[Suzerain of Sheol]

MASSIVE COMPLTE ABSOLUTE SPOILERS. DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES READ UNTIL YOU'VE SEEN THE MOVIE.

Disclaimer: the following is full rant-mode Tolkien-purist Suze, those who somehow enjoyed this movie I wish you the very best and I hope the 3rd one is even better. You may not want to read, though. :P

*Ahem*

What in Arda is a Morgul Arrow, by Suze

To begin, the few things I liked: I saw it in the proper format this time, so it no longer looked fake and blurry. Visually it was very impressive, more so than the first film, I found.

And Smaug, of course, looked amazing, but.... I somehow find that less impressive than I probably should. BC's voice acting was fantastic for him (for what he had to work with...)

Sauron. Sauron actually was done fairly well, in my opinion, I minded the metaphysical eye here a lot less since he's just an incorporeal spirit at this point. But more on that scene when I get to it.

On the score, I found it forgettable and once again trying to echo the themes of the LotR films and falling short.

Now, for the review. I will location by location, since the film follows the same format.

Bree – flashback

1. First shot of the movie = Peter Jackson chomping a carrot. Yes, I know he's reprising his cameo from Fellowship, but here he was in the background and didn't bother anyone. Not so, here. Narcissist much?

2. Peter Jackson does not have the rights to this scene, it is found in the Book of Unfinished Tales, for which film rights were never sold. That is all.

Beorn's House

So the dwarves have apparently teleported from atop the Carrock. I think that was the Carrock they were supposed to be on at the end of the last movie? Anyway, there is a great deal of teleportation in this film.

Cue utterly unnecessary chase scene.

Cue... dwarves... locking Beorn out his own home. :|

And surprise, Beorn is totally cool with it!

Beorn is also an escaped slave of Azog “the Defiler” and the last surviving member of his species upon whom genocide was enacted by the orcs. Somehow. Somewhen. For some reason.

AND WE HE WEARS THE MANACLES STILL? WHAT????

Whatever. The scene is so short it doesn't even matter with what's coming up.

Fangorn, I mean Mirkwood

I suppose the enchantments of the forest were kind of cool, but... what was wrong with the dwarves trying to get help from the elven camps? Or with the river of forgetfulness? We'll never know...

The spiders were cool. Because they were copied right out of the Rankin-Bass cartoon right down to their voices. No credit for you, Mr. Jackson.

Cue Bilbo having a ring-induced fit of psychosis and murdering a spider. *yawn*

Cue the dwarves being in no danger whatsoever and having another raucous romp of battle scene, including a six-dwarf coordinated effort to tear the legs off a spider. Tactically effective AND practical, kids!

Cue elves capture the party at bowpoint, only this time it's Legolas instead of Haldir. Whatever.

Halls of the Elvenking

Thranduil is a psychotic child, complete with giggling.

With that out of the way, Thorin acts like an idiot – no surprise – and we learn that... Thranduil... at some point... battled a dragon and was burned on his face and he has like magic skin that he dissolve with his mind to show his skull burned away and WHAT THE HELL AM I WATCHING?

I find it highly dubious Thranduil fought any dragons, but this doesn't actually take place in any version of Middle-Earth that I'm familiar with it, so WHO CARES?

Moving on.

Oh wait, Thranduil apparently is under the assumption a SILMARIL is inside Erebor and he demands its restitution to him. I don't even know what to say about how blasphemously wrong that is.

Cue Tauriel, who will fall in love with the first dwarf to tell her to check his pants for a weapon.

I can't even wrap my mind around how asinine this romance is. Add a strong female character to the cast? Sure... but why, WHY does she need to be a love interest? She's a 600 year old professional murderer from a species memetically racist against dwarves. What the hell, Peter Jackson?

Also, why does ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE IN THE WORLD have such a problem with Thorin going to the mountain? Why do they even care at all? This is a tangent, but even AZOG has a massive problem with this, like it's the sole reason for him trying to kill Azog, he even MOUTHS OFF TO SAURON cause he doesn't think the Dark Lord is taking this end of the dwarven diaspora as the SERIOUS CONCERN that it clearly is. This makes absolutely no sense, and is the foundation of the entire story. :|

And of course, the daring escape. Nevermind that elves have superhuman hearing, go ahead an make all the noise you want, dwarves! The elves are supposed to all be drunk, but we're never actually shown that... we're shown two elves drunk and Tauriel's squad decidedly sober...

Finally, the entire next sequence could have been avoided if GASP, they had just put the lids on the barrels... like in the book. But what would we ever do without our overlong cartoonish action sequence?

Barrel Riding

Do I even need to do this section? This is a Disneyland ride, nothing more. Highlights include physics defying somersaults of logs and Bombur jumping out of the water in his barrel and blindly spinning around like a moron with two weapons and somehow not getting gored by a pike like I was hoping for.

Of course Tauriel shows up to save the day. Right after she appears, there's an orcs behind her who could have EASILY killed her, had he not been wielding the most idiotically oversized warhammer I have ever seen in my life. I'm surprised he didn't tumble backwards down the stairs when he tried to swing it.

Anyway, there is one thing to take away from this scene, and to me it is THE worst thing in the movie. Kili is shot with a [(“Morgul Arrow”)].

Now, this may seem innocuous, however! Morgul weapons are... you guessed, weapons forged in Minas Morgul (which is not currently occupied), and more specifically, invested with corrupt sorcery by the Witch-King. As evidenced by the fact we only EVER see them used by the Nazgul, we can assume they are something of a special weapon. But here we have a random, nameless orc having one in his quiver FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER. Where did he get it? Who made it? Why did they give it to him? Why did he shoot KILI with it? Oh, oh, what's that? The script told him to? I see. Well, there you have it.

Tomb of the Nazgul

I have nothing to say about this. This never existed in the book and makes as little sense here as it did in the first film. Radagast is still appalling, but he's old news.

Dol Guldur

I don't remember where this actually fit in, but it doesn't matter.

Gandalf has apparently forgotten that he snuck in here to get the dwarf key from Thorin's father in dungeons of the Necromancer – you know, the whole reason he alerted the White Council to the return of the Enemy in the first place. OR NOT LOL.

So, Gandalf fights Azog and gets embarrassed and just drops Glamdring like it's totally not a 10,000 year old artifact of inestimable historical importance not to mention carrying powerful magic spells on it. Nope!

He ends up confronting Sauron, who... absolutely PWNs him. Now bear with me here.

Gandalf = a Maiar spirit of wisdom
Balrog = a Maiar spirit of destruction
Sauron = a very powerful Maiar spirit of crafting, who happens to UTTERLY SUCK at combat
Gandalf (the Grey) = Balrog
Sauron is still so weak in spirit he cannot assume physical form
Therefore, Sauron >>>>>>>> Gandalf?

Does anyone else see the problem here?

Bard's barge and Laketown

This is... this is the reason we have three movies. They have completely invented this contrived story about political unrest in Laketown and Bard being a smuggler and a freedom fighter, and it's boring, irrelevant, and nothing but padding.

The outcome is, the roles of Bard and the Master are reversed from the book, and I really don't know how they're going to get to Bard leading an army against Erebor in the next movie.

This, by the way, wastes at least 45 minutes of the film.

We also learn that Smaug does not have his armor of gold from the book, he's just naturally that tough and the hole is from a ballista bolt (cause CLEARLY that is what Tolkien meant by “the Black Arrow”) that knocked one of his scales loose.

...again, why Peter Jackson? Why was that in any way necessary?

Outside Erebor

This scene was similar in spirit to the book, except... it has the keyhole being revealed by moonlight instead of sunlight, because... Moon Runes, I guess?

But wait!

When they can't get the door open, Thorin whips out the map and starts reading “Stand by gray stone when the Thrush knocks, etc” WHICH IS THE CONTENT OF THE MOON RUNES, ONLY VISIBLE UNDER A FULL MOON ON THE SUMMER SOLSTICE. I can't even.

Inside Erebor

The best scene in the movie... up until the point it diverges from the book. It's spot on with Bilbo talking to Smaug, but then the dwarves all come rushing in, and we're treated to a ridiculous video game sequence of them fighting Smaug all over the mountain.

I don't even think I understood what their plan with the forge furnace was, but I just... how did they know they could do that? How did Balin know which ingredients for the bomb were which without even looking at them, or how they would even be there? And why was this sequence included when the bombs had absolutely no effect even when they literally went off right in Smaug's eye?

Oh, not that I really even need to point this out, but the Law of Convection doesn't exist in this movie. The dwarves stand mere inches away from dragonflame and are totally unharmed. They don't... inhale superheated air, or anything. There's even once scene where they're all lined up against columns as Smaug's flames blast between the columns RIGHT NEXT TO THEM and they're fine. It's like the Wave-Particle Duality of Light, except here we have quantum dragonfire.

Also. SMAUG IS NOT A BALROG! Why is extinguished by water? What is that? No, seriously. If a bath in molten gold doesn't inconvenience him, WHY SHOULD A BATH IN H2O????

And speaking of molten gold we culminate in Thorin revealing a convenient giant rock-encased statue of pure gold that is right underneath the exhaust flow for the magma from the furnaces, which melts instantly and buries Smaug in molten gold... to no effect.

How did this happen and why did it happen, Peter Jackson? Who possibly thought this was a good idea?

The Fight in Laketown

So, of course, Azog's orcs attack Laketown – cause, you know, gotta stop those dwarves from getting into the mountain, the script commands it! So, of course, we get 15 minutes of Legolas surfing and spinning and slashing, and knocking orcs over with his bow somehow. Then he duels Bolg in what is simultaneously almost a blow-by-blow re-creation of Aragorn's fight with Lurtz including the chest stab and grab the blade snarl, and the most unrealistic WWF match ever as Bolg throws Legolas around like a ragdoll and smashes his head unconvincingly into posts. Like how I'm smashing my head into this post, but less painful.

The fight is of course a draw. I WONDER WHAT COULD HAPPEN BETWEEN THEM IN THE NEXT MOVIE.


I'm done. This is the worst thing – not the worst movie, the worst creation of a human mind I have ever been subjected to in my life. I don't know where Stephen Colbert's cameo was, but he should be ashamed to have been a part of this. I'm ashamed for even watching it. Absolutely abominable – not that I was expecting anything less, but I think that tiny part of me who remembers the wonder and enchantment of the Hobbit as a child was hoping, just barely hoping that maybe this wouldn't be so bad.

Instead, we get Thorin telling Thrandruil to “Take his KHUZDUL GIBBERISH deal and shove it up his KHUZDUL GIBBERISH”.

It's all over. The nobility, the antiquity, the marvelment of Tolkien's works have been forever tainted by what Mr. Jackson has done.

God is dead, and we have killed him, my friends.