10 Things You'll See In The Hobbit 2 And 3
Five Armies
If
anyone was wondering why God gave us five fingers, it’s to keep count
of the participants in The Hobbit’s climactic battle. Forces of humans,
elves, dwarves, eagles, and a category we’re just calling ‘the bad guys’
(orcs, wargs, bats, COBRA, Thanos, Dick Dastardly and Muttley) make up
the Battle Of Five Armies, with a sky-based skirmish a likely standout.
In it, explains Richard Armitage, the eagles get to prove that they’re
more than just Middle-earth’s taxi service. “There’s a manic fight in
the air,” he told Empire, “in which eagles are fighting vampire bats.”
The Sprog Of Azog
Azog
(“The Pale Orc” to his minions, “Dr. Hook” to his friends) is the most
sinister albino baddie since Paul Bettany in The Da Vinci Code. But if
you thought he was bad, wait ‘til you meet his son Bolg. “He has very
brutal and damaged facial features,” says Richard Taylor, “so he’s come
up with a very unique way of keeping it all together. A little bit of
Mordor surgery, let’s say!” Just as Azog didn’t appear in Tolkien’s
book, Bolg is a new character but plays a big part, leading orcs, wargs
and bats into the Battle of the Five Armies. Will Azog get taken down
sometime early in The Desolation Of Smaug, making his grotesque nipper
thirst for revenge? And will we get to see a scene back at their
Orc-house, with Azog shouting at his son to turn his music down?
Smaug On An Ego Trip
A
terrible bastard at the best of times, city usurping devil dragon Smaug
dominates the second instalment with his a reptilian uber-brain. If An
Unexpected Journey flashed us a little scaly thigh, Part 2 gives us the
whole dragon, as Smaug comes face-to-face with his Hobbit nemesis.
“Smaug doesn’t engage with [Bilbo] the same way Sméagol does,” explains
the man who voices him, Benedict Cumberbatch. “He’s on much more of an
ego trip. He likes to feel dominant at all times, and often because of
what he’s capable of, he is.” Will the dragon’s arrogance and vanity be
his Achilles’ scale? Watch this space.
Billy Connolly Riding A Pig
Yes,
you read that right. It appears that Dain Ironfoot, the
tougher-than-tungsten lord of the dwarves of the Iron Hills, will rock
up to the Battle of the Five Armies astride a combat-hog. “I ride into
war on a wild pig!” Billy Connolly told Vulture last year.
Richard Taylor seemed to confirm this while speaking to Empire shortly
before Christmas, when he said, “It’s been great fun designing a
dwarfish army - what they might wear, what they might ride into battle,
all that stuff.” The fact he’s sat on the back of a war-ready oinker
won’t be the only eye-opening thing about Connelly’s Dain. “They’re
broadening me, making me wider,” added the actor. “I have a mohawk and
tattoos on my head. Let me say, this guy will terrify the life out of
you.”
Luke Evans Bringing The Brawn
An
Unexpected Journey didn’t feature a single human character, let alone
one as chiseled as Aragorn. That’s set to change as Luke Evans enters
the frame, playing master-archer Bard the Bowman. The role, which pits
Evans against Smaug the dragon in a massive, flame-filled face-off, was
as physically demanding as it sounds. “It was really difficult to do,
and took a long time,” the actor told us recently. “And it was really
weird to go from shooting a bow and arrow and galloping in a field on a
stallion to driving fast cars for Fast Six.” So who was a tougher foe to
take on: Smaug the Terrible or The Rock? “Well, one’s breathing fire
and God knows how big,” laughs Evans. “You’ll have to ask me that again
when I’ve seen what Smaug looks like in the flesh!”
Stephen Fry Like You’ve Never Seen Him Before
“I’ve
got a bald cap and a really bad comb-over wig, and this wispy
moustache, wispy beard, horrible blotchy skin and disgusting
fingernails.” That’s how Stephen Fry described his character in The
Hobbit — the Master of Laketown — when speaking to Digital Spy in 2011.
Down in New Zealand to pen a Dam Busters remake with Peter Jackson, Fry
ended up being recruited to play the greedy and grotesque politician,
who makes up for with belly what he lacks in backbone. And by all
accounts, the character has given Jackson the chance to gleefully hark
back to his icky early work. “[The Master] is an opportunity for sheer
grossness,” says Fry. “Peter had me eating testicles.”
Gandalf In Jeopardy
While
talking to Empire in September, Ian McKellen hinted that the White
Council’s assault on Dol Guldur, in which Gandalf, Saruman, Elrond and
Galadriel and Radagast take on the Necromancer’s foul forces, might not
end well for the Grey Wizard. Obviously he won’t expire, but could he be
taken out of action for a while? “There was a mocked-up doll of Gandalf
that Cate [Blanchett] was carrying — she obviously couldn’t carry me —
and we decided to call it Michael Gambon,” McKellen said. Well, as
Galadriel said in An Unexpected Journey: “If you ever need my help, I
will come.” Sounds like she keeps her promise.
A River Wild
The
tetchy relationship between dwarves and wood elves comes to a head
early in The Desolation Of Smaug when the ‘good’ folk of Mirkwood
incarcerate Thorin’s company in Elvenking’s elvenprison. Fortunately,
like a Prison Break meets Keith Floyd omnibus, Bilbo sneaks them all
into the wine casks and the elves unwittingly shove them downriver. The
Hobbit, though, has to travel the old-fashioned route. “I’m in the
water, hanging onto barrels, clinging to rocks and stuff,” remembers
Martin Freeman of the scene. “The waterline comes up to your chin. You
properly get carried along, into rocks, into other barrels – I’m saying
the bloody obvious here, but you’ve got to concentrate.”
Mind-Reading Spiders
As
they venture deeper in Mirkwood, Bilbo and posse will need to brace
themselves for the kind of arachnophobia even John Goodman can’t help
with. The forest’s giant spiders await. They’ll speak in a form of
“psychic communication”, promised Peter Jackson in December’s Empire
edition, so “only Bilbo hears them”. Evidently, possession of the One
Ring grants Bilbo the kind of psychic powers usually commanded only by
Jonathan Cainer himself, although how the spider-chat manifests itself
remains to be seen. Let’s hope it’s not the spider equivalent of a
Vulcan mind meld, leaving Bilbo chasing flies and scurrying about under a
table for the duration.
Enhanced Interrogation
The
original Grizzly Man, Beorn plays a key role in the dwarves' journey
through the tangle of Mirkwood. But on screen the shapeshifter, who
lives a reclusive life away from men, orcs and Werner Herzog’s camera
crews, will also gets his paws dirty dealing with some orcish
miscreants. “I started with a severe torture scene,” explains the man
who plays him, Mikael Persbrandt, a Swedish actor best known from
Susanne Bier’s In A Better World. “It was awkward and embarassing.” The
set-up involves the quizzing of an orc for information that may or may
not be followed by a Jack Nicholson-style “You can’t handle the truth!”
for the benefit of liberals in the room. It’s Zero Dark Fur-ty.
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