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Docta Corvina

Well-Known Member
The book is BOSS, yo. Gotta read the book. It blows the movie(s) out of the water, honestly. But that's often how it goes. Not surprising. :D
 

Jake Johnson

Active Member
I just saw Desolation of Smaug, and as a fan of both The Hobbit and Skyrim, I have one good battle in mind:

Smaug vs. Alduin

Who else would like to watch that "debate"?
 

sticky runes

Well-Known Member
Now that I've seen Desolation, I think Tauriel was kind of a pointless character. She was just there to be a girly Legolas, and seemed totally unnecessary.

I felt a bit let down by Lake Town as well. I just didn't really care for the place. When Bilbo begs Smaug not to attack them, I was like "Why? Who gives a f#ck about those people."

Apart from that, I enjoyed it.
 

Monolith

The Progeny of Vikings
Now that I've seen Desolation, I think Tauriel was kind of a pointless character. She was just there to be a girly Legolas, and seemed totally unnecessary.

I felt a bit let down by Lake Town as well. I just didn't really care for the place. When Bilbo begs Smaug not to attack them, I was like "Why? Who gives a f#ck about those people."

Apart from that, I enjoyed it.

Aye. And the romance subplot with her and the pretty dwarf (the one who looks nothing like a dwarf) felt entirely unnecessary and tacked-on. I also thought PJ should've stuck more closely to the source material during the final showdown with the dwarves and Smaug (which never happened in the book) and at least trimmed it by a good 10 minutes if not omitting it entirely. It just felt like the confrontation dragged on endlessly and the dwarves played old Smaug for a fool. Not a single strand of beard was singed even though Smaug had plenty of opportunities to kill the dwarves, which made him look weak and non-threatening. They just outwitted the dragon far too easily and made him seem silly and harmless after the initial verbal confrontation with Bilbo which cast him as quite a menace. That, and the scene where they used the molten gold statue to rinse him out was totally superfluous. When I first saw it I was like "what the fluff am I watching here?". It seemed unrealistic and again, unnecessary.

The last insult came when Smaug, having been humiliated and bruised up by the dwarves and their burglar, gets his final chance for revenge when Bilbo is alone and defenseless before him, and instead of having a quick BBQed hobbit snack right there and then, he lets Bilbo go with a very flimsy motive ("I want you to suffer knowing that I'm going to kill the townsfolk of Laketown who you may or may not care about). That made his behavior seem totally nonsensical and broke my suspension of disbelief.

Other than those relatively minor grievances, I very much enjoyed the movie, even during other points where it deviated from the book.
 

The Wanderer

Young Heritic
The book is BOSS, yo. Gotta read the book. It blows the movie(s) out of the water, honestly. But that's often how it goes. Not surprising. :D

I ADORE that book, definitely one of my all time favorites.
 

Docta Corvina

Well-Known Member
I have the same reaction as you guys do about Tauriel and her useless subplot. There was NO reason for her and Kili to have any sort of romantic interaction. I worry, actually, that it will serve to intrude upon the emotional ties that exist between Thorin and his nephews, and especially at the end of the story. Without going into spoilerific territory, those of you who have read the story know that to which I refer. I hope that Tauriel's "relationship" with Kili doesn't dilute or detract from his relationship with his uncle and brother.

Tauriel herself is also entirely superfluous. She is nothing more than a Mary Sue type, who's there because Pjack and Fran Walsh said the films needed more "girl power" (um, NO). She's the female half of the Elven Wonder Twins, who saved the day at least three times by my count and who really have no business being in the narrative. I don't mind sort of remixing established story and lore material. But bringing in Legolas and inventing Tauriel did the movie no favors, as far as I'm concerned. Even their action scenes were almost humorously over-CG'd.

Aside from them, I loved the film. Monolith has made some very good points about Smaug's treatment. It also caught me off guard (attempting to gold-plate him to death, whut), but I did like the ominous note the film ends on. Some things about the movie were strange and unfortunate, but the majority of it was enjoyable.
 

Monolith

The Progeny of Vikings
I have the same reaction as you guys do about Tauriel and her useless subplot. There was NO reason for her and Kili to have any sort of romantic interaction. I worry, actually, that it will serve to intrude upon the emotional ties that exist between Thorin and his nephews, and especially at the end of the story. Without going into spoilerific territory, those of you who have read the story know that to which I refer. I hope that Tauriel's "relationship" with Kili doesn't dilute or detract from his relationship with his uncle and brother.

Tauriel herself is also entirely superfluous. She is nothing more than a Mary Sue type, who's there because Pjack and Fran Walsh said the films needed more "girl power" (um, NO). She's the female half of the Elven Wonder Twins, who saved the day at least three times by my count and who really have no business being in the narrative. I don't mind sort of remixing established story and lore material. But bringing in Legolas and inventing Tauriel did the movie no favors, as far as I'm concerned. Even their action scenes were almost humorously over-CG'd.

Aside from them, I loved the film. Monolith has made some very good points about Smaug's treatment. It also caught me off guard (attempting to gold-plate him to death, whut), but I did like the ominious note the film ends on. Some things about the movie were strange and unfortunate, but the majority of it was enjoyable.

DON'T READ THIS IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE! POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD!

Agreed. Evangeline Lilly did as good a job as anyone could've done with the character she was given, but that doesn't change the fact that the character had no business being in the movie to begin with. Still, she wasn't half as bad as I expected and I could've forgiven her presence in the movie had it not been for the cheesy 'by the numbers' hollywood romance subplot, which made me retch just a little :vomit: Likewise I could've done without Legolas, but he was OK I guess, not that distracting, and at least he fit into the lore and timeline. All in all the movie had more of an 'Indiana Baggins and the Crusade for Smaug's Gold' vibe to it that the previous one; the action set-pieces just kept coming. It was a very entertaining romp and there were those magical moments, too (like when Bilbo peeked through the canopy in Mirkwood and saw the sun-washed autumn leaves and blue butterflies).

Many people seemed to complain about the scenes with the "Necromancer" and Gandalf, but I thought those were very well done and didn't even deviate from the source material, really. I was very impressed with Beorn and his house, too. The character looked a little different from what I had pictured but Mikael Persbrandt did a great job with the role, and Beorn's house looked exactly like I had imagined it would. Plus he was absolutely brutal in bear form.. can't wait to see him fight in the Battle of Five Armies :p Ditto for the surrounding landscape, Mirkwood and the Elven King's halls: they matched my mental picture perfectly. The barrel escape scene was great fun as well, Laketown was pretty neatly designed and last but not least, Smaug himself was the most awesome and intimidating movie dragon I've ever seen, humiliated and outwitted though he was by the dwarves. In all honesty I would've preferred PJ to deviate from the book by having Smaug kill a dwarf or two to increase the menace and threat that he represents, as opposed to having him chase the dwarves around in vain, looking like he wasn't even seriously trying to catch them. It certainly would've been better than the romance subplot or Kili getting shot in the leg and Tauriel channeling Liv Tyler's Arwen when healing him, but hey, all in all the movie came close enough. I'll give it 8/10 points.
 

sticky runes

Well-Known Member
I can understand them milking it with Legolas because he was so popular in the LOTR films and they want to reuse something that works, but I would like to have seen him as a more inept fighter, so he's not all ninjafied like he is in LOTR, I would like to see him struggling a bit more. He does get a nose bleed at the end, but that's after he's spent two hours effortlesly slicing orcs to bits.

I can understand them wanting to add girl power, but I don't think they needed THAT much from Tauriel. a couple of arrow shots and a neck slice would have been fine, they didn't need to go all out Xena with her. Could they not have had Legolas' mum as a character or something? The romance with Kili felt like it belonged in another fantasy story. I did like the scene with the portraits of Gimli and his mum, though!

I actually kind of enjoyed the dwarves battling with Smaug. We got to see them in their element, using all their gadgets and machinery to fight a powerful foe. Even though said foe had already obliterated the entire city of dwarves years beforehand, but i guess he had gotten slow and fat over the years.

As for Smaug's voice, he just sounded like an evil Treebeard to me. Skyrim's dragons have much better voices. :blackdragon:

And I was NOT disappointed by the spiders. Better than the fight with Shelob, I love how they included the spiders' voices and Bilbo naming his sword. Seeing a spider getting punched int he face was awesome as well!

And I got to see Gandalf using lots of magic and playing the part of a wizard more than a warrior, so that was satisfying for me.
 

Docta Corvina

Well-Known Member
The romance is what makes it overkill, although I still don't accept their reasoning for wanting to invent her character. Sorry, but, I don't buy the necessary "girl power" thing and never will. I think it's an incredibly lame reason to invent characters - and not even just characters, but characters with A LOT of screentime and a "pivotal role". I don't feel wanting because there were so many male characters. In ways, I find it more interesting and it made sense. If they'd been able to handle featuring Tauriel but NOT equipping her with a stupid pointless romance subplot, I'd be less irritated.
 

KattSand

Premium Member
I agree with the complaints about Tauriel, me and my mom went to see the movie during the holidays and the first thing she said afterwards was "I don't recall this being in the book, that made no sense". And it's true, it doesn't make any sense, she got way too much screentime in my opinion, the romance and the 3 or 4 fights...no....just no. It adds nothing to the story.
 

KaitoGhost

Sea Sponge First Mate
For the most part, I've only seen women complain about this. You know why she was added? Eye candy for us guys. I mean, come on. Look at all the men in this movie you get to fangirl over. :p
 

Docta Corvina

Well-Known Member
I've actually seen many men and women complain about her addition, not just women. In fact, I've seen more women supposedly cool with her inclusion. But that's just been my experience. Also, I also have no need for Legolas in this movie at all. I don't find him charming in this or LotR, and would just as much have wanted him to disappear as Tauriel. You know that that's the only biggest reason why Legolas was added: fangirls and their $$$. Lame.

I resent Tauriel's invention because a) I reject the notion that women can't identify/empathize with characters or otherwise have an incentive to see a movie unless there are female characters involved and b) I reject her inclusion to satisfy a superfluous plot device that has no place in the narrative. They could have added her and not forced a love story in with her. Or, hell, here's a thought. They could have had a Dwarf woman somewhere. Tired of all the damn excessive Elfness, man. Mostly, I'm tired of the indestructible Wonder Twins.
 

Docta Corvina

Well-Known Member
Also, what the hell is all this noise online about how Kili is the "ONLY" attractive Dwarf? Um, did they not notice how cute Fili is too? Yanno, his brother? And I don't even go for blonds much. :p

Seriously, though. What the hell. Thorin is nothing less than smoking hot (and not just from being singed by Smaug fire, either). And this is not just because Richard Armitage is smoking hot. Also, Bofur is pretty adorable in his own way. He and Thorin are my favorites and while Kili is cute, he's absolutely not got any sort of monopoly on attractiveness.

*grumbles incoherently in the shadows* :coffee:
 

sticky runes

Well-Known Member
Richard Armitage is gorgeous. I've also got a soft spot for Dean O'Gorman because he was on Hercules and Xena a lot, so I like seeing some of the old gang from those shows still doing stuff.

Kili's not all that, though. I'd rather shag Dwallin to be honest.
 

Monolith

The Progeny of Vikings
Personally I find Kili's "cuteness" distracting, and no, I don't mean that I'm gay for the wee shortarse, but rather that I find it hard to relate to him as a dwarf. He looks absolutely nothing like one. Fili at least somewhat resembles a dwarf, but Kili.. nope. He's like a stunted human/elf hybrid. Compare him to Gloin, Balin or Bombur and they're definitely not of the same species.

I suppose they had to include a couple of 'cute' dwarves in the mix to pander to the fangirls.

I also wish they had used the original live actors for Azog and Bolg as opposed to making them plastic-looking CGI characters. But again these are all trivial complaints in the grand scheme of things. I've enjoyed both Hobbit movies so far, minor grievances notwithstanding.
 

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