The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

Alyson Healy, Staff Writer

“My Precious!” The third and final part of The Hobbit movie, The Battle of the Five Armies, debuted in December, 2014. As its name suggests, it was the end of the third and last installment of The Hobbit. Specifically, it featured the battle between the Dwarves, Elves, Men, and Eagles,  against the evil Orcs.  At first, it seemed the battle was only between the Dwarves, Elves, and Men, for the treasure (a treasure beyond treasure that you couldn’t imagine) that was stored in the  Lonely Mountain, but later turned into a fight to defend the mountain (and everyone, of all races around it) from the Orcs that threatened them. (If this doesn’t make any sense, it’s okay: the book lays the plot our pretty well.) I will say that while the special effects, epic battle scenes, and great landscape scenes were pretty cool, the movie very loosely followed the plot of the actual book, especially when they introduced the romance aspect between Tauriel (an elf that didn’t exist at all in the book) and Kili, one of the dwarves traveling with Thorin Oakensheild to reclaim the Lonely Mountain. (However, in the actual book, The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings trilogy, it is quite evident that all Elves and Dwarves hate each other.) Then there was Legalos (who only appeared in the actual Lord of the Rings trilogy, and not The Hobbit book at all) and was in love with Taureil. It also seemed that Bilbo Baggins, the main character of which the whole story basically revolves around, didn’t seem to play as musch a role as I remember when reading the book. Furthermore, there were a few parts in the movie that showed Gandalf the Grey in Morodor (the  land of the evil lord Sauron) that the reader never learns about in the book. So while it was an action-packed movie, and kept you on th edge of the seat, it losely followed the plot of the story and was way over the top. I would definitely recomend the book over this movie.