The necessity of 3 epic movies to tell the story of The Hobbit was never apparent. When I first heard The Hobbit would be split into 3 movies I found that a tad excessive and trying to stretch a franchise a wee bit too far. Then I heard that each movie would have an extended edition, I thought that would be even more unnecessary and just make the movies feel bloated. Something unusual happened as I watched the first 2 extended editions and realized that for once I was right.
Not to say that I have not enjoyed the films, as a massive fan of The Lord of the Rings there were plenty of good times to be had to be back in Middle-Earth. That being said the extended edition of the first two parts of the trilogy really just did not work for me. But I still love all things Middle-Earth and decided to give the extended edition for the third and final chapter a shot (partly because one of my friends was going to see it when it came to theaters on Tuesday and bought my ticket) and, against my expectations, I actually enjoyed it more than the original edition.
I feel like the extended edition added a lot of crucial elements missing from the original cut and lots of pretty awesome new action scenes. There is roughly 20 minutes or so of new footage and I would say about 15 or so of those minutes are new action scenes. If you thought the original cut was too much of battle you are not going to find it getting better here, but since I love fantasy action I had a blast.
Some of you may know that the extended cut is rated "R", a first for the series. Honestly there is not a whole lot to justify the increased rating. The main reasons why that rating was probably given is because of one scene that shows how Thorin and some of the dwarves get to Raven Hill during the battle and they use a chariot that is kind of like from Ben-Hur with spikes on the side and in this scene it shows them chop off the legs of a group of orcs and the heads of a group of trolls, and there is a decent amount of blood splatter (which is really out of place since there is very little blood at all in the rest of the movie). There is also an added battle scene between the dwarves and the elves which makes the story a little darker to see the good guys actually kill each other and there is also a scene where some of the women join in the fight for Dale and you briefly see a few get killed. Beyond that, there is not any gratuitous violence added beyond what you would normally expect for these movies so the “R” rating really does not make a lot of sense.
The main thing added with the action scenes that I really liked is it added a lot of scenes of some of the other dwarves besides Thorin, Kili, and Fili joining in the fight. One of my complaints with the trilogy is of the 13 dwarves only about 5 get chances to shine but in the extended cut I would say most of them get a memorable action moment or two and it really helped tie the story together for me in terms of characterization. The best of all the scenes added that did not include someone or something being killed is probably the funeral for the fallen dwarves at the end. Martin Freeman does some exceptional acting as Bilbo in this scene conveying without words how most of us would feel to see some of our fallen friends. Beyond that, the scene also shows the future of the kingdom under the mountain.
Overall, The Hobbit trilogy is entertaining cinema, even if it does get carried away. The Battle of the Five Armies – Extended Edition does a wonderful job tying the trilogy together and Billy Boyd’s beautiful song “The Last Goodbye” playing over the credits really hit home that this is the last time to be in Peter Jackson’s Middle-Earth. Though there have been a lot of ups and downs I have enjoyed the journey and I hope Peter Jackson knows that despite the shortcomings of his recent trilogy that there are many still grateful that he took us on another wonderful journey and he has much to be proud of. And his final effort with this extended edition really helps us appreciate his labor of love.
