Escape to the Movies: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

[BrotherRool]

Yeah, I mean, they're not perfect, and there's numerous elements that really bugged me, but I was giving them a chance for the sake of my girlfriend, and in fairness, I was pleasantly surprised.

I wasn't writhing in agony while watching them by any means. Plus I loved the series of 'fuck yous' the characters were giving to the Capitol, so that was nice.
Plus there's a good political unrest theme going on there, and I love the satire of X Factor bullshit going on too.
Lovely sting at modern celebrity obsession.

I love Bob's stuff, but honestly, I prefer his Big Picture show because it's a lot more fair and balanced.

Lord knows, he's a fan of vitriol and seems to get personally offended in the movie reviews.

To be fair, I've always found his reviews entertaining (except for the sidejabs), and if they're not particularly useful in guessing whether I'd like a film or not, they so sometimes give a fresh perspective and I would rather hear his often-incredibly-personal sometimes infuriating opinions than something he watered down to balance more with how people feel. (Although if he could avoid language that makes it sound like the whole world shares his viewpoint, that'd be awesome)

And his Big Picture stuff is generally legitimately thought provoking or interesting

 

[RTR]

Also, the dwarves could've spared themselves so much trouble if this happened:

 

[Primus1985]

I really dug Luke Evans as the Bard great casting choice and Laketown looked great overall. My favorite location visually so far. Smaug was a knockout. The scene with him talking with Bilbo was the best part of the movie in my opinion.

Is this scene like the book? Its been since 10+ years since I read The Hobbit, but from what I remember wasnt Bilbo wearing the ring and invisible when he was talking to Smaug, and also alone for some reason? That and Smaug really didnt much care that Bilbo was there, he wasnt a threat.

 

[daxterx2005]

Was optimus prime hiding under the gold?!

 

[coheedswicked]

For those of you wondering marvel put out a mini-series explaining where war machine was during the battle of new york

http://marvel.com/comics/series/16279/marvels_iron_man_3_prelude_2012_-_present

 

[Kirke]

Snip

This will certainly be explained in movie 3, unless they are going to massively change from the book. This army is also much smaller than the later ones, in the book it is only around 6000 orcs.

There's an army of orcs and Gandalf has now seen Sauron. No matter how lazy the various kingdoms are, Gandalf clearly knows enough stabby bastards to get the job done at some point over sixty years. Unless he gets his memory erased, in which case that scene was supremely pointless, there is no reason for Gandalf to sit on information that would severely hamstring Sauron's plans for taking over the world for over half a century.

I can't really explain more without going into spoiler territory, so here we go.

Spoiler: Spoilers for the end of the Hobbit and what happens in between the Hobbit and LotR.

Okay, that army is almost completely annihilated in the Battle of the Five Armies. Sauron is driven from Dol Guldur by an assault from the White Council. The council believes that Sauron is once more beaten. He then flees to Mordor and builds up a stronghold there.

I doubt Gandalf could gather enough dudes to invade Mordor, and even then they can't kill Sauron. Nobody in Middle-Earth can! He's a demigod, immortal. When the ring is destroyed, he becomes far too weak to ever gain pose a threat again, but he is not killed.

 

[TakerFoxx]

Anyway, are we not gonna talk about Thranduil's rotting cheek in the scene where he's trying to cut a deal with Thorin?

I mean, his cheek starts rotting away and his eye turns white!!

What do people think it signifies? I have my own theories, but I'd love to hear what others think when they see the movie.

Popular theory holds that he was horribly burned while fighting fire drakes in the North (more-or-less openly stated in the film) and is wearing a glamour to disguise the damage, but during his talk with Thorin he got so angry that his control slipped for a second. I personally hold to that theory, though it is also possible that he was healed from his injuries, but used magic to show Thorin what they had looked like to drive the point home.

 

[Arcane Azmadi]

BETTER than the first one? Sweet! I was worried this was the one that was going to be the WEAKEST of the trilogy.

 

[Therumancer]

If anyone is going to go see this then don't see it in 3D. It's just distracting and grainy and terrible and....bleh.

Also, does anyone else see Luke Evans and think "Discount Orlando Bloom" or is it just me?

Nope, not just you. Their resemblance is uncanny.

Anyway, I agree and disagree with this review. Personally, I felt that this was the weakest of the Jackson movies so far. The pacing was really choppy in the beginning, with the Beorn scene being the ultimate example in that he really got the shaft and most of the most memorable bits of his part got cut out, and Mirkwood was a bit rushed too. And while I agree that the whole Tauriel thing was well-written and the actress did a great job, but overall her inclusion did feel...unnecessary, like they only added her so the movie would have at least one prominent female role and provide the obligatory romantic sideplot. Personally, I would have preferred it had they just left her out, expanded on some of the parts from the beginning, and had less "Oh look at Legolas and friends (other elves) being awesome!"

But beyond those complaints, I liked it a lot. Bilbo and the Dwarves were wonderful as usual, Benedict Cumberbatch was the perfect choice for Smaug (who may be the most terrifying movie beast since the T-rex in Jurassic Park), and I loved the expanded role both Bard and Gandalf had.

Well, the thing is that the actual books are short on the descriptive action, what these movies are doing is more or less elaborating on events from the books that took place. For example the Dwarves do have a confrontation with the wood elves and spend a lot of time as their prisoners, and the wood elves are more or less presented as being the bad guys. Given that Legolas was their prince, needless to say this early portrayal of him isn't going to be flattering. It also to an extent sets things up for the later scenes between him and Gimli in Lord Of The Rings. To be brutally honest one thing I hated about the LoTR movies was how they turned Gimli, the quintessential awesome dwarven fighter, into a comedy relief character. With all the scenes the did, elaborating greatly on the role of characters like Arwyn who were not big parts of the story originally, and missing bits like Legolas' contest at Helm's Deep with Gimli over how many orcs they could both kill, a fight scene that begged to be cinematized since they are both supposed to drop close to a hundred dudes apiece. Legolas wins, and has Gimli complaining that the last orc he decapitated had an iron collar that notched his axe. We got tons of scenes of Legolas being awesome, but few really pointing out how amazingly talented fighters Dwarves are supposed to be (although admittedly they do get stomped almost constantly in The Hobbit). It strikes me as being relatively absurd that they would decide to have more scenes displaying the awesomeness of elves when it's already been established, and they do kind of need to establish how tough these dwarves are supposed to be before the finale.

While this might count as a SPOILER of sorts, the entire thing comes to a climax with the battle of five armies, which pretty much involves four armies of various races (Men, Dwarves, Elves, and yes... Giant Eagles) fighting one super army of goblins despite the initial intent of the Men, Dwarves, and Elves to beat the living stuffing out of each other over the treasure of the dwarven kingdom now that the Dragon is gone. The big final fight scene is supposed to be Thorin and his bodyguard making a heroic charge in the 11th hour to try and take out the leader of the Goblins, they clear a path in a rather epic display of non-comedic, non-3d dangling martial prowess, but ultimately fail. The day is ultimately saved when Beorn (that guy being viewed as somewhat extraneous) shows up with his guys... and oops he's a pseudo-divine semi-invulnerable were-bear and oh gee, Thorin just cleared a path right to the leader. RIP Bolg.

At any rate the point of my rambling is mostly to point out where I see the failings, and also to point out that a lot of the filler is intended to make these movies a little less boring, what's more a lot of the side things that are actually from the book (meeting Beorn for example) actually have a point. My big problem is when they start outright adding stuff at the expense of things I feel are fairly important. I'm guessing half the problem is that Peter Jackson can't figure out a way to make Dwarves seem like vicious action heroes on screen, which kind of means that for all of his other strengths he really doesn't belong doing these movies. Yes, Thorin picks it up a bit, but to be honest I don't think they have managed to really sell the character given some of the antics in the first movie, they pretty much need to take a look at Legolas, and pretty much be saying "what Legolas does with a bow, one of these dwarves is supposed to be doing with an axe".... as Gimli, who is the son of Gloin (who is present in these movies) is supposed to demonstrate in LoTR, leading up to the famous contest.

-

While I'm rambling about this stuff I'll say that I think "War Machine" doesn't belong in The Avengers movies. I'm more irritated over him not being used more in the third Iron Man movie though. The only real reason for putting him in at this point is to cater to political correctness and liberal white guilt so we can have a black super hero on the front line (the version of "Nick Fury" they are using isn't very super despite doing the action-guy thing, very much needing the Avengers, where in the comics he can do a lot of that stuff himself which adds some extra meaning when he actually needs the support of super heroes, and he tends to dislike calling them in).

All PC complaints aside, I honestly wouldn't care that much since War Machine is a fairly cool character, but "The Avengers" already suffered from the problem of having too many characters to worry about without tossing in another one. When you have Jeremy Renner playing Hawkeye and Scarlet Johansson playing Black Widow both showing off more awesome and arguably getting more scenes than Captain America, there is a problem. Of course it probably comes down to pretty much everyone else being a bigger name actor and demanding X amount of screen time. Toss War Machine into that mix, and it's going to detract from someone else unless they are pulling another character or two from the roster and I missed the announcement, at which point it's fine, although I'd recommend simply using the time it frees up for another character like Cap.

To be honest with the contract problems with Robert Downy Jr. and the amount of money he's been demanding, I'd probably want to hold James Rhodes in reserve for a while. The reason simply being that if they lose Robert at some point they can easily justify Rhodey stepping up and actually becoming "Iron Man" (as Iron Man, not War Machine) for a while since he did that in the comics. It gives them the option for them to use the suit and then show at some point it was secretly Rhodey inside of it or whatever for movies while not needing Robert and leaving the option open for them to bring him back later if he ever gets a taste for what is arguably his most defining role again and becomes more willing to negotiate on salary should that be the issue for a break up. I suppose having Rhodey as "War Machine" doesn't detract from this, but really to pull this off right, people shouldn't be expecting him to show up in his own armor regularly.

 

[JaceArveduin]

While this might count as a SPOILER of sorts, the entire thing comes to a climax with the battle of five armies, which pretty much involves four armies of various races (Men, Dwarves, Elves, and yes... Giant Eagles) fighting one super army of goblins

The Five Armies actually consist of Dwarves, Men, and Elves versus Goblins and Wargs (which are actually sentient, but Jackson never admits it)

I had some fun with it, with my least favorite part being the whole romance bit and my favorite obviously being Smaug (which I pronounce like smog, cause I can)

 

[shogunblade]

I went to my first midnight showing to see "Desolation of Smaug", and I was not disappointed, well, a few spots maybe, but overall, I really want to see it again.

I did hate where they ended the movie at, but it was fun to watch and I loved seeing Stephen Colbert and Stephen Fry, who I didn't recognize off the bat.

A great movie, fun to enjoy and I am glad I saw it.

Wait, what? Stephens Colbert AND Fry are in here? That may be a deal maker for me, thanks for the heads up.

And when you see him, Your brain will shout 'Holy Shit!', but please refrain from shouting it in the theater, for the audiences convenience and your own. It will tickle you, it did me to see him. Have fun when you see it.

 

[MrBaskerville]

I'm kinda torn on this one, i really hated the first one as the action scenes were complete rubbish and the plot barely moved an inch. But it seems like some people are being won over by the sequel, so maybe they fixed all the problems, i'm defineately curious, though i don't expect much.

 

[Kevin Puszert]

You know, I actually read the Hobbit.

Frankly, I don't remember any of this shit. There was barely enough content to fill one movie, let alone 2 or 3.

 

[Dimitriov]

I never understand people who get upset at a movie adaptation that is clearly not trying to be exactly like the book for not being exactly like the book.

If you want a story that's exactly like the book then go read the book.

Also good review, Bob.

What if I wanted (and have wanted for more than twenty years) to see one of my favourite books brought to life on the screen? And instead all I get is some terribly-written fan-fic designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator of society?


When you change things to make them work better in a film format that is fine, and obviously acceptable. When you change characters, major events, and story-arcs then you are suggesting that you think you can write a better story than the actual author did. Guess what? Peter Jackson and his crew sure as shit can't.

 

[faefrost]

Just saw it and I loved it. That being said their was not enough Gandalf for my liking but what there was was epic, especially a meeting with someone that was very dramatic and it does end rather abruptly but this just means the begining of the movie should be explosive.

I have but one question that can be answered in one word, so that's all I ask. No spoilers or anything else.

Do the spiders talk? Yes or no please.

Seriously, this is all I care about. The eagles didn't talk, so I'm very worried about the spiders talking. I would like to know ahead of time so I can be prepared to brush it off and not bracing myself the entire movie to be disappointed, or go in with a smile on my face.

Spoiler

Yes, but in a way that makes absolute perfect sense

 

[DementedSheep]

The action scenes where fun and Smaug was awesome.
Tauriel and Legoles (Peter Jackson seems to really like his elves) need stop scene stealing though and they fuck right off with that love triangle bullshit. Next thing I read with a love triangle gets thrown in the fire. In fact Tauriel just seems like a bad fan fiction character.

 

[SlightlyEvil]

Gotta disagree with Bob on this one. While all the individual parts were good, some even great, I felt that the story meandered way too much. Throughout, I kept asking myself "would the movie be better without this scene?"

Between this movie, Catching Fire, and Thor: The Dark World, what's with all the meandering trilogy-middle movies out recently? And why can't they have a decent ending?

 

[Endocrom]

Bob pronounces "Smaug" funny.

"Smowg."

...

Because it's, linguistically, how it's supposed to be pronounced?

So the Denny's commercials [http://www.ispot.tv/ad/75h6/dennys-hobbit-home-breakfast] got it right and an actual movie about it [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077687/] got it wrong. Funny.

 

[scw55]

I really enjoyed the film.

Unfortunately I watched it in 3D, which meant my immersion was broken every time a 3D affect didn't work. Middle-Earth films are a films I want and enjoy being immersed in.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

I just saw the movie last night. It was okay, but there was way too much of that Peter Jackson, I'm going to make this my own thing and change lots of things and add things that never happened(I'm not talking about the Gandalf side story), basically the Hollywood touch of mediocrity. Though, at least he wasn't using the other more used, touch of totally destroy and kill, I'm looking at you people who did the epic fail attempt of making the Eragon movie.

You know, I actually read the Hobbit.

Frankly, I don't remember any of this shit. There was barely enough content to fill one movie, let alone 2 or 3.

There is enough content by Jackson adding the content that was from the appendices of the Lord of the Rings books, stuff that told what Gandalf was doing during all the times he left the group. That part of the story was published later in 1980 in a book called "Unfinished Tales".

Now what isn't right about the movie is that Jackson was again up to using his old stupid tricks that he did in the Lord of the Rings movies, which were adding things that never happened, stuff that never happened the lore/side stories, and changing/removing characters.

He screwed up Bard's story(effectively changing how about Smaug is killed, not by the means it happens, but by plot points that gets the story to the point of it). He added an unnecessary plot point for one of the side dwarfs, that again, wasn't a part of the book. In the mountain with Smaug, yeah he did have key dialogue that was from scenes in the book, but then added more unnecessary things that never happened, probably and stupidly to "keep up with having more action scenes...a derrp...we need more action and drawn out fight scenes deeeerrp, cause movie endings need high amounts of action...amiright...derp derp."

Peter Jackson here is added more points to why when it comes to Hollywood and books, we just can't have nice things.

I never understand people who get upset at a movie adaptation that is clearly not trying to be exactly like the book for not being exactly like the book.

If you want a story that's exactly like the book then go read the book.

The point would be that people like me get mad because in many cases books only get one chance when it comes to big budget movies, which logically, if done right, are made for people that read the books, which means if the movie makers know what they are doing, they will stay absolutely faithful to the source material.

And no, the whole "if you wanted what was in the book, then go read the book" argument is invalid.

1.) When people read a book and love it, they sit and imagine the events in their head.

2.) Then when they hear that said loved story is getting turned into a movie, they want to see those points played out in movie form. They want to go, "ah ha, I remember reading that part."

3.) Such people understand that not everything will be exactly as the imagined it, like how the characters move about and such, how they are standing, demeanor and all that. Those are things that are left up for movie creator interpretation.

4.) Such people what every plot point to play out the same as how they play out in the book, and for there to be no unneeded new additions to the plot or new plot points entirely.(And really, for the first movie adaption, that is the way it should always be.)

The overused argument point you made is invalid, because people that read the book want something that build on what they experienced while reading the book with a visual aspect, not a changed angle on the story with stupid filler that didn't happened and isn't needed, and only added to make the movie longer and stupidly add something that will pull people that didn't read the books into watch it or to fit typical "movie standards and pacing".

These problems in the movie industry are why if I ever write a book that becomes loved by people, I will never allow Hollywood to get a hold of the rights to make a movie of it. They can't be trusted to do it exactly right, they always have to stupidly fiddle with something and change the tone of the story and how it works.