The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug: My Thoughts

It's back to Middle Earth and time to pull out the one ring again. It's about time!

I love, love, love The Lord of the Rings. So you can probably imagine my excitement when I first found out that Peter Jackson was making The Hobbit. I did, however, get very nervous when I found out he was turning a 300 and so page book into three 2 1/2 hour movies. It didn't seem to make any sense to me, but more Middle Earth is always a good thing. Or so I thought.

The first Hobbit film was quite enjoyable; I liked it but I didn't love it, not in the same way I loved LOTR. It did immerse me back into the world of Middle Earth, which Peter Jackson does so well. But it left me feeling like I just really wanted to watch the original trilogy. I did love the dwarves though, all of them but especially the introduction of the ridiculously attractive, yet ridiculously elf-like, Kili. It must be something to do with long, dark hair and beards because I felt the same way about Aragorn in the original trilogy. But I don't find either actor attractive with their usual clean cut, short hair appearance. Strange! The power of Middle Earth. 

I am soooo glad they included elves in this. Mainly because, LEGOLAS! I had such a crush on him in the first three films but it seems to have all gone down hill since then. I think it's the weird freaky eyes. In the first films his eyes were sometimes light blue and sometimes brown, but in Hobbit they just look creepy. They're very elfish but I'd rather they looked similar to the other films as it really threw me off. He still kicks ass with a bow, and Evangeline Lily was really great at that too. I felt a lot of his scenes kind of stole the film, I'd missed all the Elf action!

I think the hard thing to deal with is how much of this movie is just made up. Tauriel's character was one that didn't exist in the original book, and I didn't really get why she was needed. Her moments with Kili were just a bit odd, where she seemed to be doing him with her eyes. I thought she was going to be a love interest for Legolas, if I am completely honest. She kind of was but kind of wasn't and it was all rather strange to me. But, as I have said, she does provide some amazing fighting sequences and is nifty with a bow.

Now I have seen rave reviews for The Hobbit. Some say it is so much better than the first movie, that they feel the first film had so many issues. I have to believe that we were seeing a different film. Both myself and my friend were bored to death by the end. It starts of strong but begins to drag. Peter Jackson should have stuck to two movies at the most, there quite clearly wasn't enough material to go around. It takes Smaug about an hour just to get a sentence out and that grows old really quick.

This had a lot of promise, but as soon as the dwarves reach Lake-town it really slows down and I got really bored. I started doing a lot of googling of random Hobbit related things on my phone because I was that bored. I was so excited to see this and was left feeling really disappointed.

I'm hoping it's just a case of not having enough material for three films and this is like the filler film. I'm hoping the third film is such an epic conclusion that I forget all about the horror that was Desolation of Smaug. If you've seen it then I would love to know what you thought? If you loved it, then what did I miss?

Now to cheer myself up!