My thoughts of Desolation of Smaug

[afro-elf]

Of the 5 Middle-Earth films I enjoyed this one the most. As I despised the other 4, don't read too much into that. The high points were Smaug in flight.
(An updated version of Vermithrax Perjorative from Dragonslayer), Thranduil, and seeing some minorities in Esgaroth. The low point the "thing' between Turiel and Killi.

[shesabrandybuck]

Smaug stole the show in this movie (as he should). But seriously, I cannot get over how amazingly well done Smaug was. Utterly terrifying and entertaining, I loved it. I loved the whole movie, in fact. However, I do agree the Tauriel/Kili (& Legolas?) love triangle weirdness was quite stupid, for lack of a better word.

[Serenoli]

SPOILER ALERT.

The good:
-Definitely more exciting than Unexpected Journey. And though the love triangle and some other stuff was really cheesy, it was still fairly fast paced and interesting.
-Barrel scene was brilliant.
-Martin Freeman's humorous acting - absolutely spot on, and not as over the top as some of the dwarves.

The bad:
-I hated the Legolas scenes. He is in a kung-fu movie / Step Up 5 while everyone else is on Middle Earth.
-The whole Dol Guldur scene would have been much more exciting with less orcs and more Thrain in the dungeons. Also, Sauron is so boring. Sure he was a scary lidless eye in LotR and it worked then - but he could have been shown in a more corporeal form here - he could even have had an interesting conversation with Gandalf. After all, he isn't a mute beast of the ancient (like Balrog). I found the black-and-white grunt and fight scenes a total letdown!
-Beorn scene added nothing! They reduced him to a fun animation.
-Extending the scene in the mountain really makes Smaug come off as much more of an idiot than he is. He has countless opportunities to toast all of them and he just keeps talking.

The nitpick:
-How is Balin this old? He is supposed to go off and conquer Moria and set up a kingdom in the 50-60 years that pass until the Fellowship find his tomb in Moria. I doubt the old counsellor of Thorin that we see in the movie would really have the energy and passion to declare himself lord of orc-and-Balrog overrun Moria.
- "You would allow your son (Legolas) to pledge himself to me - a lowly Silvan Elf?" - this whole caste system thingy this implies among Elves is not something I've seen anywhere in Lotr. At least the word 'lowly' is so out of place. Just because you have 'High Elves' does not mean you automatically have 'lowly' elves. And it makes elves come off as such a bunch of pueblood supremists. No wonder she seems to prefer a dwarf.

[Valandil]

When Balin arrives at Bilbo's door in the book, he is described as "a very old looking dwarf"

[Serenoli]

Good point Valandil.

Long time no see by the way. Hope you're doing well!

[Coffeehouse]

Originally Posted by shesabrandybuck

Smaug stole the show in this movie (as he should). But seriously, I cannot get over how amazingly well done Smaug was. Utterly terrifying and entertaining, I loved it. I loved the whole movie, in fact. However, I do agree the Tauriel/Kili (& Legolas?) love triangle weirdness was quite stupid, for lack of a better word.

Wow, I am so psyched so see Smaug!

Who is Tauriel???

[shesabrandybuck]

Originally Posted by Coffeehouse

Who is Tauriel???

She's a Silvan Elf that PJ created...I guess to add a strong female character in the movie. Missed out on all the DOS trailers?

[Midge]

I remember when I watched The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, there were SO many things that put me in state of awe - Erebor, the dish song, the riddle game... which kind of balanced out the things which bugged me (which, I will admit, were many).

However, there was a LOT less this time to balance out the bad. Smaug was pretty cool-looking, but I wasn't thinking, "PERFECT." when I heard/saw him. Maybe they left something out in his speech which made him seem less ... shrewd or something.

I honestly think Bard was the ONLY perfect thing about this movie. (But I loved that Stephen Fry made an appearance!)

Everything else pretty much counts as "action" and as I am not an action person, it just felt way overdone. I mean, I physically get tired watching everything happen.

Also - Does it seem like they are making Middle-Earth seem very small? Wizards can run from northern Mirkwood to this tomb of the Nine Kings (not sure where that is, but if I were smart, I wouldn't stick it too close to Dol Guldur, right?) to Dol Guldur in the course of a day or so? The filmmakers need to come up with a plan to make it seem like more time has passed. I mean, I don't think we saw much night-time between the West side of Mirkwood and the Elven Halls, and Bard the bargeman and Lake-town, which made it seem like it all happened in a day (especially since the dwarves talk about the time constraint on when they need to reach the Lonely Mountain).

I feel like PJ's strategy is to cut out all the fun, canon parts (like tricking Beorn, the Elven feasts and the spider jeering (Oh, how I WAITED for "Attercop, Attercop, won't you stop?" to come and IT NEVER DID ), the actual camp on the shelf outside the door, etc. and just replaced it with a lot of slipping, sliding, Frodo-esque-falling and running. LOTS of running.

Also ninja elves.

I'm sure you've heard all the normal arguments that I could (and readily would) provide, but truly, what I don't understand is that this book was written for CHILDREN. Tolkien KNEW his audience would have a short attention span, so he wrote the plot to be interesting. Also children's books tend to be very straightforward in plot, as kids don't do a lot of empathizing with thought monologues and such.

I realize there have to be a few changes to adapt the book to film, but NOT as many as they are putting in. The books are PLENTY exciting the way they were written. *sigh*

[tolkienfan]

I agree with everyone. I understand that they wanted to add/change things in order to make a successful adaption. But they really had NO excuse to leave things out. So many parts I was looking forward to were cut or severely shortened. So much filler crap was added instead (the random orcs, fight scenes, and Tauriel, I liked most of the Laketown additions).

It's like they knew it would make money no matter what, so they decided to film fan fiction written by someone with a vague idea of the storyline and no idea of the backstory.

I've never been so disappointed by a movie. I'm hoping it will improve upon a second viewing with very low expectations and a fast forward button.

[brownjenkins]

I can't wait to see it! The first one fell a little short for me, just too long.

[Lotesse]

I walked out in the middle of the Smaug scene. And i almost NEVER walk out of movies. The whole thing just pissed me off. I liked Stephen Fry, though. But i'd really like to punch Peter Jackson square in the nose for this.

[azalea]

Ha ha, AE, we have switched places - I was a Lotr defender to an extent, and I would say this has been the movie I was most disappointed with. However, bad Hobbit is better than a good many other things, so I still enjoyed it a lot.

I liked all of the visuals, etc., esp. Thranduil. And I didn't mind some of the additions (such as Gandalf in Dol Guldur), but I missed Gandalf's introduction of the dwarfs to Beorn, and Bilbo taunting the spiders.

However, my main complaint is the same as the last movie: Bilbo is being cheated out of his character arc. In fact, this movie is less focused on Bilbo than the last one. I would love to see and hear more of him than Tauriel.

I'm looking forward to the next one already, despite my disappointment with the changes in this one. Anyway, it'll give me an excuse to drop by the moot again. Cheers, all!

[Mark of Cenla]

I liked it, but then again, I do not go into it with much expectation. I did not care much for the ending. My wife, who read The Hobbit several years ago, said she liked it better than the first one. Peace and goodwill.

[BeardofPants]

Of all the movies so far, this is the one that I liked the most (given that I hated LOTR, and was Eh about the first hobbit, take that for what it's worth).

[Valandil]

After two and a half weeks, I finally saw it yesterday.

Visuals were great - and it is great to see the story done in a movie at all.

Like many others here, I'm not crazy about the additions. At this point, I just say "oh well..." I took my three sons. I think they all liked it, as a movie. They're not so put-off by the changes as the rest of us are (the boys are now 15, 13 & 11).

I think they've made more changes to The Hobbit than they did to LOTR. Even apart from backstory elements. I think they HAD to alter backstory elements that are not in The Hobbit or LOTR, or they'd get into trouble with Tolkien Estates. They only have movie rights on those two. With that in mind, I'm surprised they showed a meeting of Gandalf and Thorin at Bree at all... though the substance of their meeting was different from that in UT.

Perhaps one nice add... elements of the "athelas/kingsfoil" portion included, which were left out of LOTR.

Glad I saw it, overall enjoyed, would have appreciated greater faithfulness to the written story. But maybe some of those changes help transition from book to movie.

My 13 y-o is over my shoulder and suggests that they wanted something "fresh" - and that if they had kept everything the same, they might as well have recorded someone reading the story.

[Valandil]

PS: starting to think that Tauriel will die, along with Kili (and Fili and Thorin - if the same people die as in the book). That could make certain other characters sad. At least one whose name starts and ends with "L" - though his father may try to help him get over it.

BTW: my younger sons especially came away with very bad feelings about King Thranduil.

[Midge]

I missed the taunting of the spiders too... I kept waiting for it to come ("Attercop!"), but it never did.

Also - Thranduil!

The guy who plays Thranduil, Lee Pace, was the main character (Ned) in a wonderful TV show called Pushing Daisies. After I realized that, all I saw was Ned pretending to be a Tolkien elf. Which was funny, but I never would have guessed that Pace would have that effect.

[inked]

Well, after reading these reviews, I shan't be wasting me gold on politically correct crap-ovie, after all. Not even for a cinematic Smaug, if he's not crafty. Though the positive comment on the barrel ride does tempt one.....!

"Also, Sauron is so boring. Sure he was a scary lidless eye in LotR and it worked then - but he could have been shown in a more corporeal form here - he could even have had an interesting conversation with Gandalf. After all, he isn't a mute beast of the ancient (like Balrog)." Serenoli

This is also tempting. PJ actually managed to convey the banality of evil?

Me gold's getting itchy!

[Insidious Rex]

I finally saw it. Ill preface this by saying I did enjoy it. It wa a fun ride and worked mostly… Its definitely better then the first one (a B- compared to a C- for the first movie) But there were certainly some issues which I had a hard time with:

The Beorn scene was fairly useless and I get the feeling Jackson just added that in there in a way to placate the Tolkien purists since he didn’t have Bombadil in the Lord of the Rings. Don’t bother. Hes a great character not a prop. But I suppose its better then suddenly making him some major player in the second movie showing up in places he never should have just because he’s a cool bear person an they can CGI the crap out of him and make him into a kind of Wolverine character.

The CGI/video game aspect of this film was easier to handle then the CGI orgasm Jackson had in the first movie. Nothing could get any worse then that goblin town scene where ALL the dwarfs spend a good 10 minutes falling an falling and falling and ALL miraculously landing on another precarious rope bridge or crumbling stone step only to scatter helpless goblins to their deaths but somehow never falling with them. it was like a silly CGI Tolkien version of a Roadrunner cartoon or a Mr. Magoo cartoon where he somehow manages to bumble along from girder to plank to ground floor without even noticing what danger he’s in. Those work because they are absurd cartoons… This should neither be absurd or a cartoon. And it was both.

But I digress…

Back to the second movie. The CGI scenes are not quite as ruinous (the barrel scene was a little much but Ill live with it). And I actually did enjoy most of the scenes at Dol Guldor and the way he presented Sauron. Didn’t need the busy bustling orc readying scenes. Reminded me of Suarumons uruk hai orc factory in Two Towers. Although I can accept its necessary for explanation of whats going on to Tolkien ignorant movie goers. But I rather prefer Dol Goldur as this terrifying ruin brimming with the presence of evil not an Orc military base and fighting ground. And we didn’t need Radagast in this movie at all…

I know everyone has issues with the new elf and the forced triangle relationship between her and Legolas and Kili (Fili?). Come on you saw it coming. I can deal with it even without not liking it. It reminded me of the silly relationship between Spock and Uhura in the new Star Trek films. Stop it! Unnecessary! Though this was not as bad somehow. Still its next to impossible to believe (even if I'm willing to try!) that such a dwarf – elf relationship could so instantly take off the way it did on the screen. But… whatever… I understand why its there. and maybe they’ll make something useful out of it…

The worst part of this movie remains the dragon scene at Erebor. And frankly I'm shocked no one else was revolted by it. I could not suspend disbelief to make it work. Here is Smaug the mighty who incinerated and killed THOUSANDS of men and dwarfs in his initial attack on Erebor without issue outwitted like a dunce by 12 dwarfs and a hobbit. And here is Thorin (who Smaug is obsessed with for some reason??) making a CGI basterdization of one of the best Tolkien scenes ever written by running the dwarves around tricking him into going here and there and lighting forges while the dwarves and Bilbo bounce around like so many Donkey Kong characters. Horrible! Smaug is not a keystone cop! He should never be seen to be embarrassed! He is death with one small flaw! Not some chicken with its head cut off unable to scratch or light on fire even one freaking fat goofy aging dwarf in the dark in his liar! We don’t need a video game in that scene! And the logic Smaug uses to attack the lake people made me cringe. God…

But beyond that… I still enjoyed it and I'm looking forward to the third movie with eternal hope as usual…

[Butterbeer]

First things first: I think I should win an Oscar just for my totally impromptu genuine suprise at just being logged in... I literally physically body-moved with suprise at remembering my log in on first try!

Bring on the dare-devil motorcycle-pyramid emoticon Badger Team...

At this point I should likely point out that this very afternoon, as is, I decided life is too short not to take some time out to frequent an Inn, a merry old Inn... and to sit beside the fire...

So, im currently wrestling with a rather more Canny, Cunning and cruel Monster than Smaug: yes im typing on my phone....

Therefore I beg you all in advance: laugh only at the genuinely bad spelling: the rest will be me losing a "game of patience" with the phone. .. and already I am weary!

I suspect ill edit this later hopefully.... but for now ill post this and go for a smoke and pint
And continue shortly