The Hobbit Part 2

[steuard]

Wow. That was something. I can imagine that for folks who don't know the book well, it was probably a pretty entertaining movie. But, well, is it a bad sign for a serious epic fantasy story that I spent a fair bit of the film laughing

Comments

[akiko]

Peter Jackson doesn't understand how to increase narrative tension without putting in Another Action Scene That Drags On Way Longer Than Is Necessary.

[igenlode]

Dare I wonder what is it that he changes about Bard?

(I would have assumed 'badly-shaven long-haired generic 1990s Action Hero, if asked to hazard a guess...)

[steuard]

Bard, in the film, is a young-ish single father of three adorable kids (I'd say "young", but the oldest kids look like they're in their early teens). He's a barge pilot and a smuggler, and appears to be well-known as a supporter of (mostly non-violent?) populist resistance to the greed of the Master of Lake-town. He still has his great-great-...-grandfather Girion's last unused black iron arrow for the big Dwarvish mechanical crossbow thingy that's still mounted on top of the town's city hall(?). (I can only assume that he regularly sneaks up there to do maintenance and practice.) He's upbeat and helpful for most of the time we see him, but near the end he suddenly gets amazingly paranoid and turns on the Dwarves when he realizes who they are and that they're going to the Mountain and might possibly inspire the dragon to attack Lake-town for some unspecified reason instead of just eating them. (The fact that this is actually what happens doesn't make it less weird that he's so very convinced that it will.)

[igenlode]

The idea of making Bard the Bowman into Bard the Crossbow-Trigger-Puller seems a little... odd, as a change of emphasis.

Perhaps it was felt that the only-one-arrow scenario needed some explanation?