My thoughts of Desolation of Smaug

[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.