The Hobbit - The Desolation Of Smaug (2013)

One of the main things to take away from The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug is that it is infinitely better than its predecessor (An Unexpected Journey).

While, at two-and-a-half hours, it still feels padded, it also doesn't feel as though you are just enduring it in the hope that the next part of the trilogy is better.

Gone is the juvenilia of An Unexpected Journey (no naff musical numbers or English-speaking trolls) to be replaced with a more consistent tone of all-out action. This feels like it's part of the Lord Of The Rings universe.

Of course, it does suffer the curse of the "middle film" - as most trilogies do - in that it starts in media res and ends the same, not with a resolution but a powerful cliffhanger that should guarantee your return for the final movie.

For a large part of The Desolation Of Smaug, the story is split between the dwarves' continuing mission to reach and reclaim Erebor and Gandalf's investigations into the machinations of the mysterious Necromancer of Dol Guldur.

But both segments move the main plot forward and are equally engaging, visually and mentally.

Two major action locations stick in my mind: the most alien-like encounter with the spiders of Mirkwood (which leads to the dwarves capture by the wood elves) and the climactic confrontation with Smaug (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch, who also lends his vocal chords to the Necromancer).

I had feared that the dwarves escape from the wood elves would turn into a proof of concept promotional video for a barrel ride attraction at the future Hobbit World theme park, but the sequence is nicely broken up with other distractions.

The padding comes in with the added elements, like the bizarrely unnecessary 'love triangle' involving Legolas (Orlando Bloom), Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly) and Kili (Aidan Turner), one of Thorin's band of hardy adventurers.

Even Laketown, which is wonderfully atmospheric in appearance, comes across slightly Discworld-y in the presentation of its internal politics and generally paranoia, as encapsulated in the central performance of the Master of Laketown (Stephen Fry) who acts as though he stepped out of a Terry Pratchett novel or Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast.

His toady assistant. Alfrid (Ryan Gage) is sadly little more than a less-than-successful recycling of Grima Wormtongue.

However, for all its weak points, The Desolation Of Smaug is worthy of repeated viewings - although possibly not as regularly as The Lord Of The Rings - even if only to marvel at the wonderful array of monsters on show.

Troll Bridge (2019)

Cohen the Barbarian was angry. Angry that he never died in battle, angry that the world had forgotten him, and angry that his knees were starting to play up in the cold.

He was also angry that his faithful mount had been gifted the ability of magical speech. The horse was insisting that they had made a wrong turn back at Slice. 

He was also angry that the horse was probably right.

This was not how it was supposed to end for the barbarian. This was not how the Discworld’s greatest hero imagined it at all.

Based upon the short short Troll Bridge, from A Blink of The Screen, the half-hour short film is a love-letter to Terry Pratchett and Discworld.

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Philately Will Get You Everywhere

Back in early 2021, when I was indulging in research for whatever my fantasy roleplaying game idea of the moment was, I found myself drawn back to the wonderful workings of the late, great Sir Terry Pratchett.

While I'm sure many of you are already aware of the official Discworld Emporium, a recent email from there caught my eye, promoting a new set of Discworld stamps from the The Ankh-Morpork Post Office (AMPO).

The souvenir set, for the Year of The Beleaguered Badger, was only only a fiver, with very reasonable shipping fees, and I immediately thought these would be a great addition to my 'cabinet of curiosities' (but, most definitely, not the start of a 'fantasy philately' hobby).

Upon ordering, the stamps arrived incredibly swiftly, but the fun started even before I opened the envelope.

Check it out above, and marvel at the dedication to verisimilitude: it even came with AMPO stamps on the envelope, and 'in universe' franking.

Inside, the receipt for the purchase of my stamps was also a miniature work of art, from The Thieves' Guild:

As a child in the '70s, I was never really into 'stamp collecting', although I do remember owning an album with a random selection from around the globe stuck in.

However, I have to admit that adding the whole magical Discworld angle to the hobby does make it feel rather more appealing, more 'on brand' for me.

Of course, the more I dug into the stamp section of the Emporium's website, the more dangerous (to my wallet, and possibly my sanity) I realised this rabbit hole was becoming.

Anyway, here's a better look at the selection of stamps that I got from the website, as I'm too nervous to open my own packet, for fear of losing or damaging one, or all, of them:

INSPIRATION! INSPIRATION! INSPIRATION!

Although I sometimes feel a bit of a heathen, the majority of my inspiration for gaming is visual (e.g. movies, TV, comics etc), which is why I have a soft spot for art books.

As much as I enjoy reading, ultimately it's "the pictures" that more often hook me into a particular narrative or environment.

While not in the slightest artistically gifted myself, a great piece of art sets my creative neurons firing, giving me a new window into the current fantasy setting of choice - generally one of my own creation for whatever roleplaying game I'm "into" at that moment.

As we speak, I'm really hungry to play (run?) a swords-and-sorcery roleplaying game, which is why my comic book pull-list is increasingly filled with titles that either land squarely in that genre or, at least, have some tangential connection.

Yes, I have many comics, graphic novels, omnibuses etc, along with a broad library of movies and TV shows that scratch that particular itch, but there's always room for the straight-forward art book, with erudite commentary.
 
Thus, this week, I've acquired a second-hand, hardback copy of Paul Kidby's The Art of Discworld and the brand new, just-published softback edition of The Book of Jusko.

Joe Jusko's striking artwork can be seen on the covers of sword-and-sorcery, sword-and-planet, horror and superhero comics, as well as paperback novels, calendars etc

You can open either of these tomes at a random page and be swept away to another world, which is exactly the kind of extra fuel I need to keep the mental fires of my fantasy gaming dreams from fizzling out.

ADVENTURE HOOK: A Town Called Abracadabra

Working my way chronologically through the original Twilight Zone episodes, courtesy of the Legend channel, this week I came upon a fourth season story, Valley of Shadow, that - superficially - reminded me of another old - but not so old - show, A Town Called Eureka (aka Eureka).

Both concerned hidden communities where "weird science" held sway as a result of their particular backstories.

This got me to thinking about how to employ such a locale in a fantasy RPG setting.

How much of a headache would it be for a Games Master if the player-characters stumbled across a secret community of eccentric magicians all working on developing new spells and potions... and even trying to create magical items?

I'm not talking about an Unseen University, Aretuza, or Brakebills College for Magical Pedagogy "school" for magic, but a hothouse environment where geniuses of the sorcerous arts strive to take their science to the next level and push the boundaries of what is possible.

Would that concentration of magical energy in one space warp the fabric of reality?

Throw in some kind of "magical mishaps"  rule - either official or homegrown, depending on your system of choice - and you have a recipe for joyous chaos.