The second chapter in Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy arrived in theaters this weekend with solid box office results. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug brought in an estimated $73 million, which is a smaller opening than the first Hobbit movie.
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug continues the adventure of the title character Bilbo Baggins as he journeys with the Wizard Gandalf and thirteen Dwarves, led by Thorin Oakenshield, on an epic quest to reclaim the Lonely Mountain and the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor.
Having survived the beginning of their unexpected journey, the Company continues East, encountering along the way the skin-changer Beorn and a swarm of giant Spiders in the treacherous forest of Mirkwood. After escaping capture by the dangerous Wood-elves, the Dwarves journey to Lake-town, and finally to the Lonely Mountain itself, where they must face the greatest danger of all – a creature more terrifying than any other; one which will test not only the depth of their courage but the limits of their friendship and the wisdom of the journey itself – the Dragon Smaug.
Did you venture to the theater this weekend to see the movie, or did the East Coast weather keep you away? If you did make it to the showing, what did you think? Use the comment section below to share your thoughts on the movie that features a giant dragon, a town on a lake, and mountains of gold.
8 Comments
I saw it Friday afternoon.
Overall, I enjoyed it. I thought Smaug was done fabulously, and having never read the book, that is what I envisioned when I think of arrogant, evil red dragon.
The elven aspect seemed very forced – like, in case anyone forgot Legolas is a bad-ass and Legolas-girl is a badass too…wait a minute, she’s a healer as well? Call back…err, call forward…err, call ahead…foreshadow…..to Arwen!
Enjoyed Bard and Laketown, the Mirkwood sequence and the spiders, and everything about Erebor was entertaining.
But there are times when I could have sworn I was watching one of the LotR movies (which makes sense, but some of them were just too close). Oh well, I enjoyed it and I’ll pick up the Blu-ray / digital copy when it comes out eventually to go with the rest of the collection.
My feelings on the movie basically boil down to: They took away from the stuff I really liked to add stuff that I didn’t.
The Mirkwood part was more of a trippy, mushroom-laced hike for a few hours rather than the weeks of tense starvation and desperation. I would have rather had more of Mirkwood and Beorn than exploring the politics of Laketown, the black arrow, and 10 minutes of Legolas being a badass.
I enjoyed the movie and would see it again in a heart beat. Like Crystal, I missed things what were omitted and could have done with out some of the stuff added.
The best parts: The barrel ride and Smaug.
The worst: Not enough Mirkwood and too much Legolas.
I enjoyed the movie and I had problems with the movie. I’ll go through the bad first.
The movie is long for no damn reason. This is the same problem I had with the first one, so I’ll leave it at that.
Nothing really happens in this movie. It advances the overall story along, but as a stand alone movie, we don’t really get much development.
The barrel scene….oh good god, the barrel scene. I expected it to be bad going into the movie and they blew my mind with how bad it was.
lets move on to the good
Smaug. I swear they must have started working on that model shortly after wrapping LotR. They wrote him well, the voice acting was superb and the animation was astounding.
The little love story was kind of nice. I know a lot of people don’t like that sort of thing in their fantasy movies, but it succeeded in making me care a little more about all the characters involved (made them seem a little more real)
When I first saw Laketown, my jaw dropped. That was exactly how I had pictured it in my head when I read the book. I immediately felt like I had been there before (in a good way).
The new characters we meet, Beorn, Bard, etc are all well played (though I could have used a little more Beorn).
I’m in love with Evangaline Lilly. I think she is a much better elf than Liv Tyler.
Overall, I really enjoyed the movie. I’m not too hard on these adaptations. Having read the books and being a fan of Tolkien’s world, I can understand some people hating the additions and subtractions, though. My wife also loved it and she has not read the books, so I think it has hit the mark on reaching the fans and the newcomers alike.
I loved this movie.
I felt it wasn’t slow and moved at a good pace.
I would rather of had Beorn to have been his jovial self like in the book.
I thought the Mirkwood segment was done well. I understand why they couldn’t do how it was in the books.
The barrel scene was fun and fast with a lot of action.
Lake-town looked great. Bard and the master both did a great job.
Smaug was amazing and Benedict played him perfectly with Smaug’s menacing arrogance and Martin Freeman did a great job in the confrontation.
I expect where it ends is going to make people angry got a groan from the audience in the theatre but sets up the next movie pretty well.
I just felt a little cheated in that there was so much building up with getting ready for Smaug and revealing the black arrow, the chase, etc. that we were left hanging with that part. The final two shots are phenomenal however, and I just -love- how Smaug was delivered to us.
Richard Boone was a better Smaug.
I wasn’t too big on the first Hobbit movie. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t great. It’s hard not to compare it with Lord of the Rings and the experience I had when I watched them.
I wanted to see the sequal to the Hobbit because of the trailers and because of the first appearance of “Smaug” This was the main reason why I was excited to see this movie.
I maybe in the minority but I was let down. Don’t get me wrong I enjoyed this movie and will agree with many that I thought this was better then the first. However, the scenes with Smaug had too much dialogue. There was fear in the beginning when the dragon was sleeping. However, after Smaugs continual rants and all the running and ducking his breathing of fire he turned out to be a lame character in the film.
This is the first movie I’ve ever seen where Holly Wood visual effects have made a dragon look BAD ASS and realistic. Loved it visually. Just wish he was more…fearsome.
Maybe in the 3rd installment we’ll finally get to see his scary side.