The Desolation of Smaug: A Movie with Flawed Polish

I recently had the opportunity to watch The Desolation of Smaug, the second installment in Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy. While I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and its themes, I couldn't help but feel that it was missing a certain level of polish that is typically expected from a film of this caliber.

There are several reasons why I felt this way about The Desolation of Smaug. One major issue is that Jackson and his team were working on multiple projects simultaneously - the second and third movies in the trilogy, as well as other projects. This is not uncommon in the entertainment industry, but it can lead to a sense of disjointedness and lack of cohesion in the final product. In this case, I think that the rushed production schedule may have contributed to some of the film's issues.

One notable example of this disjointedness is the use of a GoPro camera in one scene. The dwarves are traveling down a river, and for part of the clip, it appears that a GoPro was attached to a barrel or bucket and run through the water with them. At first, I thought that this might be a clever filmmaking technique, but upon closer inspection, it became clear that the camera work was of a much lower quality than the rest of the film. The image was fuzzy and lacking in detail, and the overall effect was jarring. It's hard to believe that such a mistake would have made it into a major motion picture, especially one with the budget and resources of The Hobbit trilogy.

Another issue I had with The Desolation of Smaug was its reliance on CGI. While CGI is often used in film production to create realistic effects, some of the work in this movie felt overly reliant on it. Certain scenes, such as those featuring the Orcs, looked like they belonged in a bad sci-fi movie rather than a fantasy epic. It's hard to get lost in the world of Middle-earth when the special effects seem so obvious and cheap.

The title sequence for The Desolation of Smaug was also noteworthy for its lack of polish. The music was eerie and reminiscent of a bad horror movie, which didn't quite fit with the tone of the rest of the film. Additionally, some of the CGI work during this sequence looked like it had been done on a shoestring budget rather than with the resources available to Jackson's team.

In general, I felt that The Desolation of Smaug was a disappointing movie compared to some of its predecessors in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. While it still had its moments and was enjoyable to watch, there were too many issues that detracted from the overall experience. I hope that any future films in this series will benefit from a more streamlined production schedule and a focus on creating high-quality special effects.

The Hobbit trilogy has been a beloved series for many fans of fantasy literature and film, but it's clear that even the most well-intentioned projects can be affected by rushed production schedules. While The Desolation of Smaug may not have lived up to my expectations, I remain hopeful that the next installment will be more successful in terms of its polish and attention to detail.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello everyone my name is zos box and I believe the game play that you are watching is going to be from Super Stardust HD on the PlayStation 3 what I hope to talk about in today's video is just my kind my my thoughts on the Hobbit 2 even though it's not two but desolation desolation of SM that is the second release of The Hobbit which should be a Trilogy and it came out out this past December I think it was like December 10th I didn't get to see it till January so I'm a bit behind and so this video may seem completely out of place to you but to me I still want to get my thoughts out there on the movie because had some minor issues with it and I don't know I I loved the Lord of the Rings trilogy uh Chu and I actually watched watched back through the trilogy recently and we're hoping to make a run through of the extended editions but that will take a lot more time than we have at the moment given that they're like five hours each um I also love I loved the first Hobbit that was an amazing movie and I I liked desolation of smog I really did but there were some really weird issues with it that I think honestly came from doing the second and third movie at the same time and that's pretty much unavoidable that's you see that in the game industry you see that in the movie industry you see that anywhere where you're working on basically the current you know release and the next release at the same time which of course is desolation of smog and the next movie they were filming them at the same time and releasing them at the same time you get this lack of Polish and you get this kind of feeling of it not being finished and that is a huge problem especially for cinema cinema you know if you go to a movie theater you're supposed to be watching a polished completely done and ready to go movie not something that I honestly feel like they need to have like a post post production team go work on it before it gets dropped on disc and that's kind of disappointing there just it felt unfinished to some degree and there's some weird issues with it that I would not have expected from a uh you know Hobbit movie or Lord of the Rings series movie nor would I have expected to see it actually in theaters one of those issues which you may have seen people talking about already on social media and I actually saw it talked about before I even saw the movie and I thought they were just being like they were just being overcritical but the there's a scene where they're going down a river the the dwarves are going through a river and they basically for part of the clips they it looks like they attached a GoPro to one of the buckets or barrels and just had it run through the river with them and it if if you don't know what you're looking for or you're not expecting it you're probably not going to see it but it's someone who is really perceptive of that stuff and was primed made aware of that before watching the film film was just blatantly obvious to me like there's a huge quality difference between the really you know high-end professional video cameras that they're using and what appeared to be a GoPro that they attached to the barrel and ran through the river like there was a huge quality difference like it was almost even Pixy like the waves and stuff the water was really Pixy and it was ridiculous it looked terrible and that just takes you out of the immersion of the movie that gets rid of that suspension and disbelief and it was bad like it was just really bad and frankly they didn't even need to use those clips at all like that's something sure that's a good idea to have let's strap a Go Pro on there just in case and you know see if we can use those clips but it was like a few 5-second Clips they could have not had those clips in the movie at all and it'd be just fine like no one would notice it would have probably and it would have been a lot better to those of us who did notice that they used the GoPro but they put them in anyway and I have no clue why the title slide like a lot of the special effects or CGI almost had this like '90s just like cheap 90s feel to it it was really weird the the title screen with the eerie music just kind of reminded me of a bad horror movie which was kind of weird and then just some of the CGI was like really obvious that it was CGI it was bad it was I don't know like I don't that's not what I get from Lord of the Rings Hobbits movies it you you're supposed to be immersed you're supposed to be really into it it's supposed to be you know it it typically those movies are a very enjoyable cinematic experience and there were just things like that like the C some of the CGI for the Orcs and stuff just looked so fake that you can't really get into that belief you can't get into the immersion into the Cinematic into the film it was I don't know I'm hoping like I said I'm hoping there could be some sort of post post production team that could clean that up before the Blu-ray release but I honestly don't know that there will be and that's really disappointing like when you're doing as good of a series as you are with The Hobbit you don't want the second movie or any of the movies to just have an unfinished feel and just kind of ruin the mood for some of us like that was just it was bad the movie wasn't bad but some of the lack of Polish was bad yeah just wanted to share my thoughts let me know if you saw it what you think about it in the comment section below thank you for watching as always my name is V's box and I will talk to you guys next time bye-byehello everyone my name is zos box and I believe the game play that you are watching is going to be from Super Stardust HD on the PlayStation 3 what I hope to talk about in today's video is just my kind my my thoughts on the Hobbit 2 even though it's not two but desolation desolation of SM that is the second release of The Hobbit which should be a Trilogy and it came out out this past December I think it was like December 10th I didn't get to see it till January so I'm a bit behind and so this video may seem completely out of place to you but to me I still want to get my thoughts out there on the movie because had some minor issues with it and I don't know I I loved the Lord of the Rings trilogy uh Chu and I actually watched watched back through the trilogy recently and we're hoping to make a run through of the extended editions but that will take a lot more time than we have at the moment given that they're like five hours each um I also love I loved the first Hobbit that was an amazing movie and I I liked desolation of smog I really did but there were some really weird issues with it that I think honestly came from doing the second and third movie at the same time and that's pretty much unavoidable that's you see that in the game industry you see that in the movie industry you see that anywhere where you're working on basically the current you know release and the next release at the same time which of course is desolation of smog and the next movie they were filming them at the same time and releasing them at the same time you get this lack of Polish and you get this kind of feeling of it not being finished and that is a huge problem especially for cinema cinema you know if you go to a movie theater you're supposed to be watching a polished completely done and ready to go movie not something that I honestly feel like they need to have like a post post production team go work on it before it gets dropped on disc and that's kind of disappointing there just it felt unfinished to some degree and there's some weird issues with it that I would not have expected from a uh you know Hobbit movie or Lord of the Rings series movie nor would I have expected to see it actually in theaters one of those issues which you may have seen people talking about already on social media and I actually saw it talked about before I even saw the movie and I thought they were just being like they were just being overcritical but the there's a scene where they're going down a river the the dwarves are going through a river and they basically for part of the clips they it looks like they attached a GoPro to one of the buckets or barrels and just had it run through the river with them and it if if you don't know what you're looking for or you're not expecting it you're probably not going to see it but it's someone who is really perceptive of that stuff and was primed made aware of that before watching the film film was just blatantly obvious to me like there's a huge quality difference between the really you know high-end professional video cameras that they're using and what appeared to be a GoPro that they attached to the barrel and ran through the river like there was a huge quality difference like it was almost even Pixy like the waves and stuff the water was really Pixy and it was ridiculous it looked terrible and that just takes you out of the immersion of the movie that gets rid of that suspension and disbelief and it was bad like it was just really bad and frankly they didn't even need to use those clips at all like that's something sure that's a good idea to have let's strap a Go Pro on there just in case and you know see if we can use those clips but it was like a few 5-second Clips they could have not had those clips in the movie at all and it'd be just fine like no one would notice it would have probably and it would have been a lot better to those of us who did notice that they used the GoPro but they put them in anyway and I have no clue why the title slide like a lot of the special effects or CGI almost had this like '90s just like cheap 90s feel to it it was really weird the the title screen with the eerie music just kind of reminded me of a bad horror movie which was kind of weird and then just some of the CGI was like really obvious that it was CGI it was bad it was I don't know like I don't that's not what I get from Lord of the Rings Hobbits movies it you you're supposed to be immersed you're supposed to be really into it it's supposed to be you know it it typically those movies are a very enjoyable cinematic experience and there were just things like that like the C some of the CGI for the Orcs and stuff just looked so fake that you can't really get into that belief you can't get into the immersion into the Cinematic into the film it was I don't know I'm hoping like I said I'm hoping there could be some sort of post post production team that could clean that up before the Blu-ray release but I honestly don't know that there will be and that's really disappointing like when you're doing as good of a series as you are with The Hobbit you don't want the second movie or any of the movies to just have an unfinished feel and just kind of ruin the mood for some of us like that was just it was bad the movie wasn't bad but some of the lack of Polish was bad yeah just wanted to share my thoughts let me know if you saw it what you think about it in the comment section below thank you for watching as always my name is V's box and I will talk to you guys next time bye-bye\n"