Battle of the Five Armies: The Hobbit Part 3 First View Impressions.

So on Monday I got to see the 5 Armies a few days early at a local theater during a marathon of all three movies. I still can't understand people being mad that there are 3 movies instead of 2. Its three more hours that we get to spend in Middle Earth for goodness sake, and its all good. Perfect? No, but its really good! Heck I really wanted more in the third movie, since seeing them all in a marathon made them all feel like one big movie, 5 Armies felt like the second part of Desolation. Which in the end made me realize that the burning of Lake Town and Smaug's death would have been better at the end of Desolation instead of the Dwarfs vs Smaug, because it feels like there was even more that could have been in 5 Armies that was too short or got cut out.

One part that disappointed me was when the White Council goes so save Gandalf. It was paced awkwardly, had too much of Elrond and a VERY well hidden stunt man dressed as Sarumon, flailing their weapons at a CG ghost men, and not enough of Galadriel being awesome. It just felt too short and probably could have been extended to better act as the opening action sequence, in exchange of Smaug's demise.

Now let's talk about Thorin. I love how he becomes obsessed with finding the Arkenstone to the point that he starts to think the others have betrayed him. But even watching all three films at once, his change into obsession seemed to happen too fast, but more importantly his redemption was too fast, and just seemed to happen as soon as the plot needed him to help save the day instead of it being motivated by something important.

Speaking of the battle itself. Well simply put there was way too much CG. Instead of enjoying the action, my subconscious brain was constantly in a battle of trying to decipher between the real and the CG. Also Legolas is crazy over powered, to the point I wondered how he didn't just kill all the orcs by himself. Remember when he killed that Olliphant all by himself in Return of the King. Nothing that crazy, but there were times Legolas was taking after God of War.

Dang I really sound like I didn't like this movie. But I did, I really did. I think it may just be that seeing it all in one go like that. I think they could have cut down on the action and added in more character moments to make the big dramatic scenes in this finale more poignant.

I want to go see it one more time in HFR, which my showing was not in even though it was in 3D, which sucks because the HFR is really what made the 3D in the last two movies work. Then I'll be able to give a more fully formed opinion.