The Woodland Realm. Not the fairy tale place of graceful Elves that one would have imagined it to be. Somehow the atmosphere is much more tense, much darker and devoid of any kind of magic. Bilbo is not in the light yet to give his opinion of the place, but I’m sure Thorin would have one to share with anyone who would listen. While all the members of the company are locked in their cells, Thorin stands alone before King Thranduil.

After having been captured and wrapped up in spider webs, fighting the same spiders whose dinner they were meant to be, the Dwarves find themselves out of trouble, or so they thought.

Not only was the ground floor of the forest a peril to tread, but the creatures living in its branches make the canopy just as perilous, if not deadly. Bilbo falls into a cobweb and meets the owner of the one of the voices he had heard before but couldn’t place. The spider he meets is no ordinary spider, it is the spawn of the quintessential evil of Middle-Earth that destroyed all the light of the Two Trees of Valinor, along with the help of her cohort Melkor – Ungoliant. 

Mirkwood, once called Greenwood the Great or Wood of Greenleaves has now turned into a dark and menacing forest. There are no green leaves to be found. All the leaves that once decorated the trees have now turned brown and fallen onto the ground. The trees have become grey leaving one with the sense of not much life left in them.

Beorn had satiated their hunger and quenched their thirst as well as provided shelter and protection from their hunters. However, for them to reach the entrance to Mirkwood through the Elven Gate without getting killed in the process, they need his horses, well ponies. Before they even set off into what will prove a dangerous and almost quest ending journey, Gandalf needs answers only Beorn can provide him, and vice versa.

A cautionary introduction to the shape-shifter. Gandalf cannot but take every possible care of how he presents himself as well as Bilbo to this unpredictable man. He may be reasoned with as Gandalf said, but he still airs on the side of caution when around him.

The morning of a new day arrives. The place where Beorn’s house was built and filmed is called Paradise, and from what can be seen on screen it truly lives up to its name. The meadow where the horses neigh lies directly before a lake that stretches out of sight, ending in breathtaking mountains. It is only appropriate that Beorn should live here.

Twelve months have passed since the fateful conversation Gandalf had with Thorin. The creative team wanted to have a prologue-like beginning to The Desolation of Smaug, as they had in all four films until now. It gave us not only information we already knew but information we weren’t privy to. All in all a great executive decision. 

Bree, a place we have seen once before, a place where a monumental meeting occurred, a place where fear was introduced into our bones. Now, as then in the Fellowship of the Ring, Bree fulfills its purpose. Full of shifty characters in whose company no one would want to find themselves, doubting, suspicious and mainly unwelcome. Peter Jackson is there again with his carrot, a role he reprises with great determination.