Lord Of The Rings & Hobbit: 12 BIGGEST Mistakes We Have To Live With

10. Smaug's Wasted Potential

lord of the rings saruman
New Line Cinema

The first Hobbit film built Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch) up very well. He didn't fully appear on-screen, but the film did a lovely job of teasing just how fearsome and deadly he would prove to be.

Unfortunately, once he arrived on-screen he was rather disappointing overall, making for an uninteresting CGI monster who wasn't that well-written in terms of Smaug's spoken dialogue. It was a waste of Benedict Cumberbatch's talents too.

In fairness, there was a good action scene involving Smaug at the end of the second film, but then he flew off to decimate the town of Esgaroth and the film ended with a rather weak cliff-hanger ending... which was resolved insultingly fast in the third film. Smaug was killed in the first fifteen minutes of The Battle of the Five Armies.

Talk about a crushing anticlimax.

Contributor

Film Studies graduate, aspiring screenwriter and all-around nerd who, despite being a pretentious cinephile who loves art-house movies, also loves modern blockbusters and would rather watch superhero movies than classic Hollywood films. Once met Tommy Wiseau.