The following article is part two of a series of reviews of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. Below,  reporter Eddie Mestre takes a strong stance against Peter Jackson’s choices to alter the storyline. You can read guest reporter Evan Dotas’s differing review here.
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I bought my ticket a week early, which was too late for me. I laid in bed, tossing and turning the night away from anticipation. I read a good one hundred and fifty pages of the book the day before so its glorious words were fresh in my head. I dressed up: I was a hybrid between Frodo and Bilbo, I had Sting in one hand, and my ring around my neck. I attended the double feature. And I waited to watch the Desolation of Smaug. But at three o’clock in the morning (on a school night), what was I experiencing?

The pain of being quartered and ripped to pieces by Peter Jackson.

I cannot put into coherent sentences, phrases, or grunts the extreme disappointment I experienced while watching this “Jackson” film.

Lets say I decided to create a depiction of the crucifiction of Jesus Christ… Actually, Mel Gibson already did one, The Passion of the Christ. Alright, but we all know that Gibson is a barbaric lunatic. So instead of creating a film displaying the final moments of Christ’s life on Earth, Gibson says, “Ya know what? Screw the Bible, I’m doing it my way.” Gibson then goes on to create a film in which Jesus kills all the Romans, enslaves all the Jews, and creates a Christian theocracy in Jerusalem.

That is basically what Pete did. The Hobbit and Rings books are the most significant pieces of literature since Uncle Tom’s Cabin. One does not have the right to do what Peter Jackson did to those films… What did he do? Well lets find out… Spoilers ahead.

I hadn’t read the LOTR before seeing the movies… I was in nine at the time. After I read the books I realized that the films lacked a very interesting and loved character, Tom Bombadil. I wasn’t very put off by this as I saw the movies first. Likewise in the Hobbit, “Queer Lodgings” – which is the chapter where the company encounters Beorn – is the longest chapter of the entire book. 30 some-odd pages. How much screen time does Beorn get? four minutes.

Four minutes because we have a gang of Azog’s hoodlums chasing the company through the wild. As they run for their lives, Gandalf realizes Beorn’s house is around the corner and they barge in while Beorn is hunting orc. Later they drink some milk and honey and they are off. Four minutes. The only aspect that wasn’t totally terrible was the four large bees they included.

Next we have the fact that no elven lights were seen in Mirkwood. In the novel, the dwarves spot the lights of dancing elves, but when they approach, the lights vanish and leave the dwarves stuck in pitch black. After this happens a few times Bilbo separates from the company (as it is pitch black) and the dwarves are ransacked by Spiders. This didn’t happen in the movie of course and the dwarves just decided to suck really bad at fighting when five giant spiders attack them. Tiny hobbit can kill seven, but thirteen dwarves can’t kill five. Not to mention that there is PLENTY of light in the film version…

I’ll skip ahead a little bit and include a little bit of comparison here. Some parts were better than the first film. They cut back considerably on stupid dwarf jokes and five year old humor. THAT BEING SAID, I kid you not, there is a penis joke in the movie… Yeah, I don’t know either. Most of Mirkwood is skipped over, all the dwarves are jailed in the same area (where in the book, Thorin is taken deep within the Elven King’s Palace) and this Tauriel thing happened. I understand some of the reasoning behind Tauriel (strong women actor in a mostly dude film is good for marketing and stuff) but she has way too big of a role in this film. The relationship between her, Kili and Legolas was completely bogus and not at all what Tolkien would have wanted. The barrels did not have lids on them, and a very unrealistic, preposterous orc fight occurs while the dwarves float down stream. Kili is also shot by a Morgul dart, which as I might say, doesn’t happen in the novel.

Lake-town is pretty awful. It comes off as some sort of Dickensian neighborhood with a politically corrupt Master and his henchman. They talk about how much they hate Bard, but don’t explain why. Bard talks of this prophecy of the King Under the Mountain returning and Smaug destroying Lake-town which a) isn’t in the book, and b) shouldn’t be labeled as a prophecy. Dude… If you piss off a dragon no shit it will destroy everything… it should be called common sense… but this entire movie lacks that so I suppose I can’t really criticize it too much.

I think the one thing that pissed me off the most was that Kili, Fili and Bofur stay behind as the rest of the company goes to the Lonely Mountain. Uh… no. They all go together, that was the point of the book! These thirteen dwarves taking back Erebor, their home! now one fourth of them aren’t going because of some stupid idea to have Kili shot and fall in love with Tauriel who is, for some reason, still in this movie.

So the new and reduced company go to the Lonely Mountain. They don’t set up multiple camps and Bomber doesn’t refuse to climb the mountain, but I can forgive this because even though I thought that including the scene would provide authentic humor, it really doesn’t advance the story… but then again neither does Tauriel or Legolas, or the politically corrupt Master of Late-town, or his unibrow hench man. Bilbo also enters only once, not multiple times with a dragon attack where all the dwarves flee inside for a moment.

I have to say the Smaug-Bilbo scene was pretty great. The dialogue and interpretation was done very well by Freeman and Cumberpatch. Yay, 8/162 minutes didn’t suck.

Another problem I had was Thorin’s mood swings. One moment he loves Frodo, the next he wants to leave him for dead. The next he loves Frodo, the next he is holding a sword to him and threatening to kill him if he doesn’t find the Arkenstone. DUDE HAVE YOU LOOKED AT HOW MUCH GOLD IS IN THIS PLACE. DON’T BE AN ASSHOLE. That just bothered me. (Not to mention the fact that in the book the Arkenstone is clearly visible up on a large pile of gold, whereas in the film it was just sitting around).

The corniest part was definitely the ending. As an orc raid on Lake-town occurs, the dwarves pick a fight with Smaug. Smaug accidently starts up the generators and puts Erebor back in business. Molten gold is being released everywhere and Thorin decides to go boating on it… with scrap metal… I wish I could have thought of that. Lay on my stomach, letting the LIQUID METAL take me to some place. So realistic. Then Thorin goes “EUREKA” and decides drowning Smaug in molten gold would be cool. …What? …Yeah this is the second Hobbit film… You don’t know what I’m talking about? … Thorin boating on liquid metal… drowning Smaug in gold? … All of this wasn’t in the book… OR the appendices? (funny story actually, one of my friends tried to justify all this made up crap that was happening by saying “Jackson is using the appendices” a)Tolkien wasn’t a cheesy dumbass b) I’ve read all of the appendices, all of the timelines, all of the family trees, I ASSURE you, this wasn’t in there). Yea I don’t know what Peter Jackson was doing either.

So all this gold goes into a giant dwarf statue. Thorin stands on it and taunts Smaug for a bit and then the dwarves pull on these chains that realise molten gold from inside, melting the structure and covering Smaug. In the end this does jack shit and Smaug just flies away to destroy Late-town.

Immature jokes, preposterous stunts (even for Legolas), cheesy action sequences, flat out unrealistic-even-for-Hollywood sequences and one terrible adapted screenplay later, whaddya get? Desolation of Smaug. I have never felt more disappointed in my life. I didn’t think that with age, filmmakers went stupid… I thought  the Gandalf scenes were fine, except the logic he uses going into Dol Guldur, and Radagast didn’t smoke anything so that was good. Overall terrible film, Tolkien fans looking for a good movie based off one of the most influential books of the twentieth century will be extremely disappointed.

P.S. sadly I still love Peter Jackson and could never be mad at him for too long… I’m just extremely frustrated with his choices. I feel betrayed and hurt, but my love is too great.