Poll: Smaug - Best cinematic dragon ever?

[KazeAizen]

I absolutely loved the reveal scene where the gold coins were shifting everywhere, and then as he slowly rises you realise just how big this thing is, as it just gets longer and longer. Very well done, although I'm with the 'overmilking the dwarf chase' camp. To be honest a lot of scenes overstayed their welcome like that (extended barrel scene, warg chasing scene before getting to Rivendale in first movie and that scaffolding riding scene in the goblin caves.) They each got to a point where you stopped being drawn in and thought "Well this is getting a little silly now, just escape already."

Its been a while since I read the book but I think they did that because the scenes in the book weren't near as involved or long. It might've been shameless padding for the run time but they at least said "Let's make these fun and memorable." So they turned them into big set piece chases/battles. Which that barrel scene in the second Hobbit movie is one of my favorite action scenes I've ever seen. Even if they were ridiculous to a fault I'd rather have a long entertaining set piece than a boring short escape especially if they built it up to be something grand and it just wasn't in the end. If they can't have and entertain the audience in a movie with wizards, dragons, dwarves, and hobbits then why the hell make it in the first place?

 

[Vivi22]

He was pretty good, but I honestly think Cumberbatch sold it for me with his voice over performance more than anything did. Sadly, there were a couple of scenes (action scenes basically) where the animation and integration were so bad it took me right out of the moment. Overall he was well done, but far from perfect visually because of those moments.

 

[Eclipse Dragon]

They made a character out of him, which ranks him higher in my book than movies with dragons who's only emotions are "angry" and "furious". That being said, it's still hard comparing him to other character dragons like Draco and Toothless.

Toothless we can leave out because he's not of a realistic style, so I'll count him in a category of his own.

So it's Smaug vs Draco, I'd give it to Draco, because he simply has more screen-time for us to get to know him, and he still looks awesome after 18 years. I don't know if I'll be able to say the same for Smaug.

But Smaug most certainly is a 9 out of 10, they did a fantastic job and I hope other studios take note of that when making dragons in the future.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I think they overkilled it a bit with the CGI but he was very impressive, sure.

Um not to sound rude but how exactly were they going to make a gigantic fire breathing lizard convincing in this day and age? Stop motion animation or a puppet? CGI was really the only way for them to go with Smaug.

I'm always a little hesitant about plain CGI. I'm sure they could've come up with a compromise. Some sort of articulated dynamo built to scale with sparse CGI make-up, maybe. The Jurassic Park method. Otherwise it's just another videogame cutscene. Smaug never felt as real as any random orc from the first LOTR movie. Or hell even that one cave troll (which as far as I know was full CGI but the dark lighting and editing of the scene still makes it work).

 

[SecondPrize]

I'm torn on this matter. Smaug's entrance was one of the best I've seen by anything on film, dragon or not. On the other hand, his use in the film after his chat with Bilbo actually may have violated the Geneva Convention. It's like getting Angelina Jolie or Daniel Craig to agree to do some nude modeling and then taking them to a watercolor for the blind class.

 

[kypsilon]

Nope. For my money, the best cinematic dragon ever is Vermithrax from 1981's Dragonslayer.

I like the cut of your jib sir. Although when they released Dragonslayer on DVD they didn't bother remastering the film (at least the one I got) and so certain effects don't marry well to the rest of the scene, including some of the dragon scenes. It really is too bad since Vermithrax was the inspiration for a lot of other dragons. Dragonslayer deserved better.

 

[KazeAizen]

I think they overkilled it a bit with the CGI but he was very impressive, sure.

Um not to sound rude but how exactly were they going to make a gigantic fire breathing lizard convincing in this day and age? Stop motion animation or a puppet? CGI was really the only way for them to go with Smaug.

I'm always a little hesitant about plain CGI. I'm sure they could've come up with a compromise. Some sort of articulated dynamo built to scale with sparse CGI make-up, maybe. The Jurassic Park method. Otherwise it's just another videogame cutscene. Smaug never felt as real as any random orc from the first LOTR movie. Or hell even that one cave troll (which as far as I know was full CGI but the dark lighting and editing of the scene still makes it work).

Depending on who it is and what the film is I'm either hesistant or not. For example if it is LoTR, Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel etc. Essentially a franchise with the clout and money to back it up I'm not worried at all because I know they have the finances to make good convincing CGI. I think for the scale of it there wasn't really much room for compromise. There might've been but personally I didn't see it. I mean making an animatronic/cgi combo dinosaur that is maybe the size of two cars at the largest is one thing. Making a dragon that is a few buildings huge yet must move nimbly and lizard like is another thing entirely. It could've been worse though. We could've gotten a Dungeons and Dragons version of Smaug. lol.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I think they overkilled it a bit with the CGI but he was very impressive, sure.

Um not to sound rude but how exactly were they going to make a gigantic fire breathing lizard convincing in this day and age? Stop motion animation or a puppet? CGI was really the only way for them to go with Smaug.

I'm always a little hesitant about plain CGI. I'm sure they could've come up with a compromise. Some sort of articulated dynamo built to scale with sparse CGI make-up, maybe. The Jurassic Park method. Otherwise it's just another videogame cutscene. Smaug never felt as real as any random orc from the first LOTR movie. Or hell even that one cave troll (which as far as I know was full CGI but the dark lighting and editing of the scene still makes it work).

Depending on who it is and what the film is I'm either hesistant or not. For example if it is LoTR, Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel etc. Essentially a franchise with the clout and money to back it up I'm not worried at all because I know they have the finances to make good convincing CGI. I think for the scale of it there wasn't really much room for compromise. There might've been but personally I didn't see it. I mean making an animatronic/cgi combo dinosaur that is maybe the size of two cars at the largest is one thing. Making a dragon that is a few buildings huge yet must move nimbly and lizard like is another thing entirely. It could've been worse though. We could've gotten a Dungeons and Dragons version of Smaug. lol.

I'm sure the industry's come a long way since 1993 and a 225 million dollar budget can get you at least half a dynamo dragon. I don't think size is an issue. If Spielberg can get a full-scale mobile T-Rex 20 years ago can't Jackson get at least a sizeable portion of an animatronic to work and add the rest? Sure use CGI on the eyes and like I said as digital make-up to coat the thing. But having the whole thing flat-out not exist from scratch...

 

[JimB]

I say yes strictly on the basis that I have had nightmares about dragons as big as him picking up my house and holding it over his mouth to shake it until I fall down his gullet like the last crumb at the bottom of a grab bag of Doritos. He provoked a very specific and perhaps personal terror in me because he was exactly big enough to do all the things I've ever woken up in a cold sweat from, and I love him for that.

 

[Jack Nief]

(Removed for double post content)

 

[Jack Nief]

Negative. Best cinematic Wyvern, hands down. Best cinematic dragon is Dragonheart's Draco. Runner up goes to Merlin's Kilgarrah.... though he's more of a TV series dragon.

Also, in before pedantic "he's a wyvern, not a dragon, because he's got the wrong number of legs, ruined4ever!" complaints.

Your inb4 has failed to stop me from stating my opinion, mwahahahahaa. That being said there is no denying, Dragon or Wyvern, Smaug does nothing short of kicking major amounts of cinematic ass.

 

[spartan231490]

Without contest. I haven't been intimidated by an on-screen dragon in over a decade, not since I was like, 11, but Smaug did the trick. He had a menace that too many movie-dragons lack, in addition to being just looking cool.

 

[KazeAizen]

I think they overkilled it a bit with the CGI but he was very impressive, sure.

Um not to sound rude but how exactly were they going to make a gigantic fire breathing lizard convincing in this day and age? Stop motion animation or a puppet? CGI was really the only way for them to go with Smaug.

I'm always a little hesitant about plain CGI. I'm sure they could've come up with a compromise. Some sort of articulated dynamo built to scale with sparse CGI make-up, maybe. The Jurassic Park method. Otherwise it's just another videogame cutscene. Smaug never felt as real as any random orc from the first LOTR movie. Or hell even that one cave troll (which as far as I know was full CGI but the dark lighting and editing of the scene still makes it work).

Depending on who it is and what the film is I'm either hesistant or not. For example if it is LoTR, Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel etc. Essentially a franchise with the clout and money to back it up I'm not worried at all because I know they have the finances to make good convincing CGI. I think for the scale of it there wasn't really much room for compromise. There might've been but personally I didn't see it. I mean making an animatronic/cgi combo dinosaur that is maybe the size of two cars at the largest is one thing. Making a dragon that is a few buildings huge yet must move nimbly and lizard like is another thing entirely. It could've been worse though. We could've gotten a Dungeons and Dragons version of Smaug. lol.

I'm sure the industry's come a long way since 1993 and a 225 million dollar budget can get you at least half a dynamo dragon. I don't think size is an issue. If Spielberg can get a full-scale mobile T-Rex 20 years ago can't Jackson get at least a sizeable portion of an animatronic to work and add the rest? Sure use CGI on the eyes and like I said as digital make-up to coat the thing. But having the whole thing flat-out not exist from scratch...

Its all just personal preference really. I did actually encounter something yesterday that I just shook my head and said. "Why the hell did they CGI that?" and that was the CGI Renesme baby in Breaking Dawn Part 2. This is going to sound bad but I think for The Hobbit trilogy going CGI heavy was one of the better decisions they made. Things are crisper, cleaner, more colorful, etc. Kind of fitting with the light hearted tone of the original children's novel it was based on. As opposed to the realistic grit and less CGI heavy LoTR trilogy. All tone and preference etc. but I don't think anyone who sees that movie is not going to call Smaug anything short of stupendous.

 

[Legion]

No, because they made the same mistake they always do for films and that is make the antagonist appear stupid.

He is a giant fire breathing monster, yet fails in the space of around twenty minutes to kill a single dwarf while chasing them throughout the mines. They simply would not stand a chance under those circumstances. He is supposed to be a terrifying creature none would dare try and approach, which was why in the books none of that stuff happened.

Making antagonists easy to fool or otherwise do stupid things diminishes them as a threat. He was the fantasy equivalent of the action movie antagonist who insists on picking up and throwing around the protagonist rather than shoot them. Or the giant boss in games, who always runs at walls and gets stuck.

He was fantastically animated and voiced though. It was the directing I find ruined him as a character.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

-snip-

Its been a while since I read the book but I think they did that because the scenes in the book weren't near as involved or long. It might've been shameless padding for the run time but they at least said "Let's make these fun and memorable." So they turned them into big set piece chases/battles. Which that barrel scene in the second Hobbit movie is one of my favorite action scenes I've ever seen. Even if they were ridiculous to a fault I'd rather have a long entertaining set piece than a boring short escape especially if they built it up to be something grand and it just wasn't in the end. If they can't have and entertain the audience in a movie with wizards, dragons, dwarves, and hobbits then why the hell make it in the first place?

You absolutely have a point there, books and films are two different mediums, and some sequences of the books definitely would look better on film with a bit more action in them, (not to mention adding in the excellent scene where they come across the Dwarf bodies who got trapped) And I did enjoy the action scenes, but I personally felt they overstayed their welcome and went on for too long, so they just felt dragged out by the end.

 

[MetalMagpie]

Definitely, or at-least undoubtedly the best animated. My only complaint is that after about half-an-hour of running around he failed to incinerate a single dwarf, which doesn't exactly give the menacing impression he deserves.

In some ways, this is a problem with being tied to a book (however loosely!). The Hobbit films aren't so much an adaptation of the book as "inspired by" it, but even so killing off characters who don't die in the book (or killing them early and/or under different circumstances) is still the sort of thing that causes Epic Fan Rage[sub]TM[/sub].

It might almost have been worth introducing a new character just to give Smaug someone to toast during that section!

 

[KazeAizen]

-snip-

Its been a while since I read the book but I think they did that because the scenes in the book weren't near as involved or long. It might've been shameless padding for the run time but they at least said "Let's make these fun and memorable." So they turned them into big set piece chases/battles. Which that barrel scene in the second Hobbit movie is one of my favorite action scenes I've ever seen. Even if they were ridiculous to a fault I'd rather have a long entertaining set piece than a boring short escape especially if they built it up to be something grand and it just wasn't in the end. If they can't have and entertain the audience in a movie with wizards, dragons, dwarves, and hobbits then why the hell make it in the first place?

You absolutely have a point there, books and films are two different mediums, and some sequences of the books definitely would look better on film with a bit more action in them, (not to mention adding in the excellent scene where they come across the Dwarf bodies who got trapped) And I did enjoy the action scenes, but I personally felt they overstayed their welcome and went on for too long, so they just felt dragged out by the end.

Fair enough. To each their own. However in the third movie if they don't give me an extended scene or at least a decent scene of Smaug tearing the absolute crap out of everything I will be pissed. I like me some giant monster destruction. Especially is said monster is one badass of a dragon.

 

[Reaper195]

i still prefer reign of fire's dragons myself

Holy shit, I forgot that movie even existed. It kicked some serious ass. I've always preferred animalistic dragons (Irrelevant of fucking feet that they have....christ...) over much more intelligent beings. That movie perfected dragons as far as I'm concerned. Yet to see the second Hobbit film though.

 

[Tomeran]

Reign of fire's dragons were very well done. But in terms of pure CGI brilliance Smaug wins it. If consideration to "best looking special effects dragon" is taken to the time it was done in, 1996's Dragonheart wasnt that bad either.

But since Smaug is a 2013 creation and has technology and not to mention budget at its side...yeah, it wins.

 

[AngryPuppy]

I never once looked at Dragonheart's Draco and thought "OMG that is so realistic". Not when I first seen the movie, and certainly not now (I watched it a few weeks ago). Smaug however, could have fooled me had I not know better. I don't wear nostalgia glasses, so yes, Smaug is the best on screen dragon I've ever seen, followed closely by the Dragons in Harry Potter.