Dain ends up being a great king. He helps the people of Dale become incredibly rich and he rebuilds relations between the Elves of Mirkwood and Dwarves, basically both occur because of all the trading that happens. We don’t see him in the LOTR movies because they’re fighting their own war near Erebor. Sauron tries to corrupt Dain by offering him the three Dwarven Rings he had if Dain tells him who “Baggins” is. He refuses, that is why Gimli and Gloin are at the meeting that creates the Fellowship. Dain sends them to warn Elrond that Sauron is mobilizing and has interest in Bilbo. Dain ultimately dies protecting the people of Dale who were retreating into Erebor. His son, Thorin III, then is able to defeat the armies attacking Erebor after his father dies and he goes on to rule Erebor after the War of the Ring.
@@christopherjustice6411 The Lord of the Rings: The Kingdoms of the North Would be fire. Unfortunately Amazon needed to spend a billion on that abomination.
May I add gentleman, Dain falls defending the body of his friend Brand, grandson of Bard the bowman. They served as a rear guard and a “pile of Easterling corpses” surrounded Dain before he is brought down.
@@RamBear88 Tolkein actually wrote that had Dain lost the war against the easterlings, Sauron would've ultimately won despite what happened at pelenor fields.
In the books, the battle spans about 2 pages, the eagles arrive much sooner, and Bilbo is the first see them before a random stone knocks him out **for the rest of the battle**. He wakes up afterwards and only learns then that Thorin was struck down by Bolg, Fili and Kili were killed defending him. Bolg is actually killed by Beorn, who shows up suddenly and bears (no pun intended) Thorin away from the battle. Azog was never there, because he was too busy being dead for much of the previous century.
The whole battle and aftermath is on pages 228-238 in first PDF you can find googling "The Hobbit: Enhanced Edition pdf". Bilbo got bonked in the head right after orcs attacked, and he's told about rest of battle by Gandalf later.
The fact that this movie shows a fantastic, emotionally moving, crucial and borderline tearjerking scene where Thorin dies making amends with Bilbo (the two most important characters) who breaks up mourning him and then cuts immediately to the pointless and vapid Elf Dwarf romance subplot with Tauriel mourning someone she met 3 days ago and has barely any chemistry with is both laughable and infuriating.
The whole dwarf and elf romance is just cringe and was only added because “they wanted to add a romance” because of the normies that criticize LotR for being too male. Not to mention the one dwarf in the romance is hot, not resembling a dwarf in the slightest. (I have this issue with Thorin and Filli as well but some effort was made ti making them dwarvish, but not really.)
@@anom5389I am a female, and I do not care for most romance plotlines. I'm sure I'm not the target demographic anyway, but I would much prefer this movie and most movies without a love triangle, square, line, whatever. The only thing I liked about the Tauriel and Kili plotline was that A Feast of Starlight was playing in the background.
When you think about it, Tauriel has the same character arc as Bilbo. She starts off as a recluse in her own home secretly desiring to see the outside world, is set free into said outside world upon forming a close bond with a dwarf, watches said dwarf die, and then goes home forever changed. It’s not much of a stretch to assume Tauriel and Kíli may be meant as explicitly romantic stand-ins for Bilbo and Thorin, since they have practically the same storyline but theirs is actually able to be explicitly romantic because it’s heterosexual. It’s particularly obvious in the framing - Thorin catches the key with his foot when Bilbo drops it, just as Tauriel catches the runestone with her foot when Kíli drops it - and in the editing of the death scenes, as the shots of Bilbo weeping over Thorin cut immediately back and forth with shots of Tauriel weeping over Kíli; their grief is the same.
I would like to call to attention the scene where Thorin gives bilbo a very expensive mithril shirt for protection. As we know, he has dragon sickness. As I know from reading a lot of questionable multi species fanfiction, dragons are obsessed and possessive over treasure. As Captain Jack Sparrow once said 'not all treasure is silver and gold, mate.'
One note about the "dragon sickess": it is just one of the colloquial names of this thing that Tolkien insterted into the lore in the Silmarillion, actually. Gold, as in, the metal itself, does in fact carry spiritual evil. It contains it, it carries it, it conducts it like other metals or water does electricity. Evil or at least evil-prone creatures and men are drawn to it and they - meaning gold and someone enraptured by gold - eventually further corrupt one another. That's why it was the best choice for Sauron to pour his "wish" into that, and that's why the elves use gemstones - basically minerals - which are the stuff of stardust, to harness their power and light, use the "fairest and wisest" magic. That's why in ROP it doesn't make any sense that Galadriel is blacksmithing herself something from a fucking silver-gold alloy dagger :'DDD (Tolkien himself was also torn that he could not retcon everything he wrote in The Hobbit, so the Arkenstone is actually a mystery jewel left for the dwarves.) Tolkien wanted to reach back to the roots of _everything_ , and he had incredible ideas about evil - necessary evil, AND unnecessary, inexplicable evil existing in the world, and he worked a great deal to explain and place them or at least tie them to something. That's why it hurts to see that if someone wants to make money off of something, it doesn't matter how much is already written. It doesn't matter if it's handed to them on a silver fucking plate. There are _thousands_ of pages from his manuscripts, Unfinished Tales, etc, you don't need to make up any new bullshit. It was literally there they just needed to pick the best stuff, but nooo. It's fucking heartbreaking. I know, I know, rights an all that - but then don't make a fucking movie/series about something that you CAN'T make a movie/series about!!! Fucking hell. The only thing I will remember from the Hobbit movies, unfortunately forever, is Ian McKellen crying in that goddamn green room. Thank you so much for this absolutely thorough analysis!
funny how the best scenes are usually the ones directly from the book, almost like most of the trilogy was bullshit added because of the studio's greedeness (but i appreciate how ironic it is considering the whole dragon sickness plot xD)
@@akwaMartyna yeah it’s a unfortunate situation for PJ. They didn’t want him to do the movie. Then their golden boy quits during production. Then they call up PJ to try and salvage the shit show mess they created. It was a no win situation for PJ. If the movie is bad, they blame him. If it does great, PJ didn’t actually do anything. If PJ doesn’t do the movie, he’s a POS who doesn’t care about anything but himself.
Probably the biggest victim of the trilogy trend that was happening at the time because The Hobbit would have been much better if it was two movies or even just one. At least they didn't split the last movie into two parts like some other franchises did at the time (can you imagine if The Hobbit was four movies, jesus).
Although Bard didn't really get a backstory in The Hobbit, because Tolkien, telling the story to his children, needed a hero to kill the dragon, the little he gets is very cool. He leads the archers of Laketown, firing arrow after arrow until he is the only one left, and he is down to his last arrow, an arrow handed down from father to son, an arrow that may have been formed in Erebor itself. "Arrow!" said the bowman. "Black arrow! I have saved you to the last. You have never failed me and always I have recovered you. I had you from my father and he from of old. If ever you came from the forges of the true king under the Mountain, go now and speed well!" Now that's cool. Firing a ballista bolt from a broken bow is nowhere near as cool.
100% agree. Bard is a badass in the books. He is a natural leader, and he can understand the sparrow (super cool!), and he is the best crack shot in town who kills Smaug using his own skill with a regular bow and an arrow, and that's kickass. He's just _meh_ in the film: Anyone could pick up a "black arrow" and use the windlance and come up with the same result.
I remember from the old hobbit game on the original Xbox Bard was depicted as a captain of the guard. Asked Bilbo to follow a thief to his hideout and recover the black arrow. Causing a fight between the thieves and some goblins they were working with.
@@crescentmoon5686 The thrush told bard that Smaug had a week point in his scales in the hollow under his left breast. A piece of knowledge Bilbo tricks Smaug into giving him. The talking thrush gives Bard his target for his heirloom arrow.
My favorite part of Battle of Five Armies is when Tauriel tearfully asks "Why does it hurt so much?" to which the shot reverses and Thranduil is suddenly replaced with Peter Jackson in a blonde wig saying "New Zealand trade unions and profits from 3 films instead of 2"
Obviously Legolas left Lake-Town because he’s a god-level marksman who could pin a fly to a tree 100 yards away without killing it, meaning he would absolutely steal Bard’s kill unless the writers get him out of the scene. Having him chase Bolg out of town was a clunky solution to this writing issue. A better one would’ve been to just not have Legolas in Lake-Town in the first place!
Very true, they probably realised if he was around then Bard making the shot while KNOWING an archer of his calibre was around would actually make him a glory hog willing to put the entire town at risk to be the saviour himself rather than let somebody else do it, as ye honestly from what we've seen Legolas could have shot down Smaug the second he appeared if he had the arrow and it would have been an even quicker scene.
Man, the book version where the Black Arrow was just a regular arrow fired by a regular man in last-ditch, Hail-Mary effort to save his town was so much cooler.
Yes and no I think it would be a little lame to have a dragon die to something like a normal arrow having it be a ballista just makes more sense and doesn’t really take anything away from a regular guy taking down a dragon cus he could still be a regular guy
@@aiden2358 well, it wasn't truly a "normal arrow" in the books, however it's magical abilities were described very subtle. The few things we know from the book is that it was made by the Dwarves of Erebor and Gaston was always able to reclaim it after a fight. And all this information is provided right before he is about to shoot Smaug the Great, it isn't treated as if it's some kind of a legendary tier arrow that everyone knows about.
@@mastermind4499 that is a lot better then although I still think having it be an actual ballista bolt adds a touch of weight to it…even if in the movie they fucked it up by having him launch it off his son
@@aiden2358yes and no. They made Smaug too large, and because of that, it would be silly to kill him with a normal arrow. If he weren’t so gigantic, the archer with a well placed shot is a much better story. It is said in the book that normally this couldn’t happen because of the dragon’s scales, but Smaug is missing a scale near his heart.
I love the fact that every single time you gave us multiple choices all of the scenarios could have most definitely happened considering everything going on in this movie.
The one where Legolas chops off hundreds of heads randomly... oh boy. I gave them too much credit in not voting for that one. Looks like I made the right decision in skipping the extended altogether by the time the third movie came out.
Another issue with the "go find Aragorn" scene is that Thranduil says he goes by the name "Strider". In Fellowship, both the book and film, Aragorn introduces himself to Frodo by saying that he goes by many names, but is known in THESE PARTS (Bree area) as Strider. Thranduil would unlikely ever have heard that name, and would likely call him by whatever name he uses when he passes through Mirkwood (or wherever Thranduil met him I suppose). But of course it's not fanservice unless he uses the exact name the audience is familiar with. Why didn't he just call him Aragorn? Thranduil obviously knows his name but doesn't tell Legolas for movie purposes.
Also I guess this cements that the Peter Jacksonverse doesn't have the 17 year timeskip between the Party and Frodo's flight from the Shire of the books. If it does, Aragorn is like 10.
you were spot on with your interperation on why smaug didn't immediantly wipe out the town, in the book we get a look inside smaug mind when attacking the town and what he planned on doing was to drive all the people into their boats trying to escape the town and but everytime one of the boats got to shore he would swoop down and either kill the people in the boat or scare them back into the middle of the lake, he wanted to have the people choose between dying to dragonfire trying to flee from the lake or die to exposure out in the middle of the lake with limited food and ways to keep warm at night. He had planned to kill them all over the course of a week swooping down on the people in the middle of the lake everytime he got hungry. He didn't just want to kill them, he wanted to torment them
That’s on par with pheasant hunting. I’ve never done it myself, but I once read that pheasant hunters, if they thought the birds were hiding in bushes or a thicket, would walk around it very slowly until the pheasants panicked and tried to fly. That method, as well as Smaug's, is terrifying.
Re: the constant breaking of time and distance - I read Christopher Tolkien's books on how his father created these stories. Prof Tolkien was always concerned with time and distance - whether the characters were moving by foot or by horse. He even was concerned about what the phase of the moon would be.
The entire Shire didn't "forget" who Bilbo was. They were in the middle of auctioning off all his stuff, though. Bilbo would have months and months of trouble getting his property back (and never would get back his silver spoons from Lobelia). Also, hobbits are very suspicious of the out of the ordinary and the foreign, and a bit petty, so that they would claim this Bilbo is an imposter to keep the bargain buys they got from his estate sale is not hard to imagine. For the film to condense that into one small bit of dialogue asking Bilbo to prove his identity is fine with me.
Oh, so you're saying they all KNEW this was their friend and neighbor and, in some cases, relative, Bilbo Baggins, and elected to pretend not to know them to keep his property. Meaning Hobbits are all monumental thieving douchebags.
Smaug landing on Lake Town infuriates me to no end. When I read the Hobbit for the first time, this line in particular stood out to me. "Amid shrieks and wailing and the shouts of men he came over them, swept towards the bridges and was foiled! The bridge was gone, and his enemies were on an island in deep water-too deep and dark and cool for his liking. If he plunged into it, a vapour and a steam would arise enough to cover all the land with a mist for days; but the lake was mightier than he, it would quench him before he could pass through." Smaug has been built up as the chiefest and greatest calamity. A dragon who can burn down entire kingdoms and kill armies of soldiers. But he was scared of a lake. This really helped highlight to me the power of nature. That even a beast as mighty as a dragon was scared to get close to a deep lake that could quench him. It fits with Tolkien's themes about the beauty of nature and the power that it has, especially compared to the fires of industry. But no, the film has him land on Lake Town, somehow the buildings don't collapse under him,and he just charges straight at Bard with no regard for the lake at all. Why not just have him land on the town from the very beginning instead of burn it from the sky? Then there is the whole "Bard spotting the lose scale" debackle. What was the point of Bilbo noticing the weak spot if Bard was going to spot it on his own? In the book this made sense because Bard has the ability to talk to birds, and when Bilbo explained the weak spot to the dwarves, a thrush overheard him and told Bard. This connected Bilbo to Smaug's death, because let's face it, Bilbo was never going to be the one to kill the dragon, but he could be the one who gives information regarding the dragon's weakness to someone who can. Bilbo is supposed to be the main character, so why not connect him to the downfall of the primary antagonist of the story? But these movies forgot Bilbo was supposed to be the main character and decided that Bard's son needed a dumb coming of age arc instead.
@@alejandrojuarez5640 Makes sense for a being of fire to be afraid of a giant body of water that can and will douse his flame. No more benign to him than an active volcano would've been to Genghis Khan, mighty as he was too.
Recall the lighting of the forge sequence? Smaug was doused with water stored(or damned?) there. So the writers did use the idea of cooling Smaug to a point of being unable to breath fire, but in a bastardized way. Where Tolkien preferred the power of nature over that of industry, the writers, either through incompetence or malice, chose industry.
Just to clarify. Dain II dies defending Erebor from an army of Easterlings at the time of the battle of Minas Tirith. Sauron strikes at every stronghold of the free peoples simultaneously in the hopes of dividing and conquering.
@@LibertyLocalizera pinning force thats strong enough to pose a legitimate threat. Besides, taking erebor and the remaining treasure would be a pretty huge win and enable the forces of sauron to build more aliances.
@@LibertyLocalizer the phrase "divide and conquer" usually refers to the breaking up of alliances and whatnot. But it can also be used to describe the methods I described. That requires dividing your forces, because if you don't you leave an enemy force uncontested to do what it wants.
I’m defense of the line “the east will fall” uttered by sauron. While random is right, Mordor is in the east of middle-earth and is already defeated, all of middle-earth is to the east of Valinor. And considering sauron is originally from valinor and likely sees it as his rightful home since he was banished, it could be argued his conquest of middle earth in its entirety could be considered a conquest of the east. Although this is giving the writers more credit than they probably deserve.
personally, when I heard the line initially, I thought that by 'the east' he meant erebor and the mountain, given how far east it is in relation to most of middle earth, but, well... it's already fallen and theyre trying to get it back. My second thought was Rhun
I just thought it referred to the free people's polities east of the misty mountains and north of Mordor. The Woodland Realm, the kingdom of Dale, and the Iron Hills Dwarves.
The simple fact that Tolkien was a soldier who served at the frontlines of WW1 and started his whole project of a mythological fantastic history of the world in an attempt to keep his marbles in the bleak monotony of the meat grinder this war was i think he would be fuming to see some script writers upping the violence and gore to a ten just for laughs and entertainment
the battle of helms deep was very weird to read, but i think this is why, its very vague only a few pages and i don't think it mentions once a specific violent action, it does however have a aragorn vs urukai rap battle (aka one of tolkiens less than great poetry moments, i love the word the poetry not so much LOL) where its basically just "your gonna loose human" "no lol hey look sunrise, gottem" and then the riders of rohan come and yea, anyway seems like he wanted the battle cuz it fit the story but got uncomfortable writing it and wrote about everything around it everything but the battle, he def would not enjoy orc gorefest lol
Tolkien notably was quite vague on the details of the battles across his work. Any major moments were given their time but the battles themselves were largely glossed over. Given his history, it's easy to see why he put so little focus on the fighting despite how massive a part it actually played
Greasebag death scene being extended edition also means that in the theatrical release, he never gets his comeuppance. Bard lets him leave, he leaves, and he's never heard from again. Damn, that's unsatisfying.
I love everything about the multiple choice segments. The ridiculous scenarios. The childish drawings. The fact that every childish drawing looks like it's from a different child. They're just so perfect.
I'm so happy you were able to publish this video Random! To be honest I've discovered your channel only a few days ago, with the first video on The Hobbit, and after noticing that the third part was missing I discovered the legal issue. Since I really enjoyed the other videos I hoped you would be able to solve the problem, and luckily it happened. The reason I enjoy your videos so much is that your criticism is not just to say that something is bad (which unfortunately is the most common), but to explain in detail why a story doesn't work. I believe this way of criticizing it's healthy and useful, so thanks for your content! :)
The fact that his activities during WWII are still sealed and will remain sealed for another 100 years even though they've aged past the normal Official Secrets Act threshold tells us just how much of a serious badass he was. (I'm not kidding about how top secret his shit was. Look it up.) He was a member of the group that became known as the SAS before they were even named the SAS. He was amazing.
Lobellia Sackville-Baggins in The Hobbit isn't fan service to The Lord of the Rings, Lobellia Sackville-Baggins in The Lord of the Rings is fan service to the Hobbit. She was in both books, but cut from The Lord of the Rings along with the Scouring of The Shire. Instead she was just thrown in a passing mention from Bilbo as a reference to her book presence and The Hobbit. She is completely justified in this movie as it was her original appearance.
Dain Ironfoot as well as the towns peoples leader Brand of Dale both perish in a massive retreat battle on the foot of Erebor. Dain could have retreated with his bodyguards to the keep. But was so enraged by the thought of having the easterlings desegrate his friends body that he stood by his friends side until eventually after bodies had piled high. He was eventually overwhelmed. He went out like the heroes of old. The easterling horde completely loses their morale once saurons ring is cast into the fire. As Sauron's armies scatter into the four winds. This battle was known as Battle of Dale. Dain was ripe old age of 254 years old. The Battle took 3 days. For those who are interested.
I 100% agree with you that the amount of time spent on 'Greasebag' was unconscionable. There was no need to bloat out the movie with that, not when they could have been spending time on the interpersonal relationships of the dwarves dealing with their slowly growing insane king. But they seemed to just really forget that any dwarf not named Thorin, Fili, Balin or Dwalin existed. That would have made the image when the thirteen in the mountain finally joined the fray much more epic, as Thorin finds himself again, and turns his back on the gold to reclaim his honor. If they had leaned into the siege of the Mountain, then you could have had this tight interpersonal drama interspersed with the growing tension outside, since the arrival of Dain wouldn't haven't been a surprise to the Elves or the human forces if they had the sense to have scouts out.
This whole series makes me feel so bad for Evangeline Lilly. She had to deal with the love triangle from Lost for years, and when she came on this project she begged them, "Please don't put me in a love triangle" and they still went and screwed her over.
Truth be told. This was never a love triangle, at least not when compared to Lost. Tauriel never exhibits any kind of desire for Legoals. It's not like she is conflicted or torn between Legoals and Kili in any meaningful way throughout these movies. And Legoals doesn't really make put any pressure onto Tauriel either. If this qualifies as a love triangle, pretty much every person in existence has gone through a love triangle at least once in their life.
@@RamGuy459 > If this qualifies as a love triangle Three people, three points, three different relations, three different line lengths. It pretty much does. > If this qualifies as a love triangle, pretty much every person in existence has gone through a love triangle at least once in their life. Um... yes...?
You could do one of these for LOTR. The bit where you cut away and enumerate character traits could be interesting to see in a movie that's actually put together well.
I totally agree! I know that in a previous video, he's mentioned not wanting to rehash what other people have said, but I think this is totally one way he could give his own spin on it!
Great idea! Criticism has its own entertainment value but it would be nice to see praise as well (not that LOTR is perfect either, but far more good points than bad)
The mithril shirt problem could easily have been solved by Thorin saying the shirt was made for a young dwarf prince and so it doesn’t fit any of them. Or it was going to be a gift for a human or elf or someone else less broad than a dwarf.
It was "made for a young elven prince" or something in the books, indeed it wouldnt fit any of them. Even if it looks somewhat right, dwarves are more stocky. Unlike too tight clothes, I cant imagine mithril being able to stretch. I highly doubt Erebor would have a dozen mithril shirts in its armory, as its extremely rare and was not mined in Erebor, only in Moria. So it was likely a treasure bought or traded.
2:29:50 what you forgot to mention is the fact, that the trolls do usually petrify when they are exposed to sunlight, as it was clearly demonstrated in the first movie nevertheless the whole battle takes place during the day. In the Lord of the Rings Sauron actually had to cast a huge cloud of darkness over Gondor only for his Orcs and Trolls being able to fight effectivley.
One thing about Galadriel's telepathic communication - she actually does this in the Two Towers to convince Elrond (in Rivendell, while Galadriel is in Lothlórien) to send aid (movie only) to Helm's Deep by saying that the fellowship's quest is failing and that the elves shouldn't abandon Middle Earth. Elrond is also a pretty powerful individual so it is at least consistent that she can communicate with other powerful individuals, and can't just speak to literally anyone across any distance.
Uh... Galadriel doesn't in the movie though? Haldir is the dude that shows up leading the elves. He was the dude that stopped the Fellowship as they entered the woods of Lorien. I'm not arguing that it doesn't make sense for her to be able to communicate with Elrond, with both having an elven ring on top of their own strength, just that I don't think its in the movie at all. I don't recall if its explicit in the book either, or if she sends messengers to get Aragorn's folk to come to the aid of Gondor.
@@SquallLionhart409 She definitely communicated with Elrond remotely. It was a night time scene and he was on top of what looked like a tower balcony. However, I do agree it wasn't to send aid, but I also don't remember the exact contents as it has been roughly 4 years since I last watched it.
I do believe that scene might be in the extended edition. I am not 100% sure, though, as I haven't watched the theatrical edition since it was in theaters.
@@SquallLionhart409 Yes, it Haldir who shows up, but he tells Theodeon "I bring word from Elrond of Rivendell.". This suggests that the elven force is a collaboration between Rivendell and Lothlórien. I think the Galadriel scene might have been in the extended edition however, but I don't have a copy of a theatrical version so I can't confirm.
Regarding this conversation, yes the Galadriel scene is in the extended version, and yes she did telepathically communicate with Elrond regarding helping Rohan on the battle of helms deep
Also it's possible the only Mithril shirt was too small for the dwarves, but a good fit for a hobbit. I have a vague memory of it being referred to as "for some elven princeling" or something. So designed at great expense for a precious child.
I’m sure I’m not the first or last to say this. Martin Freeman did a amazing job in these films and they 100% didn’t deserve it. Without him these films would be flat out unwatchable.
AND after a week of enjoying your hilarious analysis of Zack Snyder’s *”Ster Wers* Part Deux” I am now back for more of your glorious “The Hobbit Trilogy analysis”. *Thank you RFT* and cheers.
3:07:00 Let's be fair to LOTR Legolas. Gimli was invariably the antagonist in that relationship. He started talking shit about elves in general before Legolas even seemed to notice him. The mildly annoyed facial expression when Gimli volunteered to go along with them was really all we have to go on, and that seems to be more about Gimli himself than the entirety of dwarf-kind. I mean, how would you react if the first thing you heard out of a person's mouth was a disparaging remark about your people? I can't remember a single remark Legolas ever made about dwarves in general, let alone a disparaging one. "Would you like me to find you a box?" was the closest he ever came to commenting on the immutable characteristics of dwarves. And in context it was more of a bonding thing. Gimli seemed to appreciate that he was finally willing to fire one back at him.
I was devastated when I saw the initial release was delayed thanks to TH-cam’s fantastic algorithms. I am greatly looking forward to this along with the eventual final autopsy!
I'd argue that the final scene with Thorin and Bilbo doesn't have hardly any weight because of the circumstances of their meeting. Sure, he had some nice things to say about friendship and apologizing, but who wouldn't when you're at death's door and Bilbo's stumbled right on up to him. In the books, Thorin desperately called for Bilbo as he was dying, implying so much more. It's the ultimate lesson of The Hobbit. That at the end of all things, Thorin didn't have much to say about his kingdom his gold, his legacy, or really anything. The most important thing to him was that he didn't want to part this world on bad terms with his friend. The words he says also capstones the lesson he learned from Bilbo and the simple lives of the Hobbits. They could have fixed a lot in this film by having him look aside and silently whisper the name Bilbo after looking over the frozen waterfall in victory. We'd immediately understand there was something more important to him than all this.
Honestly what bothered me was how Thorin was saying all these things in this scene & Bilbo doesn’t offer any words of comfort or assurance🤦♀️ he’s usually thoughtful & knows the right thing to say so I didn’t expect him to listen in silence & then just say nooo
You know, I just realized something: Gaston attempts at kind of "pardoning" greasebag for being in league with the Master despite having no reason to do so is probably an attempt to emulate Aragorn convincing Thedoen to spare Grima. Unfortunately, Aragorn comes off from that as truly merciful and magnanimous, while Gaston comes off as just naive and dumb
I always thought sparing Wormtongue was stupid. Just watched it last night and was screaming at the TV "NO cut his FUC*ING head off!" Then later the Rohan King is like "come on down dude you weren't always evil" there is zero evidence of that. I mean homeboy was like "too long you ogling my sister & what did Sauramon promise you!?" says to me he's been a peeping creep for awhile and CHOSE to take a bribe to ruin his king and exile his son and who knows what else...but sure an old skool ancient times sword weilding king is gonna pardon that kinda behavior....suuuuuuuure. He just went and joined the next evil dude he could find, then got pardoned AGAIN. King Rohan is a dumb a**.
@@gentelmanjunkie542 in the books, he’s kinda worse. Saruman and Grima go to Hobbiton after the ring was destroyed bc Saruman convinced treebeard to let them go. They enslave the entire population, kill multiple hobbits and it required the 4 returning hobbits to rally the free surrounding hobbits against them to liberate the Shire. Basically, it was like Sam/Frodo’s vision in the first movie that Galadriel showed them. They both die at that point, Saruman backstabbed by Grima and Grima by the hobbits and Saruman is banished from returning to Valanor by basically the gods of Middle Earth. Saruman and Grima also had another chance to reconcile wth Gandalf after they left the tower on their way to the Shire but Saruman insulted Gandalf and left.
@@gentelmanjunkie542In the books, Grima pleaded to be spared, and Théoden gave him a choice. He could either join the Rohirrim military to fight Saruman, or he’s forever banished from Rohan. Grima of course, took the latter.
@@gentelmanjunkie542 eomer wasn’t theodens son, he and eowyn were his niece and nephew, his son had died shortly before Aragorn and the others reached Rohan. But yeah I agree as well. No medieval king would let that shit slide.
Every time you insert that clip of Dori lurching froward in anger only to be held back by the other dwarf to highlight his hapahazard characterization, it absolutely kills me 😂. That 2 second moment is weirdly funny
Good job analyzing why the Hobbit "trilogy" failed as an adaptation. But you should watch the M4 Hobbit Book Edit if you want a great version of the trilogy. The lead editor, M4, teamed up with talented digital editors to make a single film version of the trilogy. They desaturated, removed the glossy overlay, corrected the color grading, digitally omitted characters, and added film grain to make this version match the appearance of the LOTR trilogy! And they cut out all the excess stuff that wasn't in the original book. It corrects 90% of the problems of The Hobbit. This M4 fan edit transitions seamlessly and is more faithful to the spirit of J.R.R. Tolkien. It's how I start my Middle-Earth marathon with my family, and I highly recommend it!
To be fair Lothlorien is very close to Dol Guldur, or at least not the other side of middle earth. Its very much the closest place to get help and only a day or so away. Galadriels powers are tied to the wood so her communicating with someone near its borders is less of a stretch than someone far away. It's likely her link to Gandalf is through their rings though, or enhanced as it is with Frodo (who communicates back to her in fellowship) The real mystery is how Elrond and Saruman turned up so quick. But as usual it's because they combined things from the books without thinking. In this case they combined Gandalfs Solo visit to Dol Guldur where he encountered Thrain and got the map and key (and in which Sauron remained hidden) with Gandalfs later visit with the rest of the Wise which revealed Sauron and forced him to flee. In the books there is 90 years between these visits.
Galadriel's power to communicate telepathically (which is an ability the high elves have in general though she's particularly skilled at it) seems to be based on the strength of the one she's communicating with. For example, it's stated in the book that she can sense the intent and spy on the plans of Sauron all the way from Mordor. Considering Elrond is arguably the most powerful elf in Middle Earth (with Galadriel herself being the only other contender) and also bearer of the strongest of the elven rings of power, and Saruman is the most powerful of the Maiar (particularly at that time before he'd been corrupted by Sauron), I don't think it's a stretch that she can communicate with them at a distance. However I agree they probably didn't think about any of that and it was just a point of convenience for the story.
Galadriel is stronger than Elrond- She was born in Aman and learned directly from Melian the Maia; Her gift of seeing into others was innate, and then enhanced both by the wisdom she gained from Melian, and the power of her Ring.
@@reneedailey1696 I agree for the most part, but don't discount the power of Elrond's lineage. Elrond is actually from Melian the Maia's family line... four generations or so, if I recall. As well as practically every other influential or powerful family in middle earth. Probably doesn't trump someone actually born under the light of the Trees but still pretty powerful.
The three Elven Rings have the ability to see into the minds of those that are wearing them. Galadriel, Gandalf and Elrond have those three Rings, so they can communicate to eachother at a distance. She warns Frodo not to try and use the ruling Ring to look into her mind or the minds of the other ring bearers or it will destroy him. She also does this telepathy thing to everyone in the fellowship when they arrive in Lothlorien, and Boromir has a very bad reaction to this being done to him. You can see he gains eye contact with Galadriel and starts to have a panic attack and looks away. He also brings it up to Aragorn. Also, Dol-Guldur is like 100 miles from Lothlorien in the first place. This scene is still very stupid but the communication at a distance thing is a misunderstanding. It's bad and disrespectful to the lore having Sauron know Gandalf had the Ring in the first place. If he had that Ring he would be able to use it in many ways he could use his own Ring. He would have torn it straight off and killed Gandalf immediately lmao.
They also have secondary abilities. Galadriels is to preserve and enhance the natural beauty of things. Gandalfs ring can grant courage to those around, which is why everyone become so despondent after the Balrog. And I can't quite remember what Elronds ring does.
@@SeviathTheHumanDrago It's unclear, but something to do with warding or guarding. He may have used it to enchant the river that washed away the ring wraiths.
Something that struck me is that in the Fellowship, there's a bunch of BTS commentary on how they created the dynamic with the cave troll, which on one hand was a terrible enemy but on the other hand evoking our pity because it was being used as weapon in this fight, not by its own choice. The audience is supposed to feel conflicted about the death of the cave troll. But in this movie, mutilated trolls and dying trolls is just for amusement and such a clear sign of how they lost their grip on Tolkien's world.
Funnily enough in the book, a bird is what helps guide Bard's aim to shoot at Smaug as it is revealed his bloodline is able to communicate with these special species of birds.
While book canon isn’t being considered in this analysis, there are a few interesting points to supplement what you’ve discussed: - Regarding telepathy, it is apparently canon (at least, according to Tolkien’s letters) that EVERYONE in Middle Earth has the potential for telepathic communication. It just seems to be limited by distance (unless one uses a palantir), and only a few individuals (powerful elves, wizards, some wise humans) have actually developed it as a skill. - The ravens actually can speak dwarf. Raven’s Hill is so named because that is where rookeries of hyper-intelligent ravens capable of human speed once lived. Thorin’s company encountered one in the books after the death of Smaug and coordinated the message to Dain through it. - The book does not make it clear whether the mithril shirt given to Bilbo was the only one in Erebor. However, it was identified as having been made for a young elf prince. The implication is that it was given to Bilbo because it was the only armor that would fit him (and probably wouldn’t fit any of the dwarves). - During the Last Alliance against Sauron, Thranduil was present at the battle that stocked the Dead Marshes with corpses. He lost nearly everyone there at the battle with him, including his father. Given that elves are immortal, Thranduil literally has his throne because people he loved were slaughtered in war. Even if Tauriel were born in the Third Age, she should probably be aware of this. - The “Five Armies” referred to the races involved in the battle, not armies from different locations. Armies 4 and 5 were a single host of goblin and wargs. This is a change that makes some sense for adaptation, though.
My favorite thing about the Mirthirl shirt is that because it was "made for a young elven prince," we can infer - given the closeness of the kingdoms, and the fact that Mirkwood is very dangerous - it was probably original Legolas' when he was young, to protect him from spiders and stuff. This means that in the LotR, Frodo is literally wearing the baby clothes of one of the other fellowship members and I think that's just hilarious.
@@kool4209 They live forever unless someone kills them, and even after death their spirits endure until the end of the Universe. I would say that is pretty immortal.
The mithril shirt, I belive, in the books (do not excuse the movie) was really an unique item, also in the size of a child and did no fit the other dwarves.
Which, if true, only emphasizes the oddity of giving it to Bilbo, who in fact never actually needed it. Frodo does, but that eventuality couldn't possibly be foreseen.
@@paulkelly2701 they know the batle was coming and bilbo was planing on participating,in fact he participated, but was knocked unconcious at the begining, also at that moment he was like a brother for the dwarfs
@@paulkelly2701 Well if it didn't fit anyone else it's not like giving it to Bilbo is a strange option. He's the only one there that can wear it because the dwarves are too big. Finding it and deciding NOT to give it to him would be far more out of character
Correct. Mythril is impossibly rare. to make armor out of it is a luxury Beyond thinking. They didn't even make full weapons out of it. The only reason that mithral shirt was ever made was because it was so small and even then it's surprising it got made in the first place
From the books we get that Sauron was hiding as the Necromancer to grow in strength. He needed to collect his essence and start preping mordor. He didn't want to do it there as he was cery weak and any word of a magician in mordor would interest elrond/gondor very quickly and he could have been purged again. At this time Osgiliath was still in the hands of gondor, maybe even Minas Morgul also. The dark things were gathering but with out a straight up evil lord gondor was snoozing a bit here. So he regenerated as the Necromancer, taking on the form of a human or at least spreading the word he was a man, to aley elvish fears till finally Gandalf and Elrod called BS.
Generally agree, only Minas Ithil fell to the Witch King nearly 1000 years prior to the Hobbit. Sauron could only take a hideous form after the downfall of Númenor, so spreading the word is more likely.
Osgiliath was on Gondor's hands but already destroyed, though. The ringwraiths were actually already in Mordor that was also already filling up with orcs. Gondor knew it was a problem, but by this time they were too weak to do a proper job of maintaining the lands around Mordor. Lastly, another reason Sauron was in Dol Guldur was because it was a more central location for him to look for the ring, and by this time he was starting to suspect it might be in the bottom of the Anduin.
I have been incapacitated with a bad back for the last couple of days now, and this series has not only kept me thoroughly entertained, but actually made me laugh out loud on many occasions. I cannot tell you how much I’ve appreciated the distraction.
I assume that Bard really wanted to give Grease Bag the benefit of the doubt and believe that, over time, he will become a better person. I can understand that, but Bard gives him more chances than are reasonable.
“Was it just hordes of orcs chilling and minding their own business until Sauron got back from his holiday in Dol Guldur” *horde of orcs yelling and beating the s*** out of each other* That cracked me up. 🤣
Man, given that all the wizards and the elf leaders have fought Sauron and his Nazgul personally, their behavior in the Lord of the Rings is quite strange. You'd think they'd immediately try to get the old alliance back together, face down Sauron before he can get his army/strength together, and find the ring to dispose of it. Instead, they all either forget or keep quiet about it.
"Radagast got his hair caught in a revolving door where he was gunned down. Saruman is a flabby failure who sits cowering in his basement. Galadriel's in an asylum. Gandalf is dead: a product of his own degenerate lifestyle. Why are so few of us left alive, active, and without major psychological disorders?"
@@squirrelsyrup1921 Agreed. The whole plot line involving the white council completely destroys any credibility any of them have for the LoTR trilogy. They would've said, "Guess Sauron is back to his old tricks again, let's rally the troops and put a stop to this nonsense." Roll credits. In the book timeline Sauron was incredibly careful not to reveal himself or anything else that would point even remotely to his return, even the White Council wasn't sure who the necromancer was (implying this kind of magic wasn't impossible for lesser creatures to harness), it was only Gandalf's suspicions that prodded his actions to send the dwarves to confront Smaug and reclaim their kingdom. 90% of this trilogy was wasted time and contradicting what already existed.
Hobbit-Sauron and LOTR Sauron are pretty different in terms of strength. The White Council only stood a chance because when they fought him he was the weakest he'd ever been. Mt. Doom had reactivated and the Dark Tower had been rebuilt. IIRC he had gotten more rings of power at that point, too. They wouldn't have stood a chance. Especially with the elves continued fading and Saruman already starting to fall from purpose.
@@DiZ_490 I'm not saying the elves and wizards alone would go and face Sauron, but surely they could have communicated with the humans and people around the world about how the all-conquering leader of darkness was back and they needed to defeat him while they still could. Heck, why did none of them discuss this with Gandalf once he woke up!?
@@KayronTheFifth I don't consider myself an expert on the subject, just a very big fan of the legendarium, but from my understanding it was never a question of Sauron being back or gone. They knew the Ring hadn't been destroyed and was lost, and destroying it was the only way to completely remove Sauron from the world. IIRC that was the express purpose of the wizards being sent to Middle Earth. The events of LOTR were essentially an inevitability that they'd been preparing for for hundreds of years by the time this all goes down during The Hobbit. It was a waiting game for Sauron and he literally played his hand at the perfect time.
"Instead of spending 4 hours watching this breakdown of the movie, you could just spend 3 hours watching the actual movie." me, starring at the camera isildurly: "No."
I love that you put a spoiler warning for a film that’s over 30 years old, it’s very kind of you. Also gained a new sub as these break downs have been amazing and have kept me entertained the last 3 nights at work. Keep up the good work
It bothers me how the trilogy rewrites Smaug’s death to remove what little agency Bilbo originally had in it. It’ll take a minute to explain: In the book, Smaug’s underbelly was vulnerable, but he’d lain atop his gold for so long that coins and jewels were permanently embedded in it, giving him armor of a sort - except for in one place, which Smaug was not aware of but which Bilbo spotted. When Bilbo told the Dwarves of this weakness, a thrush overheard him, which flew to Lake-Town and informed Bard so he could exploit it. In this scenario, Bilbo and the Dwarves unintentionally inspired the Dragon to sack Lake-Town, but the Hobbit’s discovery is what saved them. Bilbo played a tiny role in the town’s salvation. But in the Hobbit trilogy, they didn’t want to add a talking thrush - I guess they thought it would make things more childish - so they wrote it out. But without the bird, how can Bilbo send news to Lake-Town about Smaug’s weakness? Well, he can’t; so instead Smaug’s weak spot is simply an old town legend. Bard and his family already know about it; meaning Bilbo finding Smaug’s weakness for himself serves no purpose at all. Now Bilbo and the Dwarves have STILL unleashed the Dragon onto the innocents of Lake-Town, but this time they play NO role in their deliverance whatsoever, and the Hobbit’s role in _The Hobbit_ is made that much smaller. Great!
I actually disagree with the Thranduil letting Bard argue with Thorin on his behalf. I found it to make a lot of sense out the following reasons: + He assumes Men are closer in Culture (or in his eyes lack of thereof) to Dwarves than he himself is, so maybe they can find common ground. + He was assuming he was going to have to fight anyway, which is the reason he brought troops along. + He didn't know at the time he had a time limit before an army of Orcs or Dwarves would appear. + He was trading about an hour or two of waiting for the possibility of not losing any troops, nor having to bust open a fortress. This to him would be like ordering something off the internet, having it in your shopping cart - ready to pay for it - only to have someone come along and tell you "if you wait an hour until I can make a call, I might be able to get you that for free". There's no sacrifice in just waiting to see what happens. Worst case scenario is you get the thing you wanted later, best case is you get the thing you wanted for free, instead of a hefty price.
@@captainhurricane5705 True, but I always found it to make sense anyway, since this wasn't a decision you'd make as "a character" (I.E. something where character motivations would change the input), but just a logical thing to happen. The only reason he'd not accept the offer, is if he suspected Bard of trying to trick him into something, but as he can always say "that's not what I told him to agree to", there's no inherent downside, which would make declining something very personal and probably require some backstory.
Your skills in editing and compiling information into an entertaining and easy to digest video is spectacular. I applaud you sir. Please continue to make content.
With Dain my understanding is the film tried to get across is the arkenstone is needed to rally all the armies of the dwarves, like the battle with Azog. Dain on the other hand is Thorin's kin, Durin's Folk. It was natural that when he heard thr dragon was dead they would come to their old home to help their cousin and to reclaim the moutain.
2:42:40 Holy shit, when the dwarves finally go to battle, for some reason, they decided to NOT wear their cool af armour. Thorin decided to chuck his armour away and charge into battle in his standard attire wtf
Lol! This was so enjoyable. The breakdown of Gaston using his kid to fire the money arrow and ace Smaug killed me. Regarding that...Smaug is huge, like, ridiculously huge. That arrow is maybe 4-5 ft long, maybe? How does this kill him??? Anyway...love this channel, of course I subbed.
I find it amazing how the elves of this movie oscillate between super-human badasses and relatively worthless fighters. An army of elves should absolute annihilate an army of orcs--like, 10 orcs per elf would be required for even a moderately fair fight.
It's a problem throughout all Jacksons films tbh. Elfs are portrayed as super graceful amazing godlike fighters and yet they all still die like chumps. That elven contingent at Helms deep could have taken the entire Uruk army by themselves
@@lovablesnowman Well if you're conflating Legolas' fighting skill with that of all elves, which you are, you might see it this way. There is nothing in either the books nor the movies that suggests this otherwise. As is usual in cases like this, it is your perception that is flawed.
@Digitalsapien No. In the books, it's everywhere that they are this powerful vs Orcs. Read the Silmarillion, The other material published after Tolkien's death, he always meant for Elves, Dwarves, and Numenoreans to be far superior to Orcs or ordinary men, like those who fight for Sauron. They slaughter them in the Elder Days, the 1st age and 2nd ages. Melkor and Sauron have their difficulties winning wars because Orcs are so inferior to Elves, Dwarves and Edain/Numenoreans. Fundamental to his story. It's why Sauron made the desperate move to create the Rings.
To add… Elves have a very long track history of being very powerful. Especially if you go back to the Silmarillion, which further explains elven lore.. Fingolfin fought Morgoth 1 v 1 and held his own… and and there are countless other examples of elves, showing huge feats of strength, the fact that Mary & Pippen can outlive/kill more orcs than some of the most powerful creatures in there universe is absurd..
The worst part is how the Arkenstone plot is resolved in the theatrical cut. As in, it totally isn't resolved. The last we see of the Arkenstone in the theatrical version is when Bard stuffs it into his shirt while trying to negotiate with Thorin at the gates of Erebor. It just disappears and I guess they hope we won't notice. 😂 The extended edition is supposed to provide extra lore, context, and fun stuff for someone who wants a larger film experience. The wrapping up of crucial plot points should absolutely NOT be something that happens only in the extended edition.
In the book Bilbo just sees a pretty gem and takes it as his payment since gold would be too troublesome to take back to Shire. He doesn't know that it was the Heart of the Lone Mountain and thus he can't have it.
Crows can actually be taught to imitate words they hear. That crow didn't necessarily need to physically carry a message, because it could just relay whatever it was told to the ally dwarves by sound.
A great addition to the extended cut is the Balin part where ‘he’s too old for this S’ and then Bolg comes out and kills (some dwarf) and yells, (Diplomatic Immunity!!) and then Balin rolls his neck and yells, ‘It’s just been revoked!!!’ And Bolg dies from something like a boulder to the head…
I'd only seen the extended edition of Battle of Five Armies once; and holy shit I'd forgotten how laughably absurd this movie is! I'm really glad you were able to get this uploaded, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Keep up the good work, Random.
Another book reference: Going from memory, the mithril shirt thing is answered with, it was a special order for an Elven prince child which never got delivered due Smaug. One would assume that all the other special order mithril HAD been delivered to wherever. Thus, it would not fit a burly Dwarf, but might a smaller hobbit. Mithril was considered extraordinarily rare. Think 'platinum watches'. Not something one had in great supply. That suffices for me. It is like that line from Batman Begins: "The bean counters didn't think that a soldier's life was worth $100k per person"
It was very ambiguous in the book whether the 13 dwarves had mithril armor (or at least Thorin). While bilbo was the only one the shirt fit, most of the battle is skipped, and there's reference to the 13 decking out in regalia from the mountain.
I mean ye in the books Gandalf says the shirt Bilbo has it worth more than the Shire and everything in it so they are VERY rare and definitely something you'd only have for royalty basically in normal circumstances. So while MAYBE there would be some in Ererbor it would have been in the giant pile of treasure Smaug had made, possibly even been worn by some higher ranking dwarves who Smaug then ate, so we can assume that unless they had a couple years to search through all the treasure looking they wouldn't have any on hand.
Yes, if I remember correctly the mithril shirt was made for 'an elf prince long ago'. Whether it was undelivered due to Smaug's claiming of Erebor, which was actually a fairly recent occurrence or the disintegration of the elves and dwarf relations as far back as the sack Menegroth, I always enjoy the Hobbit novel for what it is and remember that it was written as a children's story and not as interwoven with Tolkien's other works as he had not completed his world building. That said, I did not like Jackson's interpretations in this 'trilogy'. We saw bits and pieces of his directorial love for showy dramatics and cgi in the LOTR (which I do truly love) but he really didn't seem to give a shit about creating a grounded and interesting story in these films. I was particularly irritated by the 'comedic' dissonance.
Check out the M4 Fan Edit. A single 4-hour movie with an intermission, as accurate to the book as possible, all the physics-defying action and pointless characters are gone. It shows that under all the studio mandates and rushed production, there was a genuinely good movie wanting to get out. Even better is there's additional CGI at a few points to maintain continuity between omissions, and some cuts recontextualize character motivations. I've added it to the list of movies whenever I want to do a Middle Earth marathon, its so good. UPDATE: This fan-edit actually improves the Crazy Thorin problem you had with the movie. Most of his craziest moments ("One of them is false" rant, "AM I NOT THE KING", etc.) are cut out so as to make his descent more a result of simple greed, and less so "Dragon Sickness". Also that stupid gold hallucination is gone. Dwalin gives his "crown on your head" line, Thorn looks at him, pause, cut to him talking to the dwarves.
Thank you so much for mentioning this. I never would have found this otherwise. This has saved the hobbit movies for me, and now I have something I can confidently show my wife after she’s done reading the book.
Being born into ruling royalty usually means being raised to be be ruling royalty (either the king position or as a lower ruler/backup), which is in a pre-printing press society is the best way to get reliable preparation for rulership (and even post-printing press is arguebly still the best). As you have access to all the best tutors and the experiance of someone direclty doing the job to teach and prepare you (who should of had the same thing, and so on). Bad kings still happen through this method but only when they ignore their training and induced morals (or the previous king didn't put effort in), but then you just end up with an equally prepared leader to other options. As at best the other options will have limited book knowledge to guide them (and Lower quality at that). The purpose of alterative systems (eg democracy) is not to get better leaders, it's to get more accountable ones (as you shift the source of their authority). Killing a dragon just makes you, at best, a good warrior. Or just lucky at worst. Not a leader/administrator.
To be fair, Thorin is also responsible for taking back the kingdoms capitol and primary fortress. Thats historically how most people became king to start with.
When you weave things together, you effectively make them shorter. If you've ever seen a woman braid her hair, you've probably noticed this. When Gaston finishes making a rope from his sheets, you can see just how tightly woven it is, and this should have shortened it quite a lot. So unless Gaston had at least 20 sheets, there's no way it would be as long as it was. I know why they did it. A rope woven that tightly will be very strong, and they needed Gaston's sheet rope to resist the pull of the Master's boat without tearing. It's still stupid, though, because there's no way Gaston had that many sheets.
The reason Azog doesn't manage to move his flail while it's stuck is that the chain he's pulling is on the side, so the block is stopped by the ice around it. Thorin lifts it up, and this motion is unimpeded by the ice. So it actually makes sense.
First, I'd like to tell you how impressive, smart and hilarious your analysis of this horrendous trilogy is. I watched it multiple times already and will for sure come back to it. You did a fantastic job ! Concerning the lack of mithril shirts and protection for the Dwarves, I'd like to point out that when they were in Erebor, behind high and solid walls, they were wearing heavy plate armor but when they left the safety of their fortress to fight Orcs, they decided to wear their regular chain mails and clothes. Had Thorin and his nephews kept their heavy armor, they'd probably be alive... I watched the Hobbit once, years ago, and found it atrocious - it was the extended version. Out of curiosity, I watched the "fan edit" by Dustin Lee recently. In spite of its massive cut (50% !), even without Ladylas and the stupid love story, even with most of the Greasebag scenes cut off and all the video games sections removed, the film is still too long, too dumb. Honestly, I'll probably never watch that trilogy ever again - unlike LOTR, which I watch at least three times a year !
From what I remember from reading the books years ago... Sauron first posed as Necromancer because Witch King was known as The Necromancer, therefore he was pretending to be his underling and avoiding detection. And this rouse worked, because Witch King was an entity that just was there from time to time. As for Mordor, it was more or less always an Orc land, tho black gate and Minas Ithil (Morgul) were originally Gondor in orgin, being two strongholds meant to keep random warbands at bay, as well as keep watch over Mordor in case Sauron returned. That's why Sauron haven't returned until he found a trail towards the One Ring. Also, Movie doesn't make Minas Ithil justice, as it was a sister city to Minas Tirith, and therefore should be just as big. It was also known as the more beautiful one, before being corrupted by Wraiths. Also, there is a problem with elven rings in this movie. Random orc should never be able to simply see it, they were enchanted to be hidden to anyone but other ring wearers. That's why Frodo could even see it on Galadriel's finger when she revealed it(Sam just saw a star like light), but despite that he never noticed Gandalf's or Elrond's rings. That's just not how rings worked, even in LoTR movies.
In the books the reason Bilbo took the Arkenstone was because of Smaug making him doubt the dwarves honesty about giving him 1/14th share of the giant mountain of gold. Taking the Arkenstone as his share if they would keep everything. The Arkenstone is also shown to show some form of corrupting greed as when Bilbo gave it to Bard and Thranduil he was hesitant and had to force himself to give it over. As for Thorin’s dragon sickness it was told in the books any gold a dragon has long slept over carry’s such a curse that latches onto the greedy, which the dwarves are susceptible to their lust for treasure and gold. As when the heart of a dwarf is stoked by the lust of it they become fierce. The Dwarven Rings of power brought their lords great wealth but also even greater lust for gold and treasure.
YES! I have been eagerly waiting for this video since the very day the last video came out. I stumbled across this channel right before the first Hobbit video came out and ever since, I've been coming here over and over to enjoy the content. I use the Hobbit and ROP videos now to help me relax and fall asleep at night, but I'm definitely gunna be too pumped to sleep through this video for the first couple play throughs.
Same!! I often fall asleep to his videos!!I love Randoms voice and he makes me laugh... so I also run the videos while I work, and over time I absorb the content.
3:45:35 In fellowship after Bilbo leaves you hear Gandalf muttering "Riddles in the Dark" when Frodo appears... when Bilbo calls the ring "My Precious" Gandalf responds with "It has been called that before but not by You" Implying that he not only absolutely already knew about the ring but knew about Gollum and how Bilbo obtained the ring. This is not up for debate Gandalf knew this in the movie before Bilbo vanished. In the books he goes into a full explanation of what he thought of the ring which states that he wasn't suspicious until he saw a change in Bilbo's behavior toward the ring, as only the great rings could effect behavior. As such the only thing that really bothers me here is when Bilbo lies about loosing the ring as that would tip Gandalf off towards Bilbo's behavior regarding the ring.
Realistically it's a Tolkien problem not a movie problem. Gandalf not being even a little suspicious of Bilbos ring makes no sense and is out of character. He knew the one right wasn't destroyed albeit he did think it was lost. There are only so many rings of power in Middle Earth and for Gandalf to not be even a little bit suspicious of Bilbos ring makes no sense
@@lovablesnowman He was a little suspicious in the book, and there were other rings besides the 20 main rings. He really had no reason to assume it was the one ring until Bilbo started acting strange.
@@lovablesnowman He did ask Saruman what the One ring would have looked like and he told Gandalf that it likely had a Gem in it greater than the other 19. I believe Saruman also lied and told Gandalf no description of it exists and no one alive would have seen it.
Thranduil sending the Bard to negotiate with Thorin actually makes sense when you remember that Thranduil knows Thorn hates him intensely. He probably figures that the mere sight of him might provoke Thorin into a righteous fury, so it makes more sense to send an intermediary with whom Thorin has no pre-existing grudge.
Legolas runs out of arrows both in Helm's Deep and in the battle of Pelennor fields. We see him on screen on both occasions drawing his knives out while his quiver is empty. It's always a fairly quick shot on screen that doesn't focus on his facial expressions, just showing how fluid he is as a fighter, keeping count of his arrows and knowing when he's run out and needs to opt for melee combat, not breaking his concentration. That's probably why it's easy to miss happening. It just adds to his experience as a millenia old fighter and the filmmakers are okay with some viewers missing it. However we see him still shooting arrows in those battles afterwards. That's obviously because he is able to pick up arrows from around the battlefield in less urgent moments to use again later. Like you said, it was never made into an issue *until now.* So the creators of the Hobbit trilogy misunderstood their own previous movie trilogy and took the internet meme of "Legolas never runs out of arrows" ver batim and turned it into an in-universe meme, making it a huge on-screen moment of "Seeeee?? Legolas never runs out of arrows but he actually did run out of arrows here because hahahaha it's funny and also that's why in the future he made sure to never run out of arrows again!" It's dumb.
If I may offer a defence of Thorin giving Bilbo the mithril shirt, he's increasing DEF because he knows Bilbo's ATK is capped lower than the dwarves' Plus, it's just his size and wouldn't fit the others Excellent analysis, very glad I found this channel thank you
about the ring conversation: admittedly it's been a while since i last saw the trilogy, but i always felt that gandalf starting to suspect that bilbo has the one ring was a result of many things: 1) bilbo looking younger than he should be at his age and yet feeling as if he was 'spread too thin' - as the ring elongates its owner's lifespan and can change their behaviour, 2) the frivolous use of the ring at the party - suggesting he uses it more than he should, so it might be affecting his choices, 3) their conversation after the party, when bilbo is incredibly possesive, acts differently than normal and has trouble letting go of the ring, even after accepting that he should leave it. i think the eye showing after gandalf touched it was more of a representation of his thoughts to the audience than an actual feeling he sensed, but then again, i might be reading too much into it. it's a great video (as usual) and as someone here already said i'd love to see you talk about the lotr trilogy and what it did right, compared to the other two disasters lol
The thing for me is that while yes all that is true, it very much helps that in the Hobbit we don't have them basically confirm Sauron is back, which would make preparing for his return and finding the ring a high priority, so Bilbo finding a magic ring, and Gandalf not knowing what ring it is should have made him at least a little suspicious. It also raises into question why Elrond says Sauron has returned in Fellowship when he knew for 60 years and apparently decide to not bother telling anybody or even thinking of preparing for it.
The way Hobbit movies turned out is actually really sad to think about. It is clear from the behind the scenes footage that they did care about the feel and look of the world and as they were mostly the same people as during the making of LOTR, I am inclined to believe they were genuine in their intentions. Sadly, the studio wanted to simply recreate the money and awards that resulted from LOTR without putting in the same time and effort. They had ordered 3 movies to be made in a ridiculously short amount of time, hired PJ last minute (and despite his best intentions it can be felt that his whole heart wasn't in it; he felt obliged to pick up the project) who had to work with what was already done by Del Toro but make it his own (and to match his own Middle Earth) and then ended up in hospital for several weeks. There is a very good essay from Lindsey Ellis detailing the rocky road of making of the Hobbit. And of course, I cannot justify every misstep or illogical twist by behid the scenes turmoil, I do think these films were forced into existence where everything possible was going against them being made when they were. As if they were not ment to be. 🤷🏼♀️ Sadly, PJ gone a little CGI happy simply because he could, but also because they had no time to achieve required results with prosthetics and extras. Another thing is, that as much I find your analysis entertaining (I love the Kronk and Yzma and Countdown bits) and I agree with a lot of your breakdowns and conclusions, I do find it difficult not to find you a little nitpicky when it comes to stuff that just happened in the book(s) and were never explained further. Like, we know Thorin gave Bilbo the Mithril shirt. And it was the only one ever seen in the trilogy and the Hobbit. It is never suggested that mithril was regularly used to make armour or weapons for dwarves or anyone else. And when the shirt is discovered on Frodo, it is remarked only how valuable it is. So in my head the lack of mithril fashion show never registered as an issue. And it is not a unreasonable assumption that most people going to see Hobbit, would've seen LOTR. So the majority of the audience is already conditioned to accept the existence of only one such piece. On the other hand, this is not a 'Lost in Adaptation' and you are quite clear you are looking at the films as films only, if they make sense for someone who knows nothing of the books, lore or LOTR. But it is hard not to fill in the blanks, so some points probably sound more like you are looking for holes, than they would've if I knew nothing. In my opinion also, you are overcomplicating the 'dragon sickness'. Dragons love gold. The only reason Smaug attacked Erebor was because they had so much gold. Dragon don't do anything with the gold but hoard it. Thorin's bout of dragons sickness presented quite similarly, the gold was his and he would not part with it for anything. The Arkensone was used as a symbol of the riches and was called the 'king's stone' because it was fancy. And Thorin considered it his birthright and the symbol of the might of his forefathers' kingdom. But while watching the films, I never thought that the Arkenstone was being made into an Excallibur type thing, if you have it then you're the rightful king. So I am not sure if you really found this confusing or if you are determined to find it confusing. It is also a fact that Thorin gives Bilbo his shirt as a gift. They had to include it, and I am not surprised they didn't think to justify it further. I mean, if you don't expect for there to be more than one, and you know that Bilbo gets the one, it is easy to overlook that some people might need a justifying backstory? You are also quick to dismiss all instances of luck and fate, despite 'fate' being totally a thing in Middle Earth. You could take all events leading up to the fall of Sauron and say 'What are the odds'. That Bilbo, the only Hobbit to venture out of the Shire in ages happens upon Gollum and finds the One Ring just lying around? Or that Gollum's life being spared repeatedly would've made all the difference? Gollum tried to kill Frodo and Sam, and logically they should've eliminated him. But Frodo had a gut feeling and went with his pity instead. You could argue that the ring's destruction rested entirely on Gollum not dying . And the fact that he survived torture, imprisonment and wasn't just randomly killed is sheer dumb luck. So the conclusion of the whole trilogy rested on Gollum just not dying several times. But is this a storytelling fault or proof that 'fate' plays a part in Middle Earth's story?
The whole Smaug and Sauron working together thing is from one of the LOTR Appendices and an extended text that serves as a longer version of said appendix. In the text (published post-humously), the quest of erebor and death of smaug plan (or rather, a version with Bilbo participating as burglar) was put into motion by Gandalf due to fears he had that Smaug and Sauron would potentially form an alliancce in the future (useful for Sauron possibly using Smaug to wreck havock in the north in future wartime and clear a path to the old lands of Angmar, iirc). The quest was meant (for Gandalf) to remove that possibility for Sauron.
Smaug and Sauron are allied because theyre both servants of Morgoth...... Every single Dragon is the essence of Morgoth when the actual world was created he put in his hatred, malice and desire for war/conflict.
@kool4209 dragons weren't created when the world was created. They were bred later as weapons to conquer the world. Other than that we don't know how they were made. The most popular theory is they created by maiar taking the form of dragons and breeding with dragon-like reptiles, similar to how the race of giant spiders were created by ungoliant breeding with regular spiders. The other theory is they are similar to wargs, intelgiant beasts corrupted and modified by morgoth into something more powerful but also inclinded to evil. Their larger set of powers and sauron taking the form of a great serpent atleast once (but still retaining the ability to breed more unlike bulrogs) is what makes people think the theory that they are children of shape-shifting maiar to be the most likely.
My favorite part of the video is the little bits of praise you give it, before returning to the usual critique. It's refreshing and nice to see specks of good character writing from such a generally disappointing movie (example: "defection", 2:01:01)
I did have this video running in the background, but hearing the sentence "He decides to use his son as a bow." had me sit down in front of my PC and watch attentively in confusion. XD
Gandalf "Luck" remix at the end of the video actually sounds so catchy, great editing throughout the video too. I've been waiting for the autopsy video ever since this one came out.
3:38:25 Aragorn wasn't a random dude. He was the heir of Isildur (who had some elven ancestors) and he grew up in Rivendell with Elrond as his foster father. He began traveling when he was twenty and became a friend and ally of Gandalf. It's completely plausible that Thranduil would be aware of Aragorn and his exploits. His lineage made him much more notable to an elf king than any hobbit.
But if you look at the timeline he's in his 80s in LOTR, Bilbo has the ring for about 50yrs before he passes it to Frodi, who has it for about 20yrs before the Fellowship. So that's 70yrs, so at this point aragorn is either still a child or an early teen. So he shouldn't be ranging or even well known
Yes, he is the heir of Isildur, just like his father, and his father's father, etc. Going back a long while. Special, yes, but not SO special that a xenophobic elf would be like "Son, you must meet this inferior mortal man; he is slightly less inferior than the others!"
It wasn't mentioned in the movies at all so understandable if it is kinda ignored, but in the books Thranduil told Legolas to live amongst the Dunedain and during that time, Legolas and Aragorn became so close that they considered each other brothers. So Thranduil doing here in the movie isn't completely out of nowhere.
@@heathergarnham9555 Aragorn lives longer than any man. I don’t remember how old he was in the books, but he was definitely in the +100yr range while looking to be in his prime.
I cannot understand why the writers wanted Sauron to be so obsessed with Angmar during this trilogy because not only has Angmar been fallen for 967 years at this point but it has already served it’s purpose in his grand scheme. Angmar was originally founded by the Witch King at the behest of Sauron as to wage war with and completely destroy the kingdom of Arnor which was half of the once larger kingdom of men that since split from them after Isildur’s death. How does reclaiming Anger in the exact opposite half of the world where all of his power is beneficial to him? By this point in the books the orcs have had control over Mordor for hundreds of years why does he need the old puppet state of his underling that has long served it’s one and only purpose to him?! I’m sorry for the rant but as a huge LoTR book and movie fan this breaks me.
Out of universe, up the stakes. In universe, an extra foothold in the west but yeah, as far as Sauron is concerned in the books, Angmar crippled Arnor and reduced it to a bunch of wandering Rangers.
I remember having this exact same complaint when I watched the movies. What purpose does Angmar serve now, especially when the North doesn't pose much of a threat to Mordor?
@@Samaru163 Clearing the Northeast (Mirkwood, Laketown, Iron Hills, one other settlement that is part of the wine trade but rarely brought up and not mentioned in film) so he can focus his efforts across the Anduin makes some degree of sense, but he doesn't need a new Angmar for that.
But is that in the simarilion? Wasn that finished after Tolkien had died? I heard lots of it had to be essentially made up from scratch by Christopher Tolkien and his writing partner.
3:18:16 - We could go with that being the only Mithril shirt as they were incredibly rare, also it is possible that the shirt does not fit the dwarves so only Bilbo could wear it as he is the smallest. Movie does not explain this though, one line of "this is too small for any of us" would have helped but might have been rude if said to Bilbo. In the books it was made for elven child and not for dwarves.
In the film, Thorin is using the mithril shirt as a gesture of goodwill so that Bilbo would be less likely to betray him. In the book, Bilbo keeps the arkenstone because he is afraid the dwarves will cheat him out of his share.
I dare say: In the movie the mithril shirt was there just to meet all the expectations of book readers and the Lord-of-the-Rings viewers (and other fantasy consumers, as mithril became a common trope after Tolkien´s work in the community). I did not serve any other purpose, plot or character related, in this movie, and just the mentioned half sentence "this is too small for any of us, made for a young elven prince, extremely rare and precious - but you have earned it!" or likewise would have embedded it much better.
I fell asleep to this on and in my dreams my friend would not stop talking about LoR I was like “bro, why do you keep talking about LoR? “ until I woke up and realized why lol
I agree with alot of your points here and dont disagree with the rest enough to comment. Excpet that Thorin isnt suddenly stronger than Azog, Azog was trying to pull towards himself, the way the flail was stuck prevented this. Thorin picks it straight up, hes not fighting the edge of the crater like Azog was.
Dain ends up being a great king. He helps the people of Dale become incredibly rich and he rebuilds relations between the Elves of Mirkwood and Dwarves, basically both occur because of all the trading that happens.
We don’t see him in the LOTR movies because they’re fighting their own war near Erebor. Sauron tries to corrupt Dain by offering him the three Dwarven Rings he had if Dain tells him who “Baggins” is. He refuses, that is why Gimli and Gloin are at the meeting that creates the Fellowship. Dain sends them to warn Elrond that Sauron is mobilizing and has interest in Bilbo.
Dain ultimately dies protecting the people of Dale who were retreating into Erebor. His son, Thorin III, then is able to defeat the armies attacking Erebor after his father dies and he goes on to rule Erebor after the War of the Ring.
"a little ring, the least of rings, a trifle that Sauron fancies"
Forget Rings of Power. There’s your Lord of the Rings spin off series.
@@christopherjustice6411 The Lord of the Rings: The Kingdoms of the North
Would be fire. Unfortunately Amazon needed to spend a billion on that abomination.
May I add gentleman, Dain falls defending the body of his friend Brand, grandson of Bard the bowman. They served as a rear guard and a “pile of Easterling corpses” surrounded Dain before he is brought down.
@@RamBear88 Tolkein actually wrote that had Dain lost the war against the easterlings, Sauron would've ultimately won despite what happened at pelenor fields.
In the books, the battle spans about 2 pages, the eagles arrive much sooner, and Bilbo is the first see them before a random stone knocks him out **for the rest of the battle**. He wakes up afterwards and only learns then that Thorin was struck down by Bolg, Fili and Kili were killed defending him. Bolg is actually killed by Beorn, who shows up suddenly and bears (no pun intended) Thorin away from the battle. Azog was never there, because he was too busy being dead for much of the previous century.
Isn’t he knocked out in the books while invisible with the ring on?
@@ComradeCommissarYuri Yes, that why no one could find him right after battle
how did they fit that into 2 pages??
@@tasheve3015 Bilbo literally slept through it and got the highlights from Gandalf.
The whole battle and aftermath is on pages 228-238 in first PDF you can find googling "The Hobbit: Enhanced Edition pdf".
Bilbo got bonked in the head right after orcs attacked, and he's told about rest of battle by Gandalf later.
A Random Film Talk is never late. He arrives precisely when he means to
The fact that this movie shows a fantastic, emotionally moving, crucial and borderline tearjerking scene where Thorin dies making amends with Bilbo (the two most important characters) who breaks up mourning him and then cuts immediately to the pointless and vapid Elf Dwarf romance subplot with Tauriel mourning someone she met 3 days ago and has barely any chemistry with is both laughable and infuriating.
The whole dwarf and elf romance is just cringe and was only added because “they wanted to add a romance” because of the normies that criticize LotR for being too male. Not to mention the one dwarf in the romance is hot, not resembling a dwarf in the slightest. (I have this issue with Thorin and Filli as well but some effort was made ti making them dwarvish, but not really.)
@@anom5389I am a female, and I do not care for most romance plotlines. I'm sure I'm not the target demographic anyway, but I would much prefer this movie and most movies without a love triangle, square, line, whatever. The only thing I liked about the Tauriel and Kili plotline was that A Feast of Starlight was playing in the background.
When you think about it, Tauriel has the same character arc as Bilbo. She starts off as a recluse in her own home secretly desiring to see the outside world, is set free into said outside world upon forming a close bond with a dwarf, watches said dwarf die, and then goes home forever changed. It’s not much of a stretch to assume Tauriel and Kíli may be meant as explicitly romantic stand-ins for Bilbo and Thorin, since they have practically the same storyline but theirs is actually able to be explicitly romantic because it’s heterosexual. It’s particularly obvious in the framing - Thorin catches the key with his foot when Bilbo drops it, just as Tauriel catches the runestone with her foot when Kíli drops it - and in the editing of the death scenes, as the shots of Bilbo weeping over Thorin cut immediately back and forth with shots of Tauriel weeping over Kíli; their grief is the same.
Same with sex scenes in movies, it's an utter waste of runtime IMHO.
I would like to call to attention the scene where Thorin gives bilbo a very expensive mithril shirt for protection. As we know, he has dragon sickness. As I know from reading a lot of questionable multi species fanfiction, dragons are obsessed and possessive over treasure. As Captain Jack Sparrow once said 'not all treasure is silver and gold, mate.'
One note about the "dragon sickess": it is just one of the colloquial names of this thing that Tolkien insterted into the lore in the Silmarillion, actually. Gold, as in, the metal itself, does in fact carry spiritual evil. It contains it, it carries it, it conducts it like other metals or water does electricity. Evil or at least evil-prone creatures and men are drawn to it and they - meaning gold and someone enraptured by gold - eventually further corrupt one another. That's why it was the best choice for Sauron to pour his "wish" into that, and that's why the elves use gemstones - basically minerals - which are the stuff of stardust, to harness their power and light, use the "fairest and wisest" magic. That's why in ROP it doesn't make any sense that Galadriel is blacksmithing herself something from a fucking silver-gold alloy dagger :'DDD (Tolkien himself was also torn that he could not retcon everything he wrote in The Hobbit, so the Arkenstone is actually a mystery jewel left for the dwarves.)
Tolkien wanted to reach back to the roots of _everything_ , and he had incredible ideas about evil - necessary evil, AND unnecessary, inexplicable evil existing in the world, and he worked a great deal to explain and place them or at least tie them to something.
That's why it hurts to see that if someone wants to make money off of something, it doesn't matter how much is already written. It doesn't matter if it's handed to them on a silver fucking plate. There are _thousands_ of pages from his manuscripts, Unfinished Tales, etc, you don't need to make up any new bullshit. It was literally there they just needed to pick the best stuff, but nooo. It's fucking heartbreaking. I know, I know, rights an all that - but then don't make a fucking movie/series about something that you CAN'T make a movie/series about!!!
Fucking hell. The only thing I will remember from the Hobbit movies, unfortunately forever, is Ian McKellen crying in that goddamn green room.
Thank you so much for this absolutely thorough analysis!
That and the dead horses & legal corruption, but visually yeah a crying Gandalf does pretty much sum it up
Funny how the best scenes in each film focus on BILBO. It's... It's almost like the trilogy should have been about THE HOBBIT
funny how the best scenes are usually the ones directly from the book, almost like most of the trilogy was bullshit added because of the studio's greedeness (but i appreciate how ironic it is considering the whole dragon sickness plot xD)
@@akwaMartyna yeah it’s a unfortunate situation for PJ. They didn’t want him to do the movie. Then their golden boy quits during production. Then they call up PJ to try and salvage the shit show mess they created. It was a no win situation for PJ. If the movie is bad, they blame him. If it does great, PJ didn’t actually do anything. If PJ doesn’t do the movie, he’s a POS who doesn’t care about anything but himself.
Which Dwarf is Bilbo?
@@Mitsoxfan The short one.
Probably the biggest victim of the trilogy trend that was happening at the time because The Hobbit would have been much better if it was two movies or even just one. At least they didn't split the last movie into two parts like some other franchises did at the time (can you imagine if The Hobbit was four movies, jesus).
Although Bard didn't really get a backstory in The Hobbit, because Tolkien, telling the story to his children, needed a hero to kill the dragon, the little he gets is very cool. He leads the archers of Laketown, firing arrow after arrow until he is the only one left, and he is down to his last arrow, an arrow handed down from father to son, an arrow that may have been formed in Erebor itself.
"Arrow!" said the bowman. "Black arrow! I have saved you to the last. You have never failed me and always I have recovered you. I had you from my father and he from of old. If ever you came from the forges of the true king under the Mountain, go now and speed well!"
Now that's cool.
Firing a ballista bolt from a broken bow is nowhere near as cool.
My friends and I use to recite that little speech before firing arrows in games. Got us killed a few times in Smash Brothers.
100% agree. Bard is a badass in the books. He is a natural leader, and he can understand the sparrow (super cool!), and he is the best crack shot in town who kills Smaug using his own skill with a regular bow and an arrow, and that's kickass. He's just _meh_ in the film: Anyone could pick up a "black arrow" and use the windlance and come up with the same result.
I remember from the old hobbit game on the original Xbox Bard was depicted as a captain of the guard. Asked Bilbo to follow a thief to his hideout and recover the black arrow. Causing a fight between the thieves and some goblins they were working with.
@@limlaith Wasn’t it a thrush?
@@crescentmoon5686 The thrush told bard that Smaug had a week point in his scales in the hollow under his left breast. A piece of knowledge Bilbo tricks Smaug into giving him. The talking thrush gives Bard his target for his heirloom arrow.
My favorite part of Battle of Five Armies is when Tauriel tearfully asks "Why does it hurt so much?" to which the shot reverses and Thranduil is suddenly replaced with Peter Jackson in a blonde wig saying "New Zealand trade unions and profits from 3 films instead of 2"
I loved that part
"because you haven't had a dick since you were 9?"
Wasn't Peter Jackson also put in a pretty shitty position by all that so there wasn't much he could do from his standpoint orrrrrr am I missing more?
@@theheioslair6023 Exactly
What trade unions? Peter Jackson broke the actor's union with The Hobbit Law.
Obviously Legolas left Lake-Town because he’s a god-level marksman who could pin a fly to a tree 100 yards away without killing it, meaning he would absolutely steal Bard’s kill unless the writers get him out of the scene. Having him chase Bolg out of town was a clunky solution to this writing issue. A better one would’ve been to just not have Legolas in Lake-Town in the first place!
Ah I see he’s one of those archers from the blue spirit episode of avatar who’s name eludes me
@@Linki8uu The Yuyan Archers. Yes! Makes me happy people can catch such subtle references.
@@JustAnArrogantAlien I get it
Very true, they probably realised if he was around then Bard making the shot while KNOWING an archer of his calibre was around would actually make him a glory hog willing to put the entire town at risk to be the saviour himself rather than let somebody else do it, as ye honestly from what we've seen Legolas could have shot down Smaug the second he appeared if he had the arrow and it would have been an even quicker scene.
Or better yet, not have him in the trilogy!
Man, the book version where the Black Arrow was just a regular arrow fired by a regular man in last-ditch, Hail-Mary effort to save his town was so much cooler.
Yes and no I think it would be a little lame to have a dragon die to something like a normal arrow having it be a ballista just makes more sense and doesn’t really take anything away from a regular guy taking down a dragon cus he could still be a regular guy
I do believe thats how it was in the animated movie but its been so long since I watched it I cant remember for sure.
@@aiden2358 well, it wasn't truly a "normal arrow" in the books, however it's magical abilities were described very subtle. The few things we know from the book is that it was made by the Dwarves of Erebor and Gaston was always able to reclaim it after a fight. And all this information is provided right before he is about to shoot Smaug the Great, it isn't treated as if it's some kind of a legendary tier arrow that everyone knows about.
@@mastermind4499 that is a lot better then although I still think having it be an actual ballista bolt adds a touch of weight to it…even if in the movie they fucked it up by having him launch it off his son
@@aiden2358yes and no. They made Smaug too large, and because of that, it would be silly to kill him with a normal arrow.
If he weren’t so gigantic, the archer with a well placed shot is a much better story. It is said in the book that normally this couldn’t happen because of the dragon’s scales, but Smaug is missing a scale near his heart.
Took waaaaay too long for me to remember that Gaston is not actually named Gaston.
Excellent work once again!
Took this comment for me to remember 👍🏻
@@thurielangel3239 And it took YOUR comment to remind me. Cheers👍
Me too, me too! I needed all these commets to make me aware lol@@2TONESKY
Wait, what IS his name?!
@@hundredfireify Bard, I think
I love the fact that every single time you gave us multiple choices all of the scenarios could have most definitely happened considering everything going on in this movie.
The first multiple choice left me going “none of them?? Please?? None of those options!!”
I picked the dumbest options and was laughing out loud when he showed that actually happened.
I went for decapitation and was right every time.
The one where Legolas chops off hundreds of heads randomly... oh boy. I gave them too much credit in not voting for that one. Looks like I made the right decision in skipping the extended altogether by the time the third movie came out.
@@stzu07rel They had a real hard-on for decapitations
“Out of my way, abandon the cripples” is my battle cry.
I prefer "HOT-PIE"
When there's a fire in a hospital and the lazy patient is shoving everyone out of the way to get to the exit.
Another issue with the "go find Aragorn" scene is that Thranduil says he goes by the name "Strider". In Fellowship, both the book and film, Aragorn introduces himself to Frodo by saying that he goes by many names, but is known in THESE PARTS (Bree area) as Strider. Thranduil would unlikely ever have heard that name, and would likely call him by whatever name he uses when he passes through Mirkwood (or wherever Thranduil met him I suppose).
But of course it's not fanservice unless he uses the exact name the audience is familiar with. Why didn't he just call him Aragorn? Thranduil obviously knows his name but doesn't tell Legolas for movie purposes.
Dude indeed had many names: Aragorn, Estel, Ellesar, Thorongil, Strider...
But no matter the name, the entire scene was a member berry turd.
Also I guess this cements that the Peter Jacksonverse doesn't have the 17 year timeskip between the Party and Frodo's flight from the Shire of the books. If it does, Aragorn is like 10.
Also he says Aragorn would be like 27 at the time but he’s like 80 during LOTR so the 27 number can’t be right
@ilovenycsomuch In book time he would be 10 in jacksontime 27
you were spot on with your interperation on why smaug didn't immediantly wipe out the town, in the book we get a look inside smaug mind when attacking the town and what he planned on doing was to drive all the people into their boats trying to escape the town and but everytime one of the boats got to shore he would swoop down and either kill the people in the boat or scare them back into the middle of the lake, he wanted to have the people choose between dying to dragonfire trying to flee from the lake or die to exposure out in the middle of the lake with limited food and ways to keep warm at night. He had planned to kill them all over the course of a week swooping down on the people in the middle of the lake everytime he got hungry.
He didn't just want to kill them, he wanted to torment them
Damn that’s fucked up, he truly is sadistic, but I wish that was in the movie cuz this short scene was so anticlimactic
That’s on par with pheasant hunting. I’ve never done it myself, but I once read that pheasant hunters, if they thought the birds were hiding in bushes or a thicket, would walk around it very slowly until the pheasants panicked and tried to fly.
That method, as well as Smaug's, is terrifying.
I'm glad to see that Warner Bros., chiefest and greatest of calamities, hasn't succeeded in burning down the project in rage and spite.
I think that title best be reserved for Amazon. WB at least referenced the source material and double checked during production.
10:00
@@Undomaranel uh n
Just ask Zack Snyder. And David Ayer.
Your wish has been granted by Amazon
Re: the constant breaking of time and distance - I read Christopher Tolkien's books on how his father created these stories. Prof Tolkien was always concerned with time and distance - whether the characters were moving by foot or by horse. He even was concerned about what the phase of the moon would be.
The entire Shire didn't "forget" who Bilbo was. They were in the middle of auctioning off all his stuff, though. Bilbo would have months and months of trouble getting his property back (and never would get back his silver spoons from Lobelia). Also, hobbits are very suspicious of the out of the ordinary and the foreign, and a bit petty, so that they would claim this Bilbo is an imposter to keep the bargain buys they got from his estate sale is not hard to imagine. For the film to condense that into one small bit of dialogue asking Bilbo to prove his identity is fine with me.
Oh, so you're saying they all KNEW this was their friend and neighbor and, in some cases, relative, Bilbo Baggins, and elected to pretend not to know them to keep his property. Meaning Hobbits are all monumental thieving douchebags.
I bet we’d catch on like a house on fire friend. Excellent point
Smaug landing on Lake Town infuriates me to no end. When I read the Hobbit for the first time, this line in particular stood out to me.
"Amid shrieks and wailing and the shouts of men he came over them, swept towards the bridges and was foiled! The bridge was gone, and his enemies were on an island in deep water-too deep and dark and cool for his liking. If he plunged into it, a vapour and a steam would arise enough to cover all the land with a mist for days; but the lake was mightier than he, it would quench him before he could pass through."
Smaug has been built up as the chiefest and greatest calamity. A dragon who can burn down entire kingdoms and kill armies of soldiers. But he was scared of a lake. This really helped highlight to me the power of nature. That even a beast as mighty as a dragon was scared to get close to a deep lake that could quench him. It fits with Tolkien's themes about the beauty of nature and the power that it has, especially compared to the fires of industry. But no, the film has him land on Lake Town, somehow the buildings don't collapse under him,and he just charges straight at Bard with no regard for the lake at all. Why not just have him land on the town from the very beginning instead of burn it from the sky?
Then there is the whole "Bard spotting the lose scale" debackle. What was the point of Bilbo noticing the weak spot if Bard was going to spot it on his own? In the book this made sense because Bard has the ability to talk to birds, and when Bilbo explained the weak spot to the dwarves, a thrush overheard him and told Bard. This connected Bilbo to Smaug's death, because let's face it, Bilbo was never going to be the one to kill the dragon, but he could be the one who gives information regarding the dragon's weakness to someone who can. Bilbo is supposed to be the main character, so why not connect him to the downfall of the primary antagonist of the story? But these movies forgot Bilbo was supposed to be the main character and decided that Bard's son needed a dumb coming of age arc instead.
On the other hand, it undermines Smaug's powerful presence if it flat out says he's scared of something as benign as a lake.
@@alejandrojuarez5640 Dying in the first ten minutes of a movie also undermines a powerful presence
@@alejandrojuarez5640 Makes sense for a being of fire to be afraid of a giant body of water that can and will douse his flame. No more benign to him than an active volcano would've been to Genghis Khan, mighty as he was too.
BOY STAND HERE
your stealing a character arc!
Recall the lighting of the forge sequence? Smaug was doused with water stored(or damned?) there. So the writers did use the idea of cooling Smaug to a point of being unable to breath fire, but in a bastardized way. Where Tolkien preferred the power of nature over that of industry, the writers, either through incompetence or malice, chose industry.
2:37:27 "You are lesser now than you've ever been" is a great line.
Imagine that line in a film as good as LOTR.
Just to clarify. Dain II dies defending Erebor from an army of Easterlings at the time of the battle of Minas Tirith. Sauron strikes at every stronghold of the free peoples simultaneously in the hopes of dividing and conquering.
Just to clarify. That's not what dividing and conquering is. When you divide and conquer, you're not supposed to divide yourself
@@LibertyLocalizera pinning force thats strong enough to pose a legitimate threat.
Besides, taking erebor and the remaining treasure would be a pretty huge win and enable the forces of sauron to build more aliances.
@@jonsimpson6240 that's not really relevant at all to what I said
@@LibertyLocalizer the phrase "divide and conquer" usually refers to the breaking up of alliances and whatnot. But it can also be used to describe the methods I described.
That requires dividing your forces, because if you don't you leave an enemy force uncontested to do what it wants.
I’m defense of the line “the east will fall” uttered by sauron. While random is right, Mordor is in the east of middle-earth and is already defeated, all of middle-earth is to the east of Valinor. And considering sauron is originally from valinor and likely sees it as his rightful home since he was banished, it could be argued his conquest of middle earth in its entirety could be considered a conquest of the east. Although this is giving the writers more credit than they probably deserve.
personally, when I heard the line initially, I thought that by 'the east' he meant erebor and the mountain, given how far east it is in relation to most of middle earth, but, well... it's already fallen and theyre trying to get it back. My second thought was Rhun
@@DrengadeI thought the same fromt that line, as in "I will conquer the east and then come back for the West"
I just thought it referred to the free people's polities east of the misty mountains and north of Mordor. The Woodland Realm, the kingdom of Dale, and the Iron Hills Dwarves.
The simple fact that Tolkien was a soldier who served at the frontlines of WW1 and started his whole project of a mythological fantastic history of the world in an attempt to keep his marbles in the bleak monotony of the meat grinder this war was i think he would be fuming to see some script writers upping the violence and gore to a ten just for laughs and entertainment
the battle of helms deep was very weird to read, but i think this is why, its very vague only a few pages and i don't think it mentions once a specific violent action, it does however have a aragorn vs urukai rap battle (aka one of tolkiens less than great poetry moments, i love the word the poetry not so much LOL) where its basically just "your gonna loose human" "no lol hey look sunrise, gottem" and then the riders of rohan come and yea, anyway seems like he wanted the battle cuz it fit the story but got uncomfortable writing it and wrote about everything around it everything but the battle, he def would not enjoy orc gorefest lol
@@pisscvre69 While I adore Tolkien, I'm glad I'm not the only one who finds his talent as a songwriter lacking.
@@dutchmansmine9053 a good reminder that no one can do it all LOL, if ya working on a creative thing work with others if ya can
Tolkien notably was quite vague on the details of the battles across his work. Any major moments were given their time but the battles themselves were largely glossed over. Given his history, it's easy to see why he put so little focus on the fighting despite how massive a part it actually played
@@pisscvre69 epic rap battles of history: Middle-Earth edition
The random skull saying "what?" puts me in stitches 😅
Me too it cracks me up that every time😂🤣🤣
Skeletor is indeed a goldmine of meme material
Greasebag death scene being extended edition also means that in the theatrical release, he never gets his comeuppance. Bard lets him leave, he leaves, and he's never heard from again. Damn, that's unsatisfying.
Yeah, but I’ll be honest the only extended hobbit movie I liked was Desolation of Smaug. The other two had waaaaaay too many stupid moments.
I love everything about the multiple choice segments. The ridiculous scenarios. The childish drawings. The fact that every childish drawing looks like it's from a different child. They're just so perfect.
Agreed! Love the multi choice segments.
And now the reason for reviewing the extended cut versions of the films becomes clear.
Plus, the Countdown music is chef's kiss
THIS!@@katiek2608 cuz I love that show as well ^^
Agree. IMO the best is the Legolas one, because they made him so ridiculously overpowered that all of these scenarios very equally possible
I'm so happy you were able to publish this video Random! To be honest I've discovered your channel only a few days ago, with the first video on The Hobbit, and after noticing that the third part was missing I discovered the legal issue. Since I really enjoyed the other videos I hoped you would be able to solve the problem, and luckily it happened. The reason I enjoy your videos so much is that your criticism is not just to say that something is bad (which unfortunately is the most common), but to explain in detail why a story doesn't work. I believe this way of criticizing it's healthy and useful, so thanks for your content! :)
Welcome to the Randos ❤
what legal issue?
@@Sodacacik he was hit with a copyright strike by WB, but they didn't follow it through, so we now have part 3 of this beautiful masterpiece
@@jeremygernhaelder8783 Thank you :D
What she said, I also endorse it
1:04:40 truer words have never been spoken. Rest in peace, Christopher Lee.
The Giga Chad of Giga Chads.
@@Davidofthelost Tera Chad
The fact that his activities during WWII are still sealed and will remain sealed for another 100 years even though they've aged past the normal Official Secrets Act threshold tells us just how much of a serious badass he was. (I'm not kidding about how top secret his shit was. Look it up.) He was a member of the group that became known as the SAS before they were even named the SAS. He was amazing.
Lobellia Sackville-Baggins in The Hobbit isn't fan service to The Lord of the Rings, Lobellia Sackville-Baggins in The Lord of the Rings is fan service to the Hobbit. She was in both books, but cut from The Lord of the Rings along with the Scouring of The Shire. Instead she was just thrown in a passing mention from Bilbo as a reference to her book presence and The Hobbit. She is completely justified in this movie as it was her original appearance.
Dain Ironfoot as well as the towns peoples leader Brand of Dale both perish in a massive retreat battle on the foot of Erebor. Dain could have retreated with his bodyguards to the keep. But was so enraged by the thought of having the easterlings desegrate his friends body that he stood by his friends side until eventually after bodies had piled high. He was eventually overwhelmed.
He went out like the heroes of old.
The easterling horde completely loses their morale once saurons ring is cast into the fire. As Sauron's armies scatter into the four winds.
This battle was known as Battle of Dale. Dain was ripe old age of 254 years old.
The Battle took 3 days. For those who are interested.
I 100% agree with you that the amount of time spent on 'Greasebag' was unconscionable. There was no need to bloat out the movie with that, not when they could have been spending time on the interpersonal relationships of the dwarves dealing with their slowly growing insane king. But they seemed to just really forget that any dwarf not named Thorin, Fili, Balin or Dwalin existed. That would have made the image when the thirteen in the mountain finally joined the fray much more epic, as Thorin finds himself again, and turns his back on the gold to reclaim his honor. If they had leaned into the siege of the Mountain, then you could have had this tight interpersonal drama interspersed with the growing tension outside, since the arrival of Dain wouldn't haven't been a surprise to the Elves or the human forces if they had the sense to have scouts out.
This whole series makes me feel so bad for Evangeline Lilly. She had to deal with the love triangle from Lost for years, and when she came on this project she begged them, "Please don't put me in a love triangle" and they still went and screwed her over.
Truth be told. This was never a love triangle, at least not when compared to Lost. Tauriel never exhibits any kind of desire for Legoals. It's not like she is conflicted or torn between Legoals and Kili in any meaningful way throughout these movies. And Legoals doesn't really make put any pressure onto Tauriel either. If this qualifies as a love triangle, pretty much every person in existence has gone through a love triangle at least once in their life.
With that being said. The whole Tauriel and Kili plot is utterly pointless and adds nothing to the trilogy.
@@RamGuy459
> If this qualifies as a love triangle
Three people, three points, three different relations, three different line lengths. It pretty much does.
> If this qualifies as a love triangle, pretty much every person in existence has gone through a love triangle at least once in their life.
Um... yes...?
Her entire character shouldn't have been included. Legolas shouldn't be included.
She got paid millions for this, c'mon
You could do one of these for LOTR. The bit where you cut away and enumerate character traits could be interesting to see in a movie that's actually put together well.
Yes!!! I love Randoms movie breakdowns since I don't play video games... I'm hoping for more
That would be a fantastic idea. I second the motion.
I totally agree! I know that in a previous video, he's mentioned not wanting to rehash what other people have said, but I think this is totally one way he could give his own spin on it!
does not seem like a good or entertaining video idea
Great idea! Criticism has its own entertainment value but it would be nice to see praise as well (not that LOTR is perfect either, but far more good points than bad)
The mithril shirt problem could easily have been solved by Thorin saying the shirt was made for a young dwarf prince and so it doesn’t fit any of them. Or it was going to be a gift for a human or elf or someone else less broad than a dwarf.
he could have said it was made for him when he was younger,
It was "made for a young elven prince" or something in the books, indeed it wouldnt fit any of them. Even if it looks somewhat right, dwarves are more stocky. Unlike too tight clothes, I cant imagine mithril being able to stretch.
I highly doubt Erebor would have a dozen mithril shirts in its armory, as its extremely rare and was not mined in Erebor, only in Moria. So it was likely a treasure bought or traded.
Or there is an assumption that its just equipping his companions for battle, not a guift untill the end.
Honestly it could’ve been left out altogether too since Bilbo never got use out of it
2:29:50 what you forgot to mention is the fact, that the trolls do usually petrify when they are exposed to sunlight, as it was clearly demonstrated in the first movie
nevertheless the whole battle takes place during the day.
In the Lord of the Rings Sauron actually had to cast a huge cloud of darkness over Gondor only for his Orcs and Trolls being able to fight effectivley.
One thing about Galadriel's telepathic communication - she actually does this in the Two Towers to convince Elrond (in Rivendell, while Galadriel is in Lothlórien) to send aid (movie only) to Helm's Deep by saying that the fellowship's quest is failing and that the elves shouldn't abandon Middle Earth. Elrond is also a pretty powerful individual so it is at least consistent that she can communicate with other powerful individuals, and can't just speak to literally anyone across any distance.
Uh... Galadriel doesn't in the movie though? Haldir is the dude that shows up leading the elves. He was the dude that stopped the Fellowship as they entered the woods of Lorien. I'm not arguing that it doesn't make sense for her to be able to communicate with Elrond, with both having an elven ring on top of their own strength, just that I don't think its in the movie at all.
I don't recall if its explicit in the book either, or if she sends messengers to get Aragorn's folk to come to the aid of Gondor.
@@SquallLionhart409 She definitely communicated with Elrond remotely. It was a night time scene and he was on top of what looked like a tower balcony. However, I do agree it wasn't to send aid, but I also don't remember the exact contents as it has been roughly 4 years since I last watched it.
I do believe that scene might be in the extended edition. I am not 100% sure, though, as I haven't watched the theatrical edition since it was in theaters.
@@SquallLionhart409 Yes, it Haldir who shows up, but he tells Theodeon "I bring word from Elrond of Rivendell.". This suggests that the elven force is a collaboration between Rivendell and Lothlórien. I think the Galadriel scene might have been in the extended edition however, but I don't have a copy of a theatrical version so I can't confirm.
Regarding this conversation, yes the Galadriel scene is in the extended version, and yes she did telepathically communicate with Elrond regarding helping Rohan on the battle of helms deep
fun fact regarding Kili and Fili not having mithril shirts. Steel mail, which they were wearing, is also rather puncture resistant.
Also it's possible the only Mithril shirt was too small for the dwarves, but a good fit for a hobbit. I have a vague memory of it being referred to as "for some elven princeling" or something. So designed at great expense for a precious child.
Mithril is the writer's plot armour 😂
@@danielled8665 Yeah ti was designed in a time of friendship between Dwarves and Elves.
Not in movies it isn't.
Unfortunately.
Even plate armor isn't stab resistant.
@jonsimpson6240 In movies most armor is completely useless. Makes you wonder why they bother.
I’m sure I’m not the first or last to say this. Martin Freeman did a amazing job in these films and they 100% didn’t deserve it. Without him these films would be flat out unwatchable.
He also makes _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ (2005) watchable… almost.
Martin Freeman & Richard Armitage carried the whole trilogy together, imho.
@@NinaNiterose86 I hated Thorin's costume though like where is his big blonde dwarf beard? Instead had to try and make him hot or something ugh
I agree! He was an excellent choice as Bilbo.
He's a legend in my books because of it!
AND after a week of enjoying your hilarious analysis of Zack Snyder’s *”Ster Wers* Part Deux” I am now back for more of your glorious “The Hobbit Trilogy analysis”. *Thank you RFT* and cheers.
3:07:00 Let's be fair to LOTR Legolas. Gimli was invariably the antagonist in that relationship. He started talking shit about elves in general before Legolas even seemed to notice him. The mildly annoyed facial expression when Gimli volunteered to go along with them was really all we have to go on, and that seems to be more about Gimli himself than the entirety of dwarf-kind. I mean, how would you react if the first thing you heard out of a person's mouth was a disparaging remark about your people?
I can't remember a single remark Legolas ever made about dwarves in general, let alone a disparaging one. "Would you like me to find you a box?" was the closest he ever came to commenting on the immutable characteristics of dwarves. And in context it was more of a bonding thing. Gimli seemed to appreciate that he was finally willing to fire one back at him.
I was devastated when I saw the initial release was delayed thanks to TH-cam’s fantastic algorithms. I am greatly looking forward to this along with the eventual final autopsy!
Somehow these videos are still shorter than the actual lord of the rings movies.
By alot.
I'd argue that the final scene with Thorin and Bilbo doesn't have hardly any weight because of the circumstances of their meeting. Sure, he had some nice things to say about friendship and apologizing, but who wouldn't when you're at death's door and Bilbo's stumbled right on up to him.
In the books, Thorin desperately called for Bilbo as he was dying, implying so much more. It's the ultimate lesson of The Hobbit. That at the end of all things, Thorin didn't have much to say about his kingdom his gold, his legacy, or really anything. The most important thing to him was that he didn't want to part this world on bad terms with his friend. The words he says also capstones the lesson he learned from Bilbo and the simple lives of the Hobbits.
They could have fixed a lot in this film by having him look aside and silently whisper the name Bilbo after looking over the frozen waterfall in victory. We'd immediately understand there was something more important to him than all this.
No.
@@vividmediaproductionso.c.3209Why no?
Honestly what bothered me was how Thorin was saying all these things in this scene & Bilbo doesn’t offer any words of comfort or assurance🤦♀️ he’s usually thoughtful & knows the right thing to say so I didn’t expect him to listen in silence & then just say nooo
You know, I just realized something: Gaston attempts at kind of "pardoning" greasebag for being in league with the Master despite having no reason to do so is probably an attempt to emulate Aragorn convincing Thedoen to spare Grima. Unfortunately, Aragorn comes off from that as truly merciful and magnanimous, while Gaston comes off as just naive and dumb
Never thought I’d say this, but Grima wasn’t as evil or as disgusting as greasebag
I always thought sparing Wormtongue was stupid. Just watched it last night and was screaming at the TV "NO cut his FUC*ING head off!" Then later the Rohan King is like "come on down dude you weren't always evil" there is zero evidence of that. I mean homeboy was like "too long you ogling my sister & what did Sauramon promise you!?" says to me he's been a peeping creep for awhile and CHOSE to take a bribe to ruin his king and exile his son and who knows what else...but sure an old skool ancient times sword weilding king is gonna pardon that kinda behavior....suuuuuuuure. He just went and joined the next evil dude he could find, then got pardoned AGAIN. King Rohan is a dumb a**.
@@gentelmanjunkie542 in the books, he’s kinda worse. Saruman and Grima go to Hobbiton after the ring was destroyed bc Saruman convinced treebeard to let them go. They enslave the entire population, kill multiple hobbits and it required the 4 returning hobbits to rally the free surrounding hobbits against them to liberate the Shire. Basically, it was like Sam/Frodo’s vision in the first movie that Galadriel showed them. They both die at that point, Saruman backstabbed by Grima and Grima by the hobbits and Saruman is banished from returning to Valanor by basically the gods of Middle Earth. Saruman and Grima also had another chance to reconcile wth Gandalf after they left the tower on their way to the Shire but Saruman insulted Gandalf and left.
@@gentelmanjunkie542In the books, Grima pleaded to be spared, and Théoden gave him a choice. He could either join the Rohirrim military to fight Saruman, or he’s forever banished from Rohan. Grima of course, took the latter.
@@gentelmanjunkie542 eomer wasn’t theodens son, he and eowyn were his niece and nephew, his son had died shortly before Aragorn and the others reached Rohan. But yeah I agree as well. No medieval king would let that shit slide.
This is the fourth time I've watched this entire series in the last two months.
Every time you insert that clip of Dori lurching froward in anger only to be held back by the other dwarf to highlight his hapahazard characterization, it absolutely kills me 😂. That 2 second moment is weirdly funny
Good job analyzing why the Hobbit "trilogy" failed as an adaptation. But you should watch the M4 Hobbit Book Edit if you want a great version of the trilogy. The lead editor, M4, teamed up with talented digital editors to make a single film version of the trilogy. They desaturated, removed the glossy overlay, corrected the color grading, digitally omitted characters, and added film grain to make this version match the appearance of the LOTR trilogy! And they cut out all the excess stuff that wasn't in the original book. It corrects 90% of the problems of The Hobbit. This M4 fan edit transitions seamlessly and is more faithful to the spirit of J.R.R. Tolkien. It's how I start my Middle-Earth marathon with my family, and I highly recommend it!
Do you know where this can be accessed?
Where can I find this edit?
@@H20No Google the fan edit title, and you should find it.
It didn’t only fail as an adaptation, it sucked even without the Tolkien affiliation, like Rings of Power.
To be fair Lothlorien is very close to Dol Guldur, or at least not the other side of middle earth. Its very much the closest place to get help and only a day or so away. Galadriels powers are tied to the wood so her communicating with someone near its borders is less of a stretch than someone far away. It's likely her link to Gandalf is through their rings though, or enhanced as it is with Frodo (who communicates back to her in fellowship)
The real mystery is how Elrond and Saruman turned up so quick.
But as usual it's because they combined things from the books without thinking. In this case they combined Gandalfs Solo visit to Dol Guldur where he encountered Thrain and got the map and key (and in which Sauron remained hidden) with Gandalfs later visit with the rest of the Wise which revealed Sauron and forced him to flee. In the books there is 90 years between these visits.
Galadriel's power to communicate telepathically (which is an ability the high elves have in general though she's particularly skilled at it) seems to be based on the strength of the one she's communicating with. For example, it's stated in the book that she can sense the intent and spy on the plans of Sauron all the way from Mordor. Considering Elrond is arguably the most powerful elf in Middle Earth (with Galadriel herself being the only other contender) and also bearer of the strongest of the elven rings of power, and Saruman is the most powerful of the Maiar (particularly at that time before he'd been corrupted by Sauron), I don't think it's a stretch that she can communicate with them at a distance. However I agree they probably didn't think about any of that and it was just a point of convenience for the story.
Galadriel is stronger than Elrond- She was born in Aman and learned directly from Melian the Maia; Her gift of seeing into others was innate, and then enhanced both by the wisdom she gained from Melian, and the power of her Ring.
@@reneedailey1696 I agree for the most part, but don't discount the power of Elrond's lineage. Elrond is actually from Melian the Maia's family line... four generations or so, if I recall. As well as practically every other influential or powerful family in middle earth. Probably doesn't trump someone actually born under the light of the Trees but still pretty powerful.
The three Elven Rings have the ability to see into the minds of those that are wearing them. Galadriel, Gandalf and Elrond have those three Rings, so they can communicate to eachother at a distance. She warns Frodo not to try and use the ruling Ring to look into her mind or the minds of the other ring bearers or it will destroy him. She also does this telepathy thing to everyone in the fellowship when they arrive in Lothlorien, and Boromir has a very bad reaction to this being done to him. You can see he gains eye contact with Galadriel and starts to have a panic attack and looks away. He also brings it up to Aragorn.
Also, Dol-Guldur is like 100 miles from Lothlorien in the first place. This scene is still very stupid but the communication at a distance thing is a misunderstanding. It's bad and disrespectful to the lore having Sauron know Gandalf had the Ring in the first place. If he had that Ring he would be able to use it in many ways he could use his own Ring. He would have torn it straight off and killed Gandalf immediately lmao.
They also have secondary abilities. Galadriels is to preserve and enhance the natural beauty of things. Gandalfs ring can grant courage to those around, which is why everyone become so despondent after the Balrog. And I can't quite remember what Elronds ring does.
@@SeviathTheHumanDrago Maybe grant advanced healing abilities as Elrond is known as the greatest healer
@@SeviathTheHumanDrago It's unclear, but something to do with warding or guarding. He may have used it to enchant the river that washed away the ring wraiths.
@@SeviathTheHumanDrago Elrond's Ring protects Rivendell from evil influence, hence why it seems so utopic and almost comically "good".
@@SeviathTheHumanDrago Warding off the decay of time. They all do this to some degree though.
Something that struck me is that in the Fellowship, there's a bunch of BTS commentary on how they created the dynamic with the cave troll, which on one hand was a terrible enemy but on the other hand evoking our pity because it was being used as weapon in this fight, not by its own choice. The audience is supposed to feel conflicted about the death of the cave troll. But in this movie, mutilated trolls and dying trolls is just for amusement and such a clear sign of how they lost their grip on Tolkien's world.
Funnily enough in the book, a bird is what helps guide Bard's aim to shoot at Smaug as it is revealed his bloodline is able to communicate with these special species of birds.
While book canon isn’t being considered in this analysis, there are a few interesting points to supplement what you’ve discussed:
- Regarding telepathy, it is apparently canon (at least, according to Tolkien’s letters) that EVERYONE in Middle Earth has the potential for telepathic communication. It just seems to be limited by distance (unless one uses a palantir), and only a few individuals (powerful elves, wizards, some wise humans) have actually developed it as a skill.
- The ravens actually can speak dwarf. Raven’s Hill is so named because that is where rookeries of hyper-intelligent ravens capable of human speed once lived. Thorin’s company encountered one in the books after the death of Smaug and coordinated the message to Dain through it.
- The book does not make it clear whether the mithril shirt given to Bilbo was the only one in Erebor. However, it was identified as having been made for a young elf prince. The implication is that it was given to Bilbo because it was the only armor that would fit him (and probably wouldn’t fit any of the dwarves).
- During the Last Alliance against Sauron, Thranduil was present at the battle that stocked the Dead Marshes with corpses. He lost nearly everyone there at the battle with him, including his father. Given that elves are immortal, Thranduil literally has his throne because people he loved were slaughtered in war. Even if Tauriel were born in the Third Age, she should probably be aware of this.
- The “Five Armies” referred to the races involved in the battle, not armies from different locations. Armies 4 and 5 were a single host of goblin and wargs. This is a change that makes some sense for adaptation, though.
My favorite thing about the Mirthirl shirt is that because it was "made for a young elven prince," we can infer - given the closeness of the kingdoms, and the fact that Mirkwood is very dangerous - it was probably original Legolas' when he was young, to protect him from spiders and stuff.
This means that in the LotR, Frodo is literally wearing the baby clothes of one of the other fellowship members and I think that's just hilarious.
Elves arent immortal
@@kool4209 They live forever unless someone kills them, and even after death their spirits endure until the end of the Universe. I would say that is pretty immortal.
They have a afterlife, they arent meant to live forever until then. They can die as elves this is beyond a fact. @@mostlyholy6301
@@mostlyholy6301Probably confusing immortal with invincible
The mithril shirt, I belive, in the books (do not excuse the movie) was really an unique item, also in the size of a child and did no fit the other dwarves.
Made for an Elven Princeling I believe
Which, if true, only emphasizes the oddity of giving it to Bilbo, who in fact never actually needed it. Frodo does, but that eventuality couldn't possibly be foreseen.
@@paulkelly2701 they know the batle was coming and bilbo was planing on participating,in fact he participated, but was knocked unconcious at the begining, also at that moment he was like a brother for the dwarfs
@@paulkelly2701 Well if it didn't fit anyone else it's not like giving it to Bilbo is a strange option. He's the only one there that can wear it because the dwarves are too big. Finding it and deciding NOT to give it to him would be far more out of character
Correct. Mythril is impossibly rare. to make armor out of it is a luxury Beyond thinking. They didn't even make full weapons out of it. The only reason that mithral shirt was ever made was because it was so small and even then it's surprising it got made in the first place
From the books we get that Sauron was hiding as the Necromancer to grow in strength. He needed to collect his essence and start preping mordor. He didn't want to do it there as he was cery weak and any word of a magician in mordor would interest elrond/gondor very quickly and he could have been purged again. At this time Osgiliath was still in the hands of gondor, maybe even Minas Morgul also. The dark things were gathering but with out a straight up evil lord gondor was snoozing a bit here. So he regenerated as the Necromancer, taking on the form of a human or at least spreading the word he was a man, to aley elvish fears till finally Gandalf and Elrod called BS.
He was also looking for the ring in the Vales of Anduin, which is relatively nearby to Dol Guldur.
Generally agree, only Minas Ithil fell to the Witch King nearly 1000 years prior to the Hobbit. Sauron could only take a hideous form after the downfall of Númenor, so spreading the word is more likely.
Osgiliath was on Gondor's hands but already destroyed, though. The ringwraiths were actually already in Mordor that was also already filling up with orcs. Gondor knew it was a problem, but by this time they were too weak to do a proper job of maintaining the lands around Mordor. Lastly, another reason Sauron was in Dol Guldur was because it was a more central location for him to look for the ring, and by this time he was starting to suspect it might be in the bottom of the Anduin.
I have been incapacitated with a bad back for the last couple of days now, and this series has not only kept me thoroughly entertained, but actually made me laugh out loud on many occasions. I cannot tell you how much I’ve appreciated the distraction.
I assume that Bard really wanted to give Grease Bag the benefit of the doubt and believe that, over time, he will become a better person. I can understand that, but Bard gives him more chances than are reasonable.
“Was it just hordes of orcs chilling and minding their own business until Sauron got back from his holiday in Dol Guldur”
*horde of orcs yelling and beating the s*** out of each other*
That cracked me up. 🤣
Man, given that all the wizards and the elf leaders have fought Sauron and his Nazgul personally, their behavior in the Lord of the Rings is quite strange. You'd think they'd immediately try to get the old alliance back together, face down Sauron before he can get his army/strength together, and find the ring to dispose of it. Instead, they all either forget or keep quiet about it.
"Radagast got his hair caught in a revolving door where he was gunned down. Saruman is a flabby failure who sits cowering in his basement. Galadriel's in an asylum. Gandalf is dead: a product of his own degenerate lifestyle. Why are so few of us left alive, active, and without major psychological disorders?"
@@squirrelsyrup1921 Agreed. The whole plot line involving the white council completely destroys any credibility any of them have for the LoTR trilogy. They would've said, "Guess Sauron is back to his old tricks again, let's rally the troops and put a stop to this nonsense." Roll credits.
In the book timeline Sauron was incredibly careful not to reveal himself or anything else that would point even remotely to his return, even the White Council wasn't sure who the necromancer was (implying this kind of magic wasn't impossible for lesser creatures to harness), it was only Gandalf's suspicions that prodded his actions to send the dwarves to confront Smaug and reclaim their kingdom. 90% of this trilogy was wasted time and contradicting what already existed.
Hobbit-Sauron and LOTR Sauron are pretty different in terms of strength. The White Council only stood a chance because when they fought him he was the weakest he'd ever been. Mt. Doom had reactivated and the Dark Tower had been rebuilt. IIRC he had gotten more rings of power at that point, too. They wouldn't have stood a chance. Especially with the elves continued fading and Saruman already starting to fall from purpose.
@@DiZ_490 I'm not saying the elves and wizards alone would go and face Sauron, but surely they could have communicated with the humans and people around the world about how the all-conquering leader of darkness was back and they needed to defeat him while they still could. Heck, why did none of them discuss this with Gandalf once he woke up!?
@@KayronTheFifth I don't consider myself an expert on the subject, just a very big fan of the legendarium, but from my understanding it was never a question of Sauron being back or gone. They knew the Ring hadn't been destroyed and was lost, and destroying it was the only way to completely remove Sauron from the world. IIRC that was the express purpose of the wizards being sent to Middle Earth. The events of LOTR were essentially an inevitability that they'd been preparing for for hundreds of years by the time this all goes down during The Hobbit. It was a waiting game for Sauron and he literally played his hand at the perfect time.
"Instead of spending 4 hours watching this breakdown of the movie, you could just spend 3 hours watching the actual movie."
me, starring at the camera isildurly: "No."
😂 isildurly is such a good way to put it
💩
@@U_NATH_Idefinitely a new adjective for the ages
ISILDUUUUUR!!!
@@U_NATH_IAdded to my vocabulary 😂
I love that you put a spoiler warning for a film that’s over 30 years old, it’s very kind of you. Also gained a new sub as these break downs have been amazing and have kept me entertained the last 3 nights at work. Keep up the good work
It bothers me how the trilogy rewrites Smaug’s death to remove what little agency Bilbo originally had in it. It’ll take a minute to explain:
In the book, Smaug’s underbelly was vulnerable, but he’d lain atop his gold for so long that coins and jewels were permanently embedded in it, giving him armor of a sort - except for in one place, which Smaug was not aware of but which Bilbo spotted. When Bilbo told the Dwarves of this weakness, a thrush overheard him, which flew to Lake-Town and informed Bard so he could exploit it. In this scenario, Bilbo and the Dwarves unintentionally inspired the Dragon to sack Lake-Town, but the Hobbit’s discovery is what saved them. Bilbo played a tiny role in the town’s salvation.
But in the Hobbit trilogy, they didn’t want to add a talking thrush - I guess they thought it would make things more childish - so they wrote it out. But without the bird, how can Bilbo send news to Lake-Town about Smaug’s weakness? Well, he can’t; so instead Smaug’s weak spot is simply an old town legend. Bard and his family already know about it; meaning Bilbo finding Smaug’s weakness for himself serves no purpose at all. Now Bilbo and the Dwarves have STILL unleashed the Dragon onto the innocents of Lake-Town, but this time they play NO role in their deliverance whatsoever, and the Hobbit’s role in _The Hobbit_ is made that much smaller. Great!
I actually disagree with the Thranduil letting Bard argue with Thorin on his behalf. I found it to make a lot of sense out the following reasons:
+ He assumes Men are closer in Culture (or in his eyes lack of thereof) to Dwarves than he himself is, so maybe they can find common ground.
+ He was assuming he was going to have to fight anyway, which is the reason he brought troops along.
+ He didn't know at the time he had a time limit before an army of Orcs or Dwarves would appear.
+ He was trading about an hour or two of waiting for the possibility of not losing any troops, nor having to bust open a fortress.
This to him would be like ordering something off the internet, having it in your shopping cart - ready to pay for it - only to have someone come along and tell you "if you wait an hour until I can make a call, I might be able to get you that for free". There's no sacrifice in just waiting to see what happens. Worst case scenario is you get the thing you wanted later, best case is you get the thing you wanted for free, instead of a hefty price.
@@captainhurricane5705 True, but I always found it to make sense anyway, since this wasn't a decision you'd make as "a character" (I.E. something where character motivations would change the input), but just a logical thing to happen. The only reason he'd not accept the offer, is if he suspected Bard of trying to trick him into something, but as he can always say "that's not what I told him to agree to", there's no inherent downside, which would make declining something very personal and probably require some backstory.
Your skills in editing and compiling information into an entertaining and easy to digest video is spectacular. I applaud you sir. Please continue to make content.
With Dain my understanding is the film tried to get across is the arkenstone is needed to rally all the armies of the dwarves, like the battle with Azog. Dain on the other hand is Thorin's kin, Durin's Folk. It was natural that when he heard thr dragon was dead they would come to their old home to help their cousin and to reclaim the moutain.
2:42:40 Holy shit, when the dwarves finally go to battle, for some reason, they decided to NOT wear their cool af armour. Thorin decided to chuck his armour away and charge into battle in his standard attire wtf
Lol! This was so enjoyable. The breakdown of Gaston using his kid to fire the money arrow and ace Smaug killed me.
Regarding that...Smaug is huge, like, ridiculously huge. That arrow is maybe 4-5 ft long, maybe? How does this kill him???
Anyway...love this channel, of course I subbed.
I have an hour and 57 minutes left
I suddenly got the image in my head of Gandalf screwing up a "connect the dots" animal in a coloring book 😂
I find it amazing how the elves of this movie oscillate between super-human badasses and relatively worthless fighters. An army of elves should absolute annihilate an army of orcs--like, 10 orcs per elf would be required for even a moderately fair fight.
It's a problem throughout all Jacksons films tbh. Elfs are portrayed as super graceful amazing godlike fighters and yet they all still die like chumps. That elven contingent at Helms deep could have taken the entire Uruk army by themselves
@@lovablesnowman Well if you're conflating Legolas' fighting skill with that of all elves, which you are, you might see it this way. There is nothing in either the books nor the movies that suggests this otherwise. As is usual in cases like this, it is your perception that is flawed.
@@Digitalsapieni mean, they did had a siege last 100s of years…
@Digitalsapien No. In the books, it's everywhere that they are this powerful vs Orcs. Read the Silmarillion, The other material published after Tolkien's death, he always meant for Elves, Dwarves, and Numenoreans to be far superior to Orcs or ordinary men, like those who fight for Sauron. They slaughter them in the Elder Days, the 1st age and 2nd ages. Melkor and Sauron have their difficulties winning wars because Orcs are so inferior to Elves, Dwarves and Edain/Numenoreans. Fundamental to his story. It's why Sauron made the desperate move to create the Rings.
To add… Elves have a very long track history of being very powerful. Especially if you go back to the Silmarillion, which further explains elven lore.. Fingolfin fought Morgoth 1 v 1 and held his own… and and there are countless other examples of elves, showing huge feats of strength, the fact that Mary & Pippen can outlive/kill more orcs than some of the most powerful creatures in there universe is absurd..
The worst part is how the Arkenstone plot is resolved in the theatrical cut. As in, it totally isn't resolved. The last we see of the Arkenstone in the theatrical version is when Bard stuffs it into his shirt while trying to negotiate with Thorin at the gates of Erebor. It just disappears and I guess they hope we won't notice. 😂 The extended edition is supposed to provide extra lore, context, and fun stuff for someone who wants a larger film experience. The wrapping up of crucial plot points should absolutely NOT be something that happens only in the extended edition.
Saruman's death scene would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
In the book Bilbo just sees a pretty gem and takes it as his payment since gold would be too troublesome to take back to Shire. He doesn't know that it was the Heart of the Lone Mountain and thus he can't have it.
Crows can actually be taught to imitate words they hear. That crow didn't necessarily need to physically carry a message, because it could just relay whatever it was told to the ally dwarves by sound.
A great addition to the extended cut is the Balin part where ‘he’s too old for this S’ and then Bolg comes out and kills (some dwarf) and yells, (Diplomatic Immunity!!) and then Balin rolls his neck and yells, ‘It’s just been revoked!!!’
And Bolg dies from something like a boulder to the head…
Did I just watch a 9h video essay about a 9h trilogy I didn't watch because of its length? Yes, yes i did. Great job, keep it up!
I'd only seen the extended edition of Battle of Five Armies once; and holy shit I'd forgotten how laughably absurd this movie is! I'm really glad you were able to get this uploaded, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Keep up the good work, Random.
Another book reference: Going from memory, the mithril shirt thing is answered with, it was a special order for an Elven prince child which never got delivered due Smaug. One would assume that all the other special order mithril HAD been delivered to wherever. Thus, it would not fit a burly Dwarf, but might a smaller hobbit.
Mithril was considered extraordinarily rare. Think 'platinum watches'. Not something one had in great supply. That suffices for me. It is like that line from Batman Begins: "The bean counters didn't think that a soldier's life was worth $100k per person"
I'd also ad that Thorin was protecting the person least capable of fighting.
It was very ambiguous in the book whether the 13 dwarves had mithril armor (or at least Thorin). While bilbo was the only one the shirt fit, most of the battle is skipped, and there's reference to the 13 decking out in regalia from the mountain.
@@professorhaystacks6606 That ambiguity keeps me from making this a point to rail at. But content needs drama.
I mean ye in the books Gandalf says the shirt Bilbo has it worth more than the Shire and everything in it so they are VERY rare and definitely something you'd only have for royalty basically in normal circumstances. So while MAYBE there would be some in Ererbor it would have been in the giant pile of treasure Smaug had made, possibly even been worn by some higher ranking dwarves who Smaug then ate, so we can assume that unless they had a couple years to search through all the treasure looking they wouldn't have any on hand.
Yes, if I remember correctly the mithril shirt was made for 'an elf prince long ago'. Whether it was undelivered due to Smaug's claiming of Erebor, which was actually a fairly recent occurrence or the disintegration of the elves and dwarf relations as far back as the sack Menegroth, I always enjoy the Hobbit novel for what it is and remember that it was written as a children's story and not as interwoven with Tolkien's other works as he had not completed his world building. That said, I did not like Jackson's interpretations in this 'trilogy'. We saw bits and pieces of his directorial love for showy dramatics and cgi in the LOTR (which I do truly love) but he really didn't seem to give a shit about creating a grounded and interesting story in these films. I was particularly irritated by the 'comedic' dissonance.
Crows are so crazy smart, I wouldn’t doubt the crow could speak dwarf 😂
Check out the M4 Fan Edit. A single 4-hour movie with an intermission, as accurate to the book as possible, all the physics-defying action and pointless characters are gone. It shows that under all the studio mandates and rushed production, there was a genuinely good movie wanting to get out. Even better is there's additional CGI at a few points to maintain continuity between omissions, and some cuts recontextualize character motivations. I've added it to the list of movies whenever I want to do a Middle Earth marathon, its so good.
UPDATE: This fan-edit actually improves the Crazy Thorin problem you had with the movie. Most of his craziest moments ("One of them is false" rant, "AM I NOT THE KING", etc.) are cut out so as to make his descent more a result of simple greed, and less so "Dragon Sickness". Also that stupid gold hallucination is gone. Dwalin gives his "crown on your head" line, Thorn looks at him, pause, cut to him talking to the dwarves.
Thank you so much for mentioning this. I never would have found this otherwise. This has saved the hobbit movies for me, and now I have something I can confidently show my wife after she’s done reading the book.
To be fair, killing a dragon and saving the whole town is better reason to be made king then simply being born into it like say Thorin.
not in a world where your bloodline actually endows you with magical powers
Being born into ruling royalty usually means being raised to be be ruling royalty (either the king position or as a lower ruler/backup), which is in a pre-printing press society is the best way to get reliable preparation for rulership (and even post-printing press is arguebly still the best). As you have access to all the best tutors and the experiance of someone direclty doing the job to teach and prepare you (who should of had the same thing, and so on). Bad kings still happen through this method but only when they ignore their training and induced morals (or the previous king didn't put effort in), but then you just end up with an equally prepared leader to other options. As at best the other options will have limited book knowledge to guide them (and Lower quality at that). The purpose of alterative systems (eg democracy) is not to get better leaders, it's to get more accountable ones (as you shift the source of their authority).
Killing a dragon just makes you, at best, a good warrior. Or just lucky at worst. Not a leader/administrator.
Bard is also the grandson of the King of Dale
To be fair, Thorin is also responsible for taking back the kingdoms capitol and primary fortress.
Thats historically how most people became king to start with.
When you weave things together, you effectively make them shorter. If you've ever seen a woman braid her hair, you've probably noticed this. When Gaston finishes making a rope from his sheets, you can see just how tightly woven it is, and this should have shortened it quite a lot. So unless Gaston had at least 20 sheets, there's no way it would be as long as it was. I know why they did it. A rope woven that tightly will be very strong, and they needed Gaston's sheet rope to resist the pull of the Master's boat without tearing. It's still stupid, though, because there's no way Gaston had that many sheets.
Yep. It’s a load of sheet.
The reason Azog doesn't manage to move his flail while it's stuck is that the chain he's pulling is on the side, so the block is stopped by the ice around it. Thorin lifts it up, and this motion is unimpeded by the ice. So it actually makes sense.
First, I'd like to tell you how impressive, smart and hilarious your analysis of this horrendous trilogy is. I watched it multiple times already and will for sure come back to it. You did a fantastic job !
Concerning the lack of mithril shirts and protection for the Dwarves, I'd like to point out that when they were in Erebor, behind high and solid walls, they were wearing heavy plate armor but when they left the safety of their fortress to fight Orcs, they decided to wear their regular chain mails and clothes. Had Thorin and his nephews kept their heavy armor, they'd probably be alive...
I watched the Hobbit once, years ago, and found it atrocious - it was the extended version. Out of curiosity, I watched the "fan edit" by Dustin Lee recently. In spite of its massive cut (50% !), even without Ladylas and the stupid love story, even with most of the Greasebag scenes cut off and all the video games sections removed, the film is still too long, too dumb. Honestly, I'll probably never watch that trilogy ever again - unlike LOTR, which I watch at least three times a year !
From what I remember from reading the books years ago...
Sauron first posed as Necromancer because Witch King was known as The Necromancer, therefore he was pretending to be his underling and avoiding detection.
And this rouse worked, because Witch King was an entity that just was there from time to time.
As for Mordor, it was more or less always an Orc land, tho black gate and Minas Ithil (Morgul) were originally Gondor in orgin, being two strongholds meant to keep random warbands at bay, as well as keep watch over Mordor in case Sauron returned. That's why Sauron haven't returned until he found a trail towards the One Ring.
Also, Movie doesn't make Minas Ithil justice, as it was a sister city to Minas Tirith, and therefore should be just as big. It was also known as the more beautiful one, before being corrupted by Wraiths.
Also, there is a problem with elven rings in this movie. Random orc should never be able to simply see it, they were enchanted to be hidden to anyone but other ring wearers. That's why Frodo could even see it on Galadriel's finger when she revealed it(Sam just saw a star like light), but despite that he never noticed Gandalf's or Elrond's rings.
That's just not how rings worked, even in LoTR movies.
In the books the reason Bilbo took the Arkenstone was because of Smaug making him doubt the dwarves honesty about giving him 1/14th share of the giant mountain of gold. Taking the Arkenstone as his share if they would keep everything. The Arkenstone is also shown to show some form of corrupting greed as when Bilbo gave it to Bard and Thranduil he was hesitant and had to force himself to give it over.
As for Thorin’s dragon sickness it was told in the books any gold a dragon has long slept over carry’s such a curse that latches onto the greedy, which the dwarves are susceptible to their lust for treasure and gold. As when the heart of a dwarf is stoked by the lust of it they become fierce. The Dwarven Rings of power brought their lords great wealth but also even greater lust for gold and treasure.
YES! I have been eagerly waiting for this video since the very day the last video came out. I stumbled across this channel right before the first Hobbit video came out and ever since, I've been coming here over and over to enjoy the content. I use the Hobbit and ROP videos now to help me relax and fall asleep at night, but I'm definitely gunna be too pumped to sleep through this video for the first couple play throughs.
Same!! I often fall asleep to his videos!!I love Randoms voice and he makes me laugh... so I also run the videos while I work, and over time I absorb the content.
3:45:35 In fellowship after Bilbo leaves you hear Gandalf muttering "Riddles in the Dark" when Frodo appears... when Bilbo calls the ring "My Precious" Gandalf responds with "It has been called that before but not by You" Implying that he not only absolutely already knew about the ring but knew about Gollum and how Bilbo obtained the ring. This is not up for debate Gandalf knew this in the movie before Bilbo vanished. In the books he goes into a full explanation of what he thought of the ring which states that he wasn't suspicious until he saw a change in Bilbo's behavior toward the ring, as only the great rings could effect behavior. As such the only thing that really bothers me here is when Bilbo lies about loosing the ring as that would tip Gandalf off towards Bilbo's behavior regarding the ring.
Realistically it's a Tolkien problem not a movie problem. Gandalf not being even a little suspicious of Bilbos ring makes no sense and is out of character.
He knew the one right wasn't destroyed albeit he did think it was lost. There are only so many rings of power in Middle Earth and for Gandalf to not be even a little bit suspicious of Bilbos ring makes no sense
@@lovablesnowman He was a little suspicious in the book, and there were other rings besides the 20 main rings. He really had no reason to assume it was the one ring until Bilbo started acting strange.
@@Phillibetrus he could have at least checked.... considering it decides the fate of the world and all
@@lovablesnowman He did ask Saruman what the One ring would have looked like and he told Gandalf that it likely had a Gem in it greater than the other 19. I believe Saruman also lied and told Gandalf no description of it exists and no one alive would have seen it.
This review is 100% correct and more entertaining than the movie itself. Thank you for making it.
Thranduil sending the Bard to negotiate with Thorin actually makes sense when you remember that Thranduil knows Thorn hates him intensely. He probably figures that the mere sight of him might provoke Thorin into a righteous fury, so it makes more sense to send an intermediary with whom Thorin has no pre-existing grudge.
Legolas runs out of arrows both in Helm's Deep and in the battle of Pelennor fields. We see him on screen on both occasions drawing his knives out while his quiver is empty. It's always a fairly quick shot on screen that doesn't focus on his facial expressions, just showing how fluid he is as a fighter, keeping count of his arrows and knowing when he's run out and needs to opt for melee combat, not breaking his concentration. That's probably why it's easy to miss happening. It just adds to his experience as a millenia old fighter and the filmmakers are okay with some viewers missing it. However we see him still shooting arrows in those battles afterwards. That's obviously because he is able to pick up arrows from around the battlefield in less urgent moments to use again later. Like you said, it was never made into an issue *until now.*
So the creators of the Hobbit trilogy misunderstood their own previous movie trilogy and took the internet meme of "Legolas never runs out of arrows" ver batim and turned it into an in-universe meme, making it a huge on-screen moment of "Seeeee?? Legolas never runs out of arrows but he actually did run out of arrows here because hahahaha it's funny and also that's why in the future he made sure to never run out of arrows again!"
It's dumb.
If I may offer a defence of Thorin giving Bilbo the mithril shirt, he's increasing DEF because he knows Bilbo's ATK is capped lower than the dwarves'
Plus, it's just his size and wouldn't fit the others
Excellent analysis, very glad I found this channel thank you
about the ring conversation: admittedly it's been a while since i last saw the trilogy, but i always felt that gandalf starting to suspect that bilbo has the one ring was a result of many things:
1) bilbo looking younger than he should be at his age and yet feeling as if he was 'spread too thin' - as the ring elongates its owner's lifespan and can change their behaviour,
2) the frivolous use of the ring at the party - suggesting he uses it more than he should, so it might be affecting his choices,
3) their conversation after the party, when bilbo is incredibly possesive, acts differently than normal and has trouble letting go of the ring, even after accepting that he should leave it.
i think the eye showing after gandalf touched it was more of a representation of his thoughts to the audience than an actual feeling he sensed, but then again, i might be reading too much into it.
it's a great video (as usual) and as someone here already said i'd love to see you talk about the lotr trilogy and what it did right, compared to the other two disasters lol
The thing for me is that while yes all that is true, it very much helps that in the Hobbit we don't have them basically confirm Sauron is back, which would make preparing for his return and finding the ring a high priority, so Bilbo finding a magic ring, and Gandalf not knowing what ring it is should have made him at least a little suspicious. It also raises into question why Elrond says Sauron has returned in Fellowship when he knew for 60 years and apparently decide to not bother telling anybody or even thinking of preparing for it.
😂 "My brain cells committed seppuku" - I think professor Tolkien also would have if he ever saw this film lol. Great series mate 👍
This video is ridiculously good. One of the best videos I'v ever watched on youtube.
The way Hobbit movies turned out is actually really sad to think about. It is clear from the behind the scenes footage that they did care about the feel and look of the world and as they were mostly the same people as during the making of LOTR, I am inclined to believe they were genuine in their intentions. Sadly, the studio wanted to simply recreate the money and awards that resulted from LOTR without putting in the same time and effort. They had ordered 3 movies to be made in a ridiculously short amount of time, hired PJ last minute (and despite his best intentions it can be felt that his whole heart wasn't in it; he felt obliged to pick up the project) who had to work with what was already done by Del Toro but make it his own (and to match his own Middle Earth) and then ended up in hospital for several weeks. There is a very good essay from Lindsey Ellis detailing the rocky road of making of the Hobbit. And of course, I cannot justify every misstep or illogical twist by behid the scenes turmoil, I do think these films were forced into existence where everything possible was going against them being made when they were. As if they were not ment to be. 🤷🏼♀️
Sadly, PJ gone a little CGI happy simply because he could, but also because they had no time to achieve required results with prosthetics and extras.
Another thing is, that as much I find your analysis entertaining (I love the Kronk and Yzma and Countdown bits) and I agree with a lot of your breakdowns and conclusions, I do find it difficult not to find you a little nitpicky when it comes to stuff that just happened in the book(s) and were never explained further. Like, we know Thorin gave Bilbo the Mithril shirt. And it was the only one ever seen in the trilogy and the Hobbit. It is never suggested that mithril was regularly used to make armour or weapons for dwarves or anyone else. And when the shirt is discovered on Frodo, it is remarked only how valuable it is. So in my head the lack of mithril fashion show never registered as an issue. And it is not a unreasonable assumption that most people going to see Hobbit, would've seen LOTR. So the majority of the audience is already conditioned to accept the existence of only one such piece.
On the other hand, this is not a 'Lost in Adaptation' and you are quite clear you are looking at the films as films only, if they make sense for someone who knows nothing of the books, lore or LOTR.
But it is hard not to fill in the blanks, so some points probably sound more like you are looking for holes, than they would've if I knew nothing.
In my opinion also, you are overcomplicating the 'dragon sickness'. Dragons love gold. The only reason Smaug attacked Erebor was because they had so much gold. Dragon don't do anything with the gold but hoard it. Thorin's bout of dragons sickness presented quite similarly, the gold was his and he would not part with it for anything. The Arkensone was used as a symbol of the riches and was called the 'king's stone' because it was fancy. And Thorin considered it his birthright and the symbol of the might of his forefathers' kingdom. But while watching the films, I never thought that the Arkenstone was being made into an Excallibur type thing, if you have it then you're the rightful king. So I am not sure if you really found this confusing or if you are determined to find it confusing. It is also a fact that Thorin gives Bilbo his shirt as a gift. They had to include it, and I am not surprised they didn't think to justify it further. I mean, if you don't expect for there to be more than one, and you know that Bilbo gets the one, it is easy to overlook that some people might need a justifying backstory? You are also quick to dismiss all instances of luck and fate, despite 'fate' being totally a thing in Middle Earth. You could take all events leading up to the fall of Sauron and say 'What are the odds'. That Bilbo, the only Hobbit to venture out of the Shire in ages happens upon Gollum and finds the One Ring just lying around? Or that Gollum's life being spared repeatedly would've made all the difference? Gollum tried to kill Frodo and Sam, and logically they should've eliminated him. But Frodo had a gut feeling and went with his pity instead. You could argue that the ring's destruction rested entirely on Gollum not dying . And the fact that he survived torture, imprisonment and wasn't just randomly killed is sheer dumb luck. So the conclusion of the whole trilogy rested on Gollum just not dying several times. But is this a storytelling fault or proof that 'fate' plays a part in Middle Earth's story?
The whole Smaug and Sauron working together thing is from one of the LOTR Appendices and an extended text that serves as a longer version of said appendix. In the text (published post-humously), the quest of erebor and death of smaug plan (or rather, a version with Bilbo participating as burglar) was put into motion by Gandalf due to fears he had that Smaug and Sauron would potentially form an alliancce in the future (useful for Sauron possibly using Smaug to wreck havock in the north in future wartime and clear a path to the old lands of Angmar, iirc). The quest was meant (for Gandalf) to remove that possibility for Sauron.
Smaug and Sauron are allied because theyre both servants of Morgoth...... Every single Dragon is the essence of Morgoth when the actual world was created he put in his hatred, malice and desire for war/conflict.
@kool4209 dragons weren't created when the world was created. They were bred later as weapons to conquer the world. Other than that we don't know how they were made. The most popular theory is they created by maiar taking the form of dragons and breeding with dragon-like reptiles, similar to how the race of giant spiders were created by ungoliant breeding with regular spiders. The other theory is they are similar to wargs, intelgiant beasts corrupted and modified by morgoth into something more powerful but also inclinded to evil. Their larger set of powers and sauron taking the form of a great serpent atleast once (but still retaining the ability to breed more unlike bulrogs) is what makes people think the theory that they are children of shape-shifting maiar to be the most likely.
My favorite part of the video is the little bits of praise you give it, before returning to the usual critique. It's refreshing and nice to see specks of good character writing from such a generally disappointing movie (example: "defection", 2:01:01)
I always try to find the good bits. It is rare that something is 100% bad.
@@randomft Is there anything that comes close, besides Rings of Power?
I did have this video running in the background, but hearing the sentence "He decides to use his son as a bow." had me sit down in front of my PC and watch attentively in confusion. XD
Gandalf "Luck" remix at the end of the video actually sounds so catchy, great editing throughout the video too. I've been waiting for the autopsy video ever since this one came out.
3:38:25 Aragorn wasn't a random dude. He was the heir of Isildur (who had some elven ancestors) and he grew up in Rivendell with Elrond as his foster father. He began traveling when he was twenty and became a friend and ally of Gandalf. It's completely plausible that Thranduil would be aware of Aragorn and his exploits. His lineage made him much more notable to an elf king than any hobbit.
But if you look at the timeline he's in his 80s in LOTR, Bilbo has the ring for about 50yrs before he passes it to Frodi, who has it for about 20yrs before the Fellowship. So that's 70yrs, so at this point aragorn is either still a child or an early teen. So he shouldn't be ranging or even well known
Yes, he is the heir of Isildur, just like his father, and his father's father, etc. Going back a long while. Special, yes, but not SO special that a xenophobic elf would be like "Son, you must meet this inferior mortal man; he is slightly less inferior than the others!"
@@heathergarnham9555 The video addressed the timeline compression.
It wasn't mentioned in the movies at all so understandable if it is kinda ignored, but in the books Thranduil told Legolas to live amongst the Dunedain and during that time, Legolas and Aragorn became so close that they considered each other brothers. So Thranduil doing here in the movie isn't completely out of nowhere.
@@heathergarnham9555 Aragorn lives longer than any man. I don’t remember how old he was in the books, but he was definitely in the +100yr range while looking to be in his prime.
I cannot understand why the writers wanted Sauron to be so obsessed with Angmar during this trilogy because not only has Angmar been fallen for 967 years at this point but it has already served it’s purpose in his grand scheme. Angmar was originally founded by the Witch King at the behest of Sauron as to wage war with and completely destroy the kingdom of Arnor which was half of the once larger kingdom of men that since split from them after Isildur’s death. How does reclaiming Anger in the exact opposite half of the world where all of his power is beneficial to him? By this point in the books the orcs have had control over Mordor for hundreds of years why does he need the old puppet state of his underling that has long served it’s one and only purpose to him?!
I’m sorry for the rant but as a huge LoTR book and movie fan this breaks me.
Out of universe, up the stakes. In universe, an extra foothold in the west but yeah, as far as Sauron is concerned in the books, Angmar crippled Arnor and reduced it to a bunch of wandering Rangers.
I remember having this exact same complaint when I watched the movies. What purpose does Angmar serve now, especially when the North doesn't pose much of a threat to Mordor?
@@Samaru163 Clearing the Northeast (Mirkwood, Laketown, Iron Hills, one other settlement that is part of the wine trade but rarely brought up and not mentioned in film) so he can focus his efforts across the Anduin makes some degree of sense, but he doesn't need a new Angmar for that.
But is that in the simarilion? Wasn that finished after Tolkien had died? I heard lots of it had to be essentially made up from scratch by Christopher Tolkien and his writing partner.
3:18:16 - We could go with that being the only Mithril shirt as they were incredibly rare, also it is possible that the shirt does not fit the dwarves so only Bilbo could wear it as he is the smallest. Movie does not explain this though, one line of "this is too small for any of us" would have helped but might have been rude if said to Bilbo. In the books it was made for elven child and not for dwarves.
While the book does provide somewhat of an explanation it still feels weird that that was the only mithtil shirt in Erebor
Maybe Bilbo was given the mithril shirt because it was his best chance of survival as he’s not as skilled at defending himself as the dwarves are.
In the film, Thorin is using the mithril shirt as a gesture of goodwill so that Bilbo would be less likely to betray him. In the book, Bilbo keeps the arkenstone because he is afraid the dwarves will cheat him out of his share.
I dare say: In the movie the mithril shirt was there just to meet all the expectations of book readers and the Lord-of-the-Rings viewers (and other fantasy consumers, as mithril became a common trope after Tolkien´s work in the community). I did not serve any other purpose, plot or character related, in this movie, and just the mentioned half sentence "this is too small for any of us, made for a young elven prince, extremely rare and precious - but you have earned it!" or likewise would have embedded it much better.
I fell asleep to this on and in my dreams my friend would not stop talking about LoR I was like “bro, why do you keep talking about LoR? “ until I woke up and realized why lol
I agree with alot of your points here and dont disagree with the rest enough to comment. Excpet that Thorin isnt suddenly stronger than Azog, Azog was trying to pull towards himself, the way the flail was stuck prevented this. Thorin picks it straight up, hes not fighting the edge of the crater like Azog was.