Saw "The Desolation of Smaug", want to share a few thoughts

[Siege_TF]

While the gold statue may have been poorly animated I think the Dwarf's plan was like Ripley's in Alien 3; kill the gribbly critter in molten metal. They just didn't understand that Smaug can get hotter than the molten gold, so they essentially splashed him in almost boiling water. It's probably Smaug's ability to get hot that just made the gold slough off him, it's low melting temperature would have made it cool on him very quickly otherwise.

Also his voice near the end of it made it pretty clear that he was just a little overstimulated, and he was at his wit's end like a cat trying to catch a shrew. The whole "I am fire... I am death..." thing was him taking a deep breath, counting to ten, and getting his shit together.

 

[Frission]

I thought it was able to recapture some of the Lotr melancholy better than the first movie.

 

[Salad Is Murder]

Yeah, I don't know if a dragon with Sean Connery's voice can be topped...

"Aye yam the lastch wun!" isn't even on the list.

Top 3 Best Movie Dragons:
1. Maleficent - Sleeping Beauty, the original not whatever crap they're remaking with Angelina Jolie.
2. Smaug - The Hobbits's
3. Vermithrax - Dragonslayer* (who is only bumped down on account of it not having the Cumber-bonus of a speaking part)

*Seriously, this movie is really good and grim as hell, think it's free to watch on Youtube. Also, the guy who played the Emperor in the Star Wars movies plays a priest who gets set on fire. 80's Disney did not mess around.

 

[Fdzzaigl]

Saw it yesterday, thought it was a very enjoyable ride. Like the first movie, it failed to capture the magic of the first trilogy, but it was still very fun to watch.

You noticed how the plot was stretched thin through all the action sequences: they didn't actually get very far in the story over the time the movie took. However, it never annoyed me either, because the action was very well done.

Smaug was extremely impressive, awe-inspiring even. If you compare him to other big movie beasts like the ones in Pacific Rim, the dragon actually felt threatening and dangerous, unlike the big things that just sorta looked cool in PR.
I did imagine him a bit less bat-like as well, but I can see why they went with that look.

(Seriously Gandalf, that power would have come in handy about a bazillion times).

Gandalf failing to use his powers isn't really a storytelling failure in Tolkiens universe imo.

Usually (good) magical beings don't really spam their powers in the universe and only use them when the need is dire. Then again, he does seem to spam things a lot more often in the Hobbit films.

 

[Baron von Blitztank]

I saw this one on Friday just before my birthday and I really enjoyed it! It felt like it was going for a bit more of a tone aking to Lord of The Rings with Bilbo slowly going crazy because of the ring, the whole sequence with the Spiders, Gandalf investigating the ring wraiths and of course throwing in Legolas. I'm not exactly complaining either, since I liked the overall tone of Lord of The Rings (although saying that, I didn't mind the more comedic tone that was set with the first Hobbit movie). I'll also admit that it was a huge breath of fresh air to see a movie where enemies get brutally killed instead of "knocked out" or "beat up" or any other kinds of non-lethal methods. And finally, Smaug was absolutely fantastic. The CGI used on him was magnificent and the voice work was nice, deep and quite sinister.

That being said,I had my issues with it.

1- The 3D. This is more a personal issue I have but it was REALLY painful watching a 2h 30m+ movie in 3D. More-so since the film was dimly lit for the most part since it's primarily set in either a dark forest, a dark fortress, a dark cave or a town at night so I'm already having to strain my eyes a bit to see what's going on!

2- Smaug's a Wyvern and not a Dragon. This is entirely nit-picking, nor that major since I was fine with Skyrim doing the same thing, but it does annoy me slightly when the terms are misused.

3- The Elf/Dwarf romance love-triangle subplot was just pointless. According to my sister it isn't part of the original book so it comes off as even more pointless stuff which they added in just to extend the screen-time and have the obligatory Hollywood romance subplot (because apparently all films need romance). Also kind of irritating how they'd cut from Smaug chasing some Dwarves just so we could get some more lovey-dovey romance.

4- The Gold Dwarf Statue. While a cool idea and all, it seemed to do absolutely nothing to Smaug. He was already on his way to torch Laketown, frying him in Gold did nothing but piss him off! Maybe it's more to show how dangerous Smaug is and how he can only be defeated by the MacGuffin Arrow.

5- The ending. I'm not even sure if I can call it an ending since the film doesn't even conclude a story arc as much as it just stops before stuff gets really good! I guess ending on a cliffhanger does serve the purpose of pretty much guaranteeing I'll pay to see the next film when it comes out but the first film was capable of doing that while still maintaining a feeling of resolution.

Issues aside, I really enjoyed it and if you liked the first film then you'll enjoy this!

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

I don't have many gripes about it: I knew beforehand that the 3D was going to be meh, and that HFR is still a gimmick and doesn't add all that much to a movie anyway.

I will say that I dislike the heavy use of CGI, whilst it definitely looks like the Hobbit(ie, not as murky as LoTR, brighter, more vibrant) it gets a bit distracting at times, not to mention the fact that the movie will not age well if it continues doing this.

Other than that, a massive improvement over the second one, just like how Two Towers was over Fellowship, hopefully we will end as well as Return of The King did(though maybe no Oscars this time :3)

I've also been thinking: since Tolkien's works seem to be a steady source of income for Jackson and co. will they keep making more movies? If so, I can't imagine where they can go from now without it becoming too challenging?(very little chance that they could pull of the Silmarillon without making it feel rushed/incomplete)

 

[Commander CC]

They could probably have made the final action scene a bit more consequential and more in keeping with the book by

1. Having Smaug decide much earlier to attack Laketown when Bilbo mentions barrels, and then have Bilbo and Co try to prevent this and have to intimidate Smaug into chasing them around instead of leaving. They already established that Smaug hated Thorin, who was even able to get Smaug to chase him multiple times by insulting him. It wouldn't be too much of a leap to assume Smaug might delay an attack on Laketown and prioritize killing Thorin in these circumstances. Alternatively, the established Smaug wouldn't suffer any of his treasure to be taken, so they could steal the Arkenstone or some other highly valuable piece and run around with that hoping Smaug would chase them, until he finally gets so annoyed he just abandons all his treasure to attack Laketown anyway.

AND/OR 2. During the action scene, have Bilbo explain to the Dwarves about the weakness in Smaug's armour. The whole point of the action scene would then be Thorin and Co trying to weaken the armour more. Ie, maybe the molten gold bath they devised could have been intended and then shown to dislodge all of the treasure that was encrusted into his underbelly, thus opening his existing wound (or they could have made it that Smaug had plugged up his existing wound with gold or something, and the molten gold gets rid of this). This would at least have meant the action scene at the end would have had some impact in future scenes, having made Smaug more vulnerable than he would have been if the action scene hadn't taken place.

All of this could be achieved with like 2 additional lines and one or two establishing shots. I'm sure there are lots of other ways they could have fixed it, too.

Sorry for the ramble, just some things I had been mulling over that could have improved that final action sequence in terms of overall value to the story and consistency with character motivation. Without them Smaug really might as well have just immediately attacked Laketown!

 

[Fdzzaigl]

I just don't go to 3D anymore. It costs more, gotta put up with the grimy glasses and you suffer from a headache afterwards, it's stupid.

 

[Do4600]

I thought it was an absolutely dreadful film. This second movie was two and a half hours long and they covered about 20 pages of the material from the book. The Hobbit just wasn't meant to be a trilogy. LOTR was, it's obvious, they had way too much material to use for the LOTR films and way too little for The Hobbit, and because they don't have enough material they just made up a whole bunch of shit to fill the space between plot points and it's all silly, boring, cgi action scenes that don't have any purpose. That's why they put Legolas in this movie because they didn't have anything else to put in it.

The worst thing they did, the last 40 minutes, utterly pointless, a long, convoluted action scene that does absolutely nothing to advance the story. They have this long stupidly complex plan and by the end of it, nothing has been accomplished.

The biggest problem I had with this movie is that it used very little of the source material, like I said it's about 20 pages in the book. Imagine reading The Hobbit, after a page in, it just stops and there's a 20 minute action scene that was never in the book but at the end of it we pick up exactly where we left off in the book like nothing happened, then you read another two pages and there's another action scene that has nothing to do with the book, then we come back to the material like nothing happened. They just do that over and over and over, and the last part is the worst insult, because it's less than a page, you read the first half, then there is a ridiculous 40 minute action scene and then they get back to the story, and the actions they did in those 40 minutes are pointless, everything still happens the same as it did in the book, they just get the benefit of padding the film out so they can have a trilogy.

It's not that I'm against getting away from the source material, especially because they are throwing whole chunks of The Silmarillion in there, but the battle scenes do nothing for the story, you could edit them out and have a better, tighter plot. It feels like the movie Commando with Arnold Schwarzenegger were the last 40 minutes is just him standing a courtyard with a M60 machine gun shooting hundreds of south americans, it's boring as hell and silly and it got old so fast. Legolas keeps finding new ways of cutting orcs heads off and we know he won't get hurt because it's a prequel, there's no tension and it just goes on and on.

 

[Rush Syks]

Well, a lot of things that annoyed me were already mentioned, so let me just add a little nitpick:

I want the material of the hand barrow Thorin uses to SWIM ON A STREAM OF MOLTEN GOLD. I mean seriously, a 2 centimeter strong chunk of that material let's you swim in gold without even breaking a sweat? Why the hell didn't they build some fireshields againtst the dragon out of that stuff, seams to be cheap as well, when it's used for simple tools.

 

[Scarim Coral]

I finally watched the film an hour ago and here is my two cent-

1 The romance subplot was dull.

2 The dragon is awesome.

3 Consider what Gandalf had gone throught, you would think he would stop going solo especilly at The Fellowship of the Ring.

4 Plothole, that scene when the fat dwarf barrelroll the orcs to death (no offence, I forgotten his name), his barrel eventually broke up and he jump right into an empty barrel, where did that come from? No other dwarf had left their barrel except one of the twim nor did we did the barrel look like it can hold two dwarf (so it unlikely there was another dwarf end up being underneath the fat one when he jump into it).

5 It was claim that Laketown had alot of guards and yet orc slip in easily? Yes it was the night but you would think the guards would heard the grunting sound during the fight. I would of bought if they had slay them but that scene when the leader exit via one of the gates, there was no bloody slayed guard to be seen or am I meant to be buy in that it happened off screen? Before you asked with the two elfs, I believe enough that they were simply skillfull to avoid dectection.

6 Smaug is a hypocrite. He talks on about Bilbo is a thief and the dwares are greedy but he is te biggest greedy thief of all of Middle Earth (well ok Blibo and Gollum are also accuse of that but that is a different matter) considering that he stole the dwares home and treasure! Seriously why does he need that gold since he doesn't need currency or does golds make good blanket for a dragon. I mean look at his greedy eyes when he stare at that giant golden dwarf statue!

 

[Dalisclock]

Generally liked it but the padding was fairly obvious.

Big issues I had with it:
-Saving the dwarf during the rest of the stuff going on felt like a massive distraction from everything else.
-The laketown guards can instantly arrest bard, instantly catch a bunch of dwarves sneaking into their armory but somehow when 30 or so orcs run around the town killing people, not one guard shows up at any point. Even worse, it's shown there is only one bridge to reach the city and apparently it's not being watched or guarded. Their sheer incompetence is made worse by their earlier omnipresence and ability to be everywhere instantly.
-Lighting the dwarf forges and using them against smaug. Nope. Credibility broken there. No way in hell all that equipment which has been out of commission for the last several decades at least is going to just up and start working, with maybe 10 people operating the whole thing.

 

[Artemis923]

The majority of the movie is an embarrassment to its source material and an insult to its fanbase.

So much of this movie was just BAD. It didn't feel like Middle Earth, and the over the top action sequences and idiotic love triangle did nothing to help alleviate that feeling. The Hobbit has turned out to be just another generic fantasy movie, lacking the magic and wonder that it should have and instead stuffed full of painful cliches and worthless action.

 

[fezgod]

The Desolation of Smaug was a huge disappointment for me because the entire movie felt like padding. Aside from a few scenes, everything in the movie felt like it was added just so they could stretch the Hobbit into three movies, when there really was only enough material for two. Bizarrely enough, the part that I disliked the most - Gandalf investigating Dol Guldur - was what I had been looking forward to the most (besides Smaug). Take the scene where Gandalf is fighting Sauron. Maybe I'm the only person who felt this way but I didn't feel like there was any tension at all because we all know there isn't going to be any resolution to the fight because of, I don't know, the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy.

 

[Strazdas]

Well that seals it, i am going to watch it today, was on the fence about it but seems like its worth it.

even if they had to only because it was required reading at most High Schools.

Wow, i am now jelous of a system that allows you to read books like the the Hobbit. Here in school we all we had was grim local authors mostly complaining about how evil the soviets were or how good the faith was or how bad that not everyone are farmers. and thats "classics" here. Imagine if you were forced to read a bad copycat of shakespear for your class, thats the thing. And they think those are somehow big writers here.
That bieng said i did skip quite a few of them and many kids may have done the same for the hobbit. I personally never read the book either, only the main trilogy.

How many other books from the time period have been considered classic children's novels pretty much since they were released?

Thousands?

 

[King Billi]

What we got was NOT a Dragon. That was a Wyvern. A dragon has 4 legs. I suppose that no matter how much I try and educate you all to the difference between the two, you neither accept or willingly learn.

Allow me to put it like this. Calling a Wyvern a Dragon is like calling donkey a horse. From the same family but two ENTIRELY different things.

I'm sorry, you're trying to "educate" us on the proper anatomy of a creature which dosen't, I repeat DOSEN"T EXIST?

Seriously man it's a movie, and a fantasy movie at that they can make their Dragon look however they want it to and frankly it looks awesome!

 

[Private Custard]

Right, I saw it yesterday and have now had time to mull it over. I may as well bullet-point things for simplicity. Spoilers inbound.

Legolas - Why the fuck was he hammering around with some kind of god mode cheat activated? I know he's supposed to be good, but this was on another level. There was simply no tension in any fight he was involved in.

The bloody nose, and resulting pissed-off expression, was just a joke.

Survival by convenience and/or chance - A huge overkill on this one. How many times can you run underneath the rampaging dragon, before you actually do get flattened?

Bouncing down the side of the rapids in a barrel and not only surviving without a scratch, but also randomly skittling every enemy in your way.

How can that many defenceless dwarves in barrels avoid getting even slightly injured? Sure Kili got hit in the leg, but he wasn't in a barrel at the time!

Smaug was awesome and retarded in equal measures - Sure, his reveal was brilliant, and the design was amazing.......but he was a fucking idiot!

I'll pick out just one of the many moments he appeared to be the offspring of a village idiot and a TV weather girl.

When the dwarves had the idea that they could use Smaug to light the forges, they hid behind the sections of the large metal gate. As soon as the flaming was done (which would have killed them anyway), they proceeded to walk right out into the open, in front of Smaug, to co-ordinate who was doing what.

By this point, Smaug was trying to smash down the gate.

Newsflash Smaug, they're out of cover and right in front of you......just fucking roast 'em, you know, like you were trying only a few seconds ago!

His stupidity knew no bounds.

filler/padding - Most of it was a waste of time. Action sequences dragged on and on, whilst parts that I'd actually like to have seen flashed out a bit more were just done in passing (I wanted to see more of Beorn. Why does Mirkwood mess with peoples minds? etc etc...)

Both the barrel scene and the smaug/dwarves chase towards the end, just seemed to have been stretched out to an almost tedious level. And the stupid things, like Thorin actually standing on Smaugs face, were almost painful to watch.


I could go on all day really.

I'd probably rate the film as a solid 6.....pulled up to a 7.5, purely because Smaug was awesome (but completely retarded!). It has fairly high production values, even if a lot of the CGI is shoddy. But the pacing, logic, character development and stretched action scenes and filler, do too much damage.

At some point in the coming year, there will be an extended version. What's really needed is the third film, and then a clever re-edit that will compress them all into one four-hour epic!


QUICK EDIT

Who the hell though it would be a good idea to stick what looked like unedited GoPro footage into the movie??