The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is the 84th episode in Screen Junkies comedy series Honest Trailers. It was written by Dan Murrell, Spencer Gilbert, and Andy Signore. It was narrated by Jon Bailey as Epic Voice Guy. It parodies the 2013 fantasy sequel film The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. It was published on December 16, 2014, to coincide with the theatrical release of the film's sequel The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. It is 4 minutes and 21 seconds long. It has been viewed over 6.5 million times.
Watch Honest Trailers - The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug on YouTube
"A nearly three-hour movie with the plot of one-third of a children's novel, that will have audiences everywhere saying 'Oh my God, it's still going.'" ~ Honest Trailers - The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
Script[]
From the director who still doesn't know how to quit while he's ahead (Peter Jackson) comes the fifth Tolkien movie in the second installment of the second trilogy that's so bloated by now, even its own characters are getting bored.
Bilbo: We're going around in circles.
Ori: We're never gonna reach the mountain, are we?
Bilbo: We are lost.
Thorin: This is taking too long.
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
Rejoin Middle-earth's other, shorter, less interesting fellowship as they continue their slow journey to Scrooge McDuck's vault (Smaug's lair) to retrieve yet another piece of jewelry that corrupts those who seek it...
Thranduil: The Arkenstone, it is precious to you beyond measure.
Old Bilbo (looking at the One Ring in the Lord of the Rings): My precious.
Gandalf: Precious?
...and bumble from one unimportant set piece to another as they're captured by spiders, captured by elves, captured by men, and captured by orcs. Too bad they couldn't capture any of the magic of the original trilogy, am I right? Ughhh.
Experience a nearly three-hour movie with the plot of one-third of a children's novel, that will have audiences everywhere saying "Oh my God, it's still going.", full of things you've already seen, like flashbacks to characters you already know, flashbacks to things you already saw in the first Hobbit, flashbacks inside of flashbacks, and an attempt at a mysterious origin story for a villain we already know the identity of.
Smaug: The darkness is coming.
Thranduil: A shadow that grows in the dark.
Gandalf: The enemy has returned.
Ughhh, we know. It's f*cking Sauron! Get to the dragon already!
(sighs) So return to New Zealand's most breathtaking greenscreen studios...again, where tiny sections of the book will be stretched into hours of overly CG'd filler; super-elf murder sprees; The Hobbit: The Ride: The Cartoon (shows Legolas shooting arrows at orcs while standing on barrels drifting down a river); and things that weren't even in the book, like Gandalf's side quest, Laketown politics, Kate from Lost (Tauriel), and a creepy romance between the hot dwarf and Kate from Lost.
Kili: Aren't you going to search me? I could have anything down my trousers.
Gross.
So finally witness the conclusion of their endless journey to the slopes of the Lonely Mountain, only to watch them give up after about ten minutes of banging on a closed door; and thrill as they finally confront the talking dragon, Smaug, in a slapstick battle so over-the-top, it ends with them...building a giant dwarf that covers him in gold, which...does nothing. Then it ends.
Bilbo: What have we done?
What indeed, Bilbo, what indeed.
Starring Morgan Freeman (Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins), Dumblebore (Ian McKellan as Gandalf the Grey), Legoland (Orlando Bloom as Legolas Greenleaf), Dragon Khan (Benedict Cumberbatch as Smaug), Evangelist Lilly (Evangeline Lilly as Tauriel), Sauron.gif, Tom Bombadil (Mikhail Persbrandt as Beorn), Stephen Colbert for Some Reason (as Laketown Spy), An Adventurer Until He Took an Arrow to the Knee (Aidan Turner as Kili), Random CGI Orc Villain #2 (Lawrence Makoare as Bolg), Bard to Death (Luke Evans as Bard the Bowman), and The One to Blame (Peter Jackson as Man Eating Carrot).
The Hobbit: Two Down, One to Go
This is the prequel, right? So how come Legolas looks so much...more mature? Is he, like, an elf Benjamin Button?
Trivia[]
- Screen Junkies also produced individual Honest Trailers for The Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Hobbit sequels: An Unexpected Journey, and The Battle of the Five Armies.
- Screen Junkies have also produced Honest Trailers for several other fantasy films including Harry Potter, The Princess Bride and Labyrinth. They have also produced two Honest Trailers about fantasy series Game of Thrones: Volume 1 and Volume 2.
- An Honest Trailer Commentary for this episode was recorded and was available on the Screen Junkies Plus until the website/app was discontinued. Screen Junkies don't currently have any way of releasing the video.
Reception[]
Honest Trailers - The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug has an 96.4% approval rating from YouTube viewers. Time said the Honest Trailer was a "cynical take" on the film, and highlighted the film's excessive length as Screen Junkies' main criticism. The Mary Sue noted that the Honest Trailer easily summarizes "all the important points of the movie in under 3 minutes," writing that it proves the movies was "needlessly stretched out." Hypable agreed with Screen Junkies' observation that "The Hobbit trilogy simply lacked the magic of the original Lord of the Rings films." Geek Tyrant commented on the Honest Trailer's tone, writing that Screen Junkies "sure do go out of their way to tear this movie apart! They didn't like it at all, but that's what these Honest Trailers are made for." CinemaBlend remarked that "it’s pretty easy to make fun of The Hobbit.... Still, even though it’s easy that doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be done." In the same article, CinemaBlend also wrote "there’s not a lot that you can disagree with when it comes to Honest Trailers’ takedown of the second installment in The Hobbit series.... By this point I’m more excited for Honest Trailers’ takedown of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies than the film itself."
Production credits[]
Voiceover Narration by Jon Bailey
Title design by Robert Holtby
Series Created by Andy Signore & Brett Weiner
Episode Written by Dan Murrell, Spencer Gilbert, and Andy Signore
Edited by Dan Murrell & Jason Inman
External links []
- This Honest Trailer for The Hobbit Shows Just How Repetitive the Film Trilogy Is - Time article
- Honest Trailer for THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG - Geek Tyrant article
- Rewatch The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug in Honest Trailer Form Before Battle of the Five Armies - The Mary Sue article
- Honest Trailers Takes Aim At ‘The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug’ - Uproxx article
- Honest Trailer for ‘The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug’ points out main problems with the trilogy - Hypable article
- The Hobbit 2 Just Got An Epic Middle Finger From This Honest Trailer - CinemaBlend article