Desolation of Smaug Movie Review

The purpose of this piece is to inform someone who has never read the Hobbit, or who has read it only once a long time ago, of what was altered from the text in order to create the Peter Jackson film.

Before I launch into that however, it is important to say that I liked the movie. I found it very charming and entertaining. The extent to which I was able to enjoy it was surprising since it was radically different from the book, which I love. However the imagery that I have created in my mind while reading and re-reading the book was not overpowered or assaulted by the imagery of the movie. I see them instead as two different things that are able to co-exist in my mind, each with different strengths, but not competing with eachother or overlapping enough to become muddled. This is a quality of the film that I truly appreciate. In the LOTR trilogy, I found that it mirrored the tale so closely that my initial picturing of the characters, the sights, the voices, the places, were all muddled with those of the films. The only images I have that are now completely my own imagination are those not depicted within the films.

Not so with Desolation of Smaug. I can picture both the barrel riding scene in the movie and the barrel-riding scene in the book with equal clarity. That said, I hope this can be a resource and discussion starter for anyone interested in comparing text with film. Enjoy.

Things that were in the film, but not the book
*The scene in which Gandalf meets Thorin in Bree to tell him to pursue the lonely mountain. While Gandalf and Thorin Oakenshield had conspired prior to engaging Bilbo, it was not written out as a flashback.

*Getting chased by orcish Warg Riders to the doors of Beorn's home. These were goblins in the book, seeking the dwarves in order to avenge their king who Gandalf had slain with a blast of fire. Though they were long behind them since Gwaihir and the other Eagles carried Thorin's Company far enough away that they could reach Beorn's home unharried. Also, Beorn's borders were not lightly crossed by goblin kind since he was a staunch defender of his own country.

*Beorn, in the book, did not ever appear to them in bear-shape and try to attack them... I'll write more about Beorn in the next section.

*In the book you do not hear Gandalf's whisperings to himself regarding his decision to leave Thorin to his own devices. You don't know if he's communicating with anyone telepathically or if he had already planned to leave them at the edge of Mirkwood. I always took it to mean that he had been planning to leave the company all along, but that's just me.

* Mirkwood was beautifully done in the movie with ruins and overlapping M.C. Escher like pathways through the murky trees. It got a bit too trippy for my liking, with the dwarves and Bilbo suffering from extreme confusion, when in the book I thought it was mostly the endless dark, the lack of any food or water, and the uncertainty that drove them mad.

* Bilbo did not seem affected by the ring in the book. He did not drop it while fighting the spiders and then rampage against one spider to get it back.

*BIlbo took care of the spiders all by himself in the book. The Dwarves woke up and started helping him in the movie, but in the book, Bilbo turned invisible, threw rocks, tricked them, killed them, and drew them away then circled back to free the Dwarves. Correct me if I'm wrong on this.

*This brings us to Legolas and Tauriel. Neither one of them was in the book. It is true that Legolas is the prince of Mirkwood, son of Thranduil, and would therefore know of the dwarves' capture, but it was not he who took them in. Legolas also didn't quite seem consistent in terms of acting. I don't know why he seemed harsher and more aggressive in this movie than he was portrayed by Orlando Bloom in the LoTR trilogy.

*Tauriel just plain didn't exist. She is quite great though. I did appreciate the way she portrayed the wood elf persona as opposed to the high elves of Rivendell and Lorien that Jackson has shown us previously. Evangeline Lilly pulled off the role nicely, though I think it could have been better. A little more ancient mystique and a little less flirtation would have done it for me, but I have no real complaints. However, I really didn't get the love triangle.

*The love triangle was too much to swallow. No thank you. I'm not offended by it, I just didn't enjoy it.

*The infiltration of Bilbo into the Elven stronghold was quite accurate, though he lived there for quite a while, before saving the dwarves. I understand why that was shortened and I can't complain.

*The barrel-riding scene in the movie involved the Dwarves being encapsulated in sealed Barrels. It was a stealthy gambit, not a violent one. I wasn't so sure about the physics of how they rode the barrels and never sank when they tipped and let in water... But overall that scene was quite fun. Again, there were no orcs pursuing them at this point. Nor were there any elves trying to stop them. They slipped away during the Elven feast and cruised down the river. That said, my favorite scene of the movie was when Bombur rolled around in the barrel defeating tons of orcs and ultimately shooting his arms out of the sides and spinning around with the weapons in hand. I got a real kick out of that.

*In the book, Kili was not poisoned by a morgul arrowhead... he did not need Athelas... He did not almost die and so that was all just fuel for the love triangle.

*Bard did not barge them like a sketch ball smuggler man into Laketown in the book. The Dwarves never really met Bard in the book I don't think. Correct me if I'm wrong on that, but if they met him it was only briefly.

*Bard's whole story line was much more fleshed out in the movie than in the book. He didn't seem to be running a rebellion against the Master of Laketown. He wasn't a smuggler, he wasn't an outlaw and an upstart. He did in the book take the reins from The Master when the Master was too much of a coward to urge his people to fight against Smaug. Bard was the only one who chose to rally the men against the danger, who wasn't paralyzed by fear. It would be nice if Bard got to punch the Master of Laketown in the face in the third movie, but we'll see.

*Tauriel did not track the Orcs with Legolas. There was no Tauriel and there were no Orcs and no Legolas.

* I am glad that in the movie they do start to show Thorin as being a bit unreasonable and greedy. You can see it in his eye that he's almost possessed by the Arkenstone and his own ambitions.

*There were no scenes in the book regarding Gandalf's adventures in Dol Guldur, his discovery that the Nine were freed from their cells, or his alliance with Radagast as he pierced the concealment spell over the ruins. This story line did in fact occur, but not within the text of the Hobbit. I feel that it could be another entire post.

*In the movie Bilbo has to sneak around to find the dragon's hoard, but in the book the back door tunnel thing that was opened by Thorin's key led straight to Smaug's chamber, and was too narrow for Smaug to chase him through.

* In the movie, Bilbo was sent in to get the Arkenstone, and in fact much of the movie was centered around Thorin's desire for the Arkenstone. As I mentioned in my last post, the Arkenstone was not the uniter or all Dwarf Clans that they made it out to be in the movie. Bilbo just went in, stole a cup and came back to show the Dwarves. They shoved him back in so he could steal more treasure, and he ended up talking to Smaug, and tricked him through flattery and ancient sounding grammar to show Bilbo his belly, and his own weakness, the missing scale.

*In the movie they had a long, drawn out mission to try and encase Smaug in gold. It was kind of neat to see them work the forges, to be in their element, using their tools and trinkets as weapons and working together creatively to make it happen, but none of this happened in the book.

Things from the book that were not in the movie.
This list will be a lot shorter.

*The entrance to Beorn's house was slow and gradual. Gandalf tricked Beorn because Beorn loves stories, but hates company. Gandalf wove a story so enticing that told of their killing the Goblin king, that Beorn did not prohibit the Dwarves from entering two at a time into his house, though normally he would have sent so many strange guests away at once. He was intrigued about the news of the goblin king. He welcomed all fourteen of the companions in and fed them a feast. To me, this is like leaving out Tom Bombadil from The Fellowship movie. A cool part that I really liked as a kid that didn't make the cut.

*Beorn's feast was not served by himself, it was served somehow by ponies and dogs and such. I always found this odd, but that's how Tolkien wrote it.

*In the book there was an interesting encounter in Mirkwood involving a river and a boat. They had been warned not to trust any water in Mirkwood, and so the river posed quite the obstacle to them. Bilbo ended up throwing a grappling hook (and all my DnD characters since I read this have carried grappling hooks) and hooked the boat to pull it back toward them across the river. They went across in small groups saving Bombur for last. He accidentally touched the water when he was getting out of the boat and fell instantly to sleep. they then had to carry him for quite a while, I think the next time he woke up was after they pulled him from the cocoon of the spiders.

*In the book, the Dwarves saw lights that tempted them off of the trail through Mirkwood. They heard merry dancing and elf song. They were so hungry and desperate by then that they wanted to join the feast and ask for aid. They crept up and then leapt into the center of the glade only to find that the food, the music, the elves themselves all disappeared at once, leaving them completely disoriented and lost. It was for this crime of disrupting the elvish feast in the woodland that the Dwarves were arrested by Thranduil's people.

*In the book, Thorin and his company were recognized as the answer to their prophecy that the King under the Mountain would return. They clothed, bathed, fed and pampered them for WEEKS until finally people started murmuring about the fact that they hadn't done anything about the dragon yet...

*In the book, the Dwarves went into the mountain only after Smaug came out to scorch them! Bilbo angered him, and then Smaug came out and swooped down, and the only way was in through the secret door. They closed it behind them and found no keyhole or apparatus to open it from the inside. Then they scampered down in and barred the only entrance big enough for Smaug to return through. They barricaded it and shut the doors and searched through all the treasure.

*It was at this point that Thorin declared he wanted the Arkenstone. However, he owed such a debt to Bilbo since it was the hobbit himself who had become their leader, (saving them from the spiders and the elves and bringing them to the secret door, and puzzling out the riddle) that he offered Bilbo the opportunity to choose his fourteenth of the treasure first.

That brings us up to speed for the end of the movie pretty much. I hope to review the third movie in a little more timely fashion. I look forward to it. I do wonder if the deviation from the true plot was intended to have the effect of preserving the mental imagery in long-time readers minds... That is a question I'd like to ask the director. Whether that was intended or not that was what happened for me and I'm glad it did.