The Hobbit: Witty "unexpected" pun subtitle

Welcome and welcome back!  This blog has been dormant for some time, and don't expect this post to revitalize it.  It will remain dormant for a while - I am in the midst of a super demanding post-grad program that sucks all my time all the time.  Except for the next few weeks - it's vacation.  Which is excellent news - because I really wanna write a post about Peter Jackson's The Hobbit!

I specifically refer to it as Peter Jackson's, and am tempted to refer to Peter Jackson's Middle Earth, but that might be giving him too much credit.  However, the movies are decisively Peter Jackson's, and not much of Tolkien's.  That's no bad thing - the movies are excellent - but let's separate the source material from the interpretation, as wonderful as the interpretation in.

I have only some gripes about the movie.  I have lots I really enjoyed.  But my gripes are important.  But first let me explain what isn't a gripe of mine.

Quite a bit was changed from the book to the movie.  That doesn't bother me.  The changes enhance the story.  This is also true of LOTR.  Since I am blogging I am required at this point to make a divisive statement that will enrage or rally my readers.  If the changes in Peter Jackson's LOTR bother you, then you are a person afraid of change.

LOTR is a painfully long book, and at moments incredibly dull.  The timeframe between Bilbo's birthday party and Frodo leaving the Shire is a number of months.  In the movie, it is a matter of days.  In the book, The Fellowship of the Ring ends right as the battle at Amon Hem (where Boromir dies) begins.  That would be unacceptable in a movie.  In the book, there is another few months of the Hobbits hanging out in Minas Tirith after The Ring is destroyed.  In the movie, it's unspecified, but it seems pretty quick.

Let's ignore the timeframe.  Much of LOTR is told in flashbacks.  Most notably Gandalf being captured by Sarumon, and the March of the Ents.  But telling such climactic scenes in flashback would be unbecoming in a film - and even in the books can be somewhat jarring.

There are also some changes that are made seemingly just because it makes the scene more exciting.  Elves are nowhere to be found in the Battle of Helm's Deep, but having them there is very fun.  (I should note that the Helm's Deep chapter in The Two Towers is almost entirely incomprehensible) (Edit, I have since reread the chapter - it actually makes a good deal of sense.  So...... I was wrong).  In the book, Sam completely gives up his search for Frodo after he's captured.  He realizes he is lost and starts singing, and Frodo hears him and calls his name.  In the book, this kind of action fits the mood.  In the movie, it would seem comical.  And of course there's the scene at Mount Doom: in the movies Frodo pushes Gollum into the Crack of Doom; in the movie Gollum falls off the edge because he's jumping for joy.

All these changes were for the better.  Even the great things that were 100% dropped (Tom Bombadil, The Scouring of the Shire) were dropped because, within the movie, they would appear nonsensical and anti-climactic.  The movies MIGHT have been better with them.  The movies are NOT WORSE without them.

So the changes to the story don't bother me.  I trust Jackson that everything will be pulled together.  Tolkien was fond of having loose threads (In the books, Radagast does little and its open to interpretation that he even failed his mission as a Wizard), but Jackson (Modern cinema, really) doesn't work like this, so extraneous details will be dropped entirely.  I was personally frustrated at the scene with the three trolls, but ultimately it was engaging, so that's just a personal critique.  However, I would note that in Fellowship Bilbo is telling the story to a bunch of children and mentions the sun "crept over the top of the trees."  This is not what the movie shows, and so I do feel justified being disappointed in Jackson's own continuity.  Maybe he'll make an extended-extended edition where Bilbo will say "Gandalf shouted at them and broke a stone blocking the sun."

Damn, several paragraphs in and I haven't even gotten to my main point!!  Apparently everything involving Tolkien is cursed to be very very very long.

My #1 gripe, one I feared the moment I learned The Hobbit was to be a trilogy, is best summarized by a 2003 review of The Hobbit, a Gamecube game.

"While Peter Jackson's films based on the Lord of the Rings trilogy has popularized Middle-earth as a very dark, gritty, and rather unpleasant place to live, The Hobbit has a slightly lighter take on Tolkien's fantasy realm, and this comes across most apparently in the visuals. The game generally uses a bright, saturated color palette, which gives the world a certain vibrancy. "
(http://www.gamespot.com/the-hobbit/reviews/the-hobbit-review-6083910/)

I wish this could be written about the movie.  But that is not so.  This movie is almost as dark as LOTR.  In the book, there is a distinctively lighter mood.  Gandalf and Thorin are gruff and serious, but to almost everyone else it's viewed as an adventure in the most amusing form.  That Smaug could be used by The Enemy is never mentioned.  It is a journey to a lost city to recapture its treasure.  The adventure doesn't affect the fate of the world.  They will either take the treasure and be rich, arrive to find the city already plundered, or Smaug will kill them.  The fate of the world is never mentioned.  The movie, in a word, ought to have been more lighthearted.  I'm worried the mood will darken as the trilogy continues.

I also must admit I am concerned at the role of the Necromancer.  In the book, it isn't even fair to call him a minor character - Gandalf periodically talks about his meetings with the White Council as they concern the Necromancer.  Who he is I will not say to avoid spoilers, but I am dismayed the two stories seem to be mixed.  The Necromancer is viewed as a small threat, an infestation that only affects Mirkwood.  Compared to the Orcs roaming around (OH AND THE DRAGON!!!) it really isn't seen as a big deal.  I suppose I should mention that while in the movie the characters doubt Radagast is telling the truth, in the books the White Council almost immediately guesses who the Necromancer is, and if memory serves me Gandalf somewhat casually mentions towards the end of the book that he has been defeated.  It's not terribly suspenseful.

SPOILER:  I cannot write the next paragraph without revealing who the Necromancer is.  You've been warned.

The Necromancer is Sauron.  As LOTR explains, Sauron was around a thousand years earlier and was defeated.  Galadriel mentions that "Darkness crept back into the forests of the world."  She's referring to Mirkwood.  That's where Sauron first reappears.  And while Bilbo and company are going to the Lonely Mountain, the White Council is working to defeat Sauron again.  Eventually Sauron is defeated, only to rise again in Mordor only a short time after.  There isn't much to be said of what happens except the appendices say Saruman sabotaged the White Council and delayed the attack because he was trying to strike a deal with Sauron.  I'd call this foreshadowing but it isn't in the book (I think).  Just another of Tolkien's nutty appendices.  Oh, I should mention the Necromancer is never called Sauron in the book - that's also from the appendices.

The Hobbit was written before LOTR and theoretically was written to be read before LOTR.  This is not true of Peter Jackson's The Hobbit.  There's little reason to pay the Necromancer any mind except for the part of the adventure when the company must travel through Mirkwood.  Gollum is just a weird little guy who is in one chapter and never reappears.  Even the Ring seems to only have the power of invisibility.  It's a very simple story.  LOTR takes some of those ideas - as well as the world of Middle Earth - and expands it.  In fact, of all the stories about Middle Earth, The Hobbit is among the simplest.  

Of course, anyone seeing The Hobbit will have seen LOTR, and all these characters have greater meaning.  Therefore, if ever The Necromancer is revealed, there's really no way the narrative can avoid the doom and gloom such a revelation would necessarily cause.  When Obi-Wan says to Anakin "Why do I think you're going to be the death of me," the character isn't foreshadowing, George Lucas is nudging us all in the ribs and winking.  When Gollum shouts "We hates Baggins forever," it's in a similar vein.  That, too, I am not sure is in the book.  Edit:  I believe the phrase is actually in the book.  It's just, again, very casual.

I wish the movie was called "The Hobbit: And tangents into other Middle Earth lore."  I think that would be fantastic.  There are so many Middle Earth tales I would love to see in film, and Peter Jackson is 100% the guy to do it.  And I loved seeing so many different sequences.  I especially enjoyed the extended prologue.  But I'm not sure the sequences were weaved as well as possible into the whole story.  One of Tolkien's strengths was breaking up the long walks in his stories (because there are lots) with characters telling ancient tales.  I think The Hobbit would work as a trilogy if the main story was interrupted by these legends.  I wish the story had been set up that way in a more intentional manner.  I think that would allow the Tolkienism of the Hobbit to shrine through while allowing Jackson to shoot incredible scenes covering, potentially, a ridiculous time span.  Theoretically, even parts of the Silmarillion could even be incorporated.  While that would be exciting for nerds like me, obviously that isn't blockbuster material.  But still, as long as the main plot of The Hobbit is prominent, I think audiences would enjoy seeing the various stories.  And if they don't, well, then Peter Jackson's Tolkien may not be for them.

To end on a good note - because I really do like the movie - I enjoyed the flashback to the beginning of LOTR with Frodo and Bilbo.  I thought it was an amusing tie-in.  I also liked the chase scenes in the caves.  The goblin king was fantastically gross.  The Bilbo/Gollum scene was great, though I found it hard to understand what Gollum was saying at times.  I really, really, really hope Gollum doesn't reappear later.  I am very excited to see the scene with the wood-elves. Do we have to wait a whole year for part 2?  I wonder what part 2 will be called...