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"Desolation of Smaug"
Jan. 4th, 2014 05:52 pmA fun romp through Middle Earth, loosely based on "The Hobbit", some bits of Appendices, and a few extra bits that, while they never existed in anything written by any member of the Tolkien family, don't contradict the corpus to my knowledge (not that I'm an expert).
Some parts are so silly that they can only be thought of as parody, but then that goes for the book, too.
We enjoyed it.
OK, that was the good side. But. While I haven't read any Tolkien recently, even I spotted a few things that were just plain wrong.
The whole Beorn episode is a complete change, for no real reason. What was put in place of the original worked, and was internally self-consistent, so I'll forgive it, but I don't see the point of the change.
Tauriel... well, now we know a little more about Legolas' romantic life, in ways that presumably would still apply in TLOtR, and the additions do make sense. As far as I know, Tolkien never wrote an Elf/Dwarf love affair, but he did do Elf/Human, and as long as this also turns out to be a doomed tragedy, no problem with the addition. But why? What is the point of the whole additional story arc here? It doesn't seem to be anything to do with the main thread, it's pure padding.
The "chance" meeting between Gandalf and Thorin - no, it wasn't engineered by Gandalf, it was Fated. Just like Bilbo finding the Ring. Fate is a big thing in Tolkien. This change misses that point.
"Stand by the grey stone when the thrush knocks, and the setting sun with the last light of Durin’s Day will shine upon the key-hole."
The setting sun will shone upon the keyhole. It's very simple, and (omitting spoilers) the twist put in by the film is WRONG. It isn't even internally consistent.
The whole chase sequence with Smaug inside the mountain relies on a rapidly fluctuating draconic sense of smell. Sometimes he can tell exactly where one small hobbit is, at other times he can't detect that same hobbit and an additional 13 dwarves at a similar distance.
I'll forgive the metal "boats" in a river of molten gold, on the grounds that there's dwarven workmanship here, high-quality metals unknown to us mere humans, and Magic.
A dragon blows fire, and you can out-run the fire? Down a narrow tunnel that channels it? I don't think so.
No, suspension of disbelief only goes so far, and this over-stretches it, in ways that are completely unnecessary.
Some parts are so silly that they can only be thought of as parody, but then that goes for the book, too.
We enjoyed it.
OK, that was the good side. But. While I haven't read any Tolkien recently, even I spotted a few things that were just plain wrong.
The whole Beorn episode is a complete change, for no real reason. What was put in place of the original worked, and was internally self-consistent, so I'll forgive it, but I don't see the point of the change.
Tauriel... well, now we know a little more about Legolas' romantic life, in ways that presumably would still apply in TLOtR, and the additions do make sense. As far as I know, Tolkien never wrote an Elf/Dwarf love affair, but he did do Elf/Human, and as long as this also turns out to be a doomed tragedy, no problem with the addition. But why? What is the point of the whole additional story arc here? It doesn't seem to be anything to do with the main thread, it's pure padding.
The "chance" meeting between Gandalf and Thorin - no, it wasn't engineered by Gandalf, it was Fated. Just like Bilbo finding the Ring. Fate is a big thing in Tolkien. This change misses that point.
"Stand by the grey stone when the thrush knocks, and the setting sun with the last light of Durin’s Day will shine upon the key-hole."
The setting sun will shone upon the keyhole. It's very simple, and (omitting spoilers) the twist put in by the film is WRONG. It isn't even internally consistent.
The whole chase sequence with Smaug inside the mountain relies on a rapidly fluctuating draconic sense of smell. Sometimes he can tell exactly where one small hobbit is, at other times he can't detect that same hobbit and an additional 13 dwarves at a similar distance.
I'll forgive the metal "boats" in a river of molten gold, on the grounds that there's dwarven workmanship here, high-quality metals unknown to us mere humans, and Magic.
A dragon blows fire, and you can out-run the fire? Down a narrow tunnel that channels it? I don't think so.
No, suspension of disbelief only goes so far, and this over-stretches it, in ways that are completely unnecessary.