Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug spoiler thread

[The Marquis de Leech]

1. The Tauriel-Kili romance was cute, but unnecessary. Tauriel's role is much too close to Arwen's in the LOTR films (female elf disobeys male patriarch to follow her love for a member of another race.)

Female elf disobeys male patriarch to follow her love for a member of another race is a very Tolkienian trope. It's up there with Elves having impressive hair, and humans being ambitious.

[Lightning Lord]

I really loved the movie, mainly because I love Jackson's vision of Middle-Earth. I didn't mind the additions because they expand on the greater story (the coming war).

I did have two complaints, although they did not diminish my enjoyment:

1. The Tauriel-Kili romance was cute, but unnecessary. Tauriel's role is much too close to Arwen's in the LOTR films (female elf disobeys male patriarch to follow her love for a member of another race.)

2. The dragon-versus-dwarves throwdown inside the mountain. I felt it took the spotlight off of Bilbo at the most crucial moment of his life. I'll never forget the scene in the book where Bilbo snatched the golden cup from the treasure and escapes, only to find out he unwittingly unleashed the dragon against Laketown. In the movie, his role is almost an afterthought.

But otherwise, I really enjoyed it.

The bolded parts...if you didn't care for that scene, how can you really love the movie? That scene was, according to my rough calculation, 74 minutes long, because they had to allow enough time for that very-obviously-real gold to melt.

[Corvinus85]

The bolded parts...if you didn't care for that scene, how can you really love the movie? That scene was, according to my rough calculation, 74 minutes long, because they had to allow enough time for that very-obviously-real gold to melt.

Maybe they used Khal Drogo's method of melting gold ;)

[The Marquis de Leech]

Maybe they used Khal Drogo's method of melting gold ;)

Poor Smaug. All he ever wanted was a crown somewhere to sleep.

[Lightning Lord]

Maybe they used Khal Drogo's method of melting gold ;)

Poor Smaug. All he ever wanted was a crown somewhere to sleep.

lol :rofl:

[naz]

Gah. So much disappointing bullshit in this film that if I tried to put it all in words, it would go on forever. Suffice to say, although I'm inured to changes in adaptions, the wholesale slaughter of all but the barest skeleton of Tolkien's work just leaves me with a bitter taste in my mouth. Peter Jackson has become such a phenomenally bad and stupid film-maker... agh... This is the same guy who made Heavenly Creatures?

It's not just the changes in the story that bother me, it's doing it so stupidly and heavy-handedly. Somehow, in adapting a children's book to an adult movie, it manages to become dumber. So many SMH moments in this film and so many moments I kept asking myself "Why?" Fucking disappointing.

eta: Ok, I'll give one example to illustrate my point. Why, when the source material has so many lovely comedic moments already, does PJ need to abandon these and insert completely new fabricated moments, like the Rotating Bombur Barrel of Death, which is only comedic in a dumb, obvious and completely unsubtle way? It's like the difference between Monty Python humor and SNL humor. I've given Peter Jackson a huge benefit of a doubt over the years, but I will never, ever believe him again when he says that this is his homage to a "beloved" work of fiction. No one who loves the source material as much as he claims he does would ever make such garbage. Not willingly, anyway.

[Corvinus85]

All the complaints I see here make me wonder how this project would have turned up if Guillermo del Toro had been the director, and Jackson only the producer.

[Lightning Lord]

Wait wait wait...Peter Jackson claims that this was an homage? No one that holds The Hobbit as "beloved" would have devoted eleventy-first minutes to a heretofore-unknown Dwarf-Dragon insanity.

[naz]

Wait wait wait...Peter Jackson claims that this was an homage? No one that holds The Hobbit as "beloved" would have devoted eleventy-first minutes to a heretofore-unknown Dwarf-Dragon insanity.

Well, no. Homage is my word. But he's certainly claimed to have loved the books a great deal and that these films are being made with some respect for the world that the Professor created. I used to believe that but find it increasingly hard to swallow.

[red snow]

Maybe they shouldn't have called this one "the desolation of Smaug" when he never actually lays waste to anything? Then again one definition of "desolation" is " a state of complete emptiness or destruction."

I guess the film was being meta and going for complete emptiness in terms of arcs, etc :P

I think for those who feel like PJ has raped the Hobbit book, they should take some solace in the fact that he hasn't actually rewritten the book. You can still read that one and it will be 100% faithful to the original (unless it has been altered over the decades as well). That and after 2 films you really shouldn't be handing over money to see the third film. Otherwise that's just bending over and asking for film makers to make trilogies out of short books.

[The Anti-Targ]

I enjoyed the movie a lot. Funny that people are criticising how Jackson has adulterated a children's adventure, when it seems kids love all those crazy antics. It was fun.

Disappointments, there were a few, but it worked for me. Smaug was great!

Evangeline must have a thing for short dudes, given she married a Hobbit.

@ red snow, the desolation of Smaug is Dale, the line was actually in the movie.

[red snow]

I enjoyed the movie a lot. Funny that people are criticising how Jackson has adulterated a children's adventure, when it seems kids love all those crazy antics. It was fun.

Disappointments, there were a few, but it worked for me. Smaug was great!

Evangeline must have a thing for short dudes, given she married a Hobbit.

@ red snow, the desolation of Smaug is Dale, the line was actually in the movie.

true but i didn't think we saw that much of said desolation. Other than the dwarves being homeless and laketown being in a recession things didn't seem that bad. I guess the scenes at the start of part 1 and end of part 2 help show that he is a force to be reckoned with though.

[Isis]

Can we just not please, with the 'PJ raped the book' thing? I know you didn't use that expression first, red snow, but please don't perpetuate it. It's offensive and unnecessary. :)

Are you going to give the third film a miss then, naz?

[Darth Visenya]

I've not seen it yet, or read the rest of this thread, but can someone answer me one thing?, is there much Gollum in it or not?.

[Alytha]

No Gollum at all.

[Darth Visenya]

No Gollum at all.

:crying:.

[Alytha]

Sorry...but seeing as he only appears that one time in the book, I don't think even PJ could come up with a halfway logical reason to bring him back. Unless they go home exactly the same way.

[Myrddin]

Gollum will steal the Arkenstone, forcing Bilbo to hunt him down for another game of riddles. The winner will take both the precious and Thorin's Shiny Rock.

This will push the Battle of Five Armies to the fourth film.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Myrriden,

Fifth film right after the gritty exploration of the urban ghetto in Minas Tirith in the film Hobbits in the Hood.

[naz]

Can we just not please, with the 'PJ raped the book' thing? I know you didn't use that expression first, red snow, but please don't perpetuate it. It's offensive and unnecessary. :)

Are you going to give the third film a miss then, naz?

Good question. Probably not, because I still give enough of a shit to see how it all works out as one complete work, so that I can look at it in totality. I tend to finish books that I don't particularly like for the same reason, and similarly, I've never walked out of a film either (except once, but that was because of someone else).

I'll probably shut my brain off, which I suppose is what others have learnt to do, but for some reason this one just fucking rubbed me the wrong way. Maybe it was the 3D, I dunno. (3D was the only option, unfortunately.) To be honest, I really did try my best to enjoy this one (as I thought the first film suffered from some of the same problem but still had some nice moments), but I just kept getting annoyed. For example, I'd read a lot of positive feedback about the Bilbo/Smaug dialogue, and I was looking forward to it, but two minutes into the scene when Bilbo takes off the ring ("What? Why? Is it hurting him??") and then when Smaug starts to make all kinds of leaps of logic and guesses the gist of the entire Quest, I just rolled my eyes. Why couldn't it have remained a simple, witty exchange where Bilbo, because he's invisible, is able to go toe to toe with a dragon for a little while at least. But in the film, Bilbo is toothless. He's scared shitless, takes off his ring for some inexplicable reason (it's literally his only defense) and then stumbles around and of course acts totally frightened while Smaug susses out what's going on with extremely little evidence. ("Oh, I just bet you're hanging out with a small party of dwarves, led by that rascal Oakenshield, and I'll just bet they're making you do their dirty work, because... well, I can't recognize your smell or something, and oh, let me talk a bit more about Thorin so that I can set up some unlikely set piece involving millions of liters of molten gold, which will turn out to be ineffectual anyway.")

In the book, this scene is meant to show Bilbo's maturation into courage, confidence and resourcefulness, partly because of his ring (artificial courage), and partly because of his adventures and having to get the dwarves out of trouble over and over again (natural courage). It's a trope common in children's stories, that simply being adventurous - and being armed with a magical device - can ultimately inspire you to become a better person. But in the film, Bilbo's maturation is shown largely through having the confidence to stab things more often. The only resourcefulness he shows is that he's more patient about waiting for the last light of Durin's Day, but other than that, Bilbo's thunder is completely overshadowed by (1) the Ring's tendency to make a person more violent and ruthless (dark side of the force and all that); and (2) the need to have an epic confrontation between Smaug and Thorin.

Anyway, my point is that even the scene I was most looking forward to turned out crappy and disappointing because of the complete change in storyline and character development for, you know, the main character of the film.