Doubts on The Hobbit

Of course it’s good news that Peter Jackson agreed to return to Middle-Earth, thereby ensuring that the story of Bilbo Baggins, Thorin Oakenshield and the dragon Smaug wouldn’t end up in the hands of some studio hack. But I can’t say I’m as wild with geekcitement over the news as you might expect. For one thing, making The Hobbit after making Lord of the Rings is like serving a tasty appetizer after a rich-beyond-belief main course: It’s fine so far as it goes, but it can’t help summon up unflattering comparisons to the dish that preceded it. I love The Hobbit, obviously, and I'll be lining up to see what Jackson makes of it. But it’s a minor work compared with the books that follow, and as such the idea of seeing it adapted for the movies generates interest and curiosity, rather than the wild excitement I felt at having the chance to see The Lord of the Rings brought to life on screen.

Then there’s this:

Word is flying fast & furious: Team Jackson, New Line, and MGM have made nice and are gearing up to launch 2 HOBBIT movies ... One will be an adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's THE HOBBIT. The second project is believed to be a bridge between THE HOBBIT and THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy - culled from the titanic amount of periphery/ ancillary/ notated material found in Tolkien's works.

Hmmm. Well, yes, there are interesting tales to be told in the bridge years between the Battle of Five Armies and the Long-Expected Party. For that matter, there are interesting stories to be told about every epoch of Middle-Earth’s history, and they’re all helpfully written down in Tolkien’s copious appendices and histories and sagas. But none of them comprise readily filmable narratives in the way of Lord of the Rings; all of them would require not only heavy editing and reshaping, but also significant invention on the part of the screenwriter. And while I trust Jackson and Company more than I would trust anyone else in Hollywood where Tolkien is concerned, I can’t say that I was entirely wowed by the portions of Lord of the Rings where they veered dramatically from the original text. Which means the prospect of having them essentially manufacture a prequel – and if it does well at the box office, you know there will be others – leaves me a little cold, and a lot worried. It's not that part of me doesn't want to see a hundred Tolkien adaptations bloom (forget 3:10 to Yuma: how about Russell Crowe as Castamir the Usurper, paired with Christian Bale as Eldacar, in 3:10 to Pelargir?). It's just that I suspect that opening the doors to "prequels" open the door to exploitation and commercialization, and a downward spiral that has the Lord of the Rings: The Phantom Menace and Jar Jar Balrog at the bottom of it. Better, I think, for Jackson to make The Hobbit, and then quit while he's – and we’re – ahead.

Update: Peter Suderman offers a more serious reason to doubt - that Peter Jackson is only signed to produce, rather than direct, the new Tolkien adaptations.

Comments

Not everybody would agree that the trilogy is the better or more profound book. The Hobbit is actually much better written. Whatever one might say on behalf of LOTR as mythology, as literature its pretty awful. It is pretty hard to find worse prose.

Posted by Thursday | December 19, 2007 10:34 AM

My thoughts in dipraise of LOTR and it's fetishization in Christian circles can be found here:
http://manwhoisthursday.blogspot.com/2007/09/christian-novelists-jrr-tolkien.html

Posted by Thursday | December 19, 2007 10:36 AM

Can’t say I'm on baited breath to see "the Hobbit".

Loved all the books as a kid.

Its understated reality (but) it took the technology of CGI to realize The Lord of the Rings trilogy in any faithful way to the scope of the imagination behind it.

Perhaps the producers of The Golden Compass can invest in The Hobbit in an effort to recoup their investment.

Posted by Fitz | December 19, 2007 10:48 AM

a downward spiral that has the Lord of the Rings: The Phantom Menace and Jar Jar Balrog at the bottom of it.

The internets are way ahead of you on this one...

Posted by Jacob | December 19, 2007 10:52 AM

Thursday, we hear you. Thank you for sharing. You could not be more wrong. Now go away.

When I heard that two movies were contemplated, I assumed inflation of TH into a two-parter = utter insanity. So the alternative here, assuming it is factual, comes as a relief. I have my doubts about whether the proposed project is viable, but if it isn't, it will fail and we won't have to worry about further efforts.

As to the specifics, we can surely expect the Aragorn/Arwen backstory. to be a centerpiece. This is actually promising if you assume Philippa Boyens is still on board. I thought she handled the A/A storyline very well. (And whatever one may think generally about the new elements in the films, Arwen's vision in RotK was simply inspired in my view.

The only other event from the interim that strikes me as filmable from the material left by Tolkien is Balin's return to Moria. There isn't really a lot in Unfinished Tales that relates to this period.

(I have maintained and still maintain, btw, that NOTHING from the First Age is commercially filmable, in whole or part.)

Posted by roac | December 19, 2007 11:02 AM

I hope that Peter Jackson doesn't get his hands or "artistic license" on The Hobbit. Despite the fact that LOTR was a monumental effort, it still stands that Mr. Tolkein's work was prostituted by Mr. Jackson who felt it necessary to alter the story to suit his own needs and ego. Frodo was represented as a weakling. Lady Arwen, or example, did NOT save Frodo's life at the Fjord of Bruinen, it was his depth of character and Hobbit strength, as Mr. Tolkein intended. It was more than obvious that Mr. Jackson was more interested in CGI special effects and the bottom line than in representing the books as they should have been. If J.K. Rowling's books can be told in seven different movies, why didn't Mr. Jackson have enough faith in the material to do, say, TEN episodes of LOTR and tell the ENTIRE story, with Bombadil, and all the rest of the characters he decided were of no importance. I would rather see The Hobbit movie project scrapped than to let Peter Jackson at it again.

Posted by TDP | December 19, 2007 11:15 AM

Why does everyone assume that their likes and dislikes as a 15 year old boy form the epitome of taste?http://stuffodreams.blogspot.com/2007/07/kids-love-crap.html

Posted by Thursday | December 19, 2007 11:23 AM

I always thought a Battle of Dale movie would be a good prequel.

Posted by Bjorn | December 19, 2007 11:31 AM

Since the actual press release only mentions the Hobbit and a sequel, I am going to hold out hope that they are going to bifurcate the Hobbit after adding some contemporaneous material like the Necromancer story. Can the Hobbit be filmed as a single movie without making some of the cuts made in the animated version, such as Beorn?

Posted by PD Shaw | December 19, 2007 11:40 AM

TDP: movies are movies and books are books. Sometimes elements that go into great books simply don't work as movies. Unfortunately for the latter, there's that itty bitty matter of making money. Liv Tyler's a big star -- Hollywood movies need hot babes -- and it simply made financial sense to take a bit of poetic license with the character of Arwen. What's so difficult about that? You can always go back and read the originals if you want the real McCoy. It's not like the studio required Tolkien's estate to alter the book's prose. The original words will last for eternity, uncorrupted. Maybe some day a studio will choose to do a TV miniseries of LOTR, and there will be enough time to incorporate Bomadil. But theater seats and human arses aren't designed to sit for four hours. I suggest people who get overly worked up about his sort of thing eschew seeing the movie, because they're never perfectly faithful to the author. It's not worth the blood pressure spike.

Side note: it's been a while for me since reading the books, but I recall Frodo was semi-unconscious by the time the reached Bruinen. I know there was some kind of encounter with a wraith, but I thought it was pretty much Elrond who saved the day (not really Frodo) by using his power over the river to unleash a flood.

Posted by Jasper | December 19, 2007 11:52 AM

Can the Hobbit be filmed as a single movie without making some of the cuts made in the animated version, such as Beorn?

I don't see why not. The run-time of the (Rankin-Bass) animated version is only 77 minutes, according to IMdB. I don't think anything has to be cut purely to hold down the length.

Which is not to say that there are not other good reasons for cuts. The goal is to make the best possible movie, and with a budget like this project will have, that means a movie with mass appeal. I like Beorn and I hope he fits, but the producer's responsibility is to the people putting up the money, not the fans. (At a minimum, the sequence where the dwarves are introduced to Beorn two or three at a time will be omitted or cut back, as it is in all the stage adaptations. It works on the page because it goes by quickly, but no audience will stand for it.)

Posted by roac | December 19, 2007 11:57 AM

It was more than obvious that Mr. Jackson was more interested in CGI special effects and the bottom line than in representing the books as they should have been.

I couldn't agree more. The movies didn't work for me at all.

I think its ok that Jackson cut many characters and subplots (Bombadil, etc) due to time constraints. But the parts of the story that he did cover he completely mangled, and for no artistically discernable reason.

Plus, the fight scenes were a stylized joke. When people are fighting to the death, it shouldn't look like choreographed dance routines, a la Stanley Kubrick. It should look frantic, brutal, and frightening (Saving Private Ryan, for example).

Posted by Jim W | December 19, 2007 11:59 AM

Jasper, since you are going to get a correction, it might as well come from someone who agrees with you 100% on the main point. In the book, Frodo is able to make a gesture of defiance to the Ringwraiths, though he loses consciousness imeediately thereafter. Purists see this as terribly significant, but clearly it is ineffectual as far as actually stopping the bad guys, who are in fact washed away by Elrond's flood.

Posted by roac | December 19, 2007 12:02 PM

I generally liked what Jackson did, but my biggest complaint was his treatment of Gimli as a comic foil. I hope or assume this would make no sense in a movie with twelve dwarves, right?

Posted by PD Shaw | December 19, 2007 12:10 PM

A good point by PD Shaw. (Though it's thirteen dwarves, actually.)

Posted by roac | December 19, 2007 12:19 PM

I guess I can't complain too much about dropped plot points when I forget the stated reason that Bilbo is invited to go on this adventure in the first place.

Posted by PD Shaw | December 19, 2007 12:33 PM

I guess I can't complain too much about dropped plot points when I forget the stated reason that Bilbo is invited to go on this adventure in the first place.

Gandalf knew evil was stirring in the world again -- and suspected Sauron himself was busy relaunching his career in southern Mirkwood -- and wanted to enlist the people of the Shire in the struggle. What better way than to recruit a respected pillar of hobbit society on a quest to kill a dragon?

Posted by Jasper | December 19, 2007 12:38 PM

I was initially fairly positive about the LOTR films, saying that they were probably as good as we could reasonably hope. Which I still think is true, but my estimate of what we can reasonably hope has been revised downward. There are some wonderful moments but in the end they are just too big, too noisy, too Hollywood to be satisfying.

I agree completely with PD Shaw about the treatment of Gimli. That was the most egregious of many lapses into entertainment industry schtick. The battle scenes were another (Legolas, I think it was, surfing down a wall on a shield--ugh).

And although I haven't ventured into the books again since seeing the films, I'm very much afraid that they've colonized my imagination.

Posted by Maclin Horton | December 19, 2007 12:43 PM

Gandalf knew evil was stirring in the world again -- and suspected Sauron himself was busy relaunching his career in southern Mirkwood -- and wanted to enlist the people of the Shire in the struggle. What better way than to recruit a respected pillar of hobbit society on a quest to kill a dragon?

That's Tolkien's after-the-fact justification for Bilbo's inclusion, when he discovered in the course of writing LotR that TH couldn't be treatred as the joke it started out as.

PD Shaw is referring to the reason stated in the text, that an expedition made up of 13 dwarves woudl have bad luck.

Posted by roac | December 19, 2007 12:50 PM

"If J.K. Rowling's books can be told in seven different movies, why didn't Mr. Jackson have enough faith in the material to do, say, TEN "

Hmm no.. not really. The reason there are seven Harry Potter movies, is because there are seven Harry Potter books. The last 6 of which are quite sizable. Also, keep in mind that the movies are not the books in any way shape or form. Unless you're American and don't know what a Philosopher is, they share the same name. They only share the same story at the highest level. The is reams of (what turned out to be) critical information left out of the movies. Characters written out of the first movies all together play key roles towards the end of the series of books. Critical events that Potter must look back on in the books to help solve the mysteries of book seven, are not even flirted with for the movies.

Jackson changed some events in the movies from the books. The death of Saruman at Orthanc and the removal of the scouring of the Shire is one that comes to mind. But its removal really didn't do much to effect the overall story.

The artistic license taken on Rings is far less than that taken for Harry Potter.

Besides, how would you split the movies up into 10 parts without making further changes? The first movie would likely only take you to Tom Bombadil. You won't have moved the story along at all and you'd quickly frustrate your audience to the point where after film 4, and you still haven't done anything yet, nobody would go back to the others. It would be a box office disaster.

Posted by David | December 19, 2007 1:06 PM

There's also the matter of order.

When I read The Hobbit, I thought of it as a nice little story. Then, as I read the LOTR, I looked back on the story related in The Hobbit, but now I saw it in a much, much larger context.

What was cute and local now became part of something ominous and global.

That literary change of view really knocked me out.

I don't see how that could be duplicated in these movies, LOTR having been filmed first.

Or maybe the filmmaker will surprise me?

Posted by AnotherDavid | December 19, 2007 1:51 PM

I actually think the Hobbit could make a better movie than the Lord of the Rings. It's a self contained story that deals much more with adventure and suspense than long drawn out battles.

Posted by mad6798j | December 19, 2007 2:37 PM

Certainly a far easier movie to make. I wouldn't worry about the outcome, no matter whose name is on the project, if the same creative team that did the LotR movies gets hired.

Whatever you think of the choices the screenwriters made on the Big One (my own admiration is very great though with many reservations) you have to recognize that the degree-of-difficulty was off the scale. (Unless you subscribe to the ten-movie fallacy.)

Posted by roac | December 19, 2007 3:03 PM

Aside from what's mentioned above another filmable event that takes place between the books is the White Council driving out Sauron from Dol Guldur.

Posted by fewmit | December 19, 2007 4:47 PM

Aside from what's mentioned above another filmable event that takes place between the books is the White Council driving out Sauron from Dol Guldur.

Excellent. Agreed. Possibly an opening for the second movie -- Gandalf narrating the event to Bilbo.

(I won't even pick the nit about how it really happens offstage during TH. And I will stipulate that for our purposes, TH ends when Bilbo gets home, and not when Gandalf and Balin come to visit him years later.) (Seven years later, I see by looking it up in App. B.)

Posted by roac | December 19, 2007 5:04 PM

The White Council's action take place during The Hobbit, it's why Gandolf leaves the expedition. But if you throw in the bit about Thrain's torture at Dol Guldar and fill in some story about Saruman's downward slop at that time and ya got one whole plot arc for the second movie.

Posted by Steve | December 19, 2007 5:37 PM

Screw it.

I'm excited about The Hobbit, and I think it can be a great film. It's easier than any of the Lord of the Rings Books, and you know the dragon, given it's status as the one great beastie, will make King Kong look like a muppet.

Whatever possible outcomes the second produces, I'll hold off on final judgement. It could turn out to be Babel, but better, combining stories that Tolkien wrote, a few battles, and the romance that Tolkien saved for his other works.

Obviously optimistic, but I don't care.

Posted by will | December 19, 2007 5:39 PM

Actually a Battle of Dale movie won't be a prequel, technically-- (it's the northern front of the war of the rings-- the Dwarves and the Men of Dale fighting the Easterlings and the orcs).

Posted by Bjorn | December 19, 2007 5:51 PM

Re: I can’t say that I was entirely wowed by the portions of Lord of the Rings where they veered dramatically from the original text.

The one thing Jackson did that I thought improved on the original was to include Arwen and her romance with Aragorn in the plot very explicitly. Tolkien relegated Arwen to an appendix, and then surprises the reader when she shows up to marry Aragorn near the end of the book. Their story was a very touching one and there's no reason Tolkien could not or should not have worked it in. I suppose we can argue over whether Arwen should be the one who rescues Frodo at the Ford, but she definitely belonged in the story.

Posted by JonF | December 19, 2007 7:48 PM

OK, I've two words to explain why we should all be very, very afraid of Peter Jackson indulging his Tolkien fetish even one more time.

King Kong.

Posted by Craig Ranapia | December 20, 2007 9:17 AM