The final film in Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit trilogy has been retitled “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies”.
The announcement was made on his Facebook page after weeks of speculation about the movie, which was planned to be titled “There and Back Again”. Jackson said the change had been made because the planned title no longer felt right for the trilogy, because plans to make a two-part adaptation of the 1937 novel had been changed, and “There and Back Again” seemed more suited as a name for a second half of two Hobbit Films.
“There and Back Again felt like the right name for the second of a two films telling of the quest to reclaim Erebor, when Bilbo’s arrival there, and departure, were both contained within the second film,” wrote Jackson, “But with three movies, it suddenly felt misplaced – after all, Bilbo has already arrived ‘there’ in “The Desolation of Smaug”. When we did the premiere trip late last year, I had a quiet conversation with the studio about the idea of revisiting the title. We decided to keep an open mind until a cut of the film was ready to look at. We reached that point last week, and after viewing the movie, we all agreed there is now one title that feels completely appropriate. And so: The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies it is.”
However, fear not hard-core Hobbit fans, Jackson has heavily hinted that “There and Back Again”, which was Tolkien’s own subtitle for The Hobbit, might be used as a title for a DVD box set in the future instead. “The Battle of Five Armies” is a reference to the climactic battle at the end of The Hobbit in which dwarves, elves, men, goblins and giant eagles erupt in conflict beneath the Lonely Mountain, and brings more focus to the film being based on the ending of the book. I think we can all agree that the new title also sounds just that little bit more epic.
The third and final instalment of Jackson’s adaptation of J.R.R Tolkien’s book is due in cinemas this December.
