Spiders And Dragons And Werebears, Oh My…

Come for the Desolation, stay for the Extended Journey (you’ll see…).

The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug:  Yup.  It’s awesome.  Like Part 1’s theatrical release it has some pacing issues at the start, but they’re a little less egregious and don’t last quite as long.  The added stuff is mostly great, save one part of one new subplot (more on that later).  Smaug is totally badass.  The spiders are… bllaAATRRRGHHHstchTTTgetitoffmeGETITOFFMEguuuhhttsgggHHhhaAAaaArrrgh!!!  God, I hate spiders.

So, TH:TDOS (ugh) opens pretty much where we left off- the dwarves, having escaped the goblin town, are back to trekking east towards the lonely mountain, pursued by orcs.  Bilbo is starting to feel the true power of the ring.  Gandalf is uneasy about all the questionable goings-on in the world and goes off on his own to do some detective work.  The woodland elves are shady.  Thorin is grumpy (Bofur is Happy, Nori is Dopey…).  The humans are shifty.  And there’s a bigass dragon hibernating on a bed of gold.  So… status quo?

Yeah, you know the drill.  Fantasy realm with fantasy men fighting fantasy creatures over fantasy gold.  There’s not a whole hell of a lot more to say about the plot.  It’s the journey that’s important.  The Unexpec… Ugh.  I almost typed that.  Cheese, thy name is Brian.  Wait, where was I?  Oh.  Right.  The journey.  Important.  And stuff.

Really, it’s Peter Jackson’s interpretations of the major sequences from the book that are the highlight of this(these) movie(s).  Or the number one problem if you’re a party pooper purist.  Example: when the dwarves escape from the clutches of Thranduil and his merry woodelves, it’s not just barrel-riding to Dale, it’s barrel-riding while fighting pursuing orcs with an assist by Orlegolando Bloom and non-J.R.R. character Tauriel (Evangeline Costello Lilly) in a highly choreographed chase sequence.  So, a relatively simple chapter in the book about a quick escape gets a thrilling action sequence (that, for my money, was the best, most fun scene in the film).  And this is what PJax is all about with these flicks.  You can say all you want about how the book is so good and shouldn’t be fucked with and blah-blah-blah… but when there’s a movie unfolding before MY eyes, I’ll take “Thrilling Barrel-Orc-Elf-Sword-Axe-Bow-Arrow Escape” over plain old “Barrel Escape” any day.  ESPECIALLY when it’s done with such gusto.  And fun.*

But I’m an easy mark.  This is the kind of stuff that makes me feel like a kid at the movies again.

There’s more added stuff that isn’t straight-up interpretation of The Hobbit, like the Gandalf/Radagast Dol Guldur stuff (which is from the LOTR Appendices, no?  Or some other Tolkein work).  And that stuff is fine.  Maybe not as cool as the main plot, but it’s both a way to tie this story in to the Rings trilogy and to give us some more Gandalf time (seriously, dude literally disappears for several chapters.  Do you really want less McKellen?  WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU?!?!?).  And there’s the aforementioned Tauriel character, who I thought was woven in pretty effectively, especially considering the book’s lack of strong (or, you know… any) female characters.  Besides, there’s plenty of nameless, faceless elves running around in that tome, so why not give one or two a name and a face?

And while we’re on the topic of Tauriel, I guess I should mention the one bit I didn’t love.  There’s a sort-of love triangle set up between she, Legolas (also not originally in The Hobbit), and… Kili.  Or Fili.  Whichever.  The hot dwarf.  Now, the love triangle stuff is fine- it’s awkward, it’s a little edgy, if you consider it’s basically an interracial love triangle (a stretch, to be sure, but dwarves & elves just… Don’t. Get. Along. YOU. GUYS.).  No, it’s the part where Kilifili gets an orc arrow through the thigh and a weird “he’s sick, just like Frodo was in Fellowship” tertiary plot springs up.  It’s a really clumsy and obvious callback (callforward?) to LOTR, complete with a search for the same healing plant and a Tauriel-as-Arwen glowing elf chant-magic bit.  It’s not bad, per se, just… a little forehead-slappy.  I’d say when it comes out on video I’d pull a “Cheer Up, Charlie” and hit the FF button, but… too much else happening at the same time for that (like Stephen Effing Fry as The Master Of Laketown!!!).  Also, maybe I’ll like it more in future-viewings, or in the Extended Edition, as I am wont to do.

Speaking of that… Beorn.  The first thing that happens to our merry band of bearded dudes in Desolation is the scene with everyone’s favorite werebear shapeshifter woodland hippie.  And it’s done before we even know it happened.  Which, yes, is what she said.  But also, it’s what I meant way back up there somewhere about the whole “pacing issues” thing.  And what I always say about the Extended Editions of these Middle Earth movies (see below…).  Clearly Petey Jackson was told to keep it under 3 hours, so I think stuff like the Beorn sequence is his way of keeping everyone’s favorite scenes in the flick (he can ill-afford another Tom Bombadil), albeit seriously truncated.  Which, again, fucks with the pacing.  Anyway, I could be wrong.  Maybe Beorn won’t get more screen time come next holiday shopping season.  But I’ll bet he will.

So… yeah.  The Hobbit: The Desolation Of That Dragon I Mentioned In Passing Seven Paragraphs Ago But Didn’t Even Talk About Even Though His Name’s In The Title (voiced by Benny Cumberbatch!  AWESOME!).  Get out there and see it.  I saw it in HFR 3D IMAX.  I’d say if you have a choice, skip the HFR (they improved on it, slightly, but it’s still reeeeeeeally funky to look at), do 3D if that’s your thing (it surely ain’t mine… although the one thing HFR did was improve the 3D.  A little.), and the IMAX, also not usually my thing, was well worth it here.  Whatever.  Just go see it.

*Another obviously extended sequence?  Smaug.  That dragon I didn’t talk about.  There’s a whole “dwarves-running-away-and-trying-to-defeat-him” thing that happens, and it’s pretty elaborate.  And totally made up by the filmmakers.  But, seriously, the alternative was to do it just like the book and have him introduced, only to immediately leave, fly to Lake Town, and, off-camera, get ki… er… uh… I mean… have a tea party (phew!  Almost spoiled that 76-year-old story for you!  Close one!).  And that, friends, would have left you feeling pretty cheated.

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Oh, and hey, while we’re here- I wrote the following like a month ago, so… BONUS!!!

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Extended Edition: These are some of the negative things I said in my (mostly positive, mind you) review of the theatrical release of The Hobbit: AUJ last year-

“The first hour or so of the movie has some serious pacing issues and feels a bit bloated…”

“…the movie starts… then kinda lays there, like it hit the snooze button, or something…”

“…we’re treated to an unnecessary scene where old Bilbo and young Frodo discuss the upcoming party from The Fellowship Of The Ring [that] kills the momentum, five minutes in….”

“…The Hobbit has it’s own nice, juicy story, and adding in these [other storyline] elements to tie it in to what we’ve already seen is not only unnecessary, it’s almost Lucas-level OCD…”

Yee-IKES.

BUT, in my defense, I also said this:

“…maybe the pacing issues can be fixed with whatever else is getting added in the [Extended Edition Blu-Ray].”

God, I love it when I’m right.*

I almost feel like I should just skip printing my thoughts on the theatrical releases of the next two parts of The Hobbit.**  I mean, the exact same thing that happened with literally each film in the Lord Of The Rings trilogy has happened with An Unexpected Journey– Peter Jackson took a long, somewhat awkwardly paced movie and made it flow more naturally by ADDING TO THE RUNTIME.***  In this movie’s case it’s only 13 minutes (as opposed to the 30, 44, and 49 extra minutes on the three LOTRs, respectively), but those 13 minutes were the key to fixing literally everything I felt iffy about, initially.  That includes the non-J.R.R. scenes and the ones from his other works.  It also includes all the scenes that were not augmented.  It’s proof to me that pacing is everything, an adaptation shouldn’t be shackled by its source material, and that a movie should be exactly as long as it needs to be.

In any case, if you’ve seen An Unexpected Journey, you’ve formed your own opinion about it.  If that opinion is a negative one, then I weep for you nothing I say will change your mind about it.  But I hope you’ll consider checking out this extended version anyway.  Picture it like this: when you catch a movie you love on network/basic cable TV it’s usually a negative experience, as it’s been edited down for runtime, cuss words, commercial breaks, etc., and it leaves you feeling frustrated, because you know how much better it is in its original form.  Think of this Extended Edition of An Unexpected Journey as the “original form” and give it another go.  You might just be surprised.

If your AUJ opinion is a positive one already, just think of the EE as having your second breakfast and eating it, too.

*I still think the theatrical version could have been about 20 minutes shorter.  If all of the LOTR-heavy stoylines, Frodo/old Bilbo stuff, and Bag End dwarf shenanigans were saved for the Extended Edition the movie would have turned less people off, and theaters could have fit in more viewings per day.  Everybody wins.  Whatever- it’s a moot point now.

**The liklihood of me actualy skipping said printed thoughts can be filed under “yeah, right.”  [EDIT, 12/15/13: Theory, proven.  See above]

***Some added bits (printed down here in case you don’t want to know ahead of time): 

1. More Hobbiton stuff, such as child-Bilbo meeting Gandalf for the first time (swinging a child-sword, thus simultaneously going against acceptable Hobbit behavior and catching The Grey’s wise eye), and present-day Bilbo interacting with some Hobbits in town, paranoid about his encounter with present-day Gandalf.

2. All sorts of Rivendell stuff, such as a dinner scene that highlights the, uh… etiquettal, culinary, and musical differences between dwarves and elves, a bit about why Gandalf cares about the dwarves taking back the mountain (putting to rest some life-long suspicions I had about this), and a nice bit where Bilbo, clearly in love with the place, is invited by Elrond to stay, should he so desire.

3. Some Goblin Town shenanigans, most notably the Goblin King’s song, in which we get both an extended tonal introduction to their underground society and more time with that awesomely gross warty nutsack he calls a chin.

There are more little bits added here and there, but these were the most obvious, full-scene additions.