Horray for Hollywood-Noah Welch

WARNING THIS MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR THE MOST RECENT HOBBIT MOVIE

The two movies I will compare are The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (TBFA) and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of The King (RTK).  Now a full disclaimer before I start the comparison, both these movies are fantastic and I enjoyed them immensely. Both movies had excellent battle scenes with armies so real you could almost believe that each person was real. However one thing I loved about RTK was the exposition.  I liked the backtracking that helped ease the audience into the story as opposed to the horrible opening of TBFA.  In TBFA I was disappointed that Smaug was so easily dispatched. It felt cheap and lame. In both movies the wonderful savior eagles could have solved most problems.     I also think that the characters were better developed in RTK. I cared more for Legolas and Gimli than the unwashed horde of dwarfs that were in TBFA. I also thought that the villains in TBFA were not as well developed as in RTK; I honestly couldn’t tell which orc Legolas was fighting on the collapsed tower in the TBFA. In my opinion there was much better drama and tension in RTK, I worried more for the characters I knew would survive(in RTK) than the ones that would die (in TBFA).  In both movies there were some great and hilarious characters. My favorite side character had to be Dain in TBFA; he was a great character even though he had few lines of dialogue. Both movies also had spectacular moments from the elf lord in TBFA slicing off the heads of orcs, while riding his moose, or Legolas in RTK slaying an Oliphant and his crew.  In conclusion both movies were fantastic, but I enjoyed The Return of the King more because of its more complete story, more identifiable characters and the fact that it was based on one book instead of 1/3 of a book.

WARNING THIS MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR THE MOST RECENT HOBBIT MOVIE