The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. What everyone is saying.

     Everyone was excited to see what would happen next in the second movie of The Hobbit. As December rolled in people had their tickets ready, and had their cosplay set for The Desolation of Smaug. Fans, and nerds, and geeks were on pins and needles, theories were created, spoilers posted. Everything was prepared.
      Since this review is so late in the making after the release of the movie I am not bothering about spoilers, and my post will mostly be about the likes and dislikes of the movie that everyone is talking about. Not just my likes/dislikes, but in general the arguments and opinions of what I have read, or some of what my friends and family have said or heard.

~Random female Elf! Personally, I did not like that Peter Jackson threw Tauriel in to ‘appeal to the female audience.’ I think the fact that he made the dwarves so handsome was enough for the drooling girls. That does not mean I dislike her altogether. I have heard said she was like a stereo-typical side female character; strong, good fighting, and of course falls in love.
   While other sources liked her as a character and thought she intertwined with the story very well. She was a very good warrior, and a rather fun character with a sassy sense of humor. Even though made up they had a history for her and even an age, (600 years).

 ~ Legolas Appears! At the beginning when we heard they were putting Legolas in the movie, there was a boom in the fandom. A lot of controversy about whether he should be there or not stretched long. I was one that thought he should not be put in. There was already too much drama around him for my liking.
    My friends argued with me that Legolas might have actually been there, if Mr. Tolkien had invented him beforehand. You see, Legolas did not exist until The Lord of the Rings, which was written after The Hobbit. We know from the book that he was Thranduil’s son. Since Thranduil is in the book, The Hobbit, they said naturally Legolas would be there. So logically Legolas could have been there.
    They did stretch his roll dramatically in the movie, considering he was not in the book, to the joy of his devoted girl fans.

~Tauriel + Kili = love. So that was awkward, where did that come from? The group of friends I saw the movie with was all in shock and wondering the same thing, as we watched Kili flirt and Tauriel apparently enjoying it, and then that moment when Kili is hurt and she is healing him and she starts to glow. Many of my friend’s heads were bowed and shaking with disbelief, or hiding their eyes in embarrassment. It was a big shock to us all.
   Also considering how hard it is for dwarves and elves to get along at all ever, I think the saying: that escalated quickly, applies.
   For the romantic type they found the love interest touching. Some romance needs to be in every movie right? I guess to appeal to a wider audience they decided to toss it in there.

~That was definitely CGI. In The Lord of the Rings it was usually hard to tell they had used CGI (Computer-generated imagery), and sometimes they did not, and the makers of the movie worked hard to make it look as real as they could. In The Hobbit however it was clearly visible that half of it was CGI, I could say it disappointed us nerds quite a bit. I certainly was a bit upset, until my brother brought up a good point to me. He said that The Hobbit was written for a younger audience, so it made sense that they would make the movie a bit less realistic--almost cartoon like if you would permit me to say--. Even if it does not look as real as The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, we can still enjoy the beautiful scenes and designs, and the world of Middle Earth.

~That was not in the book. I think everyone would agree that the first movie was closer to the book than the second. The producers added so much of their own creation to the second movie. Personally speaking, I did not mind the change. Of course we were already expecting and preparing ourselves for great changes –as movies always do-- so it was not really surprising. They added things with Gandalf and the White Council from the book Unfinished Tales, but the producers also added their own things, like Legolas’s importance, and Tauriel, and the fight with Smaug.
   I did not hear much complaining or gripping about the changes in the movie, as a matter of fact a lot of people liked it, thought it interesting.
   A friend of mine said while watching the movie it felt like they were using this movie as a build up for the third and last movie, as if it was going to get better for the last adventure.

     There is a lot more topics people are talking about with this movie –even about the colour of Tauriel’s hair?-- I just wrote about the most popular and most spoken of topics of this movie.
   We all have J.R.R Tolkien to thank for creating a world so many people and so many generations love, and enjoy, and can discuss over constantly.

   Now we wait for the extended edition of The Desolation of Smaug and then, and then here comes the last movie. Fans, nerds, and geeks alike are anticipating, predicting, and gathering their new costume for the next Hobbit Movie: There and Back Again. With the cliffhanger they gave us, I am on pins and needles to see the next movie, as I am sure so many people are.

Always at your service, and thanks for reading.