Like many fantasy fans out there, I was eager to see Peter Jackson’s adaptation of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. I had some misgivings, though, since he had had to condense the weighty Lord of the Rings in many ways to make it fit into three still-epic movies (which I enjoyed), and seemed to be doing the opposite with The Hobbit — a slight volume aimed at children — by expanding it into, well… three epic movies.
If you followed along last year as a cadre of bloggers were Puttin’ the Blog in Balrog, you may have picked up on the fact that opinion is divided among Tolkien fans over Jackson’s handling of Middle-earth. Speaking for myself, I love the books and am thrilled that Christopher Tolkien has managed to polish many a story of his father’s into publishable form, whether in The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales or Children of Hurin. But I also love the movies for what they are, and I think they’re great movies, whether they stick to every detail of the books or not.
But I’m not sure how I feel about the new movie of The Hobbit.
There are many things Jackson and his co-writers Fran Walsh and Phillipa Boyens (and, in the earlier draft, Guillermo del Toro) changed and added, and as much as I liked and even loved some of them, I can see now why Tolkien abandoned later attempts to completely rewrite The Hobbit to make it fit better with The Lord of the Rings.
For one thing, the differences in tone are vast. The Hobbit is more whimsical, friendly, and folksy, with a fairy-tale sensibility that moves from one plot problem to the next without any urgency beyond avoiding being devoured by, say, trolls (or wargs, or Gollum, or lycanthropic bear-men, or a dragon — actually, the threat of being devoured seems to serve Tolkien’s narrative needs fairly often). That’s quite at odds with The Lord of the Rings, in which the menace of The One Ring drives most if not all of the plot.
But Tolkien later built up a lot of context for Bilbo’s adventure and how important it was not only for the future of Middle-earth (as he provided a much deeper story for the Ring, Gollum and Mordor in The Lord of the Rings) but also for Thorin and the dwarves, and indeed, their entire people (which he expanded on in the appendices of The Lord of the Rings and in Unfinished Tales).
This is great as far as it goes, and it’s like crack to any Tolkien nerd: backstory for the backstory. But it’s also a lot of baggage to saddle a narrative like The Hobbit with.
Jackson frames his movie with an older Bilbo looking back, explaining his adventures to Frodo — something that then allows him to have the elder Bilbo comment on things the younger Bilbo of the story was completely unaware of. So up front we get the history of the dwarf kingdom of Erebor and Thorin Oakenshield’s place in it, which is crucial to understanding why Thorin’s quest matters, but it immediately pushes Bilbo into the background. And this is supposed to be his story!
The effect is deepened later, when Balin tells Bilbo, Gandalf and the rest of the dwarves about Thorin’s valiant stand at the gates of Moria against the orcs who had overrun it. Never mind that Jackson has changed quite a lot here — I think he shows the bitter hatred between the orcs and dwarves quite well and also just how much Thorin has lost in life. (I was fine with this until it turns out Azog the orc leader — slain, in Tolkien’s account of the dwarf-orc wars — is also now a kind of cyborg hunting Thorin and company.) The problem with this quasi-flashback is everyone except the movie audience and Bilbo must already know this; and it makes Bilbo’s part in the adventure all the more irrelevant.
However, I’m not going to quibble too much with that, annoying as it may be, because the movie needs that kind of historical heft if it’s going to fit with the movie versions of Lord of the Rings. It can’t be just a light adventure if it’s to seem part of the same world, cinematically.
On that note, for all the weighty context brought in, Jackson seems more interested in ever-more-ludicrous set-pieces, whether that’s the dwarves and Bilbo hanging off gargantuan stone-giants, evading on foot riders mounted on wolves, or falling what looks like hundreds of feet through dark caverns with barely a bruise. It’s a well-known tool for suspending disbelief that if you want audiences to buy into the existence of dragons and trolls, you don’t also expect them to forget basic physics.
As for what I think the movie did well — I loved the grandeur of the dwarven kingdom in Erebor, the growing relationship between Bilbo and the dwarves (the warmth between him and Balin, mentioned briefly in the book, shines through here) and, as ever, the art direction. I also enjoyed the madcap bunny-driven sledge of Radagast, though I doubt it’s something Tolkien would have ever envisioned.
The score by Howard Shore is beautiful, and it was nice to hear the incorporation of some of the songs from the book into the movie. I loved the dwarves singing about their lost kingdom — it hit just the right mix of pride and sorrow. The performances were generally quite good, I thought, as well — especially Martin Freeman as Bilbo, though I felt his part in the story kept getting buried, as well as Ian McKellen as Gandalf, though he didn’t seem quite as irascible as I would have liked! (The performance I am really looking forward to, however, is Benedict Cumberbatch as Smaug the Magnificent.)
I enjoyed Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, though not as much as I expected to. (Perhaps my experience was the inverse of sj‘s, who liked it more than she thought she would?) I’ll reserve total judgment until I’ve seen all three films, and then decide whether it a) is something I enjoy as much as the book and b) fits with the existing film trilogy.
January 26, 2013 at 1:27 pm
I expected to LOVE The Hobbit as a movie. I thoroughly enjoy the original trilogy. However, I despised it. Maybe time and listening to different perspectives will soften my heart by the time the DVD comes out, but I doubt it.
January 26, 2013 at 1:39 pm
It was the total abandonment of realistic action that eventually disconnected me from the movie. I accept that they have to make changes, and it was a valiant effort to include so much backstory… but it somehow missed a lot of the warmth of the book (said warmth, I should add, that was captured in the hobbits’ portrayal in the LOTR mvovies).
January 26, 2013 at 5:10 pm
It’s a well-known tool for suspending disbelief that if you want audiences to buy into the existence of dragons and trolls, you don’t also expect them to forget basic physics.
Heh heh, I forgot about that bit, but I’m pretty sure I thought the same thing as you while watching it. No, Mr. Jackson, Middle Earth may have magic glowing swords that warn of approaching orcs, and hippie wizards who can bring beloved hedgehogs back to life, but I’m preeetty sure it has regularly working gravity.
I also loved Martin Freeman as Bilbo, though he gives the character a bit different of a tone than in the book… though I have to say, I loved his version of Bilbo’s breakdown better than the book version (i.e. “…Nope” *faint* as opposed to shrieking and fetal position…somehow I can’t see Freeman doing the shrieking and fetal position).
And OMG YES I can’t wait to see (or hear, as the case may be) Benedict Cumberbatch as Smaug. He has such a great voice for that, all deep and rumbling and menacing. I may or may not have done my patented half-restrained wavy arms of glee when I first heard his voice in the Star Trek trailer…
January 26, 2013 at 5:48 pm
Smaug is the make-or-break scene, for me. I love every chapter in the book, and I did think they handled “Riddles in the Dark” fairly well — including Freeman’s “respectable” hobbit holding his own against a murderer, and the decision on Bilbo’s part not to kill Gollum. But dragons have been done so poorly, so often, in the movies. Not even Sean Connery could save the execrable Dragonheart, and the beasts in Reign of Fire were just mindless engines of destruction. But Smaug… this is a character written by a man who knew his folklore, legend and myth inside out, and knew how to write for a modern audience. I think Jackson made the right decision to show so little of Smaug in this instalment, it builds anticipation; but I look forward to the payoff.
January 26, 2013 at 7:10 pm
The one poo joke, that ran on a bit, threw me off and seemed a little more than childish. Poor Radagast. Yet, i enjoyed some of the other changes, such as throwing in some women (The Hobbit book had zero females, even the pack ponies were male).
January 26, 2013 at 11:28 pm
Yes, that’s true — most of Tolkien’s Third Age stuff fails the Bechdel Test. I’m very interested to see how they handle the wood elves, Lake-town, and one of my favourite characters: Beorn!
January 26, 2013 at 11:29 pm
And one thing they did very well with Radagast: I could see both how Gandalf respected him while at the same time Saruman would think him a fool.
January 27, 2013 at 2:39 pm
Very. very true.
January 27, 2013 at 9:48 am
Great review. I’m still undecided about whether or not I’m going to watch it.
January 27, 2013 at 2:47 pm
I think if you disliked the LOTR movie trilogy, this will do little to change your opinion of Jackson’s treatment of Middle-earth; however the moments I’m still enjoying as I think back were some of the interplay between the characters. And I do think Richard Armitage does a great job of bringing a complex grief, pride and thirst for revenge out in Thorin, without chewing any scenery. And Martin Freeman as Bilbo, even when the movie diverges from the book, steals most of the scenes he’s in.
February 6, 2013 at 2:49 pm
I really enjoyed watching the movie (twice in the cinema) which is an accolade in itself. I have to admit it’s been many years since I read the book. I may just read it again before the next two movies come out or will it spoil the movies for me?
February 6, 2013 at 4:03 pm
I don’t think so — they’re making a lot of changes and additions, I think by the end of it the trilogy of movies will be vastly different from the beautiful little book.