And so the rather absurdly
stretched-out film versions of The Hobbit come to an end. It’s probably
a little sad that what will be remembered, rather than the huge amount of work
that went into making this film spectacular and beautiful, will be the
superficial things: the padding and the original characters – including the
elf-dwarf love story. The protracted battles with orc leaders. The armoured
war-pigs. Actually, I’m not sad about that part. Armoured war-pigs are awesome.
It’s been a very long time
since I read The Hobbit, and I must say that the events of this film are
what I remember least about the original. I remember very well the trolls
turning to stone and the dwarves in barrels and Gollum and Smaug...but really
very little about the Battle of the
Five Armies. Talking with friends and family and checking summaries, though, it
seems that largely, what happens is brief: the ‘nice guy’ armies make their
demands, the nasty orcs and goblins show up, Bilbo gets knocked out, and when
he wakes up he finds that Thorin is in a bad way and, basically, that Beorn the
Bear has sorted everything out.
I can understand the desire to
take that and spin it into a much larger battle. Especially in the Peter
Jackson universe of huge clashes between armies. I mean, there are five of
them! Hard to resist, really. And things are done with clarity: the set-up to
dispatch Smaug has all been done and Bard does it with little fuss – yet the
town is destroyed. Thorin is changed by reclaiming the mountain, becoming like
a dragon: proud and selfish, unwilling to pay his debts. Desolate, now, the
people of Lake Town Lake .
The elves are there because some of their most valuable treasures were taken by
the dragon and they wish to reclaim them. Thorin holes himself and his company
up in the mountain, preparing for a siege and offering absolutely nothing, and
thus the stage is set for battle.
When it looks like the
combined forces of men and elves are just going to storm the handful of
dwarves, Thorin’s cousin Dain Ironfoot shows up with a heavily-armed company.
The third army! Dain is hot-headed, played with aplomb by Billy Connollly,
which was a joy. Before they can clash, though, the orcs under Azog appear through
tunnels that come courtesy of some sandworms borrowed from Dune, so huge
you would think they would have been better off coming up under the armies and causing
some damage rather than just making transportation easier.
Anyway, because the orcs
decided to appear just then rather than waiting for the other armies to destroy
one another as would have been sensible, everyone turns on them. The orcs
decide that rather than concentrating all their forces on the armed threat,
they’ll draw the men and elves thin by going after the women and children
sheltering in the abandoned city of Dale .
Thorin finally comes to himself and joins the battle, rallying the ailing dwarves,
and then goes after Azog.
Of course, this is all a trap
and another orc army is on the way to mop up the remnants. Also, taking out
Azog is apparently not that effective anyway, because the armies carry on
perfectly normally without him giving commands as he gets distracted by
one-on-one fights. As for Beorn? Well, he may not play quite such a role and
only gets about 4 seconds of screen time, but effectively he and the eagles are
still instrumental. Does this last part seem a bit contrived? Well, yes, but it
also makes sense of Azog and co not exactly employing the best strategies.
Ultimately, though, this film
is about the joy of all-out action and spectacle. If shouldn’t be treated as
intelligent, even by the scale of the main LOTR trilogy. It is
straightforward, joyful fun. And I got something of a thrill from watching
Christopher Lee kicking some butt and Galadriel getting some pretty excessive
powers – but which came with the kind of spectacle I was hoping we’d get with
Gandalf vs Saruman in the first film, instead of old man dance-off.
The Hobbit was never
enough material for three substantial films, but I can’t say I haven’t enjoyed
the ponderous, rather insubstantial ones we got. And Bilbo remains rather more
likeable than Frodo ever was...
