revjohn
The Desolation of Smaug: Peter Jackson's second epic film made from one small book and a lot of filler.
Posted on: 12/16/2013 13:29
Hi All,
When last we saw our heroes they had just escaped, with the help of Gwaihir and his eagles, from Azog and some of his warg riders. This new epic opens with the Azog and his warg riders sniffing out the heroes who are not on foot. Bilbo, arriving back after some scouting about has other news.
There are more than wargs and orcs about. Something else, something pretty big is lurking about. Gandalf asks if it is something shaped like a bear. Bilbo says it is and the party is now off and running at high gear to a house that Gandalf knows lies nearby. The owner will either help them or kill them, hard to say as the owner doesn't much care for dwarves.
The bear-like creature pursues the fleeing party and they barely make it into the home before it throws itself against the doors in an effort to capture them. Gandalf takes this in stride. Bilbo is puzzled and the dwarves are not particularly pleased. All decide to turn in for the evening.
Bilbo awakens to noise and finds that everyone is up breakfasting and the lord of the home, Beorn the skin changer (a were bear if you will) is hosting the dwarves who apprise him that they are off to the lonely mountain and plan on travelling through Mirkwood. Beorn is unimpressed. Pressing the dwarves about the orcs in pursuit Beorn ascertains that the orcs intend to kill the dwarves and bring to an end any nonsense of a strong Dawarven nation.
Beorn grudgingly offers Thorin and his men assistance because while he dislikes dwarves he likes orcs much less.
The company is equipped and make their way to the elven gate at Mirkwood which is in a state of disrepair. Gandalf decides to take leave of the expedition after spying the symbol of the Necromancer and he goes off to meet Radagast whom we met last epic.
Meanwhile Bilbo is growing more and more infatuated with the ring he found in the Goblin tunnels and the party has lost its way through Mirkwood owing to the road not being kept up. While sitting about wondering what to do next Bilbo has a Hobbit moment and touches something he ought not touch. So what if it is a giant spiderweb? Doesn't mean the spider that made it is a giant does it?
Well, yes, actually in Middle-Earth it does and suddenly Bilbo slips on the ring to evade the spiders while they pick off every member of the dwarven party A heroic fight with one giant spider leads Bilbo to name his elven dagger (which is big enough to be a hobbit sword) "sting."
While using the ring to render himself invisible Bilbo frees the dwarves, then there is a battle between dwarves and giant spiders. One spider dares Bilbo to take of the ring, which Bilbo does and in the ensuing fight the ring is dropped. Bilbo goes after it and another creature, not a spider gets in his way. Bilbo very brutally kills this menace, picks up the ring and gazes at it with some horror.
It seems he is beginning to understand that this magic ring is changing him in some way and he is not happy with that change.
Before the fight between the dwarves and the spiders can end the elves of Mirkwood intervene, kill the spiders and take the dwarves prisoner because, well, dwarves and elves don't get along. Besides, the dwarves are trespassing. There is a very brief scene where Legolas Greenleaf, prince of the woodland realm, confiscates the wallet of the dwarf Gloin and going through it finds some illustrations. The first hideous portrait is of Gloin's wife and the other wretched creature is of Gloin's son Gimli. A very light-hearted beggining of a relationship to come.
Bilbo, having slipped the ring on again follows discreetly.
The dwarves are imprisoned, Thorin is questioned by Thranduil the King of the Woodland Realm and a party begins in Mirkwood. The excellent burglar Bilbo secures the keys to the cells and the dwarves are freed. Bilbo has even arranged an escape and the Dwarves take to a pile of empty barrels and Bilbo then dumps them into a river where they drift away.
Which begins a very hectic ride down a raging river which was so well done in 3D than my wife was motion sick for quite some time following so, if your constitution is weak from that sort of thing, bring along some dramamine. Orcs attack the elven palace and we get to see Legolas and captain of the guard Tauriel hunt orc with some pleasure.
Along the way the dwarf Kili is injured by a morgul arrow and poisoned and begins a romance with the elf Tauriel
Quite a departure from the narrative.
At any rate the escapees wash ashore suitably grumpy and are met by Bard the Bowman a man of Laketown who agrees to give the dwarves safe passage across the lake and provide them with weapons and other provisions on their way to the lonely mountain.
As it often happens the best laid plans involving dwarves oft go astray and the dwarves, while attempting to secure some proper weapons (those provided by Bard are offensive in their construction and considered unsuitable to doing battle with a dragon) are captured by the Master of Laketown and his minions. By this time Bard has figured out who Thorin is and what his journey to the lonely mountain portends.
Bard decides to confront Thorin and convince the Master of Laketown not to permit Thorin to travel any further. Thorin, appeals to the Master of Laketown's greed by promising vast riches when Erebor is restored and Smaug is defeated. A trifle inconvenience surely. The Master of Laketown is pleased with the promises and sends Thorin and most of his party on their way.
Only the injured Kili, his brother Fili, Oin (who are to tend to Kili's injuries) and Bofur (who oversleeps the departure of the dwarven party from Laketown) are left behind. This is apparently so that now there is a reason for Bolg and other orcs to invade Laketown necessitating the arrival of Legolas and Tauriel to slaughter those same orcs and advance the romantic interest between Kili and Tauriel.
Meanwhile at Dol Guldur, Gandalf has been attempting to break the spell of concealment which is hiding the necromancer. He manages to throw off the spell only to be forced into battle with Azog and other orcs. Giving the orcs the slip Gandalf is about to leave Dol Guldur when he is confronted by the necromancer. Gandalf fights valiantly but ultimately is overwhelmed by the power of the necromancer (if you cannot figure out who the necromancer is then you have not seen any of the Lord of the Rings movies and there is no hope for you).
On the plus side, Gandalf lasts much longer in this trilogy than he does the Lord of the Rings trilogy before he gets beat up.
Back on the side of the lonely mountain Thorin, Bilbo and the gang are trying to find a secret entrance to the kingdom of Erebor. The keyhole will be revealed in the last light of Durin's day. The sun falls behind the mountain without the keyhole being revealed and the dwarves begin to leave the mountain dejected. Bilbo remains behind trying to work out the puzzle and he finds the keyhole and the secret entrance to the lonely mountain is revealed.
Bilbo, hired as a burglar is sent to burgle a particular white stone called the arkenstone. It should be down in the mountain somewhere in all the loot that Smaug has taken. Oh, and if you value your life, you won't wake the dragon.
Bilbo walking about in a tremendous mountain of gold coins is not as silent as one should be if one is intent upon lettling sleeping dragons lie. Thank goodness he has that ring. It doesn't keep the keen ears or nose of Smaug from following him about the cavern it does allow him to stay out of harm's way.
Smaug and Bilbo have a very lengthy correspondance in which Bilbo is quite flattering and Smaug is quite put out. The very keen dragon smell alerts Smaug to the fact that Bilbo has spent some time in the company of dwarves, which the dragon finds upsetting. Smaug also guesses that Bilbo has found the One Ring and is able to trigger some very unsettling effects by saying the word "precious." During the cat and mouse conversation Bilbo spies the arkenstone and attempts to get it. Smaug, on the prowl, thwarts every effort.
Some fire is breathed and the dwarves show up for some epic battle with Smaug. Apparently Erebor is kind of like a Rube Goldberg machine and can be used with great effect when fighting dragons. You would have thought it would have worked when Smaug first attacked making Thorin's long quest quite unnecessary.
At any rate the machinations of the dwarves infuriate Smaug and in retaliation Smaug who guesses Laketown is involved decides to go down to the lake and destroy it.
The movie ends with Bilbo on a prominance watching Smaug descend upon the wooden city in terror and asking himself out loud, "What have we done?"
If you are a Tolkien purist this is not going to be an enjoyable film there are significant liberties taken with the text. If you suffer from motion sickness the 3D ride down the river running will turn you green around the gills. I flinched once when a 3D head was launched my way. Well done.
Would have liked more time with Beorn. He, at least, got better treatment than Tom Bombadil.
And everything comes to a head in the next installment with the battle between Smaug and Laketown, the escape of Gandalf from Dol Guldur and the battle of five armies.
I am wondering how the gaping plot holes will be resolved. There are four dwarves still in laketown that ought not to be there by now.
Grace and peace to you.
John
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Comments
Mendalla
Posted on: 12/16/2013 14:23
I said it before and I'll say it again. The Hobbit is a perfectly good little story that needs no embellishment. Give me one good movie, maybe two tops, that recognizes that and I will be happy (the old Rankin Bass animated TV version did a surprisingly good job, but I would love to see it done on the big screen). Turning it into Lord of the Rings Lite, as Jackson seems to be doing, fails to do so and also fails to do justice to the fact that it is not, in fact, the Lord of the Rings Lite but a rather different sort of story that just happens to tie into LOTR.
Mendalla
gecko46
Posted on: 12/16/2013 16:47
Now I don't need to watch the movies...really not interested in doing so, although I liked the movie versions of LOTR.
revjohn
Posted on: 12/16/2013 16:50
Hi Mendalla,
I said it before and I'll say it again. The Hobbit is a perfectly good little story that needs no embellishment.
I agree with you.
I don't mind adding material from the unfinished tales where Tolkien takes time to fill fans in on what happens when Gandalf disappears on errands that have nothing to do with the mission at hand. Like in The Two Towers movie where Gandalf explains his battle with the Balrog. It actually helps move the story along.
The invention of Tauriel was unnecessary as was the injury to Kili and leaving four of the 13 dwarves behind in Laketown.
Grace and peace to you.
John
Pinga
Posted on: 12/16/2013 19:12
We didn't see it in 3d. May be worth going back & watching it a 2nd time to see 3d.
MikeBPaterson
Posted on: 12/30/2013 14:15
Drawn in by the over-blown promotion, we saw 'Desolation of Smaug' a few nights ago: the first big screen movie we've seen in years. We had been persuaded that Hollywood ran dry in the ideas department a generation or two ago and Europe's not offering much creative excitement anymore. But curiosity drew us out.
Loud, repetitive, moronic, ideas-free, ugly… a self-indulgent special effects wank sans acting, sans script, sans wit… intellectual, spiritual, social and emotional lies, abuse and nihilism… a two-hour plug for the NEXT stupid rampage. The average low-budget Bollywood flicks offer more to offer: better acting, better-crafted scripts more interesting plots and characters, and when all else fails, at least a little cultural vivacity.
Not so in this Tolkein travesty. It doesn't even work as self-parody. Nature is everywhere depicted as a force to be hated. smashed and annihilated. Spider-shock? Peter Jackson: go back to you your personal, squalid little childhish hell, or Pukerua Bay, or somewhere… please.
Virtue and ego are indistinguishable. Nothing has a shred of meaning… only the histrionic, over-amplified, pointless noise kept me awake.
Popular culture, if this has anything to do with it, is deeply sick. Even John's description — though it is much more articulate than the movie — should freeze to death any residual curiosity you might feel.
Alex
Posted on: 12/30/2013 12:59
duplicate
Alex
Posted on: 12/30/2013 12:59
LOL. Mike
I would love to see you review more films and TV shows. I wish I was able to come up with the same words as you. I would real;ly enjoy a review pf the Walking Dead, True Blood, Batman or something else.
Mendalla
Posted on: 12/30/2013 17:45
I think Hollywood has become primarily a source of over-the-top, big budget, semi-mindless (some is more mindless than others and some can, in fact, be rather intelligent) entertainment. I do enjoy some of it, such as some of the Marvel movies (which draw heavily on comic books that I read as a kid), but I can see why it dismays a lot of people.
The one that has dismayed me the most is the JJ Abrams' Star Trek. Two movies full of fx and action but lacking seriously in what I want out of Trek, namely the tension and drama of "Exploring strange new worlds" and "Seeking out new life and new civilizations". It seems to be all about things exploding and people loudly proclaiming their need for vengeance. Rather more Star Wars than Star Trek which, interestingly, Abrams is also directing.
The real place to go for more serious, lower key drama nowadays seems to be the smaller indie or semi-indie films. Directors like David O Russell (Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle) and Richard Linklater (Before Sunrise/Sunset/Midnight trilogy).
Mendalla
Alex
Posted on: 01/01/2014 04:53
The thing about blockbuster movies today is that the original books and comics are what I would read when I was a teen and preteen. The hobbit and the Lord of the Rings were what I read in Junior High. Comics like Superman, Batman, Thor etc were what I would have read as a pre teen., if my parents had given me a bigger allowanc. Als they thought comics were trashy and a waste of money and time.
As a child and teen these stories had an appeal. Howevr in making them a Blockbuster they lost some of their charm, ideas and messages, while gaining only alot of flash. My imagination was better than the Hobbit movies. Howevr I will see the movies , as it is a much loved book from my childhood. Last year howevr I waited for the DVD and watched it at a friend house who has a big TV.
Last month I watch "All About EVe" a 1950 movie starring Joan Crawford, Bette Davis and marylin Monroe. It was great and still had a modern feel to it. It said much about the human condition (including a profle of what I call sociopathy.) Plus it was from a time when there were good roles for older (30+women)
One of the said things about blockbuster based on teen lit is that they often have few roles for women, and the ones that do have roles for women, are those younger sexier love interest that would appeal to teen boys.
I also find it interesting that animation films of young children books today are very good. Dr Seuss movies, or films like UP. Thye have enduring messages and present sophisticate ideas and are entertaining. (Much as the "children's Sermon is better than the full one. The last Dr Seus was the Lorax, and while it also ran too long, it had more ideas and messages and with timeless ideas that are still revelant.
I am also see some good, even if simple independant movies coming out of Canada, Australia that do not seem to make it to the theatres.
ninjafaery
Posted on: 01/01/2014 10:29
I just saw this last night, but not in 3D. I am getting a little weary of most box office blockbusters though. I was thinking this movie came as close to self-parody as is possible without the laugh track. The dialogue was cliche, the music was cliche, I don't like it when I can predict the next sentence or the predictable suspense music.
The character of Tauriel was likely added to make the movie more girl friendly. Tolkein was never interested in women characters.
Having said all that, I was impressed with the dragon. Well done.
While I'm at it, I also saw Gravity lately too. Same thing - dialogue and silly plot spoiled an awsome movie. "Speed In Space".
Mendalla
Posted on: 01/01/2014 10:36
One of the said things about blockbuster based on teen lit is that they often have few roles for women, and the ones that do have roles for women, are those younger sexier love interest that would appeal to teen boys.
Actually, that's one thing that you can definitely pin on the Marvel movies (where the only major female character so far is Black Widow, though Scarlet Witch should be joining the next Avengers) and to some extent the Tolkien movies (though there, the fault lies largely with Tolkien and Jackson has actually tried to boost the roles of the female characters).
However, the newer teen lit movies like The Hunger Games and Divergent are actually focussed on strong, female characters and X-men is, as it has been in the comics since at least the eighties, a good mix of solid male and female characters. Even Abrams Trek has boosted Uhura's role somewhat. So blockbusters do remain rather male-slanted but things are improving and there is hope for continued improvement.
Mendalla
Alex
Posted on: 01/01/2014 13:34
Actually, that's one thing that you can definitely pin on the Marvel movies (where the only major female character so far is Black Widow, though Scarlet Witch should be joining the next Avengers) and to some extent the Tolkien movies (though there, the fault lies largely with Tolkien and Jackson has actually tried to boost the roles of the female characters).
However, the newer teen lit movies like The Hunger Games and Divergent are actually focussed on strong, female characters and X-men is, as it has been in the comics since at least the eighties, a good mix of solid male and female characters. Even Abrams Trek has boosted Uhura's role somewhat. So blockbusters do remain rather male-slanted but things are improving and there is hope for continued improvement.
Mendalla
Yup things are getting better with this generation.
Star Trek used to be considered advant gard in that it had Uhura doing a job with high tech
.
Unfortunately like most blockbusters it pretty well behind most people and especially the young in the roles it has for women. Did you notcie that in that last movie nurse Chapel has been cut, seems she had a one nighter with Kirk and fell in love, but for Kirk she is just one of many. So she is too heart broken to join the same crew as he. Dr Marcus is replacing her as Kirk love interest suspect by the scene where she undressed in front of him for no reason other than to create sexual tension
Not only could they have kept both women , but they really played into a sexist sterotype, and in a way is reducing the women to sexual object to the men in a way the original did not with either Chapel or Lahure. Star Trek used to be deal with interesting ideas and moral delemnas but the last film was just a bunch of men fighting for power.
Mendalla
Posted on: 02/19/2014 16:22
Star Trek used to be deal with interesting ideas and moral delemnas but the last film was just a bunch of men fighting for power.
This is exactly my problem with Abrams-Trek and the Trek movies in general. What happened to the show whose prologue was about "Exploring strange new worlds" and "Seeking out new life and new civilizations"? I'm reading the novel Blindsight by Peter Watts and it has more great s-f ideas in some chapters than there are in all of the Trek movies (Classic, Next Generation, and Abrams-Trek) put together.
Even the older movies didn't rise up to the level of the shows on this front, but still handled the ideas better than seems to be the case with these ones (I haven't seen Into Darkness yet and turned off Star Trek partway through after realizing it was not the Star Trek I was looking for). If they want me back, they need to give us something on the level of the classic series episode "Devil in the Dark" (miners attacked by alien, Kirk and Spock investigate, discover why the alien has turned hostile and sort out the situation with no explosions or vengeance required).
Oh well, Netflix Canada has The Next Generation so if I need a good Trek fix, I can rewatch some of the better seasons of it. Now if they get the original series, a binge watch would be in order.
Mendalla
Serena
Posted on: 01/05/2014 01:31
Well it was a big step for me to watch the Hobbit as such movies with magic I used to think were a sin.
I have read the book. Yes they took a lot of creative liberties and that is ok.
It does. Seem a bit. Dragged out. Thorien has an ego and no warrior skills to match the ego.
The melted gold statue should have killed the dwarves. (The heat that it takes to melt gold that is). The dwarves couldn't have slid down the chains.
You can see where the dragon was wounded by the black arrow. You'd think the melted gold would have at least gotten into that wound.
Was nice to see a love interest for a dwarf. Men cannot live on fighting alone.
WaterBuoy
Posted on: 02/20/2014 07:58
Ah, then the conquest of "all-things" has a down side ... isn't that a devious comment? But then early romantics thought, thought to be evil ... when they should loose it all ... and thus ID went ... like Jonah's baggage ... must have been emotional ...
This was followed by clear thought once the mythical window was opened ...
Now tell me; are the windows of the mind mythical, or just imaginary?
InannaWhimsey
Posted on: 02/20/2014 21:32
Another fun review, revjohn :3
You do such a good job at communicating your inner experience
If you want to 'challenge' yourself, rent The Last King of Scotland. It takes place during Idi Amin's reign of Uganda
You should collect your movie reviews and post them in your own website. Be a revreviewer? And when you rewind, you'll be a rewinding revreviewer?
Thanks to the RankinBass version, I'll always hear Gandalf as John Houston, Richard Boone as Smaug (oh, that voice -- sexy & doomful at the same time), Brother Theodore as Gollum...
here's Boone practicing for Smaug in the 1964 movie "Rio Conchos"
My favourite bit from the 1977 film was when the party is lost in Mirkwood so they ask Bilbo to climb up up up past the gloom. That moment when he breaks through the canopy, the music, looking at the light & life and nostalgia for his home...that still stays with me to this day
These books also heavily influenced another of my passions, role-playing games. So elves & dwarves always distrusted each other. Dragons were sly, greedy & vain. Orcs were always evil. Elves were immortal. And so forth.
WaterBuoy
Posted on: 02/21/2014 09:09
Never, never ignore the wee things and small details like tomes that don't appear to grow into much ... consider th bible and all it's satire and Luce NDes ... no end to OEM ...