The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies - 10 Reasons It's A Great Adaptation

1. The End Goes Back To The Beginning

The final scene of The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies is a bittersweet one. The last look at Middle-Earth on screen also takes audiences back to one of their first glimpses of this world as an older Bilbo is interrupted on his eleventy-first birthday by the arrival of Gandalf the Grey. It was an end that left a smile on many faces and delivered a satisfying conclusion to the trilogy and Middle-Earth as a whole; it's fitting that, like the book, The Hobbit should end with a visit by Gandalf to Bilbo's home. The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies didn't need the multiple endings of The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King. The stakes weren't as high and the war was not yet won. Instead it needed to tie the trilogies together and the film achieved that. Now, like the Star Wars films, the only question you have left is which order to watch them in - The Hobbit of The Lord Of The Rings first? Should The Hobbit trilogy have been two films? Perhaps. An extra forty five minutes that covered the arrival at Lake Town and Bilibo's encounter with Smaug would have been fine, considering this last film was the shortest of the three. But at the same time, The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies was a wonderful adaptation of the story. Cut down on some of the scenes with Alfred and it would have been perfect. Still, it certainly serves as a worthy successor to The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy and a fitting end to the cinematic Middle-Earth. Do you agree? Were you happy with the inclusion of the wider Middle-Earth mythology? Or would you have preferred a straight adaptation of the book. Please let us know in the comments below!