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The point of reference is because this is MIDDLE-EARTH. Tolkien himself referenced it as comparison to earth itself, just as a "historical re-imagining." And the main point is that Tolkien didn't put such absurd amounts of gold into the story like PJ did, his amount of gold was still vast, but far more reasonable. In all of human history, humans have only collected so much gold. In essentially only a few HUNDRED YEARS, the duration of the kingdom known as Erebor, PJ seems to have claimed that the dwarves some how mined up several hundred (if not thousand) times what we believe the Earth actually CARRIES in the element known as gold.
For me, it's a 2-part slap in the face. Firstly, yes, I'm probably a little bit more a purist, and breaking that far from the book in terms of wealth is slightly irritating. And then two, it's a problem with suspension of disbelief. When I saw that there was enough gold in there to probably swamp every street of New York City and still have plenty left over, I had a break of "wait, what?" from the movie, and it was really hard for me to focus on anything else but how absurd that amount of gold was.
I understand that the dwarves are supposed to be the lords of mining, and that the dragon was supposed to be wealthy beyond imagining, but I don't think even THAT much wealth was necessary. There is a distinct difference between fantasy and insanity.
I would hate to have to live in your head. Getting *this* worked up because of a dragon's treasure hoard? Really? I think you should skip the last movie - when they start dividing up that hoard you'll probably have a stroke or something.
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Azog was dead in Hobbit. I was really pissed at that they put him in the movie for no apparent purpose. Bolg was pretty much sufficient to run the story.
As for the gold thing. I always imagined it was an enormous room filled with hills of gold coins. Not as much as there is in a movie, but still an enormous amount.
Maybe the room is sloped? And the gold rests on the rests? Does it really matter? It is a fantasy movie. For kids.
I would hate to have to live in your head. Getting *this* worked up because of a dragon's treasure hoard? Really? I think you should skip the last movie - when they start dividing up that hoard you'll probably have a stroke or something.
Truth be told, I'm not truly that worked up. I actually really enjoyed the movie, and this was probably the only aspect of the entire movie that I in any way had some kind of disconnect with. Also: somehow I doubt they'll actually mention the dividing at all, since 1/14th of that hoard would've been enough for Bilbo to fill Bag end 100x over :P
@Hama: I never really got that mental image from the book, but I suppose if you had then the movie would'nt have been nearly as odd. I always just got one large pile, and that was it.
The picture of the hoard and smaug onthe cover of the novel is how I always imagined things, PJ's vision is just excessive. It didn't spoil the movie for me, but it was a disconnect.
A bigger disconnect was the giant statue of pure gold exploding into a molten pool..I was going what the hey..
I guess they are really playing up Thorin's grandfather's gold lust.
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4; Contributor; Publisher, Legendary Games
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I didn't mind the orcs when they were hunting the dwarves in the first move, as long as they were led by Azog. I actually like that compared to LOTR, the main bad guy was motivated by something simple as revenge, not just marching to the orders of an evil darklord.
Of course...this movie got rid of that element, and most of the hunting was done by a Azog flunky. Which was disappointing.
Well truth be told, this is one place they stuck closer to the book, since in the book Bolg *IS* the orc warlord that is coming after Thorin and friends. Of course, in the book he comes at the head of his army during the big battle (and probably will again in #3) rather than at the head of a hunting/raiding party, but putting Bolg in charge of the orcs is Tolkien's doing, not Jackson's.
Of course...this movie got rid of that element, and most of the hunting was done by a Azog flunky. Which was disappointing.
Flunky? Bolg is Azog's son.
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Fly so high, your idea that man has only mined one olympic sized swim pool is cracked period. Just in India there are rooms in at two temples that are filled with gold of all types coins statutes etc that would fill a few swimming pools. Just a few years ago when they took apart the super computer at Lawrence Livermore Labs they recovered over 1000 lbs in gold. The Largest gold nugget is 78kg just one nugget. They mine gold 24/7 for years in South Africa, 170 metric tons of gold per year. Largest gold producer China 370 metric tons. World gold production 2700 metric tons of gold.
I'm just gonna leave this here...
You're absolutely right. There are many rooms filled with statues and coins etc. that would fill a few swimming pools. What you seem to gloss over is the fact that it is unheard of for anything to be made of PURE gold. Many coins are close to pure gold, but by and large anything else is not. Statues are usually only gold-plated, based upon a stone or marble interior. A lot of places laud their "golden rooms", but fail to mention the fact that maybe only a millimeter or so of gold will coat the room itself. Approximately 2500 metric tons of gold are mined yearly. But to note, since 1900, we have mined over 85% of what humans have produced in all of recorded history. That is to say that over the totality of history, humans have obtained drought 165,000 metric tons of gold, and in the last century we have obtained roughly 140,000 metric tons with the assistance of modern machinery. I give dwarves credit enough for being better than humans, but without the aid of modern machinery I don't think they're good enough to out-do the entire human race from inside just the one mountain.
Also keep in mind that due to the density of gold, a high amount of weight takes up a relatively small space. A single ton of gold only takes up roughly a foot and a half. That is to say that the "impressive" one thousand pounds recovered by Lawrence Livermore Labs would only amount to a cube roughly the 3/4 of a foot in size. My argument is based around the fact of the quantity of gold therein, not the weight of it.
I will cede to you that I suffered from a bit of hyperbole. It is not one Olympic swimming pool, but three and a half that all the gold collected would fill. However, by the same measure, nor would all the gold in India (a reported 750 or so tons) fill even a single Olympic swimming pool, as they would have to acquire 64x the current amount of gold in the entire nation to fill a single pool.
So my friend, I'd rather hope to say that the idea that Smaug's golden mountain is cracked.
FlySkyHigh has the right of it. People forget just how heavy gold is. We had to calculate it out for one of my games when the party ended up with like 300,000gp in bars and were trying to figure out if they had room in a secret chest. As it turns out they did - by a huge margin.
Weight in gold =/= floor space in gold.
The orc leader in the final battle introduce in 2?
Having finally found the free time to see it day before yesterday, let me say this:
All the negative reviews had put me in a very skeptical state of mind. I went in to the movie saying, "Maybe this it it: maybe ol' Pete Jackson has finally dropped the ball on this one." But I was very presently surprised once the moved started, and I enjoyed the hell out of myself.
I will admit that, at certain points in the movie I did see how it might have felt like sacrilege if I was emotionally attached to the book.
As for Smaug's hoard? It's true, that much gold doesn't exist on this planet. Hell. if you had that much gold concentrated in one location, it would probably distort the Earth's orbital rotation. And you know what? It looked great onscreen, so put that in your pipe and smoke it! :P
so put that in your pipe and smoke it! :P
The hostility isn't really necessary. I'm sure we're all very happy that you liked the movie.
No, 'cause of Gandalf, and the hobbits, and pipeweed, and . . .
You just can't talk yourself out of a flame war, can you? Just please don't raze Laketown because I care for them, okay?
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@ Hitdice - you do know it's possible to dislike something besides fan-boy rage? It's been a while since I've read the book, so I'm not 'emotionally attached' to it. Didn't stop me from thinking there was a bit of padding to it.
And guess what? I'd still rate it a good movie.
Though you do make a point about negativity, which is why I stay away from them until I've seen the move. Kinda why I avoided 'Man of Steel', as I thought my perceptions was going to be skewed by two divisive opinions (finally watched it yesterday, and it left me indifferent).
If I haven't said so before, just let me say so in front of everyone: I think emotional attachment to stories is an important thing, I just think it's a double-edged sword.
I still haven't watched Man of Steel 'cause I'm too emotionally attached to the idea of Christopher Reeve as Superman. (No, seriously, that dude was my first on-screen Superman.)
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I liked it, too, much more than An Unexpected Journey. I think the major plot changes are what did it--most of the time time during UJ I was bored to tears because I know this story inside and out.
In other news, watching Legolas and Kate Austen, I don't understand why the Rivendell Council didn't just send a bunch of superhero elves into Mordor. I mean, srly, what did they need Boromir and Pippin for?
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Cavill does it well. He has that innocent smile down perfectly. I also love Zod. He is more like a real person and less like a goofy, campy large ham blonde man.
I also love the action. Imagine Dragonball Z fights without having to wait for ten episodes for someone to attack, and you get close.
Most characters are well written.
But, before you decide to watch. This movie is much darker then Reeve ones. This is a real Superman, who knows that he cannot save everyone. I loved it, but several of my friends hated it completely.
. . . Kate Austen? You mean Evangeline Lilly, right? (Sorry, Doodles, sometimes I don't get references . . .)
Edit: Indeed Hama, I love Boardwalk Empire for Michael Shannon's performance, and that's the dude who plays Zod. Great casting :)
. . . Kate Austen? You mean Evangeline Lilly, right? (Sorry, I don't get references . . .)
You have the internet, man. Five seconds on IMDB.com or Google could have answered your question.
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Well, s**t, Bill, the only pop cinema Jane Austen I ever knew was Anne Hathaway, if I missed Miss Lilly playing role, I guess you should just sue me. :P
What about Clueless?
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My main annoyance was Legolas (seriously, if someone asks what a DMPC is, I'll point them to his scenes in the movie).
That aside, I'd like to know more about Thranduil's back-story. Evidently, he's fought a dragon (perhaps when Morgoth was still around?), but did that color and form his isolationist stance?
I don't think Thranduil's backstory was ever covered by Tolkein. His father, though:
Oropher was one of the Sindarin Elves of Doriath, but after the War of Wrath he declined to depart Middle-earth as many others did. He instead went over the Ered Luin with his household. He eventually settled in Greenwood the Great, where Silvan Elves of Nandorin descent lived, and he was taken by them as lord. His capital was at Amon Lanc.
West of Oropher's realm was the realm of Lórinand across Anduin, where Amdír, another Sinda, ruled over Silvan Elves.
Oropher answered the summons for the Last Alliance of Elves and Men, and joined with Gil-galad's forces as they marched down Anduin to Dagorlad. Oropher's company was lightly armed. In the battle of Dagorlad, Oropher's company fought valiantly, but he was slain with the greater part of his people when he charged early. After Sauron was defeated, Thranduil, Oropher's son and heir, returned with the remainder of his people north back to Mirkwood. While beaten, their army was still large enough that the Orcs hiding in secret in the Hithaeglir did not dare attack them.
He was also grandfather to (the later) Legolas.
(From Wikipedia, so take it fwiw)
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Howard Taylor (Schlock Mercenary) just posted his review and offered what seems to be rare praise for the additions Jackson made to the story.
http://www.schlockmercenary.com/blog/desolation-of-smaug-movie-review
Have to say, I agree with him 100%.
Howard Taylor (Schlock Mercenary) just posted his review and offered what seems to be rare praise for the additions Jackson made to the story.
http://www.schlockmercenary.com/blog/desolation-of-smaug-movie-review
Have to say, I agree with him 100%.
Linkified!
Saw it, and well - it wasn't half bad at all. Definitely better than Part 1 (though that's an easy hurdle).
Filled with lots of parts that were stupid as hell (crazy ninja elves and the barrels, the silly amounts of gold), but Smaug was pretty awesome (best on-screen dragon to date; though he did some to like to run into various things a lot) and the stuff with Gandalf (going to the ring-wraith tombs, Dol Goldur) wasn't bad, either.
And, while it was mentioned in a number of reviews this was 'non-stop action', I actually found it a tad slower in a lot of places compared to Part 1, which I really appreciated.
I don't know if I'll ever bother watching Unexpected Journey again (I've realized it's a pretty lousy movie), but I'd be happy to start my Hobbit/LotR viewing from this movie.
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Hm, on the whole super mountain of gold issue....
I wonder; Thror (in the books) had one of the seven dwarven rings which 'needed gold to make gold'. Did the ring give the dwarves a 'Midas touch' without them realizing it?
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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Stuff about gold...
I think you're missing the obvious explanation.
Humanity has only mined such a small volume of gold so far because the stupid greedy dwarves mined it all up before we could get to it!
Then they went and hid it in a mountain somewhere, and no one has found it since :)
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Saw the movie and loved it. Most of the changes from the book and add on's actually made the story work better in my opinion
Enjoyed the heck out of it. Really looking forward to the completion.
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I loved this movie, perhaps not as much as the first movie but still quite a lot. Every scene with Smaug was perfect, that was a dragon done RIGHT.
My only major gripe was
Arrrgh loved it and hated it at the same time.....
Stupid Mills & Boon love story...diminishing, the Gimli/Galadriel story.
Fracking bloody ninja elves... It smacks of George Lucas...... Yeh yeh I get it elves are awwwwsome and it makes "fan peeps" all gushy and sells tickets but this isn't a movie about elves.
It's a story about Bilbo....
There are Beornings left, not all of them are "skin changers".
Why muck around with the continuity of Dol Gildur...
It's also Bard the Bowman he fires the Black Arrow from a bow.
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I enjoyed the movie, even as I was rolling my eyes at the action scenes. (And you know if I find them over-the-top it must be really bad.)
I feel like we're getting a remake of the first three movies grafted onto the story of The Hobbit. In some cases this is good, and others it is bad.
Saw it Sunday with my daughter who had not read the book. We both loved it but wow the purists are going to explode once the see this movie. They changed so much!!I would say almost 1/4 of the movie is not in the book/changed.
Purists are going to hate
1.New characters are introduced and the have more than a cameo. These new character will in my opinion change the ending of the book and probably try and influence the begining of LOTR (cant spoil but it seems obvious)
2.Lots of scenes changed- Action scenes are resolved differently
3. TONS of stuff not in book and not in other source material.
If you are going to see this with the expectation to see dialogue/scenes the way its done in the book and cant handle small changes then dont go. If you go in with a open mind and can handle big changes then go see it. I thought it was a great fantasy movie and better than any action movie i've seen in the last few years
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Also, felling 4-1/2 orcs per second is a little too much for me.This. Legolas being Jackson's Drizzt got tiring after a while; a while being when he showed up on-screen.
Was very happy when:that Orc war-leader lasted longer than 4 seconds. And gave him a nosebleed. And escaped.
Saw the movie for the second time over the Holiday. Still loved it. Used this time to look for things I missed the first time because I was enjoying it too much.
The orc lieutenant Azog sent to harrass the dwarves while he was at Dol Goldur was named Bolg.
Bolg, as in: "Bolg, the secondary antagonist of The Hobbit, was an Orc chieftain who came to power in the Misty Mountains after his father, Azog, was killed in the war with Dwarves. Bolg ruled for some 150 years and led an army of Orcs in the Battle of Five Armies."
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Came into the movie expecting an overly long, silly at times, most uninteresting yet filled with awesome effects and entertaining combat scenes movie, just like the first one. I got something else.
I didn't like it.
inconsistencies
So, yeah, ok, every movie has this problem, but in the Hobbit it felt even more poignant that usual. Examples include buy aren't limited to:
1) In Mirkwood forest, when Bilbo slips on the ring he can understand the spiders speaking. However, there is a moment when he takes the ring off and still understand the spiders. What's up with that?
2) In the river chase scene, the redhead dwarf is thrown into the riverbank, breaks out of his barrel, kills a million orcs, and then jumps back into the river, crawling into an empty barrel. But... even in the start they were one barrel short, and they just lost another one. Why was there an empty barrel?
3) Samug is very smart - he figured out who Bilbo was and why he was there in mere moments. Apparently, though, if you are a big monster you are going to chase the last random dwarf who taunted you, even if you really should be smarter than that.
4) Near the end of the movie, when Bard suspects that Smaug has awakened, he grabs the black arrow and walks out of his home (I guess to man the watchtower with the balista). Almost immediately he is grabbed by the guards, who make it very clear that they are arresting him just because the mayor decided to remove him from the scene. But, the guards knew where he lives, and he was sulking at his home all day long - why didn't they just barge in, any time, and arrest him?
5) Orcs walking in daylight. After making such a big deal about Orcs only ever moving in darkness in other movies of the series, why were Orcs capable of attacking in broad daylight? (this is an inconsistency that happens in a lot of these movies).
Just all around weird stuff I don't get
There were several things in the movie which just had me going, "huh?".
1) Why is the Elf King so.... womanly, I suppose that's the right word. Other elf don't act like that - so what's up?
2) So... I guess the Necromancer is Sauron? Isn't sauron supposed to be trapped in Mordor? and what was that super weird part where it's revealed to the audience that the necromancer is Sauron, and than the camera shoots into the flaming form of him, behind of which another, identical form is revealed, and the camera just keeps diving through them. What was that?
3) The mayor of Laketown is asynchronously afraid of democracy.
moronic references to original trilogy + places where Jackson is lazy
Too many of those, I'm afraid.
1) Legolas.
2) Legolas seeing Gimli's picture.
3) When Legolas and his father are questioning the orc captive, we get a near perfect rehash of the scene in "The Two Towers" where Legoals is questioning a wounded Worg Rider, and the orc uses his dying breaths to taunt them that Aragorn is dead - except this time he was talking about Kimli. Besides, how could he have possibly known? he obviously wasn't there when Kimli was shot, all the orcs that were there at the beginning didn't make it to the end of the scene.
4) The scene in Bree
5) The scene where Bilbo chooses a name for his sword
6) the healing scene of Kimli - pretty sure we've seen that before, with Arwen and Frodo.
7) The scene where the dragon calls the Ring "precious" and for no reason whatsoever that word is echoes for a short while.
everything about the ending
But especially the part where the Dragon is a moron, feels completely unmanacing after failing to kill or even wound any of the dwarfs, and the fact that the movie ended in the middle of what should have been it's climax - the dragon flying out to *desolate* laketown.
Seriously. The movie should have started with the Dwarfs already at the foot of Lonely Mountain, the dragon awakening should have happened in the middle of the film. This trilogy is long, and in essence has nothing to do with the Hobbit, while still trying to draw source metirial from it. What we get is a huge blunder where Jackson tries to makes us take the movie seriously, even while proving again and again that nothing bad can happen to any of the characters, that the bad guys are not very capable of accomplishing anything and that the stakes are kind of low.
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2) In the river chase scene, the redhead dwarf is thrown into the riverbank, breaks out of his barrel, kills a million orcs, and then jumps back into the river, crawling into an empty barrel. But... even in the start they were one barrel short, and they just lost another one. Why was there an empty barrel?
They weren't a barrel short, Bilbo forgot to get into one.
3) Samug is very smart - he figured out who Bilbo was and why he was there in mere moments. Apparently, though, if you are a big monster you are going to chase the last random dwarf who taunted you, even if you really should be smarter than that.
He got pissed off, to the point of hysteria as the chase went on. Imagine how angry he got that those little turds didn't fear and cower.
2) So... I guess the Necromancer is Sauron? Isn't sauron supposed to be trapped in Mordor? and what was that super weird part where it's revealed to the audience that the necromancer is Sauron, and than the camera shoots into the flaming form of him, behind of which another, identical form is revealed, and the camera just keeps diving through them. What was that?
Sauron was collecting his power in Dol Guldur until the white council didn't force him out, which he used to move into Mordor anyway.
Did you even read anything from Tolkien?3) The mayor of Laketown is asynchronously afraid of democracy.
You would be too if you were an undisputed and absolute leader of a place.
1) Legolas.
Legolas is Thranduil's son. It made perfect sense that he appear in the movie. After all, he is a few thousand years old. And Hobbit is happening around 80 years before LOTR.
5) The scene where Bilbo chooses a name for his sword
Now I'm sure you didn't read Hobbit. He did name his sword Sting in the book. After he killed a bunch of spiders with it.
But especially the part where the Dragon is a moron, feels completely unmanacing after failing to kill or even wound any of the dwarfs, and the fact that the movie ended in the middle of what should have been it's climax - the dragon flying out to *desolate* laketown.
He was, like i said, pissed off to the point of hysteria. Did you hear the way he said "revenge?"? There was no rational thought in his mind, just pure blind rage and hatred.
for some of those that have read the unfished tales what should we expect from Gandolf in the next movie and should we expect Christopher Lee?
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@Hama - I read the book. As a matter of fact it was the second book I ever read, after Harry Potter. I think I was in second grade at that point, and my memories of the book are that I liked it, but not much more. I don't much care for what happened in the book vs what happened in the movie, it's more about places where the movie felt just really bad. As for specific points:
1) I don't buy the "Smaug was hysteric" explanation. The part where they decide to confuse him by running in seperate directions and taunting him was right at the beginning of that chase scene. Plus, he was really in control while chasing Bilbo a moment before, and the way he spoke and moved did not change much since then. Even if the plot reason was that he was raging beyond any rational thought, the movie did a really bad job of showing that to us. I mean, earlier in the same scene you can see the dragon silently hovering in the city, looking for the dwarfs, and we are supposed to believe that 20 seconds later he is too to complete any thought process that a 5 year old could?
2) Sauron - it still seems confusing and weird in the movie, even if the books explain it.
3) Legolas - no problem at all with seeing Legolas, even giving him a line of dialog or two, but I feel like the movie got carried away with the excitement of his cameo. Plus, they made him so annoyingly strong that all the amazing stunts he pulled off in LotR seem meaningless now.
4) Sting's name - yeah, except this kind of thing works better in a book than in a clumsily handed scene in a movie :)
5) Mayor of Laketown fearing democracy - the rest of Middle Earth is all about kings and nobility, and we have seen several nations (In Rohan, in Minas Tirith, and to a certain extent the elf king in this very movie) blindly obey their terrible monarchs. Suddenly seeing someone mentioning the word "elections" just feels wrong withing the context of the story. Was this from the book? I suspect not. I suspect that dialog between the master and the discount Worm-Tongue was made up to quickly show to the audience that the master is evil and corrupt because he hates democracy. I'm not saying that the mayor shouldn't be worried - I'm saying that the hard working, uneducated people of Laketown should not even be aware of the *idea* of an alternative. For the sake of compatibility with the rest of the setting as it was shown in the movie, if for nothing else.
They couldn't go with Bard the Bowman, because they'd already absurdly elevated Legolas and Tauriel to preposterous heights. To then show Bard simply making a shot like that would be anticlimactic.
I think their problem is that they placed the best archer in the universe (the Lego Lass) in the same town as Bard the Bowman just as Smaug is about to attack. They could either write out Bard entirely and have Legolas take the shot (which would be dumb) or fiddle with the story for it to make sense for Bard to be the one to do the pewpew. I figure the Dwarven Anti-Air gun is the lesser of two evils.
Of course, I'd have prefered if Legolas hadn't been randomly inserted into the story in the first place. Who will we get for episode 3? Luke Skywalker?
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for some of those that have read the unfished tales what should we expect from Gandolf in the next movie and should we expect Christopher Lee?
Saw the movie a second time this Saturday, by the way. Still loved all of it, except Smaug losing his cool so much after being deliciously smug and debonaire throughout his conversation with Bilbo. I especially liked Thranduil, Tauriel and her quasi-romance with Kili. And the barrel chase scene has to be the best choreographed action scene of the year, at the very least. Even if most of it is obviously green-screen. Even all the action Jackson threw at us in the last 15-20 minutes was not as confusing as it appeared in my first viewing.
I chocked up Smaug not catching the dwarves because it's actually probably pretty hard for something that large to chase down 6 or so tiny targets. Try chasing down a mouse in a cluttered apartment, and you know how Smaug feels.
In contrast...well when Smaug invaded Erebor..he wasn't targeting specific dwarves...just smashing and burning everything in his way. He also wasn't focused on eradicating them...just claiming the treasure.
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A children's movie based on a children's book had some over the top action scenes and people are unpleasantly surprised?
A children's movie based on a children's book didn't let a dragon eat, immolate or crush anyone on screen and people are angry?
The movie isn't dumb. It's a children's movie, based on a children's book. Recalibrate your expectations, if this was an animated film nobody would bat an eye at the action scenes.
As to other deviations, they all add layers to the movie and I'm for it.