5879
by Olorin
OK, so I moved the last two posts from the LOTR TV adaptation thread to here, where they more properly belong. I probably wouldn't have bothered but for the desire to opine on the subject myself. And that opinion is a defense of the existing movies, at least in concept/principle.
I think there are several foregone conclusions about any movies that would have been made of The Hobbit, no matter who made them:
-Female characters would have been added.
-An attempt would have been made to address aspects of the book which don't fly in a movie format, such as Gandalf's disappearances with no real explanation, and more importantly, the omission of a depiction of the BOTFA. It's one thing to write a book for young children and have your main character get bonked on the head at the beginning of the big scary battle and wake up only when it's all over, and quite another to make a movie of the book after it's been a classic of fantasy for decades, especially when it's had a much more detailed and successful sequel.
-An effort would have been made to bring in the rich background material from the LOTR appendices, i.e., the White Council and so forth.
Now obviously, the above changes could have been accomplished in different ways, and probably more successfully than PJ did. Rather than going at this directly myself, I'll springboard from Val's points.
- Tauriel/Kili romance
I would definitely have toned this down, at a minimum. Like I say, it's a given that female characters would have been added. The only two well-known females from the mythology who were alive during the timeframe of The Hobbit were Galadriel, who was added, and Arwen, whose addition wouldn't have made much sense without Aragorn. I don't think any of us would have wanted to see Arwen shoehorned into the picture, or an even bigger fictitious role crafted for Galadriel, so that leads to creating a character. It's funny, really. Before the movies ever came out, there was a rumor that PJ had created a character called Itaril, a young but kick-butt female elf to be played by Saoirse Ronan. Outrage ensued and PJ backed off, at least in theory. But all he really did was change the name to Tauriel (which it least derives from the wood for forest), make her a bit older, and cast Evangeline Lilly. So we get Tauriel. How do we tie here into the story, to real characters? Obviously with a love triangle! Ugh. I don't have a problem with Legolas having an interest in her, or with Kili having an interest in her, though there's the question of degree. If it had just been portrayed as an awestruck admiration, such as Gimli's for Galadriel, it would have been one thing (though I still think I'd have nit-picked it for being another attempt to carbon-copy elements from LOTR and stick them in here). But to make it more of a romantic love ultimately defies credulity. OK sure, they picked a really handsome actor, but will Tauriel still be attracted to him when he gets a little older and his beard is down to his knees? And so forth. I suppose on could argue that Tolkien opened the door for inter-species romance with his several Elf/Human couplings, but let's not add more.
- Ridiculous ninja Nazgul and their changed history
Not much argument on this one! Include them? Sure, if you're going to include Sauron. But the way they were depicted? Nope! In addition to appearing ridiculous, it begs the question why they don't have these abilities in the LOTR movies.
- Turning Smaug the Golden literally into Smaug the Golden
This was a bit silly, maybe more than a bit, but the bigger problem is how it drags out the length of the movie. I can understand why PJ wanted to give Smaug more to do, including direct interaction with the dwarves. In the book, he and Bilbo have their chat, he torches Laketown, and meets his demise. I think any filmmaker would have wanted to get more screen time with the character. But how PJ did it didn't really work for me.
- Every scene including Alfrid
Yes, Alfrid was a toad. Scratch that, toads are inoffensive, beneficial little animals. Alfrid is a distillation of obnoxious qualities, given flesh. I think PJ wanted to have a through-going character to be a thorn in Bard's side, even after the Master bites it, and for that matter to give the Master someone to interact with for purposes of character development. But good, bad, or indifferent, Alfrid is another character whose continued use further drags the movie away from feeling like the book it is supposed to be based on.
- A third of the group staying behind in Laketown
I think PJ did this to give us eyewitness account of what happens in Laketown, but maybe that's giving too much credit. I suppose in the end it's just to give Tauriel and Kili more time together. But it's a big break in feeling from the book, even though it mirrors the way LOTR splits the Fellowship into sub-groups.
- The part when the kitchen sink joins the Battle of the Five Armies
LOL! For the most part, I like how the battle was staged, especially when you consider it pretty much had to be invented from whole cloth, given the lack of guidance from the book . I liked Dain's army riding rams, I liked Billy Connolly as Dain (though I'd have preferred him not to be CGI), I liked the "twirly-whirlies," and I liked the Were-worms. But certain parts did get pretty ridiculous: ice-chariot sequence, Legolas dancing up the blocks of a collapsing bridge, etc. I think PJ went into it with an attitude of anything goes and damn the torpedoes. so I supposed it's impressive that it works as well as it does.
- Legolas - I would have been more than ok if the cameo stopped at him being present when the Dwarves are captured in Mirkwood, and maybe seen silently at his father's side in the throne room. Full stop. Over. Period.
I could definitely have seen a role for him as field commander of Thranduil's forces during the BOTFA, but instead we get the side trip to Gundabad. Even that is not a total loss, as we get a visualization of a real place from Middle-earth we would not otherwise have seen, and some of what goes on there is ok. But the whole idea that he is banished at the end of the movie is pretty ludicrous, and the directions Thranduil gives him for finding Aragorn ("go north") would have resulted in him wandering pointlessly in Forodwaith. Was this supposed to be shorthand for "go north and then go west to skirt the Misty Mountains, and then go south into Eriador to find Aragorn"? A ridiculous mistake that 2 seconds looking at the map would have prevented.
Now, the thing that caused me to reply, a bit belatedly, to the previous two posts. First is that last night I watched the BluRay trilogy box set of the first three Spider-man movies, which I received for Christmas. It includes 2 cuts of the third movie: the original cut and an "Editor's Cut," which I'd previously been unaware of. I read a synopsis of the changes on-line, and it sounds like the changes were small and the movie would have remained pretty much the same as it was, something close to a hot mess. But that made me think about these two posts, and to wonder what the prospects were that there might ever be an official revisiting of The Hobbit. Recently, inspired by the work he did on his soon-to-be-released-and-apparently-pretty-stunning WWI documentary, PJ has announced he's going to go back and pretty up his early "naughty period" movies, the puke-eating alien movie and so forth. However, in the same interview he pretty much said he considers the existing cuts of the Middle-earth movies to be the final word. He claims to have no inclination to tinker with them. I suspect he doesn't want to get a reputation like that of George Lucas with Star Wars and all the "Special Editions." While there's a lot to be said for that kind of restraint, personally I find it a bit of a shame, for two reasons. First is that one of his associates (I forget his name, but he had a big role in producing the supplements from the DVDs/BDs) had stated that new footage for LOTR was to be filmed when The Hobbit was filmed. I never heard more about that after that, so I guess we should conclude it never happened. But also, when you watch LOTR now, some of the effects look very dodgy. It would have been nice to see those improved. Of course, going back into these movies to make changes, realistically, would be just as likely to make them worse as better. But I guess I'm the kind of guy who buys a lottery ticket whenever the jackpot gets high.
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."