The road goes ever on
and on down from the door where it began.
Bilbo’s road with Thorin’s
company has led him through places he had never dreamed. The road to the Lonely
Mountain has thus far been filled with trolls, elves, orcs, and goblins, but
they are only halfway there. Before the last day of autumn, the company must
travel through the dark forest of Mirkwood, the freezing waters of Lake Town
and find the hidden door into the mountains. Many dangers still lie ahead of
them and with a shadow growing that causes Gandalf to leave the quest time is
ever of the essence.
A definite improvement on An Unexpected Journey in terms of cinematic extensions! From the
beginning, we’ve got extra scenes that give more life to some of the smaller
characters that spark intrigue such as Beorn the skin-changer and there are
larger chunks of the story put back in that didn’t feature at all in the
theatrical release. Then we’ve got the three discs of special features that
just enlighten you with this greater depth of understanding behind the
histories of Tolkien’s creations as well as the incredible, fine-toothed comb
thought processes that accompany the cinematic creation of the sets, the
creatures, the costumes, and the music. Abiding memory of it all is that when
you’re in Middle Earth, you’re actually going everywhere!
Bilbo’s road with
Thorin’s company has led him through places he had never dreamed. The road to
the Lonely Mountain has thus far been filled with trolls, elves, orcs, and
goblins, but they are only halfway there. Before the last day of autumn, the
company must travel through the dark forest of Mirkwood, the freezing waters of
Lake Town and find the hidden door into the mountains. Many dangers still lie
ahead of them and with a shadow growing that causes Gandalf to leave the quest
time is ever of the essence.
As I mentioned, there’s a lot more chunks that
were deleted from the theatrical version that are put back into this one and
when I say chunks, I mean chunks.
We’ve got extra scenes with Beorn, which I really liked because he fascinated
me as a character, we’ve got the discovery of Thorin’s father Thrain (I can see
why they got rid of this bit entirely, but oh my goodness that part was really
surprising), and we’ve got these great extended hallucination and drug trip
sequences in Mirkwood, not to mention extended action sequences, small dialogue
scenes, and extra flashbacks that further cement the story of Sauron coming
back into his strength. It’s really good.
In the special features we get to see
absolutely everything from the creation process of Smaug, to the composition of
the soundtrack, to the costume designs, prosthetic designs, the special
effects, the composition of each scene, and of the course the phenomenal set
design. Absolutely everything is covered!
I mentioned before that my abiding
memory of the special features (because watching them all in a big sitting sort
of makes them blend all together) was the conclusion that Middle Earth is made
up of all these different cultures of our own world. Watching the features on
the set design and the music composition particularly, you really get this idea
of just how much thought and inspiration goes into the creation of these
things. Case in point, the buildings of Lake Town are a montage of Asian,
Russian, and Scandinavian architectural design and the music and various
characters’ are similar, making use of Asian instruments, Scandinavian and
Celtic sounds etc. When you’re in Middle Earth, you’re really going around the
world in 3 hours and this thought alone makes the films all the more incredible
and brings further appreciation to the entire thing! It’s pretty awesome.
Filled
with interviews, technology, creative thought processes, laughter, drama,
music, and everything in between, The
Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (Extended Edition) really inspires more
appreciation for a set of movies that are already greatly appreciated.
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