In theatres: 'Desolation of Smaug' | SPOILERS

Any thoughts, opinions, deprecations, MotA?

I'm seeing it at 11.30 tommorow morning...I'm crying already er...can't wait!

I kinda hope I don't enjoy, it's got to the point I feel almost guilty for discovering the books through the LOTR films...

I wouldn't want anyone to feel bad for enjoying PJ's films or having seen them first. I mean, hell, I read the books well before I saw the movies, but despite my dad's efforts at getting me to read them it was playing the tie-in video games that convinced me to take the plunge and read about Middle-earth.

malickfan wrote:I'm seeing it at 11.30 tommorow morning...I'm crying already er...can't wait!

I kinda hope I don't enjoy, it's got to the point I feel almost guilty for discovering the books through the LOTR films...

I did too, and that's why I think I was able to kind of enjoy parts of it. That original exposure I think sticks a bit, even though you don't want it to.

I'm not saying LOTR are bad (as films as least), I just feel so p*ssed off about The Hobbit/Jackson's new ideals as a filmaker/the commercialization of Tolkien in general I haven't had the desire to rewatch them properly in years.

Maybe they are as bad as Petty says, maybe they are as good as my 10 year old self remembers, but currently at this point I simply don't care.

Eldorion wrote:I wouldn't want anyone to feel bad for enjoying PJ's films or having seen them first.  I mean, hell, I read the books well before I saw the movies, but despite my dad's efforts at getting me to read them it was playing the tie-in video games that convinced me to take the plunge and read about Middle-earth.

You had long since read FotR when the film was released? Were you not 7 years old?   

cant wait to hear what Bungo and Music thought of the film.   go on. sock it to us.

I was like seven when the films came out so I didn't see them then. I was reading HP more than LOTR at that point. I read the books around 2003-04 and saw bits of the films after that, but didn't watch them all the way through until 2007-08.

Actually that's a good point! Eldo that is very impressive (and worrying)!

I have played a few of the games-The Third Age, ROTK and The Two Towers were pretty fun if repetitive hack and slash ems.

Maybe they are as bad as Petty says- Malick

They are!   

Greetings all. Well I don't have much time right now but here are my thoughts at present.  I really enjoyed this movie! I liked it nearly infinitely more than the THUJ.

I am more than a little ashamed and concerned for myself however. I have always been a man without enemies who wishes all beings to float eternally in seas of conscious bliss. I was taught as a child from my saint like Grandmother , " If you don't have anything nice to say, just don't say anything at all" and have tried my best to manifest this philosophy... so I am a bit concerned about the feelings produced by DOS.

Before I go on I need to give fair warning...

If anyone who plans on seeing DOS has any health issues and has any Anger left in their hearts about the previous cavalier treatment that the decision makers and/or writers involved  have demonstrated in bringing your beloved Tolkien tales to the screen DO NOT GO SEE THIS! Your heart will explode or you may have a stroke. That being said...

I didn't pay for seeing TH one or two. I am fortunate to have a teen age son who works at a theater.
I didn't know if even for free I would go. I decided to go and I am so very glad that I did!

    After the first TH - I left the theater  angry and hurt and for the first time in my life I could only think about going public with my angst in an attempt to vent my disdain,and criticism and truthfully to strike out at the makers and corrupters of this Charming Childrens tale that I read to my 4 children at bedtime.

I joined the highest trafficked forums and even rotten tomatoes movie review in a feeble attempt to display my disappointment and rant about the sins of the makers. This process did in fact help to heal me.

I went into the theater today with very low anger levels and even lower expectations that DOS would please me. I had non existent hope values that DOS would be anything like a good adaptation of TH.

I am ashamed in a way to confess to you all here and now that the only reason I went was due to a perhaps evil desire inside of me to see this film fail in a big way. I am a bit concerned for myself for wishing ill upon anything but that is the truth.

I have to say that DOS far surpassed my desires in this regard on so many levels that when I left the theater I felt positively glowing inside and hours later I still feel charged from the perhaps evil pleasures circulating in my brain.

It truly is inconceivable to me that a nearly 3 hr. film subject to the laws of physics and of creation itself and which started with such a good story could possibly contain so very much Fail!

I don't have time now to elaborate, but I no doubt will go on a bit of a rant later tonight.

I just want to end for now by saying to all of you who are Lovers of Tolkiens high art who haven't yet viewed DOS, and to those of you who have been hurt and upset in the past by the disrespectful treatment of his work that as long as you have no anger left and have very low expectations of DOS ( and perhaps a small evil seed in your heart of wishing the movie ill) It quite probably will be for you as it was for me a sort of healing event.

PS... for those of you who liked the movie... Please forgive my hopefully temporary outburst of crazy. I am not targeting my words towards any individual... I truthfully regret any pain or anger that my words may have caused you and I add that I am happy for anyone who found joy in DOS and liked it.

PSS. Petty go, Run to the theater and see if what I say isn't truth. You can be healed I have faith.

Bless us each and everyone.

My initial thoughts.

Spoiler:

Review to follow in about 30 minutes.

Damn, I miss Ebert.

Looking forward to the full review, Bungo!

bungobaggins wrote:My initial thoughts.

Spoiler:

Interested in MotA's thoughts as well. That's a very uncommon perspective, I must say

This is taking longer than I thought. Give me another 15-20 minutes.

No worries, I spent like two and a half hours (including breaks) on mine.

Give me another 15-20 minutes.- Bungo

Get on with it! Some of us have to pass out you know!!   

In the meantime, when are you going to get to see DOS, Petty?

We should have a best review category in the Awards.

The honest answer to that Eldo is I dont exactly know- but if its not before the end of next week then I'll have missed it at the local shed.


Has that been 20 minutes yet?!   

You'd better hurry up, cause I doubt Pure Publications would be subsidizing your boat fare and you owe them a review.

Okay, I'll try to go beat by beat from my poor memory.

Prologue: Why, oh why did there have to be a subtitle telling us that the town was Bree and it was on the borders of the Shire? We see the Prancing Pony in like 15 seconds and we're all going to recognize that, so there's no point in telling use we're in Bree. Okay so cameo by Peter Jackson and Katie Jackson totally took me out of the story. It felt like Jackson was trying to do a Hitchcock cameo (early on in the film, trying to get it over with), but he's not Hitchcock. (Plus having his hair done the exact same way, in a modern fashion, is glarring when everything around it is trying to be Middle-earth.)

Inside the Prancing Pony we've got some pointless dialogue between Gandalf and Thorin. Gandalf informs Thorin that he found a note written in black-speech which asks for Oakenshield's head. Okay, so then why in AUJ are Gandalf and Thorin so surprised in the Trollshaws when the wargs are coming after everyone? They both knew he was being sought by some one who knows black-speech. Hmm, it could only be orcs. No fucking duh. There's no reason they should be surprised at all when they learn that they are "being hunted" in AUJ.

Wilderland: Bilbo is on the lookout for Azog and Friends, and spots Beorn. The introduction of the bear form of Beorn felt odd. And Azog seems to get more dialogue and screentime in the opening of this movie than Bilbo does. What else happened here? The colors here felt odd, some strange purple, like it was trying to be dusk. (I also noticed a glarring blue/green blob on the upper left corner of the screen during all this. Something must have been wrong with the projector.)

The company is forced to take shelter in Beorn's house and stay there overnight. Beorn was essentially pointless. "Oh, I don't like dwarves, but I don't like orcs more than I don't like dwarves, so I'll help you. Oh and the orcs imprisoned and killed my people a long time ago." So? Who cares? We're all going to forget about this until the BOFA anyway, and even then it doesn't matter, only to give Beorn some sort of motivation to get involved.

Beorn's bear design is okay. His human design is awful, facial hair everywhere and the eyebrows of DOOM! And the guy who plays him (forgot how to spell the name) is just okay. Nothing stands out.

Edge of Mirkwood: Beorn gives the company ponies and watches over them as they come to the edge of Mirkwood. There's some stupid moment with Sauron's eye and Bilbo fiddling with the ring as Gandalf uncovers some Mordor graffiti on an elven statue.

Boop-be-boo Bee-boop-be-boo. What was that? Oh, it was Galadriel's skype call. But what's this? It's just a recycled shot from the White Council Snooze-fest 2000 in AUJ. So Gandalf heads off to investigate the High Fells. Bilbo asks why he's leaving and then out of left-field Gandalf has that moment with him that we've seen in a released clip, "You're not the same hobbit..." From the beginning of the movie Bilbo has taken a back seat to Azog and CGI bees, we haven't seen anything that would indicate that Bilbo has changed, other than keeping lookout for the wargs earlier. So this moment feels hollow.

Mirkwood: Mirkwood was an okay sequence, although the whole Bilbo turning around and seeing himself was weird. Bilbo looking down and seeing his feet walk backwards as he is walking forwards was kind of funny. The moment with the butterflies was nice, and overall the sequence with the spiders (until the elves arrive) was pretty good. And Eldo, I agree with you about the Walter White moment, Bilbo went full Heisenberg, and it was uncomfortable to watch him stab that poor thing to death.

Okay, so the elves arrive. Woo-hoo. Legolas. Blech. Words cannot describe how much I don't care for him, so I won't bother.

And, to be totally honest, Tauriel wasn't that bad IN CERTAIN PARTS OF THE MOVIE. If there was no "getting to know you" scene with Kili and no "Arwen healing" scene at the end, I wouldn't have minded her at all. Poor Lilly, she really tried with that awful dialogue.

The Elven King's Halls: I thought this would be a longer sequence, I really did. Thranduil's two-face reveal is stupid and adds nothing to the story. Kili and Tauriel's "getting to know you" scene isn't that bad, it just drags, and there seems to be too much of a connection between the two, after they had only met for like one or two scenes.

Two attractive people in an exotic location? They're in love!

So Bilbo steals the keys to the cells. Wait. Bilbo is in this?

Barrel-ridder: This whole sequence was a let down. After being talked up by so many critics I was hoping for something really cool. It was pretty boring, and on par with the escape from goblin town, but only longer. It didn't help that the beginning of the sequence was hampered by the gate that the elves close. I was waiting for this sequence, and we have to stop and wait a minute for Kili to get shot with an arrow so he can have his moment with Tauriel later.

This was basically going through my head when they were fussing around with that gate.



So, the gate is open, and the chase begins. And it's boring. I was bored.

I'm a little fuzzy on what comes next. Did they cut back to the High Fells? Or was it their meeting with Bard?

I'll skip the High Fells sequence because it was basically pointless. Oh, the ring-wraiths are out and about, and Radagast still thinks the necromancer is a mortal man??? Isn't he the one who found the Morgul blade in AUJ? He's the one who brought it to the attention of Gandalf, and now they're basically saying that he would side with Saruman at the White Council Snooze-fest 2000?

Lake-town: Okay, so they meet Bard and go to Lake-town. La-dee-da. At this point I was thinking to myself, "Wow, this is going by really fast. Much faster than AUJ. There's not much left until we get to Erebor, and the Erebor sequence can't be too long."

Well, Lake-town was long. Alfred has a unibrow. Are they trying to make up for Grima having no eyebrows? I don't care about Bard's kids. It's not that they're annoying or anything. I just don't care about them. There's no reason to. The off-hand mention of Bard being a widower is pointless, as it is not addressed further than when he tells Balin when they first get picked up by Bard.

When I was watching Stephen Fry I felt like I was watching an actor, not a character in a story, but an actor. Someone just going through the motions, waiting for his big paycheck.

What happened next? The dwarves and Bard are scheming inside Bard's house. The black arrow is not an arrow. It's like a big spear fired by some dwarven artillery machine. Lame.

So we go through the dwarves trying to steal weapons from the armory, to the master giving them their blessing to leave for the mountain.

One moment that made me smile is when they are heading off for the mountain and there is this band of musicians amongst the throng. One of the people in the band looks like they're playing a Serpent, which is an old instrument from the Renaissance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpent_%28instrument%29

I think now they cut back to Gandalf? Maybe. It's hard to remember, so I'll just talk about Gandalf in Doogledoor now.

The Hill of Sorcery: There are some god-awful CGI shots in this sequence that they must have done during pick ups. They are just awful. Everything is CGI, and you can tell that Gandalf is totally fake. They even have him run past the camera at an angle where we can see his face. Dude, PJ, we can tell it's fake. Have you even heard of the uncanny valley?

Gandalf uses his magic to remove the spell of concealment and Azog and Friends jump him. Gandalf holds them at bay for a while.

Now comes the most laughable line in the movie. That title no longer belongs to Tauriel's "You like killing things..." It belongs to Azog's "We are legion."

Oh. My. God.   

Azog has joined Anonymous.



Someone give that orc a Guy Fawkes mask, seriously. What a laughable thing to say in this day and age. I have to know who wrote that line.

So Gandalf has his showdown with Sauron. And just to be sure we all know who it is, PJ shows us the eye (about 15 times in this scene), he shows us the iron suit Sauron wore at the Last Alliance, AND he has Gandalf say, "Sau-roon." as he is pinned against a wall. This sounds like the thing Lucas did with ROTJ. For those who don't know, Lucas consulted a child psychologist and was told that there would need to be confirmation from Yoda that Vader was Luke's father, otherwise children watching the movie would think it was a lie. So here we have that, but times one thousand, just in case we didn't get the point that the necromancer is Sauron. Talk about "audience insulting." Gandalf is then imprisoned in a little bird cage and watches Sauron's army march off to war, most likely target is Erebor I would assume.

On The Doorstep: The whole thing with the Dwarves giving up when the key doesn't reveal itself is pretty weak story telling, and it's been addressed here before, so I won't talk about it.

Inside Information: The stuff between Bilbo and Smaug was pretty good.

EXCEPT FOR:
1. Smaug knows Bilbo has a golden ring that makes him invisible, even before Bilbo reveals himself.
2. Smaug calls the ring "precioussss."
3. The eye of Sauron flashes on the screen at one point during their conversation.

How many times did they eye flash throughout the entire movie? Once at the edge of Mirkwood, Once here in Erebor, and at least four times during the Gandalf/Sauron showdown. That's like six times in one movie.

So anyway. The whole fight with Smaug is overlong and drawn out to no end. This is where I really started to feel the length of the movie. This sequence intercut with the whole fight in Laketown got really boring, really fast. Although, I did like seeing Legolas get beat up. I kinda wish Bolg would have killed him.

The statue was ridiculous. The CGI was dodgy during this entire sequence (showdown with Smaug). The liquid gold looked like a high-end pre-viz animation.

The entire last 30 minutes of the movie was boring (even though it was trying to be exciting).

There's something else I want to add here at the end of my rambling. At the start of the movie, I had this strange feeling that sat with me the whole way through, and it is this: I didn't feel like I was watching a movie. And that's not in the good way. The good way would be: Oh, I didn't feel like I was watching a movie because it really drew me into the story. This was the bad way, which is: Is this really a movie? It doesn't feel like it lives up to the title of "movie." If that makes any sense. Like it shouldn't qualify as a movie. Just somebody's random ideas visualized and put on screen.

Well at least you didn't explode in crabbit rage at the cinema Bungo! (I may judging on the reviews here)

But thanks for your indepth, if painful to read due to it being in anyway at all associated with the work of Tolkien, review.

Eru damn you PJ, and the Coven with you!!!!   

(Your review has made me so crabbit I probably wont be able to get to sleep now due to excess crabbit leakage   I hope you are happy Bungo!   )

It was hard to sit through, and there were moments where I just had to shake my head and put my hands over my eyes.

There's no point trying to compare any of this to The Hobbit book.

At least parts of AUJ were recognizable from the book. There's very little, if any, here.

Well done, bungo! I agree with most of what you say.  You're right that Lake-town is loooong.  It's the centerpiece of the film, which I was not expecting (I thought they'd focus more on Mirkwood).  But at the same time, it's still only one piece in a film that neither begins nor ends there, so there's a lot that is underdeveloped in Lake-town.  I think it might have been better to introduce Bard before the Company reaches Lake-town, a la Eomer in TTT.  And I struggled not to laugh at the "we are legion" line too.