The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies - New Zealand: Home of Middle-Earth - Part 3 (2015)

This is a six minute featurette on the Region 2 DVD of Man of Steel(no, you read that right...don't ask me. I guess they had to put *something* on? Well, there is one of the FX that I've reviewed by the name of Krypton Decoded. And a nifty 2 minute 75th anniversary animated short), concerning, yeah, it's there in the overlong title. As I watched this from a copy from my library, I can't say for sure if there's supposed to be another disc to it with more, well, any other, extras, but it didn't come with here. And the cover text doesn't suggest such exist. So, real cheapo, this one. Not even about this. See, this is why special feature hunters should always look carefully what it says about such.

Anyway, it goes into how the country was the only place they could possibly shoot, focusing on Hobbiton: filming it from the air now that that's possible, building and reconstructing sets, how it's really there with no FX enhancements necessary(...no, really. They said this about arguably the most over CG-ed movies in recent memory), the beauty of nature(unintentionally making a strong case for environmentalism, actually respecting nature, you know, crazy notions like protecting what's keeping us alive, if for no other reason than to, y'know, prolong our own existence). It consists of a series of short interviews with crew and cast(some of whom are all but unrecognizable out of make-up, costume and character, clips of the films, behind-the-scenes footage, pre-visualizations, green screen footage, and the effects are further gone through as we see partially complete ones.

There is a nothing objectionable in this. I recommend this to anyone interested in the subject, as it's quite concise and detailed on it. 7/10