Category: The Desolation of Smaug

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.