Thrain lies your problem... yeah just doesn't have the same ring to it. /no pun intended

The first Hobbit movie sucked ballz. No idea why anyone would be pumped for this.

I wasn't thrilled with the first one (I don't think it "sucked ballz), but this looks pretty good.

Call me when they start making "Adventures of Smegal".

I don't really understand why some people disliked the first one. I liked it. And since it wasn't a self-contained story like the first installment of most trilogies, I think final judgment has to wait until the entire story is told.

For one...

The pacing was the problem for me. It felt like a 2:15 movie stretched out to 2:45. With the LOTR movies I always felt like the theatrical versions were short and welcomed the extended editions, but I have no desire to ever see a longer Unexpected Journey.

The whole movie felt like watching the Goonies, only longer and more bland.

First one was just too long. Extending it to three movies is going to make them a ton of money, but it seems it was not the right decision creatively. There's just not enough in the story to spread it out like they did.

Too bad, because the LOTR trilogy is just fantastic.

First reviews are in with an 81% on the Tomatometer.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_...tion_of_smaug/

I'm not sure if I'm going. It just seems like the same movie over and over again.

Excellent. That's all I want. o:-)

Thats pretty much where im at with these movies. Although, i did enjoy the Hobbit alot more than i thought i would.

I feel like Jackson is just repeating himself and giving into CGI bloat like Lucas did.

Devin from Bad Ass just destroyed this film. Ouch


http://badassdigest.com/2013/12/09/t...ie-review-ugh/



The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug feels like Peter Jackson in crisis. He’s lost in the CGI and story padding, no longer grasping the storytelling basics that made Lord of the Rings work. That trilogy was all about making things fit, and it was a magnificent work of adaptation that pared down and focused a huge story with immense emotional resonance. This is a movie that takes a small story and blows it up like a cartoon character with a bicycle pump in his mouth. Of course it can’t maintain its form. Of course it comes apart.

But how does Peter Jackson not see this? When he’s including the pointless visit to Beorn’s house and he has a sequence where the camera floats behind a big CGI bumblebee, did he ever question what the point was? Did he ever wonder why, in a film that was almost three hours long, he was going to throw in this needless CG shot that tells nothing, that adds nothing, that serves only to give a slight respite from a lame chase story that he shoehorned into the film in the first place?

Congratulations, Millenials - you have your own disappointing Prequel Trilogy. Like the work of Lucas, the Hobbit films have lost sight of what made the originals work as they drown in computer graphics. The tactile world of Middle Earth has become a cartoon; there’s a scene in Desolation of Smaug where one dumb looking CGI superorc is talking to another dumb looking CGI superorc in what appears to be either a CGI room or a space so color corrected as to be essentially painted and I wondered why the hell I was even looking at this cartoon. I felt like I could go to Middle Earth when I watched Lord of the Rings; maybe I could plug in a controller and play The Hobbit, but it would likely be the kind of game where I button-mashed my way through the cut scenes because, honestly, who gives a shit about the story? Not the people who made it.

How dare that hack impugn the inclusion of Beorn.

Pointless visit to Beorn's house?? Beorn isn't Bombadil. He's kinda important to the overall story. He probably COULD be cut out, but why would you? You're not helping anything by doing that.

These people just don't get it. Peter Jackson mined the appendices to add more story content to the Hobbit.

The first one was awesome, this will be even better.

This is by the fan, for the fans.