Book Review: Smaug - Unleashing the Dragon by Daniel Falconer

There's no denying that Peter Jackson's Smaug from the Hobbit films is an impressive work of cinematic magic. I was floored the first time the great dragon emerges from Thror's treasure hoard like a huge shark emerging from the ocean depths. The whole scene where Bilbo faces off against this ultimate villain was one of the highlights of the trilogy. So naturally I was excited to learn more about the art, design, and technology that went into bringing Smaug to life. Smaug: Unleashing the Dragon seemed custom made to satisfy my dragon curiosity, but sadly, fell short. In fact, reading this book really just reminded me of a famous quote from the villain of another famous movie trilogy:

"Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed."––Darth Vader, Star Wars: A New Hope

Jump past the break to get the full review.

So I'll just say it straight up: I was underwhelmed with this book, which was completely unexpected, since in general I've found WETA's LOTR and Hobbit reference books to be fantastic. My main issue with this book is that it's really just a symptom of the fundamental problem with the Hobbit films: they weren't focused enough on Bilbo. And thus my slightly tongue-in-cheek (but very appropriate) Vader quote. Yes, Smaug is a visually stunning cinematic achievement . . . but after reading this book, I just found myself asking, "Couldn't Peter Jackson and his entire crew have taken some of the admittedly titanic effort that went into creating Smaug, and refocused it on making sure the movies more effectively focused on and explored Bilbo's development as a character?"

Now, I could write an entire article about my problems with the Hobbit films (and someday I probably will), but I'll try and restrain myself for the rest of this review and focus on the book itself.

Right off the bat, when I first picked up this book, I was surprised by the low-quality cover art. The image is quite clearly two pictures stitched together in photoshop: one image of a crisply focused Smaug, and another image of a slightly blurry Bilbo. The color of the lighting is different for each character and coming from different directions (reddish orange light from the lower left for Smaug, white light from the upper right for Bilbo; click on the image to the right for a larger view). In short, the cover just looks kind of . . . sloppy.

But what about the contents of the book? Well, it's divided into a number of sections, including Models, Textures, Shaders, Creatures, ADR (whatever that is), Animation, Lighting, Sound Design, Effects, and Previs. Each of these sections features commentary by the various artists and technical wizards, along with images detailing the step-by-step creation of the dragon.

The first 38 pages (or so) of the book are stuffed with amazing concept art by LOTR and WETA staples like John Howe and Alan Lee, Andrew Baker, and Jamie Beswarick. This first part of the book is organized much like the Hobbit Chronicles books, and is absolutely fantastic (I'm a concept art sucker). However––and I'll reemphasize this at the end––if you already own the Hobbit Chronicles, then all the concept art just ends up feeling redundant. Despite this, I'll admit that there are two things I really enjoyed about the concept art. First, it's fascinating to see some of the more outlandish designs that the artists came up with in the early stages of character design. For example, check out the dragon with the multi-hinged mouth to the left. Second, I was amazed at how much thought the artists and designers put into seemingly small details . . . like what shape the silhouette of Smaug's wings would have. FYI, they ended up giving his wings a very hand-like outline . . . see option A in the picture below and to the right(and forgive me for the image quality, I had to take that picture with my phone).

The rest of the book details how the details of Smaug's appearance were hammered out, after his overall look was nailed down. This includes things like the texture of his scales, and the actual rigging of the model (e.g., how they designed the model's skeleton and musculature, and how things like his horns and spikes were designed to move and what not). This second (and much longer) part of the book was significantly less interesting to me. Personally, I've never found the nuts and bolts of special effects work that exciting, so I could have done with much more concept art and only a few brief paragraphs detailing the technical aspects of the dragon.

In conclusion, Smaug: Unleashing the Dragon is a lack-luster addition to the otherwise awesome lineup of behind-the-scenes Hobbit Trilogy books created by WETA. To me, it is really just a confirmation of what any Tolkien fan knew right away after seeing the films: Peter Jackson's team got lost in the proverbial Mirkwood when making these films, chasing after shiny "cool" characters like Smaug and Thorin, when their focus really should have remained on Bilbo. If you're a movie magic fan, you might enjoy this book, but otherwise I would recommend saving your pennies for the Hobbit Chronicles Art and Design books, which cover much the same material regarding Smaug and do it in a better (briefer fashion). All in all, I give this book two starts out of five:

Later.