The Tomtrek
Love Wookiee
Hey so I saw The Hobbit 2: Back in The Hobbit today:
Right.
So, if you remember, I quite liked An Unexpected Journey. It had its faults, some quite big, but overall I enjoyed it. I watched the extended edition, and I also liked that.
So about this film, though...
Well, to start, I didn't like the first half of this film. At all. Which is a shame, as the first half of the film contains the probably some of my favourite stuff from the book (which is probably why I dislike how the film did it so much, to be fair).
The film starts with them running away from Azog into Beorn's house. It's all very rushed and they basically just run in and sleep, which means that it totally does away with the (much better) way the book does it, where Gandalf essentially tricks Beorn into letting all of the Dwarves stay. The whole Beorn scene is very, very rushed (the main problem with the first half of the film) and it's basically a five minute scene where they talk a bit and then he sends them on their way. If it wasn't for the fact that Beorn turns up again later in the next film then there's very little reason for the scene even being there, which is sad because Beorn's great.
Then they get into Mirkwood, and again it's all too rushed. There's some (pretty good) trippy stuff where the forest is making the msee things and generally go a bit mad, but it doesn't last long. In the book, by the time Bilbo pokes his head above the trees and sees a beautiful sunny sky (one of my favourite moments from the book), it works really well because by then we've spent so much time in the dark, oppressive forest that you really feel the relief. In the film it doesn't really play as well, as they only spend about ten minutes in Mirkwood.
The spider fight is okay... The spiders talk, which is great, and it looks great. But at no point does Bilbo ever say "Attercop!" or "You old Tomnoddy!" which is FUCKING BULLSHIT.
It's also where they start to play up the power of the ring, much more than the book ever did. This is fine, as when the book was written the ring wasn't The Ring. But now, in the context of The Lord of the Rings films, you need to remind people of the power and seduction of the ring, which Martin Freeman plays well.
Then the Elves come in. Oh dear. So, in the book, from what I remember, when the Dwarves and Bilbo and wandering around Mirkwood they keep coming across a group of Elves having a giant party in the woods, who then disappear because they're assholes. None of this is in the film, instead it's Legolas, doing the usual over the top Legolas stunts, and Tauriel rescuing the Dwarves from the spiders. When she's introduced, Tauriel is great.
The Elf parts are the worst parts of the film, in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, Lee Pace as Thranduil is great, really great, but so much of it is dedicated to Legolas and especially to the really fucking dumb Legolas/Tauriel/Kili stuff.
Right, okay, these Mirkwood elves are supposed to be wild party animals, but none of that is ever seen. There's a scene where Tauriel says "Oh they're having a huge party upstairs it's wild!!" but we never see it. Instead we see really awkward and clumsy scenes of Tauriel talking Kili (the annoying "attractive dwarf") while Legolas watches and makes a sad face (although Orlando Bloom still can't emote). This is the major problem with Tauriel - having a badass girl elf who kills things is great, especially as she's basically the only female character in the film and especially because Evangeline Lilly plays her really well. But to make her entire plot arc be "OH WHICH GUY SHOULD I FALL IN LOVE WITH~~~" totally ruins the whole thing. Why can't she just be a cool elf girl who kills stuff? Why does her character have to revolve around men? Why does the whole thing have to feel so utterly, utterly useless?
Bilbo rescues them - and again, they've only just been imprisoned by the time they're rescued - and they escape in barrels. Yes, yes, the barrel tops are open, but honestly I think that works better as it means you can actually see your actors doing things, which is always good for a film. As the elves chase them the orcs attack (it should be noted that by this point Azog has been called back to Sauron and his son, Bolg, takes his place. It literally makes no difference as it's just replacing one CGI orc saying "GET THE DWARVES" with another one who looks slightly different) and the elves fight the orcs along the river as the Dwarves float by in their barrels. It's actually a really nice action scene, even if it is full of the stupid Legolas over the top action stuff - I feel that stuff works better in The Hobbit than it did in LotR, simply due to the different tones of the films.
During this escape, Kili gets shot in the leg (THIS IS IMPORTANT) and Tauriel makes a sad face because of LOVE ANGST and then Legolas tries to have an emotion but Orlando Bloom.
They escape, they meet Bard and Bard's all "Hey guys I DON'T TRUST YOU but let me smuggle you into Laketown with a comedy scene involving fish". The Laketown stuff is good. Steven Fry as the mayor is good. Things are picking up. No, really, they are, the film's getting good. I'm enjoying it. OH WAIT WHAT'S THIS, TAURIEL IS FOLLOWING THE DWARVES? BECAUSE SHE'S WORRIED ABOUT KILI'S LEG??? AND LEGOLAS IS FOLLOWING HER??? FUCK YOU.
Yeah so, when the Dwarves leave Laketown they leave Kili behind because of his leg. And Fili stays with him. So does Gloin. And Bofur. They stay behind. Fuck you, Kili.
It should be noted that, by now, there's been one scene of Gandalf and Radagast looking around the tombs of the Ringwraiths and going "oh they're all gone!!". I still like Radagast, so that's good. Then Gandalf goes to Dol Guldur and looks around a bit. He meets The Necromancer (SPOILERS: IT'S SAURON!!!!!!) and they have a pretty cool magic fight. That's it for Gandalf for this film.
RIGHT SO the Dwarves get to Erebor. It's starting to get good again. Seriously, all the stuff of the Dwarves in Erebor is great, it's exactly what it should be. I love it, I really do. The only downer is that they keep cutting back to Laketown so we can see how Kili is doing and AHHH FUCK YOU KILI FUCK FUCK FUCK I HATE THIS SUBPLOT.
Bilbo goes in to meet Smaug. It's excellent. Really really good. Everything you could have hoped for. Exactly what it needed to be. Smaug is brilliant - he looks great, he sounds great, he is great. For all the other bullshit in this film, Smaug basically totally redeems it. Bilbo and Smaug are talking and being really really good but OOHHH WAIIITTTTTTT Orcs are attacking Laketown AND HERE'S FUCKING LEGOLAS AGAIN and Tauriel tries to heal Kili and they have really really really awkward romantic diologue and seriously Peter why am I not watching Smaug right now I don't care about any of this bullshit FUCK WHAT THE FUCK MORE LEGOLAS??? FUCK YOU. HE KILLS BOLG??? FUCK YOU.
Then there's a really good action scene with Smaug and the dwarves in the mines of Erebor. It's basically what the Goblin Town scene should have been like, action packed and frantic but also really good! Mainly because Smaug is still really, really great.
By the end of it Smaug is really pissed off and the film ends with him on the way to Laketown to wreck some shit. It's a great ending.
So on the whole... I don't know about this film. When it works, it really works. It works exactly like you hoped it would. But the fact that the stuff at the start is so rushed, and that time was instead taken up by a totally unnecessary and stupid romance sub-plot is such a bummer. This should not have been a film where Legolas gets much, much more time than Beorn and Thranduil, but here it is.
But, also, Smaug is amazing.
So, if you remember, I quite liked An Unexpected Journey. It had its faults, some quite big, but overall I enjoyed it. I watched the extended edition, and I also liked that.
So about this film, though...
Well, to start, I didn't like the first half of this film. At all. Which is a shame, as the first half of the film contains the probably some of my favourite stuff from the book (which is probably why I dislike how the film did it so much, to be fair).
The film starts with them running away from Azog into Beorn's house. It's all very rushed and they basically just run in and sleep, which means that it totally does away with the (much better) way the book does it, where Gandalf essentially tricks Beorn into letting all of the Dwarves stay. The whole Beorn scene is very, very rushed (the main problem with the first half of the film) and it's basically a five minute scene where they talk a bit and then he sends them on their way. If it wasn't for the fact that Beorn turns up again later in the next film then there's very little reason for the scene even being there, which is sad because Beorn's great.
Then they get into Mirkwood, and again it's all too rushed. There's some (pretty good) trippy stuff where the forest is making the msee things and generally go a bit mad, but it doesn't last long. In the book, by the time Bilbo pokes his head above the trees and sees a beautiful sunny sky (one of my favourite moments from the book), it works really well because by then we've spent so much time in the dark, oppressive forest that you really feel the relief. In the film it doesn't really play as well, as they only spend about ten minutes in Mirkwood.
The spider fight is okay... The spiders talk, which is great, and it looks great. But at no point does Bilbo ever say "Attercop!" or "You old Tomnoddy!" which is FUCKING BULLSHIT.
It's also where they start to play up the power of the ring, much more than the book ever did. This is fine, as when the book was written the ring wasn't The Ring. But now, in the context of The Lord of the Rings films, you need to remind people of the power and seduction of the ring, which Martin Freeman plays well.
Then the Elves come in. Oh dear. So, in the book, from what I remember, when the Dwarves and Bilbo and wandering around Mirkwood they keep coming across a group of Elves having a giant party in the woods, who then disappear because they're assholes. None of this is in the film, instead it's Legolas, doing the usual over the top Legolas stunts, and Tauriel rescuing the Dwarves from the spiders. When she's introduced, Tauriel is great.
The Elf parts are the worst parts of the film, in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, Lee Pace as Thranduil is great, really great, but so much of it is dedicated to Legolas and especially to the really fucking dumb Legolas/Tauriel/Kili stuff.
Right, okay, these Mirkwood elves are supposed to be wild party animals, but none of that is ever seen. There's a scene where Tauriel says "Oh they're having a huge party upstairs it's wild!!" but we never see it. Instead we see really awkward and clumsy scenes of Tauriel talking Kili (the annoying "attractive dwarf") while Legolas watches and makes a sad face (although Orlando Bloom still can't emote). This is the major problem with Tauriel - having a badass girl elf who kills things is great, especially as she's basically the only female character in the film and especially because Evangeline Lilly plays her really well. But to make her entire plot arc be "OH WHICH GUY SHOULD I FALL IN LOVE WITH~~~" totally ruins the whole thing. Why can't she just be a cool elf girl who kills stuff? Why does her character have to revolve around men? Why does the whole thing have to feel so utterly, utterly useless?
Bilbo rescues them - and again, they've only just been imprisoned by the time they're rescued - and they escape in barrels. Yes, yes, the barrel tops are open, but honestly I think that works better as it means you can actually see your actors doing things, which is always good for a film. As the elves chase them the orcs attack (it should be noted that by this point Azog has been called back to Sauron and his son, Bolg, takes his place. It literally makes no difference as it's just replacing one CGI orc saying "GET THE DWARVES" with another one who looks slightly different) and the elves fight the orcs along the river as the Dwarves float by in their barrels. It's actually a really nice action scene, even if it is full of the stupid Legolas over the top action stuff - I feel that stuff works better in The Hobbit than it did in LotR, simply due to the different tones of the films.
During this escape, Kili gets shot in the leg (THIS IS IMPORTANT) and Tauriel makes a sad face because of LOVE ANGST and then Legolas tries to have an emotion but Orlando Bloom.
They escape, they meet Bard and Bard's all "Hey guys I DON'T TRUST YOU but let me smuggle you into Laketown with a comedy scene involving fish". The Laketown stuff is good. Steven Fry as the mayor is good. Things are picking up. No, really, they are, the film's getting good. I'm enjoying it. OH WAIT WHAT'S THIS, TAURIEL IS FOLLOWING THE DWARVES? BECAUSE SHE'S WORRIED ABOUT KILI'S LEG??? AND LEGOLAS IS FOLLOWING HER??? FUCK YOU.
Yeah so, when the Dwarves leave Laketown they leave Kili behind because of his leg. And Fili stays with him. So does Gloin. And Bofur. They stay behind. Fuck you, Kili.
It should be noted that, by now, there's been one scene of Gandalf and Radagast looking around the tombs of the Ringwraiths and going "oh they're all gone!!". I still like Radagast, so that's good. Then Gandalf goes to Dol Guldur and looks around a bit. He meets The Necromancer (SPOILERS: IT'S SAURON!!!!!!) and they have a pretty cool magic fight. That's it for Gandalf for this film.
RIGHT SO the Dwarves get to Erebor. It's starting to get good again. Seriously, all the stuff of the Dwarves in Erebor is great, it's exactly what it should be. I love it, I really do. The only downer is that they keep cutting back to Laketown so we can see how Kili is doing and AHHH FUCK YOU KILI FUCK FUCK FUCK I HATE THIS SUBPLOT.
Bilbo goes in to meet Smaug. It's excellent. Really really good. Everything you could have hoped for. Exactly what it needed to be. Smaug is brilliant - he looks great, he sounds great, he is great. For all the other bullshit in this film, Smaug basically totally redeems it. Bilbo and Smaug are talking and being really really good but OOHHH WAIIITTTTTTT Orcs are attacking Laketown AND HERE'S FUCKING LEGOLAS AGAIN and Tauriel tries to heal Kili and they have really really really awkward romantic diologue and seriously Peter why am I not watching Smaug right now I don't care about any of this bullshit FUCK WHAT THE FUCK MORE LEGOLAS??? FUCK YOU. HE KILLS BOLG??? FUCK YOU.
Then there's a really good action scene with Smaug and the dwarves in the mines of Erebor. It's basically what the Goblin Town scene should have been like, action packed and frantic but also really good! Mainly because Smaug is still really, really great.
By the end of it Smaug is really pissed off and the film ends with him on the way to Laketown to wreck some shit. It's a great ending.
So on the whole... I don't know about this film. When it works, it really works. It works exactly like you hoped it would. But the fact that the stuff at the start is so rushed, and that time was instead taken up by a totally unnecessary and stupid romance sub-plot is such a bummer. This should not have been a film where Legolas gets much, much more time than Beorn and Thranduil, but here it is.
But, also, Smaug is amazing.
