One of the most tantalising elements of The Fellowship Of The Ring was the all too brief glimpses of Gollum. Always bathed in shadow, it obviously helped build suspense for his proper introduction in The Two Towers, but also hid the series ongoing production; the look of the character, particularly his heavily Serkis-influenced face, was yet to be finalised and animated. This naturally led to some inconsistencies between the look in Fellowship and the later two films, but no one cared because it was freaking Gollum. After plenty of tail, finger, eye and kite teasing in An Unexpected Journey, people were quick to draw parallels between the treatment of Smaug and Gollum, although given The Hobbits intense production I imagine few thought thered be the same design differences. Yet thats exactly what weve got. Throughout principal production of the trilogy Jackson had no idea how his dragon would look; its size, shape and pretty much everything else were all up for grabs, which is evidenced in the films; the dragon that bursts into Erebor has four legs, which prove particularly useful at swatting dwarves, while the one Bilbo uncovers only has two legs and armed wings. And on a more picky, effects based level, compare Smaugs eye at the end of the first Hobbit to what is in the film and its abundantly clear theres been a step up in quality. Were not elves were bound to have missed something. Do you have any more cool facts and easter eggs about The Desolation Of Smaug? Air them, along with any opinions on the film, down in the comments.
