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think of the five movies, this is the one with the least standalone value, if that makes sense. like, two towers is the middle film of the first trilogy, but it works so incredibly well as its own movie. DoS is more of a really well done bridge between the setup of the first hobbit and whatever conclusion we're gonna get in the next one.
first half was slow for me. i was trying mostly to remember what happened in the first one, which i regrettably only saw once (haven't read any of tolkein's books). won't make that mistake again next year. i actually loved the singing in the first one, and wish there was more of that. things really pick up once we get to elf land. like franklin said above, fat dwarf in a barrel was awesome. that whole sequence was great. jackson really gives the people what they want with tons of legolas ninja stuff. the new lady elf was good too, and i hope that one dwarf ends up getting the draws. i was all in once we got to lake town. everything with smaug was amazing. ends on a cliffhanger that was kind of perfect, but abrupt enough that people would've been really mad if we hadn't all already known what we signed up for-- the middle movie in a trilogy.
i have to say, i'm really glad peter jackson and team came back for these. would've loved to see what del toro was gonna do, but it really gives these hobbit movies a visual and tonal continuity with the LOTR series that is invaluable. i was just thinking, like, what if they had waited another ten years to do these, and orlando bloom was too old to play legolas and ian mckellen was too dead to play gandalf and peter jackson had moved on to something else. would've been a real shame. love the way these hobbit movies tie in so seamlessly with the first series. "i smack clowns with nouns, punch herbs with verbs..."
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