Barrels out of Bondage: Open or Sealed up Tight?

[Valandil]

Just saw the movie snippet again yesterday from "Desolation of Smaug" - where the dwarves escape from the Elves in the barrels. And of course - they're not packed into tightly sealed barrels, as in the books - but just take one barrel apiece, leaving one end open.

In the movie of course - this makes it more practical for carrying on a seemingly endless battle with the Orcs as they go down the river.

But which seems a more reasonable way to ride a barrel? In the book, the dwarves are packed in for a couple days (I think). It seems like drowning would be a very real possibility. Not just a near miss as a few of them had. I wonder if hypothermia would be a thing for dwarves.

[Earniel]

Barrels that are transported across large stretches of water ought to be to float well enough to make a raft out of them and carry people on top of that. So drowning shouldn't have been an issue, I think. There ought to have been enough buoyancy. But I do remember all the Dwarves were soaked nevertheless.

I reckon Dwarves' general good physique would probably make them far more resistant to hypothermia than the average human. Remember also that Bilbo too was soaked and spent a night out in the forest and while he did get a cold, he didn't die from the night-cold even when soaking wet, so maybe the weather conditions and the water temperature were favourable enough for survival.

I didn't like the movie scene that much. Too much computergame esthetics that didn't fit IMO. Too over the top with the the ballet of skipping elves and dropping orks. Besides, open barrels ought to have tipped like woah in that turbulent water, or more often than not smashed on the rocks. Barrels ain't kayaks.

But mind, I readily admit this was something I often had a problem with in the Hobbit Movies. Much of what Jackson used to get a more fairytale-mood for the Hobbit (as opposed to the more grown-up LoTR-movies) seems to have consisted in brutalising physics to the point of (my) disbelief.

If he had gone less overboard with the barrel-scene I might have bought open barrels.

[Olmer]

It is possible to ride in an open barrel. In the extended version they sent a dozen open barrels with cameras on the rims through the rapids and waterfalls. They all bobbed upright, even after going through the waterfall.