2. Showing The World Of Men As More Than Set Pieces
Did we see anything besides fortresses and palaces in Lord of the Rings, when it came to the world of men? Did we see any actual semblance of organized, or even disorganized, civilization? People's homes? Markets? Sure, we saw the Shire, and it was a functional, frankly fantastic setting that left us in awe. However, Isengard, Rohan, Helm's Deep (to be fair, that was supposed to just be a fortress), and Gondor - they were never really fleshed out. They were simply set pieces, and very little was really seen of how the people in them lived and worked. How on earth did Gondor grow food, for example? Was everything brought in via wagon? The Hobbit gets it right. In The Desolation of Smaug we see an actual, functional city of men (Laketown), pretty much for the first time in the Middle Earth films Jackson has given us. It may not be as grandiose as Gondor, but it's more believable. In that, the Hobbit surpasses the Rings films.