The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

[devilsgrin]

I loved Desolation far more than Unexpected.
to be brutally frank, (and unapologetically dismissive), I find Tolkein - even in The Hobbit - unnecessarily long-winded. I have an imagination. I don't need forty pages of description to understand what a dragon looks like or that a tree is green and has leaves. I find Tolkein himself is to blame. A long-winded, self-impressed, typical-of-the-day pompous upper-middle class brit, with an over-inflated view of himself, and of his abilities as an author. World-Creator extraordinaire, but rather mediocre Tale-Teller.

That said, i truly loved the movie. Tauriel was excellent. A vast improvement over Arwen "Warrior-Princess."
I always enjoy more elves (the reason Helm's Deep in Two Towers is enjoyable despite the glaring wrongness of elves at Helm's Deep). Though this movie highlighted only Legolas, Tauriel and Thranduil - the two former being spectacular fight-scene fodder. Was there a more entertaining fighter in the Rings movies than Legolas - hells no. Is Tauriel more impressive? perhaps not, more elegant even, sure.
I liked the Tauriel/Kili thing. Its very cute. Kili is the most attractive of the dwarves, and Evangeline is gorgeous in elf-form... it is clear that its almost all Kili, Tauriel does seem to find him fascinating and perhaps charming. It was nice to see Fili get a line or two this time around that wasn't a joke. Bombur-in-a-barrel was brilliant. Silly in the extreme, but brilliant. the whole cinema was laughing at that sequence. And at Dwarf-walking Legolas.
Esgaroth is perfectly rendered into realistic dimensions, as it the Master. His aide seemed a bit too Wormtongue-ish... but i can deal with that, it adds to the idea that Sauron is corrupting all the leaders of Middle Earth even before his "return."
Smaug was spectacular. Jackson seemed to distill his essence into the more limited lines.

 

[ctg]

I concur. I loved it. Absolutely and especially after watching the extended edition (with extra singing) over the holidays. The movie is pure brilliance and Smaug full of evil. And fire.

The elements in this film are pure brilliance. The architecture, magnificent. And when Jackson's wizards combine these together, you get to see beauty that you didn't see in the previous films. Especially in the Dol Guldur at top of the Amon Lanc.

And it is marvellous place. A perfect addition and a link to the next trilogy. The Lord of the Rings.

And Mister Jackson isn't doing anything wrong with this film. It is almost as if he decided to make the middle one as dark as ...

... forgive me for doing this because they are not comparable.

The Hobbit - The Desolation of Smaug is a unique film and stands in the same level as the Blade Runner.

I don't know how to continue any other way then saying that I'm looking forward owning the extended edition of this trilogy as well. I'm lost for my words. And for the reason that I don't want to spoil any more than what has been said in this thread already.

 

[hopewrites]

*epicly sad face* I have the theatrical not extended edition

 

[Darth Angelus]

I have seen the movie twice, and I found it very good but not great.

It was nice to see Lost-Kate Evangeline Lilly as a female elf warrior and archer. She suited the role perfectly, and I found the role quite likeable. That said, the crush on the dwarf was unnecessary.

Anyway, the movie took certain liberties with the original story, but I find that ok. I don't think The Hobbit is as good as Lord of the Rings, anyway.

What bothered me a little was the too long-winded action scenes at the end, and that it looked very clearly like CGI at some points.

Overall, it was notably better than the first movie, in my humble opinion.

I loved Desolation far more than Unexpected.
to be brutally frank, (and unapologetically dismissive), I find Tolkein - even in The Hobbit - unnecessarily long-winded. I have an imagination. I don't need forty pages of description to understand what a dragon looks like or that a tree is green and has leaves. I find Tolkein himself is to blame. A long-winded, self-impressed, typical-of-the-day pompous upper-middle class brit, with an over-inflated view of himself, and of his abilities as an author. World-Creator extraordinaire, but rather mediocre Tale-Teller.

I must respectfully disagree about the long-windedness. I think he gets a fair bit of story told in the 200 pages of The Hobbit and the 1100 of Lord of the Rings.
Just look at the thousands and thousands of pages of plenty of other Fantasy series, particularly Robert Jordan, in whose series you could read entire 800-page volumes where very little happened.
So, on the contrary, I would say that relative to most Fantasy series, Tolkien was quite concise when he wrote his stories.

As for his view of himself, well, to be fair, he was a professor at Oxford, probably the most famous university in the UK and one of the most famous in the world. I would say that that qualifies a fairly outstanding academic career. From what I have been told by a young woman who studies at another university in UK, it is quite difficult to get into the famous universities...as a student. And again, Tolkien actually did manage to become a professor there. I should hardly think he was an average Joe in English language skills, even by standards of native English speakers.
Why should he not feel a certain amount of pride that he had accomplished something?

 

[devilsgrin]

I have seen the movie twice, and I found it very good but not great.

It was nice to see Lost-Kate Evangeline Lilly as a female elf warrior and archer. She suited the role perfectly, and I found the role quite likeable. That said, the crush on the dwarf was unnecessary.

Anyway, the movie took certain liberties with the original story, but I find that ok. I don't think The Hobbit is as good as Lord of the Rings, anyway.

What bothered me a little was the too long-winded action scenes at the end, and that it looked very clearly like CGI at some points.

Overall, it was notably better than the first movie, in my humble opinion.



I must respectfully disagree about the long-windedness. I think he gets a fair bit of story told in the 200 pages of The Hobbit and the 1100 of Lord of the Rings.
Just look at the thousands and thousands of pages of plenty of other Fantasy series, particularly Robert Jordan, in whose series you could read entire 800-page volumes where very little happened.
So, on the contrary, I would say that relative to most Fantasy series, Tolkien was quite concise when he wrote his stories.

As for his view of himself, well, to be fair, he was a professor at Oxford, probably the most famous university in the UK and one of the most famous in the world. I would say that that qualifies a fairly outstanding academic career. From what I have been told by a young woman who studies at another university in UK, it is quite difficult to get into the famous universities...as a student. And again, Tolkien actually did manage to become a professor there. I should hardly think he was an average Joe in English language skills, even by standards of native English speakers.
Why should he not feel a certain amount of pride that he had accomplished something?

using Robert Jordan as an example of how Tolkien isn't long-winded is pretty extreme. The Wheel of Time series became almost a universal joke about its length and lack of events within the series. And the word MOST is also a stretch... Robert Jordan sure, the last George RR Martin Ice and Fire book perhaps, but MOST modern fantasy authors? i'd have to disagree. Most of them seem to be significantly more concise.
I'll grant that the hobbit isn't anywhere near as long-winded as Rings... but there are still moments where i'm glazing over from boredom - and i adore The Hobbit.
I'm not saying his view of himself is WRONG, i'm saying that it affects his writing.

Agreed about the action sequences in the movie... particularly the barrels...

 

[Darth Angelus]

using Robert Jordan as an example of how Tolkien isn't long-winded is pretty extreme. The Wheel of Time series became almost a universal joke about its length and lack of events within the series. And the word MOST is also a stretch... Robert Jordan sure, the last George RR Martin Ice and Fire book perhaps, but MOST modern fantasy authors? i'd have to disagree. Most of them seem to be significantly more concise.
I'll grant that the hobbit isn't anywhere near as long-winded as Rings... but there are still moments where i'm glazing over from boredom - and i adore The Hobbit.

Admittedly.
The Wheel of Time is indeed quite extreme, there is no doubt about it.
However, a lot of the most well-know Fantasy series seem to span thousands of pages, and a series with twice the volume of text of Lord of the Rings are far far from extreme in this genre. And still, within LotR, Tolkien did manage to paint a vivid world that has captivated the imaginations of countless millions.

I'm not saying his view of himself is WRONG, i'm saying that it affects his writing.

Ok, fair enough. I based what I wrote on this sentence, in particular.

"A long-winded, self-impressed, typical-of-the-day pompous upper-middle class brit, with an over-inflated view of himself, and of his abilities as an author."

See the underlined portions!
Ok, in context of how that sentence ends, those parts could be interpreted as him overestimating his own writing abilities, but it came off to me when I read it as him overestimating himself in general. Of course, you wrote it, so you know what you meant more precisely than I do.

Tolkien's writing style didn't bore me, but on the other hand, it was a very long time (almost twenty years) since I read LotR, and I was fourteen at the time. Hence, I cannot be sure I would still feel about it the way I did at the time.
I get it, I think. His writing style just isn't working for you, and so you get bored. That is fine! It is pretty subjective, anyway, and if boredom is your emotional response to Tolkien's writing, then that is how it is. One cannot make oneself enjoy something, so I am not going to argue this point any further.
I guess what I mean is, when it comes any work of culture (fiction, music, or whatever), enjoyment is its own point, and in most cases the main point. One can argue all day about the merits and faults of something from a technical standpoint, but it is only going to change someone's experience of it so much (and in this case, "so much" is not very much). Even if two people come into complete agreement, perhaps after some discussion, about every strong and weak point of a work of culture, their experiences are very likely to differ a bit.
So it is completely ok with me that you feel Tolkien's writing style is long-winded and boring, as long as that is an honest description of how you feel about it, which I do not doubt.

Agreed about the action sequences in the movie... particularly the barrels...

I was mostly bored by the action at the end of the movie, probably because I want to go home after two and a half hours in cinema, but yes, the barrels part went on too long, as well.

 

[Corbier]

I'll watch it tonight...

 

[farntfar]

Well, despite having expected to be upset by the differences between the book and the film (which is what usually happens when I see a film of a book I've enjoyed; or maybe because, I was expecting to be so dissapointed) I enjoyed the film, and yes the barrel run was fun.

The fleshed out throw away mention of Dol Guldur didn't upset me, because it showed events which were mentioned later in the LOTR.
The whole creation of Tauriel as a character and her various relationships should have upset me but didn't do so too much.

As I often find with film adaptations, I accept the big changes as part of film making, but seemingly trivial details upset me.

Tauriel says to Thranduil, that she is not worthy, because she is a simple wood elf, which means to me a Sindar.
Isn't Thranduil, himself? I always assumed so.
Later she says something like "The moon (or the stars) has always been very important to the Eldar."

Well make you're mind up, girl! What are you?
A Noldor princess in hiding?
Well I suppose it would solve Thranduil's 'She ain't good enough for my lad!' question.

 

[Corbier]

I thought the movie was really enjoyable. Though the "based on the novel of J.R.R. Tolkien" line should have read: "We mostly mucked about to make a cool motion picture but some things really happened in the book. Sort of."

In the end, I think the book and film need to be seen as two different stories.

What did annoy me though were the spiders in Mirkwood. What happened to Bilbo's taunting of the spiders?

 

[Darth Angelus]

I thought the movie was really enjoyable. Though the "based on the novel of J.R.R. Tolkien" line should have read: "We mostly mucked about to make a cool motion picture but some things really happened in the book. Sort of."

Haha, yeah, largely true.

Oh, and welcome to the forum!

 

[biodroid]

Weel i havent read the book yet so the movie was way awesome. I will read it once the i watched the third one so as to see all the changes.

 

[FuegoHelado]

Ladies and gentlemen, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, star in Legolas!
I am so disgusted with the second movie, and I was so happy with the first...
I believe it have a lot of action and very little Tolkien.

 

[Corbier]

Why were you so happy with the first considering PJ turned the wizard Radagast into a mushroom addict, covered in bird poo with a bunny-powered sleigh?

 

[Parson]

It has been about 20 years since I read The Hobbit and I was thinking that my memory had to be really bad since there were so many scenes that I couldn't seem to place from the book. Maybe it's just that there are a lot of added or radically changed scenes.

 

[Siberian]

I loved Desolation far more than Unexpected.
to be brutally frank, (and unapologetically dismissive), I find Tolkein - even in The Hobbit - unnecessarily long-winded. I have an imagination. I don't need forty pages of description to understand what a dragon looks like or that a tree is green and has leaves. I find Tolkein himself is to blame.

Funny, I actually wish there were more descriptions in his books. I still don't know what Legolas looked like. The only times where he might seem to be carried away somewhat is with forests/trees (not everyone shares his love of nature, after all). He's certainly no more long-winded than any of the fantasy authors I've read in the past 20 years.

A long-winded, self-impressed, typical-of-the-day pompous upper-middle class brit, with an over-inflated view of himself, and of his abilities as an author. World-Creator extraordinaire, but rather mediocre Tale-Teller.

It's one thing when an author's style doesn't work for you... but your choice of words here make you sound like a troll. "self-impressed" - care to provide a quote (maybe from any of the published letters) to support your claim? "typical-of-the-day" - you mean like those thousands who died in the most horrific (in terms of psychological effects) war in the history of mankind? Who almost died himself? Who lost two of his three best friends? Who lived through very tough economic times after the war and then had to watch two of his sons risk their lives in the next global war? "typical middle-class" - and that's an insult why??? "with an over-inflated view of himself, and of his abilities as an author" - LOL don't know what to say to this... Did you know him personally to pass such judgment? Did he offend you or something?

 

[Siberian]

The Wheel of Time is indeed quite extreme, there is no doubt about it.
However, a lot of the most well-know Fantasy series seem to span thousands of pages, and a series with twice the volume of text of Lord of the Rings are far far from extreme in this genre. And still, within LotR, Tolkien did manage to paint a vivid world that has captivated the imaginations of countless millions.

Exactly. People tend to forget that both The Hobbit and LOTR were just two finished books (even if LOTR was rather big by the standards of the time and had to be split into a trilogy). Practically everyone today writes series (not even trilogies) and you're lucky if they don't end every book in a cliffhanger. That's true even with YA books. Any of the latter Harry Potter books is bigger than The Hobbit.

 

[devilsgrin]

Well, despite having expected to be upset by the differences between the book and the film (which is what usually happens when I see a film of a book I've enjoyed; or maybe because, I was expecting to be so dissapointed) I enjoyed the film, and yes the barrel run was fun.

The fleshed out throw away mention of Dol Guldur didn't upset me, because it showed events which were mentioned later in the LOTR.
The whole creation of Tauriel as a character and her various relationships should have upset me but didn't do so too much.

As I often find with film adaptations, I accept the big changes as part of film making, but seemingly trivial details upset me.

Tauriel says to Thranduil, that she is not worthy, because she is a simple wood elf, which means to me a Sindar.
Isn't Thranduil, himself? I always assumed so.
Later she says something like "The moon (or the stars) has always been very important to the Eldar."

Well make you're mind up, girl! What are you?
A Noldor princess in hiding?
Well I suppose it would solve Thranduil's 'She ain't good enough for my lad!' question.

this perplexed me too during the film, so i checked it out. It appears Thranduil - and by extension Legolas IS a Sindarin elf. The "common" elves of mirkwood are actually Silvan elves.
Silvan elves, perhaps even moreso than elves of other kindreds (in part due to the two trees perhaps), adore the stars. For the silvan elves did not venture west at all... no light of the trees, no particular fixation with sun and moon... its all about the stars for them.

 

[monsterchic]

I liked it, but it felt a little drawn out to me. They did a fantastic job on Smaug, and Benedict Cumberbatch was the perfect voice for him.

 

[Siberian]

So I dragged myself to see it... mostly because I saw the new season of Sherlock and was reminded that I actually did like Martin Freeman as Bilbo (funny that Cumberbatch is also in it).

I think it flows better than the first one, but that's the only good thing (beside Freeman) I can think of. It's also strays further away from the books. There're a few good scenes (like the opening of the door on the Durin's day) but they don't compensate for the rest of the silliness.

I hated it, fair and square. It might not be a big surprise to anyone, but I feel it's fairly justified. I posted my views on An Unexpected Journey a year ago, back here, and to put it in diplomatic terms: The problematic aspects have not exactly been improved.

The Desolation of Smaug is marred by severe, illusion-breaking inconsistencies, a total absence of the subtlety that could have made things beautiful (like in LOTR), and a similar absence of character focus and motivation.

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.

For instance: A band of orcs climbing over rooftops and fighting in the streets, without anyone noticing, in a densely populated town that was just before presented as impossible to sneak into.

The Beorn sequence is kind of included, only without the trick Gandalf did in the book. The dwarfs are chased by Beorn in bear form and hide in his house, locking him out - and then the next day, he's perfectly friendly, and really doesn't do anything except make some general comments about coming darkness.

That's been one of my problems with PJ's efforts since TTT. The writers think the audience are idiots. Take those open barrels for example, that toss and turn in the river and no one falls out or gets drowned. It's something you can expect in a Michael Bay's movie, not the adaption of a fairly realistic, low magic Tolkien's world.

 

[medfair]

Yes, that was my biggest disappointment, that it lacked all the charm of the book, and in spite of a few scenes with visual appeal, all the enchantment.

Also, (highlight for mild spoilers) they glossed over some of Bilbo's most important achievements, in order to have more time for scenes of Elves vs. Orcs. For instance, he had barely begun to fight the spiders before Elves arrived to kill off most of them.

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.