The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies

Zach Goodier

The long anticipated and dreaded finale to the Middle Earth saga is upon us, and Tolkien traditionalists have lined up alongside Jackson film fans to pile into the theater and see the finale we’ve all been waiting for.  So, does it deliver?  Well, the answer is a little tough to explain, but the answer is a disappointing no, at least in terms of giving us the finale we all hoped for.  Warning, some *SPOILERS* ahead

The most praiseworthy use of CGI is Smaug, but he isn't in the film for long.

Story:

For starters, Smaug is bearing down on Laketown, as he seeks to burn it down for aiding the Dwarves in their quest to reclaim Erabor.  This only lasts about 10 minutes, as things reach a rather quick and unsatisfying end as Bard shoots him dead.  This is following the book fairly well, but it all just happened too quickly, and if felt like I had just gotten comfortable and one of the most popular characters of the last movie was already kicked off and the story continued on a poorly paced mess as the Dwarves are faced with Bard and the survivors from Laketown who seek the share of the treasure horde they were promised, and the Wood Elves soon arrive to lay claim to the treasure, as well.

Bard is a good character, but he feels too much like a discount Aragorn at times.  He doesn't want the position of power... check.  Natural leader who everyone wants to follow... check, and so on.  

Meanwhile, Gandalf, Saruman, and a few other familiar faces face off against Sauron in his keep, where he has begun to revive the 9 wraiths of the fallen kings of men.  After a fight, Sauron is driven off to the east, where he will eventually rebuild his kingdom in the lands of Mordor.  As Gandalf moves to aid the Dwarves and Bilbo in finishing their quest, he arrives just in time to find that an army of dwarves has moved in to aid Thorin and his party in securing the Lonely Mountain and the kingdom of Erabor.  However, things reach a peak as two armies of orcs and goblins move in to lay waste to all the races of Middle Earth.

Elrond gets a good action sequence in the 1st act.

Most of the 2^nd and 3^rd acts are heated battles, which make gratuitous use of CGI and over-the-top stunts.  The pacing of the story really started to wear thin, as I became increasingly impatient with the story that felt filled to the brim with nonsense rather than the more direct feel of the original LOTR films.  That isn’t to say that it was all bad, but in LOTR, battles felt grounded, epic even, but the battle in this movie felt chaotic, messy, and just nonsensical at some points.  For example, the dwarves that come to aid Thorin are pinned by the armies of orcs that have come to take the mountain, and the dwarves are all holding out waiting for Thorin to join the battle and save the day… but how?  Thorin has a small questing party, not an army.  Sure, some of them are tough as nails, but they can’t turn the tide of a battle they are decisively losing.  Still, it somehow all works out, and these leaps of logic break the immersion that made LOTR so gripping and brilliant.

Characters:

Despite all of the characters who are showcased here, the only ones that matter all that much are Thorin, Bilbo, and perhaps Thranduil.  Bard has his moments, but he exhausts most of his significance to the story in the first half hour.  Thorin is being gripped by madness, as he obsesses over the treasure he now possesses, and Bilbo has to make a difficult decision on whether or not he should step up and try to take action to confront Thorin about how he’s changed.  This makes for some great moments, although there is a lot of drawn out scenes involving Thorin’s decent towards madness.  Thranduil has some strong moments in this film, which help him become more likeable, as you understand his plight, and that there is a more “human” person there.

The Necromancer story doesn't take up a lot of time in the movie, much like Smaug, which is a shame because it's arguably more relevant to LOTR fans than Bilbo's story, as it does more to set the stage for the rise of Mordor and the Ring Wraiths.

Bilbo is obviously central, as his struggle walks the line of helping the dwarves in protecting their new home, while trying to find a way to make peace with the surrounding factions, all of whom have grown weary of Thorin now that he is hoarding the treasure and going back on his deals.  This is arguably the strongest theme in the movie, as we see there is justice behind many of these characters, with the exception of the orcs.  This keeps the tension high if you haven’t read the books.

Gandalf is... here.  He just doesn't feel as significant as he did before, though.

Presentation:

The action is fairly good, with good choreography.  However, the use of CGI can make the fights look too animated (probably because most of them are).  Like the previous films, live characters fighting cartoons just doesn’t work.  It never looks right, and since virtually all the fights are like this, it really breaks the immersion within the film.  One of the reasons LOTR went down as one of the greatest franchises of our time was because virtually all of the close-up fighting was done by actors, not cartoons. 

I'm not sure how LOTR did it, but many of these scenes I felt very aware that there must be a green screen right behind these guys.

Speaking of how cartoony it all felt, the characters all seemed well aware of their plot armor, as a pair of dwarves has no doubts at all about fighting a horde of 100 goblins and easily emerging victorious.  Granted, this is the Hobbit, not LOTR.  But when it’s being marketed as the LOTR prequel we’ve all been waiting for, it feels like these trilogies are in 2 separate universes, since Aragorn never swaggered into an engagement with 50 orcs single-handedly and strolled out like a boss. Sure, he easily killed more than that throughout the movies, but it was with an army at his back, and friends at his side. 

Overall:

Even the epic battle just felt too
dragged out and uninteresting.

This movie wasn't completely terrible, but it did leave a very unsatisfied feeling as I walked out.  A lot of this was carried over from the first films, but made even worse in this one.  Sure, the orcs were always animated, but since they have so much screen time, you forget if you’re watching a live-action movie or an animated film. Furthermore, the story felt slow and dragged out, and tries to fill up its lengthy run time with enough add-in material to say this movie was approximately 90% filler story rather than source material.  That’s not surprising, since they had only about 50 pages of the original book left to cover anyways. 

Whether it was Peter Jackson’s fault, or the studios, or something else, it doesn’t really matter.  This movie was a conclusion to the Middle Earth films, but not at all the one that I felt Middle Earth deserved.  It trips over its own feet so much it seems to forget where it was even going until the last half hour or so.  It tries to throw in some of the epic battles that defined LOTR, but there was no feeling of build-up, like they just dumped the battle in, and even then it never felt as real as the classics, which almost ruined the battle entirely. 

This was a difficult movie for me.  As a LOTR/Hobbit fan,  I wanted this to be the last epic film in one of my favorite movie franchises of all time... But it just didn't live up to those expectations at all.

To make it perfectly clear, I didn’t hate the film, but it certainly didn’t feel like it was at all up to the standards set by the previous Hobbit films, films in general, or The Lord of the Rings, that established Middle Earth as one of the greatest cinematic universes of all time.  And I can't blame the actors, who all did a great job; however, I felt this movie was deeply flawed from the conceptual stage, as you can tell they tried to drag this ending out, despite a lack of remaining source material.  

Good:

-Interesting story on the side of Thorin, Thranduil, Bard, and Bilbo.

-Some strong moments for several of the main characters.

-Bringing in some of the other Tolkien material helped the story along, like the Necromancer and bringing Saruman and Elrond into that fight.

Bad:

-Story dragged out and bogged down way too much with filler scenes and stories.

-WAY too much CGI where it shouldn't have been needed.

-Hardly feels like the same Middle Earth we know and love.

-Not at all the ending the Middle Earth movies deserved.

Scully Rating: 6 out of 10

A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (2nd Edition)

Zach Goodier

This board game sets 3-6 players in the world of Westeros, playing as the major houses competing for control of the 7 kingdoms.  Favorites, such as houses Stark, Lannister, Baratheon, and Tyrell, all appear (except for house Targaryen, since they don’t reside on the same continent at this point) in this faithfully adapted strategy game.  Houses all compete for influence, which they can acquire by consolidating the regions they control.  This influence can then be spent to help the Night's Watch, or to bid to become the dominant house in King's Landing.  However, houses must also keep up with armies, and the supplies needed to maintain them.  The game only lasts 8 rounds, as players struggle over control over the various castles and strongholds, as well as bid on various influence tracts to gain slight advantages in various categories, all to hopefully take control of the Iron Throne.

Here's the full setup, if you've never played, then I'm sure you're probably reeling at the complexity of it all.  However, if you're fan of the franchise, and don't mind a learning curve, then the rewards are well worth the effort.

Right from the start, this game is intimidating.  It’s complex, and requires an extensive learning curve to figure out.  Fortunately, some of the mechanics are optional, making the game somewhat easier to pick up, but it’s still a toughie.  However, I must say that what you get after that steep and head-crushing (Season 4 pun intended) learning curve, is a game that allows players to truly feel like the lords of Westeros.

As you can see, the board can get very busy, which is part of the inherent difficulty in picking this game up and getting it all down.  It will likely take a couple game before it all makes sense.  Reading the manual is like reading a GRRM book in itself, by board game standards.

Each house really feels authentic, with Houses like Stark starting out with larger territories and better positioning, but with fewer supplies, which limits the size of your armies, while houses like Lannister have no problem keeping ample supply lines to marshal larger armies to dominate the continent, but contend with potential enemies on many fronts.  Navies are also important, and houses like Greyjoy start out with plenty of ships to move troops around the western coast at their leisure, giving them more troop mobility than other houses, but their low supplies and little control on the mainland mean they have to fight hard just to expand their initial foothold.

Influence tracts (above) allow houses to bid, and by leading in influence, you can move before other players, decide ties, and use special orders that grant bonuses to whoever receives them.

Battles are relatively simple, with units each having assigned battle strengths.  Infantry have 1, cavalry 2, and siege engine are 4 when attacking a region with a castle or stronghold, otherwise they only count as 1.  You can include the Tides of War cards, which we didn’t do, that can really affect how battles play out, allowing for smaller armies to potentially devastate larger ones.  You can only muster new forces when an event card prompts it, and supply counters are only adjusted when a resupply event is drawn at the start of the turn.  This all means that players can never be certain when or if they will be able to gain new troops, and the supply track may not change for a while, whether you gained or lost resources.  This can all be a 2-edged sword, with some houses eagerly awaiting fresh troops while others are thanking the Old Gods and the New that their enemies aren't getting the fresh troops needed to push forward.  It's really all luck of the draw, but if you skillfully use your forces, you'll have a major edge by not depending on the luck of the draw to defeat your enemies.

Each house has a different color, but these are the shapes of units.  Siege engines, infantry, fleets, and cavalry.  I'm sure you can figure out which is which.

The biggest game changer for battles, however, is house cards.  Each house has its' own small deck of cards, which consist of prominent characters from the house, or who support it in some way.  House Stark has Ned, Cat, Robb, Greatjon Umber, and other important figures.  Baratheon has Mellisandre, Stannis, and others.  These cards can add combat strength when played, and can often use text abilities to manipulate the tides of battle by negating other abilities, or negating combat strength.  This is how battles can surprise players, and large forces may find themselves victims of smaller ones. 

The numbers at the top left indicate the combat strength the card adds to your forces when played.  Some of the House Cards have swords at the bottom, which mean that the card will result in however many casualties as there are swords, towers negate swords, and other cards have text abilities that can affect the battles in various ways.

The easiest way to win is to hold 7 castles or strongholds; otherwise, after 8 turns, you tally up the scores of supplies, armies, etc.  And the house with the highest score is deemed the winner.  Since there can only be one winner, houses that support the winner really don’t win at all, so if your partner wins, you don’t get a consolation prize.  “When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die, there is no middle ground.”

At the bottom, from left to right, is the round tracker and Victory tracker, Supply tracker (as well as how many armies of what sizes your current supply level allows), and the influence tracker.  On the upper part of the track is the Wildling Tracker, and if it gets too high, it can cause troubles in Westeros, demanding all the houses shift their focus to quelling the threat.

Overall, this is a complex game of intrigue, strategy, and domination.  Houses may have different strengths, but all need to work on these elements to compete for the Iron Throne, and the experience is truly worthy of the name it bears.  However, the hefty learning curve can really set you back at the initial pickup, and the intricate nature of this game means that you really can’t enjoy this with most casual board gamers.  This is meant for die-hard fans of the franchise, people who can’t get enough of it, and want to take on the roles of their favorite houses (except for the Targaryens) and battle it out for the Iron Throne.  On that note, it's all worth it.  The game really makes you feel like a lord of Westeros, and the tense relationships with the other players can foster alliances or cause bitter rivalries.  And the limited number of turns means that you can never really settle down and be too patient, forcing players to resort to more assertive tactics to control the Iron Throne.  The game requires a certain balance between patience and assertiveness, challenging players to neither work too fast, nor too slow.  The right balance is impossible to know, because player skill is only part of this, with random events making the game unpredictable enough to the point where even the smartest, most cunning player isn't immune to major setbacks.  The game is far to complex to fully explain here, the only way to learn it is to pick it up and throw yourself into it, it all makes sense but takes a while to wrap your head around.

Good:

-Really captures the feel of each house, and makes the experience feel like a faithful adaptation.

-Plenty of depth in game-play to make replay value high.

-Chance to rewrite Westeros history.

-Brilliant artwork on all around.

Bad:

-Very large learning curve, making initial pickup very difficult.  Plus, there are a lot of pieces to keep track of, making setup and cleanup a somewhat lengthy process.

-No Targaryens.  It makes sense in terms of playing solely on Westeros, but a great number of fans will feel alienated without their favorite house.

Scully Rating: 9.2 out of 10