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by TC
saw this in IMAX 3D yesterday. first things first - it was a MUCH better movie than the other two put together. it was fun, there was some degree of actual joy in it. this one is actually worth seeing. it was bitter-sweet in that they did manage to close out the series strong but now it's over. there will be no more.
i did have problems with it, but the same problems that exist for this series in general and aren't specific to this film. i don't understand why some of the (major) changes and additions were necessary. trying to shoe-horn things into the story to tie the two trilogies together wasn't necessary. this film also underscored the fact that this ONE book did not need to be THREE movies. two at most, one long one with brisk editing, putting the additional footage on the DVDs like they did with LOTR films. a lot of crap in the first two hobbit films really leave a lasting bad taste in the mouth for the series, a bit of contempt given what they were able to accomplish with the LOTR trilogy. it felt like a cash grab and i can't forget that.
Tauriel is lovely to look at, but for a character that doesn't exist in the book, she certainly has a MAJOR part of the storyline shown in this film, starting from the second one. i feel like this plus shoehorning legolas into the story were completely unnecessary and done at the possible expense of other details.
for the massive promise of smaug in these films, he's featured very little. the dragon battle, while great to look at, was very short. a key driver of the main story is out very early. the eagles (the fifth army, from the title) are barely in this, maybe a minute of screen time and are certainly not presented as either an army or as having any vested interest in the outcome.
i don't know, i could nitpick the story to death, but it's jackson's interpretation, not necessarily a faithful adaptation. i get that. and it was cool to see sauromon, elrond, & galadriel fight, even if it was briefly. and again, this is a good film, as opposed to the other two that felt very tedious and drawn-out. it's just that some things are kind of inexplicable to me as far as why they were done. in the end, if you're at all into this universe, i'd say go see this one for sure on the largest format possible.