The Battle of the Five Armies Chronicles: The Art of War by Daniel Falconer

9/10

With the release of the final extended edition for Peter Jackson's ‘The Hobbit' trilogy comes with it the release of the final Chronicles book, orchestrated by Weta's own Daniel Falconer, who has worked on all six of the Tolkien-inspired movies.

Featuring a foreword by Lee Pace, the actor who played Thranduil, and an afterword by Richard Armitage, the actor who played the dwarven king, Thorin, this beautiful coffee-table book is a perfect completion to a fantastic series of books.

For those fans of movie-making that love the behind-the-scenes features that are so much a part of the extended editions of Peter Jackson's Tolkien-inspired movies, these books serve as the perfect hard-copy counterpoint. With stories from actors, designers, construction gurus, and the film's makers, this book is the written version of the DVD's Appendices. Beautiful photography, still frames, and hand-drawn artwork that formed the bedrock for so much of what we seen on the screen litter these pages, giving fans a special look at the process that it takes to make a movie of such magnitude.

With chapters dedicated to all the major races that fought in the Battle of Five Armies, featuring intricate detail for costumes and weapons, The Art of War is a must-have for any fan of Peter Jackson's adaptations of The Hobbit.