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blatherskiteLet's start with the standard rhetorical ploy of gaining the audience's sympathy: I loved the book version of The Hobbit. There was a time when I read it annually, revisiting old friends. Now, it's more like every handful of years. But it's still a rich story that lures me back periodically, and has ample scope for a movie of, say 3 hours in length. Or the shorter but still satisfying 1977 animated version.
But is there enough for a Peter Jackson trilogy on the order of 7 hours long? Not by a longshot. The Jackson Hobbit films feel padded, and not in a good way. For example, it would have been powerful to bring in much of the background from the Silmarillion to provide foreshadowing for the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I'd sit through 14 hours of that, let alone 7. But that seems to have been beyond Jackson's limited vision.
Let's start out with the profoundly stupid, and move uphill from there in an attempt to end on a positive note: Frank Herbert sandworms in Middle Earth? OMG. What were you thinking? When the village of fisherfolk is burned out by Smaug, do the refugees (a) stay near the lake, where they know they have a reliable source of food and water and firewood, or (b) flee into the barren mountains, where they're a day's long hike from reliable sources of water and firewood and where there's no evidence of anything edible? Did I mention the undrownable Orc leader? Legolas (who doesn't actually appear in the book) levitating in a way that would cause Yoda to bow in respectful awe? Comic relief (Alfred the toady) in a film that really needs to focus on the real drama the characters are experiencing?
The defensibly stupid from a dramatic perspective if you have expectations that have been steadily lowered by decades of Hollywood movies: The trolls, which previously turned to stone at the merest hint of daylight, now roam unfettered during the battle scenes. Maybe the Orcs discovered SPF 500 sunblock? Armies of thousands of warriors clanking around in midwinter in armor (chilblains and hypothermia anyone) with no baggage train or source of food or warmth. Good thing they're mostly CGI; the Screen Actors' Guild would never allow that kind of mistreatment of real people. Sword fights in which blows that would powder reinforced concrete are blocked with a casual raising of the sword. Possibly there's no concept of momentum in Middle Earth; it is, after all, a magical place. Unarmed villagers, with no military training, surviving more than 30 seconds against heavily armed and armored Orcs who have been bred for this kind of fight?
The amusing but still stupid: Radagast and his sleigh drawn by bunnies. (Would have been funnier and seasonally appropriate if one had a glowing red nose.) Gandalf and Saruman fighting with staffs so well Jet Li would flee screaming should he meet them in battle. Galadriel belatedly remembering that she had one of the three rings of power and using it to good effect in a scene that really had no place in the film.
All that being said, Jackson et al. can't quite completely extinguish the good things in the book, though they certainly gave it the old college try. The actors do a generally great job in their assigned roles, and the visuals (when they're not entirely over the top) are satisfying. Middle Earth feels real and feels like the kind of place you'd love to go on an adventure -- safe in the knowledge that you'll wake up in a warm bed the next morning rather than in a world where awful things could happen to you with little or no warning. Bilbo's character arc is particularly well done; he's a clearly different character from the timid Hobbit we met at the start of the story.
But for me, the strongest and most ironic storyline is that of Thorin Oakenshield, who heroically overcomes the "dragon fever" that strikes him and stops him from honoring his sworn word to reward the humans for the aid they gave him in his time of need. He seeks and achieves a heroic death after overcoming the lust for gold that paralyzed him for most of this film and a significant part of Hobbit 2. And here's the ironic part: If only Jackson et al. had shown equally heroic behavior and kept the trilogy to one long or two mid-sized films, tightly focused on a story so strong it's been with us for more than 75 years -- they'd have created something memorable rather than a film that occasionally made Star Wars seem logical. 75 years is a record that, given the evidence, it seems unlikely anything created by Jackson will ever achieve. Which is a shame, really.
But is there enough for a Peter Jackson trilogy on the order of 7 hours long? Not by a longshot. The Jackson Hobbit films feel padded, and not in a good way. For example, it would have been powerful to bring in much of the background from the Silmarillion to provide foreshadowing for the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I'd sit through 14 hours of that, let alone 7. But that seems to have been beyond Jackson's limited vision.
Let's start out with the profoundly stupid, and move uphill from there in an attempt to end on a positive note: Frank Herbert sandworms in Middle Earth? OMG. What were you thinking? When the village of fisherfolk is burned out by Smaug, do the refugees (a) stay near the lake, where they know they have a reliable source of food and water and firewood, or (b) flee into the barren mountains, where they're a day's long hike from reliable sources of water and firewood and where there's no evidence of anything edible? Did I mention the undrownable Orc leader? Legolas (who doesn't actually appear in the book) levitating in a way that would cause Yoda to bow in respectful awe? Comic relief (Alfred the toady) in a film that really needs to focus on the real drama the characters are experiencing?
The defensibly stupid from a dramatic perspective if you have expectations that have been steadily lowered by decades of Hollywood movies: The trolls, which previously turned to stone at the merest hint of daylight, now roam unfettered during the battle scenes. Maybe the Orcs discovered SPF 500 sunblock? Armies of thousands of warriors clanking around in midwinter in armor (chilblains and hypothermia anyone) with no baggage train or source of food or warmth. Good thing they're mostly CGI; the Screen Actors' Guild would never allow that kind of mistreatment of real people. Sword fights in which blows that would powder reinforced concrete are blocked with a casual raising of the sword. Possibly there's no concept of momentum in Middle Earth; it is, after all, a magical place. Unarmed villagers, with no military training, surviving more than 30 seconds against heavily armed and armored Orcs who have been bred for this kind of fight?
The amusing but still stupid: Radagast and his sleigh drawn by bunnies. (Would have been funnier and seasonally appropriate if one had a glowing red nose.) Gandalf and Saruman fighting with staffs so well Jet Li would flee screaming should he meet them in battle. Galadriel belatedly remembering that she had one of the three rings of power and using it to good effect in a scene that really had no place in the film.
All that being said, Jackson et al. can't quite completely extinguish the good things in the book, though they certainly gave it the old college try. The actors do a generally great job in their assigned roles, and the visuals (when they're not entirely over the top) are satisfying. Middle Earth feels real and feels like the kind of place you'd love to go on an adventure -- safe in the knowledge that you'll wake up in a warm bed the next morning rather than in a world where awful things could happen to you with little or no warning. Bilbo's character arc is particularly well done; he's a clearly different character from the timid Hobbit we met at the start of the story.
But for me, the strongest and most ironic storyline is that of Thorin Oakenshield, who heroically overcomes the "dragon fever" that strikes him and stops him from honoring his sworn word to reward the humans for the aid they gave him in his time of need. He seeks and achieves a heroic death after overcoming the lust for gold that paralyzed him for most of this film and a significant part of Hobbit 2. And here's the ironic part: If only Jackson et al. had shown equally heroic behavior and kept the trilogy to one long or two mid-sized films, tightly focused on a story so strong it's been with us for more than 75 years -- they'd have created something memorable rather than a film that occasionally made Star Wars seem logical. 75 years is a record that, given the evidence, it seems unlikely anything created by Jackson will ever achieve. Which is a shame, really.