In theatres: 'Desolation of Smaug' | SPOILERS

Somehow!

I think it's pretty bogus that one third of the way through their story they turn the Arkenstone into a MacGuffin. Makes it seem like that wasn't the plan from the start. It would be kind of like starting LOTR and not having the ring be the MacGuffin until TTT.   

The idea that the Arkenstone is the only way to rally the other Dwarf clans is one of the dumbest things PJ and co have ever thought of. If it was true, then the War of the Dwarves and Orcs couldn't have taken place, even in the form that PJ envisioned it. Although PJ seems to be pretending that it didn't happen for half of the film, considering how Elrond and, in fact, the rest of the White Council except Gandalf, appear convinced that they're living in the middle of a centuries-long period of unprecedented peace.

They didn't even mention that in AUJ. They just said that Thror thought the Arkenstone gave him the divine right to rule.

I'm pretty sure that stuff was probably all re-writes during pick ups. I think it was confirmed that the Prancing Pony scene was filmed during pick ups.

Yeah not quite sure how that works. Forget a good cause, forget regaining homelands, restoring pride or even just getting their hands on so much gold you can fashion your own mountain out of it, no, they will only help if the person asking them has a shiny stone.

What was wrong with the original reason no one will help them?- that Thorin doesn't have anything like a sensible plan to deal with Smaug and no one fancies being burnt to a crisp that week.

Bungo- well we know how well planned and meticulously scripted PJ films are in the initial stages  

bungobaggins wrote:They didn't even mention that in AUJ. They just said that Thror thought the Arkenstone gave him the divine right to rule.

I'm pretty sure that stuff was probably all re-writes during pick ups. I think it was confirmed that the Prancing Pony scene was filmed during pick ups.

Worse yet, in AUJ it was only stated that the Arkenstone was a sign that Thror's reign was divinely-ordained (in his mind anyway).  Which makes the DOS prologue shit even more out of left field.

And considering that the discovery of the Arkenstone took place even later in the timeline of the movies than it did in the books, I wonder how PJ thinks the Dwarf kings before Thror exercised their authority.

It's all so ludicrous.

And now that Thorin has offered a share of the treasure to the people of Lake-town he's going to look like a complete ass in TABA when he refuses. Come on, PJ, at least give us a reason to side with him. Sure you can make him look like a dick when he confronts Bilbo, but at least make us conflicted about our feelings for Thorin. If he goes and does two dick moves we won't have any reason to care. But if he hadn't blatantly offered them a share of the treasure, we could be able to see his side of it.

Eldorion wrote:
Worse yet, in AUJ it was only stated that the Arkenstone was a sign that Thror's reign was divinely-ordained (in his mind anyway).  Which makes the DOS prologue shit even more out of left field.

And considering that the discovery of the Arkenstone took place even later in the timeline of the movies than it did in the books, I wonder how PJ thinks the Dwarf kings before Thror exercised their authority.

Oh, you're right! None of this makes any sense in retrospect!   

Way to go PJ and Coven! Fuckin' up your own script!

  

Not so bad when they fuck their own script up, they are after all masters at that- its fucking over Tolkien's story and characters thats the real sin here   

Those bastards.

This is borderline Phantom Menace inconsistent/confusing.

I'm wondering how the people on torn would rationalize these inconsistencies.

Not to mention that Smaug's treasure hoard is so absurdly exaggerated that he has many times the amount of gold that exists in the entire world here in reality.

One thing that I kept thinking about watching the movie was how many missed opportunities there were even if one embraces the desire to do something different. As we all know by now, PJ came out and said he didn't give a rat's ass about the book anymore, but for as stupid as his changes are, he's still somewhat constrained by the fanboy base that brought him success in the first place. They'll overlook all sorts of fundamental changes to characters and plot, but he has to keep things superficially similar to the book (although the level of even this similarity is fraying by now). But since they're taking a children's book and making it darker and more actiony, there was actually an opportunity to do some clever subversions of fantasy tropes. I like fantasy, but there are pros and cons to childish storytelling and simplistic worldviews.

While I think the book The Hobbit works fine as a children's book, the older-skewed Hobbit movies would have been an interesting platform to deconstruct arrested adolescence of much of the fantasy genre. Numerous characters call out the Dwarves for being greedy and to some extent causing their own troubles, but we're still expected to root for them because they're the protagonists. Bilbo's primary character arc seems to be his increasing violence and familiarity with combat -- a change reflected by him straight-up murdering a baby spider because it dared to touch the Ring. That scene, especially with the final "Mine!", seemed straight out of Breaking Bad, and it would have been interesting to see a fantasy hero go through a Walter White style breakdown of morality. The film could have touched on themes of racism, a charge often leveled at fantasy, considering that the Wood-elves of PJ's imagination (or at least Legolas and Thranduil) are only a few steps shy of wearing pointed hoods.

Don't get me wrong: I'm under no illusion that there was any chance that the films were going to explore these themes. But I find it interesting how PJ's changes move the story closer and closer to the most stereotypical flaws of the fantasy genre. It would have been nice if this was due to PJ taking clever jabs at the tropes and the audience alike, but I'm pretty sure it's just incompetence.

My votes definitely for incompetence, and lacking any constraint and making stuff up as he goes along, even after the film was technically finished.   

The Hobbit probably wouldn't have been a good platform for this sort of deconstruction, considering the number of people it would have pissed off since it's such a beloved book, but I would have preferred that to the generic, poorly-assembled mush we got.

And I do think that deconstruction of fantasy can be really interesting.  ASOIAF is a good example of this, but it's so low-magic that large portions of the books barely feel like fantasy.  Not that that's necessarily a bad thing in terms of storytelling.

What the buggery is ASOIAF?

A Song of Ice and Fire ... the book series that Game of Thrones is based on (you can understand why they changed the title for TV ).

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