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Reviews Film / The Hobbit The Battle Of The Five Armies

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RedHudsonicus Since: Sep, 2012
08/15/2015 17:31:16 •••

I Hope Thorin and his Merry Band of Assholes Rot

Just to note: This review is exclusively covering the film (not the book) and I only watched the film once (which was plenty enough for me) so there may be some errors regarding particular details.

Now then: Why the fuck does anyone like Thorin and the dwarves? I just could not get over the fact that these assholes essentially set Smaug loose on a town and then refused to help the inhabitants. Yes, the town may have broken a promise of aid in the past but guess what? Considering the dwarves' actions directly caused the loss of their homes and that the town leader killed Smaug (thus allowing the dwarves to reclaim their ancestral home), the LEAST the dwarves could do is give them a share of the treasure so that they don't fucking starve/freeze to death.

And no, Thorin's "dragon sickness" isn't an excuse. For one, the other dwarves weren't affected and yet they didn't even bother challenging him about the townsfolk. The only reason they seemed to care was because Thorin had given his word and thus they needed to maintain their "honor." Instead of, you know, helping out hundreds of people who are now homeless because you had to go and poke a sleeping dragon. Additionally, Thorin never shows any concern for these people. Instead, the reason he goes out to fight is to help out his cousin.

Nor is this helped by Thranduil being wholly unsympathetic and getting scores of his own people killed for trinkets.

Oh, and Tauriel was laughably useless. The only thing she managed to accomplish was getting others killed and being a damsel in distress.

Honestly, Bard and Bilbo were the only halfway sympathetic characters but that wasn't enough to save this train wreck.

Besides having so many loathsome protagonists, there was not a single compelling villain and instead it felt like the greatest threat hanging over these people was them getting themselves killed due to their petty bickering and greed. Which I, personally, found irritating and completely unentertaining.

If you enjoyed this film, good for you. I know the ten year old girls sitting behind me in the theater were bawling their eyes out at each of the deaths so clearly they found the film affecting. But speaking for myself, I would be gleeful never to have to watch another Hobbit film ever again.

Pannic Since: Jul, 2009
01/02/2015 00:00:00

Uhh, Thranduil and Thorin aren't supposed to be sympathetic characters. You do know what "King Under the Mountain" means, right?

SpocktorWho Since: May, 2011
01/19/2015 00:00:00

I realise you said that the review was covering the film, not the book, and that's fair. But a good deal of your complaints, i.e. those about the protagonists being jerks is actually the film following the book very well. In fact, the dwarves as a whole are much more sympathetic in the film trilogy than they ever were in the book in my opinion. I'm sorry you found the film disappointing, but you are blaming it for things it drew directly from the original source material, so you'll have to take that up with Tolkien.

LordYAM Since: Jan, 2015
08/15/2015 00:00:00

also the humans only helped the dwarves for their own reasons. Also, the dwarves are appalled by thorin's assholery


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