think casting him in a slightly nobler light is okay for an action movie, as long as it’s eleventh hour nobility.

As for The Hobbit being for kids, it really isn’t. (I have a blog post coming about that here.) The book only partially was, and the movies are just trying to be as widely appealing as possible. These are considerations and decisions moviemakers face that a linguistics-loving Oxford don didn’t need to.

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10 years ago

This comment is for those complaining that the dwarves in the movies are not the dwarves from the book. Dwarves as a fantasy race have come a long way since the Hobbit was written. Just look at how dwarves are handled in RPGs like D&D or MMOs like WoW. It would feel wrong (at least to me) for PJ not to use that kind of dwarf instead of the whiney, unheroic ones we see in the book. Hell, even JRR changed how the dwarves were presented with Gimli in LotR, and I disagree that Gimli was some kind of an exception.

This whole thing reminds me of the way some fans were so upset that PJ gave the elve pointed ears in the LotR films. Todays fantasy fans expect elves to have pointy ears and for dwarves to be warriors.

Of course this could all be beacuse I came to JRR’s world through D&D first instead of the other way around. Still, I prefer movie Thorin to the book version.

Also, both me and my daughter loved the other two Hobbit movies (although I could have done without the gold statue sequence) and can’t wait to see this one.

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mutantalbinocrocodile
10 years ago

Great points, @25. I do have a slightly different take on the Dwarves as a whole (as opposed to Thorin specifically). I think that overall they are the great tragic race of the entire Middle-Earth saga. They are literally cosmic accidents permitted to exist through divine grace, they live their lives with even less confidence that anything good waits for them in the afterlife, they desperately long to create beauty but are denied physical beauty and frequently mistreated by the other races as a result. . .honestly I’m not surprised that they don’t come out to battle in the Silmarillion as often as Elves and Men. Also, consider the sympathetic treatment of Mîm in the Children of Húrin story, and how important Túrin’s mistreatment of Mîm and his children is to Túrin’s personal moral degredation.

I agree wholeheartedly that Jackson has never got the Dwarves (ironically, I do feel like he is FINALLY getting the Elves, and even if they’re nasty prejudiced pieces of work like Thranduil, at least that rings true to plenty of minor Elf characters in the Silmarillion). First he made Gimli into a dirty D&D Dwarf, completely missing the essential contrast between the physical ugliness of the Dwarves and the ornamentation and grooming with which they try and cultivate as much personal beauty as they can, and then he completely overcorrected (remember the “hot Dwarves” meme?) The tragedy of the Dwarves is precisely nowhere. None of these characters could possibly comprehend the significance of, say, the Mirrormere.

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mutantalbinocrocodile
10 years ago

Missed an essential clause AGAIN. Really need to start drafting lengthy posts in Notepad to proofread better. Read “live their lives with even less confidence than Men. . .”

JLaSala
10 years ago

billiam, I can’t quite agree with that and I say that as a hardcore D&D fan. D&D dwarves were influenced by Tolkien’s dwarves; I would rather not see it reversed. That said, giving them some battle prowess that matches them up with the warrior people they are outside of The Hobbit makes sense to me. No, they shouldn’t be as involved as Men and Elves; they’re a more self-centered race and that’s intrinsic to their history. That’s fine. Thorin and Company, and their kin, only go into war in The Hobbit because they are defending what they believe to be theirs.

As for pointy ears, D&D talk aside, I think that’s totally acceptable. Tolkien himself implied that they would have pointed ears, anyway.

mutantalbinocrocodile, I’m intrigued by your words. Is the ugliness you speak of something you’re inferring or does Tolkien specifically say or imply this in the Silmarillion? If so, I missed it! Either way, I definitely need to brush up on my dwarf history. I’ve become rusty.

But I stand by the belief that Jackson’s portrayal of dwarves is fair, given the medium. Did he have to go and make some of them pretty boys? No, that’s too much. As is the need for dropping a mild romance in the story. That’s probably his greatest offense.

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10 years ago

I see a few things that give me pause (the chariots) and I know will make me roll my eyes a bit – but overall I’m looking forward to just having a good time with it.

I’ve enjoyed reading some of the discussion here, and I do agree that there is some darkness in the dwarves and Thorin and some pretty good themes on greed in the book that I am hoping will make their way into the movies. I re-read The Hobbit a few years ago and realized it really is a bit dark and not quite so cut-and-dry swashbuckling heroics as you would expect from a ‘children’s book’ (which is of course the kind of stereotype that Tolkien would rail against).

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csb
10 years ago

Hated that Ring trilogy in the first place… now Jackson is using all these movies to trudge through the Hobbit…

‘roll over Hitler tell Lord Tolkien the News!’

Mainly that his work is being TRASHED to line pocketbooks!

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Zhang
10 years ago

Can Saruman actually defeat Sauron one-on-one?