The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (1 Viewer)

In olden times, this thread would already be on page 4 after a midnight showing. All my usual HTF mates must have gotten fat, stupid, and old. I don't want to review the film properly, because I'd like to see it in 2D at a reasonable time first. But I will share some quick impressions. As this is a new movie, I created a new thread.

The HFR is better, but I still don't like it. I ended up seeing the double feature, and I'm happy I did. Although I'd seen the first film a few times lately (HBO and the EE, with my son), seeing them theatrically is always nice. I did like seeing both of the films in 3D, though Jim Cameron doesn't have anything to worry about.

I do believe the structure of the film suffers a bit, since it was originally the last third of the first film and the first half (or so) of the second film. As it's own film, it feels a bit crowded and loose.

This film has quite a bit more action than the first film. Some of it is wonderful, some of it is gratuitous (but wonderful), and some of it feels like overkill. Maybe that was the late hour, but some of the action in Laketown at the end make the climax feel a bit less focused.

My biggest gripe is the Dol Goldur stuff. I'm certain it is going somewhere in There and Back Again, but it did nothing for me in DoS. I'm all for more time with Gandalf, but I didn't like the scenes. That said, Sir Ian kills it again as Gandalf the Grey.

Back to the quest, they spend the first film setting up Azog, and the second film is all about Bolg. I don't give a rip about Bolg (except for his pimp hammer/axe thing). Several of the dwarves got fleshed out a bit more, but still not all of them. That said, no gripe from me. 13 is a hard number to keep track of and make unique, and PJ does a pretty good job here.

Some lame compositing (reminisicent of TTT) rears it's ugly head, but for the most part, the effects are quite good. When they need to be great, they are.

Which leads us to the titular dragon. Smaug lives up to and exceeds all of my expectations. Good performance, great design, incredible animation, fantastic character. He and Bilbo's scenes were (no surprise) the highlights.

I'll give a better, more proper review when I get a nice, old-fashioned 2D 24 fps showing under my belt.

But I wanted to get a little bit out there.

Well worth it if you liked the first Hobbit film. Still riddled with PJ's excesses, but I've grown accustomed to them (and even fond of several of them).

Chuck Mayer said:

Well worth it if you liked the first Hobbit film. Still riddled with PJ's excesses, but I've grown accustomed to them (and even fond of several of them).

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Yes! I'll be the first to admit theses Hobbit films are "padded", and excessive. And I'll also be the first to defend that notion. Really, how many good fantasy films do we get, and how often do we get them. In my opinion not many, and certainly not often. Enjoy the world of the Hobbit, it is rich, beautiful, and scary.
I loved "The Desolation Of Smaug". I saw it is 2D/24FPS. I agree with Chuck the Smaug scenes steal the show(FANTASTIC VOICE ACTING THERE!) but I also really liked the Elves/Hobbits dynamic. Having not read the book since 8th grade(about 26 years ago) I have forgotten nearly everything about it so seeing bits on the screen come creeping back into my memory is neat.
If I were to grade this I'd give it an A. Better than the first Hobbit film.

A stronger film than the previous Hobbit film but it is pretty clear that Jackson's intent here is to create a 6 film saga that ties in with the Rings film both in tone and narrative. Whether this is a good thing is open to debate, but I'm happy to enjoy what is on offer here. Freeman is great again and I actually felt more individual dwarves got a chance to stand out from the group as a whole here. I enjoyed Gandalf's side quest and whilst the prequel nature of the series means that there is little surprise, McKellen is still great. Legolas plays a much bigger role than I expected but it is threaded surprisingly well into the narrative here and I suspect the overall saga (we will have to see next year on that one). And of course he gets one of his moments which are always fun. In fact, Jackson seems to have upped his game on the action sequences as they are far more inventive and, more importantly bring back an element of tension that was missing from the previous film - the standouts being the barrels sequence and the confrontation in Erebor. With the last film following the same structure and locations of Fellowship, here we get to see more of Middle Earth, and the design and locations don't disappoint - Erebor and the Thranduil's kingdom being particular highlights.

One thing that is lacking here is a thematic arc for the film and unlike the previous films which ended at an appropriate resting point, this is much more abrupt, which is a shame. I liked the fact that the previous films all had a natural end point despite being only part of the story and I suspect this has much to do with the change to three film structure rather than two.

8/10

I liked it. A bit better than the first. Love HFR. And surprisingly loved Evangeline Lily as Tauriel. Who'd a thunk.

Just saw it, and find these two Hobbit movies very, very strange indeed. Overscaled, hyper-actioned, relentlessly paced, underdeveloped characters...

This installment amplifies those flaws, and I'm hoping an extended edition adds some breathers and thereby improves the pacing, because the adderall action in the theatrical version is just too much.

Also, if someone can explain: I thought the dwarves needed to defeat the dragon to obtain the arkenstone so they would have the power to...defeat the dragon to reclaim their homeland and their gold. What did I miss?

P. S. The Godzilla teaser was shown before: the best teaser I can remember seeing.

I just got back from seeing this in HFR. I had to post because it was my first time seeing HFR and I found it really, really distracting. I can't give a fair assessment of the film because I was constantly being pulled out of the story by the presentation. I'll have to see it again in 2D. I hope HFR dies a quick death.

I will say this....I'm really disappointed that they made it into 3 films. I was okay with the idea of 2 films but making 3 and adding so much that wasn't in the book hurts the flow of the story, IMO.

I ended up seeing this in 3D, non-HFR, and it took about 20 minutes from being conscious of the 3D until my eyes adapted, and I was able to take in the film from a more immersive standpoint. I saw the first installment in HFR 3D, and that was enough to swear off of it. heh.

The film itself is just too undercooked, characterization-wise, and bloated with the various segments of peril our merry crew of dwarves find themselves into. What's bad about this being a prequel is that it undercuts a lot of the dramatic tension in the action scenes, so it just a lot of close calls and amazing looking CGI-laden action scenes, especially in the final act.

I didn't mind Tauriel's presence in the film. I think they went overboard with all the Legolas as a bad-ass scenes, but I guess he's got his fans, so they'll be cool with it.

Smaug was pretty well-done, didn't disappoint from an effects or voice-acting standpoint.

It is a shame they decided to stretch out The Hobbit into 3 films, instead of delivering a more compact 2-film adaptation, a lot of people groaned at the end of this one (like they did in "Catching Fire"), it's a frikkin' cinematic epidemic with these "to be continued" middle installments. Haha.

I give it 3 stars, or a grade of B.

Saw the 2d tonight. It's AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A lot of the previews were for upcoming CGI films, and a lot of CGI films tend to look the same. DOS does not, and it's really to the credit of the producers and of Tolkein who gave them something to reach for without having to rip off all of the CGI that's been done before. Go see it. It's AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The adventures continue with the spectacle and vast world intact, but with more of the seams showing, and a bit too many subplots along the way to sustain the narrative drive with the same energy as the first film. Still, the film delivers on its biggest promise (Smaug himself), and the pieces are in place on the board for next year's finale. 8/10

EDIT: Upon a second viewing (caught the HFR 3D) I enjoyed this more and the general structure and "seams" I mentioned bothered me far less. Gonna bump this one up to 9/10.

I had read all the stuff posted after the first movie about the HFR and couldn't grasp how people thought higher framerate somehow made the movie too realistic looking and I couldn't fathom that looking too realistic was a bad thing. I could not really comment because I saw the first one in IMAX 3D (non-hfr) and thought it actually looked blurry.

I just saw DOS in HFR and now I feel I can have an opinion. I loved it! It looked so much better than the first one. It was crisp and clear. I hope this catches on and more movies use it. Clearer is clearer. If you find yourself forced to watch an HFR film, and you want to go back to the way it was before, just put a coating of Vaseline on your glasses and enjoy the movie.

I don't understand why there are comments about "I hope HFR dies a quick death". You can choose 3 different formats. Pick the one you like and go to that one. Why not let others who want the HFR have that option?

As for the movie:

I thought it was better than the first by a lot. A lot more action (almost too much). The movies 2:40 runtime seemed to pass quickly. The ending was way too abrupt. It was like they ran out of film. A far cry from the end(ings) on TLOTR trilogy. That one had 3 or 4 endings. This one had 0.

I agree that 2 movies would have been better.

Smaug was awesome!

I enjoyed more than the first. But I really disliked the first. This was "OK" but with so many great films at the Box office it was low on my list and I finally sat for it yesterday afternoon.

The ending is a bit of a mess, because it ends so abruptley, and the charactization still seems too.. TV like in comparison to the LOTR series that preceded it.

Just not super successful.

C+

Scott-S said:

I had read all the stuff posted after the first movie about the HFR and couldn't grasp how people thought higher framerate somehow made the movie too realistic looking and I couldn't fathom that looking too realistic was a bad thing.

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My complaints are that the frame rate makes almost all movement look just a little bit too fast (not as bad as a silent movie being played at the wrong frame rate but just a hair faster than what is natural) and that any shot that was all CG looks like a video game cut scene. Yes, clarity and detail are increased but if the cost for that is that now everything looks fake, it's one step forward and two steps back. I don't doubt that HFR is the future but I hope that James Cameron- a genius amongst mere men- can figure out how to make it work for the Avatar sequels.

Scott-S said:

I don't understand why there are comments about "I hope HFR dies a quick death". You can choose 3 different formats. Pick the one you like and go to that one. Why not let others who want the HFR have that option?

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Yes, there are multiple options and I'm not suggesting people shouldn't see the one they want. That said, if HFR catches on permanently then how long do you think theaters are going to be willing to provide all three options? In 5 years maybe it's only 2D and 3D HFR. That is why I hope it doesn't catch on because there are some films that I really like to see in 3D. If the only option is 3D HFR then I won't go see it in 3D.

To each his own, and I'm not suggesting that those who like HFR are wrong to do so. I personally don't like it and expressed an opinion about it's future.

On first viewing, I think I liked it more than An Unexpected Journey after its first viewing. It definitely seemed to have better pacing. I'll need to view it a couple more times to see how it really settles in.Though with the better pacing it also seemed that they moved through some stuff quicker than i would have expected. I was surprised that it seemed like they moved pretty quickly through Beorn, Mirkwood, the spiders, and captivity in Thranduil's kingdom. At least all that stuff seemed to fly by pretty quickly.I liked Tauriel. Bard was good. Legos was cool. He definitely had the best action in the film. Some really impressive and fun stuff, especially on the barrels. Smaug was great.The abrupt ending was unfortunately unsatisfying. But there's no mystery that it is due to the fact that this was originally conceived, written, and shot as just two films and the break was forced. I had thought they would end this film with I think the main issue with these films is due to stretching out the single story structure of the The Hobbit, which was a single book, into three films. And that is compounded by the fact that is was originally conceived as a two film structure and later modified with additional shooting for three films. The Lord of the Rings was three books and three films, and that worked really well. These Hobbit films have been fun, but the over stuffing takes away the charm of the simple adventure story it was meant to be.

(Moderator note: spoilers text added)

Hate to say it Sean but you really should remove those spoilers for Film 3 - not fair on those who havent read the book

Simon Massey said:

Hate to say it Sean but you really should remove those spoilers for Film 3 - not fair on those who havent read the book

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Yup. Too late as it was just spoiled for me.

Sorry guys, did add the spoiler text, hope others won't be as affected going forward.

I liked it a lot more than the first, wonder how many caught Jackson's cameo as the film opened, eat your heart out Mr. Hitchcock!Final third arrived late but nailed it. Perfection. THAT is how you make a Dragon, Ms. Delaurentis!

I caught Jackson's cameo - a younger version of the drunk he played in Fellowship ?

I apologize for the spolier. However, I have to ask how could anyone not expect that?Who and how, sure that would be a spoiler. But anyway sorry bout that.