>"Look... The Desolation of Smaug"

>>213588377 (OP)
kek

it was supposed to be a travel across great distances, but every single scene felt like actors standing in a green room. Cause they were.

>Call ending song "Icy Fire"
>Smaug only uses regular fire
>Gandalf doesnt coutner him with ice magic

>>213588377 (OP)
>*smears butter on camera lens*

yep, time to record some kino

So what exactly would have happened if Bilbo and the Gang somehow convinced Thorin to abandon the quest for the arkenstone? Would Smaug's existence somehow make the world worse by the time the main plot for Lord of the rings started?

>Dragons were anti-billionaire

Was Tolkien a socialist? Dragons sound kinda based. Fuck them je- i mean dwarves.

>>213588924
Smaug would likely ally himself with Sauron, although they'd really just be using each others chaos/war to increase their holdings. Smaug aside, Erebor was seiged by Sauron's eastern vassals during the lotr so if Erebor was never re-taken that wouldn't have happened and the Eastern armies would likely push through Mirkwood and the gap of Rohan. Either aiding in the battle of helms deep or cutting Rohan off from aiding Gondor. Regardless, it was a major strategic blow that Smaug was defeated and Erebor retaken.

>>213589179
What does Smaug have to offer other than being a dragon, and what leverage does he have to keep Sauron honest if they do win?
It feels like Sauron would have all the cards in their alliance and Smaug would be one order away from getting hunted and killed if he ever refused to do Sauron's bidding.

>>213589322
that's exactly why smaug would have served sauron - either he obeys the master of all evils and maybe lives or he doesn't and is killed anyway

>>213589322
>>213589412
Smaug could decimate cities, ammo dumps armies and fly off.
If sauron made him an enemy he could severly hamper logisitcs which could be enough to turn battles

>>213589505
i'm pretty sure he has some sort of inherent, supernatural dominion over smaug

>>213589505
I was more thinking about the aftermath. Aragorn loses, Sauron wins and is uncontested. Smaug suddenly goes from a wildcard that could gank Sauron's guys and run interference, to constantly being under threat of getting hunted to the ends of the (middle) earth if he ever refuses an order, and at that point it would be less of an alliance, and more of an extortion.
What exactly is Smaug going to do in a victory situation when Sauron suddenly decides he aught to take his hoard to replenish his resources after the war. All those Ring wraiths freed up after Frodo bites it means he can't just fly away, at least not without a tireless hunter following him around.

>>213589658
>All those Ring wraiths freed up after Frodo bites it means he can't just fly away, at least not without a tireless hunter following him around.
Couldn't Smaug just like, eat them?
>inb4 "no man can defeat me"
Smaug is no man

>>213589658
You don't read the histories much. Teaming up with an enemy against a greater foe isnt just a tv trope. Smaug + sauroman and his armies.

>>213588970
>anti-billionaire
>hordes all wealth to itself
what did the retarded anon mean by this?

>>213589843
>Only comes when you amass enough wealth

>>213589767
I'm talking about the situation when the Smaug+Saruman alliance wins and achieves total domination. From there there's nothing stopping Saruman and his ultimate evil power and his army from turning Smaug into just another slave rather than an equal.

>>213589658
Well that's kinda the victory condition for everyone aligned with Sauron. He's a literal demi-god so it's his show; but there's also no indication he just randomly hunts down creatures that helped him out. Smaug would have to actively undermining Mordors power for Sauron to care. I mean he keeps Shelob around with no particular benefit, often times she eats his soldiers that get too close to her lair.

>>213588652
It wasn't Gandalf's job to fight the dragon, only to coax Thorin into spelling its doom, ultimately, in the form of a man slaying it.

>>213589947
>A strong place and wonderful was Isengard, and long it had been beautiful; and there great lords had dwelt, the wardens of Gondor upon the West, and wise men that watched the stars. But Saruman had slowly shaped it to his shifting purposes, and made it better, as he thought, being deceived - for all those arts and subtle devices for which he forsook his former wisdom, and which fondly he imagined were his own, came but from Mordor; so that what he made was naught, only a little copy, a child's model or a slave's flattery, of that vast fortress, armoury prison, furnace of great power, Barad-dûr, The Dark Tower, which suffered no rival, and laughed at flattery, biding its time, secure in its pride and its immeasurable strength.
Sauron was never looking for an equal. Best case scenario for Smaug would be Witchking of Angmar tier, but likely he would just be left to fuck off and torture people as long as he didn't get in Sauron's way.

>>213589724
Can't eat what you can't see. Even Bilbo was able to hide from him, invisible.

>>213590450
Could the witchking take Smaug? How about all the ringwraiths as a team?

>>213589959
Shelob is a spawn of Ungoliant and Sauron respects the primordial powers (or fears them too much) to mess with any Morgoth-related shit.

>>213588377 (OP)
>Nine companions? so be it! You shall be The Fellowship of the Ring (Extended)(4K Ultra HD) [Blu-ray]

>>213589560
He dosnt. Melkor did because he created dragons. Sauron wasn't his real dad.
>>213589658
Smaug can melt minor rings of power so 9 would not fuck with him and he is more than capable of fucking up whole armies. So unless Sauron wants to chase FLYING dragon all over the Arda he can't rly do shit but negotiate.

>>213589959
It's actually heavily implied Sauron purposely gives her lowly orcs to feed on

All of this is moot, and pivots upon whether or not Sauron can reclaim the one ring. If so, none could resist him; until then, he must suffer alliances with Saruonman, Smaug, balrogs, orcs and whatever. But once he has the ring, he is irresistible; and his obsession with neatness, order and optimization would render unacceptable any other sharer of power, because the most effective power structure is that of a single ruler.

>>213590457
>Can't eat what you can't see
Now I'm just picturing the wraiths shitting their robes trying to hide from a hungry Smaug

>>213590735
I can see demons and orcs being in on that, but it seems weird that wizards and dragons would support the guy that would basically erase all free will once he wins.

>>213590755
The black robes were merely a disguise. They don't need 'em.

>>213590735
>Orcs
But they are his wageslaves he creates, that's no alliance, that's just a life of an orc

>>213590755
4 nazguhl hiding in tree roots under the side of the road

>>213590643
>Look Merry! It's The.Lord.of.the.Rings.The.Two.Towers.2002.PROPER.Extended.1080p.BluRay.x.264.YIFY.mp4

>>213590766
Other than Sauronman, no one would have known what "winning" in this sense meant (Sauron reacquiring the ring), and Sauron certainly wasn't going to sit them down and tell them when forging these alliances. So it would mean Saurman would have to try to trick the dragons and anyone who would listen into siding against Sauron. Even then, so long as the ring exists, it's only a matter of time.

>Has a huge army with all sorts of batman gizmos that hard counter everything
>Probably has the resources to raise and maintain this army
>Thorin and company poor as fuck
So why didn't this guy take them in, and why didn't they just work together to kill Smaug instead of going on a stupid quest?

>>213590870
Dwarves are stubborn; and would suffer no dent to their pride.

>>213590802
Smaug's giant foot taking up the entire road behind them

>>213590538
Actually a good question, could probably go either way. All told, it didn't really take much to kill Smaug. But Smaug also fits the "no man" prophecy thing on the Witchking so who knows.

>>213590457
He can smell the gold and the power. Good luck.

>>213590870
>>Has a huge army with all sorts of batman gizmos that hard counter everything
Only in the movies.

>>213590989
Witch king would fly up to smaug and stab him in his stupid wound and he'd die like a bitch.
"My armor is like a hurric-ACK"

>>213590870
Wasn't his home that got pillaged. Really as simple as that

SHIT! You only have 10 seconds to come up with a boast to impress Smaug. What do you got?

>>213591067
B-b-barrel rideR???

>>213591052
Good point. Forgot about the fell beasts that act as steeds for the 'wraiths.

>>213591067
I can name all 151 pokemon

>>213591067
Hambeast plapper

>>213591086
Actually, how does Smaug know what a barrel is? I doubt a dragon cares about insignificant shit hairless monkies need to live their stupid hairless monkey lives.
Smaug probably heard 'barrel' and assumed that riding it was an important enough achievement to merit a boast.

>>213591067
I'm MGTOW so I dig what you're doing here

>>213591067
>I am the unlucky digits
>The rangebanned and the banned writer.
>I am he that posts all sneed.

>>213588377 (OP)
They should have gotten Smaug to somehow join the fight against the armies of Mordor as other anons mentioned. Clearly Smaug wanted to be all he could be, and informing him that Sauron would ultimately just control and otherwise remove him for being a threat would be all the more reason to destroy Sauron.

>>213589894
just like women

>>213589179
I feel like if Smaug found out that the one ring was out there and Sauron didn't have it yet he would have immediately betrayed Sauron and tried to grab it for himself. It's the ultimate treasure.

>>213590870
>Dain shows up
>Everyone before him in the succession immediately dies
Very suspicious

>>213591067
pat my head and rub my belly simultaneously

>>213591450
They didn't even try to negotiate with Saruman. They just went "Oh well he's a bad guy now I guess we have no choice but to kill his entire army before we deal with Sauron".

>>213591919
N*menoreans don't have brain capacity for negotiations. Point and case, Aragorn chimping out on an unarmed diplomat outside the black gates. Everyone just overlooks that casual little war crime. Sometimes I have to remind myself these are the "good" guys

>>213591450
You're out of your mind if you think he won't immediately switch sides once he finds out his deceased master's lieftenant, trying to restore Morgoth's former glorious empire, is who he singed up against.

>>213592209
Peter Jackson will retcon this on the remaster extended directors cut someday so that the mouth of Sauron shoots him for a bit before he chops its head off.

>>213592209
>muh war crimes
you fell for a spook. american propaganda really did a number on you. the usa invented the concept of a war crime so they could hold their enemies to a different standard while breaking the "rules" themselves.

>>213592209
Once he had confirmation that sauron was using chemical dragonfire and long range nazguhl mounts he was free to use whatever methods he wanted

>>213592209
Is the Mouth of Sauron even a person or just some eldritch thing that might've once been a man?

What the fuck was their problem?

>>213592438
racist against hobbits

>>213592438
>hurr durr
Mordor has an extensive anti-air defense system. The orcs have ballista and bows. The nazgul are aa fighters, and the eye is a gigantic SAM defense turret.

>>213592438
>Take a terminally ill eagle and shove the ring up its ass
>Have him fly directly into the volcano
There. 1 causality. Literally 1 causality to save the world and it barely even counts cause they were about to die anyways. Gandalf and Elrond should be fucking tried for crimes against humanity

>>213592573
>Put ring in a pouch
>Put pouch in a bigger pouch
>Another one for good measure
>Wear it around your neck
>Suddenly too many layers to keep yourself from actually wearing it or letting it exert its power over you
Were they just all retarded?

I don't get why everyone made such a big deal about how supposedly powerful the ring was. It looked like a shitty trash loot tier item. +invisibility, -hunted by ringwraiths. The only useful thing about it was to Sauron and that's because his life essence was tied to it. So the ring wasn't going to be actually useful for him to rule the world, it was just what he needed to be revived so he could use his already existing power to rule the world.

>>213592716
Nice pic.
Would you say that JRR really "aped" the ring?

>>213590870
Smaug already torn down the army of Erebor easily, this will be nothing new to him

>>213592663
>Make a bunch of identical lock boxes
>Put the real ring in one of them and fake rings in the other
>Shuffle them up
>Give one to each member of the fellowship
Now no one can be tempted because no one knows if they even have the ring

>>213591067
FATTY

>>213592438
>Not our problem lel

>>213592716
What you don't get is that LOTR was actually a true story from an ancient civilization. Tolkien didn't write it, he just translated it and he's on record saying this.

>>213593175
Tolkien sailed across the water into the West when he passed

>>213593473
Did they let him take his pipes?

>>213593019
The one with the real Ring will just emanate its power through the box and corrupt the dude holding it...

>>213592424
He's a regular guy in the book, he's just a corrupted man.

>>213592324
We are trying to have a nice thread, schizo

>>213591067
I tell Smaug to check deez dubz

>>213593902
It's true. Every war, the USA commits horrific war crimes, and then after winning the war, the USA establishes rules for war that everyone has to follow and gets their enemies to agree to so nobody can use the same advantage the USA did.

>>213588377 (OP)
He should of cleaned it up. Why did Smaug just leave that desolation lying around?

>>213594612
Schizo, please

>>213594612
America brings democracy to places of the world where they have none.

>>213588542
There was plenty of stuff shot on location.
A big problem is that they shot it in 3D, which means you can't use forced perspective since that trick only works in 2D, which means any scene with multiple sized characters has to be digitally shrunk.
If you go back and watch the original lord of the rings they had all kinds of trick to make the size difference work. Either using midgets for wide shots, oversized sets, or just people walking on stilts.

>>213594796
I already hate america, no need to sell me on it more.

>>213594896

>>213588377 (OP)
>"The world is changing....Who now has the strength to stand against the armies of Isengard and Mordor? To stand against the might of Sauron and Saruman....And the union of the Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Extended Edition) [Dutch Subs]

>>213590735
Doesn’t this not work on creatures like Smaug, Shelob, Ungoliant, or the weird lake monster?

>>213592209
>let me sweetly communicate with this Fell Beast of a man warped to oblivion by dark magic
Nah if you abide that thing’s existence, you’re part of the problem
All orcs must die
All Fell Spawn must die
All Nazgûl must die
All goblins, dragons, spiders, etc must die

>>213595064
Absolute fucking kino

>>213590735
Sauron doesn't need to reclaim the ring, his victory is assured as things stand.
Gondor got saved by a couple of deux ex machina against a feeler force of Sauron's. An even bigger army was massing to besiege lorien and erebor because those are the places sauron assumed were going to be where the resistance came from.
Gandalf's keikaku with Pippin holding the palantir was to make Sauron strike out before his forces were marshaled so they could survive the first wave and buy frodo and sam some time.
Sauron was only worried about the one ring being claimed by someone who had a will stronger than his, which would unmake sauron, and corrupt whoever claimed the ring (gandalf, Galadriel, and MAYBE aragorn).
The ONLY winning play the good guys had was the destroy the ring.
Sauron wasn't so worried about this because he KNEW it would be impossible for anyone to willingly destroy the ring. It had enough will and agency, and the closer it gets to Mt. Doom the stronger that influence becomes.
Frodo, Sam, and Gollum only manage to destroy the ring because events were engineered to create a situation where the ring is forced to destroy itself.
By the time Sauron realizes what happened its too late to do anything and "the magnitude of his folly was laid bare."

>>213592424
Not all the numenoreans who fell under Sauron's sway were sunk with the island. There were a bunch who had colonies in the middle earth, sauron preferred them over orc, and so he gave them territory to govern, like the area around the Sea of Nurn in south-east mordor, which was a pretty pleasant area and was sauron's breadbasket.
They were called Black Numenoreans because they had strayed from the light that the kingdoms of Gondor and Arnor tried to uphold.

>>213595602
Sauron needed the ring back because he was dying