The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug – 2013
There is no doubt that this movie’s visual effects were top of the line. But then, I would expect no less from Peter Jackson and the VFX wizards at Weta Digital. Over the course of their Tolkien films, they have proven themselves to be capable of bringing any image imaginable to life in a most realistic and masterful way, and here, they certainly do not disappoint.
Of course, the one effect we all really came to see was Smaug, the dragon, and they seemed to have pulled out all the stops. They created a creature with intelligence, personality, and gravitas to rival any live actor. You see, even with all our modern technology and unbelievable digital effects, digital artists still have not completely mastered the creation of completely CG human images. We are incredibly close, and make no mistake, perfection has been achieved on occasion, but it is still somewhat inconsistent. But having no actual live frame of reference, it makes a certain amount of sense that a photo-realistic image of a dragon can more easily be perceived as real than a CGI human. And as far as he went, he was magnificent. His size, the texture of his skin, his movement, his design, not to mention all the perfect digital fire effects, was all flawless.
But the movie had so much more! In The Return of the King, we were treated to a giant spider that looked fantastic. Here we have a forest full of giant spiders. They were not as big as Shelob, but they weren’t supposed to be, though they were still just as menacing. We have a few thrilling Gandalf wizard battles, which are always awesome. There is a really cool shot of him defending himself with his trusty staff, but he is defeated when his opponent disintegrates the wood in his hands. There were also more orcs, more battles, and an exciting barrel ride down a rushing river.
As with other Tolkien films, the fantasy environments, many of which were created in computers, were awesome! The interior of Thranduil’s stronghold in Mirkwood was gorgeous. It was reminiscent of Lothlorien in The Fellowship of the Ring, but the design was different enough to make it distinct. I also loved the wonderful design of the interior of Erebor. It had the proper scale to depict the epic nature of the story being told. For that matter, the forest of Mirkwood was really cool, too!
But there was something I didn’t care for, and it spoke more of the script than it did of the competency of the effects, though it was the VFX artist that had to put it on the screen. It was that barrel ride sequence. It was the choice to make some of the action just plain silly, like when Legolas fought the orcs while standing on the heads of Dwarves in barrels, leaping from head to head like a silly video game. Or like when Bombur’s barrel somehow got pole-vaulted out of the water, and his feet and arms popped out of the barrel, each hand holding a weapon. Then, he started spinning like a top, making startled orcs fly back in every direction, defeated. And these were just a few examples of such silliness in the action sequences in the film. They didn’t need to be there, and I think they detracted from the film, as a whole.