10 Movie Sequel Villains Far Scarier Than The Original

What many of The Hobbit trilogy's flaws came back to was that there just wasn't three films worth of material to be taken from the book. Areas felt stretched out, like butter scraped over too much bread as Bilbo Baggins would say, and one of the aspects that suffered in this way was Azog (Manu Bennett).

The overarching villain was a minor character in Tolkien's novel, and when elevated to a main antagonist, he was somewhat forgettable. A rather bland Orc with a vengeance against Thorin (Richard Armitage) didn't leave too much of an impression by the time the credits rolled.

The same however, couldn't be said of the titular dragon in The Desolation of Smaug. The whole time the Dwarves were trekking to Erebor, audiences knew that the dragon was at the end of the road, and the anticipation was through the roof. Thankfully, Benedict Cumberbatch's fire drake from the North was equal to the task.

Smaug the Magnificent truly lived up to his name, he was of course intimidating, he was left barely scratched by Thorin and co, and when he took to the sky to take his revenge on Lake Town, it was one of the most gut-wrenching cliffhangers possible because everyone knew what was coming next. It's a shame that the dragon only survived the first few scenes of The Battle of the Five Armies, because he was easily one of the best parts of the entire trilogy.