Chronicles: Art & Design (The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies) Hardcover – 17 Dec. 2014

I was a bit apprehensive buying this book but the moment I was handed the hefty parcel by a disgruntled postman this morning, I knew I was getting my moneys worth of book. Upon opening the package a sweet smell of the fragment inks hit my nostrils and I proceeded to open the cover. Now I'm not usually one to judge a book by its cover, but the cover on this particular book was made to such a high quality; with a kind of shiny texture perhaps mimicking the stout rocks used by the dwarves that I couldn't help but applaud the publishers for their fine efforts binding the book.So lets get onto the content. First of all the quality of the art was divine as were the captions and informative paragraphs from the Weta Works team, explaining how they developed their designs and in some cases made the tough decision to omit so much cool stuff from the final cut of the film. The reader is therefore given a good idea of what scenes will be included in the much awaited extended edition. For example; the funeral of Thorin, Radagast giving Gandalf his own staff as well as way more stuff from Beorn. We are also informed on how several scenes from the trailers such as the chariot on the ice, didn't make it into the film.Faults? Err... not really any, the overall quality of the images and pages are top notch.In conclusion this book is simply breathtaking and I can't help but keep flicking through it, seeing something new every time. Although bear in mind dear reader that I am writing this review after only having had the book a day. I hope you enjoyed reading this,Cheers

I have bought EVERY single movie book (27 in total) published on both Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, and I dare say the Hobbit Chronicles series by Weta are outstanding both in the quality of the design of these books, and the vast content of concept art, background information to the creation process and lots of personal stories by the artists who contibuted to the making of these magnificient movies. These Chronicle books are a must for Tolkien fans, but also a treasury of high quality art for anyone who loves fantasy films or movie making. SPOILER ALERT: This last chronicle provides a lot of HINTS that we will come to see in the extended film edition of "The Battle of the Five Armies", like how Alfrid might come to his end... I enjoyed reading this book tremendously and I salute Daniel Falconer for creating the Chronicles series. If you like the Chronicles you should also get the Chronicle companion book called Smaug - Unleashing the Dragon by Daniel Falconer that is also amazingly entertaining to read!

Really happy with my purchase..Love these books, an absolute for the collection

Another excellent design book for the movie. Not much to say really, its as good as the other two for the initial movies and it's full packed with hundreds of illustrations that you'll love. Traditional art, digital and mixed. It's incredibly detailed and there's so many stuff to see in here that it will take you months to noticed everything worth seeing in it properly.

A lovely book for any The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings fans, my husband has all from each film. The book shows how they CGI the scenes and the characters and how they make the costumes etc goes into lots of details how they make the film

Wonderful book packed with beautiful artwork and info about the film. Beautifully produced - we have all the books from this series and they are worth every penny if you love the films and want to see the artwork & development of ideas behind the film.

The book is a birthday present which I am sure he will like as it is what he asked for. So I cannot comment on the product but can say that it arrived on time and in excellent condition.

really facinating look into design and the work thats put into making the film this is for the followers of the lotr and film buffs