Feast your eyes on a gigantic new poster for The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies. This big, beautiful tapestry offers a detailed preview of what we can expect in the final installment. We’re ready to tear everything off our walls and hang this up instead. Director Peter Jackson first unveiled this behemoth banner at San Diego Comic-Con, and Digital Spy has now unleashed it to the masses. We recommend viewing it as large as possible, so you can examine every wonderful little nuance.
Stitched seamlessly together, the artwork captures at least seven key moments, ranging from quiet instances of personal turmoil to epic battle sequences on a grand scale. Bard the Bowman (Luke Evans) is face to face with the menacing dragon, Smaug (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch) as Lake-town is engulfed in flames. Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellen) grasps the hand of Lady Galadriel (Cate Blanchett), both of them in the midst of some great peril as Saruman (Cristopher Lee) holds his scepter and Elrond (Hugo Weaving) draws his sword. We see Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) looking conflicted as Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) sits atop his recently reclaimed throne, gold coins piled high around him.
Staying true to the film’s title, we see the quintet of armies at war. This includes our favorite elves, Legolas (Orlando Bloom), Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly), and Thranduil (Lee Pace), the latter commanding a massive army from atop a giant moose. Save a horse, ride a moose. The lady elves must be swooning at his feet. Also in the throes of battle are Thorin and his company of dwarves, Gandalf, Bilbo, and the evil legions of orcs led by Azog the Defiler.
The color palette is bursting with deep, vibrant hues. Foreboding shadows and smoke from the battlefield blends nicely with the robust details and textures throughout. If this banner is any indication, the cinematography from DP Andrew Lesnie and the visual effects from Eric Saindon, Joe Letteri and the Weta Digital team are going to blow us away. We can’t wait to see the finished product when it explodes into U.S. theaters on December 17th from Warner Bros.
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