Because it compliments the brilliant achievements of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy and is regarded as its prequel work, "The Hobbit" has been the focus of fans' attention since the first part, and it is also favored by the market. However, it failed to earn more honors for Peter Jackson, and "The Battle of the Five Armies", the last work in the series, did not earn the perfect ending for "The Hobbit" like "The Return of the King".
It is obviously not an easy task to interpret the legends and stories of Middle-earth for this purpose. Peter Jackson is a director who has mastered the Hollywood commercial film model, but that's about it. He couldn't create an incredible world on his own like Nolan, or bring dry stories to life like Woody Allen. However, he can play with the visual effects and adapt the original story into a full, clear and complete film.
But for Peter Jackson, "The Hobbit" is not an easy adaptation. It is Tolkien's first published fantasy novel, with a little fairy tale color in addition to fantasy. "The Lord of the Rings" is different. Although it originally came out as a sequel to "The Hobbit", its epic narrative and Tolkien's philosophical thinking make this work more complex and thoughtful than "The Hobbit". The Hobbit many. In terms of length, "The Lord of the Rings" is originally three million-word works, while "The Hobbit" is only 220,000 words, which is only a thin book by comparison.
In order to make "The Hobbit" appear to be in the same vein as "The Lord of the Rings", the creative team made a bold attempt to adapt it into a film with the same epic style. The scale of the three films is nearly 7 hours. It is really difficult for the screenwriter to use the chapters about the Hobbit at the beginning and end of "The Lord of the Rings" to supplement the plot. The boredom in the audience's mouth is obviously a chasm that the creative team failed to successfully overcome.
From the second part of the series, "The Desolation of Smaug", the work has shown an embarrassing situation where the plot is stretched. Not to mention that several episodes of confrontation with opponents are just guerrilla warfare that is dodging and dodging, lacking conflict and tension, and the excessively detailed details of the literary and drama parts make the performance of the film procrastinated and slow. In the third part, after the audience finally endured Thorin Oakenshield's ugly face from being wise and martial to greedy, stingy and unreliable, finally ushered in the climax of the film, where humans, elves, and hobbits fought against the army of orcs. As a result, in the protracted war plot, the most enduring one was the close hand-to-hand combat between Sorin and other characters and his old enemy, which instantly lowered the excitement of the climax.
For Peter Jackson, who is good at fantasy films, there is no doubt about the visual effects of "The Hobbit" with the jewels of the "Lord of the Rings" series and "King Kong" ahead. The vast Middle-earth and the wonderful and interesting species landscape make this prequel series more like a magical scenery film. As the director himself said, it presents more of the landscape of Middle-earth in this series. It's just that what the audience wants from the film shouldn't just be a little trouble in a beautiful scenery.
The creative team made a perfect seamless connection between "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings". Except for the recurring characters who continued to use the actors in "The Lord of the Rings", the scenes, shooting techniques, rendering methods, detailed design, and even The scale of the film is exactly the same as that of "The Lord of the Rings", and the plot is not a part that echoes before and after.
This approach can be said to have ulterior motives for the creative team, and how to reluctantly expand a novel into three movies with a duration of more than 2 hours is too overwhelming, and it has only an opportunistic effect. Therefore, no matter how sincere the director's rhetoric is and how fantastic the effect is, the part that moves the audience is declining.
It can be said that, as a prequel, "The Hobbit" has played its own role in keeping its own pace. As far as the series goes, it's also a complete section. However, as far as the story itself is concerned, its flaws are too obvious and the novelty is not enough. If there is a next time, I wonder if Peter Jackson will insist on inheriting this piece of Middle Earth.
View more about The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies reviews