Finally we come to Smaug, and I say finally, because the first two films were basically one heck of a long walk to his lair up on Lonely Mountain, and it felt like hours until we finally caught a glimpse of his scales. And when we finally did, we were unhappily subjected to a good half hour of nonsense as Peter Jackson made a further mockery of Tolkien's writings. Bilbo ventured deep into the Dragon's Den, walked a path of glittering gold, woke the sleeping beast, and had a conversation with it, pandering to its enormous ego to buy time. So far so good. Sticking pretty closely to the book, and then, suddenly, the Dwarves appear, riding to Bilbo's rescue and leading Smaug on a merry dance through the vaults and chambers of the mountain. The disaster is compounded by a purely fictitious attempt to drown the dragon in molten gold, and while Smaug mercifully escapes this punishment to fly off for his destiny with Bard's arrow, the whole ordeal left a very bad taste in the mouth, particularly when the end credits claimed the film was "based on the novel by J.R.R Tolkien." Loosely, perhaps. What did you think of Peter Jackson's additions and edits to Tolkien's source? Share your thought below in the comments.
Joseph is an accredited football journalist and has interviewed nearly all of the current 20 Barclay's Premier League managers. He is also a correspondent for Bleacher Report and has written for Caught Offside and Give Me Football.
