Peter Jackson gained a lot of criticism for splitting The Hobbit into three films instead of two. Although the split wasn’t necessary, it seemed to help Five Armies the most. Battle of the Five Armies has a far more driven narrative than the previous Hobbit films. There is little fat here and each and every subplot pieces together into one coherent film. Not to mention, the tight pacing and epic battle set pieces will keep you captivated throughout the film.

Yet amongst all the battles and Orc killing, Jackson still tries to find room for a little human emotion. While it’s not as emotional as The Return of the King, Five Armies still has some endearing moments — a majority of it coming from the brilliant Martin Freeman. However, there are personal moments where it was meant to be endearing but just comes out flat. This is mostly due to the some of the poorly defined characters that we SHOULD care about, but ultimately don’t.

This isn’t because of the actors though as each actor did a fantastic job in the film. Richard Armitage delivered an intense and commanding performance as Thorin Oakenshield and is arguably the true star of the film. Armitage was also very skillful at portraying the subtle and the heightened aspects of Thorin’s internal struggles. But with Thorin being the star of the film, this also means that Bilbo Baggins plays more of a secondary role (in a film that’s named after him). This is unfortunate since Freeman’s sympathetic and caring Bilbo Baggins delivers much of the touching moments in the film.

However, after watching the extended edition I wonder why the some of the new footage wasn’t edited into the theatrical version. The theatrical runtime was significantly shorter than the other Hobbit films, so the length wouldn’t have been an issue. It makes me wonder if the theatrical film suffered purely for the sake of creating an extended edition for later. The extra minutes improved the scenes so it would’ve been better left in the theatrical film. The R-rating is well-deserved since there were several moments that were significantly more violent and gory than the original.

Overall, Five Armies is a richly satisfying end to the Hobbit trilogy. It is filled with terrifically staged and constructed action sequences, even if its impact is more about Lord of the Rings nostalgia than emotional engagement. We have now, once again, made it there and back again. It’s time to say goodbye to Middle-earth and despite some serious bumps along the way, it is a journey that I’m still glad I took again.

Movie rating: 4/5 atoms


The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies Extended Edition is presented in a 1080P MPEG4 AVC encoded video with a 2.40:1 aspect ratio. Compared with the theatrical Blu-ray release there isn’t a noticeable improvement over the previous release. The black levels are deep yet they contain some minor but noticeable crush here and there. Peter Jackson’s wide array of color palettes ranges from lush green to cool and warm hues. The colors are rich without any oversaturation or bleeding at all. Details are quite impressive as they are consistent across foregrounds and backgrounds alike. Overall, the video is top notch as you’d expect from a Lord of the Rings Blu-ray release.

Video rating: 4.5/5 atoms


Audio

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies Extended Edition is presented in a DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 surround audio track. The mix doesn’t hold back with the sounds of roaring dragons, arrows flying, weapons clashing, and battle mayhem. The epic sense of scale and dynamic range will showcase your speakers across every channel. The front and rear speakers provide an atmospheric sound field that’s both engaging and immersive. The center channel provides clarity in the dialogue even during the grandiose battle sequences. Let’s not forget the subwoofer, which is is the star in the film. The robust sounds coming from your subwoofer provide the type of heavy booms to help fully immerse you in the film. After all, what kind of Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit Blu-ray would it be without a fully immersive audio track.

Audio rating: 5/5 atoms



Special features

Audio Commentary: Filmmaker Peter Jackson and co-writer Philippa Boyens deliver an engaging, frank dissection of the film, revealing both the joys and heartaches of the production.
New Zealand: Home to Middle-Earth Part 3: The third and final overview of the various New Zealand locations used to bring Jackson’s Middle-earth to life on screen.
The Appendices Part 11: The Gathering Storm: The second disc contains the following extra features:
Opening: The cast and filmmakers offer a brief glimpse at the fun, family, adventure and challenges of making the third and final film in The Hobbit trilogy.
In the Dungeons of the Necromancer: “Ian McKellen and Cate Blanchett form a special bond on set, the Gandalf dummy gets a star turn, Benedict Cumberbatch puts a unique spin on Black Speech, and producer Zane Weiner unveils his ‘Wacky Wheel of Wonders.'”
Fire and Water: “Peter Jackson puts Luke Evans through his paces on the Lake-town rooftops, WETA Workshop and John Howe create the iconic black arrow, WETA Digital kills Smaug, and it snows in Wellington for the first time in forty years.”
Under the Shadow of the Mountain: “While on location, cast and crew helicopter to the South Island’s remote Rock and Pillar Range. But when clouds and fog unexpectedly roll in, they quickly realize that getting off the mountain is going to be a real challenge.”
In the Wake of the Dragon: “While filming at Lake Pukaki on the South Island, the rugged local extras get a bit too enthusiastic, Ryan Gage has a wardrobe malfunction, and Luke Evans earns the first Victoria’s Cross, an award given for ‘Courage Under Fire.'”
The Gathering of the Clouds: “As filming nears its end, the Dwarf actors play a practical joke on William Kircher, Lee Pace’s horse upstages his performance, Jackson has a ‘golden’ epiphany, and almost every department finds itself in an inevitable time crunch.”
Many Partings: “Bilbo’s farewell leaves the Dwarf actors in tears, filming the funeral scene is surprisingly irreverent, Jackson presents a very special gift, and after 266 days of filming, principle photography wraps.”
The Clouds Burst: “As 2013 pick-ups begin, Luke Evans gets his Orcs mixed up, local senior citizens are enlisted, Evangeline Lilly and Orlando Bloom mount up, Jackson directs an unused payoff to the Acorn Scene, and a fire interrupts shooting.”
A Last Desperate Stand: “Jackson surprises Orlando Bloom on his last shot, Evangeline Lilly commemorates her team and almost gets KO’d by an Orc, Richard Armitage shoots the scene he’s been waiting for, and Ian McKellen gives his final performance as Gandalf.”
Out from the Gate: “The Dwarf actors are encased in real armor and get psyched up to charge out of Erebor, Bifur and Bombur finally speak, WETA Workshop creates a Dwarven Hot Rod, and Martin Freeman says goodbye to Middle-earth.”
The Last Stage: “The final day of pick-ups 2013 sees Jackson blogging on Facebook, Richard Armitage fighting on an oscillating platform, a race to the finish between Main and Splinter Units, and an appropriately quirky and heartfelt wrap ceremony.”
The Appendices Part 12: The third disc features the following extra features:
Beneath the Thunder: Forging a Battle of the Five Armies: “Chronicles the creation of Peter Jackson’s final battle in Middle-earth, from the designing of armies and military strategies, to the groundbreaking advances in digital filmmaking utilized by Peter and his team to bring the battle to life.” Segments include “A Master Plan: Long in the Making,” “On the Front Lines of a Virtual Battlefield,” and “Turning the Tide.”
The People and Denizens of Middle-Earth: “Focuses on the design, casting and creation of three major characters who personify the Woodland Elves and the Dwarves of the Iron Hills.” Segments include “Tauriel: Daughter of the Forest,” “Thranduil: The King of Wood and Stone,” and “Dain Ironfoot: Lord of the Iron Hills.”
Realms of the Third Age: From the City of Dale to the Halls of Erebor: “Follows the completion of the creative journey to bring Middle-Earth to life as the Art Department and WETA Digital design and build three of The Hobbit Trilogy’s most important locations.” Segments include “Dale: The City of Men,” “Dol Guldur: The Hill of Sorcery,” and “Erebor: The Lonely Mountain.”
Farewell, Friends!: “The fifteen-year journey of the Appendices editions concludes with what it means to come to the end of our fellowship, and bid farewell to Middle-earth at last.”
Butt-Numb-a-Thon 2011 Greeting: “On location in 2011, Peter Jackson, Ian McKellen and Ain’t It Cool News on-set reporter Eric “Quint” Vespe put together a surprise birthday video for Harry Knowles, host of the annual Butt-Numb-a-Thon film festival held in Austin, Texas.”
The Real Adam Brown: “An unflinching, uncompromising, hard-hitting, provocative, no-holds-barred expose on The Hobbit’s Ori, actor Adam Brown.”
Music Video: “Rivers of Gold” by Jed “Nori” Brophy.
Andrew Lesnie Remembered: A touching tribute to the late Andrew Lesnie.
One of the best things about a Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit Extended Edition Blu-ray release is the MASSIVE amount of special features that comes with it. As you can tell from the list above, there are a lot of special features coming your way in this release. Spanning across two Blu-ray discs, Battle of the Five Armies‘ release contains around 10 hours of behind-the-scenes footage to whet your appetite. The content will not disappoint you either because it’s both informative and extensive. Sure, there are some special feature items that should’ve been left out but that’s a minor criticism consider the amount of effort that went into the special features disc.

Special features rating: 5/5 atoms


Overall, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies Extended Edition should’ve been the theatrical release from the very start — minus the brutal violence to keep that PG-13 rating. There are scenes that add more insight into particular storylines which would’ve helped in the theatrical release. The video and audio are superb and on par with the other Hobbit Blu-ray releases. If you’re willing to sit through the entire array of special features then you will not be disappointed with what the release has to offer.

Overall rating: 5/5 atoms

Peter Jackson: 'I didn’t know what the hell I was doing' when I made The Hobbit"

Auf TheOneRing.net gibt es zu diesem Thema einen sehr interessanten Beitrag, dass dieses Zitat von PJ doch sehr aus dem Zusammenhang gerissen wurde.

Peter Jackson’s comments provoke a ‘Gathering Storm’ in a teacup…

November 20th, 2015 by greendragon | No Comments »

BotFA Photoshop Collage 2-D BlurayThere’s been a storm raging today over comments director Peter Jackson made about the process of filming The Hobbit trilogy. Staffer greendragon reflects on the debate which has been unleashed…

With the release this week of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies Extended Edition on Blu-ray and DVD, folks have been sitting down to watch the many hours of extras provided in the included ‘Appendices’ footage. Starting with an article on The Guardian newspaper’s website, one particular part of Peter Jackson’s comments (in ‘The Appendices Part 11: The Gathering Storm’) on the making of The Hobbit trilogy has gone viral online, unleashing much debate among fans who love or hate the movies.

You can read the article in The Guardian here. In short: in candid and insightful remarks, Jackson admitted that the short prep time he had after director Guillermo del Toro reluctantly had to leave the production and Jackson stepped into the breach, left him scrambling and ‘making it up as I went along’. He discusses how, in the early days of shooting, he would be on set ‘winging it’; eventually, he realised that he had to postpone shooting the epic battle from which the third film gets its title, to ‘clear his head and have some quiet time for inspiration to come about the battle, and start to really put something together’.

The headline for the article reads, ‘Peter Jackson: ‘I didn’t know what the hell I was doing’ when I made The Hobbit’; the implication being that this was the state of affairs throughout the entire process. This was received by many who were disappointed by The Hobbit trilogy, as confirmation of the poor quality of the films – and is why the article and comments were picked up by so many websites across the internet. (On TORn’s own Facebook page alone, it has had over 200,000 views!)

However, in ‘The Gathering Storm’ footage (specifically in Chapter Five, ‘The Gathering of the Clouds’), Jackson goes on to explain the various ways in which they overcame the obstacles encountered during filming; and indeed, even The Guardian’s own article (headline aside), implies that Jackson found ways of making things work, even in the ‘very high pressure situation’ in which he found himself.

Many fans agree that The Hobbit trilogy does not rise to the standards of The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. Jackson himself may be of that opinion – who knows? It is certain, however, that he would never want to belittle the huge amount of time, work and talent poured into these films by cast and crew; so naturally, he and folks at Wingnut Films were distressed by his comments being taken (as they say) ‘out of context’.

They responded by issuing a press release, which was picked up by stuff.co.nz – you can read their article here. The problem, a spokesman for Jackson says, is that a ‘collage’ of footage from the Appendices was cut together, showing all the discussion of the difficulties encountered in filming, but not of the solutions found. ‘The comments did not reflect on the production of the movies, or the finished result, the spokesman said.’

Here’s Wingnut Films’ entire official statement, which they sent to TORn:

The You Tube clip is a 6min cutdown of a 45min featurette (one of many) from the recent Battle of the Five Armies Extended Cut DVD, entitled “The Gathering Clouds” [sic]. Somebody has decided to create this cutdown using only the sections of “The Gathering Clouds” that discuss the difficulties faced, not the positive ways they were addressed and overcome – which are also covered in this and other featurettes.
Peter has never made a secret of the fact that he took over the Hobbit directing job with very little preparation time remaining before shooting had to begin. It was a challenge he willingly took on. His comments are an honest reflection of his own personal feelings at times during the movie’s production.

However they are not a reflection of either the actual production of these 3 movies – which was very tight, professional, happy, and finished on schedule and budget – nor do they reflect the finished result. Peter is very proud of the 3 Hobbit movies, and actually regards this period as one of his happiest film making experiences – something he has said publicly many times.

Shifting 2 months of shooting from 2012 into 2013 to allow the long and very complex battle sequence to be properly planned and shot, had no impact on the budget or release date. It is exactly what any responsible director should do, given the compressed pre-production time Peter had for these 3 technically difficult movies.

Ever since The Frighteners, Peter has tried to provide fans with honest, detailed, “warts and all” behind the scenes featurettes – compared to the usual bland Hollywood publicity material seen on most other DVDs. It’s a little sad to see desperate media outlets hijack this honesty to feed their ravenous appetite for negative sensationalism.

Before receiving this statement, here at TheOneRing.net, in the interests of fair journalism, we had shared on Facebook The Guardian article, but also posted the following.

‘… the short clip which has been creating so much press around the world is taken out of context and doesn’t include any of the positives! It’s great that PJ is honest and frank enough to admit the struggles they faced in making these films; AND the Appendices also explore some of the solutions they found to those struggles. The story out there right now has picked on one angle of PJ’s candid conversation; watch the whole 45 min of ‘The Gathering Storm’ in the Appendices for the full story!

Whatever your opinion of The Hobbit movie trilogy, it’s fair to say huge amounts of planning, work and talent went into these films – and Peter Jackson would never intend to belittle that. It would be a pity if film makers were discouraged from being honest in behind the scenes coverage, because of things being taken out of context. So here at TORn we encourage you to watch the whole of the Appendices (you know, when you have nine hours to spare…) and draw your own conclusions.’

Each fan, of course, has his or her own opinion of The Hobbit movie trilogy. Staff at TORn are divided too, naturally; some of us love the movies, some hate them, and many of us are somewhere in the middle of the road. (Read my own review of The Battle of the Five Armies Extended Edition to see that I’m not someone who always says, ‘Everything is awesome!’ about these films!) It seems unfair, however, to take comments out of context, and make it seem as though Jackson is not proud of these movies, or that he does not respect the efforts of all those involved in their creation. As Wingnut Films’ spokesman remarked, Jackson’s honesty in these ‘behind the scenes’ clips is refreshing and fascinating – it would be a pity if he were put off from being so open, by unfair reporting of his words.

Personally I love this comment Jackson made, shown in the Appendices footage: ‘There’s no magical answer for it and that’s the truth of it.’ I think we can all recognise the validity of this aphorism, to any project into which any of us has poured our time and our labours – sometimes with mixed results.

Jackson’s remarks give us a real insight into the huge work involved in making a movie, and the crazy, often chaotic scramble which is the nature of the set of an epic film (or three, in this case). I hope he’ll continue to share such frank commentary with us, the fans; and I also hope the fans will continue to be passionate – on both sides of the argument! – in their reaction to these films, and indeed to any art which comes out of Middle-earth.

Meanwhile, perhaps these remarks from Jackson going viral is not such a bad thing after all. Warner Bros. would have had a hard time buying the kind of media coverage this has gained; and as one fan commented on our Facebook page, ‘Warner Bros just made a sale. I want to see all the extras if they’re being that open and honest.’ Maybe there really is no such thing as bad press…


Here’s the cut of footage which started all the furore:.



And you can get your own copy of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies Extended Edition here, so you can watch The Appendices and judge for yourself!

Und doppelt gevideot hält sicherlich auch diesmal besser. Ich hatte die nämliche Filmsequenz bereits vorgestern im letzten Beitrag vor deinem gepostet....