The Smaugolation of Des

I saw this movie with just two of the available dees. There were a few scenes I thought 'that might look nice in 3D' (hint: probably not because 3Dness isn't the 3Dness I think it should be), so I might yet see this again, but at least it was a nice, not even slightly packed, theatre.

And I'll hide some thoughts away:
The Beorn sequence was rather short. And I'm sure there was lots of annoyance from the actors trying to line everything up with green screens and such. Really, the whole movie timeline was compacted A LOT.

What the hell happened to Mirkwood? There were long scenes in there, and Bombur(?) is supposed to undergo some mental anguish and stuff. Still, we do have Bilbo going invisible more often, although in the book he tells the others of the ring!!!

The barrel sequence... was unbelievable. Okay, I can suspend my disbelief with the best of them, but this was an action sequence for the sake of an action sequence (unlike the rest of the action sequences, which were action sequences for the sake of having other action sequences). Those barrels shouldn't have survived that long, let along they should have sunk after the first waterfall. The book had it a lot clearly, with the barrels actually being sealed.

Fili and Tauriel... okay, was that invented entirely for the movie, or are there other texts in which that is set up? To be honest, it wasn't necessary, and was an excuse for another female presence in the movie (and there was no real excuse at all for Legolas being in the movie), but I didn't really mind as it helped break things up.

The Gandalf fighting scene was impressive... but he gets captured a lot in these movies.

That ending... it was in the wrong place! Instead of the big forge fight, we should have had the attack on Lake Town. Now people have to remember the whole black arrow story and the chipped scales and such. We should have ended after the death of Smaug, the characters thing they are fine, but we pull back to let the audience know the five armies are on their way, boom, tension for movie number three without as many dangling plot threads! And the five armies is going to be a huge enough time sink... I mean battle anyway.

While this did indeed deviate quite wildly, as long as you can divorce yourself from the book it's good, and I'm sure will be an interesting part of a trilogy watching binge.

[END]