Spoilers Off applies to all "Moments" pages, so all spoilers are unmarked.
An Unexpected Journey
- The glimpses we get of Smaug, while whetting the appetite for the next movie, are nonetheless rather horrific.
- Thrór in a hall filled with his treasure, turning on the spot, eyes wide, running coins through his fingers. He is clearly not right in the head. Even Thorin gets a bit freaked out watching his grandfather slowly grow sicker and sicker.
- Azog the Defiler. He's basically Lurtz's precursor... But more vicious.
- His prosthetic hand, which is attached by impaling a spike lengthwise through the stump of his forearm.
- Him throwing Thrór's decapitated head at Thorin's feet during the Battle of Azanulbizar.
- And throwing his disgraced lieutenant to the hungry wargs.
- Actually, that last one deserves proper attention. Azog, after he turns to face Yazneg, coldly calls him out for his failure, and when Yazneg desperately protests that the Elves had them outnumbered, and he barely escaped with his life, Azog strokes his head in a mock-affectionate way, then coldly tells him "Far better you had... paid with it," flashing a Slasher Smile. And then he jams his Hook Hand into Yazneg's throat, lifts him into the air to roar at him, then throws him to the Wargs. Yazneg hits a stone column with his head on the way down, and as soon as he hits the floor, the Wargs gang up on him and start consuming him alive. No wonder Fimbul, the other surviving orc of Yazneg's group, looks visibly horrified.
- Why hello there, Witch-King of Angmar! And without your cloak, too.
- Shortly followed by the appearance of the Necromancer. He makes the cloaked Nazgûl look positively radiant.
- There's also the way the statue of one of the Ringwraiths clenches its fingers around the hilt of its sword, reminiscent of the same way they hold their weapons when attacking Frodo and the other Hobbits at Weathertop.
- What little we see of the spiders of Mirkwood is scary to any arachnophobe.
- Especially how little we see. It's mostly shadows and creaking walls as they crawl over Radagast's house.
- The stone giants. They appear to be made out of rock, blend perfectly well with the surrounding mountains, and fight each other by punching and throwing chunks of the mountain at one another. For Bilbo and the dwarves, it's like being caught in a horrible landslide or an earthquake, with a storm raging to boot.
- If you look closely at one of the giant boulders that gets thrown, it's kind of...head-shaped. The behind the scenes featurettes confirm that they designed it as one stone giant throwing the head of another stone giant at a third stone giant.
- Gollum's eyes, and the way they seem to glow eerily (with an almost Prophet Eyes effect). Not to mention his entrance — killing a wounded Goblin and dragging it off to his cave to be skinned and eaten. Brrr.
- Speaking of that Goblin, it's unnerving that Sting's glow goes out at the exact moment the Goblin stops moving. Bilbo's realization (along with the audience's) doesn't help.
- Becomes even more unnerving when we see Gollum right above an unaware Bilbo.
- Gollum in general is far more frightening than he was in the previous trilogy. Less "that guy everyone kicks around," more "dangerous lunatic who might help you... or bash in your head with a rock, depending on his mood."
- Best illustrated when he's waiting for Bilbo's final riddle:
(gently) Ask us... (much more viciously) Ask us! - And during the aforementioned bashing? He's singing a lovely little song.
The cold hard lands, they bites our hands, they gnaws our feet! The rocks and stones, are like old bones, all bare of meat! Cold as death, they have no breath, it's good to eat!- And then, near the end of the game of riddles, Bilbo is distracted by the sound of a bat flying by. When he turns back, Gollum is gone. Then he speaks his riddle in a hauntingly menacing way - his raspy voice echoing off the walls, coming from seemingly everywhere and nowhere at once - and when Bilbo doesn't figure it out right away, he taunts him in as creepy a way as possible.
- When he realizes Bilbo has the Ring. His face contorts into this deranged murderous rage of a desperate junkie who'd stab a guy to get his fix. When he whispers "He stole it," both Bilbo and the audience know that there's no reasoning with him anymore.
- Speaking of that Goblin, it's unnerving that Sting's glow goes out at the exact moment the Goblin stops moving. Bilbo's realization (along with the audience's) doesn't help.
- The Ring itself. If you've watched the original trilogy, it's scary enough. If you haven't, it's still pretty creepy in how off it is and the way it seems to move itself at times.
- The sound effects used when it falls in slow motion from Gollum's loincloth onto stone aren't the pinging noises you'd expect from a small, light metal object; the sounds are instead dull, leaden, and very, very heavy. It's downright eerie and is a nod to the books and later films to boot.
- When Bilbo first wears the Ring. It flies into the air as Bilbo falls, he himself half-reaching towards it. It almost looks as if it is going to fall past him to the ground, only for it to suddenly jerk back towards him and fall upon his finger with an attraction that looks vaguely magnetic. The whole thing is ambiguous and makes the Ring seem almost...alive.
- Because it is. The Ring is sentient and has a will of its own. It influences others, can make subtle changes unto itself, and knows that it cannot reunite with Sauron in the Misty Mountains. As Gandalf said, it wants to be found.
- The Wargs. Imagine hearing a howling sound all of a sudden, and dozens of those beasts chasing after you with their demonic eyes and fangs. Especially Azog's white-haired matriarch.
- There's also the fact that while trying to get at The Company near the end (who are up in the trees), they tear, claw and bite branches thicker than men's arms off with little effort, and their combined efforts were enough to uproot nearly ALL of the trees.
- For those who are acrophobic, being in Ori and Dori's position before they're rescued by the eagles. They're hanging on by only Gandalf's staff, and they eventually slip and start falling before the Eagle catches him.
- The ending scene. The moment we see the inside of the mountain again, you just know he's in there somewhere, but all you see is gold... until Smaug snorts, gold pouring down from his buried form. That's right: Smaug, a giant Dragon as big as a castle, was so well hidden that you wouldn't have known he was there until too late. The way the film ends with his Eye Awaken and the sound of Smaug growling softly like a crocodile doesn't help.
- There also the more subtle idea that Sauron was barely beaten in the War of the Ring. Imagine Gandalf's fear of what the Dark Lord could do if he persuaded Smaug to ally with him. In short, nothing could stop him.
- In the beginning, Smaug's vicious rampage causes the fall of both Dale and Erebor. With thousands of people burning to death, Dale in flames, and the Dwarf army helpless against him, it reminds one of Godzilla's rampage in Tokyo, which also killed thousands and destroyed Tokyo outright, much like Dale by the time of the third film.
