Tauriel-Kili bothered me because never ever has there been an elf who falls in love with a dwarf in Tolkien's universe. I would say there's a purpose to that, although I would not know what purpose. That and the godawful scene witht he white light and all that. What were they thinking?...

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Well, not necessarily. We know that there were never any Noldor-dwarf relationships, because the 3 Noldor-man relationships were special. The men of Dol Amroth are descended from Silvan-man relationships, so we know that Silvan elves weren't held to the same standards as Noldor elves. It still was pretty stupid.

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I believe the purpose is to help pave the way to the races reconciling, Legolas and Gimli's friendship also is working towards that end.

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Gimli falls in love with Galadriel. And I wouldn't go as far as to say Tauriel is in love with Kili, more just fond of him.

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I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it's one sided. I can deal with that. All the romantic expressions were on kili's part - for her part, Tauriel seemed fond of him, but not in any way i would class as romantically so. If she'd held his hand when he reached for her I might have thought differently, but she didn't. She's young, she's inquisitive, brash, headstrong and maybe a dash naive - but I actually ended up thinking her inclusion improved the film (apart from the glowing). I hope she survives the next movie, and they don't both die together. Mainly because i want to use her in WotR era games.

As cuchulain84 points out, we have instances of Dwarves being capable of falling in love with Elves, and Kili is quite young, so that side of things isn't too weird. And as i say, the romance seemed fairly one sided. She seemed to have more of a thing for Legolas, which is much more understandable within the context of their own relationship, at least until Thranduil (quite hilariously, i thought) told her off.

"She's young, she's inquisitive, brash, headstrong and maybe a dash naïve" yet she somehow manages to be Captain of the Guard. Literally everyone of those attributes is the exact opposite of what you want in the leader of your armed forces.

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True, but Thranduil favours her, according to Legolas. Part of her backstory is that her parents were slain by orcs whilst she was very young - perhaps Thranduil took her under his wing, so to speak. He certainly wouldn't be the first Elf lord to do that.

Yes, and I don't mind kili falling in love with Tauriel, just the other way around would, but I might have looked at it the wrong way. She does seem to like Legolas more, and its is generally one-sided. I'll see the movie again tomorrow, perfect for a little more attention to detail.

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That's the reason why Galadriel and Gimli went into the west and Celeborn didn't! Galadriel divorced! Just kidding of course, huehue.

This is one of the things that I really have a problem with. I don't mind that there is a fondness between the two but why does it have to be based on physical attractiveness? Why not two people who are part of a closed society who bond over the situation they are in.

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@Jobu When in the film was it ever hinted that their relationship was based on physical attraction?

In their first scene together Kili gets his ass handed to her
In their second scene together Kili get's told he has no schlong by her
In their third scene together Tauriel is amused by Kili's straight up sense of honor and loyalty (the talisman). I like to think the real deal breaker was when they talked about starlight though, his opinion was probably something she had never heard before (what with her being a secluded elf and all), leading her to actually respect his 'mortal' view of the world etc.
Then there is the healing scene but the whole backlit thing was there to remind the audience all elves are pro, and if Kili is uber affectionate afterwards it is because she saved his life more than anything.

I believe his actual quote was " she is as beautiful as an angel". There was also a lot of innuendo when the elves are making comments about how much he is looking at her in the jail scene.

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Whaaa? He really said that?!

They do know there are no angels in Arda, right? It's like when Doc Cottle in Battlestar Galactica said "Jesus Christ!". Way to screw up consistency...

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I'm relatively sure, (certainly due to the words she spoke) that PJ was trying to draw our memory back to Arwen healing Frodo in Fellowship, and that the "glowy" effect was simply us looking at Tauriel through Kili's eyes.

I dislike the obvious way in which film makers try to create continuity between old work and new by basically shoehorning in a "familiar moment", wether it fits or not. Lucas' prequels are full of them. They are lazy, and Devlan Mud.

However, the "romance" didn't really bother me that much, because as has been recently mentioned, it seemed to me that while Kili is obviously all over Tauriel like flies on poo, her interest seemed more platonic.

I love the book, and I dislike needless deviation, but I also accept the need for deviation to make something "filmic". I am also (a bit) understanding of the fact that anyone who is handed six hundred million dollars to make a film will have quite a bit of studio pressure to deal with.

As much as we dislike the idea, we should still be understanding of the fact that board room execs know that good films don't necessarily sell. What sells, is ludicrous CGI rollercoaster stuff. They did not give Jackson $600m to make a critically acclaimed flop, popular only amongst some fans (lets face it- some of you are determined to dislike a film adaptation WHATEVER it is like).

And as much as we'd like to believe that Jackson has total control, he doesn't. He has to deal with the suits who hold the purse strings, and are determined to get a product which will do well financially. Film making is a business, not a vehicle to make films which will stand the test of time.

Once in a while, a genius director manages to negotiate these two variables well, and create something that does first. But sadly, most of the critically acclaimed "great" films are not huge financial successes.

This is because mostly, the cinema industry's target audience is the 16 year old Mid Western teenager.

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So, what did I think of the film?

On balance, walking in with my eyes open to the "roller coaster CGIfest" style of things nowadays, and the fact that you can't make a literal adaptation of a book, I enjoyed the film.
I thought it had faults, and a lot of things that I'd change. However, on balance I think it's a good film, if a bit light on story.


My first gripe was Beorn- I quite liked the performance, but the hair and beard is totally and (in my opinion) unnecessarily different from the description in the book. But my biggest gripe is that he is one of the coolest characters in middle earth, and he got almost zero screen time. This became more annoying later on when it became clear that they rushed through quite an important part of the story in order to indulge in barrel-of-laughs silliness.

In general I felt as though they rushed through pretty much all of the story in the first hour, and then rushed off in to "CGI indulgence land" for the other 2/3rds of the film.

Mirkwood and the spiders was great. Yeah, I missed "attercop attercop", but I understand it's a bit dated, and would have been pretty difficult to pull off on screen.
I wish these scenes were a bit more story driven, and less action based though. In the book Bilbo has lots of strategic thoughts and sneaks around trying to work out ways to save the dwarves. In the film he just charges in and starts slicing stuff up.
The design of the spiders and mirkwood in general was lovely, and really nicely done.

No "sleeping stream" and unconscious bombur was a shame I thought. I always thought the disappearing elf feast part of the book was a bit silly, so didn't mind that they dovetailed the spiders right in to Thranduil's hall. Thranduil was great, and the visuals there were really good too I thought. Tauriel I've covered above.

Legolas. Jeez, what is with PJ and Orlando Bloom? 10 years later, the guy still can't act for [word deleted]. He makes me cringe when he's on screen.

Bolg. Wow- they swapped the old Bolg for "Malc-orc in the Middle"? He doesn't look very threatening to me, and yeah, more like Azog's son I guess, but still… not very scary, just a bit lumbering and stupid, childlike and… yeah, like Malcolm in the Middle.

Barrels scene- yeah, kind of cute. Went on a bit too long though, and the Legolame acrobatics were tiresome.

Laketown- amazing. Loved it. Don't have a problem with Bard, loved Stephen Fry, and really loved the town itself. Fantastic design.

Bard "the bowman" is going to kill Smaug with a ballista rather than a bow? Really? Ugh. Why? Again, totally unnecessary and stupid change which takes away from Bard. I presume they are trying to make Smaug more "magnificent" by suggesting that a mere arrow won't kill him, although perhaps, as they've introduced the missing scale, it seems plausible. Perhaps they'll surprise us

Smaug the Magnificent certainly was magnificent. So was the (unmolten) gold. I liked the bilbo/smaug scene. When the dwarves got involved it got a bit yawn worthy. Far less of that would have been good. I also felt that clever Smaug just got stupid and started charging around the place. They'd done a great job of you feeling as though he could anticipate Bilbo's every move, only to be outwitted by a collection of not especially bright or organised dwarves. It didn't "do it" for me.

As for the gold… wtf for? If you create something truly magnificent, trying to trump it simply makes it look cheap. And if you try to trump it with a cheap looking effect it looks even cheaper.

Wow, that's a lot of criticism for something I said I liked! In general I'm left with the feeling that LotR was much more sensitively adapted than the Hobbit.
I felt that in LotR pretty much all of the changes to the story were to solve problems or fill in gaps which are acceptable in a book, but not in a film (lack of characterisation or backstory, for example).

In the Hobbit I'm left with the feeling that a lot of the changes were made because of external pressure to include more "CGI-Awesome funfest" Devlan Mud, and for that the story (and so my immersion) suffered.

I do like the way that Jackson is trying to tie the STORY of the Hobbit in with the LotR. It certainly does fit in to a wider context, but as it was written before LotR Tolkien himself was only able to do this in a limited way.

I do not like the way that Jackson is (occasionally) trying to tie the FEELING of the Hobbit in with the LotR- at least, not when it is done in a cheap and obvious way, (like Gandalf using his "standing up angry voice" with the Dwarves, as he did with Bilbo when discussing his leaving of the Ring for Frodo, or Tauriel using her "arwen spell" to heal Kili.
The continuity should come from style and a creation of a feeling of authenticity (which it does), not from trying to shoehorn in lame "moments" which serve no purpose than try to remind you that they are part of a whole.

I do like the elaboration on the story of Dol Guldur, the explanation of Gandalf's absence (all genuine Tolkien material, just not included in the Hobbit) and the discussion of the "necromancer" subplot.

I do not like unnecessary deviations from the plot of the book, especially where they serve only to make room for, or lead in to mindless action which does not integrate in to the story at all, but only sits on top of it as a bit of "visual titilation".

Anyway, I think you've all heard enough from me for now .

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Maybe the healing scene is a throw forward to the frodo arwen scene, which is fine, I just believe that the physical attractiveness was a cop out and that narrative could have been a deeper storyline of the movie, really more like legolas and gimli. PJ could have shortened some of the action scenes to make it happen.
I thought the prancing pony scene was horrible at first but looking back I think that plot change really makes it a better story and makes having a burgler logical.
The part where bilbo takes the ring off because of some kind of evil presence was not a good change either. It makes it appear as if smaug has some power over the ring when he does not. Yes he would know the story of the ring of power, but to be able to do that? Building up bilbos ego with the ring, his feeling of power when he has it on, and his attempt to play games with smaug could have been a build up to how the ring is changing him. Culminating in his revealing himself to smaug as his ego and feeling of power with the ring on makes him do something foolish. Then cue the dwarves coming in to rescue him as he has done for them.
But then again we have no idea what PJ has in store for us in the third movie and being critical of others work is easy compared with actually creating that work.

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I loved it, I thought it was spectacular from start to finish and enjoyed the deviations as it meant that I was surprised and on the edge of my seat despite knowing the book backwards. This'll be like a stream of consciousness rather than a well-structured review.

I think there's an awful lot of jumping on the bandwagon over the Kili-Tauriel thing (and to be fair in this thread there's actually quite a lot of defence of it). To be honest I saw nothing in this film that suggested a 'romance' beyond some mild flirting, as others have said it seemed to me far more like a growing friendship between the races and even if Kili does fancy her, as of yet it's not reciprocated.

I thought up to the barrel escape the film was damn near perfect, it was the perfect balance of fidelity to the book and cinematic adaptation. There's no doubt that after the arrival in Laketown the emphasis shifted to new material (really, once they get in Bard's boat, the only stuff from the book in the last hour is the brief scene on the doorstep and Smaug's conversation with Bilbo.

Laketown and Mirkwood looked gorgeous, the spiders were amazing with faultless CGI, I loved the barrel escape and thought it was an absolutely wonderful set-piece. I really like Orlando Bloom in this, I thought his acting was good and he gave us a better Legolas than 10 years ago. Stephen fry was great, I was worried about his casting as, here in the UK, he's a ubiquitous presence on out TVs, not as an actor, but as 'Stephen Fry' so I thought it might be hard to get past that 'Oh that's Stephen Fry' feeling but to his credit his performance was excellent and the costume and make-up design were fantastic.

I must admit that during the last half hour in the mountain and at Laketown the sheer amount of new stuff somewhat took me out of the film. The sheer scale and intensity of the last half hour made the difference between the book and the film more apparent. I'm going to see it again tonight and I genuinely believe I'll enjoy it more as I won't have that surprise, I now know the plot of the film and can enjoy it for what it is, an adaptation.

I think this was exacerbated by the fact that the Beorn, Mirkwood, Thranduil's halls and Doorstep sections all seem incredibly rushed. I'm not quite sure but it looks like the events of DOS take place over about a week int he film (although it's not clear how long they're lost in Mirkood for) whereas in the book the same events take about 3 and a half months. I understand the film-makers need to up the urgency (as they have done in all their Middle Earth films) but I think this time they pushed it slightly too far and everything seemed a little easy. In particular I would have liked a little more time both trapped in Thrnaduil's prison and scaling the mountain looking for the door. As it is, both of these obstacles were fixed by Bilbo before they ever really became obstacles. I think this film is crying out for an Extended Edition and come next November I reckon we'll be seeing 30/40 minutes reinstated into the cut at which point the fairly frenetic pace will slow down somewhat and allow us to enjoy the world a bit more.

I was very disappointed to not see Thrain (again!) particularly as it MUST have occurred in the timeline of this film (I think I even remember seeing Gandalf running up to the big column that Thrain jumps down from in the trailer) as when fighting Thrain in the trailers he still has his staff. I really hope this scene makes it into the extended cut or as a flashback in the next film as it's a scene I was excited to see visualised since they started teasing us with it in THE VERY FIRST TRAILER FOR AUJ!!!!

The other very strange thing is that did anyone notice that the glory shot of Azog jumping on the battlements fighting the elves that appeared in all the trailers wasn't in the film and he wasn't even involved in the conflict? We know that originally Bolg was meant to fight Gandalf in Dol Guldor and presumably Azog would continue to chase the dwarfs down the river (accounting for why Azog and not Bolg is in the GW barrel scenarios). Obviously fairly recently PJ decided they wanted to swap their roles around with the new CGI Bolg design, hence Azog duelling Gandalf in DG and Bolg chasing the dwarves down the river and into Laketown. This means that the Azog shot on the battlements gets dropped and poor old GW find their scenarios filled with the wrong villains again! I'm not really sure why they did this, it results in that really weird part near the start where Bolg comes and finds Azog, they both go back to Dol Guldur and then Bolg gets sent back out again. Very strange.

Perhaps most controversially, like in AUJ, I thought that the vast majority of the changes made the film a better story than the book. Bard being introduced earlier and given a plot line about the weight of his family's 'failure' in this film gives his decisive actions far more weight come the next film as opposed to being introduced in the book 2 pages before he kills the dragon. Similarly, Thorin leading the dwarves to heroically attack Smaug and drive him out of their homeland to seek vengeance on Laketown makes them far more active and heroic rather than in the book where they just get Bilbo to do all the hard work and then walk into Erebor once Smaug's flown out. I know it won't be a popular opinion (and I love the book) but I honestly think PJ is telling a better version of the story.

There's so much buzzing around in my head after just one viewing but I'm going to stop there before this post becomes as long as the film. Overall I loved it and I can't wait to see it again tonight in IMAX'O'Vision

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Fully agree with all you have written Dr Grant, I will see it a second time, as you say to enjoy it more!

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This is something I always say of the LotR trilogy. The story of the films is bound together more solidly, and flows better. Structurally as well, it is better paced.

But the books are better art, flawed but monumental. The films are also great.

In the Hobbit I don't necessarily think that all the changes made makes for a better story. I agree with you about Bard. I do think adding back story and elaborating on Bard and Laketown was necessary- they are a little flat in the book (but Tolkien is emulating the style of the sagas here, evoking dynastic greatness and the distance of the heroic). It makes him seem more human, because in our world we don't really associate with the distant (and 2D) hero. We like our heroes to be real people with whom we can sympathise and identify, not just place on a pedestal and admire.

I don't mind the inclusion of Tauriel- as with LotR we need some female protagonists in the Hobbit- something Tolkien was very weak on. However, I do not like the /way/ in which she was included. I thought the Legolas/Tauriel dynamic was weak and served no purpose than to give backstory to a character who didn't exist in the book at all. It would have been better to tie her in to the actual story, rather than create a whole side-plot for her, which actually has no bearing on the story we are (or should be) interested in.

I didn't think it was necessary to leave Kili, Fili and Oin behind, and I don't think it was necessary or desirable to have Legolas, Tauriel and the hunter orcs scrap all over lake town. It did absolutely zero to move the story along, and was needless and flabby story telling.
We should (or could, with the extra time gained to elaborate on them) care about Bard and his family already, so leaving dwarves behind so we care about Laketown seems redundant.
The only reason for leaving the dwarves behind as far as I can see, is to create a pretext for lots of hunter orcs, tauriel and legolas to prance about on rooftops in an (albeit quite cool but basically meaningless) action sequence. I definitely don't consider this to be an intelligent change, or one which served to tell a better story. It served the CGI only.

Having said that, it was nice to see more of Laketown. But I have a feeling we're going to see 'ing loads of it in the next film!

I also agree on having the dwarves attack Smaug/support Bilbo. Did make you like them a bit more, and view them as more heroic.

However, I think it went on far too long, and the whole bellows/gold thing was stupid. They could have peed him off in half the time, without the ludicrous convolution and wheelbarrow riding antics.

As i mentioned earlier, i will be irritated if they decide to kill smug with a ballista. I really don't think that's a necessary or desirable change to the story. Han Shoots First and all that.

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Dr. Grant, nice catch on the trailer differences, did not even notice. We at least know Bolg was introduced early enough for GW to rename the original Bolg on the website. It will be interesting to see how long it takes them to make that model.

I don't know why those dwarves were left behind inlaketown. I would bet it has more to do with the third movie, like they go get dain from the iron hills or fix the ballista. PJ made a special note about those ballista in the movie.

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