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The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug · This Film is Lit

• 0:04
  Speaker A: This film is lit, the podcast where we finally settle the score on one simple question. Is the book really better than the movie? I'm Brian, and I have a film degree, so I watch the movie, but don't read the book.
• 0:15
  Speaker B: And I'm Katie. I have an english degree, so I do things the right way and read the book before we watch the movie.
• 0:22
  Speaker A: So prepare to be wowed by our expertise and charm as we dissect all of. All of your favorite film adaptations and decide if the silver screen or the written word did it better. So turn it up, settle in, and get ready for spoilers. Because this film is lit. His rage passes description, the sort of rage that is only seen when rich folk that have more than they can enjoy suddenly lose something that they have long had, but have never before used or wanted to. It's the Hobbit, the desolation of Smaug, and this film is lit. Hello and welcome back to this film is lit, the podcast where we talk about movies that are based on books. It's the second episode of our summer 2024 summer series. We're talking about the Hobbit, the desolation of smog. We're gonna get into all of our segments, but before we do that, I wanted to. We didn't say this before the first one. We normally say, like, what versions? Especially for the. Because there are extended and theatrical cuts of usually, of our summer series. This time we are doing the theatrical cuts because I realized upon watching this one that on Max, they don't have a theatrical cut of the unexpected. An unexpected journey.
• 1:39
  Speaker B: That's part of the reason that we didn't talk about it, because it didn't even come up.
• 1:42
  Speaker A: Didn't even show up.
• 1:43
  Speaker B: I didn't think about it.
• 1:44
  Speaker A: I didn't think about it. And I just saw the regular version. And then when we went to desolation of Smaug, they had both a theatrical and an extended cut, but they don't have an extended for an unexpected journey. So we figured we'd just stick with the theatrical cut. Also. It's probably the one more people have seen, so it's fine. But there may be things that are mentioned or, you know, that are in the theatrical or the extended cut that we talk about, you know, not being in the movie. If you've seen it, the extended cut. That's why we're watching the theatrical version. So if you have not watched the. The desolation of Smaug recently, here is a summary. And let me sum up. Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.
• 2:23
  Speaker B: Thorin Oakenshield and his company are being pursued by Azog and his orc party. They are ushered by Gandalf to the nearby home of Bjorn, a skin changer who can take the form of a bear. That night, Azog is summoned to Dol Guldur by the necromancer, who commands him to marshal his forces for war. Azog delegates the hunt for Thorin to his son Bolg. After telling the company about the dangers of Mirkwood, including the necromancer's rise and the wood elves being dangerous, Bjorn escorts the company to the borders of Mirkwood, where Gandalf discovers black speech imprinted on an old ruinous this and a prior request by Galadriel prompted him to investigate the tombs of the Nazgul. He warns the company to remain on the path before leaving. Upon entering the forest, they lose their way and are ensnared by giant spiders. Bilbo frees the dwarves with the help of the invisibility ring. However, Bobo begins to understand its dark influence after he drops the ring and brutally kills a spider to retrieve it. The remaining spiders are killed by the wood elves, led by Tariel and Legolas, who capture the dwarves and bring Thorin before their king, Thranduil. Thorin confronts the king about his neglect of the Dwarves of Erebor following Smaug's attack 60 years earlier, and is consequently imprisoned with the other dwarves. Bilbo, having avoided capture, arranges their escape via empty wine barrels that are sent downstream. They are pursued by the wood elves and ambushed by Bolg and his orc party, engaging in a running three way battle down the river. The dwarves are able to escape both groups of pursuers, but Kili is wounded with a Morgul shaft. Thranduil seals off his kingdom when an orc captive reveals an evil army is amassing in the south, but Tarriel decides to leave and assist the Dwarves. Legolas goes after her. Meanwhile, Gandalf and Radegast investigate the tombs of the Nazgul, which they find to be empty. Upon finding out that the nine have been called to Dol Guldur, Gandalf correctly deduces that Sauron has returned and is preparing for war. The company is smuggled into Esgaroth by a bargeman named Bard. Thoron promises the master of Laketown a share of the mountain's treasure, and they are given arms and sent off to the mountain. Due to his injury, Kili is forced to remain behind at Bard's home, tended to by Fili Oyen and Bofir. Bilbo discovers the hidden entrance in the Lonely Mountain and is sent inside to retrieve the Arkenstone. However, he accidentally awakens Smaug, who reveals his knowledge of both the Dwarves plot and the return of Sauron. In Laketown, it is revealed that Bard is a descendant of the last ruler of Dale and possesses the last Black Arrow capable of killing Smaug. Bard attempts to bring the Black Arrow to the town's launcher, fearing what may happen inside the mountain. However, he is arrested by the master, charging his son to hide the arrow. Bolg and his orc party infiltrate the town and attack the four dwarves, but Tarriel and Legolas arrive and quickly dispatch them. Meanwhile, Gandalf infiltrates Dol Guldur alone. After sending Radegast to warn Galadriel of their discovery. At the tombs, he finds and cures thrain before they are ambushed by Azog. I think that's the part that's in the extended version.
• 5:40
  Speaker A: That was the one thing I was gonna mention is that that note. Cause unless I completely spaced out while watching the movie and was taking notes, we do not see that.
• 5:47
  Speaker B: No. The Necromancer overpowers and defeats Gandalf and reveals himself as Sauron. Gandalf watches helplessly as Azog and an orc army march from Dol Guldur towards the lonely mountain. Inside the mountain, during a long chase, Bilbo and the dwarves rekindle the mountain's forge using Smaug's flames and melt a large golden statue, hoping to bury Smaug alive in the molten gold. They do so, but smaug emerges from the gold, stumbles out of the mountain and flies off to destroy Laketown as Bilbo watches in despair.
• 6:20
  Speaker A: Alright, that is a summary of the the desolation of Smaug. We're gonna get into our first segment, which I said it every time, but in this one we do it a little bit different than our main episodes. We're gonna go through the movie book several times, kind of start to finish, talk about what we thought was better in the book, better in the movie, and what the movie nailed. But we're gonna start with all the things that we thought were better in the book. You like to read? Oh yes, I love to read. What do you like to read?
• 6:54
  Speaker B: Everything.
• 6:55
  Speaker A: There's a great line right at the beginning of the book that if it was in the movie I missed it, but I don't recall it is when they're taking. They're getting ready to get on the eagles again, because in the book, they do a little more eagle travel, where the last movie ended, essentially, and the eagles are gonna go drop him off near Mirkwood. And there's this line where Bilbo is not thrilled about flying again, and one of the other dwarves asks him, what's finer than flying? And Bilbo's response is a warm bath and a late breakfast on the lawn. And I was like, hobbits really do have it all figured out, don't they?
• 7:31
  Speaker B: It truly. It is the hobbits life for me.
• 7:35
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 7:35
  Speaker B: You know, I feel like it's one of those things, like, when you're younger, you're like, oh, I want to be an elf. Cause they're like, so cool. But then you get a little older and you're like, nah, nah, man.
• 7:43
  Speaker A: Hobbits 100%.
• 7:47
  Speaker B: There's a shot really early in the film. The film kind of joins up right where the last movie cut off, except for the flashback part at the very beginning, which we'll talk about, but the main narrative joins right up right where the first movie ended. So they're running away from the orc party. And there's a quick shot right here that shows Bjornen the bear man in the form of a bear. And I thought that in that shot, he looked way too much like a warg.
• 8:25
  Speaker A: Yes, I had the exact same thought.
• 8:27
  Speaker B: And I was like, I don't know. Maybe that's what they're going for. It's possible to create some confusion, intention.
• 8:33
  Speaker A: Of, like, oh, no, it's the orc. But then it's not.
• 8:36
  Speaker B: But then it's not. But I felt like there wasn't enough distinction for somebody who maybe already didn't know about the Bjorn character. Like, somebody who hasn't read the books. Like, I knew who it was gonna be.
• 8:48
  Speaker A: Yeah, well, I mean, I ultimately did, but after the first shot, I just thought it was a warg. Like, because, again, you'll kind of see it from far away. So. No, I agree. But, yeah, I think that was the point that they were trying to kind of create that tension and make you think, oh, no. Because then that way, when they're getting chased shortly, like, right after this, it's. There's, you know, you're unsure of what is. But, yeah, I had the same thing also. That whole opening scene in the mountains where they see the warg and they're, like, walking around looked terrible. Like, compared to the rest of the movie looks pretty much fine. And there are issues we'll talk about, but like, that scene, especially for where there's not really anything happening. Usually the other parts where it's like, this looks mediocre, like, you know, a lot of, like, kind of mushy cg that doesn't look great. It's usually, like big, crazy action sequences, right.
• 9:31
  Speaker B: Where there's, like, a lot of movies.
• 9:33
  Speaker A: This is them just literally, like, all standing in this little, like, on this path in the mountains. And it's so clearly, like, they're composited. Like, it's like a set, but it's. It just looks really weird and bad. And the lighting, it's like dusk and the lighting is all artificial and looks. I was blown away by how bad that opening looked. It may be the, like, the worst looking thing in the movies, or so far, at least, you know, especially that isn't like a crazy action sequence or something. Because those. I at least understand why they're. Why, you know, it's hard to make those look perfect. But, yeah, I did not understand why that looks so bad.
• 10:06
  Speaker B: So this opening, like, chase scene where they're running from the orcs and they're also running from Bjorn in the form of a bear. And then they get to Bjorn's house and they're like. They have to fight. They're fighting him.
• 10:23
  Speaker A: Well, they get inside.
• 10:24
  Speaker B: Yeah, they get inside.
• 10:25
  Speaker A: And then he's trying to break down the door and they're, like, holding the.
• 10:28
  Speaker B: Door as a bear.
• 10:29
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 10:29
  Speaker B: And I just didn't think it made any sense.
• 10:33
  Speaker A: Yes. So I had the same thing. I thought this whole scene was silly. It's just for tension for the audience.
• 10:39
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 10:40
  Speaker A: And Gandalf, they try to explain it away because Gandalf. Cause, like, what? This doesn't make any sense. But then Gandalf says in the movie, that is our host in his bear form. He's rather unpredictable or something like that. But he can be reasoned with in his human form is the line. But that's not the implication I got in the book of.
• 10:58
  Speaker B: No, not at all.
• 10:59
  Speaker A: Because he follows them all the way to Mirkwood as a bear in the book. Like, they see him in the. Like, it's not like he becomes an.
• 11:05
  Speaker B: I feel like he doesn't become an werewolf. Changes his shape.
• 11:09
  Speaker A: Yeah. And, like, maybe he's. He may. I could buy the idea that he's, like, a little more aggressive or something. I don't know. But, like, it doesn't. I don't really think it makes a lot of sense because, again, from what we see, he seems to, like, just be like himself, but as a bear in the book. So I don't know.
• 11:25
  Speaker B: And, like, the book, the way that they get to Bjorn's house, they kind of. Tolkien kind of repeats the same gag from when they arrive at Bag End.
• 11:34
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 11:34
  Speaker B: Where they're arriving, like, two by two, except it's a little more purposeful this time.
• 11:39
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 11:39
  Speaker B: And I get why the movie didn't want to do it.
• 11:41
  Speaker A: I disagree. I think that was great.
• 11:42
  Speaker B: I mean, I also disagree. I thought that scene was great, but I get why the movie didn't want to do it. Cause it would have taken a lot of time.
• 11:51
  Speaker A: Yeah. I think you could have done it pretty quickly with some creative editing, but. Yeah, yeah.
• 11:56
  Speaker B: But I thought what the movie did go with was just bizarre and didn't make sense.
• 12:01
  Speaker A: No, I agree. Generally. Truly just there to create tension for the audience who doesn't know, like, who this is or what's going on, you know, that sort of thing. And for, like, the fun reveal of, like, that is our host. It just. I love the scene where Gandalf comes up, hatches this devious plan where he brings them in, like, he has them come in, like, a little bit apart so that it doesn't, like, overwhelm Bjorn, but, like. And that way it also draws the story out that Gandalf's telling him because he knows Bjorn likes a good story, and so the dwarves constantly interrupting him will, like, increase.
• 12:33
  Speaker B: Yeah. He really kind of like a 1001 nights it.
• 12:36
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's great. I love that. I loved that in the book, and I thought that would have been good in the movie because I thought it would also been a good opportunity to reintroduce the dwarves to the audience, especially for people. And, like, again, I guess they thought it was redundant with the scene in the first movie. But I don't think. I think if done properly, with some snappy editing, in a way, it could have been both funny and helped to reintroduce characters that we don't know the name of.
• 13:01
  Speaker B: I totally agree with you. I'm just like, I could understand why you might look at that scene and be like, oh, this is gonna drag the pacing down.
• 13:10
  Speaker A: Sure. Yes, absolutely. And I think that was probably the thought process behind the change they made. I also love, though, in that scene that the movie cuts because of the way they change that introduction is the way Bjorn in the book, they keep saying, oh, I'm like, master oin, at your service or whatever. They keep saying, at your service to be, like, very gracious or whatever. And he starts getting fed up with it. And he's like, I don't need your service. When I want your help, I'll ask for it. And he keeps getting progressively more annoyed with them because they keep showing up and they keep offering him their services when he does not need it. I enjoyed that banter.
• 13:46
  Speaker B: I guess another thing that got left out of the Bjorn part of the story from the book is that Gandalf tells them not to leave the house at night. Or maybe Bjorn tells them. I don't remember. I think Gandalf don't leave the house at night. But Bilbo gets up and looks out the window at one point, and the yard and the area is just full of bears. And they're having a regular bears meeting is what he's called it. And I love that deeply.
• 14:18
  Speaker A: Yeah. It's so funny. I realized upon reading at this time, I don't have this in my notes, but I want to mention it. How much this. I got some elements of the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings books mixed up in my head because they're so similar. The fellowship, at least, is so similar to the Hobbit. Cause, like, Bjorn is basically Tom Bombadil, kind of. He's pretty much weird, like, shape shifting, ancient, mysterious being.
• 14:48
  Speaker B: He's like a Tom Bombadil who sings a lot less.
• 14:51
  Speaker A: Yeah, and. Or at all. I don't think he sings at all, but yeah, but he, like, he communes with nature and he, like, I think even Gandalf has the note to. And I could be wrong about this. Maybe this is one of the things I'm confusing, but I think Gandalf tells, like, I, Frodo and them not to leave the Tom Bombadil's house at night or whatever, because, like, you know, I don't know. It felt so very similar. And it really was striking how similar kind of the overall, like, narrative structure of fellowship and the Hobbit are. I can't. I'm not sure I'd be interested to know. I'm sure scholars know if that's, like, an intentional reference, or he just decided to kind of, like, take another pass. You know what I mean? Like, was it an intentional choice to make it similar, or was it like a. I just want to do this again. Like, I like this structure, and I'm just.
• 15:38
  Speaker B: Yeah, maybe he just likes road trip stories.
• 15:41
  Speaker A: Yeah. I don't know. I thought it was very interesting, though, how similar they kind of end up being in a lot of ways. Also, at Bjorn's, the thing that gets cut, we see them eat dinner but unless I missed it, I don't. They're in the movie, there are no animals serving them food, which was disappointing, because that is a thing explicitly mentioned in the book, is that Bjorn has a bunch of animal friends that are walking around and pouring drinks and delivering food on their backs and stuff like that. And I thought that would have been awesome. And they don't do it.
• 16:12
  Speaker B: Another last thing from the Bjorn scene that the movie left out is they notice outside of his house that he has a goblin head stuck on a pike and a warg skin nailed to a tree.
• 16:27
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 16:28
  Speaker B: Which I kind of love because, like, a lot of the other things. But obviously, Bjorn's kind of, like, an intimidating figure. But, like, a lot of the other things are very, like, whimsical. And then there's just, like, this grotesque warning.
• 16:42
  Speaker A: Yeah. He goes out one night to go, like, investigate their story. Actually, he's doing. And he ends up finding some of the orcs or whatever, and he kills a bunch of them, but then brings one back and mounts his head on outside his wall as a warning. Pretty metal.
• 16:59
  Speaker B: Okay, so the summary of this made me feel like my next note is wrong. Cause in the summary that we read, it said that Gandalf was, like, remembering something from Galadriel.
• 17:11
  Speaker A: I think that's what's going on.
• 17:13
  Speaker B: But when we watched this scene, I interpreted this as Galadriel, like, psychically. Psychically communicating with him.
• 17:25
  Speaker A: Right. In your defense, she does do that in the scene where in the white.
• 17:31
  Speaker B: Counter scene, she does.
• 17:33
  Speaker A: But they're, like, right next to each other, which we see that in the Lord of the Rings movie, too. She does it at the Frodo, obviously. So, yes, it does appear to be a power that Galadriel has, but I don't know if she can do it over the whole continent.
• 17:46
  Speaker B: Fair enough.
• 17:47
  Speaker A: Yeah, I actually had that in better in the movie. So what you're with. The scene you're talking about is that as they get to the edge of Mirkwood, Gandalf is like, kind of. They're, like, exploring the edge. And Gandalf, like, pulls some vines down, and there's a statue there. And he sees this, like, runic graffiti of, like, the eye of Sauron, basically. And when he sees that, we hear this voiceover from Galadriel talking about something in the south or something. I can't remember exactly what she says. And, yes, you interpreted that as a telepathic communication, whereas I interpreted it, I think, the way the movie intended it was as him remembering that, sparking the memory of the thing she said to him and kind of causing him. And so I had this in better movie because I, like, I thought it was a good change for the movie to have him this moment kind of just spring up. Because in the book, he, like, tells them way ahead of time. Like, when we get to Mirkwood, I'm leaving. I go investigate this thing, and then, you know, you guys make through Mirkwood on your own. I thought having this be the thing that kind of spurs him to go investigate. As he remembers, what Galadriel said made a lot of sense because we didn't really have a good opportunity for Gandalf to set up the fact that he was gonna leave prior to this. And so I thought this was kind of a concise way to get him going to do his job. No.
• 19:01
  Speaker B: And I don't mind him finding the rune and that being the thing that spurs him to. Oh, yeah, I gotta leave and go investigate this. I just didn't like the Galadriel voiceover.
• 19:12
  Speaker A: Yeah. And that's fair. I think it was necessary just to remind us from the last movie. Like, if it had been in the same movie, I don't think it would have been necessary, like, if you know what I mean. But I think having it been the previous movie, I think we needed something like that. But I agree with you that it's a little complicated by the fact that we know Galadriel can be telepathic, at least in some way. So, yeah, it is kind of confusing, or could be confusing, for sure. Speaking of Mirkwood, as they get into Mirkwood, some little details that I missed, just in general, I thought Mirkwood could have been spookier before we got to all the spiders. The spider is very spooky, especially if you don't like spiders. But I thought. And there's some cool stuff in Mirkwood that we'll talk about here in a second. But I really liked the little detail that the squirrels in Mirkwood are black.
• 20:01
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
• 20:02
  Speaker A: Like jet black. And then at night, it's, like, super dark. Like, so dark they can't see. Like he talks about. It's like a dark you can't fathom or whatever, where you can't see anything or whatever, like, at all. They also see eyes peering out of the woods at them, like, at night, all over the place and stuff. And I thought that would have been really cool. And I thought they could have done some stuff. Cause as it is, it just kind of ends up being, like, a twilighty looking woods that's kind of creepy. It's not. Not creepy, but it's not as creepy as I was envisioning in the book, I guess. Or not like, as weird and gnarly as I was envisioning in the book.
• 20:40
  Speaker B: I know. I agree. I had that note about it in a different section. But I actually agree with you. I thought Mark would, like, looked cool. Yeah, definitely not as, like, dark and spooky as what's described in the book.
• 20:53
  Speaker A: I think that's the only thing. I think if they would have had, all they would have need to do is add, like, one night scene.
• 20:58
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 20:58
  Speaker A: Cause all we see is them wandering around the woods. But yeah, I think one night scene where we get some spookier stuff. And Peter Jackson very comfortable with doing spooky, weird stuff. So I think it would have been great. I wish they would have included. I mean, again, maybe the extended version has more in Mirkwood. That actually wouldn't surprise me if a lot of the extended stuff is in this first half of this movie. Talk about that more later. But that would not surprise me if a lot of that got cut was from this first part. Because probably producers or studio execs or whatever saw it as not really important compared to some of the later stuff, which, again, we disagree with.
• 21:33
  Speaker B: But I mean, that actually is a nice segue into my next point, which is that I preferred the timeline of the book for when they were traveling in Mirkwood. Because they're in Mirkwood for a long time.
• 21:48
  Speaker A: Weeks.
• 21:48
  Speaker B: It's in the book, they start running out of food. And I understand what the movie was trying to go for with, like, it being vague about how much time had passed, but it really felt like they had just been there for, like, an afternoon, I think.
• 22:05
  Speaker A: And I think that would have been helped had we seen some night scenes. Because then you see the past, like, because again, it's too bright for, like, most of what we see in Mirkwood. And I think if we had seen some night scenes, it would have helped. Cause then you get even more like, you're like, well, how long have they been there? I've seen, you know, it's been nighttime at least a couple times. You know, like. Cause in this, we have this montage of them wandering around. And I actually like the weird trippiness stuff they're doing where, like, Bilbo's, like, turning around and sees himself, and they're all, like, kind of out of it in days. It's actually. They're kind of reacting similarly to how in the book, there's this river that if you touch it, it, like, messes with your memory and puts you to sleep and blah, blah, blah. And I think they're kind of pulling from that to make. Because otherwise, in the book, they seem to be fine. Mirkwood doesn't seem to affect them mentally, other than it being a depressing place or whatever, and miserable to be there. It doesn't seem to be making them get loopy or confused or sort of the dissociator or anything like that, other than this late river thing that does that. In a way, it also just puts you to sleep or whatever that. I liked some of that trippy stuff, but if they had just supplemented that by. Yeah, some of those scenes were happening at night, and then during that montage, we see them at night, some we see them during the day, we see them at night, and then all of a sudden, you no longer know how. How many days they've been in there. It feels like it could have been, and it's possible that happened. I'm just misremembering it, but I don't remember. I feel like it was all like.
• 23:36
  Speaker B: A similar light level, pretty much the same light level the entire time, and.
• 23:39
  Speaker A: It just kind of felt like they were there for an afternoon, evening or something.
• 23:42
  Speaker B: Yeah, no, I liked some of the trippy stuff, and like I said, I get what they were going for, what they were trying to do. I just don't think that they stuck the landing with that. However, I will say that despite my kind of beef with the timeline here, I was overall fine with skipping some of the Mirkwood stuff from the book. Like you mentioned the river crossing. And then there's another point where they try to shoot down a stag.
• 24:09
  Speaker A: Well, that's at the river. As they're trying to cross the river, a stag comes in running at them. And I thought that was another. Because the stag is, like, apparently also like jet black, which could have been kind of creepy and interesting.
• 24:19
  Speaker B: That's true.
• 24:19
  Speaker A: But again, I was fine with cutting it, but, yeah. And the other thing they cut, which I was my. That the one thing I wish they had included is the, like, elf parties they're chasing around. So at one point, they're getting towards the end of their rope and they're running out of food, and they've been in there forever, and they start seeing some lights off the path. And Gandalf was very explicit. Don't leave the path. You'll get, like, just don't leave the path. But they see these lights? And they're like, well, hopefully it's a person. We got to get some food. We're literally running out of food. And so they start wandering off the path, trying to chase these lights. And they keep stumbling into these clearings where there are, like, elves partying. But then as soon as they get there, all the fires go out and they're plunged into darkness, and the elves disappear. And then they see a fire somewhere else in the distance and they go to that one, and the same thing happens. And I thought that would have been another fun thing to work into the montage. And that could have been the night part. You know what I mean? It felt like you could have worked that in. And again, maybe the extended edition does, but it's also a good way to set up the fact that we might be seeing some elves shortly, because you could keep it very vague. You don't know what these people are. There's just these figures in a clearing, and it's creepy and weird, almost culty looking or something. I think could have really amped up the creepy spookiness while also teasing the elves and just being another thing in front of the book and giving us more passage of time, which I think would have. I think all of those things would have helped the Mirkwood sequence.
• 25:42
  Speaker B: No, I'll agree with you. I think that could have been weird and creepy, especially because the idea of the phantom lights in the forest is very connected to folklore.
• 25:51
  Speaker A: Right? Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of stories about that all over the world. So it's something that I think kind of just inherently people have an innate, sort of averse reaction to as, like, as a creepy thing. So. So ultimately, they. They are captured by spiders in the. In the woods. Same thing that happens in the movie as in the book, essentially. And as they're captured by spiders, Bilbo is able to get away. In the. In the book, I believe he just doesn't get captured. Like.
• 26:20
  Speaker B: Yeah, I think you're correct.
• 26:21
  Speaker A: Yeah. In the movie, he does get captured, but then is able to kill a spider and get himself free. It doesn't really make a lot of sense how he was able to get his sword.
• 26:30
  Speaker B: Yeah, whatever.
• 26:32
  Speaker A: Because in the book. Yeah. He just doesn't ever get. He think he puts the ring on or they spider.
• 26:36
  Speaker B: He either puts the ring on or he hides. I can't remember which.
• 26:40
  Speaker A: And so he's able to be free. And so he starts, all the other dwarves get captured by the spiders and he has to go rescue them. And there's this little part of the book that I thought was a lot of fun because it really kind of fleshes out Bilbo as a character, as a little detail, is that one of the things he does initially to distract the spiders and actually kills a couple of them this way, I guess, is he's hurling rocks at them. And the book mentions that Bilbo is very good at throwing things. And it goes on this list of how he's great at darts and bowling and games of skill that involve tossing or throwing things. It's just a skill that Bilbo has acquired over the years and is very good at. And I thought that was a lot of fun, and I wish they had kept that in the. For his character. You know, it's not a big deal. I just thought it flushes Bilbo out as a character. And I enjoyed knowing that hobbits played bull and played darts.
• 27:33
  Speaker B: No, I think it is an interesting character tidbit that is kind of set apart from the main mission here.
• 27:43
  Speaker A: But also during that, his plan ultimately kind of comes down as he realizes he needs to lead the spiders away so that he can get, because all the doors are wrapped up in the trees and webs or whatever, and he needs to be able to get to them. So he's got to draw the spiders away. So in order to do that, he starts, like, taunting them by, like, singing songs at them and stuff like that. And he sings his songs with, like, insults in them, and they're insults I've never heard of. But I love this specific line from the book is that after he sings the songs at him and they all, like, chase after him and he's running through the woods, the book says, because quite apart from the stones, no spider ever liked being called attercop. And Tom Noddy, of course, is insulting to anybody.
• 28:24
  Speaker B: Of course. Of course.
• 28:26
  Speaker A: I don't know what either of those insults are or if they're even real insults. They might be made up, honestly. But with it being a british thing, they also might not be made up. I do not know. But I enjoyed that line and I liked that. That's some of the sort of british humor that these movies maybe could have had a little more of. I think potentially that feels something in line with. We talked about this in the first one. That feels more in line with something like a Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett style humor that this book actually has a little bit of where the narrator kind of does these jokey.
• 29:01
  Speaker B: Yeah. The narrator kind of pops in.
• 29:03
  Speaker A: Yeah. And tells some little, like jokes or whatever. And I think that's fun. And I would have enjoyed the. And obviously that line couldn't have been in the movie in any real reasonable way, but him insulting them and yelling names at them would have been fun.
• 29:20
  Speaker B: I really did not care for the part in the movie where they tear the spider's legs off.
• 29:26
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 29:27
  Speaker B: I was not a fan of that.
• 29:30
  Speaker A: If I were being attacked by a giant spider, my friends ripped all of its legs off and its body fell on me. I do not think I would ever recover. I think I would just. I would be done. My brain would break.
• 29:40
  Speaker B: To be fair, I don't think I would ever recover from being attacked by a giant.
• 29:43
  Speaker A: That's fair. This whole scene, just none of it. But that in particular. Cause the corpse of it, like, falls on his chest and I know it's a nightmare. It's horrifying. Absolutely not.
• 29:55
  Speaker B: Also, why are eight of you attacking the same spider? Come on. Anyway, so Legolas and Tariel show up and they kill the rest of the spiders and then arrest everybody except for Bilbo, who's got his invisibility ring on. And they take them off to the wood elf palace, the home of the wood elves, which I felt like looked too much like Rivendell for me.
• 30:25
  Speaker A: Interesting. I didn't have. I thought it looked unique enough to me. It still felt elven, but felt it's all kv. And it felt very different to Rivendell to me because it's built into this rock cave kind of thing and there's trees everywhere. I don't know. I thought it was cool and unique while still feeling reminiscent of other elven stuff we've seen, but obviously very subjective.
• 30:48
  Speaker B: Speaking of the wood elves, let's talk about the elephant in the room. That I feel like. I feel like is one of the main things that everybody brings up about these movies, which is Legolas and tarriel. I don't hate it. I think it makes sense that Legolas is there. I think there's a pretty good argument for him being there. And I actually. I don't dislike Tarriel at all. Yeah, I thought she was fine. And I totally get that they wanted a female character in this.
• 31:26
  Speaker A: Yeah. So I've fully come around on Legolas being in the movie. And I thought somebody had mentioned that in the last episode we were doing our prequel. I think it makes perfect sense for him to be there, and I'm totally fine with it. Having watched this one, we needed somebody. Somebody had to interact with Thranduil. There had to be soldiers and people there to interact with Thranduil. He's not going to be by himself, and Legolas would be there. So it makes perfect sense. And I think probably a lot of the criticisms wouldn't have. I think the criticism would have been lessened had he only been in this part and had not then gone out beyond this and, you know, become a bigger part of the story after this. I think people probably wouldn't have. I don't think people probably had a huge issue with him being in Mirkwood for this.
• 32:13
  Speaker B: Right. Because it makes perfect sense for him.
• 32:15
  Speaker A: To be absolutely be there. Like, of course, that being said, I have no problem at all with having him go out and more, I, like, I said, I like having somebody that can interact with Thranduil and give us kind of insight into what he's up to. And I think Legolas is. Makes perfect sense for that role, so. Yeah. Yeah. And I also liked Tariel. I thought she. I think she's fine.
• 32:35
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I think she's fine. I don't really have any huge opinions on her as, like, a character on her own.
• 32:44
  Speaker A: I guess the biggest negative I have about her is that she's kind of bland.
• 32:48
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 32:49
  Speaker A: She doesn't really have a lot of.
• 32:50
  Speaker B: She's not super interesting.
• 32:52
  Speaker A: She's not, like, super duper interesting, but she's not, like, completely, like, you know, she's got some attitude and personalities, but she doesn't, like, jump off the screen as a character, I guess, is maybe the biggest criticism I have of her.
• 33:03
  Speaker B: She's just kind of like a very bland, like, she's like a stock female badass character that they didn't really bother developing much outside of that. And I. The tariqili relationship. You have a note here.
• 33:26
  Speaker A: Yeah, I think it works fine on its own.
• 33:28
  Speaker B: I agree with you. I think it works fine on its own.
• 33:31
  Speaker A: I think they both do a pretty good job, and I think they have pretty good the actors, and I think they have pretty good chemistry. And I think it's kind of interesting to explore within the Tolkien universe a quote unquote interracial relationship, for lack of a better term. And I also don't even mind Legolas being weird about it, not liking it.
• 33:50
  Speaker B: I think it probably makes sense that he'd be weird about it.
• 33:52
  Speaker A: But for me, I wish. And so in this movie, I don't get any really further on this. I think it must be in the next movie in terms of, like, well.
• 34:01
  Speaker B: We find out that Legolas is into her.
• 34:04
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
• 34:04
  Speaker B: Thranduil says that to her.
• 34:06
  Speaker A: Oh, that's right. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yes.
• 34:09
  Speaker B: I really, really hate the love triangle.
• 34:11
  Speaker A: I would agree with that. And so do the filmmakers. So I really.
• 34:15
  Speaker B: I don't. I think it was unnecessary. We already had a good reason for Legolas to be weird about it, which is that he's a bigot.
• 34:24
  Speaker A: Yes. And that was what I liked. I was like, I actually think it makes a lot of sense. And it's interesting for Legolas to be, like, bigoted about it and, like. And, like, not want her to get, like, to be, like, making eyes with this guy, but not because he's also secretly in love with her, but because he's like, that's a dwarf. What the fuck is wrong with you? Like that. And then we get this. Cause that's good character growth for Legolas for the movies in the future, right? It did not need to be a love triangle thing at all.
• 34:49
  Speaker B: No, I don't.
• 34:50
  Speaker A: And again, the filmmakers agree with that. It was apparently a studio thing.
• 34:53
  Speaker B: Damn studios.
• 34:55
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 34:55
  Speaker B: You know, I just think it was, like, really unnecessary and an odd character motivation for Legolas. And also, I feel like, I guess it doesn't not work with his character in Lord of the Rings, but it also doesn't really work.
• 35:13
  Speaker A: You never get the vibe in any of the Lord of the Rings movies that Legolas cares at all about relationships. I mean, I don't know. I don't want to speak, but I wouldn't be surprised if Legolas was seen as sort of, like, ace representation to some extent in the Lord of the Rings movies.
• 35:32
  Speaker B: There's not mention really any indication that.
• 35:35
  Speaker A: I can remember of, like, any love interest, any attraction to anybody, any. Anything. Like, we know Gimli, I think, has a wife for some. Maybe not. He mentions at some point. Like, maybe not. Maybe I'm just thinking when he talks about how female dwarves have beards or something, I can't remember, but. And obviously, like, Aragorn and everybody else kind of ends up. I guess Frodo doesn't, but a lot of the other characters end up in relationships and different capacities and stuff like that. And so, yeah, it just doesn't. You never got the vibe from Legolas that he was remotely a person that would be like, a jealous lover. Like, that's just not. It just doesn't seem.
• 36:09
  Speaker B: It's really and truly not his vibe.
• 36:11
  Speaker A: No. He likes murdering orcs.
• 36:16
  Speaker B: Even also within Lord of the Rings, you would think that if he had this experience where he was in love with this other wood elf and she was in love with a dwarf. That that would be some kind of motivation for him later on. That, like, also fueled his dislike of dwarves later down the road, but we don't get that in Lord of the Rings, so, like, the whole thing just doesn't track.
• 36:47
  Speaker A: Yeah, no, I agree completely. I don't. And again, the filmmakers agree with us. It was literally some asshole at the studio or something who was like, no, we need a love triangle, probably because Twilight was, like, the first one had just right, I think, 2013.
• 37:05
  Speaker B: We were, like, right in the thick of twilight, I think.
• 37:08
  Speaker A: And, I mean, I don't know if that's the reason.
• 37:10
  Speaker B: Well, we were, like, right in the thick of the Hunger Games, too, which also doesn't really have a love triangle.
• 37:15
  Speaker A: But kind of does.
• 37:17
  Speaker B: Kind of does, yeah.
• 37:19
  Speaker A: At least on the surface, appears to. Yeah. And it has a love triangle in the way that a dumb studio executive would think that it has a love.
• 37:27
  Speaker B: Triangle and also very likely had that love triangle because of twilight. So I think we can safely blame twilight for the whole thing.
• 37:35
  Speaker A: I would imagine that is what's going on here. But I agree completely. It's dumb and makes no sense. And it was perfectly fine. And again, they said they had the kili tarial thing was, like, part of the script from the beginning, and I think that seems to track. Cause it works fine. At least in this movie, it works totally fine. Maybe not perfectly, but it's fine. I think some of their interactions feel a little stilted at times, but it's not, like, terrible. And I look at the interaction they have in the prison, like, their first interaction, I think it works well, and they have pretty good chemistry, and it's like a nice scene, but yeah, yeah, I agree.
• 38:10
  Speaker B: A little moment that I don't think was included in the movie. If it was, I missed it. When they make their escape in the barrels, before they all leave, Bilbo puts the keys that he stole back on the guards belts.
• 38:24
  Speaker A: So they won't get.
• 38:24
  Speaker B: So they won't get in trouble.
• 38:26
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yes. I don't think that was in the movie. At least catch it if it did happen. But, yeah, he's very nice. He doesn't want the guards to get in. He doesn't want to get in extra trouble. He knows they're going to get in some trouble. But if they have the keys, still, they can get.
• 38:40
  Speaker B: Right. They have the keys. Now we're just left to wonder how all the dwarves got out.
• 38:45
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 38:47
  Speaker B: So that brings me to the next elephant in the room. Barrels out of bond the barrel escapes. And I said this to you during the film, and you were like, yes, absolutely. I have the same note. Do we think that they made the barrel escape the way that they did just in Casey's, just in case he's universal or somebody wanted to make a little theme park ride?
• 39:20
  Speaker A: I assume I had the same note. I said, man, this feels like this barrelscape was envisioned to be recreated as a theme park ride. Because, yes, in the book, they are crammed into barrels and shut up.
• 39:32
  Speaker B: Sealed in.
• 39:33
  Speaker A: It's not acceptable.
• 39:33
  Speaker B: And they just, like, float down stream.
• 39:36
  Speaker A: Slowly and gently float down the river for, like a week or something. I don't know how long. A couple days or something. And in the movie, it's this big action thing. They're in these barrels that are. Which I don't even have a problem with. Like, I think that works fine in the movie, that, like, he doesn't spend all this time cramming him into barrels. And, like, there's elements I like about that. I actually have a note about it somewhere, I think, here towards the end or on the next part of this. But I don't even have a problem with them being floating in the barrels, like boats and stuff. I think it's a fine way to escape the thing and makes perfect sense. But, yeah, it definitely does still feel like there was a hope or a thought or something that this. Cause as far as I know, there is no, there's not Lord of the Rings rides anyway. Like, no park has the rights to.
• 40:22
  Speaker B: Lord of the Rings, dude.
• 40:23
  Speaker A: It's kind of crazy.
• 40:24
  Speaker B: But, I mean, I guess there could be something, like, in New Zealand that we don't know about. But as far as I know, there's nowhere in America that has Lord of the Rings rides.
• 40:33
  Speaker A: Yeah, not that I'm aware of either. But it does sure feel like that was what they were going for here. Cause it feels like a ride also during that sequence. Oh, no, they. And they only use it twice. They. There's. During the whole barrel sequence as they're going down the river there. I think it's twice, maybe three times. Very quick shots of the camera in the water and, like, going under the water and coming up. That is shot, I think, on a GoPro and a GoPro from, like, 2012. And the quality of the footage stands out so horribly against the. The footage shot on the regular cameras or whatever. I don't know what they shot the Hobbit on, but.
• 41:21
  Speaker B: But presumably nice cameras.
• 41:23
  Speaker A: Incredible. Not presumably incredibly expensive cameras with incredibly expensive lenses. I can't imagine their film. Because I think they shot this on. No, they actually might have shot it digitally. I don't know. I'd have to go back and look at that. But, yeah, no, incredibly expensive $100,000 cameras or something with $30,000 lenses or. I don't even know, like, just insanely expensive cameras. And so when you cut in a shot on a $300 GoPro, which I swear, I think it looks like a goPro, it's that quality of footage. It's so jarringly out of place. And the fact that they only did it, like, twice legitimately made me wonder if there was some sort of weird marketing tie in with GoPro and they were, like, legally required to include at least one, you know, like, some footage of it made me wonder that, because if I'm the filmmaker, like, sure. You want to try that? You want to shoot it and see?
• 42:23
  Speaker B: Yeah, let's get some footage, see what it looks like.
• 42:26
  Speaker A: Get in that edit room. You look at it and go, oh, God, this isn't. No, absolutely not. Just absolutely not. Like, you're just not using. It's insane. And to me, to the point where I was like, I wonder if they. They had to use it.
• 42:38
  Speaker B: They had that gopro money.
• 42:40
  Speaker A: I don't know, but it's crazy.
• 42:44
  Speaker B: The other thing in the barrel scene that I had forgotten about was bomber. I'm pretty sure it's bomber that does this. The barrel warrior, when he's in the barrel and he just sticks his arms out and is swinging swords around. So stupid.
• 43:09
  Speaker A: It's really dumb.
• 43:10
  Speaker B: It's stupid.
• 43:11
  Speaker A: They shot the hobbit on red epics, apparently, by the way, which are digital cameras. But, yeah, no, it's so skoofy. It's also completely cg, which is funny because it's like, it's just a guy on a barrel.
• 43:23
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's just a guy in a barrel.
• 43:24
  Speaker A: Like, it shouldn't be that. Okay, sure. The whole barrel sequence, I actually don't mind the barrel sequence up until the gate. Like, they get. They go and they get launched out of the thing and they're going down this little part of the river, like, in the elf area still, and they hit that gate that, like, leads out to the main part of the river and up until the gate. I think it's like, fine. Cause it's. I guess it's not. It's not nearly as much cgI. It's like, on a set, and it's, like, mostly all practical and stuff. And I think all that works, like, pretty good. And it's fun and exciting. But especially after they go through that gate again, there's still some fun moments. I like the little thing where they're all. The orcs are on the. On the tree across the river and as they're going by, they all hit it with their axe, like one time and then it splits and they all fall in the stuff. Like, that's kind of fun. But, man, some of that stuff, like you said, the bomber barrel thing, some of the stuff with Legolas, it's also.
• 44:21
  Speaker B: When he was hopping on their heads across the river.
• 44:25
  Speaker A: It's so chaotic and cartoony. It's just all the worst parts of the Legolas stuff from the Lord of.
• 44:33
  Speaker B: The Rings movies, which Legolas does cool shit.
• 44:37
  Speaker A: Yes, which I love when Legolas does cool shit. Like, he was my favorite character as a kid watching those movies because he did the coolest shit and that was the reason I thought he was awesome. But even the Lord of the Rings movies, on rewatching some of the Legolas.
• 44:52
  Speaker B: Moments, well, especially by return of the king. Especially by return of the King, it's hedging on very over the top, but it's still cool.
• 45:02
  Speaker A: Like, at least intermittent enough that it's not like, you know, it doesn't.
• 45:06
  Speaker B: But, like, this scene especially, there is so much legolas doing cool shit crammed into this one. It's like a highlight reel of all his best shit.
• 45:17
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's just so chaotic. It just becomes too much. It just kind of becomes noise and you're just like, good Lord. Like, it's. And this movie suffers from that a lot. I have a similar note about the end of it, which we'll get to, but it's just. Yeah, I really just could have been dialed back, like, because I don't hate the idea of this action scene. It's actually a really fun idea for this scene because, again, the version in the book is that they just miserably.
• 45:44
  Speaker B: Float down a river, you know, kind of boring.
• 45:47
  Speaker A: Yeah. And so, like, I don't mind this idea of, like, turning this into an action scene where they're floating down the river and people are attacked. Like, that could be fun. But they just did too much with it. Like, it just. They had 8000 ideas and they did all 8000 of them. They should have had 8000 ideas and done 4000 of them or something. It's just a little too much. And like I said, despite some. So because that's the other thing, is that I actually also liked the element in the book where they do get crammed into the barrels when they finally get to lake town at the end of it, I actually, like Bilbo pulls them out and they're all half dead and miserable because they've been crammed in these barrels for days and they're all just, like. They haven't eaten. They haven't.
• 46:31
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 46:31
  Speaker A: They're just literally, like, on death's door. And obviously, that wouldn't make for super exciting movie, like, a movie moment. But something about how miserable it sounds. Like, I could really commiserate with the. Like it sounded. So the idea of being shoved in a barrel for, like, three days, floating down a river was so, like, palpably terrifying and miserable to me. And I'm not even claustrophobic. But just the idea of being shoved in a barrel, not being able to get out of it for three days or whatever was so awful that you really feel formed by the end of it. And it kind of helps you. Like, I don't know. It made me feel for the dwarves. And I don't know. Again, I understand changing it, and I'm not even opposed to it because I like the idea of the action sequence. There's also something I like about the fact that because it kind of ties into. We're talking about how they kind of just luck into everything. And it's not this, like, grand. And that's part of the issue with this big action sequence is, like, it's not this grand, amazing thing that, like, spectacle is. Like, some parts of this are just, like, miserable and, like, luck. And part of them being shoved into barrels for a couple days as they float down the river is one of those things that just, like, really highlights how miserable parts of this journey are. And there really isn't anything like that in the movie, at least. You know what I mean?
• 47:51
  Speaker B: I agree.
• 47:52
  Speaker A: Their journey seems relatively, like, other than fighting things, their journey seems relatively easy. It does not seem all that miserable, which that is actually kind of a big part of the book is how, like, boring and miserable and awful. Traveling across a country by foot is, like, you know, and I just don't think the movie remotely captures that. And again, I understand why. Cause that's not exactly super thrilling for your blockbuster summer action movie. It's not really super thrilling stuff. But it does take away a little bit from kind of what the book is doing, in my opinion.
• 48:27
  Speaker B: I don't know. Lord of the Rings did it.
• 48:30
  Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, yeah, that's true for sure. Especially. Yeah. With.
• 48:33
  Speaker B: I'm just saying.
• 48:33
  Speaker A: Yeah. No, I'm not saying it's impossible. I'm just saying. Yeah, that's fair.
• 48:38
  Speaker B: I was a little torn about how they got into Laketown. I had the same versus movie like, given the remarkably darker tone of the film, I think it makes sense that they have to be smuggled in.
• 48:54
  Speaker A: It also helps set up the political plot line in Lake town, which I think I like.
• 49:00
  Speaker B: But I also found the idea of the entire town aggressively celebrating at them really funny.
• 49:07
  Speaker A: Yes. No, I agree. I thought that as well, because in the book, they show up and Thorin's like, hey, I'm Thorin King under the Mountain. And they're like, oh, holy shit. Yeah. And they all love them. Yeah. I also. A little detail in the book that I really enjoyed that is not mentioned but doesn't happen in the movie, is that during that, when they get there and they're like, hey, I'm Thor, and this is my dwarves. We're going to take back the mountain and to get back all your riches and everything. The elves, because they were floating down the river with the elves from Mirkwood or whatever. And while they're there and everybody's, like, celebrating them and stuff, the elves are like, they were our prisoners. And everybody's just like, ah, who cares? Fuck you. Which I thought was funny.
• 49:50
  Speaker B: I really liked the bit in the book about how there were constantly people camped outside their house singing, too.
• 49:58
  Speaker A: Yeah. I have this line that I really enjoyed because it's a title drop for a future book. In this book, I think it's in reference to the master of the town. This is the narrator of the book. Like, the narrator essentially has this line, I think. And I think it's in reference to the master of the town, who thinks that they're like scammers. Essentially. He thinks, like Thorne and them. They're not actually. He thinks they're like, yeah, they're like grifters. They're grifters or whatever. And the line is, he thought it far more likely that they were grifters than it was the return of the king under the Mountain. And I was just like, oh, okay. All right.
• 50:41
  Speaker B: We also get more timeline speeding up in this part. Specifically, one thing that I thought was really interesting is that when they eventually do cross the lake to get to the mountain, it takes them two days, like two days straight of rowing to get across the lake.
• 50:59
  Speaker A: Yeah. In the book, they also spend two weeks in Lake town. And in the movie, I think they say they're there for a day and a half. Cause they're there.
• 51:07
  Speaker B: They come in, and then they immediately are like, okay, we gotta go.
• 51:10
  Speaker A: Well. Cause they say tomorrow or the day after is durin's day. So we have to get to the mountain by then. It's like. So they're literally in lake town for like a day. Not that it matters, but again, it just pulls back a little bit. The epic nature of the quest when it seems to happen over the span of a month instead of the span of like eight months in the book because they say they started in spring or something or summer, and they get to the mountain in the beginning of winter. So it's been like months, at least like four or five months, if not longer. And, yeah, again, it's not a huge deal because I understand speeding up a little bit for the movie, but it does kind of lessen, again, the epic nature of the story we're telling. Another thing that the movie didn't capture at all that I thought was kind of interesting in the book is that as they get closer and closer to the mountain, they actually get to a point. They enter the land that Smaug has already destroyed and desolated, and it's super barren and sad and scorched and there's nothing there. And the movie kind of shows us actually went back and double checked. There's a scene where they're walking through and the movie kind of shows it, but to me it just looks more arid and mountain. Yeah. And it doesn't really look like it was destroyed by a Dragon 100 years ago or whatever, necessarily. I guess that's probably what they're going for. But I don't know. It just didn't have the same feel to me as what I was imagining in the book as almost like this alien planet wasteland kind of thing to me in the movie, it just kind of ends up looking like. Yeah, like arid mountains. Which again, because they're shooting it on location. So I assume that's just like the best thing they could find. That kind of looked like what they were going for, but a little disappointing because it also really fucks with their mood. As they get closer to the mountain, they're excited, but then also they're in this horrifying, empty landscape and they're like, this sucks. But speaking of, as they get to the mountain, there's this line in the movie that is very clearly a thing that was filmed. And then when they went in edit and post production doing the CGI, they created something entirely different. And it makes. No, it makes sense. They're looking for the way. The path up to the secret door.
• 53:21
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 53:21
  Speaker A: And Thorin is like, got his map and he's like, okay, according to map, it should be around here somewhere, like the path.
• 53:27
  Speaker B: And they're all like, they're all sprayed.
• 53:29
  Speaker A: Splayed out, looking around. And Bilbo is standing in the foreground in front of the camera. And he goes there, look. And he points and they look. And then Thorne comes up and goes, good eyes, Master Bilbo, or something like that. You have keen eyes, Master Bilbo. And then the camera cuts and shows it. And it is a giant, ornate carved staircase in the side of the mountain that weaves back and forth. And there's a giant statue of a dwarf carved next to it.
• 53:58
  Speaker B: It's impossible to miss it.
• 54:00
  Speaker A: Impossibly miss it.
• 54:01
  Speaker B: Who could not miss it if you were trying to miss it?
• 54:04
  Speaker A: But in the book, that makes more sense. Like, if they're in the books version, they spin a lot of time trying to find this path and then ultimately to find the door. And it takes them a long time to find it. And so I imagine when they were filming it. Cause they didn't have this all planned out, what it was gonna look like and stuff like that. I imagine when they were filming it, they were like, oh, it's gonna be, you know, this like kind of hidden path.
• 54:24
  Speaker B: Because it's supposed to be.
• 54:26
  Speaker A: Yes. And so that's what they did when they filmed it. But then in post, they're like, well, we need it to look cool. It's gotta look cool. It's gotta be a big cool thing.
• 54:34
  Speaker B: No, it doesn't.
• 54:35
  Speaker A: And so it doesn't. They did this big cg thing and then it's just like. But now that just cut that line. Then I guess like, you just have Bilbo go, look, there it is. And they go, ah. Like that. I don't know. That almost felt like a thing where they left that line in, like to troll the like again. Because I almost wonder if, like the, like, you gotta make it. This big cool staircase was like a studio note. And Peter Jackson was like, fucking, it's not. Okay, fine. And he does it, but he's like, but I'm leaving that lining because this is stupid. I don't know, I just. It's so. It doesn't make any sense.
• 55:04
  Speaker B: Meanwhile, in all of this, Gandalf has been investigating at Dol Guldurous and I would need to watch fellowship again. I had the sense it's been a bit since I watched Fellowship or any of the Lord of the Rings movies, but I feel like a hard launch of Sauron doesn't really track with the continuity of the original trilogy.
• 55:33
  Speaker A: I had the same note. That was my biggest potential issue with the Sauron stuff is I don't dislike all the stuff with Saruma or Gandalf and Sauron investigating Dulgadar. I think that's all fine. My biggest issue is, like, how well does that play with the Gandalf and Sauron of the Lord of the Rings movie? Yeah, I had the same note. I was like, I'll need to rewatch those to see how well it feels like the Gandalf of that movie has gone through the events of these movies. Because I just wasn't sure that at all tracked and made sense.
• 56:07
  Speaker B: I really don't think. Because it is like. I'm not joking when I say that it was a hard launch.
• 56:12
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 56:13
  Speaker B: Like, we see him, he says his name, we hear the name Sauron. He appears as a human shaped figure, which we don't ever look like Sauron.
• 56:23
  Speaker A: From the prologue of the original movie, essentially. Which he does not appear as a human figure in the Lord of the Rings movie.
• 56:31
  Speaker B: No, he's just an eye.
• 56:33
  Speaker A: And I assume that somehow. Well, so. But he is an eye in this one, too. They kind of. Cause, like, the human figure is the eye split. Like, I don't know. It's like, it's an interesting visual element, like, idea. But it. I don't. Again, I agree. I don't know how well, it.
• 56:51
  Speaker B: Yeah, because, like, I'm, like, thinking back to the beginning of fellowship and I feel like when Gandalf sends Frodo out on his task to take the ring to Rivendell, it's more. The vibe is more like, oh, it's as I suspected. Dark forces are moving and we fear that this thing may. May be happening. And I was like, but this movie makes it seem like the thing has already happened.
• 57:18
  Speaker A: Right. I know. I agree. I agree completely. I had the same thought. And I was like, I don't know. That was my main issue with the way this all ties in. It's like, I just not sure that this all tracks. But I don't know. Because it's been a while since I. Yeah, maybe it doesn't, but I suspect.
• 57:34
  Speaker B: Yes, I suspect it doesn't, but maybe it works better than I'm remembering.
• 57:37
  Speaker A: It's very possible. I had a question that I was a little confused at. Why the master? So the bard, when the stuff starts happening with the dragon, and then the bard is like, bard. I keep calling the bard because it's a. It's a, you know, a job.
• 57:52
  Speaker B: Bard the bowmande.
• 57:54
  Speaker A: Yeah. He grabs a black arrow because he's the descendant of Gerion, or I swear, in the movie, they said Gideon, but in the book, it's Gerion, and he's the descendant of him. And he apparently has this black arrow, which is, as far as I can tell, not a thing. In the book. In the book, it's just like, he's an archer. He shoots arrows.
• 58:13
  Speaker B: Yeah, well, he does have a black arrow, but it's not, like a fabled thing. That's the only thing that can kill smaug.
• 58:20
  Speaker A: Yeah, but anyway, so he has his black arrow, and he's going to go to the, they have the wind lance, this special arrow launcher Ballista thing. But as he's heading there, he gets arrested by the masters of the Laketown's people. And I wasn't really sure why.
• 58:38
  Speaker B: I agree that the movie does not do a great job of explaining whatever friction is going on there. I think we're meant to infer that the master of Laketown is worried about him usurping. Yeah. Like, intimidated by the fact that he's the last descendant of the lords of Dale.
• 58:55
  Speaker A: I agree.
• 58:55
  Speaker B: But there's not, like, a ton to go on there.
• 58:58
  Speaker A: Yeah, that stuff's definitely there. I was just a little confused at, like, why specifically he arrested. It's like, trumped up, made up charges. Cause, yeah, he's whatever. But it was just, I thought it was a little clumsy, that specific element. There's a great moment in the book where as Bilbo's getting ready to go down and kind of investigate for the first time inside the mountainous where none of the doors, like, want to come in with him. And he, like, gives him grief for it. And he's like, you guys fucking, like, doran's, like, kind of, like, dancing around, like, having him go down there and Bill was like, come on, man. I'm just fucking. Just gonna go do it. I don't know. I just enjoyed that. There's an incredible line in the book that did not make it into the movie, at least as far as I recall, which is when they're kind of thinking about their plans. And this is from the Nairobi. He alludes to the fact that the dwarves are something hadn't thought about, hadn't considered the dragon into some part of their plan or something. And the line in the book is it does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations if you live near him, which I think is a great line. I love that. So in the book, Bilbo goes down the first time and he just kind of investigates and he steals a little cup and leaves and that ends up waking up. Smile. But in the movie that all kind of happens in one interaction, which I think is fine. But in the book, he goes down the first time and then comes back a second time. But I like that in the first one after he steals the cup and then Smaug wakes up and flies off and starts destroying the mountain and stuff and looking for them, the dwarves are giving him, Bilbo, a bunch of grief about stealing the cup and waking up smog. And he's like, hey, you fuckers, it's not my job to kill the dragon. What did you think was going to happen? You guys are here to deal with the dragon. I am a thief. I stole something.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker B: I was hired for thieving, not dragon killing.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker A: And they all shut up real quick. And I wish we had seen some version of that scene in the movie. Maybe we will in the third one. I don't know.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker B: I didn't really like how Bilbo in the movie reveals himself to Smaug really early because he's invisible for most of it in the book. And I get that we're kind of dealing with slightly altered ring lore, but I don't know, I just liked the idea of him being a disembodied voice riddling with the dragon.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker A: I agree.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker B: Also, I didn't really understand how Smaug would know any of the stuff that he kind of alludes to knowing during that conversation in the movie about Sauron.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker A: I think maybe that'll get revealed potentially in the future one we do find out. I think that maybe Saruman is communing with him in some way or something. I think maybe is what's going on there potentially. I don't know.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker B: Yeah, I just didn't. I was like, he's supposed to have been asleep in the mountain for 60 years. But I also didn't understand how he would know the name Oakenshield. Cause we know from the first movie that that was a name he took on after the events at Yrebor. So, like, how would he know?
• 1:02:14
  Speaker A: I think the idea must be that he has been somehow receiving news from somewhere communicating with Saruman or Sauron or something.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker B: Yeah, I really liked the moment in the book where Bilbo kind of plays to Smaug's ego and tricks him into showing off his underbelly and he's able to spy little bear patch that he has. Whereas in the movie he just kind of happens to see it.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker A: Yeah. And the thing I really love about that in the book is that the way it's revealed to us as a reader is that it's not set up at all. But we start, like, Bilbo starts doing a thing where he's, like goading him into showing him his thing and the narration is like. But Bilbo had alternative reasons for doing what he was doing. And you're like, what? What are you talking about? And it's revealed that Bilbo, the last time he was there, noticed something going on with the scales on Smaug's stomach or like chest or whatever. And so this time he had this plan to kind of, like, investigate more. And I thought that was fun. I enjoyed that. And, yeah, in the movie, he just kind of notices it. Now. We have a note about later. It's set up earlier in the movie in a different way.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker B: Right.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker A: Which is fine, but yeah.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker B: And no, it was just a little bit disappointing because I felt like the first movie did a pretty good job of setting up Bilbo as clever and being able to kind of talk his way in and out of situations. And I didn't feel like that continued in this installment.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker A: It does, but just not as much. Cause obviously the whole interaction with Smaug is kind of a little bit of that. But yes, it definitely, in the first movie they actually dialed it up a bit from the book. And in this one, it's really just what is in the book. And they don't add to it at all or even keep, in fact, they kind of reduce it.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker B: Yeah, they kind of dial it down.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker B: Because he's kind of clever like that with the spiders too, in the book, which we don't see in the movie. So then we get our other big action set piece, which is another thing that kind of looks like they wanted it to be a ride someday. Like the little, like carts on the track. I was like, all right. Okay.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker A: And then Thorin, like, riding down the wheelbarrow.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker A: On the gold. And. Yeah, lots of that kind of. Of stuff which that in particular I just thought was really goofy. Like the part where Thorin, like, rides the.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker B: I thought this whole sequence was just goofy.
• 1:04:47
  Speaker A: Yeah. I had the same thing. I thought the whole thing with Smaug in Erebor, with the dwarves is it's just too much.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker A: Again, I like a lot of the other action scenes they add to this movie in general, like a part of, like, I have a note later, but I like the stuff in Laketown and all that sort of stuff. But this in particular in Erebor with the dwarves. I don't even dislike all the elements of it. It's just. It's too much. It's too long. It goes on too long. The scene where Thorin, like, they're in that, like, mine shaft that goes way down.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker B: Oh, my God.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker A: And then Smaug falls down in it. And then Thorin lands on Smaug's mouth.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker B: Right on his snout.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker A: And, like, it's so goofy. It's so goofy. And it's just the whole thing ends up. It goes on so long, it gets kind of exhausting. Come on, let's. We know.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker B: And it's just, like, movement and chaos.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker A: Yeah. I liked the addition of smaug lighting the forges. Like, I have this note here because, like, lighting the forges and then I even like them trying to cover him in gold. I think that's a, like, molten gold is, like, a fun idea. Like, visually. And the way he, like, bursts out of it and shakes it all off at the end. Some of that stuff is really cool. But I just think we could have gotten to that a lot quicker. Like, we didn't need as much of the stuff before that confrontation in the hall of Kings. I think we could have gotten there a whole lot quicker. And this goes back to one of the things we said earlier where this scene is so long. And then early in the movie, so much of the pacing felt like we were breakneck through Mirkwood and some of the other stuff where it felt like you could have cut ten minutes out of this ending and given it to the beginning of this movie and it would have really evened out the pacing overall.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker B: But, you know, the other place that I feel like this scene failed for me was that it kind of made me feel bad for Smaug.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker A: In what way?
• 1:06:36
  Speaker B: Like, I don't know. They're, like, fighting and, like, the scene where they're, like, throwing ropes on him and, like. I don't know, I was like. I kind of feel bad for him right now.
• 1:06:46
  Speaker A: No, that is fair. That is fair.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker B: Yeah, maybe he's got, like, squatters rights. Like, he's been here for a long time and I kind of feel like now you guys just came in and are being.
• 1:06:57
  Speaker A: You're not wrong. I don't. Yeah, not wrong. One of the little details that I would have. I say this. I actually wouldn't. I understand why they got rid of this. But it's mentioned in the book that during this whole ending scene where at one point, Bilbo is trying to escape from like run back up the tunnel from Smaug. And Smaug shoots fire at him. And it like catches the back of Bilbo and they get up there and they're like, they put the fire out. And the book says that it took like quite a while for, I believe, his eyelash, his eyebrows and the hair on the back of his head to grow back. And I would have been very funny to me if the rest. If the rest of this movie and the whole third movie, Bilbo just had a giant singed, like patch of his hair missing on the back of his head and his eyebrows were like committed.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker B: To eyebrow less Bilbo.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker A: Yeah. Would have been. It would have been funny. Obviously. Again, I don't actually want them to have done that, but it would have been funny in a, in a way.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker B: I do think we should mention that in this scene is when Thorin loses the blue coat that he supposedly hated.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker A: Brown.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker B: Brown coat.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker A: Yeah. It's like a brown furry kind of like coat.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker B: Because we talked about it in the prequel.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker A: We did talk about in the prequel and that. Yeah. They shoot the fire at him and it catches his coat on fire and he gets rid of it. I will say he had it for quite a long time in this movie. Like from the time they leave Laketown or even before. Yeah. I think at least from the time they leave.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker B: Yeah. He gets the coat in Laketown.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker B: One last thing. A line from Smaug in the book that I really liked as he's flying off towards Laketown and he says, like, they shall see me and remember who is the real king under the mountain. I just thought that was really good.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker A: It's badass.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker B: Tickled me in the right spots.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker A: All right. That was everything we thought was better in the book. Let's go ahead and find out what we thought was better in the movie. My life has taught me one lesson, Hugo, and not the one I thought it would. Happy endings only happen in the movies. I didn't mind the opening where we open kind of on a little prologue. I say prologue, but it's like a flashback to where Gandalf and Thorin meet at the end of the prancing pony, I think in Bree. And we get a little bit of backstory on the Arkenstone and Thorin's plans and what's going on there. I thought that was a fine way to bring us back into the story. Give us a little bit of information without just literally jumping right back in where we ended the last movie. So I thought that was a nice little.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker B: Yeah, I didn't even have a note about this part because I didn't know where to put it because I was like, it's fine, it's fine.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker A: It's not super necessary, but I think it serves its purpose. Fine.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker B: Yeah. In the last episode, we talked about the character design for Azog, which I felt was pretty boring.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 1:09:46
  Speaker B: I think he should have just looked like Bolg. It's basically the same character design, but Bolg's far more interesting looking.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker A: I don't necessarily disagree. And the thing that I thought was really fascinating, and I kind of had this in better in the book, I guess, or whatever, is that I was like, okay. Oh. So Bulg shows up and I'm like. And Azog kind of hands off villain duties to him because Azog gets recruited by Sauron to, like, go lead the army to do something or whatever. And he kind of calls Bogan and is like, hey, I got a job for you. You got to go find Thorne. Cause I want to kill him.
• 1:10:19
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:10:20
  Speaker A: And I was like, oh, okay. So. Cause again, I don't. I didn't remember much of what happened. I was like, oh, I assume that we're doing this so that we'll hand off. Azog's gonna hand off this to Bolg so that Bolg can become the villain for this movie, and then we can have him killed at the end of this movie. And then that brings us to Azog, a big final confrontation with Azog in the next movie. I was like, whatever. It's kind of clumsy, but like, fine, but like, sure, sure, you wanna give us a big fight at the end of this one where we can kill Bolg, but then they don't kill Bolg. In this one. He fights Legolas at the end and then gets away, and Legolas chases after him, but they don't kill him. And it felt particularly strange to me to introduce another slightly different orc villain who's basically the same.
• 1:11:06
  Speaker B: Cause he's basically the same.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker A: Yeah, but like, slightly different, except we have no history with him or anything. And AidsoG just disappears from this movie, which is weird because it's a cg character. It's not like the actor couldn't be there. I don't understand. It's such an interesting choice to me. And again, I thought the only reason you would do that would be to kill off. Now, maybe that's the beginning of the maybe part of it is they didn't know where were gonna end this movie. And actually wouldn't be surprised me if they weren't exactly sure how they wanted this movie to end. And maybe they. Cuz I don't, I don't remember.
• 1:11:42
  Speaker B: Maybe the next movie, maybe like the.
• 1:11:43
  Speaker A: Opening action sequence of the next movie, Legolas kills Bolg or something like that. And they kind of thought maybe that was gonna be like climax, a part of the climax of this movie that could make sense. I don't. I don't know. I'm just trying to figure out. Because it's such an interesting choice.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's a weird decision.
• 1:12:00
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's very strange. I liked the decision to swap it. So in the book, Bilbo pulls out his dagger at one point and he kills the spider that's trying to get him. And then after that, he looks down at it and goes, I shall call you sting, or something like that. And in this one in the movie, he stabs the spider. And the spider, as it's dying, says, it stings. It stings and dies. And this kind of gives Bilbo the idea for the name. And I thought that worked pretty well.
• 1:12:31
  Speaker B: Yeah, I liked that. Pretty good update.
• 1:12:34
  Speaker A: Because I'm not really sure that there isn't really anything that prompts the name sting in the book. He just kind of like, oh, you're like a nice little sting. It's like I get. I don't know, it's fine. It's not like an issue in the book. I just. I thought it made sense to have it. You know, it was so funny that I realized on this time on reading and that I was like, when I got to that point in the book, I was like, oh, I thought he named it that because that's what the spiders called it. And then I realized that's in the movie and not the book.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker B: There's a little moment in the Spider fight sequence where Bilbo drops the ring. He loses it briefly, and then as he's going to get it back, a spider comes up out of the ground like a hole in the ground. And he just goes absolutely ham killing this spider to make sure he gets the ring back and then kind of has like a little crisis about it as he's sitting there. And I thought that was really interesting.
• 1:13:33
  Speaker A: No, I liked that because it also appears to be like a baby spider or a young. It doesn't look like the rest of the spiders.
• 1:13:39
  Speaker B: Yeah, it looks weird.
• 1:13:40
  Speaker A: It looks small and weird or something to where I think it's supposed to be like a baby or a young spider. And again, I agree. I like this scene, adding it to kind of show the corrupting power of the ring and how it messes with people. I think it's also, I could be wrong, but it looks like after he gets it back and he holds it up and he goes, this is mine, or whatever, he looks down the barrel of the camera, I think, which I thought was kind of an effective moment.
• 1:14:05
  Speaker B: For that, a little moment when Legolas apprehends all of the dwarves and they're taking all of their weapons and things off of them. And he takes gloin has his little family locket. Locket with little family photos in it. And he says, that one's my wee lad, Gimli.
• 1:14:30
  Speaker A: Yeah, well. Cause Legolas goes, and what's this abomination? Like? He's like this ugly abomination, blah, blah, blah. And he goes, that's my wee lad, Gimli. It's cheap ass fan service, but I liked it.
• 1:14:42
  Speaker B: This is the way that I prefer fanservice to be, honestly, like a quick wink and then we're done.
• 1:14:49
  Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, yeah, I don't disagree. I liked it a lot. I could see people rolling their eyes at it, but I thought it was fun. And I actually really. I said earlier that I had come around and was on board with Legolas being in this, but I also. One of the reasons I was on board with it is I actually really enjoyed seeing this early asshole version of Legolas that's like, you know, a little different than the. The version where we come to know, especially by the end of the Lord of the Rings movies where he is, you know, he's become friends with Gimli and he's kind of mellowed out a little bit.
• 1:15:22
  Speaker B: Even by fellowship. He's mellowed out from what we see here.
• 1:15:26
  Speaker A: Yes. But even then, he's still pretty dramatic through a lot of those movies and he still has some of that severe nature. But in this one, it's that amplified, like, by a million where he's like, super, like, I'm a fucking badass self and I'm always like, you know, and he's just like an asshole all the time and he hates dwarves. And I thought that was fun, seeing that, like, this early, early, like, going back even further and seeing the earlier version of Legolas to kind of contrast it with the eventual legolas we see down the road in Lord of the Rings movies. I enjoyed it.
• 1:15:58
  Speaker B: Yeah. I thought that having thranduil already know who Thorin was and kind of what he was up to was an interesting added kind of wrinkle.
• 1:16:09
  Speaker A: Yeah. I was a little confused about how he knew this.
• 1:16:13
  Speaker B: Well, because we see at the. I remember at the beginning of the first movie when he, like, shows up with his army and then dramatically turns away.
• 1:16:22
  Speaker A: Right. That's fair. Yeah. And that's true. That's not mentioned at all in the. In the book. Because in the book, he has no idea. And he's, like, interrogating them.
• 1:16:29
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 1:16:29
  Speaker A: Who are you? Where are you going? What's your whole deal? And in this one, he's like, Thorin, huh? You're going back to that mountain. And he, like, gives him a proposition, essentially of like, hey, I'll help you or I'll release you and, like, let you go if you me something.
• 1:16:45
  Speaker B: Yeah. He was like, we'll even. I'll even, like, help you out if you'll give me, like, a share in the treasure or something like that.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker A: Something very specific. I can't remember what. But anyways. Yeah, yeah. Essentially he wants. He wants something from. From the mountain. Yeah. I thought that was fine. I enjoyed that too. I thought it added an interesting wrinkle and also helped complicate their relationship. Or not complicate, but added a. Kept moving their dynamic forward towards the eventual conclusion of the story with the battle of the five armies and all that sort of stuff.
• 1:17:12
  Speaker B: So, yeah, when they escape in the barrels, in the book, as the barrels are floating out, Bilbo, all of a sudden, he's got the ring on. And all of a sudden he's like, oh, shit, I'm not in a barrel. And just jumps onto one, if I'm remembering right.
• 1:17:26
  Speaker A: Yeah. He essentially jumps on top of one of the other barrels.
• 1:17:30
  Speaker B: And I thought that the movie having the trapdoor thing close, and then he's just standing there and he's like, wait a second. I thought that was a fun expansion on what happens in the book.
• 1:17:42
  Speaker A: And then the guard start coming. He's trying to figure out how to get the door back open, and he's, like, stepping on it and it won't open. Then he walks to the end of it and he slides. It's fun. It's a good comic beat. I enjoyed it. There's a little moment that I. So during this whole chaos of the barrelscape sequence, I did, like, one very little specific moment is there's this moment where I think Legolas or somebody cuts an orc's head off. It's a completely CG orc. Completely. Everything about it. CG. But he cuts the CG head off and the orc head falls and hits the camera, and the camera like, shakes it like, bounces off the camera lens. I love little shit like that. And I think it's particularly fun when it's like, because one, it's fun when that stuff actually happens in movies and they leave it in like, that's enjoyable. And I get some people might think it's kind of hack to like, add that when it's not, when it's not a natural thing, but I enjoy shit like that. To me, it's a very Peter Jackson moment. And I dug the CG Orc head bouncing off the camera and shit, shaking the camera. So I haven't finished the book yet.
• 1:18:46
  Speaker B: Nor have I.
• 1:18:47
  Speaker A: But I don't believe any of this whole political backstory in Laketown is from the book.
• 1:18:51
  Speaker B: I think you're right. Yeah, I don't think it is.
• 1:18:53
  Speaker A: I mean, there's alluded to a little bit in the book where we kind of get the idea that the master is like this kind of shitty, conniving guy. But that's about it, at least so far from what I've gotten to in the book. I don't think it's also strictly necessary, but with expanding the movie or the book into three movies and adding more to Laketown and stuff, I think it works fine. And I think it's kind of interesting. And I'll never be against adding a proletariat uprising. I don't know if that's what happens, but that's kind of, there's the rich asshole master of the town or whatever is hoarding stuff. And he has a great speech that feels very constantly politically topical where him and his little toady Grima, fake wannabe grima wormtongue is like. Like they're talking about the people and the guy's like, oh, they're, and he has this whole speech about how they're, they'll take the choices we get. I can't remember, but it's. I thought it was like fairly fun and interesting political intrigue. And speaking of Lake town, I also really liked one introducing the bard early. Or Bard, I can't not. Bard is a title slash job. It's not a name. I liked Bard slowly realizing who Thorne is because we talked about this earlier, how in the book they show up and immediately he's like, I'm Thorin. And they're like, oh, my God, Thor. And in this one, they show up and Bard has no idea who they are. And then he kind of like, hides them initially, and then he starts getting an inkling like they might. He's like, Thorin. That name sounds familiar. And then he goes. And he goes to this, like, tapestry shop. And he finds an old tapestry and looks and it's got like the dwarfen lineage on it.
• 1:20:35
  Speaker B: Yeah. It has like the family tree.
• 1:20:36
  Speaker A: Yeah. And he looks and finds that Thorin is the son of.
• 1:20:40
  Speaker B: Son of Thror and Thrar.
• 1:20:44
  Speaker A: No, Thrain, I think. And Thror. Or vice versa. Thrain and Thror. I don't remember which one's which, but I'm pretty sure Thrain is his dad and Thror is his granddad. Whatever.
• 1:20:52
  Speaker B: Think you're right.
• 1:20:53
  Speaker A: Cause Thrain's still alive and I don't think. Well, whatever, who cares? It doesn't really matter. The point being I liked him kind of like that. Slowly revealing it. Cause it allows us to learn about this prophecy with him. Because he's like, oh, the prophecy. Like. And he mentions it. I thought it was a good way where we as an audience get to kind of figure this out slowly with him and realize there's this prophecy in this town about Thorin and the king under the mountain returning and blah, blah, blah. I also really like setting up Bard as a foil to Thorin eventually. Ultimately. Because once he figures that out and they go before the master and they're like, or the master of the town. I can't say the master without thinking of Doctor who or Buffy, honestly. But they go before the master and the master's like, oh, yeah, you guys want to? Yeah, you should go to the mountain and help and take it back.
• 1:21:40
  Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
• 1:21:41
  Speaker A: And then. But Bard is like, they'll wake the dragon up and he'll fucking kill us all. Do you not remember what happened last time with them in the mountain with the dragon? And I kind of like setting Bard up as a foil to Thorin, who's like this warning against the greed specifically of Thorin and the Dwarves. And the master of the town wants to exploit this for his opportunity to make money on it. I thought there were some fun and interesting political machinations being set up here that didn't feel like shoehorned in, but also didn't, and also didn't feel underdeveloped. It felt like it all kind of worked for me and made sense with the characters that were in the book. And I don't know, I liked this little political kind of intrigue that we set up in Laketown. I thought it was interesting and I thought it worked. I also like building up the Arkenstone more. I finally got to the point where it's mentioned in the book and it just kind of comes out of nowhere and there, like, oh, yeah, the Arkenstone. It's this really awesome stone and the book just kind of plops it on you as this very important thing. Kind of out of nowhere.
• 1:22:41
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:22:42
  Speaker A: Whereas in the movie, we've set it up numerous times at this point and it's, you know, we keep building it up more and more and I think that just works better, at least in the movie. I don't think it's, like, horrible in the book or anything. But I do like having a little bit more build for what is ultimately a pretty important thing in the story instead of just kind of dropping it on us two thirds of the way through the book and being, like, to Arkenstone. Like, what?
• 1:23:07
  Speaker B: Yeah. No, I agree. We mentioned earlier that the movie has a different way of setting up. Like, the idea of Smaug having a weak spot and his scales and his armor. And I think it's fine.
• 1:23:24
  Speaker A: I don't really, like, love it, but it's also fine. It felt a little convoluted to me that there's this thing where Gurion hit him with the black arrow and it loosened.
• 1:23:34
  Speaker B: And I think given the changes that they made to Bilbo's conversation with Smaug it makes sense for them to kind of set it up a little earlier.
• 1:23:45
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:23:45
  Speaker B: I still prefer the way that the book does it, but.
• 1:23:50
  Speaker A: Yeah. And I don't even necessarily mind making the. Because again, in the book it's not nearly as dramatic in terms of it being the special arrow fired from a special weapon. It's a little maybe cliche to kind of, like, make it this big thing. But I also think it's fine, especially when we're expanding this out. Having it be this special arrow fired from basically a giant ballista or whatever. I think it works. And having Bard be, which bard, I believe is. I think it's mentioned that he's the ancestor. Yeah, it is. It's mentioned in the book that he's the ant or the descendant of Gerion the guy who hit the dragon or was the master or the lord of Dale or whatever in the original one. Yeah, I. And this may be controversial, like splitting up the dwarves and leaving some of them in Laketown.
• 1:24:44
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 1:24:45
  Speaker A: Big fan of that. I'm sure some people were annoyed, like, well, they gotta all go to the mountain. Like, yeah, sure, but I don't care. Like, there's too many of them. One, it gives us people to follow in Laketown so that we can keep track of what's going on there. We have characters there that we know and whatnot. Cause, like, Kili is injured, he's got hit by the morgle arrow, and he's like dying. And so feely stays behind to help him, as well as a couple of Nori and two of the other dwarves. And one of those is specifically the guy who overslept and didn't get there in time because he was hungover or whatever. I believe that's the one. The actor literally had to go back to England for something that was like a scheduling thing, him not going with him. The other ones that were planned to not go to the mountain. But I think his was like a scheduling issue from what I read. But it makes our company less cluttered in the mountain. We don't have 13 dwarves there to keep track of God. But it also lets us, it gives us a touch point in Laketown. And like I said, I like the stuff going on in Laketown for the most part. Speaking of, there's a very specific moment that is another Legolas moment that I like, which is that all that fight and stuff, they kill a bunch of orcs. But there's this moment where they're standing. Legolas is on a balcony, and he kicks an orc off a balcony, or one jumps off a balcony and lands on a boat, like a canoe in the water below them. And then he kicks another orc off and it falls in the boat and catapults the other orc up to him. And he cuts its head off and then its body falls back down into the water. I thought, that's cool, man. I like that. And like I said, I do like this whole subplot with Tariel and Legolas showing up in Lake town fighting Bolg, who's there to look for Thor. And I think that all tracks. And I even, like I said, so the whole reason Toriel is out here is that one, she's going after Kili because she's got a crush on Keighley.
• 1:26:35
  Speaker B: But also for him.
• 1:26:36
  Speaker A: Also, Thranduil is kind of like doing an isolationist, protectionist kind of thing. Of like, we'll just gonna close all of our borders and it's not our problem. Fuck them. And Tariel's like, nah, we should help. We should go do something and help them in that sort of thing. And I thought that was fine. And also, I like that. That's kind of the Legolas is kind of trapped between because he likes Tariel, but also he's the son of the king, and the king wants to do this. And I think it helps develop the character that Legolas becomes later. This part of it, of going and helping this thing, you know, him being the one that goes to the council later makes more sense to me. But although I think there's a different reason for that in Lord of the Rings books that I can't recall. But anyways, also at the end of that scene where he fights Bolg in like the one v one battle, which I thought was funny, they give that because we always see Legolas always uses his daggers. They give him a sword. In this one, he's using orcrist, actually, because he got orcrist from Thorinhezenhe. So it was kind of fun watching him use a big sword. But Bulg is able to best him slightly. And there's this moment where Legolas stumbles against a building and he's bleeding out of his nose and he wipes it. And he has this nobody makes me bleed my own blood moment. And he chases after Bolg. Cause he's super mad. I thought that was funny.
• 1:27:59
  Speaker B: Orlando Bloom really went all in on the Legolas eyes in this.
• 1:28:04
  Speaker A: Yeah. And also that was in the prequel I mentioned that was like somebody's like. And in that scene where he's bleeding, he blinks. And Legolas never blinks on camera. That's apparently when he's injured.
• 1:28:15
  Speaker B: I forgot to watch, see if he blinked.
• 1:28:18
  Speaker A: He does blink in that moment, but I don't know about other moments, but he does blink in that moment. I did notice that we talked a.
• 1:28:25
  Speaker B: Lot about why we disliked the last action sequence with the molten gold and all of that. But I do think that it was a good call to cut the part where Smaug leaves the mountain and comes back and then leaves again.
• 1:28:42
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:28:44
  Speaker B: But those ends up together similar.
• 1:28:46
  Speaker A: To the way where they have the thing where Bilbo goes down once and then leaves and then comes back again. And they combine that basically into one thing. Very good. Just kind of editing things down and making things make more sense. Totally works. So I actually have this in better movie because I actually really like the confrontation between Thorin and Smaug where Thorin's standing on top of the big. Well, what will be a statue? It's just like a big rock thing. We're not really sure what it is at this point. And I actually really love the reveal where he's like, I can't remember what the line is, but they pull the thing off. And they've cast. Because they've been doing all this gold or melting, smelting all this gold, and they had been pouring it into this big cave, and they form this gigantic dwarf statue, and he's returned under the mountain. It's a cool moment. And I was like, this is awesome. This is my notes. I was like, oh, I love this. They cast a big gold dwarf in the hall of kings, and they get this big back and forth conversation where they're bantering and. Okay, never mind. Why did it just collapse? This makes no sense, because then it went immediately to. This is stupid. Which is they cast this big gold statue, you. And then out of nowhere, he's standing there. It's just standing there for, like, 30 seconds.
• 1:30:00
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:30:00
  Speaker A: And then all of a sudden, it starts, like, bubbling, and then it, like, explodes and. I don't know. And, like, molten gold goes all over smaug, and I don't understand. What happened?
• 1:30:15
  Speaker B: Uh, I couldn't tell you. I don't know.
• 1:30:20
  Speaker A: Like, what? Why did it hold together for, like, 30 seconds and then collapse? I have no idea.
• 1:30:26
  Speaker B: Maybe the idea was that it was already there and they melted it by, like, introducing more molten gold, but we don't.
• 1:30:37
  Speaker A: But why did it hold together for? Because we don't see anything from the time. So they reveal it and we see it and nothing else happens. And then all of a sudden, just, like, magically, 30 seconds later, it starts, like, shooting spurts of molten gold out, and then the whole thing collapses. And unless I completely missed something that happened interveningly in that, I don't understand why it just, like, exploded and collapsed all of a sudden.
• 1:31:07
  Speaker B: If we have any, like, goldsmiths listeners.
• 1:31:12
  Speaker A: Somehow related to the cause, they made those bomb things. But I don't remember seeing them use those during that scene.
• 1:31:17
  Speaker B: I thought, didn't they just throw them.
• 1:31:19
  Speaker A: They threw them at Smaug earlier. Yeah.
• 1:31:21
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:31:21
  Speaker A: That's the only thing I could think of that would, like, make sense. Maybe they, like, did something where they put those inside of it, and then once they got hot enough, it, like, they exploded and caused it to. I truly have no idea. I know gold's a fairly volatile metal. Like, it has a very, fairly low melting point and stuff like that. So there may be some reasonable explanation, but it just. It.
• 1:31:43
  Speaker B: As you're watching, as you're watching it, it just happened. Doesn't make sense.
• 1:31:47
  Speaker A: Well, and the thing that would have been cool, that they could have done or that would have made sense is if they had done something where smaug in, like, anger or rage or something, like, shoots fire at them, and then that causes it to melt. And then, I don't know. It just, I don't understand what was going on there. Please, if you'd understand why the statue all of a sudden just kind of collapsed and exploded.
• 1:32:09
  Speaker B: If we have any goldsmith listeners, I.
• 1:32:13
  Speaker A: Truly understand what happened there.
• 1:32:17
  Speaker B: I like the little detail when smaug is chasing them around and they're creeping through the tunnels and stuff. At one point, he crosses over them and there's all the coins and jewels are falling off of his stomach from where they were stuck in his scales. I liked that little detail. I don't believe that he would not have seen or at least smelled them in that moment.
• 1:32:41
  Speaker A: Silly, but whatever.
• 1:32:42
  Speaker B: But I liked the falling coins.
• 1:32:45
  Speaker A: Yes. I also saw an INDB trivia fact that said that that kind of maybe alluded to something from the book and that. And I hadn't read this part yet, at least. But that in the book, Smaug's aware of the weak spot on his chest and, like, intentionally puts, like, coins and stuff there. Right. Did you get to that part yet? I haven't gotten to there yet. But anyways, so somebody was saying that maybe, but I don't even think you'd need that explanation just because he lays in a bunch of coals and so they're, like, kind of stuck or whatever. Yeah. Wedged in his skate. Yeah. Yeah. No, I also liked that part. It was cool. But you also have to. Yeah, I had the same thought. I'm like, well, why didn't. They weren't even being particularly quiet. Like, they're running across a bridge and, like, whispering to each other. He likes, right over, right over the top of them and doesn't smell them, doesn't hear them, doesn't.
• 1:33:30
  Speaker B: It's a little silly after all that boasting about his senses.
• 1:33:34
  Speaker A: Yeah, but it is a cool moment. It just doesn't really make. You got to kind of, like, turn your brain off and be like, all right, whatever. And my last note for better than the movie is that I actually really love the ending of this movie. I remember watching this in theaters and kind of like, being like, ooh, that was something where they end with no music. There's not like anything. We just smile. Goes flying out of the mountain, does this little line, I am fire. I am death. Then he swoops towards lake town in complete silence. All you hear is his wings in the air. And then the camera pushes in on Bilbo, just horrified. And he's like, what have we done? And then it just ends. It's a hell of a cliffhanger, in my opinion. Like, it's. I think it's a pretty good cliffhanger and also one that wouldn't surprise me if that wasn't the plan from the beginning. And they cause that, to me, as somebody who does a lot of video editing, is a thing you kind of just find in the edit. Like, you're just like, all of a sudden, you kind of just have this idea, and you're like, wait a second. What if we just cut out everything and we just. We don't show him? And it could even be, like, it could have even potentially been a thing of, like, budget or timelines of, like, we don't have time to get all of the Laketown battle and the whole smog thing done for this movie, so we have to move it to the next one because that's a whole lot of editing, a whole lot of cg, a whole lot of whatever. So we have to move that to the next one and then coming up with a way to end this one. I don't know. I'd have to go back and figure out, I didn't find anything about how they. Why they chose to end it here or, like, if there was a reason. But it wouldn't surprise me if that was something that kind of just a happy accident that happened in the edit, you know, during post production and wasn't really, like, planned necessarily.
• 1:35:19
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:35:19
  Speaker A: But I think it's a great ending, so. All right, let's go ahead and talk about all the stuff that we thought the movie nailed. As I expected, practically perfect in every way.
• 1:35:35
  Speaker B: Okay, so back to bjorn the bear. Mandeh man. He is, in fact, a vegan beekeeper.
• 1:35:40
  Speaker A: Yep. Yes, he is.
• 1:35:42
  Speaker B: I mean, I feel like the movie just kind of implies the veganism, but the bees are there.
• 1:35:47
  Speaker A: Yeah. The movie isn't as explicit, but in the book, it's very explicit that, yeah.
• 1:35:50
  Speaker B: He does not eat animals.
• 1:35:51
  Speaker A: Does not eat animals at all.
• 1:35:52
  Speaker B: And fair enough.
• 1:35:54
  Speaker A: Yeah, he is an animal.
• 1:35:55
  Speaker B: He is an animal. And he's also friends with them. I did kind of hate his character design in the movie.
• 1:36:02
  Speaker A: It was not my favorite.
• 1:36:02
  Speaker B: It was not the best.
• 1:36:03
  Speaker A: It just, like, I saw they were going for, but it just. I don't know what it was about it that just felt.
• 1:36:09
  Speaker B: I really didn't like the whiskers.
• 1:36:11
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:36:12
  Speaker B: Like, it didn't. It didn't give bear to me, he.
• 1:36:15
  Speaker A: Felt too animal like in his human form. Yeah, almost to me, like, that's not really what I was expecting him to look quite so animalistic in his human form. I don't know. I didn't completely hate it, but it was definitely. I was like, I would have done something different. I don't even know what I would have done different, but I would have done something different. Yeah, I did love that. I knew I recognized his voice from somewhere. I was like, this guy sounds so familiar. And it turns out it's Ola's dad from sex education. If you've watched the show sex education, one of the characters, the guy who's a love interest of Otis's mom, whatever her name is. But yes, I loved. I did have, in the movie nailed it as well, the giant bees. As soon as they get there, we see his giant hand sized bees flying around that he keeps.
• 1:37:01
  Speaker B: He also lends the whole company ponies, which concerned me a lot in the book. I was like, oh, no, these ponies are gonna die. But these ones don't because he's very specific that they're not to go into Mirkwood and they have to send the ponies back before they go into the forest.
• 1:37:17
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:37:19
  Speaker B: I also thought the movie nailed Bilbo climbing the trees, had the same note.
• 1:37:23
  Speaker A: Yeah, he climbs up to get a look. And although in the book or in the movie, he actually sees, like, the lake and the mountain and stuff.
• 1:37:29
  Speaker B: True.
• 1:37:29
  Speaker A: In the book, he's like, oh, fuck. He, like, can't see the edge of the forest. And he's like, oh, shit. I think, right? Like, I'm pretty sure.
• 1:37:36
  Speaker B: I think so. Yeah.
• 1:37:37
  Speaker A: He might see the mountain, but he see the edge of the forest. Whereas in the movie it looks like it's not that far away, which is.
• 1:37:44
  Speaker B: Like, oh, we're not that far.
• 1:37:46
  Speaker A: Which in the book that says they're not that far, he's like, had they known they were in that moment. But I swear that Bilbo, for whatever reason, can't see whatever. It doesn't really matter, but it's close enough. I think the movie nailed how horrifying giant spiders would be there. I mean, which we knew they would after Shelob and return of the king. But yeah, it is, uh, absolutely horrifying. And also with the spiders, it's specifically mentioned in the movie, we see that when he puts his ring on, he then becomes able to understand the spiders. In the book, he's wearing the ring when he can understand them, but I don't know if it's explicitly stated that the ring is what allows him to.
• 1:38:27
  Speaker B: I had initially had this and better in the movie because I thought that was interesting. But, yeah, I don't know if that's the implication or not that the ring is what allows him.
• 1:38:37
  Speaker A: I went back and double checked, like, the part where the spiders. Where he understands it. And now I didn't read through the whole section again. So there may be a part where the ring comes off and he can still understand them. I don't know. But the first part where he realizes he can understand them and they're speaking English, he has the ring on in that scene. I think that makes sense that the ring allows him to because I think they do that in the other movies, like with the Nazgul and stuff. Like he's able, like when you're wearing the ring, you're able to understand him. I feel like there's some line in the book about that. I have this memory in my head, but it could be a movie thing. I don't know of somehow the ring. I felt like I had a memory of a line in the book about the ring allowing him to understand the black speech or whatever. But I could be wrong about that.
• 1:39:17
  Speaker B: I mean, it makes sense that the ring would allow him to.
• 1:39:21
  Speaker A: It totally makes sense. So whether or not it was in the book or not, it's a good addition. In the movie or the movie. Nailed it. One of the two. I thought they nailed the bridge and the gates to Thranduil's castle. We get a drawing of it in the book.
• 1:39:34
  Speaker B: Yeah. There are a couple illustrations in this book.
• 1:39:37
  Speaker A: Looks pretty spot on.
• 1:39:39
  Speaker B: Yeah. It is also mentioned in the book that the Elven King sits on a throne of wood, which he does in the movie. And also that he has a seasonal crown. Which he does.
• 1:39:51
  Speaker A: Which he does. Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:39:53
  Speaker B: We both made this comment as we were watching the movie. When Bilbo comes to jailbreak, all of the dwarves, they're all being really noisy.
• 1:40:01
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 1:40:01
  Speaker B: And we were both like, oh, my God.
• 1:40:03
  Speaker A: Shut up. Shut up. Says that he's like, gosh.
• 1:40:07
  Speaker B: But honestly, well within the spirit of the book.
• 1:40:10
  Speaker A: Yeah. I thought the whole jailbreak was pretty spot on. Including Bilbo stealing the keys from the drunk guards. We don't see that happen, but we see the guards drinking. Being drunk and drinking the wine or whatever. I will say. And this is another one of the, like, cutting down the timeline in the book. They're there for, like, weeks.
• 1:40:28
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:40:28
  Speaker A: And Bilbo, like, haunts around the inside of the castle and, like, sneaks of out and stuff and in and out of the castle.
• 1:40:36
  Speaker B: It just, like, spends all this time.
• 1:40:39
  Speaker A: Learning and looking for some way and developing a plan. And I understand why it's not quite that long, but I thought it could have been really fun. And again, if we had had less at the end of this movie and a little more at the beginning to kind of do the jailbreak scene, which it works fine as is. And I understand why they wouldn't want to draw it out. But I thought it could have been really fun to do it in, like, a heist style thing where, like, we have Bilbo, like, talking through the plan or something to himself. Like, you know, we see him, like, doing reconnaissance and, like, he's talking through the plan, and then we get that heist movie thing where, like, he's talking through the plan as we're seeing it happen.
• 1:41:14
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:41:14
  Speaker A: And they could have fleshed that out a little bit more in a way that was a lot of fun. I will say there's not. I don't know how much there would be to flesh out. Cause in the book, it's basically exactly what happens in the movie. He steals the keys, he unlocks their door, and immediately takes him down to the thing.
• 1:41:25
  Speaker B: Right.
• 1:41:26
  Speaker A: But I thought there could have been. They could have fleshed that out a little bit more and done, like, a really fun action heist scene and then dialed back the whole river scene. That's just my take on it would have been more interesting. I would tend to agree, but I understand why they did what they did.
• 1:41:43
  Speaker B: No, I agree with you. This is another place where I kind of have a problem with the timeline, the pacing. There was also a line that I loved in the book because Bilbo, he's literally just creeping around, wearing the ring the entire time, and he says to himself, I am a burglar that can't get away, but must go on miserably burgling the same house day after day.
• 1:42:07
  Speaker A: Yes. That's good.
• 1:42:09
  Speaker B: I thought the movie pretty much nailed Lake town.
• 1:42:11
  Speaker A: I thought the same thing. I thought Laketown looked really cool in the movie and also fairly similar to how you imagine it when reading the book. And specifically, there's an image, and at least in my version, I don't know if yours had the same.
• 1:42:22
  Speaker B: Yeah, it should have the same.
• 1:42:23
  Speaker A: There's a drawing of Laketown, and they very clearly, clearly pulled inspiration because it looks almost exactly the same, like, with the bridge going out to it and everything. And even, like, kind of the style of the buildings on it are fairly similar.
• 1:42:37
  Speaker B: When they get up to the hidden door in the mountain, the moment where the little thrush bird shows up and he's like, tap, tap, tapping.
• 1:42:45
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 1:42:46
  Speaker B: Which we kind of talked about at the end of the last movie that it didn't really make sense that that happened then but it happens again now, which is where it happens in the book.
• 1:42:55
  Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. And the fact that Bilbo's the one who sees that and sees the keyhole open and then calls the rest of the dwarves up. I think my only complaint with this is that in the movie the dwarves, like, give up and leave. They're like, fuck. Like, the sun goes down and they're like, well, that's it. We're out of here. And they just, like, bail immediately. It felt kind of strange because in the book, from my recollection they're just out looking other places or doing something else or something. They didn't. They didn't, like, give up and leave. Like, Bill was there by himself but it's not because the dormouse, like, said, fuck this, and left. They're, like, out doing other things. And then he does call them all back. But, yeah, in the book, they've been there forever. And in the movie they're there for, like, an hour and they're like, fuck this. We give up. It's like, okay.
• 1:43:40
  Speaker B: All right.
• 1:43:41
  Speaker A: Sure.
• 1:43:42
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 1:43:43
  Speaker A: But once we do get into the mountain I thought the gigantic hills and mounds of gold that smaug sleeps on pretty much nailed. And on the note of the gold it looks so much better in this movie than it does in the scene at the end of the first. First one where smaug kind of, you know, is sleeping in it or whatever. And this one, it looks great. And then the shots where he's, like, getting out of it look incredible. And we were talking about. We're like, wow, this looks so much better than the first one. And we speculated, especially related to your last note about the thresh and the bang. Like, how it makes no sense that the first movie that final scene may have been a last minute studio note of, we have to tease the dragon. You gotta set up the fact that the Dragon is coming in the next movie.
• 1:44:29
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 1:44:30
  Speaker A: And so they're like, okay, gotta get butts and seats. And so they had, like, maybe a very short time frame to animate and do the whole smog scene at the end of the last movie whereas this one, they had a whole year or whatever to work on it. And so I wonder if that's maybe why it looks so much better in this movie as opposed to that little scene at the end of the first movie because it's night and day difference how much better it looks.
• 1:44:55
  Speaker B: Another little moment, I didn't have this written down. I should have put this in better in the movie, I guess. But a little moment that I liked in the scene was when Smaug is waking up and Bilbo realizes that he can't get away. And he just, like, sits down.
• 1:45:09
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 1:45:09
  Speaker B: And, like, puts his chin in his hand, like, okay, guess I'm gonna get.
• 1:45:14
  Speaker A: Eaten by Dragon now.
• 1:45:16
  Speaker B: But I really. I thought the movie did a pretty good job with their conversation. A lot of it is right for the book. A line that I particularly like. Oh, Smaug, the unassessably wealthy.
• 1:45:29
  Speaker A: Yeah. No, I thought that was great. A little detail that I liked in the movie that I don't think is in the book. I might be misremembering is that Smaug can sense the ring.
• 1:45:40
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:45:40
  Speaker A: He mentions the ring in the movie. He's like, you got something. I don't remember what he said.
• 1:45:45
  Speaker B: He specifically says the word precious.
• 1:45:47
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:45:47
  Speaker B: Which I also didn't like because how would he know that?
• 1:45:50
  Speaker A: Well, so the idea is. I think the idea is not that if I had to defend that, which I'm not a huge fan of it, but I think the idea would be that it's not so much that he knows that. It's that the ring. The nature of the weird magic on the ring just makes people. That's like the word. Like the thing people think of with the ring. It makes them think of it as precious and they allude to it as being precious even if they don't know what it is. It's just like this weird magic part of the ring would be my guess. But, yeah, I liked that he could sense the ring again, whatever, with the precious thing. But I like the line. The tales and songs fall utterly short of your stupendousness, o smog. I also had the same next note that you had too.
• 1:46:37
  Speaker B: Yeah. All of Bilbo's titles for himself. I love barrel Wright. Like a clue finder.
• 1:46:44
  Speaker A: Yeah. He has this whole string of titles for himself when he's trying to introduce himself to Smaug. And I really enjoyed it. The movie includes some of it, but.
• 1:46:54
  Speaker B: Not all of it.
• 1:46:54
  Speaker A: But I just wanted to read it really quick because I think it's fun. Who are you and where do you come from, may I ask you? May indeed. I come from under the hill and under the hills and over the hills my paths lead and through the air. I am he that walks unstable seen so I can well believe, said Smaug. But that is hardly your usual name. I am the clue finder, the web cutter, the stinging fly. I was chosen for the lucky number. Lovely titles, sneered the dragon. But lucky numbers don't always come off. I am he that buries his friends alive and drowns them and draws them alive again from the water. I came from the end of a bag, but no bag went over me. These don't sound so credible, scoffed Smaug. I am the friend of bears and the guesthouse of eagles. I am ring winner and luck wearer. And I am barrel rider, went on Bilbo, beginning to be pleased with his riddling. That's better, said Smaug. But don't let your imagination run away with you. Which I yeah, I enjoyed that whole thing. I like that he comes up with all these fun, epic titles for himself.
• 1:47:56
  Speaker B: I also thought the movie pretty much nailed the way that Smaug describes himself.
• 1:48:00
  Speaker A: They cut like one line of it, which I thought was kind of clumsy where he says, my breath is lightning or something, or no, my tail is lightning. But yeah, he says, my teeth are swords, my claws are spears, my wings a hurricane, and that sort of stuff.
• 1:48:14
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's good. And my favorite line that Smaug says, and my breath, death.
• 1:48:23
  Speaker A: Very epic. Very epic. All right. That was all the stuff we had that the movie nailed. We have a handful of odds and ends before we get to the final verdict.
• 1:48:45
  Speaker B: Right away, the beginning of this movie. Look at that man chomp that carrot.
• 1:48:50
  Speaker A: Peter Jackson returned reprises his role as carrot guy in Bree. Plays literally exact same cameo. Remember from Fellowship? There's a guy walking across the street in Brie chomping on a carrot. And that is Peter Jackson. And he returns in this movie at the very beginning to be carrot guy in Brie. So that's fun.
• 1:49:11
  Speaker B: Maybe that's why they added that scene in Brie, so that he could surprise.
• 1:49:16
  Speaker A: His role might have been honestly. So I absolutely, and this is not. I don't think anybody will disagree with this is not a hot take. But I absolutely adore the way Ian McKellen speaks as Gandalf. The emphasis he puts on words and the way he, like, rounds his mouth and speaks. I think what it is is that because the way he, like, the one line in particular is like Bilbo says when they're getting ready to go into Mirkwood, Bilbo's like, and I found something in those caves. And Gandalf's like, what did you find? And he's like, and he's gonna tell him the ring. But then he's like, my courageous bridge. And Bilbo's like, good, you'll need it. And the way he says it. The way he says good, you'll need it. It feels so wizardly.
• 1:50:04
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:50:04
  Speaker A: Because to me, it reminds me, it's a speaking pattern. The way he speaks in English reminds me of the way it sounds similar. And he rounds words in a way similar to when he's speaking, like, elven or, like, doing, like, spells within whatever language that is. Maybe that's, like, high whatever, like the. Whatever the valar or whatever. I don't know. Whatever language he's speaking when he's doing spells, it reminds me of the way that language is spoken. But he does it. Two english words, and I. It's. I don't know. I don't know how to describe it other than saying it sounds wizardly, like he speaks like a wizard should.
• 1:50:42
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I agree.
• 1:50:44
  Speaker A: Great. It's just great. I just. I adore it.
• 1:50:49
  Speaker B: So a little moment in this movie that I did not understand when Thranduil is talking to Thorin and we see briefly on his face, like, Thorin says.
• 1:51:02
  Speaker A: Something like, you've never lost or you don't know what I've been through, or something like that.
• 1:51:07
  Speaker B: And he's like, oh, bet.
• 1:51:09
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:51:09
  Speaker B: And then we see briefly some really intense scarring on his face and then it vanishes again. And I was, like, going on there.
• 1:51:19
  Speaker A: So that is not mentioned in the book. I actually probably could have put this in better in the movie because I thought this was really kind of cool and interesting. Especially reading more about it because I read about this in the prequel. I didn't include it in the prequel notes because I wanted to include it in the main episode. But I remember reading about it when I was doing research for the prequel. I thought it was really interesting. So apparently this potentially has some, like, canon lore backing to it. And this was the direct from IMDb trivia, the entry that I read. The sudden scars on Thranduil's face in the scene with Thorin are a creation of the movie adaptation. However, his scars may reflect a little emphasized facet of Tolkien's lore of elves. Elves. Feia, fae fea. I don't know exactly how it's pronounced. Fea. It's fea, but it's got the double dots over the e, which is a metaphysical concept analogous to a soul. Essentially. It's like the elf soul occasionally influences the. However you pronounce that H R O a with two dots over the o, which is their physical body. And so particularly under moments of extreme stress. And this apparently can manifest as extreme physical changes that reflect the state of the soul or the mind. And in this instance, that would be these deep war scars. So this apparently fits in with some Tolkien text and books from maybe the Silmarillion. I don't know. But the last battle that Thranduil fought in was the last alliance at the end of the second age which I believe would. Is the battle that we see in the prologue of which I think we see Thranduil in there somewhere. But he's not. I can't remember. It's obviously not Lee Pace, but we see a bunch of elves. I'm sure he's in there. I think we see Legolas. I think Legolas was there. I can't recall. But the battle where Sauron was defeated. And so essentially, it kind of boils down to the idea is that those scars are like a physical manifestation of PTSD. That when Thorin calls him out and is like, you don't know the pain, blah, blah, blah, whatever, he's like, oh, yeah. And, like, it flashes him back to this kind of metaphysical pain which then manifests physically briefly. Which I think is kind of interesting.
• 1:53:25
  Speaker B: Yeah, that is interesting.
• 1:53:27
  Speaker A: I think it's kind of cool. Like I said, I honestly could have put that in better in the movie because I liked that.
• 1:53:31
  Speaker B: Yeah, it is. Yeah. That's cool.
• 1:53:33
  Speaker A: Especially once you know that, I think it's tough because in the moment in the movie, you're like, what?
• 1:53:37
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 1:53:38
  Speaker A: That's where it's kind of clumsy. Is that like. If you had. Don't know that. It's like, what is happening? So it's maybe not the greatest addition but when you find out what's going on, it's like, oh, that's pretty cool.
• 1:53:47
  Speaker B: Yeah. When you know the lore.
• 1:53:49
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:53:52
  Speaker B: I mentioned in the last episode that I do like Radagast. I continue to like Radagast. But I did think that his direct involvement in investigating the Nazgul and everything in this movie really brings up the question of where the heck he was during the events of Lord of the.
• 1:54:11
  Speaker A: Rings edited out by Peter Jack and then Fran. Philippa. Whatever. Or Fran boy. Yeah. Philippa Boydens and Fran Walsh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. You're like, wait a second. What are you up to, bud?
• 1:54:24
  Speaker B: Where'd you go?
• 1:54:25
  Speaker A: Maybe they address it at the end of this one or at the end of the third one. Honestly? Wouldn't surprise me.
• 1:54:29
  Speaker B: Maybe.
• 1:54:29
  Speaker A: Honestly, because that would be a thing. Would be very easy to come up with an excuse why Radagast can't show up in the Lord of the Rings movies. They may do that.
• 1:54:36
  Speaker B: Maybe he. Maybe he goes to the. What is the elf place called?
• 1:54:43
  Speaker A: The Grey Havens.
• 1:54:43
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 1:54:45
  Speaker A: One of the things I thought was interesting that this is kind of here for me to ask and see if anybody knows. I guess I could just google it and probably find it. But I want to engage our listeners. Is done. Guldar. Just have a cloaking spell on it, because when Gandalf gets there, it appears to be empty. And he's doing this thing where he's going around and blasting spells and removing wards or something. And the orcs are like, he'll find us. And Azog's like, fucking. Who cares? Of course. Yes. There's like a hundred thousands of us. And it's just like one wizard at one point. He eventually gets to a point where he does reveal it, and all of a sudden he looks down and there's just orc armies and stuff everywhere. And I wanted to know if that's, like, a lore thing. Like, it certainly could be. Like, is that a thing that can. Is it possible that they can be some sort of magic spell on a place that conceals all of the people with. You know what I mean? Like, I just want to know if anybody who's a Tolkien nerd knows if that was just a complete movie manifestation or if that comes from some sort of lore. I would assume it does because there's no reason why you would need to do it if it wasn't something that, like, came from the book. Because you could just have Gandalf come in and. I don't know, it just doesn't. It seems like such a weird choice if it's not something that's, like, from, you know, the appendices or something. I don't know, whatever. Thought it was interesting. I wanted to know if anybody knew anything more about that.
• 1:56:04
  Speaker B: Tell us, Tolkien nerds. I thought that bard's younger daughter looked so familiar.
• 1:56:12
  Speaker A: I did not think so.
• 1:56:13
  Speaker B: I thought she looked so familiar. I looked her up on IMDb. She doesn't have any credits other than these movies. That's not entirely true. She has one other credit, but it's like a movie that hasn't come out yet. So that couldn't possibly be what I would recognize her from. I don't know. I guess she just has a familiar face. She looks like somebody that I'm thinking of.
• 1:56:35
  Speaker A: I'm wondering if. Cause I know a lot of the people in Lake town were cameos. We didn't mention it, but I mentioned in the prequel that Steve Carell has or not Carell Colbert has a cameo as like a spy in Lake town. Do you know what her name was? Her character's name?
• 1:56:54
  Speaker B: Mary maybe, or Tilda.
• 1:56:56
  Speaker A: So there is a Tilda. There's a Tilda and a sigrid. And they're played by sisters. Mary Nesbitt is Tilda. Okay. That is the daughter of. That is actually a cameo. Not that it would be why you would recognize her, but Tilda. And Mary Nesbitt is the daughter of, I believe, James Nesbitt, who is somebody. I can't find it. Hold on. It might be. That might be. Oh, Bofor. Oh, the dwarf. Bofer is James Nesbitt. That's the guy who, the guy I mentioned, the one who has a hangover, oversleeps. And that's the actor that had to go back to England. Anyways, those are his kids play some role in the movie as a cameo, but not that that would be why you would recognize them.
• 1:57:44
  Speaker B: But anyways, I mean, that's fun for them, though.
• 1:57:47
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:57:48
  Speaker B: Everything else aside, I just know that Benedict Cumberbatch had the best time.
• 1:57:53
  Speaker A: Oh, I mean, we know this. There's video evidence of this.
• 1:57:56
  Speaker B: I know why we know. I've seen, I've seen the footage of him writhing around, rolling around on the.
• 1:58:02
  Speaker A: Floor pretending to be a dragon in.
• 1:58:03
  Speaker B: The motion capture suit.
• 1:58:05
  Speaker A: Hilarious.
• 1:58:05
  Speaker B: But I like that he had the best time.
• 1:58:08
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:58:09
  Speaker B: Good for him.
• 1:58:10
  Speaker A: Absolutely.
• 1:58:12
  Speaker B: And my last note here, I am going to be that person. Strictly speaking, I'm pretty sure this version of smaug is actually a wyvern.
• 1:58:21
  Speaker A: It is.
• 1:58:21
  Speaker B: And not a dragon.
• 1:58:22
  Speaker A: Yeah. I believe I read. I couldn't, so I tried to look this up and find it somewhere, but I believe I read that originally the idea was for it to be a more traditional dragon where it has like four legs and then wings instead of the front legs incorporated into the wings, which is what this one is, which honestly is my preferred type of dragon.
• 1:58:40
  Speaker B: I think it's just, I also prefer wyverns. Yeah.
• 1:58:43
  Speaker A: I just think they're more, especially if you want to make them like a villain and scary and crazy, like, like intimidating. They just look cooler. Like that kind. It's, that's the kind of. And it's also in like, Game of Thrones. Those are all the same, that type of dragon, whereas the ones that have four legs and then wings on their back, they just look they look more whimsical and, like, more, like, cuddly and fun because you think of, like, Pete's dragon and stuff. Like, you know what I mean? They just don't have. Not that you can't make one of those intimidating, but they just don't. I don't know. I like the Wyvern style.
• 1:59:13
  Speaker B: I think the Wyvern style is more, like lizardy and. And, like, kind of alien looking, almost.
• 1:59:21
  Speaker A: Yeah, they're cool, like I said. But you are right. And like I said, I'm pretty sure at some point they redesigned it that originally it wasn't. And like I said, when I read this note of yours, I went looking for that. I don't know where I read it. Cause I was, like, control f ing on, like, every page I had been on, and I could not find anything about a wyvern or anything, but I was like, I know. I read this. That. Yeah, they originally had it more of a traditional dragon design. Then at some point decided, no, we want it to be more like this. But I agree. I think it looks really cool. Um, but it is. It is not a dragon, technically speaking. Before we get to the final verdict, we want to remind you, you can do us a giant favor by heading over to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, goodreads threads, any of those social media platforms interact? We'd love to hear what you have to say about Hobbit, the desolation of smog. Did you like it? Did you hate it? What are your thoughts? What do you think of what we had to say about it? Do you disagree with anything we had to say? Do you have answers for our lore questions about Lord of the Rings or.
• 2:00:16
  Speaker B: Or our goldsmithing question or our gold?
• 2:00:18
  Speaker A: That's the one I honestly am most interested in. If you have an explanation for that statue scene, I need it. Cause I just. I'm gonna have to go back and watch it again after this and see if I miss something. Cause I was taking notes during that. You know, that's the thing. We've mentioned this all time, but we're always taking notes during the movie, so sometimes we do miss little details, but it is. I don't remember seeing anything that explains that. So please explain it for me. So, yes, interact, and we will talk about all of that on the next prequel episode. So you got about a week to get all that stuff? Not even a week. Sorry. You got about, like, four days to get all that stuff in. You can do us a huge favor by heading over to Apple podcasts, Spotify. Also, I believe we'll have to double check this. I heard that you can leave comments on Spotify episodes now.
• 2:00:57
  Speaker B: Oh, I didn't know that.
• 2:00:59
  Speaker A: I will have to check. I believe that they added a feature where you can, like, comment on episodes on Spotify.
• 2:01:05
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 2:01:05
  Speaker A: Yeah, I heard somebody, I heard a different podcast say that. So I don't know how accurate.
• 2:01:09
  Speaker B: We'll have to check that out.
• 2:01:11
  Speaker A: I hope you don't do that.
• 2:01:13
  Speaker B: I was gonna say, I hope nobody's been doing that. Cause I have not been checking.
• 2:01:17
  Speaker A: We have not been looking for that. So please don't, like, go through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, anywhere else. Basically, if you do put it there, we'll try to see if anybody put anything there. But, yeah, we don't. We haven't been checking that. Cause I just heard this, like, last week, somebody say that. I think it is really new, if it is a thing. So anyways. But yes, drop us a review on any platform that you listen to us that's very helpful and gets us out to more people. And finally, if you wanna support us, head over to patreon.com. thisfilmislitz. For two, five or $15 a month, you get access to bonus content. Specifically at the $5 and up level. $2 doesn't really give you a lot. Little bit of early access and you support us is the primary thing. But $5 and up, you get access to bonus content. Every month we release a bonus episode. Last month we did. Boy, I can't remember now.
• 2:02:03
  Speaker B: Last month we did the Rocketeer.
• 2:02:04
  Speaker A: Yes. This month we're doing the ten things I hate about you.
• 2:02:07
  Speaker B: It's going to be right up to the line.
• 2:02:09
  Speaker A: No, we'll do that. We're going to do it. Uh, we're gonna. Yeah, we're gonna. We're gonna do it. It's fine. It's fine. We'll get it. But we're gonna do ten things I hate about you. And then next month, we haven't announced that yet. We have. On Patreon. That's a thing. A bonus you get on Patreon as well, at all levels is you get a little bit early news about what we're doing and when. But we will eventually announce what we're doing for next month on Patreon. But it is related to the Hobbit, so look out for that. And that's at the $5 level and the $15 level, you get access to priority recommendations where if there's something you would really like us to talk about, you subscribe at that level, recommend it to us, and we will add it to our queue as soon as we possibly can. That's everything, Katie. It's time for the final verdict.
• 2:02:52
  Speaker B: Sentence passed. Verdict after. That's stupid.
• 2:02:58
  Speaker A: I'm gonna keep this one fairly short because my thoughts are very similar, honestly, to the first movie, and I'm kind of interested to see how things wrap up in the third movie before really getting into the weeds on a final verdict. So after two movies, I think I'm pretty much ready to say that this series had the potential to be great. I love a lot of the additions and changes that they made. The script is wonderfully adapted and weaves together the events of the Hobbit with the Lord of the Rings in a way that I found really satisfying, and that just feels right to me. And because I'm such a big fan of the Lord of the Rings movies, my nostalgia kind of allows me to forgive some of the clumsier fan service. But these movies very clearly needed more pre production time to smooth over the rough edges in the script and the art direction and design, because aesthetically and tonally things are still a bit of a mess in the same way they were in the first movie. But it's a mess that I had a good time watching, and especially as a supplementary piece to the book, I really enjoyed it. Once again, the film is a significantly better adaptation than I recalled upon the first time watching it, but it is still deeply flawed, and for that reason im going to give this one to the book.
• 2:04:10
  Speaker B: I have mixed feelings on the Hobbit, the desolation of Smaug. I still dont like the departure from the whimsical fairy story tone of the book. However, I do think that the darker tone works a little better here than it did in an unexpected journey during the natural kind of second act low point of the narrative itself. The darker tone was also notably more even this time, which did help. I also still don't love how closely this trilogy is tied to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but I actually think that adding a completely new element in Tariel helped buffer that for me a little bit. I still don't like the love triangle angle, and I'm not looking forward to more of that in part part three, but adding an entirely new character helped it at least feel a little fresher and not just like 100% fanservice. The main things that I struggled with during the second installment were the pacing and the chaotic action sequences. It was hard to tell how much time was supposed to be passing during much of the film and I get that in some places that was likely done on purpose, but as I said earlier, I don't think the movie stuck the the landing. In other places, it seemed like the story was rushing at a breakneck speed for no real reason. The pacing issues are even more grating when coupled with the overly extended action sequences, which absolutely could have been cut down to give the rest of the story more space to breathe. I'm looking at you, Erebor sequence. Overall, I didn't dislike this movie as much as I thought I would much like its predecessor. It's not as bad as the trilogy's overall legacy might lead you to think. However, I still prefer the book simple, whimsical story over the film's arguably bloated narrative. For me, it's going to the book again.
• 2:06:09
  Speaker A: All right, katie, I think we know, but what's next?
• 2:06:12
  Speaker B: Up next, we are closing out the summer series, and we're going to be talking about the Hobbit, the battle of five armies.
• 2:06:22
  Speaker A: Yes, we are. Uh, yes, we won't say too much on it now. We'll get to that in the prequel episode, which we'll be doing in one week's time. And until that time, guys, gals, non binary pals, and everybody else, keep reading books, keep watching movies, and keep being awesome.