Desolation of Smaug: Review

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Chris Russo
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Desolation of Smaug: Review

Post by Chris Russo »

Spoiler alert, in case it isn't obvious.


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Okay, you've been warned.


First off, I have to say, I love the opening scene. It really is straight out of the Appendix (or was it the Unfinished Tales?), the meeting between Gandalf and Thorin. And, of course, it means we get to see Bree again... is it always raining there or something?

The first plot change hits us right there: we learn that the specific reason Thorin agrees to hiring a burglar is that he's hoping to steal the Arkenstone out from under Smaug, so he can legitimize his reign and so Dain and the other dwarf families will rally behind him.

I have to say, as changes go, this makes sense. It makes sense why they hired Bilbo and then all sat back on the Doorstep waiting for him to go in and bring back all the treasure: in the book, Bilbo himself points out the futility of this plan. But if all they needed was for Bilbo to burgle the Arkenstone, so they could leave and come back with an army, well, then the need for a burglar fits.

So anyway, we jump back to the main storyline, and meet Beorn. And I have to say, Beorn certainly looks the part, both as man and as beast, even if he's playing him mournful rather than loud and jolly. No complaints there.

We come to the edge of Mirkwood, and Gandalf is summoned away to do some investigating. I do appreciate how Sir Ian plays him as conflicted about leaving: this Gandalf doesn't like leaving his friends in the lurch, unlike the Rankin-Bass Gandalf who was basically all, "I've got more important things to do, suck it up!" I do wish, though, that Gandalf had explicitly left Bilbo in charge, as he had in the books, because it's a needed vote of confidence in Biblo's capability.

The scene with Gandalf examining the tombs of the Nine: beautifully and subtly creepy. I liked how the bars on all the tombs were bent outward. And I enjoyed Gandalf vs. the Necromancer one-on-one. This is the answer to anyone who asks why Gandalf never just overthrow Sauron Maiar-to-Maiar.

The Mirkwood spiders and the naming of Sting: perfect. Those spiders were creepier than Shelob by far (I think it's the longer legs, more orb weaver and less tarantula).

Thranduil: perfect. I mean it, played well and played to the hilt by Lee Pace. You get a sense for his character, that his help comes with a price, that while he disapproves of the dwarves' greed, he himself is not free from the dragon-sickness. And INTERESTING twist that he himself is scarred by an encounter with the "Worms of the North," but that he hides it under... some kind of elven glamour? Seriously, though, the confrontation between Thorin and Thranduil was the best part of the movie.

And... that's sad, because I feel the movie started to go downhill from that point.

Barrels out of Bond: Almost done right. Seriously, I got the feeling that Peter Jackson's solution to everything is "Orcs show up, start a ten minute fight scene." The Barrel battle was fun, silly, and entertaining, but it was marred by the fact that there was NO REASON FOR IT.

Tauriel: In and of herself, I like her character. No, she's not in the books, but hey, the King needs a Captain of the Guard to imprison the dwarves, and why not a badass Evangeline Lilly? What makes my head pound, though, is that they seem to be making her and Kili fall for each other. I didn't mind the conversation through the cell bars: that I could have seen as one race slowly getting to know another, especially the conversation about starlight. But her following after?

Look, let's get something straight: a pairing between an elf and a human, the two races of the Children of Illuvatar, is so rare it has only happened three times in the entire universe. But dwarves are not even true children of Illuvatar: they are Children of Aule who were afterwards condoned and blessed. Gimli to Galadriel should be the closest we get to a dwarf/elf pairing. It just doesn't make sense to me.

Furthermore, a mere Silvan elf shouldn't have been able to do the healing ritual with athelas. It took Elrond to heal Frodo.

So yeah. I like Tauriel's character, but I don't like what role the plot has her playing.

Lake-Town: Nicely done. Portrayed in a sort of Dickensian squalor, you really get the sense of a town that is crashing economically, but that was once rich and prosperous.

Bard: I liked how they played him. He really does come across as the pessimist. I don't know how I feel about the Black Arrow being a type of ballistae ammunition, but hey, it works.

Smaug: Wow. I mean, seriously, wow. Hands-down the best cinematic portrayal of a dragon I have ever seen. Beautiful, frightening, truly the Greatest and Chiefest of Calamities.

But he's kind of undercut by the fact that, despite spending half an hour of screentime charging towards Bilbo or Thorin or one of the dwarves, he never actually catches anyone. Seriously, this is the dragon that laid waste to two whole nations in a day, and he can't catch a single person in a drawn-out chase scene?

I didn't feel like the Riddle-Game was done full justice. First, by having Bilbo take off the ring. Second, by cutting it short. And third, by having the dwarves come down, and devolving a clever and cerebral battle of wits into yet another endless action sequence.

And what was with the Gold Statue Plan? First, molten gold looks cartoonish in CGI. Second, how did Thorin expect molten gold to harm A FIREBREATHING DRAGON?! Third, it makes no sense for Smaug to fly away towards LakeTown when he does. In the book, he thinks he's killed Bilbo, either through fire or through burying him under half the mountain, and so he goes off to take care of the next order of business. In this version, though, he leaves a bunch of dwarves (and a hobbit) in his home, in the middle of battle. Why would he do that? "To make you watch them burn" doesn't fully make sense.

Seriously, that last battle scene soured the end of the movie for me: PJ had me at Mirkwood, but lost me in Erebor.

So, in summation:

I enjoyed the movie for what it is, but I although I like it, I don't wholly like it. I'm still excited for the third movie, I'll still see this one again, but it hurts me to think how easily it could have been so much better. In my mind a proper Hobbit adaptation has yet to be made (Rankin-Bass altered the story to make their version a 70s anti-war PSA, after all).
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Re: Desolation of Smaug: Review

Post by Southwind »

I actually think the ballista thing kind of makes sense. It's a very human-like way of dealing with things, although I, like everyone else, pictured a big longbow.

Tauriel - well, at least she's less annoying than Jar Jar Binks. As for the healing ritual, I'm inclined to say that athelas has some chemical constituent that actually is an antidote to whatever Orc-poison that was. The blade that stabbed Frodo, IIRC, was the ancient, evilly enchanted blade of a Ringwraith, the one that got Kili belonged to some random orc and was probably a piece of cheap steel smeared with evil goop.

In the spider scene, I really and honestly missed Bilbo taunting them, same as for the riddle-game with Smaug. An aspect of Bilbo's character that could have been really played up. He's much smarter, I think, than people tend to give him credit for, in-universe and otherwise.
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Re: Desolation of Smaug: Review

Post by Daerir »

Honestly, I like the movies so far. I hear people constantly saying "that's not in the book, or they left this out!" but lets be honest, they do need to change some things. If I watched a movie that was 100% out of the book, I'm not entirely sure I would like the movie. I personally think it would be too predictable if EVERYTHING happened exactly the way it was written. The book didn't include Kili getting shot and saved by his she-elf girlfriend, that was added to add some extra features. Smaug was never covered in molten gold, but by adding that it made the dwarves look like heroes instead of giving Bard all the credit when the movie sort of depicts him as a sort of enemy perhaps? All in all I give the Hobbit movies a 9.5 stars. Although I do feel they could've made an equally epic movie instead of busting it down into a trilogy, however, the book never goes into detail about what Gandalf did when he disappeared so for adding this in the movies, I say kudos.
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Re: Desolation of Smaug: Review

Post by Straelbora »

rangersamII wrote:Honestly, I like the movies so far. I hear people constantly saying "that's not in the book, or they left this out!" but lets be honest, they do need to change some things. If I watched a movie that was 100% out of the book, I'm not entirely sure I would like the movie. I personally think it would be too predictable if EVERYTHING happened exactly the way it was written. The book didn't include Kili getting shot and saved by his she-elf girlfriend, that was added to add some extra features. Smaug was never covered in molten gold, but by adding that it made the dwarves look like heroes instead of giving Bard all the credit when the movie sort of depicts him as a sort of enemy perhaps? All in all I give the Hobbit movies a 9.5 stars. Although I do feel they could've made an equally epic movie instead of busting it down into a trilogy, however, the book never goes into detail about what Gandalf did when he disappeared so for adding this in the movies, I say kudos.
I don't mind a lot of things that were added, but I feel like Bilbo has gotten pushed to the corner of his own tale.
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Re: Desolation of Smaug: Review

Post by Eledhwen »

Finally saw it. It is not The Hobbit. It is a fantasy movie, someones' personal derivation of The Hobbit, but it is not The Hobbit. Lots of unnecessary changes. *shrugs* I think PJ got rather carried away with himself really. I am in the midst of re-reading The Hobbit for the ridiculously umpteenth time (I have been re-reading it since I first read it in '70, every year; obsessed much? Nah!) so the movie comes across as rather less than it could be as a result.

Smaug looks like one of the Reign of Fire dragons, save for the snout. He should be hexipedal, not quadrupedal. Even the map shows him as hexipedal. I missed the grassy little grotto before the door. Among other things.

Watchable as a fantasy movie with grand special effects, and some fine actors. Just not 'The Hobbit'.

In my curmudgeonly and purist opinion of course. ;)

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Re: Desolation of Smaug: Review

Post by Ringulf »

I got to see it last week and really did enjoy it. I had some low spots of course, but they were elevated by telling my purist voice to shut up and enjoy the ride!
I suppose what you get out of this movie series is determined by how you allow yourself to experience it.

I remember back in the days of the Fellowship I was irate because they left out Tom Bombadil and made Arwen an action heroine!
Over the next few years I realized, as many of you have said, that this is an interpretation of the story, designed for a modern audience that is so deluged with nonstop action and special effects that they could not sit through the reading of a long book or have the imagination to actively picture Tolkien's copious descriptions of the setting, if they tried. And what's more the pity is that if it were not made to compete in today's theatrical marketplace Tolkien's works would not reach the masses nor receive the type of culturally popular significance it now does.(take that as you may I am merely resounding that opinion not agreeing with it)

So I have given myself permission to enjoy what I refer to as the Expanded Tolkien Universe and soak up all the wonderful, imaginative imagery that went into creating things based on my favorite literary themes.

Am I pissed at the short and one sided portrayal of one of my favorite characters in all of Middle Earth, namely Beorn? You betcha!
It seems to me, with all the contrived filler they are putting into this trilogy to get three movies out of it they could have done far worse than giving a bit more story line back to Beorn and the clever way Gandalf got the Dwarves to be accepted as guests. Though for the bare minimum they covered it in dialog and chase action.
A little less elven superhuman acrobatics (though they were immensely entertaining) could have made the room needed. I was also a bit disappointed with the fact that he looked a bit like a feral Cosmo Kramer! I envisioned a much broader Beorn and though this one was sufficiently hursuite, I missed the flip side, the jolly side of Beorn the ally.
Ah well...I am told that we will get more of him during the Battle of 5 armies, but I won't hold my breath for any jolly side during that encounter, or the trip back home should there be one!

My greatest joy in the story's telling thus far, has been the shaping of the Dwarven culture.
I enjoyed the amount of background we got on the Elven race and even the Rohirim (which I could have easily enjoyed more of) but the Hobbit really opens up a window on the Dwarves.
I know that not all of the Dwarves look like what everyone expected (and of course that was a pandora's box that was opened and fully exposed and explored on another thread) but in their attempt to individualize thirteen separate characters, they really put a lot of effort into the shaping of each.
If you were to take thirteen humans you would expect diversity, so doing so with thirteen Dwarves and trying not to rely too heavily on stereotypes, I would say Bravo, they turned in a very good effort.

I say this now not just from simply watching the movies thus far, but also from deep study of the Hobbit Chronicles, (I got the first one from my wife for Christmas) and the plethora of developmental material they used to flesh out the concepts of each character with the actor who played him.
This has just been rich fuel for my creative fires and I hope to show some proof of that very soon in some of my new creations.

All in all it was entertaining and I look forward to seeing it many more times in anticipation of the conclusion. :mrgreen:
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Re: Desolation of Smaug: Review

Post by Greg »

Everyone's going to have gripes...I think I've reduced mine down to three.

One: Mirkwood.

The spiders were cool. The spider-battle was cool. So why was it all so short? Why was the jaunt through mirkwood portrayed as a couple of days, which resulted in a bunch of mentally drugged dwarves? It should have been a principal part of the story, but was given little notice. If passing through mirkwood and the battle with the spiders were elongated, PJ would have had less screen time available, preventing him from creating my second gripe:

Two: Dividing Thorin's Company.

They were all there. Not a one of them was left behind at Lake-Town. Bard could have easily continued dealing with local town politics without having three or four dwarves in his house. There was not a single good reason for leaving them behind...all it did for the film was allow more Kili-Tauriel interplay, which should have never happened beyond the bars of a prison cell...I'm with Chris on that one. Two Elves didn't need to show up in Lake-Town at all. That was just a bid to get Orlando Bloom more screen time...which was also unnecessary. He had his time in the spotlight...and those films, so far, wound up way better than this trilogy has been.

Three: Fighting the Dragon.

Shouldn't have happened. I expect in every Book-To-Film adaptation, liberties will be taken for the sake of storyline pacing and keeping the general populous's interest...but that wasn't a good enough reason to completely throw Tolkien's writing to the wind and decide that the Dwarves would actually have an encounter with the Dragon.



Now that that's all off my chest, I have to concur that Smaug was spectacular. His profile is VERY reminiscent of the dragon on Thror's map, down to the jawline, so I was quite pleased with that. Again, the Spiders were great, and Radagast was freakin' awesome, again. Ultimately, though, I think I was far more pleased with the first film than I have been with this second one thus far. It may grow on me, but it'll never reach the level that the LOTR films have in my opinion, regardless of book-to-screen changes.
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Re: Desolation of Smaug: Review

Post by Eledhwen »

Throwing Tolkiens' writing to the winds is what bugs me. As for Smaug..liked the head, the sinuous body. Did not like the missing pair of legs. He had, according the map, four legs and a pair of wings. He didn't walk on his wings like a pterodactyl. As I said, he was more like one of the dragons from Reign of Fire in that respect.

Did not care for the Dwarves fighting Smaug, splitting the company, and so on.

Just another fantasy movie to me; I actually started to lose interest towards the end. Yeah, I know, sacrilege, but that's the way it was. Too much of the CGI seemed, I dunno...forced somehow. Don't know how to explain that. And Azog being present still rankles badly. LOL

Glad folk have enjoyed it though. To each their own.

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Re: Desolation of Smaug: Review

Post by Jon »

Probably the biggest gripe for me was all the cartoon-ish fighting, i.e. Bombur knocking orcs over like skittles, fighting in his barrel, legolas balancing on the dwarves' heads, Thorin riding on molten metal, giant gold statue being liquidized to fight Smaug... like come on! Really?

There are a bunch of other things too that really bugged me but have been mentioned already.

But we can't forget the good parts either. From a filmmaker's perspective the cinematography was excellent and the shots well composited. The sound track was also superb and I liked the new themes introduced while keeping the 'traditional' parts as well.
You may disagree but i think Laketown was portrayed fantastically, albeit not how I'd imagined. Smaug, obviously, was probably on of the best things for me - pulling off an unnerving, talking, but terrifying dragon is no small feat, and they nailed it.

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Re: Desolation of Smaug: Review

Post by Straelbora »

I just watched "The Fellowship of the Ring" for the first time in maybe a couple of years, and it really underscored how much more "The Hobbit" films are filled full of cartoonish video game play scenes.

And one other thing that was bugging me but that is now clear: you get the feeling that Thorin and Company showed up at Bilbo's on a Friday evening and that they made it to Erebor some time the next week. There's no sense of the trudge through the wilderness, the scary maze of Mirkwood or the imprisonment by Thranduil.

It's the thing that so many critics of the books complain about and I believe most fans (especially Ranger-types) love: the feeling of being in Middle Earth, the idea of hiking for weeks through a mostly empty landscape filled with forests and Numenorean ruins, wherein one might meet a company of Dwarves, an Elf or two, or even a band of Orcs on the Road.
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Re: Desolation of Smaug: Review

Post by Greg »

Straelbora wrote:I just watched "The Fellowship of the Ring" for the first time in maybe a couple of years, and it really underscored how much more "The Hobbit" films are filled full of cartoonish video game play scenes.

And one other thing that was bugging me but that is now clear: you get the feeling that Thorin and Company showed up at Bilbo's on a Friday evening and that they made it to Erebor some time the next week. There's no sense of the trudge through the wilderness, the scary maze of Mirkwood or the imprisonment by Thranduil.

It's the thing that so many critics of the books complain about and I believe most fans (especially Ranger-types) love: the feeling of being in Middle Earth, the idea of hiking for weeks through a mostly empty landscape filled with forests and Numenorean ruins, wherein one might meet a company of Dwarves, an Elf or two, or even a band of Orcs on the Road.
Right there with you. I'm mid-way through a LOTR marathon right now...been a month or more since I popped the old ones in. They just feel so much more alive than the new films. Gilmi looks REAL. The new dwarves, compared to him, look like newspaper comics. Even Gloin and Balin, who I was most pleased with out of the bunch, look fake compared to him. The world felt real, and it lost that feel with the new films.
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Re: Desolation of Smaug: Review

Post by Eledhwen »

Agreed.

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Re: Desolation of Smaug: Review

Post by Jon »

Yes... also, the orcs (or goblins, you choose)

they just came across so fake and unreal compared to the original trilogy, maybe due to them using CGI a lot more heavily in the new films (instead of purely actors in costumes and make-up). Even just them walking along doesn't feel right

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Re: Desolation of Smaug: Review

Post by Addreonynn »

I know what you're talking About. Loved the film for what it is. A different story, but there was an absence of the skill and love weta put into lotr. The absence of craftmanship
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Re: Desolation of Smaug: Review

Post by wulfgar »

I finally saw it this weekend and for the most part I was disappointed. I though the spiders were really well done, and Smaug was very well done. I also appreciated the Dol Guldur scenes because of the set-up for LOTR. While I liked Smaug I didn't like the interaction with Bilbo revealing himself, and the fight with the dwarves. I though that the orcs entering Laketown was completely uneccessary. I was disappointed in the way Beorn chased them into his house. Don't get me started on the barrel rider sequence.
I knew going in that it wasn't the book and changes had been made, but I left with a feeling of betrayal. Why take a good story and just dump it for some completely mindless action. Also, if gold is hot enough to be liquid, don't you think that it would have made that wheelbarrow a little too warm to hold onto?
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