"Do not speak to me of dragon fire"

[Kuruharan]

Originally Posted by Zigûr

"His people neither mined nor worked metals or jewels, nor did they bother much with trade or with tilling the earth."

"Nor did they bother much" doesn't mean they didn't do it at all. I think it probably means they did it exactly to the level that it supplied their necessities but did not engage in trade for profit or base their entire way of life around it.

Originally Posted by Inziladun

It does defy logic. How would they possibly have had ample warning to assemble a force and go to the Mountain in time to see Smaug in action? And that leaves aside the question of why they'd go.

It just makes me less and less rueful that I haven't seen the films.

Originally Posted by Zigûr

In the rest of the films, Mirkwood is still several days' march from the Mountain as it is in the book.

My memory of the landscape shots in the movie is that they universally asserted that all of Middle earth is about 5 miles square. Of course, consistent travel times was not a strong point in the films.