The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug DVD (spoilers, obviously)

[Elheru Aran]

Strange that you say it looked garish. It was overall very muted on my television. Lots of greys for me. The most colourful it got were scenes at Beorn's in daylight, the forest once they get out of the barrels, and Bilbo climbing over the canopy. Otherwise it was very brown/grey/greenish.

Perhaps it's an artifact of translating HD-3D to standard definition and then watching it on a SD TV without the benefit of a proper widescreen view... I really will have to watch the last one when it comes out in theaters.

[LadyTevar]

You misunderstand, Elheru.
They SHOT the film to be seen with the dark-colored 3D glasses. Thus, they had to paint everything brighter to stand out more. The 2D films are filtered post-production to give the same look. But, if you watch the "making of" videos, you would see how the paint on Murkwood's trees and foliage is damn-near neon in spots, simply to get the color palate to film correctly with 3D glasses.

That's why I called it 'garish' -- I'd seen the videos and heard Jackson's explaination of the why's and wherefores. Those Video Journals should be under the "Extras" on the DVD

[Channel72]

Regardless of the color scheme, I think Elheru Aran's National Geographic vs. Final Fantasy comparison is pretty stop on. LOTR was really beautiful to watch, whereas the Hobbit mostly looked like a video game after they left the Shire. I did like the main theme/soundtrack to the Hobbit, however.

I also really wonder where they're going with the whole Necromancer plot line. We get it... Sauron is returning. But, that really has nothing to do with anything right now, so who cares? Any references to the events of LOTR should have been nothing more than a brief line here or there from Gandalf.

[Batman]

Thank you.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I also really wonder where they're going with the whole Necromancer plot line. We get it... Sauron is returning. But, that really has nothing to do with anything right now, so who cares? Any references to the events of LOTR should have been nothing more than a brief line here or there from Gandalf.

In some of the Histories of Middle Earth, it is stated that a force of elves from Lothlorien and Mirkwood attacked the tower of the Necromancer in a pretty big battle during the events of The Hobbit. I think that is going to be shown in the movie.

[Elfdart]

I also really wonder where they're going with the whole Necromancer plot line. We get it... Sauron is returning. But, that really has nothing to do with anything right now, so who cares? Any references to the events of LOTR should have been nothing more than a brief line here or there from Gandalf.

In some of the Histories of Middle Earth, it is stated that a force of elves from Lothlorien and Mirkwood attacked the tower of the Necromancer in a pretty big battle during the events of The Hobbit. I think that is going to be shown in the movie.

Is that what's shown at the :40 mark in the new trailer?

[JLTucker]

You misunderstand, Elheru.
They SHOT the film to be seen with the dark-colored 3D glasses. Thus, they had to paint everything brighter to stand out more. The 2D films are filtered post-production to give the same look. But, if you watch the "making of" videos, you would see how the paint on Murkwood's trees and foliage is damn-near neon in spots, simply to get the color palate to film correctly with 3D glasses.

That's why I called it 'garish' -- I'd seen the videos and heard Jackson's explaination of the why's and wherefores. Those Video Journals should be under the "Extras" on the DVD

Did Jackson say they purposefully made it brighter? I don't remember hearing that ion the EE extras. I figured they brightened it up for the 3D presentation because theater chains lower the bulbs because they mistakenly think it will prolong its life. Thus, send them a brighter copy of the movie. The Blu-ray looked normal to me, with no hint of excessive brightness.

[CaptainChewbacca]

In some of the Histories of Middle Earth, it is stated that a force of elves from Lothlorien and Mirkwood attacked the tower of the Necromancer in a pretty big battle during the events of The Hobbit. I think that is going to be shown in the movie.

Is that what's shown at the :40 mark in the new trailer?

I believe so, yes.

[Channel72]

One good thing I can say about Jackson's decision to integrate all this extraneous material : it does provide an actual reason for Gandalf to randomly leave the Dwarf party every now and then. I think in the book he just dissapears for no reason, and then conveniently reappears when the plot needs him.

[Block]

He mentions it, they just don't talk about it in detail.

[Elheru Aran]

He mentions it, they just don't talk about it in detail.

Stuff like "None of your business, Bilbo!" or "There have been some things going on and I may have been part of that business." Throwaway lines like that which keep the focus on the primary plot, what is happening to Bilbo and company.

Lady Tev-- so they filmed it originally very bright, and then they toned it down for standard definition? So that's why everything looks murky on a regular TV screen? Seems a bit self-defeating...

[Elfdart]

It's not that different from the old Technicolor, where colors usually looked very different on the screen than they did on the set. So costume and set designers had to adjust accordingly for years until the labs could alter the colors while processing the film.

[Channel72]

One thing I did appreciate in Desolation of Smaug is that Smaug recognized that Bilbo was carrying the Ring ("something made of gold but more precious"); Tolkien's original "Conversation with Smaug" doesn't include that, obviously, since Tolkien originally didn't intend for the ring to be the focal point of his whole narrative. Still, the original "Conversation with Smaug" is a bit more awesome than what made it into the film. (The notable difference being that in the novel, Bilbo was invisible throughout the entire conversation, but in Jackson's reinterpretation, Bilbo takes off the ring in a moment of panic.)

[LadyTevar]

I think most of the converstation was cut for screen-time. There may be an extended conversation somewhere on the cutting room floor, or left on the white-board. Either way, that whole scene gave me chills. Although Bilbo's first reaction as Smaug started moving was a bit of a "oh, well, I'll just sit Right Here and hope nothing sees me, because I've surely screwed the pooch."

[Channel72]

Also, Jackson seems to be setting up totally different circumstances for Smaug's death. It seems that Bard will still kill him with an arrow, but Bilbo didn't observe a weak spot in Smaug's chest (unless I missed that?). I wondered how they were going to portray the "noble thrush" talking to Bard, since that was really a childish element in the novel - but it seems like Jackson is altering the circumstances completely.

[LadyTevar]

Then you missed it, Channel. Bilbo does see the weak spot, the spot that Bard's grandfather had smacked at least tice with the Black Arrows. It's up under the wing, and Bilbo even speaks aloud seeing it.

[FSTargetDrone]

LadyTevar's right!

It's right at 2:00:



Sorry it's so dark, this is the best I could find.

[Civil War Man]

Then you missed it, Channel. Bilbo does see the weak spot, the spot that Bard's grandfather had smacked at least tice with the Black Arrows. It's up under the wing, and Bilbo even speaks aloud seeing it.

While Bilbo did observe the weak spot in the chest, it's mostly for the audience's sake as opposed to the plot's, because Bard already knows about the missing scale.

It's one item on the list of why I didn't particularly like Desolation of Smaug, even though I had no problem with the additions and changes in An Unexpected Journey. It pretty much all boils down to most of the changes serving little purpose beyond diminishing Bilbo's importance to the story.

The parts that particularly bugged me:
1. Instead of using trickery to keep the spiders scattered and take them out one by one, he uses the opportunity to free the dwarves, at which point he ceases to do anything useful until after everyone is captured by the elves.
2. The escape from Mirkwood started out well enough, until the elven guards caught them. If it wasn't for a convenient Orc attack, all of the dwarves would have been recaptured, and Bilbo with them, rewriting his plan to be a failure requiring a Deus ex Machina to keep the story from ending early.
3. The romantic subplot between Tauriel and Kili padding the runtime, and requiring drastic changes to the narrative (including the two items listed above) in order to shoehorn it in.
4. The conversation between Bilbo and Smaug. In the book, Bilbo uses flattery and riddles to steer the conversation and trick Smaug into inadvertently giving up information that could be used to defeat him. In the movie, it feels more like Bilbo getting utterly dominated by a foe who is better than him in every way, since the only information pertinent to Smaug's defeat is already known by the one guy who is capable of taking advantage of it. So for me, his flattery comes across less as an attempt to manipulate a physically stronger foe and more like actual grovelling in an attempt to buy enough time to escape.
5. The extended building-the-molten-gold-statue action sequence. As well as further padding the runtime, Bilbo contributes nothing to the planning and barely more than that to the execution.
6. The entire population of Laketown suddenly vanishing for one scene so Legolas and Bolg can have their grudge match in empty streets.

If I had to rank the protagonists of Desolation of Smaug by order of importance, I'd say it was Thorin, Tauriel, Kili, Bard, Gandalf, Legolas, and then Bilbo bringing up the rear with the rest of the dwarves. By contrast, many of the changes in the first movie actually increased Bilbo's contribution to the party. I guess it's not a problem if you don't have an issue with the titular character being a secondary character, but there's really no shortage of fantasy stories about exiled kings returning to reclaim their birthright, and to be honest Lord of the Rings did a much better job telling it.