The Desolation of Smaug vs The Hobbit -- (FILM SPOILERS PRESENT)
So, I just saw the Desolation of Smaug over the weekend. I read the Hobbit recently in the past 2 years, so it's pretty fresh in my memory.
Peter Jackson changed the 'feel' of the book somehow without changing the spirit of the story. In JRR Tolkien's story, the feel is more like, "Grab a pint of ale, good sir! Sit down... and let me tell you the jolly tale of a hobbit, and some dwarves. We will join them on an adventure is going to be lots of fun! We will sing songs, tell riddles, and generally have damn good time." The book feels like a jolly old romp in the forest with some funny characters. The book takes it's time telling the story, it's in no rush whatsoever.
Here's an example of precisely how rushed the book was. In Mirkwood, the spiders had caught and woven the dwarves into their webs. The spiders were discussing how fantastic this meal will be that they plan to be having.
"""
The others laughed. "You were quite right," they said, "the meat's alive and kicking!" " "I'll soon put an end to that," hissed the angry spider climbing back onto the branch.
Bilbo saw that the moment had come when he must do something. He could not get up at the brutes and he had nothing to shoot with; but looking about he saw that in this place there were many stones lying in what appeared to be a now dry little watercourse. Bilbo was a pretty fair shot with a stone, and it did not take him long to find a nice smooth egg-shaped one that fitted his hand cosily.
As a boy he used to practise throwing stones at things, until rabbits and squirrels, and even birds, got out of his way as quick as lightning if they saw him stoop; and even grownup he had still spent a deal of his time at quoits, dart-throwing, shooting at the wand, bowls, ninepins and other quiet games of the aiming and throwing sort-indeed he could do lots of things, besides blowing smoke-rings, asking riddles and cooking, that I haven't had time to tell you about. There is no time now. While he was picking up stones, the spider had reached Bombur, and soon he would have been dead. At that moment Bilbo threw. The stone struck the spider plunk on the head, and it dropped senseless off the tree, flop to the ground, with all its legs curled up.
"""
So... instead of just picking up a rock and throwing it at the spider, we are treated to the history of Bilbo and his aptitude at throwing things... in the middle of an action scene?! Then Tolkien has the gall to suggest, oh, there are plenty of other stories about all of Bilbo's other skills, but I don't have time to tell you about that now, because Bombur is in trouble. That's Tolkien for you.
There was a consistent theme in the book where the stupid dwarves would get themselves into trouble and the sensible hobbit would get them out again. The dwarves in the movie were exceedingly competent. In the book, the dwarves were exceedingly incompetent, always putting themselves in ridiculous situations that would have proven unnecessary if the dwarves had even a lick of sense.
Peter Jackson's film, on the other hand, impresses upon the audience a sense of urgency and dread of things to come. These things are also happening within the universe of middle earth (indeed, they have to be for the events of the Lord of the Rings to make sense), but they are not the concern of the characters in the hobbit. An example of this rush is that the dwarves are taken prisoner by the wood elves, in the movie; Bilbo gets the Dwarves out the very night they are thrown in jail, in the book; it was at least several weeks before Bilbo could get them out. In the movie, they are always rushing. Rushing on to the next action scene.
People have expressed agitation at the introduction of Legolas and Tauriel as a shameless money grab. That may have been part of it, but, in the books, Legolas is, in fact, a wood elf. It's not inconceivable to think that he was around but unnamed in the book. From a world building perspective, I don't see that Jackson committed any sins here. People have also expressed agitation at the budding love triangle between Legolas, Tauriel, and Fili. There was no such thing in the book, and they were right. In my mind, Jackson's movies are Jackson's stories... strongly influenced by Tolkien, but they are not Tolkien's. I like Jackson's stories. I like Tolkien's stories too.
Perhaps there was one gripe that I had with the movie... the whole republic vs. aristocratic autocracy in Laketown seemed contrived. Putting conflict where none probably belonged in the first place. And there was this whole issue of Thorin riding on top of a lake of molten gold. Gold melts at 1064 C. The heat wafting up from that would have cooked anything, especially a dwarf.
I loved the book. I loved the movie too. But they are different stories.
Well, as the night continues, my thoughts lose cohesiveness. What were your thoughts on the movie?
Peter Jackson changed the 'feel' of the book somehow without changing the spirit of the story. In JRR Tolkien's story, the feel is more like, "Grab a pint of ale, good sir! Sit down... and let me tell you the jolly tale of a hobbit, and some dwarves. We will join them on an adventure is going to be lots of fun! We will sing songs, tell riddles, and generally have damn good time." The book feels like a jolly old romp in the forest with some funny characters. The book takes it's time telling the story, it's in no rush whatsoever.
Here's an example of precisely how rushed the book was. In Mirkwood, the spiders had caught and woven the dwarves into their webs. The spiders were discussing how fantastic this meal will be that they plan to be having.
"""
The others laughed. "You were quite right," they said, "the meat's alive and kicking!" " "I'll soon put an end to that," hissed the angry spider climbing back onto the branch.
Bilbo saw that the moment had come when he must do something. He could not get up at the brutes and he had nothing to shoot with; but looking about he saw that in this place there were many stones lying in what appeared to be a now dry little watercourse. Bilbo was a pretty fair shot with a stone, and it did not take him long to find a nice smooth egg-shaped one that fitted his hand cosily.
As a boy he used to practise throwing stones at things, until rabbits and squirrels, and even birds, got out of his way as quick as lightning if they saw him stoop; and even grownup he had still spent a deal of his time at quoits, dart-throwing, shooting at the wand, bowls, ninepins and other quiet games of the aiming and throwing sort-indeed he could do lots of things, besides blowing smoke-rings, asking riddles and cooking, that I haven't had time to tell you about. There is no time now. While he was picking up stones, the spider had reached Bombur, and soon he would have been dead. At that moment Bilbo threw. The stone struck the spider plunk on the head, and it dropped senseless off the tree, flop to the ground, with all its legs curled up.
"""
So... instead of just picking up a rock and throwing it at the spider, we are treated to the history of Bilbo and his aptitude at throwing things... in the middle of an action scene?! Then Tolkien has the gall to suggest, oh, there are plenty of other stories about all of Bilbo's other skills, but I don't have time to tell you about that now, because Bombur is in trouble. That's Tolkien for you.
There was a consistent theme in the book where the stupid dwarves would get themselves into trouble and the sensible hobbit would get them out again. The dwarves in the movie were exceedingly competent. In the book, the dwarves were exceedingly incompetent, always putting themselves in ridiculous situations that would have proven unnecessary if the dwarves had even a lick of sense.
Peter Jackson's film, on the other hand, impresses upon the audience a sense of urgency and dread of things to come. These things are also happening within the universe of middle earth (indeed, they have to be for the events of the Lord of the Rings to make sense), but they are not the concern of the characters in the hobbit. An example of this rush is that the dwarves are taken prisoner by the wood elves, in the movie; Bilbo gets the Dwarves out the very night they are thrown in jail, in the book; it was at least several weeks before Bilbo could get them out. In the movie, they are always rushing. Rushing on to the next action scene.
People have expressed agitation at the introduction of Legolas and Tauriel as a shameless money grab. That may have been part of it, but, in the books, Legolas is, in fact, a wood elf. It's not inconceivable to think that he was around but unnamed in the book. From a world building perspective, I don't see that Jackson committed any sins here. People have also expressed agitation at the budding love triangle between Legolas, Tauriel, and Fili. There was no such thing in the book, and they were right. In my mind, Jackson's movies are Jackson's stories... strongly influenced by Tolkien, but they are not Tolkien's. I like Jackson's stories. I like Tolkien's stories too.
Perhaps there was one gripe that I had with the movie... the whole republic vs. aristocratic autocracy in Laketown seemed contrived. Putting conflict where none probably belonged in the first place. And there was this whole issue of Thorin riding on top of a lake of molten gold. Gold melts at 1064 C. The heat wafting up from that would have cooked anything, especially a dwarf.
I loved the book. I loved the movie too. But they are different stories.
Well, as the night continues, my thoughts lose cohesiveness. What were your thoughts on the movie?
4
Comments
I do take issues with The Hobbit movies, though. Not as a Tolkein fan, because I'm really not, but because I think the movies are basically at war with themselves. This is mainly due to the (perhaps necessarily poor) meshing of the original material and the added material from the expanded universe. I don't really think this is really Jackson's fault, though. Its likely Tolkein came up with the vast majority of the background to his world after the Hobbit, and the tonal shift in the later "grand epic" narrative and that of an adventurous romp of a children's story is pretty stark. Its kind of a similar issue I have to the Harry Potter books (Heresy!), in that the mythology of the world kind of outgrew the original simplistic premise to the point where the story started to buckle under its own weight. The Hobbit didn't have this issue in book form, because it was always a mostly self-contained story set apart from LotR and the grander mythic arcs of Middle Earth, but the tensions become fairly apparent in the first movie, which basically attempted to insert the gravitas of LotR into what is, at heart, a silly story about a short guy who lives in a hole teaming up with a bunch of one-trick-personality dwarves in a quest to kill a dragon.
and serious WT? moments inside the Lonely Mountain
I wanted (badly) to like this movie. It was an hour's worth of material crammed into three... 'like butter stretched over too much bread', as it were. On a five star scale, I'd probably give it two.
For anyone who has read Michael Chrichton's Lost World, then watched the movie. The movie is completely different from the book. In the book, there is a rich paleontologist who decides to fund a mission to find ancient dinosaurs living in the modern world (based on his own crackpot conceptions... but is a brilliant paleontologist, nonetheless). Ian Malcolm decides to go along with it. In the book, Chrichton spends some 60 odd pages with the paleontologist and Malcolm sitting up in the 'high-hide' postulating on why the behavior of dinosaurs on the island developed the way that they did. Hollywood *had* to change the story. I know of *very* few audiences that would tolerate *that* much introspection in a film. But in the book, this kind of thing is completely fine; extremely interesting even. If the director of the 'Lost World' decided to make the Lost World film too much like the book, it would have devolved into faux animal planet documentary. I'm *sure* that the director would have lost audiences and money on that kind of a thing.
Yes, or a retelling of the Silmarrillion. The fall of Numenor. The story of Beren and Luthien. The introduction of Ancalagon the Black (he would make Smaug look like a puppy).
* This may be a slight exaggeration for effect--until the extended version DVDs at least.
It would work. Someone phone Peter Jackson and get him to cut me a royalty check for eleventy billion dollars.
As for the Silmarilion, it could not be a movie. It's a history book. Imaging making a movie out of the bible, it just wouldn't work. It would be like those 60 second performances of hamlet, but last for 5 hours. Some of the stories in it are definitely meant to be movies, just like what Peter Jackson is trying to get out of the hobbit. Beren and lùthien, the children of hurin, all total epics, just begging for a multi-bajillion dollar movie to be made of them.
The whole Silmarilion, should be a tv series. That would be brilliant. Each season could be a chapter. I would love to see that, and the Silmarilion is vague and obscure enough that they could pretty much add whatever the want. (Not that they would need to)
I am a die hard Tolkien fan, and am pretty mad at the hobbit movies. But I will give you that it was fun to look at, and that's all it really needs to be, I guess.
The Desolation of Smaug is no better or worse than most other films coming out of Hollywood studios at the moment. Unfortunately we live in a time where every film must be either a "Non-stop Thrill-ride", rom-com star vehicle or introspective lo-fi indie flick and the Hobbit films have been shoehorned into the "Non-stop Thrill-ride" section.
I agree with the sentiment that a precise page-by-page filmic retelling of the book would not work--at least not for most filmgoers. The Hobbit is a children's story written before the Lord of the Rings was conceived. I think the story is wonderful at creating a remarkable sense of magical place filled with various types of inhabitants, and at establishing the foundation for a fantasy world with what became some very basic fantasy conventions (eg, what became D&D classes/archetypes). But I want to see the tale woven into the greater fabric of the story's universe and epic story that Tolkien developed for Middle-Earth, i.e., the Ring War. I did particularly not want to see the children's tale, honestly. I'm much more interested in this story as a crucial part of the epic saga.
In the 60's Tolkien began a major revision* of The Hobbit that he aborted, which is well enough. But I think it does signal a recognition and desire on his part to do more or less what Jackson has attempted, at least with respect to integration of the two tales.
That said, it's more than fair to criticize the introduction of Tauriel and the romantic subplot of the attraction between her and Kili. More on that in a bit...
But first, as to Legolas appearing in this film: Legolas is in fact a wood elf, no less than son of the king of the Mirkwood elves. It makes perfect sense for him to appear in any creative revision that seeks to meld the two stories. The main concern I have about his portrayal is that he was given the Mirkwood elven creepiness. He is eerie, vacant, stony, and robotic. His affect is very flat. Thranduil has a similar eeriness, and we even get a glimpse of some sort of (moral?) degradation process to him in a scene where his face morphs for just a second. Maybe he and all the wood elves are subtly afflicted by the dark spell that the Necomancer has placed over Mirkwood? Anyway, I hope there is a decent explanation for it in the third film.
Note that Tauriel does not have that creepy quality at all, however. So at least one elf among the Mirkwood elves has some sort of softness of heart, and can relate emotionally.
I'm not troubled by the introduction of Tauriel to the tale. She's a winning character, and I enjoyed her role. Evangeline Lily did a great job with her. But the attraction between Kili and Tauriel is a major gamble on Jackson's part. There is no mention of such a thing ever occurring in Tolkien's writings on Middle-Earth as far as I know. I can't help but think that this must figure in towards the larger problem that the forces of Good on Middle-Earth have in uniting to defeat Sauron. The elves and the dwarves truly hate one another, and must overcome their racial hatred in order to survive a global threat. (And at the White Council's level of intrigue, Smaug would be a devastating member of Sauron's army. Smaug has to be defeated.) I do find the Tauriel-Kili love story compelling on its own merits, actually. And I don't particularly mind that Jackson introduced it. But I'm really wondering how it will factor in to the eventual unification of dwarves and elves to battle Smaug. It may end up being an overreach.
The liberties Jackson took with the dwarvers (Thorin in particular) within Erebor didn't really bother me. I think it made for a more rousing adventure for Thorin to behave heroically than to remain back at the entrance and let the hired thief do all the dirty work (of simply stealing the Arkenstone).
I think the scene with Gandalf at Dol-Guldur is well realized, although it arguably missed an opportunity to have some dialogue between Gandalf and Sauron. But perhaps Jackson felt it ultimately works better psychologically to have Sauron remain an indistinct, shadowy presence that engulfs and overwhelms (and by being formless therefore harder to fight).
* That is, beyond the rewrite Tolkien did of Bilbo's riddle game with Gollum from first to second editions of The Hobbit. Tolkien decided after the first edition of the Hobbit that he wanted what was originally just a magical ring to be the One Ring at the center of the Lord of the Rings. So the conversation between Bilbo and Gollum is changed accordingly.
The first movie was decent, but is has nothing that could make me watch it more than once. Fortunately, the second movie was better, even thought it still has it's shortcomings. Due to content of the thrid movie, I feel like the second one will be my favourite.
I am aware that some scenes had to be changed in comparison to the book, so that they would fit a movie better. As much as I appreciate Tolkien with his imagination and creativity, he was pretty bad at setting the mood and pacing the action of his stories. The movie had improved these aspects of the story, but everything has it's drawbacks. Involving Legolas was one of said drawbacks. While I am ok with Tauriel as she is nice and fresh character, mr. gary-stu feels unnecesary. He (Legolas) already had 3 movies he could shine in and recieve my dissaproval for being too perfect to be likeable.
Other drawbacks? Since it's ought to be stand-alone movie, some comical scenes were required. And that's ok, but again, mr. Jackson evidently hates everyone from Gimli's lineage, seeing how he stubbornly refuses to show us his father's dignity. Yet again, redhead dwarf has been included as a merely comic relief.
But what I like about the newest movie? Tauriel, that's one. Beside attempt on "love triangle" in Desolation of Smaug, she feels decent character on her own. Reasonable, sometimes rebelious, badass elfish heroine.
The other reason and the star of the entire movie is Smaug himself. At first I've thought that making him (a giant dragon, that is) showing human-like facial expression was risky, but it worked in the end. At times, they managed to make him look really, really evil. Basides, I love his voice acting and the way he moves. Also, how it was useless to slay him in the mountain. I was relieved that they didn't decide to design him 100% from the book, since with
Also, what else Hobbit movies did well is a Bilbo character. The best Hobbit character presented so far.
This isn't to say that the movies are not worth watching because they are, especially the extended editions with all the extra content put back in. There are movies which, due to their visual or action-packed nature, would translate quite poorly into novelized versions--consider most martial-arts movies or movies with quirky scenes or characters such as Cherry Darling from Planet Terror. This applies to musicals, as well--both The Saddest Music in the World and Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge are great to watch but they would make for extremely boring and lackluster novels because the songs are so central to the plot.
Despite the changes in LotR, I loved the films and the interpretation Jackson chose to apply. Similarly, I have enjoyed The Hobbit film(s) thus far, even with the occasional eyebrow raise over an absurd action scene. I'm even willing to accept the flirtation between Kili and the non-existent elf (provided it doesn't get taken any further in that last movie). The one thing that has really bothered me, however, is Gandalf's discovery of the necromancer being Sauron. Why? It negates the whole @#%! section of The Fellowship of the Ring in which Gandalf rides all the way to Minas Tirith, finds out about the One Ring, discovers that Sauron has returned and rides all the way to Isengard to tell Saruman about it! Yes, I know. He could be surprised that Sauron came back a second time, but that just feels like an excuse...
And word on Legolas looking weird.
All in all, Stephen Colbert has a cameo, so it couldn't have been all bad right? After all, he is King Nerd.
http://biosquare.tumblr.com/post/44695425358/stephen-colbert-king-of-nerds
The movies weren't bad. I thought they were entertaining and and if anything, may serve as an inspiration for people to actually go pick up the books and read them. One can only hope
There's a scene at the beginning of the Fellowship where Gandalf puts the ring in the fire and reads the inscription. But one would have thought he knew that the ring was the One Ring from when Bilbo first shared that he had it. But I guess not.
Edit: Now that I think back on it, Jackson can remain consistent I suppose as long as Gandalf believes the Necromancer/Sauron is in fact defeated in the third film. I certainly hope he does in that case...
Yeah, but this is not really Jackson's fault--at least not too much. He has to condense into an action film narrative what Tolkien wrote in later writings (eg, "Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age" in the Silmarillion and "The Istari" and "The Quest of Erebor" in Unfinished Tales) as he developed various details to the Ring saga. The Wikipedia entry on Gandalf (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandalf) actually looks pretty well researched, and outlines out a chronology to what we're discussing here.
By the way, I think it it is obvious from the following details from Tolkien's subsequent writings that the first edition telling of The Hobbit would not do justice to the Ring War story that he later developed.
All dates (except the first?) are Third Age (T.A.):
As I said, I hope he does indicate that Gandalf believes the Necromancer to be destroyed, in which case it will still make narrative sense in the context of the films.