The Film: The third film in The Hobbit Trilogy and likely Peter Jackson's final journey to Middle Earth (until he manages to get ahold of the rights to The Silmarillion), The Battle Of The Five Armies will pick up immediately after the events of last year's The Desolation Of Smaug, with the fire drake wreaking havoc on Lake Town. Once that's been resolved, things will get political before a massive set piece, skipped over in the book but promising to be the franchise's biggest battle yet, begins. Expect death, lots of The Lord Of The Rings tie-ins and more endings than The Return Of The King. The Title: Up until a couple of months ago this film was going to be called There And Back Again, the subtitle on J.R.R. Tolkien's book that inspired Jackson's series (can we even say it's an adaptation any more given how much has been altered?). A hangover from when The Hobbit was a duology, it didn't make much sense now it was an epic trilogy; the gang of dwarves already got 'There' in the last film. But while a title change was needed did it need to be something as perfunctory as The Battle Of The Five Armies. Ignoring the fact it completely undercuts the whole 'Smuag visits Lake Town' opening the previous film spent so much time setting up, naming a film after one event in it doesn't seem overly creative. We didn't sit down to The Lord Of The Rings: The Battle Of Helm's Deep or The Hobbit: Riddles In The Dark after all. It goes to show how stretched the series is.
