Lessons Learned From...The Hobbit movie

Alrighty ladies and gents, it's time for another round of "Lessons Learned From..." (cue the game show music) this time, featuring the second installment of the Hobbit series--The Desolation of Smaug.

This post probably includes spoilers, and under normal circumstances, I'd probably say, "Buck up, the book's been out for decades, you've had time to read it." But Peter Jackson takes liberties with the story, and a lot of stuff could be spoiled here. We'll see how I do. I write the intros before I write the body so I may not spoil anything.

Lessons Learned From...The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

1.  Making the name "Smaug" into two syllables makes you sound smart and British, which are basically synonyms anyway in the U.S.

2.  Short guys can get "hot" elf ladies. Don't give up hope, short guys.

3.  Even though the elf girl looks just like Arwen, (to the person that hasn't seen LOTR in a while) it's not.

4.  Dwarves are like dramatic friends--the kind that take you to a place filled with crap and say "You'll know what I'm asking for when you see it" without telling you anything else and make you find it with a fire-breathing dragon on your back.

5.  Physics are not true, if you judge by upright open barrels floating down a fast river unladen with the gallons of water that surely had been filling them up.

6.  Good flirting is making someone believe you just cursed them.

7.  Manipulating Benedict Cumberbatch's voice results in a voice that still sounds exactly like Benedict Cumberbatch.

8.  Gandalf is not as hardcore as previously believed?...or is he?...I guess you'll have to watch the movie?...

9.  Legolas is, and always will be, the peak of all Middle-earth males that geek-girls worldwide will go ga-ga over. (Sorry, Kili, it's just, he had our hearts when we weren't even teenagers yet, and he speaks Elvish, and he's a slick archer, and he's got long blond hair that girls dream of having. I mean, come on, Kili and I have the same hair. What's the fun of that? Besides, Kili, you just end up ...wait...that's a spoiler...)

Yeah, that about wraps it up for the new Hobbit movie. Overall, I really did like it, though I still don't understand why it's three movies and each movie is nearly three hours long. There go all my hopes of having a Hobbit/LOTR marathon when I own all the movies, unless I want to stay awake for two days. (SPOILER ALERT: I DON'T.)

This is Kili...

And this is likely the exact same Legolas poster I had when I was 11...