The Hobbit is Not Very Good: An Unexpected Analysis - Part 2: The Desolation of Smaug 

This is a minor nit pick but: When Azog talks to Sauron and then demands and shouts at him, that scene makes no sense since Sauron would never allow an Orc to speak too him like that at all and would kill him to be an example to the others. Nor would an Orc even one like azog ever have the willpower to do that to Sauron.

Can confirm the barrel section is basically a video game level. The LEGO Hobbit game had it and they literally didn't have to change ANYTHING to make it be amongst the top 3 levels in that game.

So a little detail about the drunken elves that is explicitly stated in the books but that the movie doesn't clearly mention is that elves *can* get drunk, but because of their physiology it is very difficult for them to get drunk. The wine that the wood elves have is from Laketown, which is their primary trade good with the elves. The wine they make is of a *particular* strength. Far stronger than almost any other alcoholic beverage in Middle Earth. This is because only the strongest of alcohol can actually get an elf drunk. Fast forward to the drinking contest with Gimli and we suddenly have some excellent context that makes the whole scenario hilariously ironic. Not only was Legolas quite familiar with alcohol and being drunk, he knew full well that the mead they were drinking in Rohan wasn't even close to strong enough to get him drunk. He pretended to be ignorant and led Gimli on, knowing full well the dwarf stood absolutely no chance of beating him.

I always thought that Smaug asking where bilbo is from was extremely threatening. Smaug intended to make sure no more of his kind bothered him again.

The real reason Radagast accompanied Gandalf to the tomb was so that we could have a co-op character for the level in the video game LEGO The Hobbit. I also find it really funny that you point out how videogame-like a lot of the action setpieces are because the adaptations of those scenes for the LEGO game made for very entertaining levels.

"Gandalf could've easily returned with Radagast, Saurman, Galadriel and a few houndret elves" Lol, guess what happens in the books

"Okay, Ladylas - Saves what she loves instead of fighting what she hates" Mad respect Sir, that is perfect

35:48 Safety engineer here. The reason you may want to send the lightest first is because (in layman's terms) the rate to which an object is weakened by being subjected to weight is usually nonlinear. The dwarves, being metal-workers, very likely have some intuitive grasp of this fact. For example, subjecting a metal frame to 2000 lbs could weaken the frame as much as subjecting it to 1000 lbs, 16 times. So if Bombur weighs twice as much as the others, the vines could very well be weakened more by his going across first than by all 13 of the others going across first. Moreover, if the vines do break under Bombur's weight, then he dies and nobody gets across. It is entirely believable to me that the dwarves would want to cross in ascending order of weight.

This is the rant I always wished I could give to my friends but nobody would sit and listen to me for two hours, cheers you legend

It's funny how the movie has Bilbo lose the ring during the spider fight to depower him even though in the books the only reason they all live is because Bilbo is invisible and thus able to fight the spiders which makes perfect sense in this situation as none of the dwarfs had their weapons anymore. It also helped that in the books there was no mind altering trippy quality to mirkwood they all just kinda fell to despair after weeks of being lost and ran around the woods chasing lights until they were captured.

Smaug refers to Thorin as "Oakenshield" despite the fact that Thorin was only given this name *after* the exile of the Dwarves from Erebor. Did someone sneak into Smaug's lair and tell him about Thorin's exploits and new nickname?

In the novel, Bard mentions how he has "always retrieved" the black arrow, implying he's used it many times before and may well have missed with it too.

Bilbo’s conversation with Smaug suffers because of how the structure supporting it was altered. In the book, Bilbo was hoping to find the Dragon’s weakness; Smaug wanted to kill Bilbo, but couldn’t find him because Bilbo never took off the Ring. So each kept the other talking in the hopes they’d slip up (as they each eventually did). In _The Desolation of Smaug,_ Bilbo is looking for the Arkenstone instead, so he keeps Smaug talking to distract him while he searches. That’s functional enough; but what is Smaug getting out of his chat with Bilbo? This time the Hobbit’s NOT wearing the Ring. He’s standing right there; nothing to stop Smaug from just stepping on him. Perhaps the Dragon wanted information, but in that case why not just torture it out of him right quick? He’s a 150 foot-long flying theropod with a built-in flamethrower: plenty of different options he could use to make Bilbo very uncomfortable! Maybe Smaug was just bored and welcomed the company for a change.

Funny thing is that in the books Elrond was world renowned one-of-a-kind healer thanks to his Ring of Power which amplified his magic. So when Frodo was delivered to him he uses Sauron's craftsmanship to remove Sauron's curse. I honestly doubt any elven mage at Thranduil's disposal could heal Kili of morgul poison. Looks like someone gave Bolg a cheap fake.

The book handles the Beorn encounter in a much better, actually humorous way. Beorn likes stories, and Gandalf regales beorn with the tale of their travels and tells the dwarves earlier to come out in pairs every 5 minutes.

2:44 in the actual story, Azog can speak Black Speech and Dwarfish, showing he’s probably quite smart. When Thror and Nar came to Moria, Thror ventured in alone and was killed either by Azog or his Orcs. Azog then mocked Nar, calling him a ‘beggar-beard’ and basically calls dwarves homeless tramps, and then tossed Thror’s ‘weregild’ by tossing Nar a sack of worthless sack of coins. On Thror’s head he had his name carved in runes, and proclaimed himself the king under the mountain. He’s practically goading on the Dwarves to attack him, ‘come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough’. He never swore an oath to end the line of Durin, unless he did it during the war. So Azog is shown to be intelligent, learned, literate in Dwarfish and then presumably Black Speech, and knowledgeable of Dwarven culture and history. What they could’ve done is go over the entire history of the Dwarves in the prologue, wherein they could’ve included that scene. To do it justice it seems like it’d take 20-30 minutes but if Friday The 13th can have one of those and keep it engaging, so can Middle Earth.

Gandalf seeing the ring would've not broken LOTR. At the beginning of LOTR (both movies and books), Gandalf does know about Bilbo's ring. He just believed it to be merely one of the lesser rings of power. On top of that, the ring at this point in time was sort of sleeping. Granting some powers, yes, but with Sauron not yet reincarned, not operating at full strength. Gandalf would've not being able to detect it for what it was. Bilbo feeling its influence instead breaks the movie continuity a ton more. How is he already feeling corruption now and at the same time capable of holding up against its corruption with almost no lasting effect for 60 years until the beginning of LOTR?

This shtick of taking bullet list character notes while watching is a brilliant way of making commentary. Well done.

You know what's not fair? Arwen actually WAS mentioned in The Hobbit, and yet she wasn't in Rivendell, while Legolas wasn't mentioned in any way and he gets to be in the movies!!

I am absolutely astounded that the films cut one of the most important elements of the book: Bilbo is the very first person to notice Smaug's weak spot, and it is his report to the Dwarves of this weakness that the Thrush then passes on to Bard, enabling Bard to kill Smaug. So Bilbo is - via a domino effect - directly responsible for Smaug's death (not too dissimilar to how Frodo - via domino effect - is directly responsible for the Ring's destruction despite being mentally unable to literally release it from his hand). In the films, Bilbo never tells the Dwarves about Smaug's weak spot, and the thrush does nothing. So Bilbo's role in Smaug's demise is completely eliminated. Ridiculous.

My biggest gripe when I saw this was the morgul shaft. Why couldn’t it have just been a poisoned? Same thing would’ve happened. My other problems were Bofur over sleeping & getting left behind & Oin not knowing what kingsfoil is for. He’s a healer for Valar’s sake!

Finally, it's time for The Hobbit 2: Hobbit Harder.

Just as an aside to where some of these extra scenes came from, Tolkien had whole outlines describing what Gandalf was doing and planning but kept those to the Appendixes and Unfinished Tales (and other notes) because he knew that they were unimportant to the stories he was telling but he wanted every detail to have an explanation for those who were curious (mainly himself being curious). All the scenes with Radagast and the rest of the council were scenes that would have happened in the lore but condensed from a century down to a year to fit in the movie. Radagast who was living in Mirkwood investigated its corruption as it was beginning and tracked the source to Dul-Guldur a century before the events of the Hobbit. He then went to Gandalf for backup and Gandalf investigated further going into Dul-Guldur and finding Thrain 91 years before the Hobbit. Gandalf learns of Sauron and some of his plans and escapes (not captured like in the movie) and reports his findings. Saruman is unwilling to do anything so Gandalf does more investigating and eventually gets Saruman to call a council a decade before the Hobbit and is not a random meeting at Rivendell when the Dwarves are passing through. At the counsel in the books it is decided that they will drive Sauron from Dul-Guldur and a time is set for the attack one decade later and all members go to prepare forces. Gandalf also insists on dealing with Smaug as he had discovered Sauron intended to use Smaug but everyone else just wanted to let sleeping Dragons lie, even so he convinced them to let him come up with and execute a plan on his own. Eventually when nothing was coming to him and time was running short he decided to go to the Shire for a rest before setting out for Mirkwood the next year hoping something would come to him when Thorin found Gandalf in Bree and the quest for the Lonely Mountain was planned. Gandalf agreed to accompany them to Mirkwood but he had to be there for the assault or else he was afraid Saruman would call it off. So in the books he leaves to go fight Sauron intending to return to the Dwarves when he is done. While a good story could be told from this outline the condensing of time led to some wild teleporting and make Gandalf's plan unclear since he no longer has all the information at the beginning of the story. Azog in the lore fought a war with the Dwarves between when Smaug cast them out of Erabor and the Hobbit. He was eventually slain in the battle depicted in the movies not by Thorin but by Dain. In the books Bolg was the one tasked with taking Erabor after Smaug was defeated, and in the final movie it should have been him who Thorin fought at the end. Movies just had a weird mix of Azog and Bolg for reasons I do not understand. If they wanted an antagonist the whole way through they could have used Bolg and played up the goblin's need for revenge after killing their King. Azog seemed like a stretch and only added a bland villan. Tariel was added due to a studio mandate for more women and a romance subplot, and has no inspiration from Tolkien's lore. Anyway just a summary of where the Bloat came from in case anyone was curious.

2:04:19 I legit thought the wilhelm scream was an edit from this video and not actually in the movie (i had not seen any of the extended cut from this trilogy) so to hear you explain that the wilhelm scream was actually there IN THE MOVIE made me laugh hysterically

This trilogy feels more like good DnD campaign to play, battle scenes are full of critical rolls, and some characters are really well written. This also explain why dwarfs act really weird sometimes, it is just bad roleplay.

This reminded me there was a time when you learned something good was coming and you would get excited to see it knowing it will be up to certain standarts and can't wait for it. Right in the nostalghia...

5.5 hours later I can't wait for part three. Thanks for the deep dive into the Hobbit that I didn't know I wanted.

These critical breakdown-takedowns are addicting. Our expanding personality list with the Misty Mountains elevator music is the cherry on top.

"Bilbo is then shrink-wrapped by the spider and then oh dear, I guess they all die now!" That got me good 🤣

Normally I don't watch long analysis videos, like your cliff notes regarding characters in previous videos are the real deal for some analysis videos, but you manage to mix criticism with humor pretty nicely.

The scenes of Bilbo and Smaug are by far and away the best scenes in the entire Hobbit movies. The ending of part 2, with his flying towards Laketown and saying “I am…DEATH” is so good. Just a shame the rest of the movies couldn’t live up to that high-water mark.

Gandalf: Radagast, i’m going in there. If you don’t hear from me in a month, send Link.

As far as I know , but i might be wrong that the symbol of an eye has been always a sigil of Souron in Tolkien's lore , even during the times of Morgoth . So I guess that it's reasonable for Gandalf to know this .

God I had forgotten how offensively silly this movie actually is

I'm an absolute sucker for movie deep analysis/lookbacks/retrospectives. I'm super happy to have found your content and channel and I LOVE that these are all over 2 hour videos. Absolute amazing work, keep it up!

These analyses are longer than the movies, and somehow still more entertaining.

The weird thing is I think it's the ring that Sauron gave to Thráin II which is meant to have corrupted him and given him Dragon sickness, not the Arkenstone. So it's a bit of a weird tangent in the Hobbit film.

I think my favorite part of your videos are the character trait bullet points, it's incredibly unique and very entertaining

I've got to add that from a canon perspective, it's irritating that they went with the necromancer-raises-the-Witch-King plot, since long before this point in Middle Earth's history, the elf Glorfindel prophesied that the Witch King would not be killed by any man (the prophesy fulfilled when Merry and Eowyn kill him). Which means the flashback kings of Arthedain knew he wasn't dead when they buried him, so why wasn't he guarded?

On the point where Bilbo could be more susceptible to the Ring is the fact he is not like other Hobbits. Hobbits are resistant to the ring because they lack ambiton and genuinly enjoy simple lives whereas Bilbo wants adventure and to interact with the world around him. Not saying the movie is good but this part can make sense when we take it in the context of Bilbo being different to other Hobbits. If we compare this to Frodo, Frodo thinks he wants adventure but we quickly find that he actually just wants his simple life back.

I believe the orcs not pursuing them between Beorns house and Mirkwood is somewhat explained by showing Beorn watching them as the are releasing the ponies… it’s not explicitly stated that he was guarding them but it has been established that the orcs will avoid Beorn if the option to do so exists

Thranduil wants gems, not Mithril. He tells Thorin that he wants "white gems" that are in the mountain in exchange for aid. And the prologue scene shows us those gems which appear to have been offered to him as a gift by the king, then rescinded. That's not mithril in the chest. (Really, because of that slight Thorin shouldn't have been surprised when Thranduil turned away as Smaug attacked. Why should he help someone who treated him like dirt at an official meeting?) The gems shining like starlight would have been irresistable to the elves, so that's what he asked for in exchange. A small price to pay for an entire elven army to help defeat the dragon, really. Thorin seems to want help for free, or to offer to pay after the fact and then renege on the agreement. I suppose that tracks given some of the history. (On a deeper level, this is supposedly a reference to the necklace King Thingol commissioned the dwarves to make with the silmaril Beren and Luthien stole from Morgoth's crown. When Thingol went to collect the necklace, the dwarves refused to hand it over and Thingol killed some of them before being killed himself. Then the elves massacred the dwarves of that area, thus leading to the legendary distrust and hatred between dwarves and elves. Total mess.) EDIT: I was corrected in my recollection of events relating to the Nauglamir and Silmaril by some comments below. I've placed my misstatement of events in parentheses above. Thanks to John S for remembering the details better than me.

@ 2:48:59 As a student jeweler, I would like also to point out that molten gold does not look like low viscosity gold paint, it is bright yellow/white

Bilbo pulls the lever: Kronk pulls the wrong lever: Genius.

Another problem i have with the gold scene is that, implausible as that whole "melting statue" thing is, Smaug appears to be completely unhindered by this. I can appreciate that Smaug, being a magical dragon, can resist a large amount of heat. However, being coated in liquid metal (which presumably quickly cools) is absolutely going to have some effect on him. In the film, the gold appears to behave like hot paint. It scalds, and it sticks to Smaug's body in a thin layer. However, it never hardens, and it quickly falls away wgen he takes off towards Laketown. Real metal does not do this. Even if being drenched in molten metal did not directly harm Smaug, being covered in a quickly-hardening layer of heavy element would absolutely affect him. It would begin to seize his joints, fuse his eyes closed (or directly blind him), block his mouth and nostrils, and weigh him down immensely. He would absolutely not be able to fly afterwards, as his wings would be coated as if with plaster. His scales, in particular, would be a surface which the metal would adhere to strongly. I could have forgiven this if Smaug was depicted as shaking plates of gold off his body, as if he was emerging from a cocoon. However, we got nothing like that, and the entire "gold sequence" was blown off as empty spectacle.

The giant bees, I believe, were a nod to the 3D animators, giving audiences the experience of GIGANTIC bees flying through the movie screen.

As for why bilbo talks the way he does with smaug. This is how you talk to dragons if you dont want to reveal your real name and because you dont want to make them angry by refusing to give your name. Dragons love riddling talk and love wasting time trying to understand it

1:59:50 "its undoubtedly a trap" The sad thing is you can tell they wanted this line because "sounds cool" at the expense of making any sense. Almost like Gandalf just became a reckless, over-confident, egotistical maniac who thinks he's so powerful he can walk directly into a waiting trap and nothing bad will happen. Or has a death wish. Neither of which are Gandalf's character. That line would fit better in a comically over-the-top action movie like the Expendables or Red. "But you can't ride a motorcycle directly into the waiting enemy ambush ahead, you'll die!" flicks cigarette "I'm sure I will." rides off anyway

Sauron doesn't actually need the ring to have a physical form. Sauron has a physical form in the LotR, he is just unwilling to leave Baradur because the last time he decided to fight on the front lines, things... didn't go so well. The "eye" on Baradur is a projection of Sauron's power he uses to observe his realm, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have a physical form. This is party to be blamed on the fact that PJ's trilogy never shows the mutilated, but corporeal form of Sauron post 2nd Age. This film, much more than the previous, adds additional bloat to the original story which tends to not only cheapen the story with cheap action sequences and unnecessary tension building, but also makes the sections that were sourced from the original material make no sense due to the disrupted context the original story had set up(see: Beorn meeting the Dwarves, Azog's existence in general, etc.).

the side door was mentioned as secret that would allow Bilbo to get in undetected. The front door would have lead you directly to the dragon. At least thats what i understood.

It really boggles my mind how all of the extra scenes in the extended version of the Hobbit trilogy have added nothing and have in fact made the movie worse off.

With the Morgul arrow...they could have just changed it to a poisoned arrow.

You're saying I'll suffer another 4 days of wait?😭

I'd love too see a video series on The Lord of the Rings trilogy in the same sense as this, the only difference being that it's actually good.

I think Smaug knew where the Arkinstone was the whole time and deduced that Bilbo was going after it. Bilbo doesn't find the Arkinstone until Smaug does his flourish to show off and brings Bilbo to the spot it is. Then he "accidentally" keeps knocking it around and sees Bilbo chasing it so it confirms his suspicions of Biblo. And he smells the Dwarves so he puts two and two together. And of course at the end he isn't surprised that the Arkinstone is there with Bilbo he just starts talking about it like he know it was there the whole time. This theory also pulls in a book quote that said that Smaug knew where every piece of treasure was in his hoard so when Bilbo took the cup the first night as proof of his burglarly to the Dwarves Smaug noticed it was missing and was able to confront Bilbo on the second night. I believe this aspect is still present in the movie Smaug eventhough it isn't directly spoken.

I will say, gandalf and radagast arriving at the same time is properly explained in fellowship. Assuming gandalf sent radagast an estimation of when he’d be there….. They’re both wizards, so they’re never late, nor are they early, they arrive precisely when they mean to.

In defense of the "send the lightest first". If you sent the lightest first, you have the biggest chance of getting as many people across as possible, until one is to heavy. That is, if you stick to one at a time. That said, great video, I really enjoy your thorough analysis.

It's funny how some problems come from places where they deviated from the books (everything was Azog, a lot of the more bombastic nonsense, new characters, etc.), and others come from places where the Hobbit films are slightly closer than the LOTR films were to the books (elves being able to get drunk, Sauron manifesting physically, etc.). Additionally, bookwise, Sauron/the Necromancer was still an unhoused spirit at this time, but by the time of LOTR, was able to take physical form. We know this because we are told by Aragorn that Gollum told him that Sauron tortured him personally, and had four fingers on his black hand.

It would have been so much better if Bilbo had been able to trick Smaug into showing him where the Arkenstone was. It would make complete sense for a dragon, which covets expensive and incredible things, to know where they'd be in their collection. And Bilbo outwitting opponents is something that's already been reinforced throughout the story.

I think the book portrayed the 2 dwarves at a time shtick better. Beorn seemed a lot more interested in the story when reading it than the acting gave. Also imagined him a much burlier character.

Me, seeing this video show up on my RU-vid feed: "Oh yeah, it's all coming together"

I actually don't have a problem with Bilbo commenting that Mirkwood "looks sick." It effectively informs the audience that people who don't understand evil magic can still feel its effects. It also arguably implies that hobbits are uniquely good at discerning these things because of their good nature.

“Can someone vouch for the honor of this dwarf, who we just caught stealing weapons from the armory? Oh, we have a hand! Who might you be? His buddy, who got caught stealing alongside him? Good enough for me!”

The scenes between Bilbo and Smaug are the absolute highlight of this trilogy to me 😊

"Build me a Mordor, worthy of... Mordor." 😂😂😂😂

I find this content more entertaining than the films themselves.

the white gems Thranduil wants are not mithril (which is a metal not a gem), but the White Gems of Lasgalen, and they're either symbolic of the silmarils or were given by Thranduil to his wife, Legolas’s mother

Watching Benedict Cumberbatch crawl around with a drawn out menacing voice is fuckin hilarious 😂😂

Stoked already, your content is great! Congratulations on the channel growth 😃👍

51:07 Nope entirely invented by the movie. Now in the book Balin briefly explains when the Wood Elves treated them so harshly. If I recall correctly the quote goes something like this. “The feud between Elves and Dwarves goes back to the second Age. Elves are slow to forget and Dwarves slow to forgive.” In the Silmarillion we get a history of that feud and it had nothing to do with Mithril but the Simarils themselves. Mithril was never this Uber magic metal that was invented outside the books.

I’m only 55 minutes in, so perhaps you take note of this later on, but I don’t think Thranduil doesn’t care to preserve nature or Middle Earth, I think he’s in denial due to battle trauma. Remember, he was in the war that lead to the dead marshes, so he’s definitely traumatized and just trying to keep to himself, even if it’s detrimental. So that adds to some interesting aspects to his character layering

The One Ring has something of its own will and a desire to be reunited with Sauron. It too can betray anyone else who wears it. That’s the best explanation I had for why Bilbo took off the Ring while talking to Smaug

Ah yes... The movie when things really started to go completely south. Unexpected Journey certainly had a lot of problems, but I can't deny that it tried. Now this one... The color grading went from over saturated to make it more whimsical... to completely greyish and depressing. Fan service was shoved into our throats with Legolas' overwhelming presence, presence that was only warranted because of the introduction of the most pointless character in the entire 6 films aka Tauriel... Actually trying to fight Smaug because we need a climax no matter how non-sensical... Gandalf's side quest... Even without going into the intricacies that make or break a plot, the great lines are already looking pretty bad, and it only gets worse with the next one. EDIT : Let's see how Smaug was characterized in the book as opposed to this film. I am going by memory so this might not be 100% accurate, but 80% at worst. In the book, Bilbo descends in Erebor twice, the first time, he finds Smaug very much alive and sleeping, and he steals a single item of value from the treasure. This causes Smaug's deep slumber to shift towards a nightmare of him getting stolen from. He then descends a second time, I think with the express purpose of finding the Arkenstone, but this time Smaug is paying attention and notices Bilbo's presence thanks to his incredible sense of smell. Thus ensues the conversation between the two, because Smaug is curious enough to interact with Bilbo, especially since Bilbo is an entirely unknown entity to him, to the point he can't even see him and doesn't fully understand why. In this conversation, it's revealed to us that Smaug's chest area isn't naturally covered in invincible dragon scales, it's an artificial "armor", made from all the treasures he's been sleeping on, and it's imperfect enough that there's a clear weakness Bilbo notices, transmits to the dwarves, and then a bird who was listening transmits to Bard. The conversation ends with Bilbo fleeing in the tunnel he came from and narrowingly escaping death by dragon fire, Smaug also deduces he might be affiliated to Laketown because of his latest title being related to barrels, and we learn that he fears the lake because it's deep and cold enough that if he was injured and fell in it, he would actually be in danger of death. That's the one and only time we get Smaug's direct characterization. He then gets out of the mountain and tries to find the secret entrance, breathing dragon fire on several portions of the mountain, which forces the dwarves to lock themselves in the moutain. Having seemingly failed, Smaug then turns his attention to Laketown and destroys the city before being felled by Bard and all the archers he could muster to fight Smaug. Admittedly, there are several elements that reek of contrivance due to the book's more lighthearted and whimsical nature. But it's still vastly superior to the film mainly because Smaug never directly confronts our heroes, he's allowed to display his cunning personality once and then becomes a concealed looming threat until we learn that he was defeated, which comes as a shock to both the reader and the company which got out of the moutain 2 weeks after getting locked in. All the fighting non-sense and the story of his scales getting pierced (especially a single one), literally doesn't exist and it's far better off without it.

51:10 Why Thanduil wants those jewels so much is explained in a scene cut from the film. Those jewels belonged to his late wife and he asked the dwarves to put them in a necklace, but the dwarves charged triple the price of what had been agreed upon.. Honestly, I have no idea why they cut this from the film, as it explains Trhanduil's motivations very well and gives more depth to his character.

The fact that the Thrain stuff only happens in the EXTENDED edition absolutely baffles me

It is mostly said that sauron does have a physical form, he just never leaves his tower. In the book it is stated that gollum actually saw sauron when he was being tortured in barad dur. He mentions that he “has four black fingers on his terrible hand” which shows that his injury still stayed when he reformed physically, and he personally tortured gollum. He needs the ring because it has a large amount of his life force and power in it. Although he can reform physically already, he is severely weakened, and is afraid to leave his tower. If he had the ring he could probably walk freely, and control his army from where he was, and still control his eye to keep watch on everything happening all over the place. It also hold a a lot of his magical powers, which he uses to control his armies, so if he got the ring back his martial power would grow by a huge amount. Obviously it was also a huge source of weakness if destroyed. It tied his spirit to the physical world, with out the ring his spirit would not be able to reform and would be dispersed across all existence. In the book after the ring is destroyed Sauron’s spirit rises out of Mordor as a huge black cloud, he reaches out his hand towards the armies of Aragorn, but a great wind comes from the west and blows the cloud away into bits, and he is never able to reform in any way to even control one orc. He had already been “killed” a few times and gets weaker every time. If he never made the ring he would still a have a lot of power and probably have a few more “lives” per say

Even though Lee Pace did a fantastic job in my opinion, I still have absolutely no idea why they decided to turn the king into a douche and be so obsessed with some gems. There are parts of the movie that were directly taken from the book (Beorn scenes for instanse), but why on Earth wouldn't you do the same with the elves? Mirkwood elves are different from their kin in other places of Middle Earth and in Valinor, they have never seen the light of the Trees and they originally declined Orome's invitation to go to the Undying lands. They are closer to nature, much less civilized and more savage even, and in the book they are depicted closer to fairies from the English folklore. It was a perfect oppotrunity to show another elven faction and how different elves can be. Moreover, the king had to intention to deal with dwarves and their quest at all, he was simply pissed they crossed his borders uninvited and Thorin was cocky about that. I love the portrayal and the aethtetic in general, but the motivation is lame and seems to be a cheap rip-off of the story of Thingol and the dwarves from the Silmarillion (Tranduil is a Thingol's relative)

I’m so sad we have to wait for the next autopsy. 10/10 brilliant video

I'd argue that Hobbits are still shown to be resistant to corruption. Isildur fell under the ring in the time between cutting the ring off and getting to mount doom. Boromir became corrupted without having possession of the ring. Gandalf was afraid of even being offered the ring. The ring is really powerful at corruption. Bilbo has, and actively uses, the ring for a while. He has trouble sleeping and is overly possessive. The only problem I see is with gollum, at least in the movies. I can't remember how he is described in the movie, but he is a type of Hobbit that is barely considered a hobbit. His group wear shoes, swim, have contact with men, and can grow beards. If I remember correctly, he has his speech pattern before he had the ring so he might not be all there mentally.

That Arkenstone sure seems important. I can't wait to see what the dwarves do with it by the end of the triogy.

Found your channel after your first Hobbit video. Then preceded to binge your RoP series. I don’t sub to many channels but man you got me! Keep up the great work👍

Damn, I have to close that night. I'm slightly hoping it'll be less than 2 hours long because then I think I can watch it in it's entirety. Super excited. The Rings of Power series retrospective was awesome.

I enjoyed the subplot about Greasebag McMonobrow conveniently spawning nearby. Great video as always, can't wait to sit and watch part 3

3 days.....? I could get to Khazad Dun from Lindon in that time 😭😭😭

Love your channel man!!! It's really refreshing to see a RU-vidr commenting on movies not just by way of giving opinion but, perhaps even more by your handling the matter in an empirical, easily trackable manner. Props to your efforts for sure!!!

I find your voice so relaxing I use your videos over and over again as background noise because they help me sleep better.

Fair play on the RU-vid algorithm for pushing this. I like long formats and your style is very appealing. Funny, critical, fair and very personable. Look forward to seeing what else you cover

Hey! Thanks for this birthday present, RFT! Should be quite a jolly good romp! 👍 No joke, this video premieres on my birthday! 😂

Reviewing RoP to such a great depth was so traumatic that I think it gave Random some PTSD.

You could take bilbo's comment about the forest to be a liberal demonstration of Hobbits being more in tune with nature, which aligns with tolkien's letters. I never really noticed it as being odd, as it just felt natural to me that a hobbit would have a sense of those things.

51:50 so this is where Rings of Power got its plotline of contrasting the lifespan of dwarves with Elves for whom decades are nothing😂 (the Durin & Elrond contrived initial conflict with no consequences) And I made the mistake of thinking those showrunners could intelligently create an original plotpoint through judicious use of their brains & Tolkien's lore alone😂; they had help from the Desolation of Smaug. I can't wait for the Battle of the 5 armies to see how much Payne & McKay ripped off that as well😂. I also can't wait for Rings of Power season 2 to get more memberberries

Also, sadness, in the book the “the second unexpected party” where the dwarves show up in pairs on the doorstep of an unwilling friend is a really clever narrative rhyme which “shows how clever Gandalf is”. Here, they barge in and lock the owner out of his own house…

Regarding the eye, I think it is because the eye of sauron is saurons mark/sign, and later he thought "Hey let's make my sign a real thing."

The “white gems” aren’t mithril, they were a necklace Thranduil had commissioned for his wife. “The White Gems of Lasgalen were fashioned by the Dwarves of Erebor for the Elven-queen of Mirkwood. However, the queen fell in Gundabad and never got to wear them. Her husband, Thranduil, came to Erebor to retrieve them, but due to a dispute over payment, was denied them, leading to a severing of his alliance with the Dwarves of Erebor.” This is actually a reference to the first age and the Sindarin King Thingol of Doriath and the Nauglamír.

Seeing this in theaters even with the cool line the cliffhanger felt like such a blueball. At the time I was under the impression that Smaug would have a bigger role in the final movie since he was being hyped up as the big bad since the 1st movie. Instead killing Smaug felt rushed and tacked on like an afterthought and they needed to get it out of the way so the rest of the plot of the 3rd movie could take place. They should have had the razing of laketown/Smaug death at the end of this movie instead of at the beginning of 5 Armies.

I, like so many others, have been looking forward to this for quite some time. Ironically I just finished my week long endevor of watching all of the extended edition Hobbit movies 2 days ago so this is really great timing ( It seems I missed your "upcoming" announcement ) so this is a nice bit of serendipity. Anyway thank you so much for taking the time to watch these movies, write your script and post this video on RU-vid. I'm excited

This movie is when I knew that Thorin would never become a good character and his friendship with Bilbo would never develop. The writers were not waiting for the right time, they were simply incapable.

The Dwarven Gold Sickness is the result of the power of the dwarf ring but i agree that without that lore knowledge it makes very little sense in the movie

The Hobbit trilogy is fantastic if you condense it from 9 hours to 2/4 hours. That's what is so good about it. I have stopped seeing the 3 movies and now just see Fan Edits.

To be fair, I think the reasonable conclusion to draw from those "party elves" passing out from alcohol is simply that elven wine is incredibly strong to counteract their high tolerance to alcohol.