The Hobbit: A Long-Expected Spoiler Movie Thread

[Happy Ent]

But I suppose digging into the Simarilion could be rather complicated, and Jackson would probably get carried away.

More to the point, it would get him sued by the Tolkien Estate. New Line Cinema does not have the rights for the Silmarillion, so he can’t go back to Thingol. That‘s also why Gandalf doesn’t remember the name of the two Istari. (I thought that was very funny.)

[HyacinthGirl]

More to the point, it would get him sued by the Tolkien Estate. New Line Cinema does not have the rights for the Silmarillion, so he can’t go back to Thingol. That‘s also why Gandalf doesn’t remember the name of the two Istari. (I thought that was very funny.)

Aah. I see. I just thought it would be an interesting way to flesh out the conflict between the races, so the audience was fully aware the enmity was older than Thorin and Thranduil. Didn't think about rights or anything.

edit: I loved that Gandalf couldn't remember the other wizards' names :)

[polishgenius]

And his transport-speed is akin to GoT's Littlefinger, who just casually teleports around Westeros. How did Radagast get from Mirkwood/Dol Goldur to Rivendell's borders so quickly?

Was it that quickly? Time wasn't handled too well in the film but it would have taken the company a few days to get from the trolls to Rivendell, and Radagast has magic rabbits.

I didn't mind him at all tbh. One of the better handled aspects of the film actually, though I could have done without the birdshit- I thought overall that the lighter and calmer aspects were a lot better handled than the epic bits and action scenes, which was totally the opposite to what I was expecting.

I was a lot less concerned with that than with Gandalf's supersonic butterfly at the end, especially since it was completely unnecessary (in the books the eagles just notice the Orcs are up to no good and intervene because they hate them, right?). But then, Middle Earth is a lot smaller in Jackson's version - the gazing out over the forest to Erebor is all very sweet and touching but it reduced what is supposed to be a 600 mile journey to something that could be walked in a day.

[andrew_]

Only just saw this for the first time yesterday, in 2D. I'd heard dreadful things about the high frame rate so avoided that - would any of you recommend it?

I saw it in 48fps and i would recommend it, it takes like the proluge to get used to it but after that it adds to the experience.

[Master of Coin]

Just one other super-picky thing. We get one quick view of Smaug and his treasure at the very end. I was thinking of Smaug as laying atop his treasure.... but it shows him completely buried in it. Well... (like I said this is super picky) I'm well acquainted with how piles of coins "slish" about and move. The "angle of repose" that a pile of coins can sustain is quite shallow. It's not possible to maintain a steep angle to a pile of coins... as for instance it might be with gravel or sand. Coins slide across each other very easily, and gold.silver coins especially so. So an immense pile of gold coins would have very shallow angles of repose.... I'd have to measure to be sure but certainly less than ten degrees, possibly less than five. But it seemed that I saw a pile with angles more on the order of 35 to 45 degrees. (will have to watch it a third time and bring a protractor).

Like I said... super picky. As you may surmise... if that's all I can come up with to complain about then I liked it a lot!

Tom

[Happy Ent]

There is no way to write this without it coming off as sarcasm:

MoC, I applaud you. You have taken nit picking to a whole new level, and provided me with very cool new information. I had no idea one could geek out about that. Thank you! (Seriously.)

[baxus]

@HappyEnt:

he is Master of Coin, after all :D

[Ser Greguh]

Not having read the entire thread, my suspicion for the break between books 2 and 3 is the thrush knocking on the secret door, the moonlight revealing the keyhole, the tentative opening of the door into the blackness ... and ... "Directed by Peter Jackson."

It's been ages since I read The Hobbit so I'm sure I'm missing stuff but I think that gives plenty of material for the 2nd movie. We have:

- Probably some sort of stylistic prologue reintroducing Mirkwood. (5 min)

- Gandalf receiving the news that he needs to abandon the dwarves to deal with the threat at Dol Goldur (5 min)

- Beorn's house / reintroduction to the dwarves (10 min)

- Entering Mirkwood / Gandalf's departure (5 min)

- Spider action (15 mins) (likely to be greatly expanded / embellished)

- Captured by the elves (5 min)

- Drama with the elves (5 min)

- Thrown in Jail / Bilbo's rescue (20 min) (expanded / embellished)

- Escape via the barrels (5 mins)

- Drama at Lake Town - reprovisioning, the humans will not help (20 mins) (expanded / embellished)

- Journey to the Lonely Mountain (5 mins)

- Drama at the front door (10 mins)

- Residual drama in Lake Town (5 mins)

- Conclusion (5 mins)

On top of this I expect a good 60 minutes of interspersed action regarding Gandalf & co's journey, since that's mostly going to have to be resolved in the 2nd movie so that Gandalf can meet up with the company before they head home. If the time breakdown goes as I spell out (and, let's face it, it won't, but it's a good try anyway), that's 3 hours, and still leaves Bilbo's negotiation with Smaug, his eventual full awakening, emergence, razing of Lake Town, and eventual killing, and the entirety of the Battle of Five Armies, as well as a return journey, for the 3rd installment.

[Ser Greguh]

Just one other super-picky thing. We get one quick view of Smaug and his treasure at the very end. I was thinking of Smaug as laying atop his treasure.... but it shows him completely buried in it. Well... (like I said this is super picky) I'm well acquainted with how piles of coins "slish" about and move. The "angle of repose" that a pile of coins can sustain is quite shallow. It's not possible to maintain a steep angle to a pile of coins... as for instance it might be with gravel or sand. Coins slide across each other very easily, and gold.silver coins especially so. So an immense pile of gold coins would have very shallow angles of repose.... I'd have to measure to be sure but certainly less than ten degrees, possibly less than five. But it seemed that I saw a pile with angles more on the order of 35 to 45 degrees. (will have to watch it a third time and bring a protractor).

Like I said... super picky. As you may surmise... if that's all I can come up with to complain about then I liked it a lot!

Tom

Little known Middle Earth Fact*: its gold coins have an unusually high coefficient of static friction.

*The reason why this fact is probably so little-known would be because I of course pulled it entirely out of my ass.

[Clueless Northman]

I'm well acquainted with how piles of coins "slish" about and move.

We know who you are ;)

http://cnnmoneybuzzb...=614&h=400

[The Mance]

It's not possible to maintain a steep angle to a pile of coins... as for instance it might be with gravel or sand.

This would be a valid nitpick if it were known that Smaug had just dumped all of his gold coins (and only his gold coins) in the middle of a huge flat floor. The reality is he probably just picked a likely corner to pile up all manner of gold treasure. Thus the loose coin pile is bolstered by other items that are less likely to slide; furniture, staffs (staves?), picture frames, raw gold ore, etc etc. All this in addition to whatever the horde is piled on top of which, for all we know, is a huge depression in the floor precisely so that the pile could be made deep enough for a dragon to slither his way into.

[Lord of Oop North]

Are you suggesting that Smaug engineered his treasure horde in a such a way as to deliberately maintain a normally unattainable angle of repose for his gold coinage? I suppose it would get rather boring inside of Erebor after you've eaten all the locals, and legends about your terribleness have spread far and wide enough to scare away intruders.

[Shryke]

It's not like the dwarves installed cable, so what else is he gonna do with his time?

[Master of Coin]

Thank you SO much... really. It's wonderful to geek out among the like-minded who are willing to take things to absurd lengths! Poor Smaug... so bored with his treasure that he has got to engineer the piling of the hoard.

By the way, there are two different words here... pronounced the same but with different spellings and meanings.

Hoard (noun) a large amount of something valuable that is kept hidden

(verb) transitive verb 1: to lay up a hoard of

2

:

to keep (as one's thoughts) to oneself

intransitive verb

:

to lay up a hoard

Horde (noun) 1 a : a political subdivision of central Asian nomads

b

:

a people or tribe of nomadic life

2

:

a teeming crowd or throng

:

swarm

So we have hordes of orcs seeking hoards of gold.

I know... English is awful. In Spanish it would be much simpler.

[The Mance]

Are you suggesting that Smaug engineered his treasure horde in a such a way as to deliberately maintain a normally unattainable angle of repose for his gold coinage?

Well its sure as shit going to cut into his "lounging on a bed of gold" time if he has to keep sweeping errant coins back onto the pile. But, I dunno, maybe thats part of the fun.

"My goodness, I just have so much gold I can hardly keep it all together" *preens*

or

"Oooohhh, you pesky coins with your unusually high coefficient of static friction" *fusses*

[Master of Coin]

But seriously (if that is now even possible in this conversation) there is an enormously satisfying and even (dare I say it) sensuous pleasure in the act of playing with piles of coins. I have a small wooden treasure chest with a space about 12" x 6" x 5" deep. It will easily hold about five thousand small coins. If the coins are clean (the coefficient of static friction is significantly increased by the oxides and grime on dirty coins)... if the coins are clean and freshly tumbled you can stick your hands into the box and lift out piles which slish and slither over each other with a slushy tinkling sound that is most pleasant and can cause you to involuntarily chortle in piratical glee. Oh yes my precious, you can even feel the dragon-sickness tugging at the edges of the mind. You can understand the sickness that befell Thorins grandfather Thror which made him pay more attention to his hoard than to the business at hand.

And if such sensuous pleasure is possible for mere humans in our day, playing with fifty dollars worth of mere pennies... It is very easy to imagine the dragon (who is by nature much more susceptible to this peculiar pleasure) falling completely into the grasp of it... so that dear old Smaug could literally spend hundreds of years just lounging about in the sheer magnificence of a hoard that must have been valued (in today's dollars) in the trillions, without EVER becoming bored. You'd have to be a dragon to grasp how it's possible to not get bored for so long, or Scrooge McDuck I suppose.

It is said that (in our world) the total amount of gold ever mined from ancient times to today would be about 160,000 metric tonnes. That's

160,000,000 kilograms, or 160,000,000,000 grams. Today's price of about $1300/ troy ounce = ~$42/gram, or about $6.7 trillion USD. (note: Since the world GDP is about 70 trillion USD/year it's easy to see why a fully gold backed currency is no longer physically possible)

But back to Smaug and his hoard... this 160,000 metric tonnes of gold has a volume which would fill about three Olympic swimming pools. I dare say that the hoard shown in the film would be rather more than that... suggesting perhaps that Middle Earth is quite a bit richer in metals than our own planet. Indeed... the veins of gold that they shewed being worked by Dwarves hanging on ropes under the mountain were rich beyond anything ever seen on this planet. So that the sheer magnitude of Smaug's hoard can be grasped only by realizing that it utterly dwarfs the value of all the precious metals on earth... many times over. Such is the power of wealth of that scale, that it can immobilize the mind... at least... the mind of a dragon. Until of course... somebody touches even the smallest bit of it.

[Roose Seal]

This thread has taken a turn for the unexpected.

[Artas]

I'm not a book purist, but Tolkein's work is very important to me,

Then please do him the courtesy of spelling his name correctly. :) It's Tolkien, with ie, not ei. Why do so many people get this wrong??

[Maltaran]

Then please do him the courtesy of spelling his name correctly. :) It's Tolkien, with ie, not ei. Why do so many people get this wrong??

Because they're used to English rules of pronunication, perhaps? Whereas Tolkien is spelled using the Germanic rules.

[delete this account pls]

Everyone has their pants off by this point, right?