The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

[The Chev]

Finally got to see this tonight, and I was blown away.

As much as I enjoyed the Hobbit, I can see me rewatching this one more.

Smaug was great, from the look to the voice, still feeling impressed by the movie and may hve to see it again this weekend.

The biggest surprise was Beorn, although I avoided threads and anything else on this movie, I had seen stills and thought they were making him into a joke character, but it actually came across pretty well and feral on film.

After seeing it again, I feel DoS has the best pacing out of all the films.

 

[OSCORP]

Not enough Beorn IMO.

 

[pixletwin]

Not enough Beorn IMO.

I agree. That is one scene I felt really needs to be expanded come the EE on blu.

 

[rushmore223]

Do any of you feel that material has intentionally been left out to boost video sales by having a EE set later on?

In LOTR, it made sense to have the Extended Editions, the movies were already 3 hours minimum, which can test the average movie goers endurance and severely limit the number of showings. On the other hand both Hobbit movies are significantly shorter than their LOTR couterparts and could have accomodated the extra footage without making theater-goers balk.

I know pacing has a lot to do with why some material gets edited out, but part of me feels like the EE is expected now, so the studio or director now holds back material that may have otherwise gone into the films regular release.

 

[TD-0488]

In the book Gandalf "scares" him off, then G comes back with the White Council, so, incorrect. gandalf the Grey would most certainly be able to thwart a formless, One Ring-less Sauron. Also auto correct just tried to turn "gandalf" into "gangland," made me giggle.

Geez, here we go again...gandalf in either form is not a match for Sauron. First, if he was able to defeat Sauron, there would be no need for what we go through.
Second, Dol Guldor is just a delay/deversion so the nine can prepare Mordor and Barad-dur. Why fight at Dol Guldor when Mordor is the prize.
Third, Olorin-otherwise know as gandalf, is scared of Sauron and is forced to middle earth by Manwe.
Fourth, he is not formless...even gollum says there only four fingers on the one hand, but they were enough.

 

[Reinhardt]

Just saw this yesterday and it was fantastic!!! Better than The Unexpected Journey (TUJ) is almost every way... the battles weren't overly bloated and the comedy wasn't overly Disney (except for that one barrel taking out 40 Orcs). I still loved the first hour of TUJ, but everything after that was done far better in Smaug.

 

[Njits]

Geez, here we go again...gandalf in either form is not a match for Sauron. First, if he was able to defeat Sauron, there would be no need for what we go through.
Second, Dol Guldor is just a delay/deversion so the nine can prepare Mordor and Barad-dur. Why fight at Dol Guldor when Mordor is the prize.
Third, Olorin-otherwise know as gandalf, is scared of Sauron and is forced to middle earth by Manwe.
Fourth, he is not formless...even gollum says there only four fingers on the one hand, but they were enough.

What do you mean? They DID fight at Dol Guldur, did you see the movie? You can't "defeat" Sauron unless the ring is destroyed as well, they don't know that yet though in The Hobbit. Sauron IS formless in The Hobbit and regains his form again in Lord of the Rings, in the books at least, in the movie he kinda always remains formless. Gandalf is not "forced" to middle earth, he was send with the 4 other wizards to middle the earth (the Istari) to help, motivate, and support the free people of middle earth to finish off Sauron once and for all after his demise on Dagorlad.

 

[Sachiel]

Gandalf is not "forced" to middle earth, he was send with the 4 other wizards to middle the earth (the Istari) to help, motivate, and support the free people of middle earth to finish off Sauron once and for all after his demise on Dagorlad.

 

[The Chev]

Just saw this yesterday and it was fantastic!!! Better than The Unexpected Journey (TUJ) is almost every way... the battles weren't overly bloated and the comedy wasn't overly Disney (except for that one barrel taking out 40 Orcs). I still loved the first hour of TUJ, but everything after that was done far better in Smaug.

I agree. It was funny when I heard a number of people on other sites say it's still a bloated, and blah blah, etc.

I think most of those people decided that before going to see the film.

 

[The Chev]

So how long can Gandalf live for? I know he's been around a long time, but can he live for thousands of years?

Also, in AUJ Galadriel says "It's been a long time" to which Gandalf replied "My face may be different" Did he just mean he aged or do we have some Doctor Who action going on?

 

[The Josh]

I don't know if Tolkien ever said how long they can live for in the mortal form they have. I suppose they can live forever.

 

[The Chev]

I don't know if Tolkien ever said how long they can live for in the mortal form they have. I suppose they can live forever.

Ok, but they do age right? Just very slowly?

 

[Frank]

In the Silmarillion, I believe I read that they appeared as old men from the start and stayed that way. They're kind of like an approximation of angels given an earthly form. They depart once their mission is over which would be the destruction of Sauron, at least in Gandalf's case.

 

[The Josh]

Ok, but they do age right? Just very slowly?

I don't think they age even in the mortal form they have. I think its just a look since they're as Frank said angels. So they may be able to live forever looking like an old man. I don't think they're bound to the same laws as men of Middle-earth but I don't know if Tolkien ever said one way or another.

In the Silmarillion, I believe I read that they appeared as old men from the start and stayed that way. They're kind of like an approximation of angels given an earthly form. They depart once their mission is over which would be the destruction of Sauron, at least in Gandalf's case.

 

[TD-0488]

What do you mean? They DID fight at Dol Guldur, did you see the movie? You can't "defeat" Sauron unless the ring is destroyed as well, they don't know that yet though in The Hobbit. Sauron IS formless in The Hobbit and regains his form again in Lord of the Rings, in the books at least, in the movie he kinda always remains formless. Gandalf is not "forced" to middle earth, he was send with the 4 other wizards to middle the earth (the Istari) to help, motivate, and support the free people of middle earth to finish off Sauron once and for all after his demise on Dagorlad.

I looked again, no real mention of Sauron in the hobbit or in reference. If you know of one, please post the source. Here is my sources to show him having a form during LoTR. Hard to believe he would not have had it during the time of the hobbit

Sauron was a Maia, and in his early career this meant that he had the ability to change shape at will: in the First Age, he seems to have had a generally human form (he's variously described as smiling, laughing, standing and so on), though in his battle with Huan he was able to shift freely between the forms of a wolf, a serpent and a flying vampire. In the Second Age, during the time when the Rings of Power were made, he took on the semblance of a noble teacher. However, his shape-changing abilities were not limitless, and after the Downfall of Númenor they were severely curtailed:

'...he was robbed now of that shape in which he had wrought so great an evil, so that he could never again appear fair to the eyes of Men...' (1)
After his defeat in the War of the Last Alliance, things became even worse for him, and he lost his physical form altogether:

'...he forsook his body, and his spirit fled far away and hid in waste places; and he took no visible shape again for many long years.' (2)
This was in the last year of the Second Age. The story of The Lord of the Rings is set more than three thousand years later, in the closing years of the Third Age, but that book includes only the slightest hints of a description of Sauron. No doubt Tolkien kept Sauron in the shadows for good dramatic reasons, leaving it to the reader's imagination to create something darker and more fearsome than a mere description could convey. This literary device has left behind something of a puzzle: what actually did Sauron look like? For that matter, did he have any kind of physical body at all?

The question is made more complicated by the recurrence of the image of the Red Eye, which often appears to signify Sauron. In some places, this is clearly used as a symbol, but in others it actually seems to be - at least partially - a physical description. This is the Eye that Frodo saw in the Mirror of Galadriel:

'The Eye was rimmed with fire, but was itself glazed, yellow as a cat's, watchful and intent, and the black slit of its pupil opened on a pit, a window into nothing.' (3)
This has led more than a few readers to interpret the Eye absolutely literally, to the point where Sauron is imagined simply as a burning eyeball. The most notable of these readers, of course, is Peter Jackson, who used the motif of the glowing eye throughout his trilogy of movies. Indeed, at one point in the movie The Fellowship of the Ring, Saruman explicitly states of Sauron that 'he cannot yet take physical form' (though nothing comparable to this appears in the book).

This isn't an unreasonable position to take. There are numerous references to the Red Eye as a symbol for Sauron, and in places it's difficult to tell where the symbol ends and the physical description begins. For example:

'The Red Eye will be looking towards Isengard.' (4)
On the other hand, there are several references to 'the red eye' that clearly have nothing to do with Sauron at all. There's an example of this in the following quote, where the 'red eye' is in the Tower of Cirith Ungol:

'Now the orc-tower was right above him, frowning black, and in it the red eye glowed.' (6)
Here, the idea of the red eye embodies the unsleeping watchfulness of Mordor, and has no direct relation to Sauron. In fact, there are reasons to think that the capitalised 'Red Eye' is simply an extension of this metaphor. For example, speaking of Sauron's fingers, Gollum - who has apparently seen the Dark Lord with his own eyes - says:

'He has only four on the Black Hand, but they are enough.' (5)
It follows that if Sauron has a Black Hand, he cannot merely be a Red Eye. There seems to be at least one metaphor in use here. Actually, there is quite a weight of evidence within The Lord of the Rings that Sauron had some kind of physical form:

'...if the Nameless One himself should come, not even he could enter here while we yet live.' (7)
'And the prisoner is to be kept safe and intact ... until He [Sauron] sends or comes Himself.' (6)
'He [Sauron] will not come save only to triumph over me when all is won.' (7)
The characters who say these lines (including his own Orcs) all seem to believe that Sauron could easily travel from one place to another. In particular, Aragorn seems to believe that Sauron not only has a physical form, but that it would be possible to do harm to that form:

'Let the Lord of the Black Land come forth! Justice shall be done upon him.' (8)
Curiously, this line was used word-for-word in the movie version of The Return of the King, despite the fact that Sauron was depicted there as an apparently immobile glowing eye.

If we move to Tolkien's letters, it becomes hard to avoid the conclusion that Sauron did, indeed, have a physical shape. For instance, there's a reference there to:

'...the year 1000 of the Third Age, when the shadow of Sauron began first to grow again to new shape.' (9)
The War of the Ring started in the year 3018 of the Third Age - it's hard to imagine that after more than two thousand years, Sauron still hadn't formed a new shape for himself. There's another reference among Tolkien's letters that goes even further, to the extent that it effectively settles the discussion:

'Sauron should be thought of as very terrible. The form that he took was that of a man of more than human stature, but not gigantic.' (10)
This is from a letter specifically discussing the events at the end of The Lord of the Rings, so there's really no question that it describes Sauron as Tolkien saw him then. In fact, it seems that the huge armoured Sauron that appears at the beginning of the movie The Fellowship of the Ring probably fits Tolkien's vision rather better than the image of a glowing eye.

Sources
1 The Silmarillion: Akallabêth
2 The Silmarillion: Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age
3 The Fellowship of the Ring II 7, The Mirror of Galadriel
4 The Two Towers III 9, Flotsam & Jetsam
5 The Two Towers IV 3, The Black Gate is Closed
6 The Two Towers IV 10, The Choices of Master Samwise
7 The Return of the King V 4, The Siege of Gondor
8 The Return of the King V 10, The Black Gate Opens
9 The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, No 144, dated 1954
10 The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, No 246, dated 1963


Next, gandalf was commanded (forced) as he did not want to face Sauron, to go to middle earth

the Undying Lands around TA 1000, Manwë summoned a council of the Valar to send three messengers to Middle-earth. Two Maiar came, Curumo (later known as Saruman) sent by Aulë, and (Morinehtar) Alatar, sent by Oromë. Manwë asked where Olórin was, and he came, after returning from a journey. Manwë asked Olórin (Gandalf) if he would go as the third messenger. Olórin said that he was too weak, and he was afraid of Sauron. Manwë said that that was all the more reason to go, and that he commanded Olórin to go as the third. Then Varda said "Not as the third." Yavanna begged Curumo to take (Radagast) Aiwendil, and Alatar took (Rómestámo), Pallando as a friend.

 

[The Chev]

In the Silmarillion, I believe I read that they appeared as old men from the start and stayed that way. They're kind of like an approximation of angels given an earthly form. They depart once their mission is over which would be the destruction of Sauron, at least in Gandalf's case.

Ok, so then Gandalf's comment in AUJ makes no sense since he wouldn't have changed much.

I want to read the Slimarillion at someone, but it seems as daunting as wanted to read the bible front to back.

 

[The Josh]

Ok, so then Gandalf's comment in AUJ makes no sense since he wouldn't have changed much.

I want to read the Slimarillion at someone, but it seems as daunting as wanted to read the bible front to back.

I think what he meant was that Galadriel looked as beautiful as ever but coming to Middle-earth had changed him to make him look older.

The first chapter or two are a little long. It deals with the creation of the world type stuff but after that it gets pretty darn good.

 

[Frank]

Ok, so then Gandalf's comment in AUJ makes no sense since he wouldn't have changed much.

I want to read the Slimarillion at someone, but it seems as daunting as wanted to read the bible front to back.

It's been a good long while since I read The Hobbit, so I'm not sure that line is in the book. Comes off as pleasant filler if not entirely consistent with his character. Some elements of the Maiar might not have been fully realized when Tolkien wrote it at any rate.

 

[The Josh]

No that line isn't in the book or the appendices.

 

[The Ween]

Ok, so then Gandalf's comment in AUJ makes no sense since he wouldn't have changed much.

I want to read the Slimarillion at someone, but it seems as daunting as wanted to read the bible front to back.

I want Josh to read it to me so he can explain it as he goes.