For the last decade or so, we’ve made a tradition of going to the movies on Christmas. It’s a nice way to relax and recoup our strength between the morning binge and the evening party. Plus, tons of good movies open on Christmas. I guess we’re not the only family doing this.
Some of the movies we’ve seen on Christmas have been great. We saw most of the Lord of the Rings movies on Christmas day. I remember Zack was sick one year but didn’t say a word about feeling lousy until after he’d seen the Two Towers. Last year, I stayed home with Babydoll while the rest of them went to see The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. I didn’t mind missing it. Especially when it was sold out so they saw Anchorman II instead. I did eventually see Mitty and I loved it. I’m not sure I’ll ever catch up with Ron Burgundy and co.
Since our Christmas was drawn out and all over the board this year, we went the day after. It was the only chance we had to see the final installment of the Hobbit, which we’ve all enjoyed. I say “we all” but I don’t know if Jay has seen any of the Hobbit movies. He didn’t come to this one, either. Just as well. Nothing wrecks a trilogy’s ending quicker than someone who thinks it’s okay to come in on movie number III saying “Who’s that? Why are they there? What’s going on? This is dumb.”
Jay wouldn’t have done any of those things; he’d have fallen asleep. Since tickets were $14.00 a pop, I’d rather he not take his nap in the theater.
Katie, Zack, Josie and I loved it.
We saw the first show after lunch, in the IMAX 3D theater. It was awesome.
I love the fact that Peter Jackson and friends didn’t stick to the book alone but threw in all the stuff that was going on with Gandalf and the White Council in southern Mirkwood. All that stuff is in the appendices and as Katie pointed out, it’s actually a much cooler story than that of the dwarves, dragon and treasure under the mountain. Except that the story of how and why Bilbo got ahold of the one ring is kind of important.
The movie took ideas and characters out of the book and enlarged them to the Nth degree. Take the way Tolkien wrote Thranduil, the King of the Wood Elves, for instance; he’s a dick. In the book, he’s a pompous, self-important, pig headed jerk. In the movie, he’s all that in three dimensions!
Thorin’s case of gold fever makes Bogart seem light hearted and generous, which seems fair, seeing as the mountain of treasure he stood atop was as big as the entire Sierra Madre. Dragon’s curse or not, a lot of folks would become paranoid if they took possession of a pile of wealth like that.
Based on the behavior of the people fighting over their share of the loot after the demise of the dragon, it’s not hard to understand why the elves and dwarves hated each other; they all acted like screaming jackasses.
While these lesser folks were quibbling over shiny metal and pretty rocks, the White Council was battling the shadow of Morgoth which had taken hold in the southern part of the great woods. I loved the scene where Galadriel demonstrated what the Queen of the Eldar could do with a real ring of power.
It completely made up for however slightly miffed I ever was by the addition of a completely fabricated girl Elf named Tauriel.
Also, we decided that Legolas must be the Michael Jordan of Elves. If all of them could fight like Legolas, you’d only need about ten Elves to destroy every enemy in Middle Earth. As Katie pointed out; of course he was the best! That’s why they sent him to Rivendell eighty years later to join the Fellowship.
Oh, one last quibble: Aragorn was about seven when this battle took place. He couldn’t possibly have already become known as ‘Strider’ in the wild. Don’t care; just sayin’.
The battle scenes were longer, more graphic and more personal than anything Tolkien ever described. He wasn’t nearly as interested in the bloody details of hand to hand combat as your modern movie fan. The gore was less than the original Lord of the Rings movies and slightly less…believable. The orcs were mostly (if not entirely) CGI and although they were very well rendered they were less believable. There’s just a weightiness to a flesh and blood actor in costume and makeup that CGI hasn’t been able to grasp yet. There was nothing in these scenes quite as horrific as the once in which the orc, impaled on Aragorn’s sword, drags himself down the blade to snarl into Strider’s face.
I’m nit picking.
Having read the book, I knew who would survive the battle and who wouldn’t. I didn’t expect to be moved to tears when it happened; but I was.
They totally got me.
For those of us geeks who not only read all the appendices in the books but even read the Silmarillion, the Battle of the Five Armies was a Christmas treat worth waiting for.