The OP and the reply posters got the capital punishment for manslaughter in a shockingly low media trial. The Texas court of appeals did not received any petition from any of them. Each of them got the injection in a Sunday each In a different week. They said they looked peaceful and didn't Carry any care in this world.
Black Arrow you've never failed me, and I've always recovered you. I've had you from my father and he from of old. If ever you came from the forges of the true King under the Mountain, go now and speed well!
The delivery and language is better than the entire content of all 3 of the Peter Jackson Hobbit movies. Just goes to show what you can do if you stick to the text of an actual good author instead of injecting hackneyed scripting. Even though the RB art styling isn't exactly great it still manages to transcend other renditions when it sticks to Tolkien.
@@SovereignStatesman Trousers/pants were seen as silly and even feminine to ancient peoples like the Romans, but of course most ended up wearing them with their tunics after Germanic barbarians integrated with them.
@@SovereignStatesman It's Hanna, and Messick and Stephenson have very different voices; in the first place, Messick is a tenor and Stephenson is a baritone.
Agreed. The Peter Jackson-Movies tried too hard to expand the story so they could make it into three movies. Shoehorning the whole part with Sauron in even though he is never mentioned in The Hobbit was enough of a nuisance, but I especially disliked what they did with Bard and his black arrow
@@oi6915 Yeah, right? They leave off at a cliffhanger and people who may not have read the books are like "Oh boi looking forward to the epic finale" and then the dragon gets killed off in the first ten minutes.
@@kenobiwanobi889 Agreed. In the book, Bard was considered an extremely grim man, and he was often teased by his fellow guards and such, but nobody hated him or anything. Well...the master of Laketown sorta did after he killed the dragon and became extremely popular, but even then, the Master blamed the Dwarves for the attack and tried sucking up to Bard.
And so passes the last of the Great Dragons of Middle-Earth; while Dragons still inhabit the Weathered Heath, no more will have the great size and strength of the Dragons of old.
Surely I say to thee, my ancient friend. Dragon fire like that of days long lost to all save Elven kind shall yet rain down upon all flesh that dare crawl upon middle earth.
@@Maximus1Decimus actually, there were many dragons of lesser size. Smaug is actually among the medium sized ones. Glaurung, the first dragon, was actually smaller
In the original airings the arrows could be heard glancing off Smaug's armor, I wish they would put this back in the soundtrack as it made the scene much more dynamic.
There are a bunch of sounds missing or added in the DVD release. I kinda miss the old sounds. Not that I like it that much less. At least it has the scene where Bilbo's ass is burning, whereas that part was missing in the VHS tape I had.
@@Indurok Okay, that makes sense, because catching some of these clips I see on youtube made me confused since I could have sworn there were more sound effects. I think it must be all the heavy/loud sound effects that are missing, for some reason.
To prevent the dragon from simply walking into the city without presenting his vulnerable belly. In the book Smaug intends to walk in at first and is greatly angered finding the bridge destroyed.
“Arrow! Black arrow! I have saved you to the last. You have never failed me and I have always recovered you. I had you from my father and he from of old. If ever you came from the forges of the true king under the Mountain, go now and speed well!”
I truly do love this smaug design. He looks so much more like a true fantasy creature rather than like, a big lizard with wings. He has ears and a mane and lines in his face.
Great great scene, I saw this as a kid in 1977 and loved that arrow so much. It took me till several years ago to find someone to teach me how to make arrows from stone and now I flintknapp which is making arrow points.
This movie has been heavily criticized. It will be what you want, but, gentlemen, this is FAITHFUL to Tolkien's work. Even the animation is designed to mimic Tolkien's watercolors. This is something done for love and not for money like the current embarrassing versions.
@@miraafloyd Only to recoup the money that had been spent on it, as is always the case with such projects. But there was definitely love and knowledge of Tolkien's work behind it.
You can tell that the Rankin-Bass designers and animators knew their Tolkien onions; they put in things that are described in the books, even if not directly alluded to in the T.V. specials. Some examples from their version of "The Return of the King" would be the presence of a young man who could only be Faramir at Eowyn's side during the coronation scene, as well as the standards of the various armies battling at the Pellenor Fields.
that's because they are both done by Rankin Bass who also did all those old Christmas specials like frosty the snowman & rudolph the red nosed reindeer
It's interesting to note that longtime voice actor John Stephenson voices Bard here, and in Rankin-Bass's _The Return of the King,_ he switches alignments and plays the Lord of the Nazgul.
John Stephenson was everywhere in the animation voice-over field, during the 1970's, working mostly alongside Don Messick, who was also heard in Rankin-Bass' The Hobbit and both worked alongside Paul Frees in the movie, too, as well as in 1980's The Return of the King!!!
Aww look at Smaug. He's all fwuffy in this version, and he's got a big round belly, too! I bet he would calm down if someone scratched the fur behind his ears and rubbed his belly.
This is considerably better than the more recent live action where he used a harpoon gun. This Bard was a brave and skilled warrior who spoke like a legend!
I prefer the newer version. The Black Arrow was more like a spear or ballista shot, something much closer to believable that it could kill something the size of a dragon if it hit the right spot. A normal arrow seems like it would be like a toothpick stab: it would hurt, but kinda goofy to die from. He still took normal bow and arrow shots before anyway. And aiming the thing was still all him regardless of the weapon. Edit: Also, you must not remember the scene very well: he never used the harpoon gun, he made a massive makeshift bow, aimed and shot it himself (though he did need his son to rest the arrow on). it's arguably more impressive with the crazy draw weight that would have.
@@ryuuronin9852 *eyeroll* "Believable." Dragons, wizards, elves, dwarves, and hobbits, and you're talking about "believable." The Jackson Hobbit movies were a train wreck, and even he acknowledged that, and apologized for them.
@@MaskedMan66 Even if he wasn't proud of them, I enjoyed them personally (though I can admit they have plenty of flaws, but plenty of strengths as well). Not every choice made was inherently a bad one. As for believability, yes I am talking about that in a Fantasy context. Would it be reasonable if a normal bee flew up and stung Smaug, causing his death? No. The Black Arrow is stated to be well made, but never explicitly magic in ability, so it should be judged by mortal standards. Plenty of professional authors have talked about how occasional elements can help ground a Fantasy, and improve how the audience relates to that world's sense of cause and effect. Fantasy doesn't necessarily need Realism, but it does need Believability, even if only within it's own context. The original is not wrong for it's choice, but I just prefer the ballista because it seems more reasonable. And lest we forget, Tolkien himself, retconned elements of the original Hobbit. When creating LOTR, he expanded and yes even changed bits to better fit with his larger lore that he had created. Even he wasn't fully satisfied with the original Hobbit.
@@ryuuronin9852 How you must hate "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz." Tolkien didn't change Bard's arrow. He was content with that. And he would have hated what Jackson did with his work. That's not speculation, by the way; he didn't like adaptations of literature in general, nor of his own work in particular. You might have heard how she shot down the Beatles' request to do a movie of TLotR.
@@MaskedMan66 Strange assumption to make. I never said anything about what I hate, I even said I don't hate the original Hobbit, it's a fine story. I just like this one minor element of the ballista idea relatively more. Heck, in some contexts, like Alice in Wonderland for example, no sense of reason is believable, because they establish it's a world of madness. And I don't claim what Tolkien would approve of the changes made for the movies, I know he would hate a lot of it. I completely agree that things can be changed too much (Rings of Power for example, which went off the deep end with liberties taken), but to pretend every change made in an adaptation is automatically worse is also a mistake. Are the LOTR movies entirely worthless because Aragorn wasn't fighting using the broken sword the whole time, or for omitting characters like Glorfindel and Tom Bombadil? The Jackson Hobbit movies were troubled, no question there, but looking at the commentaries and interviews, you see this was a rushed and exhausting job, but one still done with passion, with people that loved the source material and the characters. For that alone, I could never HATE those movies, just feel disappointed.
I love the Men of Dale. Especially when teamed up with the dwarves in Battle for Middle Earth II. Lakedown/Dale were the best missions in the game. Men of Dale providing the ranged firepower and black arrows, Dwarven Guardians getting in the orcs' collective faces and rearranging them at the molecular level with Bullrush. Ah, those were the days... then they made the dwarven inn unit Hobbits in a patch, meaning you don't get extra Men of Dale at Laketown >.>
Greg L If you look back at the opening scenes in Unexpected Journey, you can notice he actually had four legs. They randomly decided to chop them off in the second one cause Bendick Cumbatch didn't feel like "portraying" him with four legs.
CadaverJunky8 I too noticed the change too. In the extend edition of the hobbit the unexpected journey you can see they actually went back and changed the design to the one we see in the second film.
Well let's put it this way Luke Skywalker shot as well as Bard The Bowman. And much like Smaug the Dragon, the Death Star had a small but definite weak spot. The Hypermatter Reactor Module, the very core, the "heart" you could say, of that station. The weak spot that Galen Erso left in the Death Star. And just as the black arrow fired by Bard The Bowman struck the weak spot in the left breast of Smaug the Dragon, two little proton torpedoes fired from Luke Skywalker's X-Wing flew down the thermal exhaust port , and exploded in the reactor, causing it, and the station to be destroyed utterly! 😃
I still feel like this film got the spirit of the book down better than Peter Jacksons film. Peter Jacksons version was constantly degenerating into mindless action scenes and roller coaster rides, whereas this one actually had heart. The Hobbit isn't supposed to be a war story, it's not a story about a group of people slaughtering their way through middle earth either. It's a story about adventure and "growing up". Character development for the Peter Jackson films was almost non-existent. >_>
+Sailor Sedna What? Don't you know a movie called The Hobbit is supposed to be about a love triangle between the token good looking dwarf, an elf that never appeared in the Hobbit, and Peter's OC Elf. Also Gandalf fucks off to go start and never really complete a story arc about the Necromancer that goes nowhere and only serves to bring three other characters who had no role in the Hobbit to remind everyone they exist. No, old chap. It's called The Hobbit because there's a hobbit somewhere in that whole mess.
I'd agree if these animated movies didn't fail to grasp the character of the books so much. Smaug goes from being a Tolkien dragon (a being of intelligence and soul equal or beyond to that of Sauron) to a beast which speaks, as an example.
I always loved the idea of the "black arrows" being regular arrows just made of amazing drarvish materials so they are superb in every way to other arrows. Instead of some huge arrow.
I get why people are complaining about how he looks like a cat but I don't like how people complain about him being fat he's a dragon who's been sleeping in a mountain with a hoard of gold for a long time, he wouldn't be in shape at all and he is even described as being a more chubby dragon in the book like wth?
@@rehlingerdobbie6575 exactly. I dont know why people compare the old and the new. This animation is literraly trash. And the new smaug was much more clever and intriguing. This was short and trash.
@@benjaminrowley no need to be toxic child XD. Abd yes it is, the other one looks super fake, like how could you be terrified of what looks like a spikey blob of rubber co.pared to a cat with 3 foot long fangs and wings?
Because those audio effects were not licensed. It was easier to get away with that kind of thing back in the day. They had to take them out in modern releases because they didn't want to get in legal trouble and couldn't afford to pay the fees to keep them in.
@@Keldroc its not just that un a lot of cases audio recordings were lost. See the film 'Legend'. There was no incentive for long term storage.etire audio, soundtracks, etc were lost.
The original SOUND fx are missing from this clip. For instance, in the original sx when Bard and his bowmen shoot the arrows at Smaug's stomach, there are sound effects as the arrows bounce right off him; In this one there aren't. I can't describe what the effect sounds like.
The dvd famously has missing tracks of sound throughout the whole movie. Such a let down. I have the original vhs version, it's all together a different flick wirh the proper sound
So do I. I'll be sad when I'll won't get to watch it anymore because the drama isn't the same without the sound effects. What the hell were they thinking when they cut so much of them out? We need a petition for them to restore the film properly instead of letting them get away with this joke.
I love Bard's black arrow speech in the the book. But he sounds so chipper in this version, specially seeing as how he's described as a grim man in the story.
smaug looks amazing in the new "Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug" trailer. we can only see his head, but it has the potential to quite possibly be the best dragon ever portrayed onscreen.
Didn't Bard' grandgrandgrandverygrandfather tried to kill Smaug during his first appearance at the Mointain? So it's pretty reasonable to think that he tried to kill him in the chest, near as much as possible to the heart. It's. You know. Logic.
Everyone is talking about the movies and how Smaug looks like a fox, I'm worried by the fact that he died by a flimsy arrow. DANG IT, SMAUG, YOU'RE A DRAGON FOR THE INTERNET'S SAKE.
Smaug has a missing scale spot on his chest, which is his weakpoint. It happened by the other black arrows fired by bard's ancestor, girion, lord of Dale, in which smaug destroyed during his attack on erebor.
This clip has had it's audio changed from the original. I saw the original and when Smaug belts out those fire blasts it did NOT sound like some pile of leaves burning... there was a BLAST of flame and sound. It's a shame because it added so much more tension to the scene. This clip is LIMP!
So I know that there's a sleeping fire-breathing dragon in that mountain, but here's an idea. Let's build a town at the base of said mountain. And build it entirely out of highly flammable wood. And build it over a lake so that escape would be difficult in the untimely event of a conflagration. I'm sure nothing bad will ever happen...
Who wrote this?! Someone give that man an Academy Award, I love how it starts with him just talking about the weather and then out of no where his heterosexual tunic wearing friend shouts, “The Dragon!” And he’s all like, “either that’s a dragon or I’m a fool” lol 😂
It's a wolf, actually. And it's because with Smaug, like LOTS of things in the animated LotR/Hobbit movies, the movie took some of the text from the Hobbit way too literally. In the book, Smaug is said to have a face like a wolf, basically, and so when they designed Smaug for this movie, they (like I said) took the comparison as a literal description of Smaug. Same went for their depiction of Gollum as some kind of frog creature, or Orcs with little dog noses, or Hobbits with bigass noses.
It's the only scene I remember of this movie. But this scene is also how I could describe to someone about understanding the humor in Monty Python sketches, and what I think of when the joke actually hits me.
I've got to admit, as fun as this whole sequence was, I actually like the burning laketown sequence from Peter Jackson's movie better, especially the death scene, like smaug is trying to swim up as far as he can in the sky away from his death.
I'll be honest, I'm glad that the debate about Peter Jackson's Smaug isn't whether Benedict Cumberbatch was good casting or not (obviously he was), but why he has two legs instead of four. People will find something to complain about, I guess. I'm just happy that one of my favorite literary characters FINALLY made it to the screen with grace and dignity.
It's a pretty big problem. Having two legs like that means he's a wyvern. A massive wyvern, but just a wyvern. Smaug is supposed to be the last great dragon. His teeth are like swords, his claws spears!
I watched this as a kid and there is quite a lot of the sound effects gone, seems to be in the dvds you buy now as well, I wonder why it was taken out.
I have read the book several times and I am a nerd about this I could even say I have an obsession. I have also seen the cartoon. They overdid Smaug a little in dat one.
You want to know what I think? I think that The Desolation of Smaug won't be the one where Smaug dies. I think it'll cover everything in Mirkwood, the hostile elves, and then the town of Dale. I'm thinking that the credits will roll as a cliffhanger right as Bilbo gets to Smaug's lair. That would be awesome, and would give a better reason to see There and Back Again, where THERE Smaug will die.
i remember watching this on tv as a kid damn near 25 years ago. had no knowledge of the hobbits or lord of the rings. I just remembered that I loved the movie. now we've got 6 movies dedicated to middle earth. pretty cool
Forget the lucky arrow shot, that guy has incredible eyesight.
Right WTF xD
He's really the son of Gurion.
Daniel Porter th-cam.com/play/PLOPaV1WiwqWpVzrzIUmjtldshCsHq_fpM.html
Well he is a ranger....
Robin Hood couldn't have done better!👍😉
I like how he gives the arrow a pep talk to get it psyched up
5 months after you typed this comment, a man choked on his food laughing from reading it.
@@SaberRiryi and coincidentally 5 months later another man choked on his drink while reading your subsequent reply.
they both died in the incident.
The OP and the reply posters got the capital punishment for manslaughter in a shockingly low media trial. The Texas court of appeals did not received any petition from any of them. Each of them got the injection in a Sunday each In a different week. They said they looked peaceful and didn't Carry any care in this world.
@@davebob4973 💀💀
I love how hyperly heroic all the voices are. No fear just stoic “a dragon is attacking the city”
just another tuesday
"Oh no. The dragon is coming."
Get's me every time.
Skyrim when a dragon appears
game music: *screaming*
A dragon is attacking in LEGO city! HEY!
@@raptorxrise5386 Damn beat me to it
Black Arrow you've never failed me, and I've always recovered you. I've had you from my father and he from of old. If ever you came from the forges of the true King under the Mountain, go now and speed well!
I love that they used that straight from the book. And the music in the background as Bard is saying it gives me chills.
th-cam.com/play/PLOPaV1WiwqWpVzrzIUmjtldshCsHq_fpM.html
Love that fkkn line!
Loved how they incorporated it here. Need to watch the whole movie now.
The delivery and language is better than the entire content of all 3 of the Peter Jackson Hobbit movies. Just goes to show what you can do if you stick to the text of an actual good author instead of injecting hackneyed scripting. Even though the RB art styling isn't exactly great it still manages to transcend other renditions when it sticks to Tolkien.
I don't know why, but the line "This breeze is strangely warm for autumn" has stuck with me since I was a kid.
What stuck with me, was if autumn is so cold, why aren't they wearing any PANTS?
@@SovereignStatesman the English are used to the cold. Cover the chest and arms and you’re good
@@SovereignStatesman because they’re MEN! And MEN don’t WEAR pants!
@@SovereignStatesman Trousers/pants were seen as silly and even feminine to ancient peoples like the Romans, but of course most ended up wearing them with their tunics after Germanic barbarians integrated with them.
Same
Bard's utter chill while the talking bird points out the one weak spot on the attacking dragon is an inspiration to us all.
Don Messick can make anyone sound calm.
@@SovereignStatesman That's John Stephenson.
@@MaskedMan66 All those Hannah-Barberra voice-actors sound the same to me.
@@SovereignStatesman It's Hanna, and Messick and Stephenson have very different voices; in the first place, Messick is a tenor and Stephenson is a baritone.
Heroic willpower
I miss when Bard was captain of the guard and not hated by his town.
Agreed. The Peter Jackson-Movies tried too hard to expand the story so they could make it into three movies. Shoehorning the whole part with Sauron in even though he is never mentioned in The Hobbit was enough of a nuisance, but I especially disliked what they did with Bard and his black arrow
@@kenobiwanobi889 I didnt mind the sauron part as much as that was totally going on in the background, but I get your point.
Smaugs death in the new films was very anticlimactic, especially since they made you wait another film for it
@@oi6915 Yeah, right? They leave off at a cliffhanger and people who may not have read the books are like "Oh boi looking forward to the epic finale" and then the dragon gets killed off in the first ten minutes.
@@kenobiwanobi889 Agreed. In the book, Bard was considered an extremely grim man, and he was often teased by his fellow guards and such, but nobody hated him or anything. Well...the master of Laketown sorta did after he killed the dragon and became extremely popular, but even then, the Master blamed the Dwarves for the attack and tried sucking up to Bard.
Smaug can't be dead. He has eight more lives!!!
It's a NORDIC-style dragon, not English-style like in the movie. They had fur and stuff.
@@SovereignStatesman ok but why does he look like a pretty kitty scratching the couch and hacking up a hairball
lol, dead@@kenrudd6362
That’s because Bilbo found a Missing Scale from Smaug’s Dragon Body
Yeah Smaug looks more like a winged Tevildo than a normal dragon.
Legolas: That still only counts as one!
That's actually gimli.
phillip walling I know, but I put it as Legolas, because him and Bard use a bow and arrow as their primary weapon.
Goat
Like hell it does. That bard just made dragons extinct. There's killing and then there's finishing off a species.
@@Bluesit32 nope there are still plenty in the land of middle earth
Wow the guy was surprisingly calm and efficient in the face of a fire-breathing dragon.
Never underestimate the willpower of a hero
"Calm and efficient"? My man took down the chiefest and greatest of calamities in less than 2 minutes without breaking a sweat in an inferno...
its how adults/people used to be lol.
That's why he's the boss, I imagine
I sure hope they gave him a raise after that
"Dumbledore Asked Calmly"
Keep telling yourself that quote lol
And so passes the last of the Great Dragons of Middle-Earth; while Dragons still inhabit the Weathered Heath, no more will have the great size and strength of the Dragons of old.
Surely I say to thee, my ancient friend. Dragon fire like that of days long lost to all save Elven kind shall yet rain down upon all flesh that dare crawl upon middle earth.
Also the smallest. xD
@@Maximus1Decimus actually, there were many dragons of lesser size. Smaug is actually among the medium sized ones. Glaurung, the first dragon, was actually smaller
Dovakim, dovakim
@@cillianthestupendous6093 glaurung was not smaller lol. He was much bigger
In the original airings the arrows could be heard glancing off Smaug's armor, I wish they would put this back in the soundtrack as it made the scene much more dynamic.
I did too!! That would actually fix these kind of lame 80s films.
There are a bunch of sounds missing or added in the DVD release. I kinda miss the old sounds. Not that I like it that much less. At least it has the scene where Bilbo's ass is burning, whereas that part was missing in the VHS tape I had.
@@Indurok Okay, that makes sense, because catching some of these clips I see on youtube made me confused since I could have sworn there were more sound effects. I think it must be all the heavy/loud sound effects that are missing, for some reason.
@@Indurok What a bizarre thing to do. Why remove SOME sounds? How did it happen?
@@Bluesit32 I think I remember a comment saying that they had lost audio files or something.
Come on everyone, we all love fluffy Smaug! he also had a cool voice in the earlier scene where he spoke to Bilbo
he's so cute 🐲😼🦊😈🔥🔥🔥 fluffy evil and creepy
The Chinese/Japanese Dragon Smaug
@@irinakravec727 the thicc cat lizard
Flying Rancid M00n Fish: Smaug was voiced by Richard Boon, who was famous as a villain in many films.
Bard's speech before firing is epic.
0:13 "Cut the bridges!"
Me: What the hell for?
Maybe to avoid fire spreading in the valley.
To prevent the dragon from simply walking into the city without presenting his vulnerable belly. In the book Smaug intends to walk in at first and is greatly angered finding the bridge destroyed.
@@Mantil82 this is the content I came for
"So we All burn to death!"
"Dude...."
In my opinion, Smaug looks like what you get when an asian dragon and a european dragon mate.
@MIA MCCORMICK here, not in the books or movies
In my opinion he looks like a Cat has paired with a Dragon.
pics or it didnt happen
He looks like if Snarf from the Thunder Cats had a one night stand with a fat Chinese dragon
@@ooeygooeygoodra3068 lol
1:55 Looked like the whole laketown sank with him.
You are correct, ratbat!!! In the book, he destroys and splinters all of laketown into tiny bits!!!!!
LOL!
Hard to believe that not long after this movie, the voice actor for Smaug in this movie died in real life. RIP Richard Boone
He also did voice acting on Thundercats and Silverhawks. A great talent.
Not really hard to believe; the poor guy had throat cancer.
@@Hinatachan360 He can't have done; he died in 1981, and those shows were made in '85 and '86.
Have Flame--Will Travel
“Arrow! Black arrow! I have saved you to the last. You have never failed me and I have always recovered you. I had you from my father and he from of old. If ever you came from the forges of the true king under the Mountain, go now and speed well!”
Smaug the "Dragon" ❎
Smaug the "Cat" ☑️
Smaug the Porky
Bard: Men! Stand your ground!
Bowman: But sir, it appears that I am on fire...
yeah i thought the same
WALK IT OFF
But a flesh wound
magnificent
Tis but a flesh wound
1:33
his speech with that music just gives me goosebumps.epic.
"Cut the bridges!"
Smaug....the FLYING Dragon
Dvd version with it's missing sound tracks. So much better with the depths of sound
Bard was an awesome archer 🏹. He had incredible eyesight; it ran in his family for many generations!!
I think it was the black arrow, it COULDN'T MISS what it was aiming at.
@@SovereignStatesman Okay, you have a point there.
I love that the whole town is the same person.
I truly do love this smaug design. He looks so much more like a true fantasy creature rather than like, a big lizard with wings. He has ears and a mane and lines in his face.
Did this Smaug have hair on his back in the book? I never read the book.
Great great scene, I saw this as a kid in 1977 and loved that arrow so much. It took me till several years ago to find someone to teach me how to make arrows from stone and now I flintknapp which is making arrow points.
This movie has been heavily criticized. It will be what you want, but, gentlemen, this is FAITHFUL to Tolkien's work. Even the animation is designed to mimic Tolkien's watercolors. This is something done for love and not for money like the current embarrassing versions.
Well it was done for love AND money
@@skibot9974 I was about to say lol. This was still done for money.
who criticized this movie? where they at? i will fuck them up!
@@miraafloyd Only to recoup the money that had been spent on it, as is always the case with such projects. But there was definitely love and knowledge of Tolkien's work behind it.
You can tell that the Rankin-Bass designers and animators knew their Tolkien onions; they put in things that are described in the books, even if not directly alluded to in the T.V. specials. Some examples from their version of "The Return of the King" would be the presence of a young man who could only be Faramir at Eowyn's side during the coronation scene, as well as the standards of the various armies battling at the Pellenor Fields.
I really like how the little bird helped save the day
honestly the idea of a dragon looking like a giant cat is so fitting
people remember the awsome villans, the more challenging a villian is the more heroic the one who slays him will be, smaug is a great character.
Damn, that guy has some good eyesight.
That and has very good leading instincts. Leading as in target leading.
The art reminds me so much of the Last Unicorn
that's because they are both done by Rankin Bass who also did all those old Christmas specials like frosty the snowman & rudolph the red nosed reindeer
Both were animated by Topcraft, a Japanese animation studio that broke off into Studio Ghibli and Pacific Animation Corporation (defunct)
I’m not sure why but this scene has literally stayed in my mind since I was a child. Literally memorized word for word.
It's interesting to note that longtime voice actor John Stephenson voices Bard here, and in Rankin-Bass's _The Return of the King,_ he switches alignments and plays the Lord of the Nazgul.
That’s crazy.
@@neverastraightanswer9802 Why? These guys are very versatile.
The Witch King.
@@epicrapfan73 Same dude.
John Stephenson was everywhere in the animation voice-over field, during the 1970's, working mostly alongside Don Messick, who was also heard in Rankin-Bass' The Hobbit and both worked alongside Paul Frees in the movie, too, as well as in 1980's The Return of the King!!!
I like how tense the music is, like as if a giant firebreathing dragon is coming
Aww look at Smaug. He's all fwuffy in this version, and he's got a big round belly, too! I bet he would calm down if someone scratched the fur behind his ears and rubbed his belly.
ryanspears1986 Someone should try that.
MDkid1 LOL!
ryanspears1986 LOL! I'd like to see them try it. As John Huston's Gandalf would have said, they'd be ashes before they took their seventh step! =)
those stone giants could do it, they as big as mountains
@@zorrothefox2000 Through the front gate? As a house guest?
This is considerably better than the more recent live action where he used a harpoon gun. This Bard was a brave and skilled warrior who spoke like a legend!
I prefer the newer version. The Black Arrow was more like a spear or ballista shot, something much closer to believable that it could kill something the size of a dragon if it hit the right spot. A normal arrow seems like it would be like a toothpick stab: it would hurt, but kinda goofy to die from. He still took normal bow and arrow shots before anyway. And aiming the thing was still all him regardless of the weapon.
Edit: Also, you must not remember the scene very well: he never used the harpoon gun, he made a massive makeshift bow, aimed and shot it himself (though he did need his son to rest the arrow on). it's arguably more impressive with the crazy draw weight that would have.
@@ryuuronin9852 *eyeroll* "Believable." Dragons, wizards, elves, dwarves, and hobbits, and you're talking about "believable." The Jackson Hobbit movies were a train wreck, and even he acknowledged that, and apologized for them.
@@MaskedMan66 Even if he wasn't proud of them, I enjoyed them personally (though I can admit they have plenty of flaws, but plenty of strengths as well). Not every choice made was inherently a bad one.
As for believability, yes I am talking about that in a Fantasy context. Would it be reasonable if a normal bee flew up and stung Smaug, causing his death? No. The Black Arrow is stated to be well made, but never explicitly magic in ability, so it should be judged by mortal standards. Plenty of professional authors have talked about how occasional elements can help ground a Fantasy, and improve how the audience relates to that world's sense of cause and effect. Fantasy doesn't necessarily need Realism, but it does need Believability, even if only within it's own context. The original is not wrong for it's choice, but I just prefer the ballista because it seems more reasonable.
And lest we forget, Tolkien himself, retconned elements of the original Hobbit. When creating LOTR, he expanded and yes even changed bits to better fit with his larger lore that he had created. Even he wasn't fully satisfied with the original Hobbit.
@@ryuuronin9852 How you must hate "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz."
Tolkien didn't change Bard's arrow. He was content with that. And he would have hated what Jackson did with his work. That's not speculation, by the way; he didn't like adaptations of literature in general, nor of his own work in particular. You might have heard how she shot down the Beatles' request to do a movie of TLotR.
@@MaskedMan66 Strange assumption to make. I never said anything about what I hate, I even said I don't hate the original Hobbit, it's a fine story. I just like this one minor element of the ballista idea relatively more. Heck, in some contexts, like Alice in Wonderland for example, no sense of reason is believable, because they establish it's a world of madness.
And I don't claim what Tolkien would approve of the changes made for the movies, I know he would hate a lot of it. I completely agree that things can be changed too much (Rings of Power for example, which went off the deep end with liberties taken), but to pretend every change made in an adaptation is automatically worse is also a mistake. Are the LOTR movies entirely worthless because Aragorn wasn't fighting using the broken sword the whole time, or for omitting characters like Glorfindel and Tom Bombadil? The Jackson Hobbit movies were troubled, no question there, but looking at the commentaries and interviews, you see this was a rushed and exhausting job, but one still done with passion, with people that loved the source material and the characters. For that alone, I could never HATE those movies, just feel disappointed.
I love the Men of Dale. Especially when teamed up with the dwarves in Battle for Middle Earth II. Lakedown/Dale were the best missions in the game. Men of Dale providing the ranged firepower and black arrows, Dwarven Guardians getting in the orcs' collective faces and rearranging them at the molecular level with Bullrush.
Ah, those were the days... then they made the dwarven inn unit Hobbits in a patch, meaning you don't get extra Men of Dale at Laketown >.>
That looks more like an angry cat than a dragon.
.. but at least he has four legs, which is more than I can say for Jackson's.
IndianaJoel93 Those are wyverns. Dragons have four legs and two wings.
I'm on top of all things imaginary flying lizards, man.
CadaverJunky8
True! and even the dragon drawn on the dwarves map has four legs.
Greg L If you look back at the opening scenes in Unexpected Journey, you can notice he actually had four legs.
They randomly decided to chop them off in the second one cause Bendick Cumbatch didn't feel like "portraying" him with four legs.
CadaverJunky8
I too noticed the change too. In the extend edition of the hobbit the unexpected journey you can see they actually went back and changed the design to the one we see in the second film.
Yeah, i really hate that smaug have only two legs
That is, no joke, the most terrifying version of a dragon i ever saw in television
Be happy that Bilbo alerted that noble thrush, otherwise we would have had a different outcome.
Awesome Thrush.
"Great shot kid! That was one in a million!"
The thrush says that
Well let's put it this way Luke Skywalker shot as well as Bard The Bowman. And much like Smaug the Dragon, the Death Star had a small but definite weak spot. The Hypermatter Reactor Module, the very core, the "heart" you could say, of that station. The weak spot that Galen Erso left in the Death Star. And just as the black arrow fired by Bard The Bowman struck the weak spot in the left breast of Smaug the Dragon, two little proton torpedoes fired from Luke Skywalker's X-Wing flew down the thermal exhaust port , and exploded in the reactor, causing it, and the station to be destroyed utterly! 😃
This breeze is strangely warm for Autumn.
My dumbass brain: Bro did you pee in the breeze?
I still feel like this film got the spirit of the book down better than Peter Jacksons film. Peter Jacksons version was constantly degenerating into mindless action scenes and roller coaster rides, whereas this one actually had heart.
The Hobbit isn't supposed to be a war story, it's not a story about a group of people slaughtering their way through middle earth either. It's a story about adventure and "growing up". Character development for the Peter Jackson films was almost non-existent. >_>
+Sailor Sedna What? Don't you know a movie called The Hobbit is supposed to be about a love triangle between the token good looking dwarf, an elf that never appeared in the Hobbit, and Peter's OC Elf. Also Gandalf fucks off to go start and never really complete a story arc about the Necromancer that goes nowhere and only serves to bring three other characters who had no role in the Hobbit to remind everyone they exist.
No, old chap. It's called The Hobbit because there's a hobbit somewhere in that whole mess.
Good point. But sill love The Hobbit movie.
Also Smaug was made into a friggin WYVERN! 😑 Hollywood, please stop doing that!
I'd agree if these animated movies didn't fail to grasp the character of the books so much. Smaug goes from being a Tolkien dragon (a being of intelligence and soul equal or beyond to that of Sauron) to a beast which speaks, as an example.
The nostalgic circlejerk is strong here
Smaug: 800 armor class, 4 hit points.
"the dragon is coming!... or I'm a pantless FOOL!"
I always loved the idea of the "black arrows" being regular arrows just made of amazing drarvish materials so they are superb in every way to other arrows. Instead of some huge arrow.
. . . And from all the people of Laketown, there rose up a mighty cry: "UP YOURS, LIZARD-BREATH!!!"
And there was much rejoicing.
I get why people are complaining about how he looks like a cat but I don't like how people complain about him being fat he's a dragon who's been sleeping in a mountain with a hoard of gold for a long time, he wouldn't be in shape at all and he is even described as being a more chubby dragon in the book like wth?
Honestly though, this smaug is way more terrifying than the new one.
Everyone tries to make jokes about him being a cat, but he's not funny in the movie, especially not when he's threatening Bilbo.
is this a joke?
@@rehlingerdobbie6575 exactly. I dont know why people compare the old and the new. This animation is literraly trash. And the new smaug was much more clever and intriguing.
This was short and trash.
So ur saying a flying cat is more terrifying then the new one bitch please
@@benjaminrowley no need to be toxic child XD. Abd yes it is, the other one looks super fake, like how could you be terrified of what looks like a spikey blob of rubber co.pared to a cat with 3 foot long fangs and wings?
seriously, how the hell could they release this on dvd with so much of the audio missing? the special effects in the original version are so cool.
Because those audio effects were not licensed. It was easier to get away with that kind of thing back in the day. They had to take them out in modern releases because they didn't want to get in legal trouble and couldn't afford to pay the fees to keep them in.
@@Keldroc its not just that un a lot of cases audio recordings were lost. See the film 'Legend'. There was no incentive for long term storage.etire audio, soundtracks, etc were lost.
Smaug is so beautiful.
The original SOUND fx are missing from this clip. For instance, in the original sx when Bard and his bowmen shoot the arrows at Smaug's stomach, there are sound effects as the arrows bounce right off him; In this one there aren't. I can't describe what the effect sounds like.
+brian sedlock it's kind of like "pweepwee pweepweepwee". but i can't do the visceral sound for when the black arrow hits smaug.
+TalenelaT thanks for clarifying; I couldn't have described better myself.
The dvd famously has missing tracks of sound throughout the whole movie. Such a let down. I have the original vhs version, it's all together a different flick wirh the proper sound
So do I. I'll be sad when I'll won't get to watch it anymore because the drama isn't the same without the sound effects. What the hell were they thinking when they cut so much of them out? We need a petition for them to restore the film properly instead of letting them get away with this joke.
@@Bubbles99718 you should make it public
Guy who designed smaug: ”wtf is a dragon… fuck it i’ll just draw a cat with scales”
I love Bard's black arrow speech in the the book. But he sounds so chipper in this version, specially seeing as how he's described as a grim man in the story.
especially*
I grew up with this so it's very hard for me criticize it so I won't. I will say this though the new Hobbit is VERY good!
smaug looks amazing in the new "Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug" trailer. we can only see his head, but it has the potential to quite possibly be the best dragon ever portrayed onscreen.
Dragonslayer movie dragon is pretty darn good as a dragon!
*Everyone’s on fire*
“Stand your ground. This is fine.”
what a lucky guy, not only a weak spot but somehow one extremely vital organ right at this single point....
Didn't Bard' grandgrandgrandverygrandfather tried to kill Smaug during his first appearance at the Mointain? So it's pretty reasonable to think that he tried to kill him in the chest, near as much as possible to the heart. It's. You know. Logic.
It’s kinda weird that a fucking dragon has his organs at the same place like humans
Bird trying to help, meanwhile archer: AWAY BIRAD AWAY
smaug looks so cute in this
This guy has eyes that put any elven archer to shame.
Everyone is talking about the movies and how Smaug looks like a fox, I'm worried by the fact that he died by a flimsy arrow. DANG IT, SMAUG, YOU'RE A DRAGON FOR THE INTERNET'S SAKE.
JediMaster Yorhacken it was more due to his gold fetish and his constant bathing on gold
For me, the only thing that can acceptably kill a dragon is another dragon. ;)
Good, So i'm not the only one who thinks Smaug's death was disappointing, so easy & quick...
He dies to an arrow in every version of the story. That's how he died in the original novel. I fail to see how it's a problem. Dragons are mortal too.
Smaug has a missing scale spot on his chest, which is his weakpoint. It happened by the other black arrows fired by bard's ancestor, girion, lord of Dale, in which smaug destroyed during his attack on erebor.
The humans dress like the ancient Romans or Israelis.
That’s what I was thinking 🤔 about it.
More like Anglo-Saxons or Vikings, which is was Middle Earth was based on. But then, they all dressed sort of the same
@@jeffreyknickman5559 Yeah. They all look like Robin Hood.
i love how my mind just...reanimated this scene with a totally different drawing style
This clip has had it's audio changed from the original. I saw the original and when Smaug belts out those fire blasts it did NOT sound like some pile of leaves burning... there was a BLAST of flame and sound. It's a shame because it added so much more tension to the scene. This clip is LIMP!
The VHS version has the missing sounds, and they make this scene so much better.
Smaug looks like a fox.^^
I thought he looked more like a cat.
"The dragon is coming! ... Cut the bridges!"
Bruh, what's that gonna do? xD
This version is infinitely better than the new one
Lytre_ in wat ways is it better
Yapping
You see, little troll, Smeagol was his hobbit name, and he later was named Gollum because of the noise he made.
So I know that there's a sleeping fire-breathing dragon in that mountain, but here's an idea. Let's build a town at the base of said mountain. And build it entirely out of highly flammable wood. And build it over a lake so that escape would be difficult in the untimely event of a conflagration. I'm sure nothing bad will ever happen...
This man came out of nowhere and killed the big boss with his magic arrow. He is the grandfather of all Deux ex Machina.
Who wrote this?! Someone give that man an Academy Award, I love how it starts with him just talking about the weather and then out of no where his heterosexual tunic wearing friend shouts, “The Dragon!” And he’s all like, “either that’s a dragon or I’m a fool” lol 😂
The Book * takes up two pages *
The Cartoon * takes up two minutes *
The Trilogy * takes up about 20 minutes *
I mean it is pretty much how it went in the book. I mean like they followed the source material fine here.
The fact that this version of Smaug resembles a cat is unsurprising, as the same studio that made this movie later made the Thundercats cartoon.
It's a wolf, actually. And it's because with Smaug, like LOTS of things in the animated LotR/Hobbit movies, the movie took some of the text from the Hobbit way too literally. In the book, Smaug is said to have a face like a wolf, basically, and so when they designed Smaug for this movie, they (like I said) took the comparison as a literal description of Smaug.
Same went for their depiction of Gollum as some kind of frog creature, or Orcs with little dog noses, or Hobbits with bigass noses.
1:44-1:46 Now, arrow of black, fly swift and sure that evil die and good endure!
Sleeping beauty!
phillip walling
Yep! And also because Sleeping Beauty was the movie that inspired the sword and sorcery genre!
It's the only scene I remember of this movie. But this scene is also how I could describe to someone about understanding the humor in Monty Python sketches, and what I think of when the joke actually hits me.
So much better than Jackson's ridiculous scene.
What makes Jackson’s version ridiculous? Smaug is a boastful guy, and it would take way more than 2 minutes to kill a freakin dragon.
I've got to admit, as fun as this whole sequence was, I actually like the burning laketown sequence from Peter Jackson's movie better, especially the death scene, like smaug is trying to swim up as far as he can in the sky away from his death.
I'll be honest, I'm glad that the debate about Peter Jackson's Smaug isn't whether Benedict Cumberbatch was good casting or not (obviously he was), but why he has two legs instead of four. People will find something to complain about, I guess.
I'm just happy that one of my favorite literary characters FINALLY made it to the screen with grace and dignity.
I know what you mean, every video you go on there's an argument about something
Eleanorminblack Isn't that the truth?! =(
It's a pretty big problem. Having two legs like that means he's a wyvern. A massive wyvern, but just a wyvern. Smaug is supposed to be the last great dragon. His teeth are like swords, his claws spears!
"Whats a dragon look like?"
"A lizard with catface."
I watched this as a kid and there is quite a lot of the sound effects gone, seems to be in the dvds you buy now as well, I wonder why it was taken out.
This gives a whole new sense to that old saying "a little bird told me...."
Probably where Tolkien got the idea from. ...or this is where the saying comes from, but I doubt that.
*reads comments* Tsktsk. People who never watched the cartoon when they were younger; just leave. -_- lol
I watched it about a year ago as an adult. This cartoon rocks!!
You have my respect!
I have read the book several times and I am a nerd about this I could even say I have an obsession. I have also seen the cartoon. They overdid Smaug a little in dat one.
The reason why is more wise to keep quiet and just reading the flamewars =P
Dude, I first saw this in the 5th grade on a slideshow back in 1977. Do you remember a slideshow projector?
that's one really quiet dragon. no sound at all until it dies
You want to know what I think? I think that The Desolation of Smaug won't be the one where Smaug dies. I think it'll cover everything in Mirkwood, the hostile elves, and then the town of Dale. I'm thinking that the credits will roll as a cliffhanger right as Bilbo gets to Smaug's lair. That would be awesome, and would give a better reason to see There and Back Again, where THERE Smaug will die.
The villagers seems awfully calm despite the fact that they are being attacked by a giant, fire-breathing monster...
Wonder how the Death of Smaug will look on the big screen next year.
@MIA MCCORMICK You think? I thought it was quite epic and majestic to watch
@@Sianic12 I agree with Mia here, smaug made more dumb choices, and the movie had some leaps of logic that FANTASY can't excuse.
Look, Lake town has only 3 laws
No dragons
No women
No pants
i remember watching this on tv as a kid damn near 25 years ago. had no knowledge of the hobbits or lord of the rings. I just remembered that I loved the movie. now we've got 6 movies dedicated to middle earth. pretty cool
Today that bird would have been called a conspiracy theorist and he would have never checked.
Dramatic.
I believe Smaug was meant to look like a dragon and not a cat with wings.
That's not a dragon. That's the infamous hairy winged snake cat!
Are you familiar with Pratchet's work? I believe he covers this exact scenario and points out how insane it is.
You can see that folk of middle earth don’t skip leg day