The Desolation of Smaug

I believe I raised that point in a different Tolkien purist debate. But since it was so similar to the glow on Arwen and Elrond, I think it was meant to be the magic.

 

Well that could be merely leaning on the fourth wall, meant to remind the audience of the scene in Fellowship instead of being strictly representative of actual in-world events.

 

I think the glow was supposed to be what Kili saw as he was halfway to the Shadow-world, just as Frodo saw Arwen that way. The arrow that hit Kili was explicitly called a "Morgul-shaft", which would imply it is similar to the Morgul blade that stabbed Frodo (which would have turned Frodo into a wraith, as said by Aragorn). Which makes me even more irritated that Tauriel was able to deal with it, since I and others have said that she shouldn't be able to.

As for the love triangle, it was pretty obvious that Kili was in love with Tauriel, even if it wasn't reciprocated. He wonders aloud whether she can love him, which reveals his feelings for her fairly succinctly, IMO.

 

Then it's inconsistent. I get that you're probably right, but Jackson needs to stay as consistent as he can when messing with Middle Earth. If you have the light and show that it is the healing light, you can't just make it a hallucination too.

 

But it's only said that Kili will die. Nothing is said about him becoming a wraith. Morgul-shaft only means the arrow came from Minas Morgul, not that it carries the full power of its lord. Perhaps Morgul weapons all have an inherent toxicity, but only the Witch-King possesses the power to take full advantage of that?

 

Yeah this is likely an instance of PJ and his writers being a bit too clever for their own good, sneaking in unnecessary references.

 

Maybe...I don't know much about Morgul weapons. But I do agree with Ireth that it is an implication that it would be similar to the blade.

 

That would make a bit more sense.

 

I finally saw it! I was surprised to see the theater so jam packed this far out from the release date.

Random thoughts:

I couldn't bear the spiders bit and had to shut my eyes for most of it. A little too horror-fest for my tastes.

All I could think about while watching the Kili/Tauriel thing was "Mom, Dad, I brought my new boyfriend home. He's a dwarf so be nice."

I loved the Radagast bits! I loved seeing that added to the story. It almost makes up for dropping Tom Bombadil out of LotR.

I would have liked to see more of Beorn.

The escape from Thranduil was perfect.

Smaug. *swoon* Such a beautiful dragon.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with where it went and how it was done. I seem to recall that Tolkien at some point wanted to bring The Hobbit more into line with his vision for the rest of Middle Earth and make it more cohesive with LotR. I think the Hobbit trilogy will do just that.

 

I saw the movie last Friday evening. It's actually a bit better than the first movie. It's more exciting, even if not wholly faithful. The scene where the forges are lit and form the gold statue was stretching my disbelief, but a big thumbs up on the realisation of Smaug. (Who would have guessed that's Benedict Cumberbatch doing his voice?) I can forgive their efforts to tie these movies into the LOTR movies; lots of people won't have read the books and it makes it more understandable. I just hope movie 3 ties it all up in a satisfactory way; the battle for Laketown is iminent, for one.

 

I watched it the other day, awesome film. It kept me hooked! Not my girlfriend though, she's bored of the films now. She thinks they're dragging it out too much and it could have all been done in one three hour film. I'm not sure if I agree with her.

 

It could maybe have been done in 2 films, but not one. If they'd done it all in one it would have felt rushed I think.

 

Not if they stuck to the actual plot of The Hobbit instead of adding in brand new things, or details from the appendices and other sources that wound up screwing with the canon timeline.

 

I didn't really like the movie. The part with Smaug chasing thes dwarfs in the mountain was stupied and its was far, far to much actions and basically the same event over, and over, and over, and over, and over and over again; they get into a bad spot but are saved at the least minute.

And there's more things to complain about it but I'll stop before I start ranting.

 

But I LIKE the things they added from the appendices. Fills in a lot of the gaps and better connects The Hobbit to Lord of the Rings.

 

Rule #1 of SF/F: There is no such thing as too much action.

 

I can understand why they did that, but it just takes away from the quaint bedtime-story feel of the Hobbit book. Tolkien himself considered rewriting The Hobbit to match better with the darker tone of LOTR (which is, I think, what Jackson was trying to do), but he decided against it because "it wouldn't be The Hobbit anymore." I see the movies as more of a fanfic than a straight attempt at adapting the books, be it The Hobbit or LOTR.

 

If that's the case, it's the best fanfic I've ever experienced.

 

I didn't expect this movie to be just like the books, I mean, LOTR wasn't, the first Hobbit wasn't, and this wasn't. That's fine, film is a different medium.

 

True, but they could have made a better effort to at least include the source material rather than condensing or outright changing it in favor of non-canon stuff. A lot of the stuff that was actually in the books, which would have been awesome to see on the big screen, was rushed and glossed over in favor of Tauriel/Kili romance and that drawn-out battle scene in Erebor. On the other hand, I DID like that we saw more of Bard the Bowman than was in the books; it makes him seem like more than just a plot device.