Desolation of Smaug

[Bebop Man]

Poor man's Aragorn.

[viscomica]

Well... he does look a little bit like Aragorn. But Aragorn is more likable, I reckon.

"Starring not Aragorn, not the fellowship and Bilbo" (I refuse to call him not Frodo. That would be too much!)

[AdmiralMemo]

Anyone else immediately think "He used to be an adventurer" when Kili got an arrow in the knee?

That meme is dug in deep in my brain.

[Elomin Sha]

I didn't.

[Bebop Man]

Me neither.

[viscomica]

I don't even know what meme you're referencing (I know, fail)

[Elomin Sha]

Skyrim: I was once an Adventurer like you, but then I took an arrow to the knee.

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

I just felt sorry for him. He got stabbed by Orc poison.

Frodo got stabbed by a Nazghoul sword.

Xili got saved from the enemy through blood and weapons.

Frodo got saved by the enemy by GIANT MUTHAFUCKINWATERHORSES.

Therefore, Frodo > Xili

[Bebop Man]

I noticed a pattern with these movies... each movie ends with a dwarf escaping narrowing death. Thorin in the first movie, Kili in the second. If you've read the book you'll know why they do this.

[viscomica]

Warning: Super major spoiler if you didn't read the book.

They're living on borrowed time, I guess (still upset that Thorin dies, snif)

[JayBlanc]

I regret going to see the HFR version. I gave the first one a pass on it, because I assumed they would learn and adjust for perceived accelerated motion and the altered white balance range.

They did not.

As for the content of the movie... Well, it was... okay I guess?

However I must present a portmanteau to describe what I thought was the bit that obviously looked better when it was written down than when it was seen on screen...

The JelloGold

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

It looked tasty.

[empath]

...what I thought was the bit that obviously looked better when it was written down than when it was seen on screen...

"Your F/X budget can never compare to the viewer's imagination."

[JayBlanc]

...what I thought was the bit that obviously looked better when it was written down than when it was seen on screen...

"Your F/X budget can never compare to the viewer's imagination."

It's just hard to work out why that sequence was still in a final cut, rather than having something else put together that worked better visually.

[Bebop Man]

About HFR, every shot felt accelerated (more frames per second = visual acceleration, duh) and was a little too distracting, mostly at the start. Because shots are very very short in duration nowadays this was particularly aggravating, every single shot felt incomplete, as if they were cutting ahead of schedule. An effect from the HFR thing. Very rich texture but... really weird and distracting. Gimmicky.

[viscomica]

Hmm, I guess it was even more distracting in 3D (at least at first)

[JayBlanc]

About HFR, every shot felt accelerated (more frames per second = visual acceleration, duh) and was a little too distracting, mostly at the start. Because shots are very very short in duration nowadays this was particularly aggravating, every single shot felt incomplete, as if they were cutting ahead of schedule. An effect from the HFR thing. Very rich texture but... really weird and distracting. Gimmicky.

They could have sort of fixed that in post, maybe. At the cost of making a super long movie even longer. But I think ultimately the issue with HFR is that motion needs to be directed at 48fps to look good at 48fps, but the vast majority of cinemas are still projecting at 24-25fps. There is nothing inherently wrong with HFR, but it's an entirely different presentation format, and so far nothing has really been worked out on making films look good in HFR.

[ex-Lurker]

I like the movie, just two minor nitpicks:
1. Guys, why did you try to kill a dragon with molten gold, you know that thing breathes FIRE right?
2. Elves are OP please nerf (seriously their kill count/big damn hero moments need to be toned down)

[viscomica]

2. Elves are OP please nerf (seriously their kill count/big damn hero moments need to be toned down)

THIS

Bebop pointed out right when we were exiting the movies that Legolas was "too cool for school"

I absolutely adore Legolas as a character (even if he has nothing to do with the Hobbit) but I have to agree. It's like Eddie Izzard said: "It goes like this: dickhead, average looking, cool, cool, cool, groovy aaaaaaaaand looking like a dick again" (obviously it's not a literal quote)

[JayBlanc]

Elves are working as originally intended and will be phased out over a series of future patches to Middle Earth.

[xantheros]

I like that some elves got murdered by the orcs during the barrel scene. It helps point out that Legolas and Tauriel are exceptional, which I'm fine with. And I think that the spider fight and particularly the barrel escape does the same for the dwarves. They're highly coordinated and effective even in such a constrained situation.

[empath]

Elves are working as originally intended and will be phased out over a series of future patches to Middle Earth.

THIS; if you've got a problem with Elves being powerful, beautiful & perfect, you'd have to take it up with Tolkien, not Jackson; the latter is being faithful to the source material of the former.

At least you can take heart in the expected updates that Jay mentions.

[Bebop Man]

But Legolas wasn't THAT perfect by LOTR standards. He had maybe one cool scene per movie. The troll fight, surfing on a shield, surfing down the mumak, the end. In Desolation every scene he's in displays his unparalleled awesomeness like a bad case of the fanfic.

[empath]

Yeah, and what part of "{elven awesomeness}...will be phased out over a series of future patches to Middle Earth" did you miss? LotR occurs AFTER *ALL* of The Hobbit, and so Leggy's less impressiveness in those films is a (released out-of-order) natural diminishing progression.

[Elomin Sha]

Mumakil.