Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug spoiler thread

[Sci-2]

True, the audiences and expectations are different but people today read The Hobbit and still have no qualms over a lack of female characters so I don't see why moviegoers can't suck it up the same way people who read the book do.

Because it's less enjoyable for people - why would anyone suck it up when it comes to facile entertainment? This isn't an Oscar worthy tale whose viewing provides a reason for uninterested audiences to slog through the film.

Marketers think women won't see the film because it looks like [a] boy's movie. SFF already has that problem, so I don't blame them for not wanting to take the risk.

And really, is the story from the book that great that people [the general public] who haven't read it [and aren't SFF fans] would find it enjoyable? I doubt it.

Also, there are plenty of iconic moments in The Hobbit to match the LOTR [The Battle of the Five Armies, the game of riddles between Bilbo and Gollum, the death of Smaug, the 3 trolls, and barrels out of bond].

If this was a single film instead of three, you might be right. But I doubt a faithful adaptation would draw in enough theater goers to recoup the budget people would expect of it.

As a member of the female audience, I would just like to say that Tauriel is ridiculous, and justifies nothing.

Yeah, it's more about marketers expectations regarding demographics. Her actual role in the film isn't as important as her shooting arrows in the trailer.

[The Marquis de Leech]

I actually thought Tauriel was fine. In combat terms, she was no more outlandish than Legolas, but more interestingly she's Aredhel to Thranduil's Turgon - having an outward and adventurous outlook clash with the conservative patriarch of a Secret Elven Kingdom.

[Seventh Pup]

If they'd developed Tauriel more, people would whine that it was [even more] a deviation from the supposedly incredible source material.

As a child, my sister and I would play make believe Hobbit. We would invent female characters for us to play. I'm not a purest, and actually liked the idea of adding at least one female character to the plot.

But what I hate, is characters like Tauriel. She's made a "bad ass" instead of an actual character. She's perfect and so she doesn't need development. If there where other female leads this won't be as bad. But as the only one, it tokenism at it's highest. Also the fact that they seem to have introduced a female character solely to introduce a romantic plot just makes me gag. I can think of literally a dozen ways they could have beefed up the number of female characters, in ways that would have been less grating and sloppy.

You are never going to make everyone happy, that is a truth. But Tauriel is an example of pandering to the lowest common denominator.

[Castel]

If they'd developed Tauriel more, people would whine that it was [even more] a deviation from the supposedly incredible source material.

Not really, but that's a convenient out. There is something to be said about the method.

I'm not exactly sure how much of a problem I have with adding female characters to works. Put it this way: if someone was to make an adaptation of some ancient myth that didn't have any females, would anyone bat an eye when they added one? And if they did add or change one how many would bat an eye if they became the sort of fighter Westerners want to see? I mean, I personally like cultural dissonance it's far more interesting than the alternative but how many people would blink?

But how many people were upset with Galadriel being in the first film?

[fuseprime]

I happened to like Tauriel in TDoS. I had WAY more bigger issues with the movie (Well..the trilogy in general), than Tauriel, but I absolutely understand what Seventh Pup is talking about. Why would they introduce a love interest to Legolas, when it will go NOWHERE? Tauriel was not a character in the original book (or even the Middle-Earth lore for that matter), so adding her made me hesitant. I thought Evangeline Lilly played the part great, so it didn't take away from the movie as much as I thought it would.

[Jace, Extat]

I wish I had the acting chops to play someone who's perfect in every way, shape, and form. If there were cars in Middle Earth, there would have been a scene where she's swapping the transmission.

[Sci-2]

I'm just curious why people find Tauriel more of a problem than Legolas.

Both are silly ubermenschs whose purpose in the story is to provide the gamer pandering scenes - which IMO were worse than having Tauriel.

Not really, but that's a convenient out. There is something to be said about the method.

I'm not exactly sure how much of a problem I have with adding female characters to works. Put it this way: if someone was to make an adaptation of some ancient myth that didn't have any females, would anyone bat an eye when they added one? And if they did add or change one how many would bat an eye if they became the sort of fighter Westerners want to see? I mean, I personally like cultural dissonance it's far more interesting than the alternative but how many people would blink?

But how many people were upset with Galadriel being in the first film?

I think films made to appeal to a single gender are going to be rarer and rarer. Works with largely female or male casts work if they are really, really good but with movies popcorn entertainment people want their own self insert character.

So basically AFAICTtell an adaptation of myth is either going to be altered or it simply won't be done at the Hollywood blockbuster level.

[Castel]

I'm just curious why people find Tauriel more of a problem than Legolas.

Legolas also gets some eye-rolls but he's an established character and happens to avoid most of the subplot that people are complaining about.

And to be cynical (not really my view): Legolas can be seen as pandering for book (and movie) fans, not randoms who wouldn't sit down and watch a Tolkien adaptation because they were no women.

I think films made to appeal to a single gender are going to be rarer and rarer. Works with largely female or male casts work if they are really, really good but with movies popcorn entertainment people want their own self insert character.

So basically AFAICTtell an adaptation of myth is either going to be altered or it simply won't be done at the Hollywood blockbuster level.

Oh, I know it's happening,(and I don't think it's limited to the amount of people from one gender-GoT outright rewrites characters to fit certain archetypes) I was just wondering if anyone has a problem with it in general, because it seems to go by fairely uncontroversially, but that could simply be the apathetic masses who don't give a fuck about Perseus or whoever drowning out the minority.

[Jace, Extat]

Umm, I don't want to seem like a troll here, and I certainly understand the flawed concept of 'demographics', but I've never met anyone who wouldn't go see a movie because there are no annoying female abominations of a character. It's like Samuel L. Jackson in Star Wars, did any black people who weren't going to watch it really decide to do so because Samuel was in it?

Once again, I understand the concept of pandering to demographics, but in my experience it's not a real thing. Any female who wouldn't want to see this movie unless there's a bow-wielding lady-elf in it probably wouldn't want to see it even if there was a bow-wielding lady-elf in it.

That's just in my lifelong experience of being a woman and watching movies, though.

[Castel]

Dunno; advertising never works on anyone yet it keeps working on everyone.

[Sci-2]

Oh, I know it's happening,(and I don't think it's limited to the amount of people from one gender-GoT outright rewrites characters to fit certain archetypes) I was just wondering if anyone has a problem with it in general, because it seems to go by fairely uncontroversially, but that could simply be the apathetic masses who don't give a fuck about Perseus or whoever drowning out the minority.

I really doubt anyone outside vocal fans on the internet cares that much about any work. The one place you might see real concern is historical adaptation, but people also seem less likely to complain about representation there.

@Jace:

Like I said, it depends on the movie. Something like There Will Be Blood is meant to be a major work of art.

But blockbusters are, by their nature, often pandering to someone's self-insert fantasy. The idea to have an exciting experience vicariously. So yeah, people like seeing actors who look like them somewhere in a film. Makes perfect sense to me as these films were always pandering, now the pandering is just more spread out to make sure profits are as high as possible.

People demanding a 100% faithful adaptation of any older work should probably look to Kickstarter and not expect the best SFX or highest quality actors.

[Spring Bass]

I just watched the Unexpected Journey again, and it confirmed my belief that the Desolation of Smaug is much better. TUJ is a long film (as is DOS), and it feels like a really long film, often in the places where you expect it wouldn't (by contrast, the 40 minutes in Bag End go by pretty quickly). DOS, by contrast, is a breeze - I barely felt the passage of time except in parts of the dwarves-Smaug battle in Erebor. Overall, I really enjoyed the film, I love the look of Smaug and Erebor even if the size of that treasure hoard is ridiculous*, and I love that final line from Smaug: "I am fire, I am death". It gave me goddamn chills.

* Of course, Arda didn't evolve like real-life Earth, where metals like gold are rare because they mostly sunk to the Earth's core when it was still forming and molten. It could have much higher concentrations of precious metals in parts of the surface, and god knows it would be enormously expensive to actually transport all that gold away from the mountain itself. Maybe Dale and the surrounding economy had some type of merchant credit system that was tied to the existence of a large horde of precious metal that mostly stayed put in Erebor itself, like gold-backed paper currency or early Letters of Credit.

[The Marquis de Leech]

Legolas isn't in The Hobbit either, and the fact of the matter is that while he'd retrospectively have been around (and might've featured if Tolkien's 1960 rewrite had got that far), adding him to the movie is just as much an addition/change as Tauriel.

As for Tauriel, she isn't a Mary Sue - the world doesn't shift to accommodate her, and Thranduil would have had a Captain of the Guards anyway. Would people be objecting if the Captain had been male, in which case we keep the action scenes, but omit the love scenes, because a homosexual Elf/Dwarf pairing would be rather risqué for a mainstream movie?

[naz]

People demanding a 100% faithful adaptation of any older work should probably look to Kickstarter and not expect the best SFX or highest quality actors.

And so this is what gets my goat about threads like this; someone always boils the argument down to two extremes... Either we want a 100% faithful adaptation or we don't care at all about the adaptation. I don't think anyone in this thread is arguing for a 100% faithful adaptation. But yes, it's easy to trot out the "haters gonna hate" comment whenever there's nothing better to say.

As I - and others who had a problem with this film (series) - have stated fairly clearly - I never expected a faithful adaptation of the books; I expected a good adaptation of the books. That is, an adaptation where the changes make sense and are not pure pandering to the least common denominator of moviegoers or to the filmmaker's willful desire to epic-ify and hero-ify everything in the story. I think the original LotR films did this to some extent, despite some major cringeworthy exceptions. These movies, on the other hand, seem to be an example of PJ taking the good will he built up over the previous trilogy and just going to town with it.

I can't even begin to enumerate the silly or ridiculous moves that PJ made in this film, both adhering and not adhering to the story. There are just too many. It's enough for me to say, however, that almost every scene in this film was a lazy directorial or narrative move to make the moviegoer go "Wowee!" To be honest, I'm not even wholly against that mentality, in some films. But in a film that's at least marginally attempting to claim some root in the source material, then I should at least be able to feel the same tone or narrative structure of that source material. In this film, I felt very very little. Yes, it's not a 100% faithful adaptation, but it's not even a decent adaptation. The changes are dumb and make little sense. Despite the fact that this was originally a children's book. Go figure... in an attempt to make something for more mature audiences, they ended up making it dumber.

[Kobayashi Maru]

Good is subjective category. What is good to one person may not be good to another or may be only ok to another.

I liked the movie and the more time passes the more I wanna see it again. It prompted me to go and watch all LOTR movies extended version and AUJ. I can't wait for the next one and I will definitely go see it.

[Sci-2]

And so this is what gets my goat about threads like this; someone always boils the argument down to two extremes... Either we want a 100% faithful adaptation or we don't care at all about the adaptation. I don't think anyone in this thread is arguing for a 100% faithful adaptation. But yes, it's easy to trot out the "haters gonna hate" comment whenever there's nothing better to say.

You're reading more into my statement than I said.

[naz]

You're reading more into my statement than I said.

I should've clarified that I wasn't only responding to you.

[Sci-2]

I should've clarified that I wasn't only responding to you.

Gotcha. I'm not against all 100% adaptations, I just think for any work - especially classics - made into a modern day blockbuster you're unlikely to get it.

[protar]

But how many people were upset with Galadriel being in the first film?

I would wager not nearly as many - because Galadriel is a canon character, her inclusion makes some degree of sense and she's a well developed character rather than being a Mary Sue with a Love Triangle.

ETA:

Legolas isn't in The Hobbit either, and the fact of the matter is that while he'd retrospectively have been around (and might've featured if Tolkien's 1960 rewrite had got that far), adding him to the movie is just as much an addition/change as Tauriel.

As for Tauriel, she isn't a Mary Sue - the world doesn't shift to accommodate her, and Thranduil would have had a Captain of the Guards anyway. Would people be objecting if the Captain had been male, in which case we keep the action scenes, but omit the love scenes, because a homosexual Elf/Dwarf pairing would be rather risqué for a mainstream movie?

I hardly see how adding in a preexisting character, who was sort of there anyway is as much of a change as inventing an entirely new character. And I would call her a Mary Sue (or at least a very poorly written character). She's pretty much perfect - able to pull off the same feats as Elven nobility like Legolas despite being one of the "peasant" elves. Additionally, despite being an Elf of Mirkwood she displays none of the xenophobia and callousness of the other Elves. Legolas' conflict between caring about the outside world and sticking to his insular culture is fairly well balanced. Tauriels' is not. If you didn't know it, you'd never guess she was from Mirkwood.

[Alcidas]

Speaking of this, I have read your review of the movie, and though I've never played World of Warcraft (but I did see how it looks), I find your comparison of the combat from The Hobbit with this game to be incorrect. Now comparing it to a game like Diablo... ;)

I stand corrected, and humbly apologise for the poor comparison. Never having played Diablo before, World of Warcraft was the only example that I had to hand ;)