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Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug spoiler thread


Calibandar

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If you've seen the Extended Edition of AUJ, one of the Dwarves offers a chest of jewels to Thranduil in the prologue, but snaps it shut before he can lay hands on it. That also sets up the reason why Thranduil refused to help the Dwarves after Smaug attacked, and makes Thranduil seem like less of a dick.


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Mr. Nictarion, I didn't get the impression that Smaug was talking to Bilbo. I could of course be misremembering, but I think he'd been flying towards Laketown for some seconds, and had already been shown to have passed over Dale before he said the line.


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If you've seen the Extended Edition of AUJ, one of the Dwarves offers a chest of jewels to Thranduil in the prologue, but snaps it shut before he can lay hands on it. That also sets up the reason why Thranduil refused to help the Dwarves after Smaug attacked, and makes Thranduil seem like less of a dick.

Ah. I see nothing has changed since LotR: PJ cannot make one edition of a film containing all important material.

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I'm surprised anyone can summon the effort to get upset about PJ Tolkien adaptations any more. Having lived through the LOTR adaptations, being on TORn 15 years ago and seeing people go insane about XenArwen... I've come to terms with the LOTR movie trilogy. In fact, via LOTR I've gotten over ANY film adaptation of ANY written work. Just accept that the original work still exists just as it always did. The film is just another version of the story. Chill out. :)

I went in with very low expectations for this. It's better paced than the first one, it didn't feel like it dragged at any point. On the whole I liked it and would want to see it again.

Tauriel was totally fine. OMG MADE UP CHARACTER FREAK OUT!!1eleventyone *shrug*. I see how everyone is all cool with Arwen's expanded MADE UP story in the LOTR films now, right? I don't even have any problem with the love triangle - it's just a hook to pin some action on, not as if the entire film was a love story.

Barrels out of bond is such a great part of the story in the book so I was pleased it wasn't underplayed in the film *tongue in cheek*

Smaug was fantastic. I was entranced. :)

One thing I'm not sure about is the way Sauron was portrayed. I didn't like that flashy sequence with the great eye but I guess we're stuck with that imagery now.

Also agree with whoever said the music was a bit nondescript. Were there any new themes? Surely there must have been!

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I'm surprised anyone can summon the effort to get upset about PJ Tolkien adaptations any more. Having lived through the LOTR adaptations, being on TORn 15 years ago and seeing people go insane about XenArwen... I've come to terms with the LOTR movie trilogy. In fact, via LOTR I've gotten over ANY film adaptation of ANY written work. Just accept that the original work still exists just as it always did. The film is just another version of the story. Chill out. :)

I went in with very low expectations for this. It's better paced than the first one, it didn't feel like it dragged at any point. On the whole I liked it and would want to see it again.

Tauriel was totally fine. OMG MADE UP CHARACTER FREAK OUT!!1eleventyone *shrug*. I see how everyone is all cool with Arwen's expanded MADE UP story in the LOTR films now, right? I don't even have any problem with the love triangle - it's just a hook to pin some action on, not as if the entire film was a love story.

Barrels out of bond is such a great part of the story in the book so I was pleased it wasn't underplayed in the film *tongue in cheek*

Smaug was fantastic. I was entranced. :)

One thing I'm not sure about is the way Sauron was portrayed. I didn't like that flashy sequence with the great eye but I guess we're stuck with that imagery now.

Also agree with whoever said the music was a bit nondescript. Were there any new themes? Surely there must have been!

I noticed one or two new music themes for the Laketown parts. Not sure about Mirkwood or Smaug.

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I enjoyed it. Watched part 1 before going to see it which i guess helped (although I skipped straight to Bilbo running after the dwarves once the prelude had finished). Expectations were lowered and I therefore wasn't as annoyed by it not being absolutely amazing



I feel like there was a far better balance between the action and humour this time and thought the barrel escape was the highlight of this balance. The film also was less childish on the whole and the action scenes had more "realistic" violence whereas part 1 was cartoon violence throughout where the protagonists never seemed to be at risk.



I found laketown to be a bit dull and the Radagast and Gandalf adventures were lacking but I guess will work better as a whole.



The main issue is that it lacks any kind of internal arc. I know there are lots of trilogies out there these days but most still manage to have arcs within the film. This one has no such thing. At a stretch Tauriel achieves her goal of rescuing the dwarf. Everything else is unresolved. Of course this was always going to be the case when based on a single book (LOTR had internal arcs within each book) and they'd have had to invent arcs for this to be the case. It just meant when I came out of the cinema and was thinking "what happened?" I couldn't come up with much because nothing was resolved. Of course a lot happened but the narrative doesn't stick in my head as much without any resolution. Still this wasn't an issue during the film and I was thoroughly entertained.



If part 3 is as good I think there will be an excellent 9 hour film to enjoy in marathon format in the future.


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Also agree with whoever said the music was a bit nondescript. Were there any new themes? Surely there must have been!

Considering how amazing the soundtrack was for the first trilogy, Howard Shore is really phoning it in with the new films. Too much reuse of old material and nothing new that is notable at all.

Looking at his other soundtracks (which have ranged from awful to okay), Shore seems to have been struck with 10,000 volts of inspiration when he did the original trilogy which he's never replicated. Everything else he's done has been meh. It was kind of telling that he wasn't that great when Jackson replaced him for King Kong and I think maybe he should have gone with someone else for the new films.

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Honestly, the rest of the movie is kind of fading into the background to me (just watched it) my only real impression is "OMG! SMAUG! FUCKING DRAGON WITH FIRE AND SHIT! HUGE FLYING LIZARD WITH A BREATH LIKE A SUN! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! *SQUEE*"

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One thing I didn't understand was how they ended up in these mountains again right at the start of the second film.

I just went to the end of the Hobbit on Netflix and checked, as they approach what appears to be the stone precipice they end up on there are mountains screening the exit of the range, which would be fine except all the mountains are covered in trees that are apparently blown away or burnt down by the time they next film starts.

Then, as they are dropped off at the stone precipice there is clearly a mountain-free exit from the range, which is again shown when they look out at Erebor.

So there's a clear disparity between the two scenes in the first film, and then again between whichever is correct and what we see in the second.

Those grand landscape scenes never made much sense when put together, even in the first series.

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Saw it last night. I guess it was...okay. So much of it just made me ask "Why, why would you put that in/make it in that manner?" The acrobatic impossible action crap is just so absurdly ludicrous that it distracts me from feeling a connection to the world being portrayed. Magic and dragons brought to screen life is awesome, but Super Duper Invincible Level 99 Elves...how have they ever been threatened by anyone, ever, in the history of Middle Earth? Tauriel and Legolas could wipe out Sauron's army on their own, why bother mustering armies? I mean, unless they have to face off with just one orc, then it's suddenly and even and contentious battle.



In 160 minutes of film, fighting giant spiders, hordes of orcs (that were sometimes 20-30, and sometimes hundreds, depending upon if they needed to be massacred), wargs, elves, and a giant fire-breathing dragon...ONE character was injured, one other took two points of damage and used that to cast Level 700 Bloody Nose Unemotional Rage Face.



So obviously just a money-grab film. I knew that was what it was going to be beforehand, but I didn't expect totally-unnecessary scene after totally-unnecessary scene after totally-unnecessary scene. As we all most of us knew, making this three films was just greed, not a story-based decision.




I wrote the above, then remembered that Gandalf was injured in Dol Goldur. The fact that I forgot the quite-cool face-off between Gandalf and Sauron emphasizes my point that the over-the-top action just crushes the good points under its bloated CGI.


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I enjoyed the film even if it totally fails to stand on its own. For most of the film it might just be an action film with some nice scenery, but I wasn't really expecting any more depth from an adaptation of the middle part of The Hobbit, and I think the action scenes worked a lot better than in the first film. I do like the first film, but there is a long section which isn't particularly good from the end of the scene with the trolls through to Bilbo falling down to where he finds the ring, and I don't think there was anything as bad in the second film. I didn't mind most of Jackson's additions, I liked Evangeline Lilly as Tauriel although I'm a bit indifferent to the Tauriel/Kili romance.



I thought Smaug was done very well and his conversation with Bilbo was one of the highlights, most attempts at portraying dragons on screen have gone badly but they did well here. Cumberbatch was a great choice to voice him. Admittedly, the amount of treasure did seem a bit excessive and it did seem a bit implausible that all the dwarves survived his attack, but hopefully he'll get to be a bit more effective in his destruction at the beginning of the third film.





I'm surprised anyone can summon the effort to get upset about PJ Tolkien adaptations any more. Having lived through the LOTR adaptations, being on TORn 15 years ago and seeing people go insane about XenArwen... I've come to terms with the LOTR movie trilogy. In fact, via LOTR I've gotten over ANY film adaptation of ANY written work. Just accept that the original work still exists just as it always did. The film is just another version of the story. Chill out. :)




That's how I feel as well, I don't think the Hobbit needed to be 3 films long (maybe 2 could have worked) but I've had enough time to get used to the idea that it's not really worth getting too annoyed about it, even if it does lead to the second film lacking any real ending.



If part 3 is as good I think there will be an excellent 9 hour film to enjoy in marathon format in the future.


The third film really should be the best in the trilogy if it's done right, I think postponing Smaug's attack on Laketown hurts the ending of the second film but a film featuring both that and the Battle of Five Armies won't be lacking in spectacle.



Does anyone else think Dain won't show up during the battle? Thorin's line to kili telling him he will be king after him makes me wonder. Now I'm not even sure if fili and kili will meet their book fates.


Dain has been cast, Billy Connolly will play him in the third film. I think he was mentioned in dialogue in the first film, so I think they are intending to use him.


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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.

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Saw it last night. I guess it was...okay. So much of it just made me ask "Why, why would you put that in/make it in that manner?" The acrobatic impossible action crap is just so absurdly ludicrous that it distracts me from feeling a connection to the world being portrayed. Magic and dragons brought to screen life is awesome, but Super Duper Invincible Level 99 Elves...how have they ever been threatened by anyone, ever, in the history of Middle Earth? Tauriel and Legolas could wipe out Sauron's army on their own, why bother mustering armies? I mean, unless they have to face off with just one orc, then it's suddenly and even and contentious battle.

In 160 minutes of film, fighting giant spiders, hordes of orcs (that were sometimes 20-30, and sometimes hundreds, depending upon if they needed to be massacred), wargs, elves, and a giant fire-breathing dragon...ONE character was injured, one other took two points of damage and used that to cast Level 700 Bloody Nose Unemotional Rage Face.

So obviously just a money-grab film. I knew that was what it was going to be beforehand, but I didn't expect totally-unnecessary scene after totally-unnecessary scene after totally-unnecessary scene. As we all most of us knew, making this three films was just greed, not a story-based decision.

I wrote the above, then remembered that Gandalf was injured in Dol Goldur. The fact that I forgot the quite-cool face-off between Gandalf and Sauron emphasizes my point that the over-the-top action just crushes the good points under its bloated CGI.

I could not agree more.

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