The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

[devilsgrin]

I wholeheartedly agree with Theresa and Vince. No charm, whatsoever. In my humble opinion, The Hobbit is the best of Tolkien's. A small gem, with a lot of humor and fabulous characterization of Bilbo, Gandalf, Gollum and the dwarfs. In this book, more than in any other, Tolkien created a world so much like ours, and yet so different. Almost felt the hair growing between my toes. Nothing of the poetry is in the movie, only gross infatuation with visual effects. The comic relief scenes with the dwarfs are for a very unsophisticated audience (I am trying to be very polite here). The only redeeming feature- the terrible wrath of the Elves in battle. Well done, for a change.

yes indeed, the elves make up for a lot. the "terrible wrath of the elves"... how beautifully - and aptly - put.

 

[Thadlerian]

There's no subtlety in any of PJ's Tolkien movies. Period. FOTR came closest but only because they kept more of the plot and character development.

There is a little in FOTR. Remember how the Balrog isn't revealed until the bridge scene, we're only seeing hints of its heat shining through doorways and such. It built expectations. And think back to the one scene in the entire trilogy that was actually scary: The Bilbo scene in Rivendell.

Sure there wasn't much subtlety in the franchise, but there were some bits, and they worked very well.

Something made Peter Jackson's first passage through Moria infinitely more exciting than his second, something LOTR had and the Hobbit lacks - that's what I was referring to when I said "subtlety".

 

[Bick]

I'm reading the Hobbit to my 7 year old son at present, as it happens. We're both loving it. From what I saw of the first 45 mins of the first film (hated it) and from what I've read here regarding the second, I shall never see these movies, as it sounds like PJ has completely mangled the original material. I just read the scene to my lad where Gandalf slowly introduces the dwarves to Beorn, and I read here that this ins't in the film, and in fact Beorn chases them. Which numb-skull thought that was an improvement in plot? One day someone will hopefully remake The Hobbit properly.

 

[devilsgrin]

i think the beorn thing was really well done. the book part implies quite a lot of time. The movie gets them in the house and established beorn as a skinchanger far more efficiently. It doesn't detract from the theme of book either.

 

[Parm85]

I liked it, there were a few things that didn't make sense (how did the orcs catch up so soon?!) but overall I found it very entertaining to watch if not technically the greatest of movies. The dragon sequence was great and I would have loved to have seen more.

Also even though I did enjoy it, I don't think it was really a telling of Bilbo's adventure and I didn't feel we got much of an idea of how he develops or what the journey personally means to him which I got a strong sense of in the books.

 

[barrett1987]

Brilliant. I disliked the first one but the second was spot on. Loved it. Loved it. Loved it.

 

[jonsey80]

Both of them are brilliant, I don't understand the complaints really...why do people want it to follow the book verbatim, the first one tied in the appendixes well giving a feel of a continuous 6 films...though the elf/dwarf romance in part 2 feels forced just to have a romance and is the only addition which has made me sigh in expararation

 

[River Boy]

Incredible amount of what I call 'falling action scenes' that seem to be emerging in more and more films. Where characters just happen to fall out of the way of danger a good thirty or forty feet at a time, but no one ever breaks their ankles or anything.

The films look fabulous. Smaug looks terrific, but the conversations with him were just ridiculous. These filmmakers seem to love Tolkien's world so much that everything appears authentically reproduced, but they don't seem to love Tolkien's storytelling decisions at all as at every stage they seem to undermine them as much as possible - as do most of the character interpretations.

 

[Siberian]

Both of them are brilliant, I don't understand the complaints really...why do people want it to follow the book verbatim,

That's a common straw man. No one wants "verbatim", I personally would be happy with just the basics of the world and character development but PJ fails even with that for the most part. It's all about mindless action and silly melodrama now.

 

[kythe]

I finally saw this movie. It is the first of Jackson's Tolkein movies I was truly disappointed with. It's not just that it didn't follow the book story. It was, at best, only a loose interpretation of "The Hobbit".

"The Hobbit" could easily have been told in 2 parts rather than 3, if they had left out all the superfluous orcs and elves. We saw enough of them in LOTR. That's not bad, but "The Hobbit" is a different story with different characters and different villains. They tried too hard to make it a LOTR prequel.

My 11 year old son doesn't like reading. There is only one chapter book I've ever gotten him to read in its entirety and that is "The Hobbit". We both liked part 1 of the movie, and were both disappointed in this portion of the story. Even while we were watching the movie, he kept talking about how the story wasn't what he read. That doesn't help with my overall impression either.

 

[Bick]

Both of them are brilliant, I don't understand the complaints really...why do people want it to follow the book verbatim, the first one tied in the appendixes well giving a feel of a continuous 6 films...though the elf/dwarf romance in part 2 feels forced just to have a romance and is the only addition which has made me sigh in expararation

Two things.
1) There are no appendices to the Hobbit and (imho) it is lessened by the addition of material, not improved;
2) My interpretation of the complaints expressed here is not that the films deviate from the book per se, but that they deviate in a bad way, mangling the tone, pace, length, consistency and charm of the original material. They are, in short, rubbish Wellywood versions of JRRT's wonderful children's book.

 

[Overread]

The only thing that stood out to me as a poor aspect of the film was the barrel in the river scene - for a couple of reasons:

1) Too long - whilst I'm generally a fan of long and drawn out sequences being told fully rather than having them clipped short I did feel that this event dragged on and on without bringing anything new to the table.

2) Not as high quality - some of the scenes they slipped in I think were shot with a "go pro" camera and they showed it. In the middle of a film famed and showing strong cinematography there were suddenly several very short clips that looked like they were taken right out of an amusement parks "video of the day" advertisement. It jarred the viewing and, for me, broke the immersion in the scene which then directly contributed to point 1.


Smaug was fantastic, swimming through his mountains of gold with expressive facial features (you can see his pure adoration of the giant golden statue). Fry puts in a witty performance and in general it felt a lot more "together" than the first film of this set. It's very much P.J.'s Lord of the Rings and they've strongly reinforced the links with the first 3 LotR films. It's an evil next to the authenticity of the books, but I think it works generally to the films favour for a more modern audience and for one more casual/widespread.

 

[Dave]

Apparently the title of the third outing has been changed. No longer There and Back Again now it's I Know You'll Come Back Again Whatever I Call It.

 

[Overread]

You know its a shame he didn't call the first film "There and Back Again, A Hobbits Tale".

 

[Ravenna]

I went to see this on theater, really liked it. It was somewhat better than the first Hobbit-movie, however, I liked that aswell.