Re: In theatres: 'Desolation of Smaug' | SPOILERS

by RA Thu Jan 02, 2014 4:49 pm

bungobaggins wrote:I don't think Norc believes in ELE.

Non-believer!!!

ELE elephant

by RA Thu Jan 02, 2014 4:54 pm

Radaghast wrote:One thing about Tauriel: if having her in the movie was about "feminine energy" why weren't there more female elves, especially non-warrior ones? I'd maybe believe the line about "feminine energy" a bit more if Tauriel wasn't so obviously a token.

And a couple more observations:

How are those dead dwarves in Erebor so well-preserved? Didn't Smaug kill them 170 years ago?
Bard asks the people of Lake-town at one point if they remember what Smaug did to Dale and is answered with a chorus of affirmatives. Again, 170 years ago, so how do any of them remember it?

I think the first one is an over sight; plenty of those Jackson Rolling Eyes

The second one is either an error or works because of how screwed up the timeline is now.

by RA Thu Jan 02, 2014 4:55 pm

Also why was Tauriel put into a very generic (and stupid) love triangle if the sole reason for her inclusion is feminine energy?

by Radaghast Thu Jan 02, 2014 4:58 pm

That's a pretty big oversight Laughing

I don't even want to think about what the movies' timeline is

I'm not even sure the filmmakers know.

by bungobaggins Thu Jan 02, 2014 5:35 pm

Recoveryanonymous wrote:Also why was Tauriel put into a very generic (and stupid) love triangle if the sole reason for her inclusion is feminine energy?

Lilly said that when they went back for pick-ups Jackson and Boyens told her that the studio wanted a romance subplot, even though Lilly specifically took the job on the condition that she wouldn't get stuck in a love triangle.

by Eldorion Thu Jan 02, 2014 6:12 pm

Radaghast wrote:How are those dead dwarves in Erebor so well-preserved? Didn't Smaug kill them 170 years ago?

Either the filmmakers don't know or don't care about rates and types of decay in corpses. Maybe they thought it would be scarier or more resonant to not just have skeletons.

Bard asks the people of Lake-town at one point if they remember what Smaug did to Dale and is answered with a chorus of affirmatives. Again, 170 years ago, so how do any of them remember it?

He's obviously not asking if they personally remember.

by Radaghast Thu Jan 02, 2014 6:23 pm

Eldorion wrote:
Radaghast wrote:Bard asks the people of Lake-town at one point if they remember what Smaug did to Dale and is answered with a chorus of affirmatives. Again, 170 years ago, so how do any of them remember it?

He's obviously not asking if they personally remember.

It's the equivalent of asking you or me if we remember the Civil War. Neither of us remember it in any sense.

by Eldorion Thu Jan 02, 2014 6:26 pm

It's more like a politician saying "We can't forget what those damn [insert foreign country here] have done to us!"

by bungobaggins Thu Jan 02, 2014 6:35 pm

Radaghast wrote:How are those dead dwarves in Erebor so well-preserved? Didn't Smaug kill them 170 years ago?

Smaug & Sons Embalming Inc.

by Radaghast Thu Jan 02, 2014 6:36 pm

If it happened before any of us was born, I don't think we'd have a very strong reaction to it. But we're probably in danger of falling into a semantics debate here.

Incidentally, Bard's argument is stupid (no big surprise there). He doesn't know Smaug's sleeping habits and he should know that Smaug is bound to wake eventually. The way the movie tried to play Bard's discovering who Thorin was for drama was laughable.

by Radaghast Thu Jan 02, 2014 6:37 pm

bungobaggins wrote:
Radaghast wrote:How are those dead dwarves in Erebor so well-preserved? Didn't Smaug kill them 170 years ago?
Smaug & Sons Embalming Inc.

They kind of looked like porcelain dolls; creepy.

by bungobaggins Thu Jan 02, 2014 6:38 pm

Creepy indeed.

*gulp

pale

by Radaghast Thu Jan 02, 2014 7:02 pm

And none of them seem to have died of horrible burns Rolling Eyes

Just messy, lazy and horrible filmmaking all around Banghead

by bungobaggins Thu Jan 02, 2014 7:12 pm

Maybe they died of starvation, holed up in that side room?

by Radaghast Thu Jan 02, 2014 7:21 pm

Maybe. In Peej's warped vision of ME, anything goes, I guess.

by Radaghast Thu Jan 02, 2014 7:54 pm

Another thing: does anyone know if those fish were real? I hope not or that at least that they were used for something. Otherwise, what an appalling waste. It would be too much if they were thrown away after being shown in a scene that talked about people being hungry.

by bungobaggins Sat Jan 04, 2014 8:06 pm

Does anyone know where the filmmakers are getting all this black-speech from? As far as I can recall, Tolkien didn't give us any kind of alphabet for it like Khuzdul or any of the Elvish languages.

There's a lot of black speech in these movies, and I'm wondering if they're making most of it up.

by Eldorion Sat Jan 04, 2014 8:40 pm

Since the Ring-verse is written in Tengwar I've always assumed that Sauron and his servants used that alphabet when writing in the Black Speech, though as Appendix F tells us, most of Sauron's servants did not use that language much. But I don't think Tolkien gave us much in the way of vocabulary for the Black Speech beyond the Ring-verse, so I'd imagine most of the words and phrases in the film were invented (same as with Gimli's Neo-Khuzdul cursing in FOTR, just on a larger scale).

by bungobaggins Sat Jan 04, 2014 8:49 pm

I've been thinking about why they used black-speech so much for the orcs in these movies. (Actually I think that orc who gets captured in DOS is the first orc to speak common tongue in the hobbit movies so far Question

) And looking at the dialogue they've given the orcs, all of it would sound really lame and funny if spoken in english, so I think the black-speech is just the script writers compensating for a lack of good dialogue.

by Bluebottle Sat Jan 04, 2014 9:04 pm

Psst, Bungo. I think that was supposed to be a secret. Laughing

Very insightfull though. I think that sounds plausible. Nod

by Radaghast Sat Jan 04, 2014 9:12 pm

Just another reason to think it's not an adaptation of The Hobbit.

by RA Sun Jan 05, 2014 8:26 am

Well Jackson has been forthright with that information now - these are prequels to his Lotr trilogy. I think it's a terrible missed opportunity.
Oh well.

by Bluebottle Sun Jan 05, 2014 5:23 pm

I wonder, do people think it would have been better with a Hobbit movie and then a prequel movie as was talked about?

by halfwise Sun Jan 05, 2014 5:31 pm

Radaghast wrote:Another thing: does anyone know if those fish were real? I hope not or that at least that they were used for something. Otherwise, what an appalling waste. It would be too much if they were thrown away after being shown in a scene that talked about people being hungry.

They looked real, but they may not have been - dumping big fish like that over actors is not a gentle act.

by Bluebottle Sun Jan 05, 2014 5:33 pm

Particularily not on take 30. pale