I've written a review of the latest Hobbit film over at my blog Master of Lore. I also made about a dozen custom cards based on Peter Jackson's adaptation to help guide the analysis and reflection. Go check them out and let me know what you think! Link --> http://wp.me/p3aHn9-gG

I was just planning on starting a thread on discussion about the movie, but this'll do! Good write up and fair assessments. One should already be aware of this going in, but if you're looking for a straight adaptation you'll probably hate the changes but if you take it for what it is it was a very enjoyable movie. The barrel sequence and Smaug encounter were easily the highlights...also who could have predicted that fat old Bombur would be the scene stealer!

I can totally understand extending Smaug's on-screen time. After all the build up of having a dragon you have to do more than have him fly off and get shot by a bowman... But it seemed that Jackson was channeling his inner McKiernan with the Kili/Tauriel thing. I'll leave that at that.

Regarding the Necromancer, I don't mind trying to fold that history into The Hobbit, but the way it was handled was weird at best. It was entertaining, but you can't try to take it as a faithful adaptation.

I agree with the necromancer part being "weird"

SPOILERS

It seemed as though Sauron had Gandalf dead to rights then its like nope...imma put him in a bird cage. Will be interested to see how it all resolves.

The Kili/Tauriel "romance" was ok. I actually was surprised by how much I like Tauriel as a character but the scenes between then were passable. Could have gone a lot worse IMO

I actually liked the Necromancer scene, it was imbued with a real feeling of menace. My guess is that Sauron might be trying to keep Gandalf there as bait for the rest of the White Council, seems like he was trying to trap Gandalf, so makes sense he would try to take out the rest of them too and strike a blow before the war starts.

From what I've heard, the Kili/Tauriel "romance" was something that was demanded by the studio, and not conceived by Jackson. That being said, Tauriel was surprisingly awesome as a character and the romance was relatively understated compared to what I feared.

SPOILER ALERT:

The Barrel scene and Smaug were the highlights for me. I really Enjoyed Tauriel's character as a counterpoint to isolationist elves versus a greater responsibility to the world at large. I am not sure the romance thing with Kili really was necessary, but perhaps the next film will flesh that out and justify the time spend on it. I thought he actor who played Bard was really good. I don't mind the Necromancer diversion either.

The thing though that really makes me think I like this movie less (still liked most of it) than its predecessor was the lack of satisfaction I felt at the end. I really wish they would have finished the film with Smaug's demise. You would still have lots to show in the next film but I thought it just ended too abruptly for me. Perhaps the scene in the beginning at Bree could have been cut entirely, or shown in the first film which I thought needed some editing. Perhaps Beorn could have been in the first film as well.

All in all it was an enjoyable experience, but I thought it had really spectacular moments (barrel scene in particular) and could have been better with some adept editing.

All in all it was an enjoyable experience, but I thought it had really spectacular moments (barrel scene in particular) and could have been better with some adept editing.

I agree! While I'll take as much content as possible and I'm eager for the Extended Editions, I'd also like to see a "Condensed Edition" of this one, once the whole trilogy is released, that tells the whole story in about two hours. I think it can be done!

I actually liked the Necromancer scene, it was imbued with a real feeling of menace. My guess is that Sauron might be trying to keep Gandalf there as bait for the rest of the White Council, seems like he was trying to trap Gandalf, so makes sense he would try to take out the rest of them too and strike a blow before the war starts.

The Necromancer = Sauron reveal was pretty powerful and seemed to be a biblical allusion with the orcs called Legion and Gandalf being crucified on the stone wall. My only complaint is that it came right when Bilbo was heading down the secret tunnel. That's a huge moment for his character arc in the book. His look back at Balin shuffling off is great and the I could feel the tension in the theater dissipate when the scene cut away at that moment.

It does seem likely that Sauron's plan in capturing Gandalf is to bait the White Council and try to wipe them out. It seems that may have been Gandalf's plan as well. Seeing how high Jackson has raised the bar for spectacle after this beast, I can only imagine what The White Council versus Dol Guldur will be like in There and Back Again!

I enjoyed how we couldn't understand the spiders' speech until Bilbo put on the ring. It didn't stay consistent, though, as we (and Bilbo) could still understand them after he took it off again. And was sorry that we didn't get any "Attercop, Attercop!" They were faithful about putting that kind of thing in the first film -- the Dwarves' songs in Bilbo's home, for example, that I thought we might get more of this playful stuff here.

I distinctly remembering hearing some Attercop! Attercop! from the Mirkwood spiders! It was more of a condensed hissing, but I heard it! Here are a few of my preliminary thoughts on the film: http://downtheanduin.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-hobbit-desolation-of-smaug.html... I didn't manage to talk about Smaug yet, but I would definitely say that he blew me out of the water with how awesome he was. I can't wait to go see it again.

I didn't like the film. Too long, too much addition to the actual book with no purpose (like Legolas and Tauriel).

I think that the entire bilbo cycle could have been done in 2 films of 2 hours each. The film would have been more true to the book, with less stupid epic moment.

I enjoyed how we couldn't understand the spiders' speech until Bilbo put on the ring. It didn't stay consistent, though, as we (and Bilbo) could still understand them after he took it off again. And was sorry that we didn't get any "Attercop, Attercop!"

The spiders' speech being understood in "ring vision" was a nice touch, though after Bilbo takes off the Ring, we still weirdly hear, "It stings! It stings!" from the spider he stabs in the face.

I had read others saying they heard "Attercop, Attercop" but even in a second viewing, I didn't pick it up.

I didn't like the film. Too long, too much addition to the actual book with no purpose (like Legolas and Tauriel).

I think that the entire bilbo cycle could have been done in 2 films of 2 hours each. The film would have been more true to the book, with less stupid epic moment.

I've come to accept the flims on their own terms, and even wrote a pretty lengthy prologue to my review framing what Jackson's done in light of Tolkien's own work integrating The Hobbit into The Lord of Rings. Unlike Peter Jackson, however, I exercised some editorial discretion and cut it when it seemed too long and overwrought.

Part of me fully agrees with your sentiment EclatK. I'd like to see a film of The Hobbit book, the one that I read, the one that says "The Enchanting Prelude to The Lord of the Rings" on the cover. Instead, I'm watching The Hobbit: The Epic Prequel Trilogy to the Epic Lord of the Rings Trilogy which, therefore, must be MORE EPIC! But I'm okay with that. In fact, I find Jackson's adaptation choices to be more interesting since he has to work his way back through his own Lord of the Rings adaptation. Given that premise and those parameters, I still have to say that I think he's doing a good job.

(Here's what I cut from my article about Jackson's adaptation choices, if anyone's interested in the potentially mind-numbing minutiae that I find interesting.)

First of all, though Peter Jackson has said it many times, it bears repeating that the film adaptations of The Hobbit are not simply based on the "slim novel" named The Hobbit published in 1937, but also content from the Appendices of The Return of the King from 1955. This is no small task. When J.R.R. Tolkien began writing The Hobbit, he did not intend for it to be a story set in Middle-earth or in any way connected to the mythology he had been devising since his college years. In a letter to his publisher in 1937, Tolkien said, "The construction of elaborate and consistent mythology (and two languages) rather occupies the mind, and the Silmarils are in my heart. So that goodness knows what will happen. Mr. Baggins began as a comic tale among conventional and inconsistent Grimm's fairy-tale dwarves, and got drawn into the edge of [the Silmarillion mythology] -- so that even Sauron the terrible peeped over the edge."

As Tolkien began writing his "Hobbit sequel", he decided to go ahead and firmly situate the new story in his "Silmarillion world" of Elves and Men, but the process often caused him to wish he had done things differently in The Hobbit. He began re-writing large sections of The Hobbit with The Lord of the Rings in mind. In fact, the entire "Riddles in the Dark" chapter was significantly revised for publication in the 1951 second edition of The Hobbit including changes which he brilliantly explained as Bilbo finally telling the truth after obscuring it in his first previous account (i.e. first edition) of the episode due to the influence of the Ring.

But the work didn't stop there. Once The Lord of the Rings was widely accepted and acclaimed, Tolkien continued to rue some of the choices he'd made with The Hobbit. In a letter to Walter Allen of the New Statesman in 1959 about how writing for children differed from writing for adults, Tolkien displayed open regret for the tone and style of The Hobbit stating that he wrote the book "hurriedly and without due consideration" and that he used a convention which "did not accord with my personal experience of my own taste".

Much of Tolkien's later work to fully integrate The Hobbit story into the mythology of Middle-earth and the tone of The Lord of the Rings can be found in Appendix A Part III titled "Durin's Folk". Some of this is further fleshed out in "The Quest of Erebor", a chapter from the Unfinished Tales which Peter Jackson and his screenwriters have no doubt read, but must cleverly dance around (as we saw with the names of the two blue wizards which Gandalf "forgot" in the first Hobbit film) since he has not secured rights to this title. Still, the point is that Tolkien himself was intent on revising and expanding The Hobbit to rise to the style and seriousness of The Lord of the Rings, but never completed that work.

All of this is a long prelude to say that what Peter Jackson is trying to accomplish with The Hobbit films is actually a continuation of Tolkien's work. To take The Hobbit story, which Tolkien himself says that he wrote "hurriedly and without due consideration" and trying to turn it into a proper Lord of the Rings prequel is no easy task, and one that the Professor himself tackled repeatedly (as evidenced by the numerous manuscripts of "The Quest of Erebor" included in Unfinished Tales) but could never complete. The character of Azog, flashbacks to the Battle of Azanulbizar, the White Council and Saruman, one-eyed Thrain, Kili's mention of his mom (the only Dwarf woman named in all of Tolkien's work), the seventh Dwarven ring, and Gandalf's business in Dol Guldur are all underdeveloped ideas from Tolkien in Appendix A that Peter Jackson has brought to light and brilliantly integrated into his version of the tale.

But even these additions are not enough to bring The Hobbit plot fully into line with The Lord of the Rings. Just as Tolkien revised the "Riddles in the Dark" chapter so that Bilbo's silly magic ring could become The One Ring That Ruled Them All, Jackson is taking other elements and revising their meaning so that the story makes more sense. While some might disagree with or begrudge a particular decision here or there, I think that any fan of Tolkien should recognize that making changes to The Hobbit is not a sacrilege to the Professor's text, but rather a protraction of his purpose.

Thanks for the long post.

I really like the idea of Peter Jakson to try to integrate the Hobbit in the middle earth mythology (using Saruman and the white council). What I dislike is the use of more action with no real purpose other than epicness action (golden statue, river chase). I don't like either the Tauriel/Kili romance. All those moments serves no purpose in making the Hobbit a part of the middle earth mithology.

One other think I don't really like, is the perpetual Bilbo's Hero time. Yes, in the book Bilbo is the main caracter, but the Dwarves are also important (I think of the moment with the hole in the door which is not discovered by Bilbo if I remember well).

(sorry for the English, Belgian here)

I actually liked the Necromancer scene, it was imbued with a real feeling of menace. My guess is that Sauron might be trying to keep Gandalf there as bait for the rest of the White Council, seems like he was trying to trap Gandalf, so makes sense he would try to take out the rest of them too and strike a blow before the war starts.

The Necromancer = Sauron reveal was pretty powerful and seemed to be a biblical allusion with the orcs called Legion and Gandalf being crucified on the stone wall. My only complaint is that it came right when Bilbo was heading down the secret tunnel. That's a huge moment for his character arc in the book. His look back at Balin shuffling off is great and the I could feel the tension in the theater dissipate when the scene cut away at that moment.

It does seem likely that Sauron's plan in capturing Gandalf is to bait the White Council and try to wipe them out. It seems that may have been Gandalf's plan as well. Seeing how high Jackson has raised the bar for spectacle after this beast, I can only imagine what The White Council versus Dol Guldur will be like in There and Back Again!

This whole story-line is amazing and as a huge fan of the books, it's such a rad gift that we're going to be able to see these events played out on screen! That we get to see Gandalf fight Sauron is just mind-blowing/amazeballs(and I hate that term) if you think about it.

Seeing Galadriel, Elrond, Saruman in BATTLE!?!.... [just had a small stroke]

I thought the barrel scene was just ridicules.I like when a movie is somewhat realistic and when your done watching you can say "wow that was pretty amazing but you could probably pull that off providing you had a lot of skill" But that barrel scene....first of all they would have all sunk if it actually happened. When all that water gets inside the barrel those things would have sunk.It's just weird that going through all those rapids and waterfalls and those barrels never got water in them.... So yeah, they would have all sunk. But with the magic keeping the water out, Bombur rolled over little skinny logs with his barrel and crushed 20 orcs never stopping or getting the slightest bit out of way of his smashing path. And when he came to a stop he smashed his feet threw his already shredded barrel, destroying it and then jumping up to fight some orcs for a bit, and in the next scene instead of being 25 seconds behind all the rest of the dwarfs that should have been down the river way ahead, he was in his barrel again that just got the bottom smashed out and the sides ripped open, floating along with his friends again.

Besides that, the movie was really good. And I loved all the Gandalf scenes more that the Thorin @Company scenes.

Peter Jackson definitely has a taste for over the top action sequences, which didn't come out as much in The Lord of the Ring trilogy. That's probably my least favorite aspect of this new trilogy, although I found myself liking the barrel sequence more than I expected. What is most fascinating to me is what has already been mentioned, the adaptation choices made by Jackson and company. I think one thing that's easy to forget is that there are certain parts of The Hobbit book that either wouldn't be interesting if you simply put them onscreen or were so underdeveloped in the text that you have to fill in the gaps. I love Tolkien and The Hobbit but reading it as an adult, it's amazing how fast it moves and how huge events are covered in a paragraph. A big example is the Wood Elves. Tolkien does not flesh them out at all beyond the King (Thranduil), and even he is not well developed. Jackson had to either choose to present a bunch of random, no-name Elves milling about the Dwarves, or throw in a few characters (Legolas or Tauriel) of his own.

I thought the barrel scene was just ridicules.I like when a movie is somewhat realistic and when your done watching you can say "wow that was pretty amazing but you could probably pull that off providing you had a lot of skill" But that barrel scene....first of all they would have all sunk if it actually happened. When all that water gets inside the barrel those things would have sunk.It's just weird that going through all those rapids and waterfalls and those barrels never got water in them.... So yeah, they would have all sunk. But with the magic keeping the water out, Bombur rolled over little skinny logs with his barrel and crushed 20 orcs never stopping or getting the slightest bit out of way of his smashing path. And when he came to a stop he smashed his feet threw his already shredded barrel, destroying it and then jumping up to fight some orcs for a bit, and in the next scene instead of being 25 seconds behind all the rest of the dwarfs that should have been down the river way ahead, he was in his barrel again that just got the bottom smashed out and the sides ripped open, floating along with his friends again.

Besides that, the movie was really good. And I loved all the Gandalf scenes more that the Thorin @Company scenes.

An other scene that was totaly ridicule, was the scene with Thorin in the iron wheelbarrow. The wheelbarrow should have melt or burned Thorin to death!! And burning the dragon, for the sole object of making him angry was one more time pointless and miningless!

I think one thing that's easy to forget is that there are certain parts of The Hobbit book that either wouldn't be interesting if you simply put them onscreen or were so underdeveloped in the text that you have to fill in the gaps. I love Tolkien and The Hobbit but reading it as an adult, it's amazing how fast it moves and how huge events are covered in a paragraph.

This is a great point. In the novel, the Dwarves hide in the secret room for the entire duration in which Bilbo confronts Smaug and they have their cunning dialogue sequence. Then, Smaug abruptly leaves, flies to Lake-town, and is killed after destroying it. If that had been the route the movie took, then I think it would have been extremely lackluster and stale. At first I was a somewhat shocked that they deviated from the plot and had the Dwarves storming down into Erebor rather than hiding, but it makes so much more sense from a movie-wise perspective.

I am extremely curious how they will handle the beginning of the final installment, though. I'm sure Smaug will completely decimate Lake-town, but what then? Will Bard escape his jail cell and take him out with the final black arrow or will an altogether different set of events occur. Only time will tell (unfortunately that time span is about a year from now!)

I thought the barrel scene was just ridicules.I like when a movie is somewhat realistic and when your done watching you can say "wow that was pretty amazing but you could probably pull that off providing you had a lot of skill" But that barrel scene....first of all they would have all sunk if it actually happened. When all that water gets inside the barrel those things would have sunk.It's just weird that going through all those rapids and waterfalls and those barrels never got water in them.... So yeah, they would have all sunk. But with the magic keeping the water out, Bombur rolled over little skinny logs with his barrel and crushed 20 orcs never stopping or getting the slightest bit out of way of his smashing path. And when he came to a stop he smashed his feet threw his already shredded barrel, destroying it and then jumping up to fight some orcs for a bit, and in the next scene instead of being 25 seconds behind all the rest of the dwarfs that should have been down the river way ahead, he was in his barrel again that just got the bottom smashed out and the sides ripped open, floating along with his friends again.

Besides that, the movie was really good. And I loved all the Gandalf scenes more that the Thorin @Company scenes.

An other scene that was totaly ridicule, was the scene with Thorin in the iron wheelbarrow. The wheelbarrow should have melt or burned Thorin to death!! And burning the dragon, for the sole object of making him angry was one more time pointless and miningless!

Haha I know right? And I didn't know wheelbarrows float. Especially with a dwarf in it.

I thought the barrel scene was just ridicules.I like when a movie is somewhat realistic and when your done watching you can say "wow that was pretty amazing but you could probably pull that off providing you had a lot of skill" But that barrel scene....first of all they would have all sunk if it actually happened. When all that water gets inside the barrel those things would have sunk.It's just weird that going through all those rapids and waterfalls and those barrels never got water in them.... So yeah, they would have all sunk. But with the magic keeping the water out, Bombur rolled over little skinny logs with his barrel and crushed 20 orcs never stopping or getting the slightest bit out of way of his smashing path. And when he came to a stop he smashed his feet threw his already shredded barrel, destroying it and then jumping up to fight some orcs for a bit, and in the next scene instead of being 25 seconds behind all the rest of the dwarfs that should have been down the river way ahead, he was in his barrel again that just got the bottom smashed out and the sides ripped open, floating along with his friends again.

Besides that, the movie was really good. And I loved all the Gandalf scenes more that the Thorin @Company scenes.

An other scene that was totaly ridicule, was the scene with Thorin in the iron wheelbarrow. The wheelbarrow should have melt or burned Thorin to death!! And burning the dragon, for the sole object of making him angry was one more time pointless and miningless!

Haha I know right? And I didn't know wheelbarrows float. Especially with a dwarf in it.

I was okay with any ridiculousness in the movie, it was all good fun and I didn't take anything too seriously... until the very end:

Maybe gold is dense enough in liquid form to let a dwarf float on it.

Maybe the dwarves made the wheelbarrow out of a material that would not melt when in contact with liquid gold.

But, that wheelbarrow must surely have been a good conductor of heat. Thorin should have been cooked.

Also, I was horrified when gilded Smaug came out of the pool. I prayed that he wouldn't be golden for the remainder of the movie and into the next. I practically cheered when he shook it all off.

Wanted to post my thoughts with a simple image: Riker/Picard double facepalm. Sadly, double facepalm just doesn't come close to matching my feelings.

Started off bad right away, horrible portrayal of Beorn and the whole encounter there. Elf-path bit actually wasn't too bad, though where's my Enchanted Stream? But then, we get to the spiders. And the BS-ride doesn't end until the credits start rolling. Few, minor glimmers of hope, trying to get their head above the surface, only to be crushed by the ever-increasing torrent of filth hitting the screen. Sheesh.

Thranduil offering help to the dwarves!? Arwen 2.0 (at least Evangeline makes for far better elven eyecandy than Liv)? Splitting the party? Dwarves trying to kill Smaug? What the **** is this ****? And most of it can be tied to the first movie's "great" invention of keeping Azog alive and the whole idiotic, never-ending chase of the dwarves (adding in utterly pointless action scenes to both movies). Like the barrel-riding.

Hobbit got the full Indy 4 treatment.

Well ... just returned. I went knowing that I will not see the book but something similar ... with this in mind I liked the movie.

The new entries went smoothly in to the plot (I still find them unnecesary) and some of the scenes where fantastic ... especially when Smaug was involved (I too was afraid that he will keep going clad in gold, fortunately he ripped it off)

I was dissapointed the way the movie ends ... I would gladly stay to watch another three hours to finish it all, you cannot stop the movie where it stopped, it is unfair

Barrel scene was fairly awful. Was there more Legolas than Bilbo? I thought every fight scene with Legolas was tacked on and absolutely not necessary, it added nothing to the story..nothing. The whole dwarf foundry gold dragon thing was just painful to watch. Smaug and Bilbo banter was awesome. I think I was a little (a lot) disappointed in the Beorn encounter. My kids thought it was good and I noticed my oldest daughter flipping through the book later that night and exclaiming "I knew Legolas wasn't in the book!"

I'm thankful the movie was made and I hope it will encourage some people to read the book. I like the music and some of the scenery was incredible. The part of the book that always stuck out in my mind was the first Beorn meeting...it was like 1977 or something and Beorn was this giant/ranger of a man who shapeshifted into a bear...awesome? I would have rather watched that scene from the book than a conjured up Laketown orc elf fight...really...oh well.