Peter Jackson and company have a Battle of Five Armies they’d like to show you.
This December brings the final chapter of Peter Jackson’s three-film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, subtitled The Battle of the Five Armies, so Jackson and a few members of his cast, aided by moderator Stephen Colbert (dressed in Master of Lake-town duds), made one more trip to Comic-Con to promote the final installment of their Middle-earth saga.
Colbert is a deep Tolkien fan and probably one of the few moderators in Hall H qualified to speak about his subject, but the panel revealed no information that we didn’t already know about the now six-film saga (including the original Rings trilogy), which has consumed the life of Peter Jackson for nearly 20 years, save for breaks to make King Kong and The Lovely Bones.
Still, despite the sense that these Hobbit films have been a letdown, the crowd was into it and there was an emotional quality to this being the final panel related to these films at the con. The melancholy, however, was balanced out by the unveiling of a fantastic blooper reel that showed off everything from Ian McKellen in full Gandalf costume revealing his tighty-whiteys to an impaled Christopher Lee intoning that having a wooden stake through his chest seemed awfully familiar.
Finally, the new trailer itself was revealed and the most immediately striking thing about it was the sense of doom and tragedy. Jackson has said that his final Hobbit movie is the bridge to the darker world of the Rings films and that came across right from the first shot. There were a lot of shots of our heroes in war-like situations or even just in states of heavy emotional distress, along with glimpses of soldiers in golden armor, scores of orcs assembling on a hilltop, Smaug laying waste to Lake-town and more, culminating with Thorin (Richard Armitage) asking his fellowship if they will join him one last time.
Will The Battle of the Five Armiessalvage the Hobbit trilogy for those of us who have been disappointed so far, and provide a satisfying conclusion for those who have enjoyed them? We’ll find out this December as Peter Jackson bids farewell to Middle-earth (at least until some wise guy at Warner Bros. wants to adapt The Silmarillion).
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Sorry, but where is this "sense that these Hobbit films have been a letdown"?
For fans of the books (and I mean The Hobbit and entries in Return of the King and elsewhere -- a lot of this stuff just got thrown in) this "trilogy" is like getting a great big package in the mail, and finding a lot of excelsior inside. The whole thing would've been better off as two 90 minute flicks (and I personally would've loved to have seen Guillermo del Toro's take on the story).
I've enjoyed these films myself. My family loves them as well. It's sad to know that we won't be looking forward to anymore after this one. I'm curious what Peter Jackson's plans are after this... Perhaps he could make R.A. Salvatore's Dark Elf Trilogy? Or maybe his Icewind Dale Trilogy... Either of those would be awesome on the big screen!