The Battle Of The CG Armies.(All good things must pass, hopefully before they become bad things.)

Rating: 5/10 (26 December 2014)

Technically I cannot call myself a nerd, though my good friends are. I guess I am 'nerd adjacent', to paraphrase Hal Sparks. And I use 'nerd' in the most respectful sense. I was a Tolkien fan, had read LOTR more than once and of course the Hobbit. But my friends were sci- fi/fantasy fanatics. Knew all the kings of the realms and the histories and actually read the Silmarillion, which I thought was a freekin snoozefest. Decades before the first LOTR film came out, we used to sit around and hypothesize how it could be made while we were playing D&D. What would the Black Riders look like? Rivendell? Would they screw up and show Sauron? Would Bombadil be cut again, like in all the radio adaptations? Who should play what part etc... Our biggest fear was that someone would create another Ralph Bakshi nightmare. So when Jackson finally made it happen it was like a dream come true. Midnight shows on opening night became a household tradition. The stories and characters were truncated and contemporized and most of the plot changes and omissions were understandable. Overall it was a magnificent experience. Someone actually did Lord Of The Rings, and they did it justice!.... Then came the Hobbit, which started off very nicely. But it but quickly turned into a weird sort of LOTR knock off. The music, the tone, the scene cadence... it was all the same. The best parts of the Hobbit series are where they honor the lore and tone of Tolkien; those quiet moments of character and plot development in between all the over-the-freekin-top fight sequences. IMO, the action instincts which served Jackson so well in the LOTR series, detracted from this film. But I understand that after such a huge win, he really couldn't change the formula. I guess he got trapped by his own success. Of course there are unforgettable moments, Smaug being the high point. I mean a talking dragon could have failed, like a talking tree. But Jackson made both work. But with a few notable exceptions, imo, Five Armies is just more of the same. The best moments are dramatic and character driven, while 'The Battle of the CG Armies' gets tedious and predictable. They even use the same music crescendo for every climactic buildup. Like they cut and pasted all Shore's bits from the other films. And the dialogue was barely a step above exposition. It was almost like they were tired of it all too, and just wanted to get the damn thing into the theater so they could get to work on something else. Not to mention the fumbling last minute segues into the Fellowship. They could have just left that out. It was goofy and defied the story logic of LOTR. Whatever. I loved the books, of course. I loved the LOTR films. Have all the extended versions and we still watch 'em occasionally. But The Hobbit series was like listening to Yngwie Malmsteen. Sure he's awesome.... but didn't he just do all those riffs on the last two albums? In conclusion, LOTR series, absolutely! Magnificent. But the Hobbit... Good. For the most part..... But I'm just glad it's all finally over.... I hope.