Topic: Hobbit 2 - Despoiling of Smaug

For those of you that have seen it, waddaya think?

Just saw it in 3D IMAX 24fps, and yeah, much better than the first one. Some genuine humour with the action gags, awesome production design, and nice cliff-hanger ending.

Expect another Return of the King and the Hobbit movies are going to disappoint. Expect bland tentpole fare, and this one is a cut above. The sheer man-hours involved in this production is staggering. There's more happening and more at stake, and it sets up the last one (if it is indeed the last one) tantilizingly well.

Giant spiders, giant bear, giant dragon, and Evangeline's cheekbones. 7/10.

not long to go now...

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Re: Hobbit 2 - Despoiling of Smaug

Your title is putting weird images into my head.

"ShadowDuelist is a god."
        -Teague Chrystie

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Re: Hobbit 2 - Despoiling of Smaug

The Hobbit: The Recession of Smaug

edit: not sure why this post appears before avatar's, but it's in response to his.

Last edited by Doctor Submarine (2013-12-18 19:18:28)

"The Doctor is Submarining through our brains." --Teague

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Re: Hobbit 2 - Despoiling of Smaug

ShadowDuelist wrote:

Your title is putting weird images into my head.

Smaug doesn't do any desolating. The title is spoken by Balin, but only in relation to the destruction of Dale, which occurred in the prologue to the first movie.
If anything, the title of the second Hobbit film should be The Hobbit: The Gold-Plating of Smaug or The Quantitative Easing of Middle Earth because when those coins in Erebor re-enter circulation, there's going to be some serious inflationary pressure. If I was a Gondorian economist, I'd be warning investors to move their portfolios offshore.

not long to go now...

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Re: Hobbit 2 - Despoiling of Smaug

Well, that could be why within a few decades Balin felt the dwarves had to go reopen the mines of Moria. They needed the riches from there just to keep up with inflation.

I write stories! With words!
http://www.asstr.org/~Invid_Fan/

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Re: Hobbit 2 - Despoiling of Smaug

Avatar's post sent me on a Google search that turned up such delightful articles as Should the people of Middle Earth have done Quantitative Easing to mitigate against Smaug’s tight monetary policy?. Invid...has inflation backwards.

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Re: Hobbit 2 - Despoiling of Smaug

very possible. So, how does adding the riches of Moria work into the mix?

I write stories! With words!
http://www.asstr.org/~Invid_Fan/

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Re: Hobbit 2 - Despoiling of Smaug

So what's the third movie going to be? Just Smaug firebombing Laketown for 3 hours? Does Stephen...fry?  lol


[SPOILERS]

Saw it again in HFR - which had smoother action sequences e.g. the Donkey Kong gag was cool. But the best bit was the slow revealing of Smaug. Just awesome CG and sound design. The initial exchange between Bilbo and Smaug is one of those iconic sequences from the books (just like Riddles in the Dark, and the Balrog) that have be done faithfully.

For the rest, the editing is so sloppy - once again, dialogue, action, and humour beats just go on too long.

Martin Freeman's acting is opaque to me: he does this thing where he pauses, goes to speak but doesn't, puts his finger in the air, pauses, turns. I don't know what he's doing. I don't know if he wants to be there or not. Is he scared? Is he brave? Is he stoopid?

In one scene, Bilbo fights this crab-thing (WTF?) and then does these random grimaces for, like, ever.

Dwarves are still interchangeable, and often retarded. Half don't even seem to have any lines. Wish they had lost a few along the way.

Kate gets a lot of half-profile shots - that angle must show off her cheekbones the best.

Legolas clocks up 98,541,582 orc kills, for the cost of a nose-bleed. The PG stabbing starts to get wearisome by about kill #53,541. Sometimes it looks like he's barely touched them. Orc Candy Crush: push three in a row and they fall down.

Funny joke re: Gloin's wife - and Legolas gives the Mr Spock one-eyebrow look. Good to have some actual humour that works, after every joke fell flat in AUJ.

No Gollum - hope he returns.

No songs this time, although there might be some in the extended edition.

Not much NZ landscape porn either. It's getting less each movie.

Some inexplicable edits: when Bilbo wakes up in the Bear's house, there's a strange edit as if it's a mistake. And they inserted some low-res video footage from the POV of the barrels in the water. How'd that slip in? Must have been running out of time in the end, and the pre-vis temp shots remained in, or something.

The spiders, bear and dragon were all superb - better than the human actors imo.

Looking forward to #3 and, even more, to the behind-the-scenes.

not long to go now...

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Re: Hobbit 2 - Despoiling of Smaug

Invid wrote:

very possible. So, how does adding the riches of Moria work into the mix?

Mostly adding more riches would cause inflation, not vice versa. But reading your post again I'm thinking you meant that the dwarves just felt like they needed more gold in the post-Smaug economy, inflation be damned. Classic dwaves.

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Re: Hobbit 2 - Despoiling of Smaug

Phi wrote:
Invid wrote:

very possible. So, how does adding the riches of Moria work into the mix?

Mostly adding more riches would cause inflation, not vice versa. But reading your post again I'm thinking you meant that the dwarves just felt like they needed more gold in the post-Smaug economy, inflation be damned. Classic dwaves.

Good time to invest in mithril futures, now that production has stopped.

not long to go now...

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Re: Hobbit 2 - Despoiling of Smaug

During his hajj to Mecca Mansa Musa gave away so much gold he devalued the metal across northern Africa for a decade oops

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Re: Hobbit 2 - Despoiling of Smaug

Here's the gold that underpins the British Pound - in the vaults underneath the Bank of England

http://img.thesun.co.uk/aidemitlum/archive/01447/Loadsa-gold_532_1447390a.jpg

Here's, like, 0.001% of what's in Erebor...

http://heirsofdurin.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/erebor-runes.png

We're gonna need a bigger vault.

not long to go now...

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Re: Hobbit 2 - Despoiling of Smaug

Phi wrote:
Invid wrote:

very possible. So, how does adding the riches of Moria work into the mix?

Mostly adding more riches would cause inflation, not vice versa. But reading your post again I'm thinking you meant that the dwarves just felt like they needed more gold in the post-Smaug economy, inflation be damned. Classic dwaves.

I lolled.

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

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Re: Hobbit 2 - Despoiling of Smaug

Zimmer's got a cool composing studio, but anything Zimmer can do, Shore can (try to) one up...

not long to go now...

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Re: Hobbit 2 - Despoiling of Smaug

My roommate returned from a showing the other day saying this was worse than Prometheus. Ouch.

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Re: Hobbit 2 - Despoiling of Smaug

Squiggly_P wrote:

Peter Jackson could have filmed himself taking a shit and it would have been better than Prometheus.

Yep. Even a stinky sloppy putrid rancid runny noisy shit would have trumped Prometheus

not long to go now...

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Re: Hobbit 2 - Despoiling of Smaug

Just got back. I enjoyed it but was constantly saying to myself "this isn't needed, I'd cut this whole section out of my hypothetical 1 movie supercut". Specifically, the entire sequence with the dwarves inside Erebor where Smaug uselessly chasing them around. There's a whole damn movie coming, so don't expect us to believe that the dwarves are going to prevail in their plan! Especially when you heavily foreshadowing that Bard's remaining black arrow is going to do the killing... Meanwhile your big bad villain is looking weaker with every minute that goes by without a dead dwarf.

Smaug and Bilbo was utterly brilliant (and Smaug in general, truly amazing work done on him), and is the highlight, much the same as the Gollum scenes in the first.

I was baffled by some decisions though, they add so much junk into the story, including a love triangle that seems almost entirely for the benefit of broadening the film's appeal, but skim over the Beorn scenes in just a few minutes. I guess I was disappointed as I always remember that chapter fondly - and the way that Gandalf introduces the dwarves gradually in groups so as not to overwhelm Beorn. It would have been a really nice call back to their introduction to Bilbo as well.


Finally, my main complaints about the Hobbit continue sadly, way too much going on, way too many cartoon stunts, and absolutely no subtlety. Further, the writers don't trust the audience to get anything without somebody saying it (and Bilbo appears to be the main voice here). But goddamn it, I still like them - they're Tolkien.

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere. - Carl Sagan

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Re: Hobbit 2 - Despoiling of Smaug

Yep - I agree with all that.

As for the Smaug gold-plating set-up, I think Peter Jackson was going for a repeat of the stairs of Khazad-dûm action sequence, which worked in Fellowship. There, the screenplay was just - 'they run down some stairs' and it was turned into this massive set-piece. Here, Jackson has even more money, time and digital toys to play with, with less constraints. So we have to see Thorin dancing on Smaug's snout (just like the equivalent scene in King Kong with the triple t-rex punch-up). Turn everything up to 11. It sure delivers spectacle.

As impressive as Smaug was, Gravity will of course walk away with the VFX awards because it's genuinely something new.

not long to go now...

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Re: Hobbit 2 - Despoiling of Smaug

I was really hoping that Smaug would keep his gold plating for the rest of the movies, ala Ed Harris' hand in The Abyss, and just be FAAAABulous looking for the rest of the series. Plus I would love to see Smaug just flying away shouting down "Another set of armour BIIIICTHESSSS, SUCK IT"

It would have been awesome.

ZangrethorDigital.ca

Re: Hobbit 2 - Despoiling of Smaug

Pretty much agree with RLM

Also am excited for the edit that streamlines the story. :3

Edit: 3:51 is when they actually start talking about the movie

Last edited by MadBadCoyote (2013-12-24 00:18:02)

Protection and power are overrated. I think you are very wise to choose happiness and love. -Uncle Iroh

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Re: Hobbit 2 - Despoiling of Smaug

Well, I saw it last night.  And in full IMAX 3D HFR Kitchen-Sink-O-Vision, too.  Never seen a feature in IMAX or HFR before, figured what the hell.  Short answer, didn't hate it at all.  Very pretty. 

So just as with LOTR: never read the book, don't know what's supposed to happen, don't know or care what's been added or left out or "ruined" etc.  Just wanted to see a movie.   And that movie was... very busy.  Many things happened, but not all of them seemed to matter.   

Bear Guy served no function that I could see - which makes me suspect he must show up again in Movie 3.  If he doesn't then shame on you, PJ.  Fifteen years ago you decided (correctly) that Tom Bombadizzledoozzle didn't actually matter to the plot of LOTR and cut him out.  You better not have done the opposite with Bear Dude or I shall be very cross indeed.

There was an Elf King-person who proved that not all Elf rulers are as well-written or acted as Galadriel and Elrond.  He sneered and said stuff that probably wasn't important.

Then there was a theme park ride with barrels that was really fun and made me want to buy a beer for everyone in the WETA previs department.  Meanwhile Legolas and Lost Lilly killed enough orcs to fill a school district.  I wasn't sure why, but whatevs.

And then Surprise Stephen Fry as the Mayor of Bartertown-on-Thames - a lengthy sequence featuring another Aragorn wannabe and a lot of delightful art direction.  It was okay, but my favorite part was when it ended.

There was a very well-done dragon voiced by that actor who's in everything now.   His scene with Bilbo was the best part, and a nice reminder that Bilbo was in the movie. 

Then all six hundred dwarves ran around while the dragon chased them and not one of them died which makes me worry that we're gonna get through this entire saga without one goddam dwarf getting killed.  Because if that's the case then they should have cut about six of them in the first draft.

Meanwhile in another movie Legolas killed more orcs because he really really hates orcs. And Gandalf went off to look at rocks and visual effects but that didn't matter because we know he doesn't die.

Also there were spiders.  The spiders were cool.

Didn't hate it at all, it held my interest the whole time and at least the dwarves didn't do more musical numbers.

Re: Hobbit 2 - Despoiling of Smaug

Trey wrote:

Didn't hate it at all, it held my interest the whole time and at least the dwarves didn't do more musical numbers.

Just wait till the extended edition on Blu-Ray. Even the spiders break into song.

not long to go now...

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Re: Hobbit 2 - Despoiling of Smaug

I just got back. They should have called this movie The Hobbit: The Desolation of Sma- Hey, What Do You Think That Elf Chick Is Up To?

I didn't hate it. The pacing was much better than the first one. Same goes for the effects, mostly. There was one shot during the barrels sequence which looked like something out of a Gamecube cutscene from 2004. I was super annoyed by how obvious some of the effects were. Also, what was up with that random GoPro footage in the barrels sequence? Very distracting.

The Smaug scene was fucking phenomenal. Easily one of the best things I saw on screen this year in any movie. If only they didn't keep cutting away to boring subplots that I didn't care about. I actually really liked Tauriel, and her flirting with Kili was handled pretty well. But man oh man, PJ did his best to make me hate it. It was almost comical how many times he killed the tension of that scene by switching to Kili groaning on a table, or Gandalf doing something boring that I don't care about because I KNOW HE'S GOING TO LIVE. I know that the point of that stuff was to expand on the book and increase its scope, but it's not nearly as interesting as it needs to be.

So, I liked Smaug. He looked really scary. The whole climax in Erebor was like the Balrog scene times a thousand. The fight between Legolas and Bolg was pretty cool too. I was prepared to forgive literally any bloat in the first two thirds as long as they didn't screw up the dragon. And they didn't. But they couldn't leave that scene alone.

"The Doctor is Submarining through our brains." --Teague

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Re: Hobbit 2 - Despoiling of Smaug

Doctor Submarine wrote:

It was almost comical how many times he killed the tension of that scene by switching to Kili groaning on a table

That bloody injury went on for ever. First thing that should have been cut. Talk about deflating the mood. Imagine in the Battle of Yavin, they cut to Princess Leia filing her nails because she chipped a nail earlier in the trash compactor.

not long to go now...

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Re: Hobbit 2 - Despoiling of Smaug

avatar wrote:

That bloody injury went on for ever. First thing that should have been cut.

But they had to include Kingsfoil (it's a weed, don'tcha know).

PJ didn't have to beat us so hard over the head with his LOTR callbacks, from the Kingsfoil thing to Gloin mentioning his son..... GIMLI.... *wink wink*

But those moments were setup well, so they came up organically...

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