Desolation of Smaug Review

No, I'm not going to post spoilers. Okay, I might post a couple.

I was heavily disappointed with the movie. I felt that there were unnecessary sub-plots added that wreaked havoc on the main plot. I thought confrontations were too long, and I felt that more interesting parts of the book were left out. Read below for spoilers:





1. Beorn. How they originally met Beorn was by introducing the dwarves two by two every few minutes. Gandalf and Bilbo started, told their story, and occasionally the arrival of more dwarves interrupted the story being told, and was pretty comical.

In the movie, Beorn chases them into his own house in bear form, while they were also being chased by Azog and his company of orcs. Why not just leave Azog out of it? And why not just have the original introduction of Beorn?

2. Tauriel. In all fairness, I don't mind the addition of a new character, AS LONG AS it doesn't interfere with the main plot. Her character introduced a new sub-plot that affected the main story. A friendship with Kili is fine, but turning it into a love story that includes him getting hit with a poison arrow, as well as having to stay behind (with two other of the dwarves) in Laketown, is ridiculous.

3. Smaug. Benedict Cumberbatch did a FANTASTIC job voicing Smaug. The movie did a great job of making him look how I pictured him. But, instead of Smaug having a discussion with Bilbo, and going to Laketown maybe 10 minutes after the conversation, especially after connecting Bilbo's nickname of Barrel Rider with Laketown, he winds up seeing Thorin (never happens in the book), and confronts Bilbo and the dwarves for half an hour in the movie. I don't mind SMALL confrontation. I get it, have him see Thorin and get pissed, but you've already added in a brand new time-consuming sub-plot, and now you're going to add half an hour of confrontation that never existed. THEN, on top of it, make Smaug look like a dumbass. He's an INTELLIGENT dragon. You're telling me he's such a scaly pile of stupid that it takes him half an hour to go "Oh Barrel Rider, I get it, I'm going to go burn Laketown now." Ridiculous.


There were other bits and pieces I didn't care for, but these were the big three that annoyed me. I don't mind adding in scenes for the sake of people who never read the book (seriously. Read the book, people.), but to change storylines, to add in non-existent sub-plots, when you are making THREE movies for ONE book, is terrifying.



Peter Jackson, I felt, did a major disservice to the books. I haven't been this disappointed in a movie "based" on a book since Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. If Hollywood can be faithful to those damn awful Twilight movies on a small budget, I'm sure Peter Jackson and his HUGE budget can be a little more loyal to The Hobbit. For fuck's sake.


So yeah, from a standpoint of "I've never read the book", I'm sure you found it fantastic. But from someone who read the book, I found it highly disappointing. If I were to give it a rating from 1-5 starts, I'd give it 2/5, and I'm being fairly generous.