The Disappointment of Smaug: A Rant

[Everlong]

Last year when I saw the first Hobbit movie I was disappointed, but figured I'd wait until seeing the second movie before making a decision on the franchise. Yesterday I saw the Desolation of Smaug, and now I can firmly say that this prequel trilogy is a complete and utter flop. And I'm a huge Tolkien fanboy.

My biggest concern with the series has been proven true: there's simply not enough content to spread over three movies. What they're doing in nine hours could have easily been done in four. Now, I have no problems with Peter Jackson adding additional content to these movies. He did it occasionally in the LOTR trilogy to great effect - everything he added complemented the existing content extremely well and made the story easier to follow for people who had never read the books.

However, in the Hobbit movies so far, the majority of the content has either been completely new, or ridiculously expanded upon, to the point where the latest movie actually more resembled fan fiction than a Hollywood screen play based on the classic Tolkien text.

There are some additions that have added to the narrative and done a nice job of connecting the story with the LOTR trilogy for movie-only fans. The Dol Goldur storyline in Mirkwood is an example of this... it's interesting, gives Gandalf more to do and serves as an explanation for things that happen later on.

But consider all the ridiculous bullshit in DoS alone:

-Legolas is thrown into the story, which I suppose is ok given that he would have been in the area at the time of the Hobbits' capture in the story, but his sole purpose is to look all surly while a new female elf Tauriel flirts with Fili or Kili or whichever dwarf it is (seriously, they've not even bothered trying to name all of them more than once). There are SO many problems with this... one, the only reason the new character exists is to be an object for affection for an underdeveloped dwarf character and a cursory elf character who's only in the story so that Jackson can say "HEY! LOOK! THIS CONNECTS WITH LOTR!" Second, why the fuck should we care? We met this Tauriel five minutes ago, and suddenly I'm supposed to care about her love life, or even about Legolas's, when neither of them matter AT ALL to the story? It'd have been like Peter Jackson spending 20 minutes on a love story for Barliman Butterbur in FOTR.

-I get that you have to throw some realism out the window in any movie like this, but the ridiculously over-the-top action sequences in the first Hobbit movie and this one have made me roll my eyes so much that I'm pretty sure they're now permanently stuck in that position. They absolutely ruined the barrel-riding scene in this movie (my favorite in the books) with some laughably bad action sequences. That leads to another overarching issue:

-They're relying way too much on glitz and glamour rather than substance. I get it, you want to make the movie look as good as you can with the new technology, but there is such a thing as over-reliance on CGI. Just ask George Lucas. I'm sorry, but these orcs look like shit compared to the ones they used ten years ago, and so do all the cutesy little things they throw in (the CGI bees in Beorn's place, for example). With all the technology they have now, they've overdone it to the point where they actually created a better-looking set of movies years ago with less technology at their disposal.

-This is something that defenders of the movies say that absolutely drives me nuts: "Well, of course this set of movies is going to be different than LOTR... they're completely different books with different tones." Yes. This is true. The Hobbit should absolutely be more lighthearted. But that DOESN'T mean that you abandon all sense in writing, use CGI to excess and try to squeeze as much money as you can out of three movies when one, maybe two would have sufficed. BIlbo's "butter over too much bread" analogy in FOTR really hits home when talking about these movies. The original trilogy did a fantastic job of balancing some meaningful moments and deeper messages with all the things that the popcorn audiences love... battle scenes, graphics. etc. For The Hobbit, Jackson and company have COMPLETELY ignored any semblance of quality to focus solely on the frills and laces. This has resulted in a set of movies that completely lacks any substance, and as a result, any heart.

I could go on and on, but safe to say, I couldn't be more disappointed and I doubt I'll bother with the final movie of the trilogy next year. I wanted to like this trilogy, I really did, but there's no covering up the flaws that it has. While the first two movies have had occasional moments of greatness, the vast majority is a steaming pile of shit that has completely abandoned everything that made the original trilogy such classics. It's an absolute mess.

4.5/10 for this movie. If you enjoy quality narratives, or simply movies that don't frustrate the living bejesus out of you with cliches, stock characters or completely unnecessary love triangles, stay away. This is one of the worst movies I've ever seen in the theaters.

[Daz]

I think this is kind of an exaggeration on the Hobbit's flaws

Yes they've added quite a bit, and it does become quite glaring that they've done so to expand the film to fill a near 3 hour running time. Some of them, smarter than others. Frankly I thought the Radagast stuff in the first film was absolutely horrible. I didn’t feel like that during Desolation of Smaug. A lot of what they added made sense to me. I love the Orcs chasing the dwarves, whilst the existence of Tauriel is contrived (let’s face it, she’s entirely there to look good for the male audience and give the female audience somebody to root for that doesn’t have a y chromosome) the elves in turn chasing the dwarves works. The political stuff in Lake-Town was really fun (Although I am bias cause I love Stephen Fry) and it all builds into the Battle of the Five Armies coming in the final film ... which let’s face it, in the book comes out of nowhere and makes little to no sense. And to be fair, the storyline between Tauriel and Kili maybe took up 15 minutes of screen time in a 3 hour movie. There was nothing overtly offensive about the content of each scene and if anything, it only served in highlighting one of the dwarves in a different way and gave one of fifteen main characters something to do.

On the subject of having fifteen main characters, you can hardly blame the film makers for them being under developed. If you want to criticise some of the additions they’ve made, veering the film somewhere into fan fiction territory, let’s step back for a moment and actually take a look at the book. I love Tolkien, I love the hobbit, read it and Lord of the Rings once every year since I was ten years old. The dwarves in the hobbit, are not well developed, fully rounded characters. They’re a name, a beard, a coloured hood and a foil to tease or answer Bilbo’s questions. That’s the main problem in adapting the book, almost all if it’s characters are ultimately inconsequential to what’s going on. It’s mentioned Fili and Kili are the youngest and Oin and Gloin build fires. That’s about it. There’s not a whole lot for Peter Jackson to build on, and in my opinion, he’s done a fair job of highlighting different characters. He has fifteen main characters to jungle, only about 4 or 5 of which are essential to the plot. Take Bard the Bowman for example. H shows up in the book, does one thing, one essential thing, and that’s about it. Of course they had to expand upon that in the film, and I thought they did so in a very clever way, setting up what’s to come in film three. It was always gonna be an impossible task to give all thirteen dwarves and these peripheral characters that pop up a fair shake.

I will agree, there’s been an overindulgence of CGI in both Hobbit films thus far. Certainly, some of the violence has been a tad cartoony. Legolas decapitating an Orc from a balcony after said Orc was see-sawed into the air via rowing boat, being the most glaring offense. The bees in Beorn’s place certainly felt out of place, and where pretty much there for the 3D effect. Definitely wasn’t necessary. I’d perhaps like to see more practical stuff being done, as it was in LOTR, but what can you do. I did however really enjoy the barrel escape. Like you, it’s my favourite moment in the book, but on the other hand, I see exactly why Jackson did what he did. Watching thirteen barrels float down a river isn’t very interesting. The fight scene taking place around it had me smiling from ear to ear.

I think to say the film hasn’t got any substance isn’t really fair. You say it lacks heart and it’s all about the thrills and popcorn audience. Now I hate to use this argument, especially as you highlighted it ... it isn’t a completely different book to LOTR, it does have an entirely different tone. And more so than that, it was written like a popcorn blockbuster ... before they even existed mind you. The book jumps from one action sequence to another, fighting giant spiders, to getting caught by wood elves, to daring escapes, meetings with dragons, a battle comes from out of nowhere, Gandalf shows up and wraps up why he’s been gone for the last 40 pages in a paragraph. The Hobbit isn’t a book with great depth, character development or heart. Fili and Kili snuff it at the end and it’s mentioned in one sentence and then brushed completely under the rug as if it didn’t happen. It’s great moments are pretty much Riddles in the Dark, Bilbo’s meeting with Smaug and a series of fantastical action sequences. It doesn’t have many if any deep meaningful message to give.

I love the book, don’t get me wrong, but to be fair to Jackson and company, they didn’t have a whole lot to work with in some cases. Which is why I agree wholeheartedly, this could have been done in two films, instead of 3.

Despite that, I personally thought the film was a lot of fun. It’s not without its problems, some of which I will agree with you on 100%. But at the end of the day, all I want from a film named the Hobbit, is fun.

[Everlong]

I can understand the dwarves not all being fully fleshed out characters, as there are so many of them. And as you said, they really aren't in the book either with the exception of a few. The problem occurs when they start taking these characters that aren't developed at all and throwing them into completely half-assed love plots (like wtf, that writing with Tauriel/Fili or Kili/Legolas was absolutely dreadful). That's just not good on any level.

I actually agree about Bard the Bowman, I think that's one of the few cases in which Jackson's done a great job of expanding on the text. I think fleshing out his character more was absolutely essential.

The Hobbit doesn't have to be deeply philosophical, perhaps I used a wrong choice of word when I said "deep," but it can absolutely have substance to it, especially if the goal is to make this a connector to the LOTR trilogy (which is definitely Jackson's goal, otherwise he wouldn't have bothered with the whole Mirkwood plot). A whole lot of the thematic elements are still there that are in LOTR. They needed to chop out about 50% of the content they've put in and focus more on crafting a narrative that is sensible, yet still keeping the more fun, carefree tone of the book. Instead, it seems that barely any effort was put into editing down these screenplays, and way too much was put into making everything shiny pretty to distract people from how bad of a job they've done in combining their translation of the source material with new content.

The problem is that Jackson set himself up for two different, extremely difficult tasks here. One, it was going to be EXTREMELY hard to successfully connect this set of movies to the LOTR trilogy while still maintaining The Hobbit's unique tone, and two, it was going to be even harder to make it into THREE movies that were actually worth watching. He could have done it, but he's failed to this point because he's seemingly strayed away from all of the things that made LOTR so fantastic.

[Daz]

No doubt made all the more difficult by having to jump in as director mid way through preparation as Del Toro departed.

[Viazon]

I am probably one person who has never really gotten into the whole LOTR thing. I saw the first one at the cinema but must not have thought it was all that because I have never watched any of the other ones. I can't even really remember what happens it it. So many people at work are so excited for this movie though and was one girl was shocked when I said I am not really interested in seeing it.

[KaiserGlider]

Tim, I'd like to see you point out some more flaws in the storyline of the movie, because the main thing I got from your rant was that you absolutely hated the Legolas/Fili/Tauriel bullshit, and it was enough to make you hate the whole thing

I say bullshit because I didn't like that subplot either. I thought it was unnecessary and it was the one thing I probably really didn't like about the movie. But how long was all that stuff... like 10 minutes? That time frame is hardly enough to make me hate a movie that was so fun for the rest of it. And the main reason I didn't like the scene was because it wasn't in the book. If I hadn't read the book prior to seeing the movie I probably wouldn't have cared about the Tauriel/Kili stuff and wouldn't have been bothered much by it. I feel like this is a case where you're judging the movie far too harshly because you're such a big fan of the book and want everything to be portrayed perfectly. Rather than trying to see the movie more for what it really is.

Amway it seems kind of silly to trash the whole movie because of one 10/15 minute subplot, so I'd like to see more examples of what you hated. Because story-wise I got nothing else to complain about. Wasn't too big on the last fight with Smaug at first, but I can see why they did it.

Do I think this movie could have been a lot shorter? Hell yeah. Sometimes I feel like Jackson is intentionally making all of these movies close to 3 hours just to drive home the point that it "needed" to be a trilogy. But as far as I'm concerned, if he manages to pump out 3 entertaining installments, it's not that big of a deal.

As for CGI, eh, we've just got different opinions on that. I though the barrel-riding scene was awesome and one of the best action sequences I've seen in a while. It was fun. As Daz said, better than just seeing them ride in closed barrels down a river, at least in our opinion. I do think that some of the action sequences in these films have been a bit over the top. But keep in mind that An Unexpected Journey got so much criticism for being slow paced and taking forever to get things going, so having Desolation of Smaug be more fast-paced and have more action sequences was the right thing to do. It worked well for me, and was one for the reasons I thought this was better than the first film.

My bottom line is this. The pacing was better, the action scenes were better, there were more funny moments and cool scenes than in the first film, so I definitely consider Desolation of Smaug to be better than Unexpected Journey. I think they've set things up quite nicely for the final film. At the end of the day, one or two lame/unnecessary scenes between Tauriel and Killi wasn't enough to make me forget all the things that made this film entertaining, such as Smaug, the development of Bard the Bowman, the fight with the spiders, The Necromancer story, Lake-town, and everything else.

[Locke]

I have yet to see the 2nd film but I loved the first and am getting it for Christmas and I can't effing wait. My wife didn't like the LOTR films at first but the Hobbit has made her want to watch them with me, which if you knew my wife and her stubborn taste in movies, you'd think this was a miracle like I do.

Some people just don't like some things, and that's fine, but I've really not heard a single negative thing about this movie until the rant here. Of course, I don't read IMDB forums so I'm sure all those stuck up "movie buffs" are having a field day with it, but their good idea of a movie is "Monster Ball" so they can go fuck 'emselves (not saying you're like this, Tim, just observing the IMDB crowd).

I hope I get a chance to see this in theatres! It just released in a too busy holiday time for me so far, or else I'd have seen it twice by now probably.

[Everlong]

Tim, I'd like to see you point out some more flaws in the storyline of the movie, because the main thing I got from your rant was that you absolutely hated the Legolas/Fili/Tauriel bullshit, and it was enough to make you hate the whole thing

-They completely butchered the Beorn storyline, and he's one of the most interesting characters of the book. In a movie where they're trying their darndest to draw everything out as long as possible, they pretty much glossed over him.

-The orc subplot is not good at all. Beyond the fact that the orcs just look bad, I hated the Azog stuff in the first movie and thought it was bad in this one too.

-I thought the portrayal of Thranduil was really strange. Maybe I'm spoiled by Hugo Weaving and Cate Blanchett, but the guy playing Thranduil seemed completely out of place.

-That's related to this: I don't think the casting for these movies has been nearly as good as it was in LOTR. Some of the dwarves are just bad, and some of the side characters as well. Thorin's portrayal was passable in the first movie, but mediocre at best in this one.

-Again, over-extended action sequences to the point where you just get bored watching it. They could have cut some of those sequences in half and it would have had the same (or better) effect on the viewer because they weren't completely overdoing it. Like, a quarter of the movie is chase scenes. Come on.

-A problem that a lot of these types of movies have: the dwarves continue getting themselves into completely ridiculous situations and wind up coming out unscathed. This was done to an obscene extent in the first hobbit movie, but also in this movie as well. This is partially due to the source material, but a lot of these situations have been hugely expanded upon by Jackson where they come off as being far more ridiculous in the movies than they were in the books. The whole dragon scene? The dwarves never interact with Smaug in teh books - only Bilbo. You expect me to believe that every one of those dwarves is going to go into the mountain and escape the deadliest creature in the north?

-I can't mention the CGI stuff enough, it was completely Lucasian.

-How easily the dwarves were about to give up when they couldn't get into the mountain right away... give me a break.


There was a lot more that, as I was watching, I'd find myself thinking "wow, this blows," but it's starting to slip my mind now.

[Hanley!]

I haven't watched either Hobbit movie yet. I'm still annoyed that they had the audacity to make it 3 movies. It's absurd. They just wanted to try and recreate the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but they're doing so with source material that's only ONE SIXTH the size of the Lord of the Rings books.

Given the first Hobbit is on Netflix now I might watch it some day when bored, but I'm really skeptical I will like any of these much, because the story was not written to be told this way. So I'm not surprised to see some of Tim's complaints. Like pacing issues: if you try to turn one story into 3, those are going to crop up. The poorly drawn characters complaint is also easy to see coming. In one story, it wouldn't seem odd that these characters don't have hugely distinguishing features, but if they're around for this long you start to notice how shallow they are. I've heard a lot of people say that it ends on a bit of an anti-climax too, which seems inevitable when you have to insert an ending at a random point.

[Everlong]

^Yeah, another problem with them splitting it into three sections is that there really is no climax in the first two movies so far, because it's one narrative split up. In the LOTR movies, while it was one story, there were natural points of climax in each section because of the way Tolkien wrote it.

We go in medias res for this movie from the start and the build isn't satisfying because there's no climax. In the Two Towers, you had Helm's Deep, Gandalf's rescue, the sacking of Isengard and the battle at Osgiliath as huge climactic moments. Because of the way they've split up The Hobbit, they haven't had anything of the sort for the first two movies.

[SlightlyJames]

I just got back from seeing it today. I get what you mean about there not being a climax but honestly I actually really liked the "...what have we done?" ending. I don't know if I'm just easier to please but I really enjoyed the movie from start to end. Don't get me wrong, I completely get what you're saying with a lot of these things and I understand where you're coming from but I just loved it.

[Daz]

Tim, I'd like to see you point out some more flaws in the storyline of the movie, because the main thing I got from your rant was that you absolutely hated the Legolas/Fili/Tauriel bullshit, and it was enough to make you hate the whole thing

-They completely butchered the Beorn storyline, and he's one of the most interesting characters of the book. In a movie where they're trying their darndest to draw everything out as long as possible, they pretty much glossed over him.

-The orc subplot is not good at all. Beyond the fact that the orcs just look bad, I hated the Azog stuff in the first movie and thought it was bad in this one too.

-I thought the portrayal of Thranduil was really strange. Maybe I'm spoiled by Hugo Weaving and Cate Blanchett, but the guy playing Thranduil seemed completely out of place.

-That's related to this: I don't think the casting for these movies has been nearly as good as it was in LOTR. Some of the dwarves are just bad, and some of the side characters as well. Thorin's portrayal was passable in the first movie, but mediocre at best in this one.

-Again, over-extended action sequences to the point where you just get bored watching it. They could have cut some of those sequences in half and it would have had the same (or better) effect on the viewer because they weren't completely overdoing it. Like, a quarter of the movie is chase scenes. Come on.

-A problem that a lot of these types of movies have: the dwarves continue getting themselves into completely ridiculous situations and wind up coming out unscathed. This was done to an obscene extent in the first hobbit movie, but also in this movie as well. This is partially due to the source material, but a lot of these situations have been hugely expanded upon by Jackson where they come off as being far more ridiculous in the movies than they were in the books. The whole dragon scene? The dwarves never interact with Smaug in teh books - only Bilbo. You expect me to believe that every one of those dwarves is going to go into the mountain and escape the deadliest creature in the north?

-I can't mention the CGI stuff enough, it was completely Lucasian.

-How easily the dwarves were about to give up when they couldn't get into the mountain right away... give me a break.


There was a lot more that, as I was watching, I'd find myself thinking "wow, this blows," but it's starting to slip my mind now.

- To say Beorn has a storyline in the book is really over exaggeration in itself. He features for one chapter and then re-appears in a throwaway line during the Battle of the Five Armies. You mentioned pacing issues, do you really think having multiple introductions staggered over a re-telling of a movie we've already seen, is the best way to not only open the film and also introduce the character? Beorn’s most interesting quality really, is that he can change into a bear ... and the transformation from bear to man was really bloody cool in the film. Yes, they kept his involvement rather brief and perhaps sold him a little short ... it might have been interesting to see the feast and the animals serving all the dwarves but really they did what they needed to with him and moved on.

-Personally, I think the Orc sub plot is pretty clever. Giving the first film a villain (the way the Fellowship of the Ring had Saruman and Lurtz) gave a little something that would have otherwise been missing. They way they’ve managed to tie it into the Necromancer stuff and build it into the fabric off the main story, leading to the Battle of the Five Armies works for me. Also, I think it’s added a little urgency to the quest ... as did the coming of Durin’s day, which I think enhanced the film overall... which made the whole thing fly by.? I’m interested to hear why you don’t like it as opposed to saying it was just bad.

-Lee Pace did a decent job. I portrayal of the character is an interesting twist on the noble/wise elves we’ve seen thus far. There’s something a little more selfish and cold about Thranduil which I like. I’d say the only thing about his presence in the film I didn’t enjoy, was the scene between him and Tauriel where he pretty told her not to fuck Legolas or she’d be in trouble. The character itself is nothing like Elrond or Galadriel and I’m glad it wasn’t done as such.

-Again, personally I have to disagree on your assessment of Richard Armitage as Thorin. Frankly, I think he’s killed it. For me, he’s pretty much how I always pictured Thorin. Balin and Dwalin have both been great. I’m loving James Nesbit as Bofur and Fil and Kili I’ve enjoyed also. They’re pretty much the ones who have been at the forefront and I have no complaints with any of them. The more secondary of the dwarves I will agree with you on, but to be fair, haven’t had a lot to do because there hasn’t been a lot for them to do.

-Extending the action sequences I will agree with you on. I thought the barrel sequence could have been trimmed in places, likewise the finale with Smaug. You could have easily trimmed a few minutes off and not lose anything.

-You mentioned this yourself, but the pattern on the book was very much hapless dwarves get into trouble, Bilbo manages to save them through luck or with the ring. They don’t learn their lesson, rinse and repeat. Honestly, off the top of my head, I can’t think of any Peter Jackson changes that have expanded their idiocy. In this particular film, the spiders catch them much the same. He in fact cut some of their idiocy out, such as Bombur falling into the water and the way they follow the lights only to be captured by the Woodelves. The escape from the elves was actually a little more heroic than portrayed in the book, as they had to fight their way to freedom. Likewise in battling Smaug inside the Lonely Mountain towards the end, instead of hiding. The only time you could say Jackson made them look foolish was having them hide in fish barrels to enter Lake Town instead of having them welcomed and attending the Master’s feast.

-The giant CGI bees offended me. Everything else I could deal with.

-Giving up at the mountain, I can certainly see where you’re coming from. For Bilbo to be the only one who stays, thought it’s not even his home, was certainly a bit contrived. It made for a nice dramatic moment as Thorin stomps his foot on the key, stopping it from falling over the edge of the mountain, but the who leaving thing did irk me.

-As far as the movie ending on an anti-climax ... I certainly didn’t think so. In fact most of the people around me where unhappy it ended when it did, because things were just about to heat up (pun absolutely intended) and they wanted to see what happens next.


As far as splitting the film into three. Yeah, I have never seen the point of it. I imagine it was more a studio thing than a Peter Jackson thing to be perfectly honest. The book itself doesn’t really lend itself to be splitting into so many sections, as there aren’t too many natural breaking points. I thought they ended the first one at a very clever point. This one they had to manufacture a finale, so you get the dwarves taking a stab at taking down Smaug themselves (which frankly, I’m not against. It never sat right with me they didn’t try in the book.) Gandalf being captured by the Necromancer and imprisoned at Dol Goldur (Which is mentioned as happening in the Council of Elrond – at least in a roundabout way- in Fellowship of the Ring if I remember correctly.) and Kili/Tauriel stuff.

[UTK]

Watching these movies as somebody who's never read the book, I hated the first film, and I loved the second one.

The first one was incredibly boring and stupid. Still not getting over the random magical birds that come out of nowhere to save them. It was just ridiculous.

No magic birds to save them in the second one, however. Were there multiple cliche "somebody saves somebody right before they die" moments? Yeah, but this time they actually made sense, and weren't random magical birds.

The second one, unlike the first, kept my interest the entire time. I'm looking forward to the third movie, and I might read the book while I'm at it.