The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)

[4815162342]

Question: How did Smaug know about Necromancer/Sauron's return? Is he affiliated with him (or since Benedict Cumberbatch is voicing both, are they two sides of the same coin?)

 

Dragons were first created by the Dark Lord Morgoth, who was Sauron's boss in the First Age. As powerful, sentient, magical creatures, they likely can sense the return of powerful evil in the world. They aren't inherently evil, but they are greedy which makes them much more likely to do evil things.

Edited December 15, 2013 by 4815162342

[Dementeleus]

Caught it a second time yesterday evening. Looks fantastic in HFR. The first ⅔ or so moved better for me this time around -- parts of the third act still seem mostly un-necessary.

[ladyevenstar22]

trying to remember what i wrote 

 

something about people needing to realize that events in the hobbit films set the stage for what happens in LOTR so even if they're not as dramatic and serious but the seeds are being planted 

 

for sure the scale and expectations here arent the same afterall this is just the story of a group of dwarves and a hobbit going on a quest to best a dragon and reclaim their kingdom whereas LOTR is about the fate of all middle-earth inhabitants 

but its little decisions made now that stear the plot in said direction , gandalf choosing bilbo , which leads to bilbo stealing the ring from gollum then giving it to frodo who ended being the one entrusted with destroying it !

had bilbo not taken the ring from gollum who's to say sauron wouldnt have gotten the ring back sooner and able to take form once again , remember the orcs caught gollum and tortured him into saying bilbo and shire name 

 

also going on this quest gandalf is able to assert sooner the rumors about sauron coming back into existence as before it seems him galadriel and elrond were confident the evil had been defeated and whatever was going on in the dark forest wasnt of consequences 

 

we also see sauron has begun gathering his forces , poor Azorg obliged to give up on his petty pursuit of thorin because the boss said so but still send a minion and soldiers to do his dirty job 

 

also find what we see of the elves here is very interesting , you understand there's no lost love between elves and dwarves so to see years later how legolas and gimli become bff of sorts shows growth and characterization , perhaps tauriel has much to do with that because in this movie legolas didnt strike me as someone keen on disobeying his father orders , he does so only because he likes the girl which is never a bad place to start 

 

i would have loved seeing a younger aragorn afterall he's suppose to be 30 somtg now during these events

[Leyla]

also find what we see of the elves here is very interesting , you understand there's no lost love between elves and dwarves so to see years later how legolas and gimli become bff of sorts shows growth and characterization , perhaps tauriel has much to do with that because in this movie legolas didnt strike me as someone keen on disobeying his father orders , he does so only because he likes the girl which is never a bad place to start 

 

i would have loved seeing a younger aragorn afterall he's suppose to be 30 somtg now during these events

how do you think things with this 'triangle' will shape up in TABA?? any hints in DoS? (i mean Id hate for it to be a triangle really, I meant is there a chance that its all platonic betw Tau & Kili)???

 

btw I saw rumours that Aragorn will be in TABA   (along with Denethor apparently)

Its only rumours so idk take it with ahuge graaaaain of salt

Edited December 15, 2013 by Leyla

[Killimano3]

WE DON'T HAVE A JIFFY

[4815162342]

More thoughts:

 

If the film had trimmed a little here and there from the first  hour 45, and then did some moderate trimming to the final action extravaganza, we should have been able to fit in Smaug attacking Laketown. In that scenario, the best ending IMO would have been to put Sauronmancer revealing himself to Gandalf at Dol Guldur and sending forth Azog's army at the very end, since it would provide a cliffhanger of sorts that would be less frustrating than the one we got.

Edited December 15, 2013 by 4815162342

[Dementeleus]

More thoughts:

 

If the film had trimmed a little here and there from the first  hour 45, and then did some moderate trimming to the final action extravaganza, we should have been able to fit in Smaug attacking Laketown. In that scenario, the best ending IMO would have been to put Sauronmancer revealing himself to Gandalf at Dol Guldur and sending forth Azog's army at the very end, since it would provide a cliffhanger of sorts that would be less frustrating than the one we got.

 

If the film had trimmed a little here and there from the first  hour 45, and then did some moderate trimming to the final action extravaganza, we should have been able to end the movie there.

[4815162342]

If the film had trimmed a little here and there from the first  hour 45, and then did some moderate trimming to the final action extravaganza, we should have been able to end the movie there.

 

Perhaps, but I'd have preferred to fit in the Laketown attack if possible and I think the Sauron reveal/Gandalf capture/army going forth is a better cliffhanger of sorts than Smaug on the move (in part because Sauron would probably sense Smaug's death and that would be the catalyst for his army marching just as the death is the catalyst for Bolg's army marching in the book).

Edited December 15, 2013 by 4815162342

[Ozymandias]

Smaug is the most famous part of the book, they simply weren't gonna have him not be in the 3rd movie.  The first 30 minutes of TABA will be Smaug assaulting the beaches of Normandy. 

[Heretic]

Huge improvement over the first Hobbit, which, looking back, was a stupid, tedious oaf. This on the other hand, was not. Lost most of the stupidity, and it certainly did not bore me. CGI was very iffy in some parts, however, and it was a little overlong. A trim of about 15 minutes would have been perfect, but other than that, I really liked it.

 

Legolas kicked major, major fucking ass, and Tauriel is a nice addition. Didn't care AT ALL for the love story though, it's totally unnecessary. Barrel scene was a load of fun, however, parts of it looked like an amateur video game, which was off-putting.

 

Finally, the ending where Smaug flew out of the mountain into the sky covered in gold was spectacular. Absolutely beautiful shot. 

 

I'd give it B+

[lilmac]

[*]I really enjoyed how they fleshed out Bard. It was all super logical and fit in very well.

[*]Smaug looked AMAZING.

[*]The spiders also looked great.  It was nice to see some that truly looked and moved like real spiders.

[*]Gandalf v. Sauron

[*]Balin being the voice of reason in everything.

[*]Even though it's corny, Legolas killing orcs in the most fabulous way possible.

Edited December 15, 2013 by lilmac

[MovieMan89]

Well, surprise surprise, I did not like this better than AUJ. I thought the pacing issues were actually significantly worse in this, because AUJ only drags the first half hour or so for me. After the dinner I was rarely bored and once they hit Rivendell in AUJ the rest of the film is pure perfection and speeds by for me. This on  the other hand had slow and bloated parts throughout, most surprisingly at the end with Smaug. That part just seemed to drag on and on and on. I mean it was awesome at first, especially when it was just Smaug and Bilbo, but PJ just spent too much unnecessary time on the whole bit with the Dwarves trying to encase him in gold (I assume that's what they were trying to do, it was all a bit confusing).

 

The beginning up until the spiders was also entirely uneventful and felt unimportant to the plot. I'm a diehard fan and even I didn't really care about seeing Gandalf and Thorin's first meeting at the Prancing Pony. That felt like the definition of a EE scene, except it was the opening scene of the movie.    At least AUJ had that awesome Erebor intro scene that set up the story and parts of the dinner were entertaining. Other slow parts popped up during the dwarves capture by the elves and some bits with Laketown.

 

My other big complaint lies in the Tauriel/Kili love story. Really now? I was totally open to a Legolas/Tauriel romance in the movie, but this on the other hand was just sooo random and HUH? I mean really would any diehard Tolkien nut have ever even written fan-fic about a relationship between Kili and a female elf, let alone put it into a movie adaptation? I can almost always understand where PJ is coming from in this franchise, but this is the first time ever I simply can't. The dialouge near the end between the two of them after she heals him was just so silly and unnecessary. I can't imagine anyone in the audience caring about them romantically. What sucks is aside from that, I loved the addition of Tauriel. She was very well done and interesting as a character, and her and Legolas' relationship could have been a great little romance for the trilogy if they had developed it. I hope PJ isn't planning to pursue some love triangle now in TABA with her, Kili, and Legolas, cause that will just be stupid.

 

Finally, I missed the character development and focus on Bilbo that AUJ had. Freeman did such an awesome job in AUJ that he truly gave Bilbo a charm and likability up there with the best characters in the movie franchise. Bilbo was one of the best things about AUJ. Freeman still does great in this film with what he has, but there's simply not enough focus on him. He saves the dwarves twice, but aside from that he's really not all that important to the film. Also what fun is having Gandalf the Grey if he's stuck in Gandalf the White mode the whole movie? I know his task is much more serious in this and so he kind of has to be too, but I missed the Gandalf the Grey  antics we got to see in AUJ.

 

So yeah, now that I've griped about all those issues, there was still a whole lot I liked. Nothing in it topped the Riddles in the Dark scene in AUJ for me, but since that's my favorite part of the book I guess I shouldn't expect anything to. The barrel scene came close though, and was easily the highlight of the movie for me. Hats off to PJ and co for turning such a simple part of the book into one of the series' coolest and most unabashedly fun action sequences. If PJ could adapt everything from the book with that much ingenuity, these movies would have been LOTR levels of awesome. Smaug's design was epic, and Cumberbatch nailed the VO performance of him. Definitely one of the all time best movie dragons, if not the best.

 

Gandalf's Dol Goldur scenes were pretty cool, and the bit where he comes face to face with Sauron was just off the charts levels of OMG nerdgasm amazing. Again, I liked Tauriel a lot outside of the Kili romance, and Legolas was Legolas. Bard was pretty well done by Evans, and I also enjoyed Thranduill getting an expanded role. He's such a pompous and pretentious character, it's fun to kind of root against him and want to see him brought down to earth. Thorin also came off much less "I'm the Aragorn of this trilogy" than he did in AUJ  and found his own character a bit more. Music and cinematography were great as always, though AUJ beats this in those aspects as well I think.

 

Overall I give it a B, compared to the A- I give AUJ. I hope this is just the typical mid installment slowdown since TTT has always been my least favorite of the LOTR trilogy as well. So far it's following LOTR's pattern for me, so that means I should like TABA the best.

Edited December 16, 2013 by MovieMan89

[Ozymandias]

I don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but did anyone else notice Radagast's staff?  Its the staff that Gandalf uses in LOTR. So, wait, if he's using that staff in LOTR, does that mean the one he has in AUJ and DOS is going to be destroyed? I'm calling it a sure bet that Radagast is going to rescue Gandalf in the next movie, die, and Gandalf takes his staff in his memory and utterly wrecks shit before rejoining the dwarves in the Battle of Five Armies. Calling it now.

Edited December 16, 2013 by Ozymandias

[Dementeleus]

^^ Good catch. I hadn't noticed that (though obviously I was wondering where Gandalf gets his next staff from). Does anyone remember if there's any mention of Radagast at all in the LOTR movies (I don't think so but it's been awhile since I've watched them).

[Gopher]

What a frustrating film. Unlike the tedious AUJ I constantly saw what could have been a tight, effective action vehicle that delved into the themes of power and corruption that LOTR reveled in. The production value is great too--even if there's an overload of CGI--so it really bugged me that so much of the film feels like busywork. There's no humanity or storytelling in this movie. I didn't care about Bilbo (neither did the movie apparently) or Gandalf or the elves who captured my attention in LOTR. Even the best action sequences are immediately undermined by a lack of any meaningful purpose emotionally or narratively. So it's almost worse because I could feel how much better and fulfilling Jackson and company could make this film and I didn't get any of it. 

 

A squandering of money, talent, and goodwill. 

[Water Bottle]

A-

 

Although honestly this all feels like Peter Jackson is bored with movies and would rather make his own video game. All of the set pieces looked like they belong in a video game, a lot of the delivery feels right out of a video game, and the over-the-top action sequences once again feels like something that belongs in a video game.

 

Basically we got to see three hours of somebody playing an RPG we're never going to play and it was fucking glorious.

[Gopher]

A-

 

Although honestly this all feels like Peter Jackson is bored with movies and would rather make his own video game. All of the set pieces looked like they belong in a video game, a lot of the delivery feels right out of a video game, and the over-the-top action sequences once again feels like something that belongs in a video game.

 

Basically we got to see three hours of somebody playing an RPG we're never going to play

 

I agree with all of this, and I gave the movie two letter grades worse than you did. 

[Water Bottle]

I agree with all of this, and I gave the movie two letter grades worse than you did. 

 

Clearly I'm easy to please.

[IndustriousAngel]

So, finally saw it, in HFR 3D too. With a review, I'll wait until we have all 3 parts, but here's some thoughts:

 

- That must be the shortest 2+1/2 hours I spent at the movies this year

- it's still a children's story, pepped up - but what a ride!

- in fact, this comes head-to-head for me with "Gravity" as most impressive theatrical experience of the year (while both are not that impressive from the script/story angle)

- Hobbit2 has much more momentum than the first part

- the introduction of some more speaking parts works really well

- sets sets sets! The Beorn and especially laketown set show that it's still (and will always be) better to build a set than use a greenscreen and CGI

- Beorn (don't remember the actor) and Fry as master of L. were shortchanged and underused, I hope for the EE

- I didn't get how it was that difficult for the Dwarves to get smuggled into laketown, but the orcs walked in without anyone noticing? maybe the EE will explain.

- the amount of gold was simply ridiculous, as was Smaug's bath at the end. still a wonderful dragon

- Freeman really gives his best; I loved how he's always using body language, not only his face

[Leyla]

My other big complaint lies in the Tauriel/Kili love story. Really now? I was totally open to a Legolas/Tauriel romance in the movie, but this on the other hand was just sooo random and HUH? I mean really would any diehard Tolkien nut have ever even written fan-fic about a relationship between Kili and a female elf, let alone put it into a movie adaptation? I can almost always understand where PJ is coming from in this franchise, but this is the first time ever I simply can't. The dialouge near the end between the two of them after she heals him was just so silly and unnecessary. I can't imagine anyone in the audience caring about them romantically. What sucks is aside from that, I loved the addition of Tauriel. She was very well done and interesting as a character, and her and Legolas' relationship could have been a great little romance for the trilogy if they had developed it. I hope PJ isn't planning to pursue some love triangle now in TABA with her, Kili, and Legolas, cause that will just be stupid.

the triangle wasnt PJ's idea

It was reported in multiple articles how Evi signed up for DOS & TABA b/c she was promised NO love triangle

It was WB's who pressured them

again we dont know what realy happened so I cant be sure100%

Edited December 16, 2013 by Leyla