Man I love the Monday after SDCC. The pop culture is strong this Monday. Of all the items I’ve anticipated, the trailer for “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies” ranked highest.
I am not disappointed.
I am, in fact, consumed with emotion and an all consuming desire to count the minutes remaining until I can see this movie. The movie theater is my church, and I don’t think anyone has ever provided the emotional, nigh spiritual experience that Peter Jackson has given with his Tolkien interpretations. “No fireworks you’ve seen could compare to the sights that night” – I’ve imagined it countless times in thousands of variations, and I have complete faith in Jackson that his interpretation will best my own.
The trailer implies an apt shift in tone for the climax of this trilogy. I feel that with the Rings trilogy, Jackson set out to make a modern tribute to the epics of decades past – an encompassing cinematic experience that would bewilder and amaze with a technical prowess that managed to be both subtle and grand, but that you wouldn’t necessarily dissect those aspects until your viewing had ended. You would get lost in his masterful battlefields and sets and renew your sense of wonder. But with the Hobbit trilogy, I always felt that while those goals were intact, this time around he was going more for Indiana Jones than Lawrence of Arabia. Not that one has more merit than the other – not remotely. But one is grave and heavy, while the other is dangerous but completely fun.
You know what? I’m a spoiler purist. If you haven’t read “The Hobbit,” you should go ahead and stop reading. Yeah, the book is old, but just because you haven’t read it doesn’t mean I should be the one that ruins it for you.
But the final third of The Hobbit brings an end to childlike barrel rides and the far away terror of a clever dragon. This trailer has a different tone, as this movie will have a different tone. We’ll witness a return to Jackson’s genius battle choreography I’m sure, but the weight comes more from the realities buried within the story. Amidst the rise of heroes, morals will blur and characters will crumble. Not to mention we’re already aware of what happens to a good number of The Thirteen. Using Billy Boyd’s aching rendition of the final verse of Tolkien’s “A Walking Song” is a grim foreshadow, reminding us that even through victories, darkness is only a shadow away.
I’ve heard a good number of complaints about breaking “The Hobbit” into three movies. But you’re reading the words of someone with notes in her LotR appendices and highlighter smattered throughout her copy of “The Silmarillion.” This will likely be the end of my Jackson/Tolkien experience, and I’m grateful he included so much lore that was only implied in the initial text. It goes without saying that this is one of my most anticipated films of 2014. It might be one of the most anticipated films of my lifetime.