The Desolation of Smaug

Just got back from seeing The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.  I’m not going to tell anybody not to go see it, but I was disappointed.

The 1st disappointment was my own fault.  Sam wanted to go to the cinema to see the Hunger Games and I really didn’t, I don’t like  spending that much  money just for the big screen experience and I do not understand, economically, why the experience costs so much.  We will eventually watch the stupid Hunger Games at home and it will be no less of an experience.

…and it was too dark

But, my wife kept checking for other films ( I suspect she just wanted us out of the house) and when she came across The Hobbit I said “Sure, we’ll go see that,” but I’m so out of the popular cultural loop that I didn’t know this was  a part two of three film, and thought we were going to see the scene in the shire where all of the dwarves came and drank all his beer and stayed the night, and the bit with turning the trolls to stone and some other bits but, no, two minutes in and they’re crashing at Beorn’s.

Then, there were inexcusable changes. the escape in the casks was very different from the book, they were sealed inside the barrels IIRC, and there was no attack by orcs at that point.

And when the Orcs attacked Lakewood, why was Legolas the only living creature out in the streets fighting them.  This was the most sporadically populated town in the history of Middle or any other Earth.

But, basically, the whole thing was far too much like Lord of the Rings, dark, violent, all the funny bits were cut out and the whole thing was one long fight scene.  The sequel has swallowed the original.  Darkness has won.