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The Desolation of Smaug SPOILERS ALLOWED Discussion Thread


Jay

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That doesn't explain anything I said.

And what else is Radagast to tell Galadriel? Gandalf sends him away before anything happens. He tells Radagast to bring message that he is exploring the fortress. So? He doesn't know Gandalf was captured.

Well if Gandalf is bait, Radagast would assume he needs backup.

Does PJ not explain the Radagast Dol Guldur scene in the commentary?

No, not as far as I could hear.

And why would Gandalf need backup exploring a, in the council's consensus, forsaken fortress?

We should not have to depend on a directors commentary.

I was just wondering if he did. I don't have many problems with the Dol Guldur stuff, particularly in DOS.

That whole scene with Bolg and Azog at Dol Guldur was a scene I remember being surprised by (since it wasn't in any trailers), in a good way. The music works so well in it too.

You mean the music that wasn't used?

Another thing that bothered me was the, let's say tightly calculated, travel times. Especially at Beorn's. The company rests at his house at night. The same night, Bolg arrives in the area of Beorn's house and tells Azog to go back to Dol Guldur. Cut to Bilbo caressing the ring, cut back to Azog, and - lo and behold - he is in Dol Guldur. That same night! Even assuming he travelled by warg, that's a bold move.

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Isn't Dol Guldur close to Mirkwood?


Again, Gandalf knew it was a trap, yes, and that's precisely why he went in. To force Sauron's hand, to get the council to act.

However, I don't get that as well.

Sauron was apparently ready to send his armies at the point Gandalf gets captured. Why attack him, and "force his hand", if he is about to reveal himself anyway (or already has revealed himself to Radagast)? Is it meant to show that Gandalf made a mistake?

More so, after Gandalf and Radagast explore the tombs, and discover they have been broken up, emptied, whatever, and Gandalf draws the conclusion the Ringwraiths have been called to Dol Guldur, why the hell didn't he have the council make a move together? He has Radagast's story, evidence and support, Galadriel's support, and Elrond at the very least is on the verge of believing Radagast/Gandalf.

And what else is Radagast to tell Galadriel? Gandalf sends him away before anything happens. He tells Radagast to bring message that he is exploring the fortress. So? He doesn't know Gandalf was captured.

Its Return of the Jedi all over again.

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I'm thinking of sequences in FOTR as a better example. Now if we suppose that Gandalf gave instructions to the moth only as Frodo was being taken away from Weathertop, then questions must be asked. Now obviously in the books Gandalf had long escaped by that point, and indeed had been to Weathertop a couple of days before Aragorn and the Hobbits. Let's say we ignore this and use film logic (even though Arwen mentions four wraiths being unaccounted for, suggesting a reference to Gandalf's actions). Even then, it strikes me that Frodo appears to get to Rivendell the following day, with the scene at the Trollshaws taking place the same night and Arwen riding through the night and getting to the Ford of Bruinen the following day. This would mean that the eagle must have come for Gandalf that same night and he only arrived at Rivendell just before Frodo did.

This seems a big stretch. I prefer to think these things are not actually taking place simultaneously.

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The intercutting in PJs LOTRs has never been chronological. Just think of the beacon sequence in ROTK.

What do you mean?

The sequence is short, but from the changes of day and night it's clear that it takes at least a day or so (for the beacon message to arrive). In the meantime, Frodo, Sam and Gollum climb a couple of metres at Minas Morgul.

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wow...true...

i rewatched it again... and really, that scene makes rohan be very very far from gondor...

Would the signal really take it one and a half days to reach it? Comparing with the landscape and mountains i would say some beacons are 50 km or more appart....

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Please.... are you being serious?

hills dont have permanent ice and snow, and they have vegetation not barerock.

No, all of the mountains featured look by the least around 2000 m high.

And for that reason, i always saw it very implausible to have two people living so high waiting for the signal to be called on..once or never in a lifetime...

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Actually, Edoras and Minas Tirith are quite far apart in the book.

Ofcourse the beacons are sets on hills there, not on friggin' Mt. Everest!

The films' map and Gandalf commentary 'three day ride' (and im sure he is taking shadowfax speed and endurance there...) Say the contrary..

How many km per day..100-150?

that would be 300-450 km. that's 6-9 beacons...

:P

Stiff meant (and actually said) "in the book".

oh i read it wrong, I didnt saw the 'there' signaling the book. sorry steef.

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Thats more an error then anything else.

It's not the only time it happens in the films. Just the one I recall rather well. I think PJ just doesn't care about synchronicity in post production.

wow...true...

i rewatched it again... and really, that scene makes rohan be very very far from gondor...

Would the signal really take it one and a half days to reach it? Comparing with the landscape and mountains i would say some beacons are 50 km or more appart....

Looking at the remote locations the beacons are placed in the film, I don't see a problem in assuming that it takes some of the watchmen a few hours until the notice the signal and pass it on.

Especially considering the heavy clouds around some of those peaks... you wouldn't be able to spot the beacon from the next spot until the weather changes. ;)

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And for that reason, i always saw it very implausible to have two people living so high waiting for the signal to be called on..once or never in a lifetime...

Lol, I always kind of wondered about that. But...

Who gives a shit about such details? The sequence is amazing!

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And for that reason, i always saw it very implausible to have two people living so high waiting for the signal to be called on..once or never in a lifetime...

Lol, I always kind of wondered about that. But...

Who gives a shit about such details? The sequence is amazing!

Hey even PJ joked about a spin-off of the "Beacon Boys", the watchmen who live in the mountains just to keep watch for the possible emergency that would need the lighting of those beacons.

In the novel these beacons are situated on the northern foothills of the White Mountains and Tolkien seems to imply that there is a permanent watchpost or guard tower or small garrison in place, which would make much more sense than few guys perched on mountain tops for all their lives.

But the film sequence is visually quite striking and symbolic. Funny thing is that the very CGI looking flames are in one of the close shots of lighting one of the mountaintop beacons are the real deal. :P

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I thought all the fire was CGI, where did you hear that?

In one of the DVD commentaries.

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That's hard to believe.

Considering that in the Hobbit, even the flame Gandalf lights his pipe with is CGI, yes, it is hard to believe.

PJ wasn't so corrupted at the time of RotK, yet. The Hobbit took a whole giant leap into the realm of CGI compared to the LotR trilogy with those all digital environments etc.

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Peter Jackson left Middle-Earth in 2003. What he came back to was the Dungeons and Dragons video game.

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Maybe that's something which is lacking in this new trilogy; something tangible - a real, lived-in world. It doesn't look epic in the same way LotR did. It's a computer's closest replication of the 'epic aesthetic'.

Middle-Earth almost feels phony.

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Indeed. Conrad Pope mentioned in his interview that the cameras needed to film for 48 fps are the size of a refrigerator (another reason to have avoided it entirely) so they had to minimize location shooting to avoid carrying all that junk up mountains and rivers.

Which to me looks a bs a excuse considering the difficulty they bore through to film brilliant sets like Edoras in location.

In LotR, the design of sets and location scouting had great artistic merit. In the Hobbit the few real landscapes we see look like New Zealand exploitation, and the rest is a computer's sad attempt at replicating the epic scope of the OT.

The lengths to which these films have dropped from their predecessors, is a real fucking shame.

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In LotR, the design of sets and location scouting had great artistic merit. In the Hobbit the few real landscape we see look like New Zealand exploitation, and the rest is a computer's sad attempt at replicating the epic scope of the OT.

Yes.

The lengths to which these films have dropped from their predecessors, is a real fucking shame.

Yes.

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Maybe that's something which is lacking in this new trilogy; something tangible - a real, lived-in world.

Maybe? THAT is what is lacking.

Well, it's more of a tip of the iceberg thing though isn't it.

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Indeed. Conrad Pope mentioned in his interview that the cameras needed to film for 48 fps are the size of a refrigerator (another reason to have avoided it entirely) so they had to minimize location shooting to avoid carrying all that junk up mountains and rivers.

Which to me looks a bs a excuse considering the difficulty they bore through to film brilliant sets like Edoras in location.

In LotR, the design of sets and location scouting had great artistic merit. In the Hobbit the few real landscape we see look like New Zealand exploitation, and the rest is a computer's sad attempt at replicating the epic scope of the OT.

The lengths to which these films have dropped from their predecessors, is a real fucking shame.

PJ said they planned a warg attack on Edoras, but ended up axing the idea because "it was just impossible to light this thing" (meaning Edoras).

In 2013, Jackson would not only not ax the idea, he would rebuild Edoras as a CGI environment, add the CGI wargs, and throw in some additional orcs for the fun of it.

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