The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug – Fun or
Dysfunctional?
The Hobbit as a fun, silly novel that is
filled with adventure and light-hearted tomfoolery. While the novel does not easily
connect well with The Lord of the Rings,
it is hard now to talk about The Hobbit
and the LotR Trilogy without connection to the other.
For those who saw the first in The Hobbit’s released film series, An Unexpected Journey, much criticism was
made for the long slog it took for the film to find it’s feet, the pacing, and
basically the fact that it was the opening act of a bigger story. Closing the
film at the approach of Mirkwood was, really, the worst thing to do to an
audience as no real battle or moment had the best build-up. Even Gollum’s
Riddles in the Dark sequence felt rushed so we could get Bilbo back to the
Dwarves at a decent pace. The Hobbit’s second installment, The Desolation of Smaug, fixes many, many problems the first movie
had, yet it still retains issues that will be unique to the story being told in
the middle act. For en English Major, perhaps nothing is more painful (or, exhilarating!) than to see a book you love make it to the big screen. Myself, I have always loved
Note – I have *quite* a lot to say regarding the changes and
adaptations of events from The Hobbit to the film series. Way too much to post
here. In my next blog entry I will link to a greater article/piece that details
those concerns (and they are numerous) so, keep a sharp eye out.
Desolation is an
improvement over Journey in almost
every way. The action feels bigger and more The
Hobbit and not ‘The Hobbit And The Dwarves,’ but when asking somebody to
watch a film with so many characters, eventually people will wonder about those
darn dwarves and why they are not talking.
important, the plot has more places
to go, many more characters find they have things to do and say where-as in
Journey they were (mainly the Dwarves) were window-set-dressing with beards.
While many will lament elements of some of these character’s journeys, it makes
the Dwarvish Company feel more like a group of characters as opposed to just
Bilbo. True, the name of the film is
The plot connection to weave together The Hobbit and The Lord of
the Rings works mainly from the extended epilogue content Tolkien himself
created to bridge his works together. Gandalf and his encounter with Sauron is
played about as seriously as you’d expect and it allows those watchers who ARE
curious about the Hobbit/LotR connections to connect the dots themselves. This
is a small price to be paid for having made The Hobbit after the LotR film
series, and it still enjoyable none-the-less.
The biggest payoff in the film is Smaug. What was a rather
static dragon in the books, a character who only talks with Bilbo, becomes a
genuine force of malevolence and earns the title “chief calamity of the age” indeed.
While the moments with Smaug create possibly the greatest deviation from the
novel, it is a change worth having. Smaug (voiced deliciously by Benedict
Cumberbatch from BBC’s Sherlock) is terrifying, cruel, and dangerous.
All in all, the biggest flaw of the film is (ironically) the
characters that are also its strength. Many moments are given to characters who
(arguably) do not need the precious screen time. Kili’s flirtations with the
elf Tauriel, while well meaning, slow the film down to a crawl. In a film with
almost a 3 hour run time, 30+ minutes of content could have been saved off
easily. Still, Jackson’s additions do his creativity credit and the characters
do not hurt the film. The need to give so much time to all the characters
damages the film, but this will either only annoy those will already dislike
the film or add more content to those who like the film.
All in all, The Desolation of Smaug is an 8 out of 10 film and worth seeing!
All in all, The Desolation of Smaug is an 8 out of 10 film and worth seeing!
1 comment:
simply the data in the studying globally in the following showing up intake. wonderful visa assurance is each of our important intention and we are rated to be usa best study abroad consultancies in hyderabad
the most effective out of our home consultancies back in asian countries. f1 visa from my element is the procedure in exceptionally a shorter period. around america in the event you each and every knowledge about research institutes and as a consequence univerisity only then do we helps you.usa foreign education consultants in hyderabad
Post a Comment