The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

[UncleChris]

This kinda reminds me of my complaint against World War Z, that the only thing the book and the movie had in common was the title. Virtually all of the added material was unnecessary crap, IMHO. It was interesting, too, that some of the CGI was out-friggin' standing (like the dragon) and some of it was not very good. And as others have pointed out, Bilbo seemed a 3rd rate sidekick, instead of the real subject of the story.

As a stand alone movie, I guess it would rate a low B-, but as a book adaptation, it ranks a C-, and only that high because of some of the effects and cinematography.

 

[Dback Jon]

Alex and I went and saw this on Christmas Day.

My thoughts:

I tried to separate the book from the movie and judge it as both a stand alone movie and as an adaption of one of my favorite books.

I thought it was fairly successful on both counts - better than the first all-around.

Alex, who has never read The Hobbit, thoroughly enjoyed it.

It stayed fairly true to the book (other than the additions) - didn't leave much out, only some of the more children-book aspects (Bilbo's songs, etc).

My biggest quibble with CHANGES to the book was the dragon scenes and the dwarves under the mountain - that was too contrived, didn't work for me (but Alex loved it) - the molten gold, etc had too much of a Michael Bay-ish aspect too it.

I didn't mind too much the addition of Tauriel. Story is done fine (but would be great without it).

I DON'T care for the addition of AZOG and the orcs.

 

[UncleChris]

Some real "*******" for me:

Spoiler

And what was up with melting Gandalf's staff and imprisoning him? For some reason, Jackson seemed to think it important to decrease Gandalf's powers.... i.e. including a made up breaking of Galdalf the White's staff by the Witch King in ROTK (the Witch King had no such power over Gandalf), and this bizarre episode with the Necromancer (Sauron), who also had no such power over Gandalf to either capture him or melt his staff. In fact, even at his most powerful in LOTR (books), Gandalf matched up pretty well with Sauron as far as magical power. Of course, if Sauron had obtained the ring, it would have been Katy bar the door.

And finally, WTF was up with Legolas and the Elves? If not for the actor portraying him, I would not have recognized Legolas because of the way his character was portrayed (Elves in general, too)? Why the hell was THIS necessary?

Jus' sayin'....

 

[Chaplin]

I'd say I do a good job seperating the book from the movie in general. I actually really liked this movie--but I was comparing it to the first movie, not to the book, and that's the trick right there.

This was much, much closer to the Lord of the Rings and even though Bjorn wasn't the best CGI, the graphics in this were light years better than in the first movie. The Goblin King was some of the worst "real-world" CGI I've seen and found it ridiculous that it was in the same movie as some of the best "real-world" CGI I've ever seen (Gollum).

This was also the first Middle Earth movie that did not have at least some semblance of Gollum--I was wondering if he could pull it off. Thanks to Smaug, he did. What a magnificent bit of special effects. The dragon was spectacular. Definitely this movie's Gollum.

 

[Covert Rain]

Much better versus the 1st Hobbit movie which to me felt like an unecessary and endless montage of people running. Smaug was simply a site to behold on the big screen. The visuals and overall feel reminded why I love Jackson's vision of the stories. After the movie, I felt like the series was back on track and finally...it felt like LOR once again.

Much better film IMO versus the 1st but I still can't shake the notion that splitting this into so many film was completely and utterly unnecessary. The first film played out that scenario.

Glad to see Peter Jackson back on track and looking forward to the next film.

 

[conraddobler]

I thought there was a certain inconsistency of effects in this one.

Not much of a fan of this series in terms of movies but will still see them all.

 

[FischerKing]

i have always felt bad for not reading the hobbit yet, but after hearing so many of the die-hards bash this movie, i'm kind of glad i haven't read it yet. after the third installment is released next year, i'll read the book, but for right now i'm enjoying these movies. they have been a lot of fun.

 

[crisper57]

i have always felt bad for not reading the hobbit yet, but after hearing so many of the die-hards bash this movie, i'm kind of glad i haven't read it yet. after the third installment is released next year, i'll read the book, but for right now i'm enjoying these movies. they have been a lot of fun.

The movies will be a bigger time commitment than the book.

 

[FischerKing]

The movies will be a bigger time commitment than the book.

I've already invested in the first two - one more to go...

 

[Cardinals.Ken]

 

[Mulli]

Holy crap, the first hour is terrible! Please let this end better

 

[Mulli]

Spoiler:


Smaug is awesome! Makes it worth fastforwarding through most of the parts not in the book.

 

[RugbyMuffin]

I really enjoyed it, but my movies standards are not as high as some are.

Yet, I understand that if I had read the book, I would be in the crowd of "the book is better."

I have yet to see a Three Musketeer movie come close to the awesome books that the movies are "based on", and I still say with the amount of content in the 5 book Musketeer series, it is a HUGE opportunity for any film studio to cash in on.

 

[Stout]

Spoiler:


Smaug is awesome! Makes it worth fastforwarding through most of the parts not in the book.

Smaug as the creature was awesome; Smaug's yakety sax inability to catch the dwarves in a 1/2 hour romp of stupidity was not awesome. Let's create a great monster, then make it helpless to eat a dwarf standing on its nose

I really enjoyed it, but my movies standards are not as high as some are.

Yet, I understand that if I had read the book, I would be in the crowd of "the book is better."

I have yet to see a Three Musketeer movie come close to the awesome books that the movies are "based on", and I still say with the amount of content in the 5 book Musketeer series, it is a HUGE opportunity for any film studio to cash in on.

I thought it was a terrible movie, period; the rape of the book only made it worse.

I agree that we could really see some great musketeer movies in the future. There's a wealth of material, as you said. I did enjoy a lot of the different movies, though.

 

[Mulli]

Smaug as the creature was awesome; Smaug's yakety sax inability to catch the dwarves in a 1/2 hour romp of stupidity was not awesome. Let's create a great monster, then make it helpless to eat a dwarf standing on its nose



I thought it was a terrible movie, period; the rape of the book only made it worse.

I agree that we could really see some great musketeer movies in the future. There's a wealth of material, as you said. I did enjoy a lot of the different movies, though.

Hey, I agree with Stout on something!

 

[Covert Rain]

Smaug as the creature was awesome; Smaug's yakety sax inability to catch the dwarves in a 1/2 hour romp of stupidity was not awesome. Let's create a great monster, then make it helpless to eat a dwarf standing on its nose

In all fairness it did appear for part of that time Smaug was "playing with his food".

 

[AzStevenCal]

We finally got around to watching this movie tonight. I would say on a scale of 1 to 100 that it rates a solid 12. So obviously it was much better than the first one.

Dig a hole, bury this series in it with Peter Jackson on the bottom before he can ruin anything else. Other than Bilbo, the only character I liked in this movie is the elf chick who shouldn't be there in the first place. Even the action scenes were boring.

Steve