The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug - Seen it; open spoilers

Cafe Society
41

Many of the sins that the first movie were guilty of were present again… but somehow the whole thing worked way better. The barrel chase was in some ways just as silly as the dwarf escape, but it somehow didn’t bug me… in fact, I enjoyed just about everything quite a bit.

Some Tolkien fan fill me in here… purely in the source material, what’s the deal with “The Necromancer”. Is the idea that Gandalf and his gang knew that there was some evil wizard who had recently appeared, and referred to him, without knowing much about him, as “The Necromancer”, not realizing that it was Sauron deliberately hiding is strength and identity?

42

They didn’t realize who it was at first, but by the time of the Hobbit, Gandalf had figured it out.

Of course, that’s Tolkien fanwanking his own book after the fact. In The Hobbit, its just some generic badguy used as an excuse to get Gandalf out of the story, because its hard to have the Dwarves and Bilbo be suitably heroic if they have an uber-powerful, uber-wise wizard to lean on the whole time.

43

I think there’s a mention somewhere that they first thought it may have been the Witch King/Lord of the Nazgul, but then realized it was Sauron.

44

We enjoyed the movie, but I really wish Jackson hadn’t written out all the humor from the original. No “Fifteen Birds”, no “Attercop!”, no Beorn poking Bilbo’s waistcoat disrespectfully. Instead we get dwarves coming out of toilets.

I did like Jackson reprising his “Breeish carrot eater” role. Though I suppose he had to be playing his own grandfather or something.

45

Then you do not know the book. When I watch these films, it is pretty close to having the book open on my lap. I know the Hobbit exceptionally well and almost no scene played out like quite like the book.

46

I liked it much better than the first. I must be the only Tolkien fan that enjoyed the added parts more than the original(-ly written) bits. Even the romance bits only lasted a couple minutes so they were not that horrible.

I think the 3D cinematography was better in the (largely inserted) fight scenes, since in the first movie, any time the camera was moving it became hugely blurry (which also happened in 2D but it was ignorable then.)

But the fight scenes were nothing compared to the tomb and the fortress of the Necromancer, which were so beautiful that I was almost crying.

47

I liked the added scenes. I read once somewhere that Tolkien had wanted to rewrite the Hobbit to match the tone of LOTR, but never got around to it - I wonder if his finished product would have been something like this.

This was my first time seeing a movie in HFR, and it was hard to wrap my head around at first, but I liked it - the movement in the picture looks much more natural and filled-in, and there’s so much more detail.

48

Did anyone else get the feeling that the gold bath taken by Smaug is going to play a big role in the next movie?

Bard: “What was that glare?”
peers at Smaug
Bard: “By golly, that’s gold, a really soft metal. Surely that’s softer than the scales that repelled all my ancestors shots. I’ll sh0ot at that bright spot.”

49

It looked to me like Smaug shed the gold as he flew out of the mountain, before heading to Lake-Town.

50

Reading The Hobbit now for the first time in something like 35 years.

I know, I know, I’m a heretic. But I liked the movie version better. It is more grown up and all of the characters come off looking better than the book.

51

Smaug was armored by gems in the book.
Perhaps molten gold has a similar but not as effective effect?
Notice how I got around spoilers? :slight_smile:

52

They really do. Hmmm, who does IMDb say worked on the script?.. Novel by Tolkien, of course… Screenplay by Walsh, Boyens, Jackson, and del Toro…

Wait… “Editing and Revision by Bilbo Baggins?!” Dammit, he did it again!

53

Not to get into a nerd-fight, but that is a far cry from “nearly no relation” to the source material.

Anyway, I just got home from seeing it in good ol’ 2D (saw the previous one in 48fps 3D glory, which was fine, but I just took the earliest showing I could make after work).

I agree with those who say that, in general, this one works much better than the previous. The chase/battle scenes, even the “non-original” ones, flowed much easier in this film. After hearing about Tauriel I was worried, but aside from some god-awful TV-sitcom-level dialog, the “romance” is pretty sedate, and it didn’t bug me too much, though there’s always the third movie.

The scheme to get the forges working and douse Smaug with gold was the only real eyebrow-raising moment in the movie. I had a hard time following what was even going on until after the fact.

Am I the only one who thought that Bard looked a little like Inigo Montoya? I’m really hoping in the third movie he climbs the tower and says to Smaug, “My name is Bard the Bowman, you killed my father, prepare to die.”

54

One thing that puzzled me about the movie was the strongly implied anti-beard propaganda, which is doubly curious for a Guillermo del Toro-directed Peter Jackson production. When I saw the first Hobbit movie, I was like “Hey, that one Dwarf has no beard! What is up with that crap?!” Now we know, it is because he falls in love with an Elf. Because that relationship could work, but ONLY if the Dwarf has no beard.

Now traditionally, the Dwarf/beard correlation is pretty solid. If the screenwriter is convinced that an Elf/Dwarf romance is a good idea, then it really shouldn’t be necessary to specify a uniquely beardless Dwarf to make it seem plausible. Surely a bearded Dwarf could be sexy enough for the purpose.

55

I didn’t like it. I am not sure was it due to because the show wasn’t good, or because the row in front of me were taken up by kids who refused to shut the hell up and I had to tell them of twice to keep quiet, and even once at them to not to stand up while the moving is running.

Personally, I am ok with the changes - the ninja wizard part, elvish kungfu and even the forbidden romance. It’s just that I feel it could be edited better, because everything is. a. drag.

The barrel sequence, the Laketown fight, the Smaug/Biblo and the Lonely Mountain Amusement Park sequence are just way too long, and honestly, feature nothing much news Even Legolas’ barrel-leaping, knife swinging bow-fu leave me somewhat cold because there is simply too much of it.

By contrast, the best sequence in LOTR (for me) was the Bridge of Khazad Dum, and the introduction, build-up, climax and ending, all takes about 4 minutes, and perhaps no more than five.

There is just something abrupt about how the scenes progress - the most jarring is the beginning. The sequence of Beorn is rendered meaningless, and felt like something that belongs to the extended edition (how relevant is he, besides him appearing at the Battle of the Five Armies, a role which can be safely excised?). If Jackson has followed the book in the first part, where Gandalf uses the “two by two” ruse for the dwarves to meet Biblo, he could have done it again for Beorn. Unfortunately, Jackson didn’t.

I am quite ok with the Dwarf-Elf romance – because I know it is doomed. Legolas made no mention of Tauriel in Fellowship, Kili is dead, so that’s a huge blank canvas for Jackson to pour paint here - except unfortunately it doesn’t matter to the plot of the Hobbit. It’s like - darn - Jackson couldn’t find time to develop the romance between Eowyn and Faramir, but for the Hobbit he could invent a whole new one.

The reason is, in the end, the Hobbit isn’t as grand or spectacular a book as Lord of the Rings is, but Jackson insists on filming it as if it is. Characters in the Hobbit usually appeared for a scene or two, then disappeared - heck, we only knew about Bard when he was about to kill the dragon, but for the movie Jackson had to develop his backstory. It works for Bard, IMHO, but fell flat for Tauriel/Kili, and Beorn.

It also seems that Jackson has less faith in the source material than he had when was doing Lord of the Rings. The scene with Smaug was way overdrawn, and could have just followed the book - not to mentioned after minutes and minutes of the Dwarves running about, Smaug is relatively unscathed, making it a dreary shaggy dog story (honest, for a moment, I thought Smaug was going to die in the pool or something).

The Nercomancer part was … ninja wizard? I had the feeling from the way Gandalf described his exploits in Dol Guldur, he was being sneaky and quiet.

It should have been two movies. This way, there is no need for so much padding. For some reasons, PJ over-dramatizes and over-exaggerated everything. It’s just can’t be barrels floating down water - it must be a massive Elves vs. Orcs battle (that’s still ok, but it can’t beat the Amon Hen sequence). Biblo can’t just stand still and talk to Smaug. They both must move about. Beorn cannot be a simple man who can change into animals - he has to be a mindless ravaging beast while wearing the form of one. Gandalf simply didn’t just investigate the Nercomancer - he has to stride through the front door setting red flags off everywhere.

The only well done part, I feel, was Mirkwood and the spiders. Then again he went overboard with the dwarves getting surly and impatient. They must see doubles and hear whispers in the air.

KISS.

56

Truly, Lee Pace needs to be in more things.

57

My biggest beef with the changes is that the lengthy sequence with the dragon chasing the dwarves and Bilbo around really ratcheted down the threat posed by said dragon.

How awesome and awful can Smaug be, if he can chase the dwarves about for a half hour and not even get one? Even when they are standing on his very lip?

Also, Smaug leaving to toast Lake-Town made no sense. The dwarves were standing right there at the end of the chase, having covered him with molten gold. Why not eat or flame them, the dwarves who are pissing him off? Is it that Smaug just accepts that they are too agile for him to get?

In the book, Smaug is unable to get at the dwarves directly, because he doesn’t know exactly where they are - so he smashes up the mountainside where he thinks (rightly) the door may be, hopes that dealt with them, and then flies off to smash lake town.

58

Also, if I remember correctly, Smaug had also scattered and/or eaten their horses, and figured that even if they survived the mountain-smashing that they wouldn’t be able to get very far on foot before he’d get back from sacking the town and could track them down. He had no intention of letting them survive, he just didn’t see them right off and wanted to go kill something immediately, bad dragon temper and all that.

I mostly enjoyed the movie, but I agree that Smaug’s inability to kill even one of the dwarves that are basically sitting there and openly taunting him makes him look like a goof. Giving up on killing them right away although he knew right where they were is also a weird decision, even if you assume he’s still a little groggy from such a long sleep.

59

Yep, that was one of the beefs I had, too.

Saw it yesterday in IMAX 3-D, and it was barely OK. I thought the 3-D was terrible-- it made all the landscape stuff look ultra-fake, and every time someone was shown close-up, but from their back, they were just a big blur.

The movie, itself, seemed like a bunch of disjointed scenes with little relation one to the other. The Tauriel stuff was fine-- in fact, I think that made the more better, if anything. The Smaug special effects were fantastic (but diminished by his inability to do anything). And, once again, the actor playing Bilbo was superb. I found Thorin to be more than a little irritating, but I did like Thranduil playing the not-so-nice Elf.

I give it a B- overall. I think I actually enjoyed the first one better, but maybe because I had low expectations for that one (not so good reviews) and higher expectations for this one (good reviews in advance). It was way too long for the material it covered.

60

There was one odd thing, odd to me anyway, that, after I first noticed it, couldn’t help seeing again and again and it was rather distracting. I saw it first with Legolas and those very blue eyes (or contacts). In the lose-up, the pupils were very constricted. Figured it was some effect of contact lenses (doesn’t Orlando Bloom have brown eyes?) , but then started seeing it on the other actors in extreme close-ups, of which there seemed to be a lot. Perhaps it was because of the lighting used during the filming. Maybe it’s a common thing and I don’t get out to the movies often enough to notice. But it was distracting to me that the actors’ eyes frequently looked like they we stoned.