The Hobbit: 8 Blunders That Ruined The Desolation Of Smaug
3. The Smaug Showdown
So Smaug, lord of the mountaintop and destroyer of any and all in his way...now answers to Sauron. Such a thing would be fine if again the trilogy was able to stand on its own two feet, but instead Peter Jackson and co. seem intent on making constant references to their better work. Yet the fight with Smaug exists in some strange limbo between trying to imbue him with the necessary dread to make him a formidable foe, whilst the childlike nature of the piece impacts the battle so that Thorin finds himself balanced on Smaugs nose for a small setpiece. Its a mess, and during that fight the whole production felt like a completely different film, something more akin to How To Train Your Dragon, or any of the myriad of animated big final boss movies that end in such a way. I genuinely laughed quite a bit at how asinine the plot to turn on all the furnaces was, only to create a gigantic golden dwarf that would fall apart and cover Smaug in molten liquid just as hes looking at it. It seemed to make a complete slapstick farce out of the entire showdown.
