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Friday, July 18, 2025

Jackson scores with Smaug

by

20140108

If I had any pur­pose in life in 2013, it was prob­a­bly that I need­ed to live through the year to see the sec­ond in­stal­ment of Pe­ter Jack­son's block­buster, The Hob­bit: The Des­o­la­tion of Smaug.Hav­ing been a hard­core Tolkien fan for most of my life, the first stage of the Hob­bit tril­o­gy, 2012's An Un­ex­pect­ed Jour­ney, lived up to every prospect, even those set very high by Jack­son's orig­i­nal tri­umphs with the Lord of the Rings.For those who missed it, the Hob­bit is the nec­es­sary pre­quel to the Lord of the Rings. It fills in the sto­ry of young, home­ly Bil­bo Bag­gins who lives in the Shire and has his peace rude­ly in­ter­rupt­ed by the ubiq­ui­tous wiz­ard Gan­dalf the Grey.Gan­dalf has urged a com­pa­ny of dwarves led by Thorin Oak­en­shield to em­bark on a quest to re­claim the king­dom of the Lone­ly Moun­tain, or Ere­bor, from the clutch­es of a drag­on named Smaug, which drove Thorin's grand­fa­ther, King Thror, from his throne.So you see, gen­tle read­er, The Hob­bit has pret­ty much every­thing a good fan­ta­sy epic needs–drag­ons, gold, dwarves and sor­cery.

Mar­tin Free­man as Bil­bo "The Bur­glar" Bag­gins, fills aw­ful­ly big shoes stretched out of shape by Sir Ian Holm, who played the part in the Lord of the Rings se­ries. Fans will al­ready be fa­mil­iar with the fit­ness of Sir Ian McK­ellen as Gan­dalf, but a rel­a­tive un­known, in the form of tele­vi­sion ac­tor Richard Ar­mitage, gives a bril­liant per­son­i­fi­ca­tion of Thorin that eas­es reser­va­tions that even the most jad­ed Rings' fan could har­bour.This movie, un­like its pre­de­ces­sor, makes sev­er­al ma­jor changes in JRR Tolkien's orig­i­nal plot­line which caused some wail­ing and gnash­ing of teeth among the diehards. The most ob­vi­ous of these is the ad­di­tion of a to­tal­ly new sup­port­ing char­ac­ter, the she-elf war­rior, Tau­riel.Cana­di­an ac­tress Evan­ge­line Lil­ly pulls off a dif­fi­cult role at best, fur­ther com­pli­cat­ed when Kili, the young nephew of Thorin, played by Aidan Turn­er, falls in love with the fight­ing elf-maid­en. The high-school-dra­ma boy-crush of Kili par­tial­ly cheap­ens what is re­al­ly an in­trigu­ing sto­ry­line but does not de­tract from it to any great ex­tent.

Lego­las (Or­lan­do Bloom), the son of the Mirk­wood Elf-King Thran­duil (Lee Pace), makes an ap­pear­ance when the dwarves are tak­en pris­on­er by his fa­ther. They are kid­napped as a re­sult of a long­stand­ing quar­rel that start­ed when the Wood-Elves failed to aid Thror and his peo­ple in fight­ing off the Smaug.The es­cape of Thorin's com­pa­ny from Mirk­wood and the re­lent­less pur­suit of the fear­some orc, Azog the De­filer (Manu Ben­nett), make for ac­tion-packed se­quences sig­nif­i­cant­ly more ex­cit­ing than their orig­i­nal sto­ry­lines in the book. Azog is an old en­e­my of Thorin's who in­tends to see the grand­son of Thror dead. This movie has more ref­er­ences to the Lord of the Rings se­ries than its pre­de­ces­sor, such as the en­counter of Gan­dalf with the necro­mancer Sauron, and hints of the Ring's evil pow­er.The mild dis­ap­point­ment was that the ti­tle char­ac­ter, the fire-breath­ing Smaug, is less ter­ri­fy­ing than his in­ter­pre­ta­tion in the 1977 an­i­mat­ed film that in­tro­duced most peo­ple to The Hob­bit on screen. Great spe­cial ef­fects and the orig­i­nal strength of Tolkien's sto­ry man­age to bail out what could have been an an­ti-cli­max for the se­ri­ous fan. The mighty drag­on sits atop a rich trea­sure hoard in the aban­doned halls of Ere­bor and this is the main draw for Thorin and his kin.

The tense ban­ter be­tween Smaug and Bil­bo (who is sent in by the dwarves as a spy to steal the all-im­por­tant Arken­stone) re­al­ly rest­ed on the shoul­ders of Mar­tin Free­man, who did a yeo­man job of de­liv­er­ing his char­ac­ter's best mo­ments. Bil­bo is saved from a fiery death sev­er­al times by cloak­ing him­self in the in­vis­i­bil­i­ty of the One Ring, which he re­trieved from Gol­lum's cave in the first movie. Gol­lum is no­tice­ably ab­sent in this film, he isn't even giv­en a cameo role.An­oth­er de­cent char­ac­ter is that of Bard the Bow­man (Luke Evans), who aids the dwarves in their quest to Lone­ly Moun­tain, falling in­to trou­ble him­self with the cor­rupt mas­ter of Esar­goth–the lake town of men.The Des­o­la­tion of Smaug ends with the drag­on head­ed to Esar­goth to burn it and its peo­ple, leav­ing the view­er in sus­pense and wait­ing for Au­gust 2014 and the saga's end, The Hob­bit: There and Back Again.In the mean­time, I am heft­ing my repli­ca dwarf bat­tle-axe, buck­ling on a sword and go­ing in quest of a drag­on's trea­sure hoard–if I can fly there busi­ness class.

KEY HOB­BIT FACTS

If you're new to The Hob­bit and the Lord of the Rings, here are some key facts that will help you fol­low the sto­ry a lit­tle bet­ter.

Bil­bo

It may not be the most ar­rest­ing, in­tim­i­dat­ing or hero­ic of names, but trust us–once you've ex­pe­ri­enced the ad­ven­tures of one Bil­bo Bag­gins, he'll own a spe­cial place in your movie mem­o­ry for­ev­er. A brief ap­pear­ance in The Lord of the Rings po­si­tioned him as a grumpy, fleet­ing­ly psy­chot­ic old codger, but The Hob­bit shows a whole oth­er side–with a jour­ney that trans­forms him from a wary, home com­forts-lov­ing, bor­der­line recluse in­to a wis­ened, valiant and con­fi­dent sword-swing­ing drag­on bur­glar.

Dwarves

Thir­teen of them to be pre­cise. Thorin Oak­en­shield, Dwalin, Gloin, Oin, Fili, Kili, Balin, Ori, Nori, Dori, Bi­fur, Bo­fur, and Bom­bur may sound like a nurs­ery rhyme gone mad, but un­der­es­ti­mate them at your per­il. With beards as im­pos­ing as their ax­es, they're a crack crew of war­riors on a mis­sion. Imag­ine Ocean's Eleven by way of Time Ban­dits, and you're on the right track.

Gan­dalf

Cin­e­ma's most bad-ass, mag­i­cal sep­tu­a­ge­nar­i­an re­turns to the movie se­ries that rock­et­ed him in­to the cin­e­mat­ic stratos­phere. Al­though to be hon­est, hav­ing won count­less plau­dits for his turn as the twinkly-eyed, bril­liant­ly beardy wiz­ard Gan­dalf the Grey/White, there was nev­er re­al­ly any ques­tion about any­one oth­er than Ian McK­ellen don­ning the face-fuzz and staff.

'In A Hole In The Ground There Lived A Hob­bit....'

When we're bored, the best our sub­con­scious can muster is half-ar­sed doo­dling of clouds. JRR Tolkien how­ev­er? One af­ter­noon, while list­less­ly mark­ing sum­mer ex­ams, he took up a pen and spon­ta­neous­ly scrib­bled those im­mor­tal words on­to a blank piece of pa­per, thus trig­ger­ing a fan­tas­ti­cal brain­fart that would lead to the cre­ation of Mid­dle Earth, chang­ing his life for­ev­er, and the world of lit­er­a­ture, for­ev­er.

New Zealand

While Pe­ter Jack­son and ef­fects com­pa­ny We­ta worked their cin­e­mat­ic mag­ic to bring Mid­dle Earth to life, The Lord of the Rings wouldn't have been quite so im­pos­ing or mem­o­rable had it not been for the gor­geous New Zealand back­drop. You'd think that Jack­son had mined the coun­try for all its vis­tas are worth, but the di­rec­tor's de­ter­mi­na­tion to in­tro­duce new shades and per­spec­tives to the lo­cales to en­sure The Hob­bit, and the au­di­ence, are tak­en to places they've on­ly ever dreamed of.

Oak­en­shield, Thorin

We can't de­ny that when it comes to dwarves, Game of Thrones' Tyri­on Lan­nis­ter has held a very spe­cial place in our nerdy hearts. But the ar­rival of Thorin Oak­en­shield means he'll have to move over, be­cause there's a new rib­ald, pow­er­ful and gruff uber-dwarf in town. While com­par­isons to Aragorn will be rife (he's a Dwarf King on a mis­sion to re­claim his birthright, and pret­ty dash­ing too), he's a brist­lier beast al­to­geth­er. Sparks will fly, and not just from his sword.

Pe­ter Jack­son

For many, it's pret­ty in­con­ceiv­able that any­one oth­er than Pe­ter Jack­son could have done The Hob­bit the jus­tice it de­served on the big screen. But when he wrapped work on the Os­car-snaf­fling, box-of­fice gob­bling The Lord of the Rings tril­o­gy, he seemed pret­ty con­tent with stand­ing on the Mid­dle Earth side­lines. When the project start­ed back up, he ad­mit­ted that he'd steer clear of the di­rec­tor's chair so as not to com­pete with his pre­vi­ous tril­o­gy. But he al­ways kept a hand in the pro­duc­tion process, and so when Guiller­mo del Toro left the project, he was an ob­vi­ous re­place­ment. In short, he should nev­er have wor­ried, it's tes­ta­ment to Jack­son's vi­sion and pas­sion that not on­ly has he man­aged to cor­ral most of the orig­i­nal crew and cast (where pos­si­ble) to re­turn, but ear­ly buzz sug­gests The Hob­bit could be­come every inch the fan­ta­sy clas­sic of his first tril­o­gy.

Smaug

Con­sid­er­ing their in­her­ent awe­some­ness, Hol­ly­wood doesn't have the best track record when it comes to mem­o­rable movie drag­ons. But Smaug's set to change all that. Voiced and mo­tion-cap­tured by Sher­lock him­self, Bene­dict Cum­ber­batch, he's far more than a fire-breath­ing, an­gry vil­lain ci­pher, and guar­an­teed to put the odd span­ner in Bil­bo's plans to nab his trea­sure haul. Weird pop cul­ture bonus fact! In Forbes' 2012 list of the 15 Rich­est Fic­tion­al Char­ac­ters, he ranked first, with an es­ti­mat­ed net worth of US$62 bil­lion.

Facts cour­tesy ign.com


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