8 Movie Plots That Could Have Been Solved If The Main Character Just Stood Still
4. Hiring Bilbo As A Burglar Is Pointless - The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug
The Plot... The Hobbit is the story of an ordinary guy who goes on an epic adventure through a wondrous land. He discovers something gold on this journey and years later becomes corrupted by it. Poor Peter Jackson; even he couldn't resist the allure of money. Zing. OK, ignoring the trilogy expansion for now, The Hobbit sees Bilbo Baggins recruited by a company of dwarves to come on their adventure to reclaim their homeland from a dragon (although if you're up with fantasy he's technically a wyvern). What follows is a series of adventures seemingly unrelated that all tie together come the end. We'll see how it all works out on film later this year with the bluntly titled The Battle Of The Five Armies, but for now let's look where we left things in The Desolation Of Smaug. Bilbo's role in all this was to sneak into Erebor without being detected by the fire-breathing Smaug and find the Arkenstone, a gem that symbolises the right to rule The Lonely Mountain, which Thorin intends to use to rally the other dwarve armies to front an offensive against the wyvern/dragon/monster. Things go awry when Smaug becomes angered by Bilbo and believes the people of the near-by Laketown have betrayed him. In the cinematic take on things he is only made more angry when the dwarves turn up and start fighting him. Why The Main Character Should Have Just Stood Still... Bilbo did help save the day a couple of times during the journey - he stalled the trolls, fought the spiders and freed the dwarves from the elves - but his primary purpose as the burglar proved completely moot. He goes in and (maybe) gets the Arkenstone, but then the dwarves charge in, ruining the plan to get armies to help them. This is entirely fabricated for the big screen to give the second movie an action finale, but it ruins the whole narrative and renders Bilbo useless; why get a burglar when you're going to go in attacking any way?
