Re: The Desolation of Smaug pre-release thread [3] [SPOILERS]

[Tinuviel]

The extras in Lake town reminded me of just that; extras. The diversity subconsciously took me out of middle earth until I was taken back to Bard or Thorin. I mean, where would such people come from? The southeast like the Harad? I mean I guess it doesn't really matter...
That aside I thought the scene itself was decent, though Bard is hilariously large compared to Thorin and I don't feel like Thorin has any power from that height. Maybe he should have been standing on a box... 

[Pettytyrant101]

There is some book info that could account for the diversity in Dale. (I cant believe I am about to defend PJ!!  )
It was a major exporter of all sorts-from toys and tools to armour and weapons before Smaug.

We also know from FotR that the Great River was used to trade between Gondor and Dale and I assume Thranduil too- wine presumably being a main export ( I wonder where they grew the grapes?!).
I think its Beregrond says he remembers as a child that there were still occasional traders came down from the north- presumably in the generation before Smaug came this was more constant traffic. Dale seems to be the main trading base for the entire north of ME since the collapse of Arnor and the northern King line.

Gondor has long established links with Harad, and as one point it was part of Gondor  (I always felt Gondor should have a more mixed Mediterranean look to its people given how far south of the Shire it is and mixed with cultural and genetic influences from Harad) so taking this all into account its perfectly feasible for a Gondorian trader to have some Hardrim ancestry, to marry someone in Dale and settle there eventually and introduce the Harad strain into the local genetic mix.
And thats not taking into account the possibility that during times of peace between Harad and Gondor that full blood Haradrim traders didn't trade with Dale.

[halfwise]

How do you reach Dale from Gondor? Seems like a pretty horrid trek through Mirkwood.

[Pettytyrant101]

Not entirely sure what the route at the north end was Halfy from Dale to the Anduin (I assume when it was Greenwood they would have taken goods down the River Running as far as the Old Forest Road and then used it to get through Greenwood and to the Anduin -I assume thats why settlements of humans still exist at the southern end of Mirkwood even by the time of LotR's, and its somewhere about there the Rohirrim originated I believe, so its was probably much more densely populated when it was on a major trade route- and from there down river as far as the rapids, and then used the portage ways Aragorn discovers when the Fellowship is there, and rejoined the river at a later point after the falls of Rauros.

It explains if there was a lot of trade why Gondor choose to mark its northern border with two huge statues on the river rather than on land. Most people were travelling by river.

[Sinister71]

There is some book info that could account for the diversity in Dale. (I cant believe I am about to defend PJ!!  )
It was a major exporter of all sorts-from toys and tools to armour and weapons before Smaug.

Don't get me wrong I'm all for the diversity, but look at the crowd shots, all the people of color are up front instead of mixed among the crowd. I think its cool they found a way to include the many races of the world but with the way the people are organized its like they are pandering to the people who raised a fit about the black girl being told she was the wrong color to be a hobbit. So they made sure she was put in Laketown (I seen her twice in the Bard clip) right up front   As some sort of apology maybe  

Whatever the reason they could have shot the crowd better IMO with races being scattered throughout the crowd.

[bungobaggins]

In response to that latest video posted by Bungo: this is pretty big if you think about it. We are shown black people in Middle-Earth for the first time! This addition is odd, but at least makes more sense than not, considering how far Esgaroth is towards the East. (It's an interesting change, but not necessary to my mind).

I actually found it really refreshing to see black people who are just regular people, and not "the bad guys." Sure, it isn't necessary, but I don't mind it one bit.

[Mrs Figg]

boy that was cheesy, it looked like one of those Coca Cola adverts, lets all sing happy clappy Rainbow Nation schmaltz. It screamed political correct pandering, it was unnatural and wooden, I was distracted trying to count all the differing races. It just didnt look right. Not in an obviously Viking inspired fishing town anyway.

[RA]

Yet another clip.

The effect making Thorin short was really fake looking.

[bungobaggins]

Yeah, about as bad as when the troll was holding Bilbo in AUJ.

[azriel]

I felt the whole clip was horrible. Bard looked like he was added in later, Thorin reminds me of "Earthworm Jim", not only is his height off kilter but hes to thin for a believable dwarf ? Gimli I accepted,he was chunky all over & in his face, but Thorin ? Im not racist but somehow afro dark ladies dont quite sit well for me in a Tolkien story, Its going so far away from The Hobbit, book wise, that only by including the names I know, Gandalf etc, do I remember what Im watching   I saw a bus stop poster today as I was in town, I said to my son, "you still wanna see it ??" I cant believe Ive got to the stage where I honestly dont give a flying fook anymore !

[Mrs Figg]

I dont mind the fact that Laketown was a trading town, I get it, but that extra was in your face obviously there to calm down any racism claims. It took me out of the moment. They werent even believable acting extras either, there was something hammy about it all. Thorin looked weird, not convinced by the sizing at all. How come 10 years ago Gimli and the Hobbits looked so convincing? the only time I ever thought it didnt quite work was the photo line up at Elronds meeting.

[Radaghast]

The effect making Thorin short was really fake looking.

Yeah, I think those effects are as good as they can be, but that doesn't mean it looks great (imho).

[Norc]

when u have a really tall guy, it is hard to make him look small because the propotions are still small.. that's why they have this head-prostetics (some of them for e.g. nori) and large hands and feet prosteticsand they're all wearing fat-suits.

[Norc]

the "shopping" list for the hobbit  souce: https://www.facebook.com/HobbitenNorge/posts/759674014047132:0

1 Hobbit – Bilbo Baggins
1 Dragon - Smaug
1 Crew member whose sole job on set was to look after prosthetic hands
1 Elvenking – Thranduil
25 Number of years the textures department at Weta Digital worked on Smaug’s skin
26 Average days shooting on a single set 
2 Wizards – Gandalf and Radagast
3 Number of children belonging to Bard
3 Films in the Trilogy 
4 Inches that 15-year-old actor John Bell (Bain) grew over the length of production
4 Tons of silicon used to generate the facial prosthetics
5 Hours to complete hair, make-up, prosthetics and wardrobe for each of the 13 Dwarves 
5 Average number of doubles used for each main character, including scale, stunt and riding doubles
6 Number of weeks it took to build Beorn’s house
7 km Length of toupe tape used to attach beards to faces
8 Legs on the giant Spiders infesting Mirkwood Forest
9 Weeks of location filming on the Trilogy
10kg Human hair for wigmaking
104 Average days it took to renew a studio with a new set
13 Dwarves – Thorin, Balin, Dwalin, Fili, Kili, Bofur, Bombur, Bifur, Oin, Gloin, Dori, Nori and Ori
13 Empty wine barrels in which the Dwarves escape Thranduil’s Realm
14 Tons of silicone used to mold all of the armor and weapons for all cultures
32 Polystyrene trees, used in various configurations, to make the Mirkwood set
40 Buildings on casters that make up the Lake-town set
48fps Higher frame rate used for the Trilogy
60 2nd unit studio crew
65 Number of people it took—including actors, doubles and stunt men—to portray 13 Dwarves
80 The age of the oldest vintage microphone used to record the score for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
88 Microphones used in the film’s scoring session
91 Wigs created for the Dwarves
94 Set models created for the Trilogy
95 Number of musicians in the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra recording the film’s score 
99 Number of studio sets built for the Trilogy
100+ Hobbit feet for Bilbo
100 Total 2nd unit location crew
100 Total costume department crew 
115 Number of drivers needed to transport the cast and crew to New Zealand locations
250+ Approximate population of the Trilogy’s art department 
263 Beards made for the production
300 Bottles of spirit gum used in the production
350 Off-set crew
400 Costumes created for Lake-town
450 Main unit studio crew
547 Traveling weapons for the 13 Dwarves
800 Crew traveling on location between two units
860 Bottles of isopropyl alcohol used to remove prosthetics
752 Wigs. Nearly everyone in the film is wigged
1200 ‘Extras’ that needed to be cast for the Trilogy
2000 Hand-spun goblets created for Smaug’s Lair
3000 Props recorded in the furniture catalogue for Lake-town
5000+ Approximate population of Lake-town
8900 Approximate number of continuous hours the art department worked to build, decorate, and tear down sets. This involved different crews working 24/7
11,862 Prosthetics made for the Trilogy
140,000+ Cups of coffee made by craft services throughout production
170,000 Punched aluminum gold plated coins trickled over Smaug’s Lair


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[Radaghast]

As far as the diversity thing, it doesn't bother me that much and I think PT gives a decent justification for it. However, in a story set in, say, ancient Egypt, I don't think there'd be much reason to feature people of European descent (except Greeks and Romans in the latter days of that civilization).

[azriel]

And a partridge in a pear tree !  

[bungobaggins]

As far as the diversity thing, it doesn't bother me that much and I think PT gives a decent justification for it. However, in a story set in, say, ancient Egypt, I don't think there'd be much reason to feature people of European descent (except Greeks and Romans in the latter days of that civilization).

[Mrs Figg]

yeah Chuck Heston

[bungobaggins]

Time Magazine has named DOS one of the top 10 movies of the year, a sign that it will probably do better with critics this time around.

http://entertainment.time.com/2013/12/04/arts-and-entertainment/

[Radaghast]

I meant characters, not actors

[halfwise]

Nobody's posted a review yet?  The premiere was monday.

edit: NORC, don't look you little nitwit! It's got SPOiLERS!  

http://www.showbuzzdaily.com/reviews/showbuzzdaily-film-review-the-hobbit-the-desolation-of-smaug.html

gotta love the first sentence of the last paragraph.

THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG:  Worth A Ticket – The Long Road Continues, But This Time On A Better Path

Jumping at once to the most pressing matter–which is more than its trilogy often does–Peter Jackson’s THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG is considerably more enjoyable than last year’s monument to bloat An Unexpected Journey, although still not in a league with his classic Lord of the Rings trilogy.  (Similarly, the series’ much-vaunted and somewhat controversial High Frame Rate presentation proves itself improved but not yet perfected.)

Smaug, of course, has the advantage over Journey in that the initial burden of exposition is already behind it.  We’ve met the thirteen dwarves, led by Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage), who are on a mission with Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) and Gandalf (Ian McKellan) to the Lonely Mountain, which was once a dwarf kingdom of treasure ruled by Thorin’s ancestors, but is now the domain of the fearsome dragon Smaug (voiced and performed via motion-capture by Benedict Cumberbatch); Bilbo’s task is to steal the magical Arkenstone jewel from Smaug, which will (somehow) enable Thorin to regain his throne.  With all that underway, Smaug can make the most of its bulk of the action sequences contained in J.R.R. Tolkien’s novel, which Jackson has stepped up to a state-of-the-technology, fantastically-expensive CG level.  Having escaped trolls and goblins the last time around, Smaug gives us a zillion orcs and wargs and some less-than-friendly elves, not to mention great Smaug himself.

This is by far the most “action movie” of any of the Tolkien films, and there are times that it can feel like a Pirates of the Caribbean-ish set-up for theme park attractions, most notably in an epic escape via barrel from the orcs and elves, featuring a sequence so insanely acrobatic that it’s gasp-inducing, although also so flagrantly impossible in its physiology that one ends up appreciating the CG artists who created it more than anything else.  (Similarly, the orcs are so easily slaughtered and in such numbers that they could as well be minor figures in video games.)  But compared to Journey, this script, again by Jackson, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Guillermo del Toro, is also a much more character-based chapter, with time spent not only with Bilbo and several of the individual dwarves, but with elves Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and steely newcomer Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly), as well as human boatman/marksman Bard (Luke Evans) in his small town.  (Tauriel is the first prominent character invented solely for the movies, and she’s a lot of fun, although more in a Katniss Everdeen way than a Tolkien one.)  All this effort pays off, as it’s a lot easier to care about the events in this installment.

Jackson couldn’t drag Gollum back this time, but he doesn’t let many minutes go by without reminding us of that fateful ring Bilbo is now carrying around with him.  The strenuous attempts to tie the Hobbit series in with Lord of the Rings and raise the stakes for a story that, on its own, hardly deserves an 8-9 hour trilogy, are sometimes exhausting and overly familiar, most notably in a lengthy detour Gandalf makes for a pit-stop with ultimate evil that feels like an outtake from the earlier trilogy.  The climactic showdown with Smaug, while spectacular enough for anyone and a triumph of CG and motion-capture (as well as the silky evil in Cumberbatch’s voice and computer-translated movements), also feels a bit second-hand, indebted to other movies about dragons and similar monstrous beasts.  But then, in the fifth feature of a double-trilogy, it must be hard to find much in this Middle-Earth that wouldn’t feel second-hand.  The cliffhanger ending, unlike the ones at the end of the other Tolkien chapters, feels forced, as though Warner Bros wanted to make sure no one would dare fail to buy a ticket for the next one.

Thanks to the more intimate focus of the drama, some of the actors get to shine here as they didn’t in Journey, with particular highlights for Freeman’s increasingly heroic Bilbo, Armitage, Aidan Turner as the dwarf Kili, Evans and Lilly. Jackson and his army of technicians have, as always, delivered a skull-blowing visual and aural package.  Much of the story has been shot by Andrew Lesnie in a desaturated color scheme, which apart from often being quite lovely and atmospheric, works well with the High Frame Rate presentation.  The state of HFR right now seems to be that as long as the lighting is kept fairly low, the images have the precision and detail that Jackson prizes, along with superb 3D effect.  However, in bright light, whether sunshine or otherwise, the “videotape” look of the technology reappears, and the fakeness of CG effects, sets and make-up becomes all too evident.  In one stretch of Smaug that intercuts between actions taking place in settings of light and shadow, it was distractingly as though the picture was switching media from shot to shot.  The gigantic production design by Dan Hennah and sound design are worthy of special appreciation, as is the latest selection from Howard Shore’s continuing epic score.  The editing by Jabez Olssen is, mercifully, less stately than it was in the first chapter.

When An Unexpected Journey ended, it was hard not to dread half a dozen more hours spent on the road to Lonely Mountain, but THe Desolation of Smaug shows Peter Jackson to have absorbed the lessons of that misfire.  Despite all his mighty efforts, Smaug just doesn’t have the weight or power of Lord of the Rings–really, given the differences in source material, how could it?–but it’s a full-bore holiday entertainment that stints on nothing as it spins its tale.

[Mrs Figg]

''Jackson couldn’t drag Gollum back this time, but he doesn’t let many minutes go by without reminding us of that fateful ring Bilbo is now carrying around with him.''

  

''The climactic showdown with Smaug, while spectacular enough for anyone and a triumph of CG and motion-capture (as well as the silky evil in Cumberbatch’s voice and computer-translated movements), also feels a bit second-hand, indebted to other movies about dragons and similar monstrous beasts''

  

[Bluebottle]

So the hopelessness of a hobbit and thirteen dwarves taking on a dragon which is reinforced time and time again in the book is straight out of the window as well.

One shouldn't be surprised, I guess.  

[halfwise]

"Bilbo’s task is to steal the magical Arkenstone jewel from Smaug, which will (somehow) enable Thorin to regain his throne."

I can't tell if the reviewer is
a) being sarcastic
b) doesn't know jack-shit about the Hobbit.
OR
c) The writers pulled another ding-a-ling plot variation to make the story 'more exciting'.  

[bungobaggins]

The answer is "c." The answer is always "c."