The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug
So Tuesday Night is Date Night at the Dollar Theater. But now we play D&D on Tuesdays, so Monday Night is Date Night! And the second Hobbit movie was finally flat enough and cheap enough for us to go see. WOOHOO!
Well, I say WooHoo...and I mostly mean WooHoo, but golly, that movie gave me so much approval whiplash. It would go from Awesome to ( Read more... )
Well, I say WooHoo...and I mostly mean WooHoo, but golly, that movie gave me so much approval whiplash. It would go from Awesome to ( Read more... )
That's exactly what I think they're doing. I feel an itch for a post, if not an actual paper, about the seventeenth-century Netherlands and fifteenth/sixteenth-century Venice and Laketown. Since neither period is my specialty, it would require a fair amount of research and I would learn a lot, which is appealing.
We can tell because you have character flaws.
Are you being sarcastic here, or just referring to the high elves of LOTR as opposed to the Silmarillion?
I need me some more party elves, all I'm saying.
Also I have a post on this...I'll stop now.
Also, I guess Tauriel is a king then?
Absolutely.
The athelas thing bugged me. It was so, just, no.
Maybe Bolg is here to kill Tauriel? I suppose we shall see...
Could be. I honestly have no idea where they're going with the Battle of Five Armies, except that I think Tauriel's going to play a big part and die and Legolas will grieve her. Odds that Kili will die trying to save her instead of Thorin?
Although, Gandalf, I get you're trying to be all dark and mysterious and technically accurate with your "nobody knows his name" bit, but if you'd just said "the Witch-King of Angmar" I'm pretty sure Radagast would know who you're talking about.
Yes, but if Faramir had said "'Ungol' means 'spider'" I'm pretty sure Frodo and Sam would have known what to expect, but no, we can't have that. (I checked my Hammond & Scull the other day, btw, and discovered that they have a note saying that many other readers besides me have wondered about this.)
Also... Thrain. Where the crap is Thrain. I am waiting for Gandalf to find Thrain in the the dungeons of the Necromancer because Thrain's plotline has been conspicuously absent from the movies thus far.
Yes, and it's also been weirdly different, so I can't tell where they're going with that.
More on that later. But I really loved how he can understand the spiders once he puts on the ring. Really clever, especially since they have cut out pretty much all the instances of animals talking.
Yeah, and fits with Sigurd and Finn McCool and all those stories of suddenly being able to understand animals, as well as Sam's hearing getting better in Cirith Ungol when he puts on the Ring.
I don't know why Smaug knew about the ring. Does he have Detect Gold or something? Smaug knew about everything. Honestly he knew way too much - he was like Smaug the exposition dragon.
Everyone knows everything! Thorin is recognized by everyone he meets, which is pretty good considering they don't have television or photographs or anything. In the olden days, Henry VIII used to go disguising himself in his own country because facial recognition outside of his immediate circle was pretty slim. And you could have your portraiture done pretty much however you wanted because who would know any differently? Portraiture as propaganda, one of my favorite Roman Empire history topics. But I digress.
So yes. I'm saying I agree.
But apart from that scene being totally futile, repetitive, and unnecessary, it also highlighted that the dwarves can't do anything for themsleves.
Really? They drove him out of their place. If an armed thug breaks into my house and takes up residence, and I manage to drive him out, I'm going to be pretty proud of myself, even if he then goes and shoots up the neighbors, which I will not take responsibility for.
On the whole I liked it....I think. I liked the first one better.
Yeah, likewise. I really have no intention of rewatching the first part of the movie when I get the DVD. I just want to watch Thorin going "I'M ON FIRE I'M ON FIRE I'M ON FIRE I'm good." \o/
DW is my favorite place! Because I ramble at people and they ramble back at me, and then I go to their blogs where there is more rambly fun!
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Looking forward to it! And yeah, the things you were saying about the painting were super interesting. I noted the painting in the movie, but hadn't really thought hard about it. And you're right...painting is strikingly absent in these movies...and possibly in the world generally. Now I'm wondering whether there are portraits of Bungo and Belladonna in Bag End. I feel like I have some memory of such a thing...but it might be from Tolkien's own illustration at the very end of the Hobbit.
Are you being sarcastic here, or just referring to the high elves of LOTR as opposed to the Silmarillion?
Mostly the latter. Thranduil's character flaws are front and center, whereas the High Elves of the Lord of the Rings are very ...mature. Mostly because they used to be the High Elves of the Silmarillion and have learned from their past mistakes. The fact that Thranduil is presented as (occasionally) petty and insular in the Hobbit is a stark contrast from other Third Age elves we meet.
"I need me some more party elves, all I'm saying."
Also I have a post on this...I'll stop now.
I missed the party elves post!? NOOOOOOOOOOOO. Hafta go back and look for that then. And never stop. I love all your posts!
Odds that Kili will die trying to save her instead of Thorin?
Oh gosh I hope not. :/
Yes, but if Faramir had said "'Ungol' means 'spider'" I'm pretty sure Frodo and Sam would have known what to expect, but no, we can't have that.
Maybe he assumed they knew? Anyway, they didn't ask. :P Radagast here is specifically asking, and Gandalf is being unnecessarily cryptic about a person they have presumably both met. But then I suppose if you didn't deeply enjoy being unnecessarily cryptic, you wouldn't be a wizard.
Yeah, and fits with Sigurd and Finn McCool and all those stories of suddenly being able to understand animals, as well as Sam's hearing getting better in Cirith Ungol when he puts on the Ring.
Neato! And yeah, I just read that part in "Stupid Ring" and there's a bit I had forgotten about Sam being able to understand the orcs, and being a bit surprised by that. And (I'd have to look up the actual passage to make sure) but there seems to be no offered explanation like there is with Ugluk and Grishnakh that they're all speaking Common because they are disparate tribes. Shagrat and Gorbag represent different garrisons, but they should presumably speak the same language.
Thorin is recognized by everyone he meets, which is pretty good considering they don't have television or photographs or anything.
To be fair, most of those people he has in fact met before. Right? Like Thranduil recognizes him because he's seen him before. Gandalf I think is in Bree looking for him specifically, so it makes sense. I'm looking of a dwarf...I see exactly one dwarf...odds are it's the same dwarf (although, as you point out, he totally fails this logic when it comes to Thrain.) And Bard, to his credit, doesn't just up and recognize him. He has to do some research first (Although your point about Thorin III Stonehelm is well made). Given the differences in the movie about how the fall of Erebor went down, Smaug might well have seen Thorin before as well (I bet he has a great memory for people he's eaten)
But yes, you make a good point nonetheless. The idea of not just knowing what people look like is a surprisingly foreign one...
They drove him out of their place. If an armed thug breaks into my house and takes up residence, and I manage to drive him out, I'm going to be pretty proud of myself
That's a very good point. I had not thought about it like that before.
Yeah, I wish I knew why Smaug was trying so hard not to kill any of them...
I ramble at people and they ramble back at me, and then I go to their blogs where there is more rambly fun!
Hooray for rambly fun! It's my favorite thing!
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