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carl_roth
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The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)
An entertaining and gorgeous looking film that has room for improvement
It has always been a challenge for filmmakers to top their previous creations. In this case, Peter Jackson set out to produce a trilogy as exhilarating as his precious Lord of the Rings trilogy. This is far easier said than done. I never expected the Hobbit trilogy to be nearly as good as LOTR, I mean how could it. The first film was below my lowered expectations, but was still enjoyable. I had been waiting for desolation since I watched the first installment.
I expected many things due to my unexpected experience in the last film, but I did not expect what Jackson delivered. He turned the notch up on the excitement, tension, and made it a little less corny. But as I have learned from watching the two Hobbits so far is that the Tolkien parts are better than the Jackson parts. It is not hard to spot Tolkien and Jackson moments, especially if you have read Tolkien's books. For example, great scenes like the game of riddles with Gollum and the first encounter between Bilbo and Smaug (a special effects masterpiece) are definite Tolkien scenes. On the other end of the spectrum, we have scenes like the "merry gathering" at Bag End and the far over exaggerated action during the barrel riding sequence. These are poorly executed Jackson scenes.
It would be a challenge for anyone to have to produce 9 hours of film from a novel that could be kicked out in 3 or less, but this is no excuse for anything corny. What I would have liked Jackson to do is cut down on the exaggerated action, go back, and study the book itself to answer the question: What would Tolkien do? I am not saying that all of the parts of the story that Jackson added are bad, I just believe that many of the misjudgments and mistakes in his work were avoidable because if I forget those scenes, I believe these two films are amazing. To recap, Desolation of Smaug is an excellent film that is a big improvement over Unexpected Journey, but there is still room for improvement that I am hoping to see in 2014 with There and Back Again.