No, I am interested in what Cried was saying. Not doing justice to Tolkien is one talking point, but it sounds like he actually thought it a poor film per se, Tolkien fan or not.
Yes, he should speak up....
Thanks for being interested, frankly. I'm not saying this just for the sake of it --but, as
Brigs says, I genuinely thought this was a poor, poor movie. Where to start...
Dialogue: Loads of great actors; with both previous form, in Jackson's franchise, & newer actors/characters (e.g. Stephen Fry). They
said very, very little. The dialogue seemed so sparse. A total waste I thought. I mean, even Freeman & McKellen were pretty subdued. Nobody, in my view, came out of this film very well. Not the actors fault, just a poor script. When actors actually said stuff it was always good. They just didn't say much.
The look of the film: Literally
all studio work, with hardly any outside film work. There were a few scenes, but not many. Think of the LotRs films: these
looked visually far, far superior to this. Where was all the visual
detail of previous films?
Atmosphere/tone: Where was the atmosphere of the book? Jackson has no touch in this department
at all. This is my biggest complaint about all his films at times, but in this one
period. He could still have had humour (something he has good form with), despite the "darker" feel here; but there was very little. Mirkwood?! Where was the enchantment & magic? Where was the visual treat? Difficult on film, granted. But this was a real let-down. No atmosphere at all. A huge missed opportunity, skipped past too quickly.
Action: The action in this film, more than any other, really, really started to drag. It was pure filler hokum. Think of what they managed to cram (characters, places, plot, locations, etc) in to the three LotRs films; quite a lot. Jackson had three films in which to spin out a far, far simpler story. And yet it felt like they'd really left themselves very little room for the scenes & places that mattered. The relentless Orc interwoven storyline (other than being uninteresting & pointless) has lead the film makers to actually have the Orcs practically having more to say than (for example) Gandalf. Is this what they set out to do? A real mistake.
Additional Character: Again, with so little room for any other development, what was the purpose in this "love" storyline & introduction of a new character? Other than the absurdity of it within Tolkien's world, it seemed to serve very little purpose in Jackson's Middle-earth. The scene with her rubbing his leg was total fucking nonsense. Other than looking like an old movie depiction of a sex scene (i.e. where there is no sex but it's only very tangibly suggested/implied) --this was interwoven with Erebor/Smaug scenes. The juxtaposition was ridiculous.
Smaug: Visually he was great. He started speaking, & it was, again, good. Then he kept speaking. And kept speaking. And started literally chatting. And then he was duped like the dumb monster he is! Do you think they could have portrayed this any poorer?
I could go on, but I'm boring myself to tears here...
Fantasy (yes, even Fantasy for kids) requires the willing suspension of disbelief. Fantasy is fragile. It requires just suggestion sometimes, not blatant depiction. Smaug is a Dragon; difficult to pull off. But Tolkien wrote a great Dragon character; one they should at least have had the sense to stick closely to. Instead, we have a massively diminished character; another stupid, easily-fooled monster. "This way!"; "no, over here" (Smaug looking at Dwarves in one direction, & then the other). The magic is totally destroyed here. As
Brigantium says, I didn't "hate" this as a Tolkien fan, I just thought this was a missed opportunity. And a poor film to boot. I genuinely have no idea what you guys thought was good about this film. I thought it was a total car crash.
