![]() >Then he drew her eyes into his, and her will swooned. 'Then you are fools, both you and your brother,' said he. >Then Glaurung laughed, for so was Hurin's daughter revealed to his malice. 'The children of Hurin at least are not craven. 'He was left here to defend the women and weaklings but when I came he deserted them and fled. >And constrained to answer she said: 'I do but seek one Turin that dwelt here for a while. >Strong was the will and heart of Nienor, and she strove against Glaurun but he put forth his power against her. Once we saw Benedict doing all of that, we realized you can't have him be this four-legged creature with wings on his back, he needs to be two legs and his wings need to be his arms properly, as you would expect a creature to be like a bat or a bird." He got down on the grown and starting slithering around like the way Tolkien described Smaug in the books, which is as a big worm. "But we realized that once you saw him performing - we especially got this from watching Benedict perform. In fact, if you go back and look at the first film and the scenes that he was in, he was actually a four-legged dragon because we just had him stomping through Erebor in all of those flashback scenes," Letteri said. The idea was to get the fear through his bulk. >"Originally, the dragon we envisioned was bigger. >Best go back and watch it again, because you're wrong, he only had his rear legs and wings in the prologue. Compare that to the Rankin/Bass Smaug whose flaws are actively distracting, and it's no contest. And yet, so much human expression and emotion was transferred onto the cgi reptilian form that the lack of this element didn't matter that much. This modern Hollywood "dragon" design seems more fitting for unintelligent animalistic dragons than something like Smaug. The only wrinkle is the chickening out of giving Smaug wings and forelegs like a proper dragon, even after they showed them in the first Hobbit movie's flashback sequence. The fact that people really feel this was a great performance on delivering Smaug's boast just shows the power Nostalgia has. Richard Boone on the other hand definitely seemed like he was phoning it in for a kid's animated production late in his career. He delivered a performance dripping with the kind of cruelty and menace fitting for a character like Smaug. Cumberbatch actually seemed like he gave a shit. Rankin/Bass on the other hand, thought they would get "creative" and give one of the most iconic and trope-defining dragons in literature cat ears, chin hairs, and a mammalian nose. In comparison to animated Smaug, Jackson at least had the good judgement not to mess with the dragon formula too much, and actually make him look like a fucking reptile. Jackson's Smaug was far and away the best part of the Hobbit, which were otherwise messy movies, and only the lowest of plebs would say otherwise.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |