Bombur Barrel Blast!
Dec. 13th, 2013 02:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bloodyrosemccoyOkay, so The Desolation of Smaug was mostly unnecessary, and unlike the LotR movies it made the story LESS cohesive than its source material, but it was pretty darn fun.
Especially Smaug. Most of the changes from the book, while understandable from a cinematic adaptation's point of view, made it work LESS well--but I admit I like the moment when Bilbo winds up face-to-face with Smaug. You really get a moment of "Damn, this hobbit is in over his head and he is terrified and he will ROCK IT ANYWAY." And I know Smaug really gets more screen time than he does in the book, but god dammit they had a big CGI DRAGON and they were gonna USE it.
Mostly it was really entertaining to see how much fun Peter Jackson and team were having. I squeaked and giggled at all their nods to the Middle Earth lore. And even the super dumb moments were usually so awesome that it didn't matter that they were, in fact, super dumb.* (The audience had the funniest reaction to the movie's little nod to Legolas and Gimli's future friendship. It was this I See What You Did There groan followed by a laugh at our own response.)
Although I did want to hang out with the spiders for longer. I wanted Bilbo's moment of kickassery to last. And anyway I was looking forward to those spiders, dangit.
*And a couple that they actually managed to NOT make super dumb despite all probabilities--for example, Kili falling in love with an Elf (and the Elf possibly falling in love back) was actually rather sweet and well-played. And probably not going to end well, if we're gonna follow the book.
Especially Smaug. Most of the changes from the book, while understandable from a cinematic adaptation's point of view, made it work LESS well--but I admit I like the moment when Bilbo winds up face-to-face with Smaug. You really get a moment of "Damn, this hobbit is in over his head and he is terrified and he will ROCK IT ANYWAY." And I know Smaug really gets more screen time than he does in the book, but god dammit they had a big CGI DRAGON and they were gonna USE it.
Mostly it was really entertaining to see how much fun Peter Jackson and team were having. I squeaked and giggled at all their nods to the Middle Earth lore. And even the super dumb moments were usually so awesome that it didn't matter that they were, in fact, super dumb.* (The audience had the funniest reaction to the movie's little nod to Legolas and Gimli's future friendship. It was this I See What You Did There groan followed by a laugh at our own response.)
Although I did want to hang out with the spiders for longer. I wanted Bilbo's moment of kickassery to last. And anyway I was looking forward to those spiders, dangit.
*And a couple that they actually managed to NOT make super dumb despite all probabilities--for example, Kili falling in love with an Elf (and the Elf possibly falling in love back) was actually rather sweet and well-played. And probably not going to end well, if we're gonna follow the book.
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Date: 2013-12-14 11:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-14 07:44 pm (UTC)(My money's on some Field of Battle variant on "dying in each other's arms."0
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Date: 2013-12-14 08:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-15 04:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-15 01:39 am (UTC)My main complaint was Tauriel. Every scene she was in I was mainly thinking, "Why are you here? You serve no purpose. Go away."
Bummer about the spiders, though. Bilbo's messing with them was his crowning moment in the book.
I had no complaints about his session with Smaug, though, except that they left out some of my favourite bits ("then I was but young and tender. Now I am old and strong, strong, STRONG, Thief in the Shadows!") nor with the extended Dwarves vs. Dragon scene, since the film made the Dwarves a lot more, er, heroic, which is fair enough.
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Date: 2013-12-15 04:14 am (UTC)Really, I had no complaints about the rest of it, either--just a general acknowledgement that yes, the book was better and more Bilbo-centric (even though I do give props to the Dwarves actually, y'know, DOING something). And Smaug was pretty dang awesome.
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Date: 2013-12-16 07:06 pm (UTC)http://nebezial.deviantart.com/art/just-got-back-from-hobbit-419615812
And a prediction for the next movie:
http://nebezial.deviantart.com/art/hobbit-3-the-legolas-chronicles-first-look-419956676
EDIT: Boy, deviantArt embedding didn't work at ALL.
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Date: 2013-12-16 07:17 pm (UTC)I love how they gave him all those ridiculous stunts in the LotR movies after they realized that he does next to NOTHING in the books except hang out with Gimli and spout poetry.
There are some drawbacks to HD, too. He's got his blue-eye contacts in again for this movie, and dangit they're wonky. Which just makes his aim ALL THE MORE IMPRESSIVE, right?
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Date: 2013-12-17 05:59 pm (UTC)(The dwarf-tossing bit at Helm's Deep has all the markings of something that happened in a game session fueled by Cheetos and Mountain Dew at 2 AM when everybody was getting a little loopy)
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Date: 2013-12-16 11:12 pm (UTC)