There and Back Again

1) I have never read The Hobbit. I was essentially going into this movie not knowing what would happen, though I know some plot points I don't know them all. So to me everything was new and I had no knowledge of the original plot to compare it to. So there won't be any criticisms about how many liberties have been taken with the story and characters, heh.

2) I've chosen to talk about just stuff that stuck out to me, I love the dwarves but I htink a lot of people have talked about Thorin and Bilbo and Smaug already so I guess I'll just talk about random stuff!

===

- Bard A+ noble Dad. Fandom wise this year has been filled with so many dads. I will draw more of him soon!

- Thranduil. And Thranduil's eyebrows. I love how when we have a dramatic introductory panning shot of his face it's like:

Crowwnnnn... majestic haiiirliiinee...... EEEYEEEBROOOWWWSSSSS EYEBROWS BLACK EYEBROWS FLECKED WITH THE SILVER DEW OF MOONS AND STARDUSTttt tt t t eyes.

So uh yes proper fanart of Thranduil will hopefully happen at some point.

- I kind of wanted the film to make more of the fact that Legolas was Thranduil's son, esp. that despite Thranduil being a kind of Scary Dad Legolas just runs off and disobeys him... maybe they'll put that in the final film?

We (as in my sis and I) invited Mum along, and at one point she leaned over and whispered to me "Is that REALLY Orlando Bloom?"

Me: Yes.

Her: Oh, good.

He doesn't look much older at all. The magic of makeup, huh. His voice sounded older, or maybe he was trying to be as gruff and badass as everyone else lol. I liked his appearance in the film, though. I had reservations at first and thought his part was some unnecessary three second cameo but his scenes were awesome.

- I also really liked Tauriel, I knew I would. She is the perfect combination of tough, wise, and sensitive. Plus ultimate hairspiration. I thought the little love story between her and Kili was cute. <33

Final thoughts:

Fili having a mini weapons arsenal stashed in his clothes (and hair? That's what it looked like lol)

Bombur saved the day!!

I enjoyed the finale with Smaug because I love dragons... /sad horn/ When I was little I was obsessed with dragons. If little me had seen this movie I might have died from dragon overload.

I thought the movie would centre around battling Smaug in Laketown. But it was a huge scene with Smaug under the mountain and the /film/ ends with him pootling off to go set fire to Laketown. I was like... oh... because the scene inside the mountain was super long and I kept expecting it to end but it didn't. It was the only bit I kind of wished was shorter.

I actually think that I enjoyed this film more than the first one. The plot seemed more evenly paced and the action scenes were well put over and exciting (there were A LOT of them, lol). I found myself caring more about the characters, even the ones who'd just been introduced in this movie.