I'm way, way behind the rest of the site, but I only just saw the Desolation of Smaug for the first time last night. I don't know how to feel about it. I figured I'd post some thoughts here rather than revive an even older thread or start a new one.
The filmography in the beginning of the film is pretty sloppy. Scenes seemed poorly edited, some shots seemed to drag on a bit too long or were totally unnecessary, and transitions were pretty weak. Pacing was also a bit off. This improved considerably by the end of the film.
The dialogue was also pretty bad. Many of Tauriel's, Beorn's, or Kili's lines are cringe-worthy. Many lines seem lifted from LotR or even AUJ. The score, while good, also seemed incredibly off. Like the dialogue, the music gave each little bit of the film an over-inflated sense of importance. Music that didn't exactly fit the scene played loudly over dialogue. The visuals and score often gave a conflicting mood.
I mentioned this with AUJ, but if they were going to use
this much CGI, they might as well have made the Hobbit trilogy animated like Beowulf.
Benedict Cumberbatch was fantastic as Smaug, as was Freeman as Bilbo. Sherlock duo in Middle-earth
I like having Legolas in this movie; I also like Tauriel.
I think the biggest takeaway from DoS for me, however, is that it's very obvious that The Hobbit by itself would have been a poor film. The disjointed transitions would have been more pronounced; the group would have sloppily moved from vignette to vignette with no character development whatsoever. It's a good story to tell to children as a birthday party, but not a good movie. I think PJ and co. have done good for what they had to work with, but I see so much room for improvement.
I give it a...6/10? Maybe?
I used to care about being extremely faithful to the books; I think that Tolkien would've cared as well. But I also see Tolkien as offering his Middle-earth to the British people as a British mythology in the same vein of Norse mythology or Greek mythology. In that way, Middle-earth (etc) belongs to the British people, and can therefore be more malleable than other rigid franchises.
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Frodo literally says "How surprised Bilbo would have been to see all the changes in the Desolation of Smaug!" . It's humorous because of all the changes that were actually made in the movie DoS, and act as a sort of unintentional (unless Tolkien had the gift of foresight) foreshadowing of PJ's many changes.
