The Hobbit 2 : The Desolation Of Smaug

[jody]

Going to see it early next week. Can't wait.

[pim]

I saw it yesterday. Benedict Cumberbatch (how DO you get a magnificent surname like "Cumberbatch?) was excellent as the voice of Smaug. Having taught the novel "The Hobbit" I wish they didn't pronounce the name as "Smowg". It's always been pronounced as "Smorg". At least in the non-Am/E English-speaking world, without the Am/E "rhotic" /r/ which is the /r/ with the Am/E "burr".

The spiders were good, and so was Beorn. I wondered where Legolas sprang from since he doesn't make any sort of appearance in the novel itself and nor does the female elf wo appears to take a shine to Kili the dwarf. I disagreed with the way the movie has the dwarfs (or "dwarves" as Tolkien writes the plural - with considerable poetic licence)become involved in the battle with Smaug inside the mountain. In the novel the interaction with Smaug inside the mountain is entirely between Smaug and Bilbo. The film version completely changes that and involves the dwarfs. The intent of course is to allow for the battle scene and for lots and lots of special effects. It's a great battle scene, I grant you. But it's pure Hollywood.

Still, I suspect that Tolkien wouldn't have objected too strongly to the bowdlerisation of his novel. Even to the reference to Sauron who gets zero mention in the novel. Usually the movie version of a novel truncates the written oeuvre, but in the case of this movie the opposite is the case. I'd never seen a movie before which is a padded-out version of a novel!

Three hours is a long time to sit through a movie. though! I was getting a bit restless as the hours started to drag ...

[Yassir Rebob]

Of course, the irony of the Hobbit 2 is that Martin Freeman plays Bilbo Baggins, whilst his protaginist, Smaug, is played by Benedict Cumberbatch.

[Deleted]

I found the first movie three hours of tedium...can't say I am in a hurry to see this one.

[pim]

I which case, Grim, you're probably better off reading Tolkien's novel, which is a superb piece of English prose, character portrayals (and development) and plot construction. I used to read the Lord of the Rings trilogy every 5 years or so, and I'd have to read The Hobbit every year for a number of years when it was the prescribed novel for top level Year 7 English. When I lived in Switzerland I came across a copy in French translation (Le Hobbit - what else?) and I read it to see what the French would make of it. Lord of the Rings translates into French as Le Seigneur des Anneaux. But at the time the only translated work of Tolkien in French was Le Hobbit and this was when the first of the French-language versions of The Lord of the Rings movies was being shown in French-speaking countries. So it suddenly became "cool" (as they say in French! ) to read Le Hobbit. It was a good translation.

I'm sure, Grim, that you've read The Hobbit. There's a lot of the Beowulf legend in the story, with Smaug as the Grendel character, I've read critiques of the movie which attempt to sound learned and insightful and inform us sagely that the novel (not the movie) is an allegory of the world wars. They don't say which one except that since the novel was first published in 1937 the war they're referring to would have to be WW1 and I don't see how the trenches of WW1 relate to the quest undertaken by Bilbo and the "dwarves". The orcs and other bad guys could be the Hun I suppose but I'm far from convinced. I just think the story should be appreciated for itself.

[jody]

Seeing it tomorrow and yes in 3D HFR

[jody]

Loved it....a little long but worth it. Smaug was brilliantly done.