Genre Essay: The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

For this genre essay, I shall be analysing the trailer for The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.

Trailer for The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

There are many visual elements in this trailer that are used quite a lot in the fantasy genre. One of which being close ups, we are given many close ups in this trailer to familiarize the audience with the cast of characters once again. A lot of dark colours are being used in this trailer, except in moments of disaster when the colours are given a golden hue from the fires. It isn't s bright as the movies before it, signalling it being the finale. Other sagas/trilogies of this genre do this for their finales; a good example would be the Harry Potter series of movies because their final film was quite dark in comparison to the others. We are also given quite a few tracking shots of our main cast, another way to quickly familiarize us with them again. The action in this trailer also connotes the fantasy genre because the fighting I done through magic and weaponry of old, unlike modern movies where guns and such are used.

The plot for the trailer is common in the fantasy genre, and finales. The war between the five armies is the plot, as well as the corruption on to Thorin. Wars are commonly used for plots in fantasy genre movies, be it between small groups of people or large armies.

We are shown quite a few character groups and certain characters. The character groups we’re shown are the dwarves, elves, orcs and humans. The fact that there are more races than humans in this film is common of the fantasy genre. We are given a range of character types, like: Bilbo, the reluctant hero, Gandalf, the wise wizard (mentor?), etc.

The trailer shows us quite a lot of settings that are common in that genre. We are shown halls of gold, villages burning down, mountain paths filled the battles, all connotes to the plot I mentioned which brings us back to the genre matching to the settings.

The narrative of the story is restricted to Bilbo and Thorin, as we’re not shown a seen without one of them in the trailer. This is another common thing in the genre as fantasy films rarely use omnipresent narration, as it doesn’t build suspense.

There is a lot of iconography common of the fantasy genre in this trailer. There is a great use of swords/weaponry that is not common of modern times like, bow and arrows, shields, etc. There are a multitude of characters that are not human, like the main cast of dwarves, the elves, orcs and Bilbo, who is a hobbit. There is magic being used as well as a person/being that can use it, Gandalf. There is also a romance between two main characters that is either not allowed because of a certain point (this point being race). All this iconography is a part of the fantasy genre and it is rarely not used.