Yeah on watching the extended Battle Of The Five Armies I was looking out for what might make it R rated (15 in the UK as opposed to 12A). Of course I believe that officially it is the extra "twist and crunch" when Legolas stabs Bolg in the head that made the difference, but my observations when viewing (without knowing that) were:
- That troll ("Stumpy" as he is referred to in the extras) with amputated legs, no eyes and chains in its eye sockets. I believe it made it into the theatrical version (Legolas sees it and uses it to knock down a tower), but I think there was a lot more of it in the extended, including seeing more of the orcs controlling it using the chains, followed by Bofur doing the same. To me that was the one thing that stood out as most horrific and maybe worthy of a higher rating.
- The fact that the elves and dwarves actually kill each other. In the theatrical version the orcs arrive just as the elves and dwarves are finished trading insults and about to attack each other, but we never see them actually fight. It's one thing for people to be killed by "scary, evil monsters" like the orcs, but for elves and dwarves (both depicted as fundamentally "good" races) to be shown actually attacking and killing each other might be seen as more shocking.
- The extra bloody deaths that were included, such as the decapitations and eviscerations by the chariot. I don't know if any of them alone are so bad that they would affect the rating, but perhaps they just thought that if they were going to risk being stuck with an R rating anyway they may as well just go for it and include some more graphic violence.
Watched the first disc of the extras and in the process of watching the second right now. As I suspected and had heard before, the lacking version of The Battle Of The Five Armies that was released in theatres was greatly due to the time factor making them literally unable to finish the CGI sequences, as well as the rushed nature and studio meddling early on that meant there wasn't as clear a vision for the way the battle would go early on which meant that more of had to be purely CGI. My impression watching the films (and the first two films' extras) was that the parts that were rushed and really suffered by the story shuffling were the role of Azog and the orcs, and the battle of the five armies. Watching the third film's documentaries I think definitely confirms it - Azog was rushed for the first film because they had only relatively recently abandoned the original designs, and the detail of the battle of the five armies wasn't known early on so had to be hashed out basically in the year before the film was released.
I know that a lot of people are hung up on the fact it should have been one film, but honestly I think that a trilogy is fine and most of the flaws are less to do with the number of the films that were made, and more to do with the time pressure and the fact it was changed as it went on. Adversity like that can sometimes lead to something greater than if a director has full control and gets to operate exactly as they want, but I think in this case it would have been better if Peter Jackson had had an extra year or so in preproduction to get everything sorted to be a bit more cohesive as a trilogy. Also, if you are going to hack it down then I think two films is the sweet spot rather than one. I've mentioned before in this thread (several times I believe) that I don't think a great one-film version could have been done while simultaneously getting most of the memorable episodes from the Hobbit book, and making it feel like something that could be in the same universe as The Lord Of The Rings. But you can still see the remnants of a two film version in the finished product - film one would be "the journey", taking you from Hobbiton to within sight of the Lonely Mountain with the expanded barrel chase sequence as the climax of the film, and with film two introducing and entirely focused on Lake Town, Erebor and what happens there. Cut or drastically reduce one of the "orc chase" sequences from an Unexpected Journey and perhaps some of the backstory (even though I love the scenes of the battle at the gates of Moria), Smaug confronts Bilbo and leaves the mountain to attack Lake Town without an extended action sequence with the dwarves, the battle of the five armies is cut down slightly to be a singular climactic battle, and the fat is trimmed here and there to give you, at the very least, a complet "two extended film" version of the Hobbit.
But considering the amount of films these days that get split into two parts (Harry Potter did it and it allowed it a worthy big finale to a huge film series, but many that have followed in its footsteps aren't worthy), I really think that the Hobbit being from pushed from two to three films is actually fine. Yes, the children's book Tolkien wrote may be a mere "300 pages" (though it packs a lot of events into those pages due to its zippy pace), but the events that take place during the Hobbit, as they exist within the context of Middle Earth, are definitely worthy of a trilogy.
Topic: The Hobbit movies (Read 172603 times)
