Alan Lee:
The conceptual designer appears as one of the musicians, when some of the Dwarves and Bilbo leave Laketown. He also appeared as one of the 9 kings of men in the intro of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001).
While the novel and the previous film The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) are mostly told through Bilbo's point of view, this film shifts the perspective to mainly Gandalf and Thorin with little involvement from Bilbo in many major scenes.
At the furnaces, when Thorin taunt Smaug into breathing fire to start up the furnaces, there are plenty of wooden objects (benches, crates,...) in the path of Smaug's fire breath, that will not burn, yet the coals in the furnace almost instantly catch fire.
In the treasure vaults of Erebor, Smaug tells Bilbo that he'd almost be willing to give the Arkenstone to "Thorin Oakenshield" just to watch it drive him mad. Smaug has no particular reason to know the name of the grandson of the king he deposed from Erebor, and since he's been sealed inside the lonely mountain ever since, he certainly wouldn't know the "Oakenshield" name that Thorin earned in a battle at Moria years later.
The Desolation of Smaug ends with Smaug leaving the mountain and flying towards Lake-town, revenge on his mind. In the last scene, Bilbo looks on Smaug's flight and asks himself, 'What have we done?'
Q
Why does Thorin tell Fili that one day he will be king?
A
Fili (Dean O'Gorman) and his younger brother Kili are Thorin's nephews (his sister's sons). Since Thorin has no children, this makes Fili his legitimate heir in the line of succession.
Q
What was the date on Durin's Day?
A
The dwarves' New Year occured on the first day of the last moon of autumn. Durin's Day only happened in years when this moon and the sun appeared in the sky together. Using the crescent moons seen at Midsummer's Eve in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and on Durin's Day in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, we can estimate that the date for Durin's Day in the latter film was on or near October 27 (the twenty-seventh day of Winterfilth) in Shire Reckoning. On our Gregorian calendar that should convert to October 15.