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Originally Posted by Aaron
You are right about the chase segment. For whilst it was an entertaining visual spectacle, it rendered poor Smaug rather impotent.
Same with the Goblins, and their apparent inability to defend themselves as they are hewn down in their hundreds.
Had we seen the Dwarves slowly accumulate more and more wounds - some losing limbs, some being horribly scorched by Smaug, some just being jittery and terrified of having to fight again - it would have presented things in a different light.
But instead, we have absurd scenes where, if memory serves, Thorin and another Dwarf all but point and laugh at the prospect of taking on about a hundred Orcs singlehanded.
The heroes in the LOTR trilogy either had to connect themselves to a massive army, or else hide and hope to Hell someone didn't gut them like a fish. But for some reason, the movies turned into a video game.
Go to Point A, defeat 500 Orcs, Go to Point B, repeat.
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Losing credibility is always a potential problem with recurring villains or ones who get a lot of screentime, but as you say there are ways around it.
I do think the length of the films to be once again part of the problem- I guess they felt if they restricted Smaug to just his appearances in the book, it would be- relative to the running time- almost a blink-and-you-miss-him situation.