It follows directly on from the devastating cliffhanger of "The Desolation of Smaug". It's our hero Bilbo's fault that the dreaded dragon Smaug -- he loves goooolllld! The first thing to burn is any trace of subtlety, and Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings" hallmarks are present throughout: sumptuous scenery, dizzying camerawork, bombastic music and eye-melting CGI melded with the real-life familiar faces.
The stage is duly set for a spectacular meeting of dwarf, elf and orc hosts in the shadow of the Lonely Mountain, with our reluctant hero Bilbo Baggins and his dwarf buddies stuck in the middle. Playing Bilbo for the third and final time, Martin Freeman's scenes with Richard Armitage's dwarf king Thorin Oakenshield are the best thing in the film. It's the most affecting relationship in the whole affair, with Bilbo watching in despair as his friend succumbs to greed and corruption, paralleling the hapless hobbit's own experiences with the one ring that will cause so much trouble down the line.
This is a smaller story than the Middle-earth-spanning tales of the older films, and there's something bleakly relevant about the plot as rulers send their people to die over grudges and trinkets. It's a shame that for a series called "The Hobbit", there's precious little of the hobbit himself in this closing instalment. Because there are so many characters and subplots, Bilbo vanishes for long stretches of time and even the dwarves we're supposed to be following on their quest disappear almost entirely into the background.
Most of the time we're busy elsewhere, to the film's detriment: there was already too much of Laketown's local politics in the previous film.
On the hills outside Dale, huge catapult trolls launched volleys of rocks against the defending walls while a large troll equipped with a stone headpiece charged the north wall and bashed through it, creating an opening for the orcs to enter. Within the city, garrisons of Lake-town guards, well-armed militiamen, and citizens were joined by Bard entering the city with rest of his army, Gandalf, and Bilbo.
Taking stock of the situation, Bard rallied his forces and personally lead the primary defense against the Orcs in Main Street. Soon the fight became a vicious street brawl, locked into tight corners of one-on-one fights. As the battle raged on for several hours, the allied forces became increasingly demoralized and exhausted as Orc reinforcements continued to pour out of the tunnels onto the battlefield plain and into Dale simultaneously. Realising that Bard was in trouble, Thranduil and a large contingent of Elves charged into Dale to aid it; though during the charge, Thranduil lost his Elk mount.
Inside the walls of Dale, Bard too ordered a retreat further into Dale. The surviving Elvish forces, numbering no more than 6, left standing at this point in the battle, were withdrawn by Thranduil from the gates of Erebor and ordered to move closer towards the city of Dale and the outskirts of the valley itself for an imminent retreat from the battle altogether, leaving the Dwarves to their fate.
Drunk with the prospect of victory, Azog regrouped his forces on the plain for a final destructive charge against the remaining Dwarvish forces, which had been whittled down to just Locked out of the mountain itself and bereft of any other choice, the Dwarvish army turned to face the Orcs, aligned into a crescent-phalanx formation with Dain at its apex and prepared to make its final stand.
Azog waited for a moment until a team of armoured trolls came to the front of the Orc lines and then ordered the charge. As he did so, another horn blast sounded from the mountain, causing the orcs to stop in their tracks as the doorway to the mountain was cleared by a huge bell, out of which ran Thorin and his companions, causing the Dwarvish soldiers to shout and cheer at the sight of the king.
Farther out in the valley and within Dale itself, the remaining men of Lake-town and the Elvish forces too found fresh resolve and charged back into battle also. The battle raged on harder than ever only now the allied forces began to evenly match their enemies blow for blow. At first, they are aided by Balin heading a Dwarven war-chariot. On their journey towards the peak; they are chased by ogres, wargs, and a huge armored battle troll, but even among all the chaos around them, they successfully make it towards their destination.
Bilbo arrives to warn the Dwarves of Bolg's army which is near but is knocked out by Bolg on Ravenhill. In anger Tauriel throws Bolg off a hill but she is dragged down with him. Legolas then spots Bolg and engages in a climactic duel with him in which the giant Gundabad Orc is killed when Legolas plunges a shortsword into his head. Azog then returns with a flail but Thorin breaks the ice on the river and Azog falls in the water due to the weight of his weapon.
Thorin follows Azog's body but is stabbed in the foot and while he is incapacitated, Azog stabs him in the chest, mortally wounding the Dwarf but Oakenshield plunges Orcrist through Azog's chest and stabs him into the ice, killing the Orc. Thorin later apologizes to Bilbo for almost killing him and dies having made peace with Bilbo. Despite Bilbo's efforts to keep him alive, Thorin succumbs to his wounds and dies.
He is found dead when the rest of his company arrive. The first movie, An Unexpected Journey , contained bundles of nerdy references and was largely faithful to J. The second, The Desolation of Smaug , strayed a bit further from its source material, but was still largely Tolkien. The Battle of the Five Armies , however, turns a significant corner, relying on a heavy dose of artistic licensing and big screen razzle-dazzle. Much of the final film operates in a grey area somewhere between the Tolkien-Jackson dichotomies.
In some cases, the Jackson additions seem to work; in others, not so much. But overall, the essence of Middle-earth and its characters are intact enough to make the journey to the cinema worthwhile for all but the pickiest of purists.
As per tradition , we asked Michael Drout , an English professor at Wheaton College, and John Rateliff , an independent Tolkien scholar and author of the forthcoming book, A Brief History of the Hobbit , to help us navigate the hodge-podge of Tolkien material and Hollywood invention.
For starters, there's the scale of things. While the book's Smaug does indeed descend on Lake-town to punish the community for interrupting his slumber, the dragon—originally described as about feet long—is now "the size of a " and Lake-town—largely evacuated in the book prior to the great worm's arrival—bears witness to something more akin to "the fire bombing of Dresden," says Drout.
Moreover, that relatively small skirmish spans just five pages in the book, but in the movie, it clocks in at over an hour. Strangely, despite the favoritism toward aggrandizement, Middle-earth itself seems to have shrunk. One of the most significant new departures from the book's actual plot concerned Thorin, Kili and Fili's deaths.
In Tolkien's version, Thorin and his dwarves make a heroic charge into the thick of the battle, even though they know their efforts are doomed to fail. Orcs and trolls then pop along to join the party, causing the Elves and Dwarves to temporarily join forces against them.
Dwarven chariots promptly emerge, as do Trolls with trebuchets attached to their backs. Thorin and co. Apparently the added Chariot Race scene was what tipped the Extended Edition over the edge of child-friendly ratings in the U. What can we say about this battle that accurately sums it up?
All great pieces by themselves and all as a backdrop to the final face-off between Thorin and Azog across a cracking, frozen lake. Adding an element of unpredictability to the fight, the ice lends a literal and metaphorical coldness to the dance of death the two find themselves in, and the culmination of it is both brutal and fitting.
Cliffs can become Storm Giants. Who knew? The Battle in Goblin Town.
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