Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

My parents came up to help us celebrate Xander's birthday last week and while they were up my dad and I watched the 'Desolation of Smaug' i.e. the second Hobbit movie.  We both had the same reaction to most of the movie and while watching it I thought that I should probably write those feelings down.  So here is my review...

Against my better judgement I let Paula (and mainly Xander) convince me into going to see the second Hobbit movie before we moved from Birmingham.  I think I have made my feelings on the first movie pretty clear since it was released.  My disdain for it actually became a running joke at my lab.  But here I was about to watch the sequel to it.  Call me crazy.

As I thought would be the case after watching the first movie - this one covered from Beorn to the awakening of Smaug (meaning the last movie is almost entirely the Battle of Five Armies).  If you are covering that land the areas you MUST hit are:

1. Gandalf leaving to address the problems with the Necromancer
2. The dwarves getting lost in Mirkwood and being caught by the spiders
3. Bilbo's rescue of the dwarves and becoming the hero Gandalf promised
4. The capture by the Wood Elves and subsequent escape
5. The arrival at Lake Town
6. The finding of the hidden passage into the Lonely Mountain
7. Bilbo's "talk" with Smaug.

Once again, it is a pretty big list and Peter Jackson hits them for the most part.  But once again at no point do you actually feel like there is a correlation between the movie and the book.  Let's look at them one at a time

1. Gandalf leaving to address the problems with the Necromancer
In the books, everyone goes into the adventure knowing that Gandalf is leaving "at some point".  That is the whole reason for Bilbo being along.  There are 13 dwarves - unlucky.  Bilbo is along so that there will be 14 adventurers - the "lucky number".  If Gandalf is going to stick around the entire time there is no need for Bilbo because Gandalf would be the 14th member of the party.  In the movie however, Gandalf has no reason to leave at the beginning and it is only after meeting with Radagast near Rivendell that he even KNOWS there is a problem with the Necromancer.

2. The dwarves getting lost in Mirkwood and being caught by the spiders
Jackson pretty much gets this but in a trend that will become evident throughout the movie, he tended to greatly condense the amount of time necessary for things to happen.

3. Bilbo's rescue of the dwarves and becoming the hero Gandalf promised
Nope.  Not even close.  Bilbo barely rescues the dwarves and they do the majority of the killing.  Then the ELVES show up and kill the rest.  Bilbo...what is he doing?  Recovering his ring which Jackson is determined to show us is evil and controlling Bilbo's thoughts already.  So once again, one of the "big" scenes showing Bilbo's heroism is given away reinforcing the dwarves opinion of him as a "grocer".

4. The capture by the Wood Elves and subsequent escape
Ah, the dwarves escape.  In the book Bilbo searches for about 2 weeks until a big feast occurs.  The dwarves load into barrels and float to Laketown while the elves sleep off their wine.   In the movie, this sequence is the big action scene.   Elves chasing the dwarves down, orcs lying in wait for the escaping dwarves, dwarves swinging axes and swords against both of the opponents...until Kili is injured with a Morgul arrow.

5. The arrival at Lake Town
So rather than just washing up on shore the dwarves need to be smuggled into Laketown.  Jackson does this and suddenly we are in the middle of a political drama between Bard and the Master of the city.  Why does this drama exist?  No clue.  It is never really mentioned in the book and really serves no point other than to add some excitement to the issue.

Oh and Kili?  He, Fili and one of the other dwarves decide to stay in Laketown looking for a cure.  Which just so happens to come up from one of the Mirkwood Elves that shows up hunting the orcs from earlier.  She has the cure for the poison...despite the fact that in LotR we are told that the cure was basically "forgotten" and the fact that he knows it proves Aragorn is the heir of Isildur.

6. The finding of the hidden passage into the Lonely Mountain
So the majority of the dwarves head out of Laketown, climb a mountain, and find a hidden entrance to a secret passage that is disguised as just another part of the mountain...in a day.  Not even a full day, they make it to the spot and still have daylight available.  This was obviously written by someone who had never climbed a mountain.

Then Jackson decides to change the "last light of the setting sun" line to make the light be the MOONLIGHT of that day.  Really...and if so wouldn't it be the last moonlight of that day.  Nope.  It is the FIRST moonlight.  Just bizarre change for no real reason.

7. Bilbo's "talk" with Smaug.
So, with the entrance found Bilbo goes down and talks to Smaug...without his ring on.  Why is he not invisible?  Did he want to be fair?  No way of knowing, but he takes the damn thing off so Smaug hunts him.  Oh what are the dwarves doing?  Why of course they come in the tunnel as well and help Bilbo escape from Smaug by reigniting the furnaces and covering the dragon in molten gold.  Of course.

Oh and the "shining moment" for Bilbo in this one.  You know...how he sends word via thrush to Bard that Smaug has a hole in his armor over his left breast so Bard knows where to shoot?  Never happens.  Turns out Bard knows about the hole from a family legend.

Now, despite all of this you would think I hated the movie...but honestly I liked it a lot more than the first one.  My dad and I talked about it and we both came to the same conclusion.

The first movie had scenes from the book and then scenes of just complete craziness.  But those scenes from the book were almost "familiar" and so it led to a very disjointed sense when you were watching it.  You would get into a scene and then be jarred out of it the rest.  This movie on the other hand, had ideas that seemed familiar but all of the scenes seemed different from the book so you avoid that jarring sense.  It is kinda weird but by going FURTHER from the source material, Jackson actually made a better movie.  It just wasn't the Hobbit.

Hobbit Redux

OK, This is going to be a long one so sit down and grab a drink.  I have been meaning to write this one for a while.  On December 14th, me and several of my lab mates all went to the Rave IMAX theater over in Hoover to catch the first of the Hobbit trilogy (gods it pains me to write that).  As I stated before I was a little worried about this movie and I would love to say that all of my worries were unfounded and that I loved the movie...but I can't.

As I have said, I have read, reread, and loved 'the Hobbit' since I was hobbit-sized.  I understand the problems with making it into a movie, really I do.  As mentioned earlier, the book was originally a bed time story Tolkien read to his children when they were young.  The dangers were easily overcome, the humor was broad and the only thing you had to worry about with adventures is them making one late for dinner.  It is, for the most part, a travelogue of Bilbo's journey.  In fact, the book is subtitled "There and Back Again".   Unfortunately this type of story does not lend itself well to grand spectacle trilogies.

The movie decides to cover the first half of the book (Hello movie 3 that consists of a 3 hour Battle of Five Armies) and starts off in the "future" with Ian Holm's Bilbo talking to Frodo on the day of the Great Party from Fellowship of the Rings (FotR).  Bilbo explains the history of Erebor and the coming of the dragon, Smaug.  The movie then moves into the familiar opening from the book with the set up for the "Unexpected Party".  The movie ends with the party being dropped off at the Carrock by the Eagles of the Misty Mountains after their flight from the wargs and goblins from "Out of the Frying Pan".

Everyone knows that if you are going to cover that area of the book their are certain...high points, that you simply MUST cover to call yourself the Hobbit.  They are:

1. The Unexpected Party of dwarves that drop in unannounced and disrupt Bilbo's life
2. The Trolls and the parties rescue by Gandalf with the discovery of Orcrist, Glamdring and Sting
3. The parties arrival in Rivendell, with Elrond decyphering the map of the Lonely Mountain
4. The capture in the mountains by the Great Goblin
5. Bilbo's finding of his "Magic Invisibility Ring" and riddle contest with Gollum
6. The parties capture in the fir trees by goblins and wargs and their escape with the help of the giant eagles.

Peter Jackson hits every single one of these highpoints...and then screws up everything else.  I hate to be one of "those guys" that always talk about how the book handled things and how the movie messed it up, but given Jackson's track record of staying at least CLOSE to the imagery the author outlined I feel the radical changes he brought to the story really warrant the discussion.

First problem

In the book, part of the humor of the dwarves not wanting Bilbo along because he is inexperienced, is that THEY are inexperienced.  The book quickly point out that the only dwarves who survived the arrival of Smaug were children out playing in the field or older dwarves were away on business and that the survivors have spent their lives working as blacksmiths or coal miners and now want to use their limited wealth to "reclaim" the traditional family home...but they have no idea what they are doing.  You can see it all through the book.  When they start discussing their plans for how they are going to deal with Smaug it comes down to 'we will get to the mountain and then figure something out'.  There IS no big plan for how to do this.  The dwarves send Bilbo to the troll fire because they feel anything is better than being wet and cold..even capture by trolls.  They blunder and they bluster but they are quite honestly, just as new to this whole thing as Bilbo. The whole reason they had gone to Gandalf was because they did not know what they were doing.  Yes, Thorin is a warrior, but it is never mentioned in the main body of the book.  I had read the book at least 10-15 times before I realized that Oakenshield was not Thorin's last name.  It is in one of the appendices where Tolkien spells out how he "earned" that name not in the main body of the book.  He is introduced as "Thorin Oakenshield".  If a man has a first name like Thorin, would you really be surprised that Oakenshield was his last name?  Really?  Over the course of the book Bilbo changes and becomes the experienced leader of the group, the dwarves for the most part never change.  They have grown old working as common laborers and are too set in their ways to realize they are making mistakes.

In Jackson's movie, the dwarves are all supremely skillful warriors and have every right to be upset to be saddled with a no account like Bilbo.  Jackson makes it perfectly clear they are all excellent warriors by spending 15 minutes of screen time going through that appendix I mentioned showing the battle where Thorin earned his name.  It is a gory scene full of blood, mayhem and mutilation.

This is actually a recurring problem through out the movie.  In an effort to appeal to as wide of an audience as possible, Jackson has appealed to none.  The movie is too violent for younger kids, to silly for adults.  Maybe I am wrong.  I probably am.  Of the people that I saw the movie with, 3 had never read the book, 1 had just finished it and 1 had read it a while back.  All of them loved it.  I guess I was just expecting a movie about the book.

Second problem

The constant "reminders" that there is a whole LotR trilogy out there.  The bit where Ian Holm is talking to Frodo in the beginning was nice, and it should have been enough.  Instead, we are treated to Saruman and Galadriel joining Elrond in Rivendell, mentions of Sauron, Bree and several other people and places...and none of them are in the source material.  They are all purely there to set up things in LotR.

Third problem

Ego.  Pure and Simple.  Radagast (shiver) the Brown, the stone giant "Transformers" having a fight in the mountains, the darkening of the story, the addition of Azog "The Defiler" and of course the running time, all point to a Jackson who has let his ego get away from him.  Honestly I see a lot of similarities between this and the the other prequels we have all had to endure - Lucas' Star Wars prequels.

Pros:

1. The cast was excellent.  Ian McKellen and Martin Freeman were perfect as Gandalf and Bilbo.  The dwarves, the with exception of Thorin and Fili and Kili were pretty much cardboard cutouts, but that had a lot more to do with the script than with the actors playing the parts.  Even in the books there was not much to differentiate the different dwarves in the party..other than Bombur being fat.  The movie has the same problem.  There are 13 dwarves to force the need for a "Lucky Number".  If their were fewer dwarves we could have actually had some character development from them..but then they would not need Bilbo.
2. The special effects were stellar.  Whether it is the hall of the Great Goblin, Rivendell, or the first encounter with Gollum, the effects were pretty seamless.
3. I really enjoyed the "History Lesson" about Erebor.  The book leaves it up to the song of the dwarves to tell you of their home, Bilbo's lesson made it a little easier to see.  However, rather than making the coming of the dragon about the toys and gold, Jackson decided to make it about the dwarves somehow being wicked which did not sit well.  That and he had a LOT more dwarves escape.

Cons:

1. Everything else.  No Really.

Couple of other things to mention

As I said we saw it in IMAX in Hoover.  I highly recommend seeing at least one big budget Hollywood movie in this format.  The huge screen just sucks you right in.  That is not to say it was without problem.  The main issue I had with the whole setup is the sound.  I do not know if the movie itself is loud or if the movie theater just had their amplifiers turned to 11, but I am lucky I did not suffer permanent hearing loss in there.  Our sound engineer mentioned after the movie that we were hitting 90-100 dB pretty consistently.  

Finally as a bonus for paying to see the movie in IMAX we were treated to the first 9 minutes of "Into Darkness", the second Star Trek movie from J.J.Abrams.  I thought the movie looked like a lot of fun.  I have already thought of ways to make it another "research outing" for the lab.  I still don't know who Benedict Cumberbatch is playing - though everyone else seems to think it is obviously Khan.  I am leaning that way but the shots of him in a Star Fleet uni just makes me pause.