The Shrine

What is the main thing this movie serves to do? It hypes the third one up tremendously; but does it in a very entertaining way.

What did I want more of? Mirkwood - the chapters involving Mirkwood described a much more fairly-tale darkness stylized Mirkwood than what appeared in the movie. The party was not stalked by Elves, and the darkness imagery in the book did not exist in the film; the Spiders in the book spun webs of darkness, identifying them as being in the lineage of Ungoliant. Also, to end it where it did, that just felt evil! Evil for theater goers at least, because we have to wait a year.

Lake Town - I have heard people who felt this part of the movie did not have enough action; in my opinion, is a bit numb-skullish =P
Personally, I felt the town was a really great setting. It was the main portion of the film I was looking forward to, probably overall. Somehow the town I found it really reminded me of a city-sized version of Moga Village from Monster Hunter 3.

What surprised me: 1. Tauriel and Legolas, 2. the barrel riding scene, 3. Smaug. 4. Thranduil

1. Tauriel and Legolas - seemed like they would feel like shoe-horned characters similar to the Arwen stuff in Lord of the Rings... The two characters felt far less-shoe-horned in than the Elves showing up at Helms Deep - in fact, they integrated very well into Peter Jackson's version of the story. Now, in Lord of the Rings, Saruman scenes aside, Peter Jackson's additions usually didn't seem to work very well... They work VERY well in this movie. Tauriel and Kili's storyline has me VERY interested, I'll explain why this is later.

2. The barrel riding scene was AWESOME. Way better than I thought it would be. Sorry River Wild, but you got smoked in terms of best scene taking place on rapids. The "Do a barrel roll!" scene was classic

3. Smaug, I thought the scene was really awesome when Bilbo first stumbled upon him. He sees the head come around, and then way way over there, he sees gold moving where his tail is. For whatever reason, I thought Smaug was going to end up looking really cheesy based on the trailer and the shot in the first movie; but no! I was surprisingly mistaken. Smaug is like a big massive demon-dragon who just seems damn tough. The battle scene was long, but well done because it felt like each bit of it was telling a bit of a story of how they were going to trap and kill him. Although the molton gold seemed a little too perfect of a set-up... Even though it was not nearly enough... But it explains Smaug's golden scales!

4. Thranduil, something about this guy just spoke "I am SO above you." He was menacing like Galadriel was in the Fellowship, but even more sinister. They cast this guy perfectly. It will be interesting to see him leading the Elf army into battle.... Riding a moose.

My predictions for part 3 based on the storyline in the book and what Peter Jackson seems to be doing.

1. Bolg kills Kili and Fili. Tauriel gets revenge by killing Bolg in the battle of five armies... Although I am sure Legolas will factor in somehow since the last movie ended with him chasing down Bolg on horseback.
2. Thorin battles Azog, and kills him, but is mortally wounded.

Movie was cool mostly. Peter Jackson takes a lot of liberties and usually that's fine but this movie just dragged on. I was hoping they'd deal with Smaug but the theater was audibly disappointed when the movie ended where it did. I was thinking that the third movie could just be about the eventual big battle that's coming up and be very satisfying but now the first hour or so is going to be them killing Smaug or some such. As much as I felt like there should have been more I was basically at my limit for being in that theater any longer.

I imagine that nearly everything that got cut out of the movie for the extended edition happened in the Mirkwood and with the Elves. Barrel scene was fun. The Gandalf stuff seemed pretty unnecessary to me.

I thought this one flowed well. Yeah, it ended abruptly, but it flowed better than the first. We found no real dead spots and didn't feel like it dragged at all. Avoiding the 48fps helped too.

And between the death of Smaug and the Battle of the Five Armies, there's gonna be lots and lots of action in the last one. What I'm curious about is how they intertwine the new character (Tauriel?) and the appendices/Silmarilion/Unfinished Tales stuff to do the better tie into LotR.

I think it's better to judge the movies once they're all out and all of the extended editions have been released. Then we'll see what they're truly going for with this trilogy and can better judge it. It's like when The Matrix came out and ended abruptly but was made better when Reloaded came out simply because the storyline was continued (even though it wasn't a particularly good flick).

Oh right I wanted to mention that too. For the most part I thought that the second movie was better than the first because it flowed well. The first one just seemed like a sequence of events that had little relation happening one after the other.

Peter Jackson trolled the world ending it when he did =P

Also while I do know how to pronounce it I'm going to fucking say Smog every god damned time. I feel like a fool saying SMAUWWUGH

Shrinweck wrote:Also while I do know how to pronounce it I'm going to fucking say Smog every god damned time. I feel like a fool saying SMAUWWUGH

Haha, yeah, the way the announcer in the trailors says Smauwwg really bugs me. Smog is acceptable in my book.

Flip wrote:

Shrinweck wrote:Also while I do know how to pronounce it I'm going to fucking say Smog every god damned time. I feel like a fool saying SMAUWWUGH

Haha, yeah, the way the announcer in the trailors says Smauwwg really bugs me. Smog is acceptable in my book.

Depends how much you care about what the author wanted. Tolkein was a linguist by trade. It's very particular how you're supposed to pronounce his names. It's technically "Smauwg" not "Smog" just like it's technically "Gaundulf" not "Gandalf" (there's an interview with Christopher Lee - the last true renaissance man - in the extras of the LotR trilogy where he explains it well). It's not by mistake there's so much depth to his languages and ancestory, it was his profession and passion.

Just because people have been sayin' it wrong for 50+ years don't make it right :-)

The main reason many of us North Americans pronounce Smaug incorrectly is due to the incorrect pronunciation in the 1977 animated film adaptation. The reason why the correct pronunciation sounds awkward is because it is not what you're accustomed to.

Bit of trivia on that movie, it was animated by a Japanese studio called Topmost, which was a precursor for Studio Ghibli.

Remember people who refused to pronounce Gaiden as "Gai-den" and instead pronounced it "Gay-din" - I am wondering if that started somewhere on TV too? I know the Faxanadu thing did, it was on a show called Captain N, "Fa-Zanadu" is the correct pronunciation, but that show pronounced it "Fax-Sanadu" - and then everyone followed. Just in case people are not convinced, the name of the game is derived from Famicom and Xanadu; Fa + Xanadu.

I geeked clean the fuck out when Bilbo came a Smaug, I was like a little kid bouncing in my seat, the voice, the animation, the mannerisms, it was perfect.

Hey guys, there's some discussion about how they changed Smaug from a dragon to a wyvern, thoughts?

Joke answer: Who gives a shit?

Real answer: I'm not sure I've got a better reply than the joke answer... :D It was done well enough that I just don't care. Peter Jackson has a free pass for doing whatever he wants visually because, in that regard, it's all just been so damned perfect.

Who cares? It's a pedantic observation anyway.

I don't think Tolkien ever specified the rules of his winged Dragon's arms.

I've seen both films now...

I think they are terrible, and have no clue why you folks like them. Between the dwarves and the writing...eghhh.

The Hobbit is very superficial and tame compared to Lord of the Rings and Peter Jackson does little to change that. I wouldn't rank either film as great but in terms of the fantasy genre in films these are basically the best things getting released right now. The dwarf dialog does get a little wince-inducing at times though. And a lot of that is Jackson and his writing partners. Fuck that shit - I wish he'd knock it the hell off. But in general they're solid 3/5 3.5/5 movies... there are worse ways to spend an afternoon.

I think the big mystery here is why he thought he needed to make three movies when even two would have been a bit fucking much. I think maybe 30 minutes of the movie was actually in the book. That estimation may be generous.

I like the movie as a second part of three.

I am going to withhold final judgement until all three are out, because I know that a lot of part 2's plot points rely on part 3 heavily. Such as the Kili sub-story, which you already know the ending of if you read the book; despite Tauriel not being in the canonical universe.

I am really hoping part 3 is more about the drama and less about the long-action scenes; because there is a lot of potential there.