Critics review 'Desolation of Smaug' | POSSIBLE SPOILERS

Eldorion wrote:Interesting you bring that up, Tin. :)I actually still wish they hadn't followed Gandalf, although I'll admit I'm not sure how well that would have worked on film.  But Gandalf's excursions with the White Council in The Hobbit serve the same narrative purpose as his fall into the chasm in Moria does in LOTR: to remove him from the party so that they have to face subsequent challenges without a powerful wizard to back them up.  What Gandalf gets up to in the meantime really doesn't matter, and in both books he merely gives a brief account when he returns to the party.

I also feel that including the White Council stuff attracts a lot of attention away from the Quest since the conflict with the Necromancer is far more important than the conflict with Smaug, both within the steam of pseudo-history and as a prequel to LOTR.  Although Jackson has managed to avoid this problem so far by making all of Gandalf's and the White Council's scenes really boring.

Interesting point about comparing the two, in LOTR Gandalfs absence is mysterious, we dont know what really happened to him (on screen) for a long time, and I like that mystery. In the Hobbit its spelled out in boring detail at the WC.

There's so much convoluted crap in this film I'm shocked people weren't saying the film was confusing! I barely understood half the stuff they were blabbing about. They had a limited amount of source material to go off of, regardless of what they say otherwise, and finding themselves unable to keep going on with the story and make it entertaining for 3 hours, bloated the film with so many pointless subplots that they're left with a giant mess they have to clean up in TABA that will probably take up two thirds of the film. The last third will feature Bilbo, but at that point no one will care about him!

At this point does anyone even care about Bilbo beyond the superficial "Oh, it's Bilbo, the character we've known and loved for years!"

Mike Stoklasa even says in the Red Letter Media review, that most of the movie isn't about Bilbo, and he didn't mind that at all. I think that a lot of people viewing these movies don't care about Bilbo. He's just there because the book requires him to be.

The people have spoken. They want action movies with sexy masculine heroes made from Tolkien books.

Well I don't care about Freeman's Bilbo (I include his performance amongst the faults in these movies, even though it's the least of them).

DOS is not gaining any ground on AUJ at the US box office. And now that it's fizzling out of theaters there's no way it can catch up.

Radaghast wrote:Well I don't care about Freeman's Bilbo (I include his performance amongst the faults in these movies, even though it's the least of them).

I think the problem here is that Jackson et al. had Freeman chosen from the get-go. They auditioned others I'm assuming, but they were going to give it to Freeman in the end. Shouldn't they have cast a wider net, and not have gone with their first pick before they had even talked to him about the project?

And even then, Freeman can only work so well with the material he's given. He's great in Sherlock, but in these movies he's just kind of, eh.

I didn't think Martin got anywhere near capturing the character either. And it would be very easy to put it down to the actor if, as you say, he wasn't great in Sherlock.

I also agree that they made a mess out of the White Council story line, but I think it could have played an interesting part in the movies if it had been done properly.

As it turned out they did the opposite of that.   

True. I'm not particularly a fan of Freeman (only because I haven't seen him much), but I think another director would have gotten better out of him. Someone who respected the source material.

bungobaggins wrote:DOS is not gaining any ground on AUJ at the US box office. And now that it's fizzling out of theaters there's no way it can catch up.

Yep. $260-270 million in North America has been looking like the case. I'm curious to see how much further it gets overseas, especially in Japan and China which still haven't opened.

Chinese-speaking Smaug, haha.

No matter how well DOS does in the Asian market, I'm sure Mr. Cumberbum made out just fine.

So basically DOS didn't come close to AUJ as far as box office draw....

Hmmm there's a shocker!!!. The many people I spoke with who went to AUJ, a LOT of them thought it was over bloated, and barely resembled the source material. Many of those told me they would NOT be seeing DOS in theaters but would be waiting on the DVD/ blueray. Personally I think Jackson and his co writers missed the whole point of Tolkien's story with their poor adaptation. Instead Jackson told the story HE wanted to tell, which was not the story from the book. What he did tell, utilized the bare bones of Tolkien's book but never realized the details of Tolkien or even the imagery of Jackson's own LOTR films. LOTR is something which was not perfect but held enough of the original source material to be considered an adaptation at least. Sadly Jackson's Hobbit doesn't.

I'll probably see the next one in theaters, I'll go to the matinee of course, spending half the normal price. Just because I have gone this far with the Joke Jackson has made of the story thus far. AND to see how bad he screws it up. But after DOS my enthusiasm has been drained for the films. There really isn't anything of the Hobbit left in what Jackson has done. I can only hope WB sees this as a cash cow and finds another director who would be willing to remake the films in chronological order, and one that honestly loves Tolkien's work and can respect it while making it accessible to a mass audience.

Well one can dream can't he?

I wonder if people will accidentally buy three versions of the same book due to their varying movie covers that correspond to each year. I mean how does that even work? Do they just keep changing the cover for each movie?

I think Martin Probably sounds like the perfect Bilbo on paper, but the reality is he just misses the mark. Leaving aside he is hardly onscreen and has dire dialogue, his mannerisms are a bit annoying after a bit, as all I see is Martin Freeman doing his 'thing'. I really like him in every single other film he has done, I love his Watson, but this one it fails, for one thing his voice is wrong, its too deep and 'human sounding', in the scene with Elrond on the balcony, it just looks like Freeman kneeling down besides Elrond, not a HOBBIT. Thats why Elijah really worked for me, because he has a little Hobbity voice, and the size/scale thing worked miles better in LOTR.

That still bugs me. why was it more believable in LOTRs & totally UN-believable in The Hobbit ? Was it cos its "my first" ? & now Im setting the standard ? Gimli WAS a Dwarf, no questions asked, (even tho John Rhys-Davies is 6ft !) yet these circus wanna-bees/rejects/hopefuls/clowns just DONT come across even ONCE to me that they are Dwarves ! Just a gang of outsiders, mavericks, outlaws, rag-tag-bobtail type that no one wants.

its the actual cgi that bugs me, it looks fake.

The whole fooking things to fake    Tolkien made LOTRs seem as tho it could have, did have, happened once, a long time ago. A bit Arthurian, & I was entranced, captivated. But this shower of shit ?? I cant be drawn into caring or watching it, it stinks !

azriel wrote:

A shame the votings are closed, that would've won you my vote for best gif

Ah ! thankyou Ringo !   

Deconstructing Freemans performance will probably give one a lot of answers in regard to why the movies didn't really work.

Is it's his acting style that just doesn't lend itself to the role or it's Peter Jacksons direction that just doesn't get it out of him? I'm not really sure.

I do think the way he acts always has him walking a boarderline against actually being himself, he very noticably puts on a personna in Sherlock, he seems to fall easily out of it in the Hobbit though.

Also these movies must be a frustraating experience for the actors, with McKellan of in a different room and Peter Jackson mostly worrying about his 3D and CGI. The direction certainly doesn't seem to have coaxed any great performances out opf any of the actors. McKellen even said the movie had him contemplating quitting acting.

Maybe it's a mix of both.   

Not that I dislike all he does in DoS, I think the Bilbo Smaug conversation is easily the best part of the movie, but even that they cut down drastically to include other self written nonsense.  

It's honestly hard for me to tell if the problem with Bilbo is Freeman's acting or what he was given to work with. I think he's done a passable job and his performance has never bothered me, but couldn't strong-arm his way through the weak script to really find his character and make him memorable.

True. The fact that he's turned into such a side characteer and his most iconic scene, which should really be the centerpiece of the movie, is cut or made to be about someone else down doens't help either.

I think it's because Bilbo's hardly in it. Hard to get a good grasp of a character who's only intermittently in the script.

I am pretty much done with the Hobbit. I am reaaly looking forward to season 4 GOT, its quality medieval mayhem and its got dragons, 3 dragons

I think I'm still kind of looking forward too TABA.

Whatever Jackson is planning for Bo5A, it's going to be so over the top at least it'll be amusing.

Not that I'm not looking forward to GoTs season 4 too.

I'm looking forward to TABA just because then it will be over and we can all breathe a sigh of relief!