Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Epic Fail: How Peter Jackson Misunderstood Tolkien
The new Hobbit trilogy is a one pound bag with three pounds of manure. Some failures are predictable: we know that Michael Bay’s Middle Earth would have more explosions than elves and that Tim Burton would spend most of our time in Mirkwood and Moria. Peter Jackson made a masterpiece with his Fellowship of the Ring, perhaps because a limited budget forced him to keep the focus on the fairy tale and to edit out some of J.R.R. Tolkien’s weaker moments (I am rewatching it as I type to remind myself what a good movie looks like). Jackson wisely cut Tom Bombadil and Glorfindel, and he also built up Arwen’s role so her later marriage to Aragorn would make sense. In contrast, Jackson seems to have gotten an unlimited budget for his Hobbit trilogy, which falls short because Tolkien’s fairy tale was never meant to be an epic.
The focus of an epic is a dazzling hero who’s greater than ordinary men: either blessed by the gods — like the near invulnerable Achilles or the wily Odysseus — or he has godlike powers, like Harry Potter, Luke Skywalker, or Spiderman. These heroes overcome monsters in part through their powers, but mostly because they have the moral character to use their powers wisely; if not, they come to a tragic end because they misuse their blessings like Heracles and Oedipus. But whether heroic or tragic, the epic’s hero is on a grand scale.
In contrast, a fairy tale puts an ordinary person into an extraordinary situation, so that readers can see the hero’s character. Jack gets his magic beans and slays a giant. Cinderella goes to the ball and charms a prince. Alice falls down the rabbit hole and explores Wonderland. Their other similarities aside, the difference between an epic and a fairy tale comes from what kind of hero the protagonist is.
If Tolkien had wanted The Hobbit to be an epic, Thorin would have been the (tragic) hero. He’s a wily leader of dwarves, heir to the throne, a skilled warrior, and he has much to be proud of. But Tolkien heeded St. Paul’s advice: “God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.” Tolkien chose Bilbo Baggins: shorter even than a dwarf, weaker than many human children, and so small that he uses a dagger for a sword.
Tolkien’s fairy tale inverts the conventions of epics. Instead of a great man being the hero, we have a little hobbit. Instead of a courageous adventurer who dreams of slaying dragons, we have someone who dreams of eggs and bacon. Instead of a warrior, we have a burglar. Tolkien’s Hobbit is a small gem because it’s a fairy tale, not an epic.
Thus when Jackson tried to turned the story into an epic, it failed. With the bottomless budget, Jackson stretched the story across three movies and threw in so many subplots that we lose sight of Bilbo for most of the trilogy. By adding Legolas, the deputy master of Laketown, a female elf who was nowhere in the novels, and more chase scenes than a game of Grand Theft Auto, Jackson unintentionally proves that more is less. Jackson manages some nice touches — King Thranduil riding an Irish Elk and King Dain speaking in a wonderful Scottish burr — but these moments are too far apart in the nine hours of film, and can’t undo its fatal flaw.
Perhaps one day there’ll be a version of The Hobbit with the epic fail edited out. A Producer’s Cut would, of course, be a fairy tale.
Published in Culture, General
This is parody, but I think nails many of my own feelings towards the Hobbit (#10 is my personal favorite):
I keep hoping that Jackson will release a special Director’s Cut SHORTER edition of the Hobbit.
Great comment. Agree 100%.
I think the most disappointing scene in the latest movie was the battle between Galadriel and Sauron. It made them both seem smaller.
It was far better when their powers were left unsaid. In the Jackson version, Galadriel gives her all and all she can do is make Sauron run away, when he’s at his weakest? Really?
I, too, have been serially bored by the Hobbit movies. And, hugely disappointed as well. The LOTR movies were inventive and were epic at least in their scope, there being so many different communities involved. Making fantasy movies is obviously more difficult than epics because fantasies are usually more intellectual and more difficult to express on screen. I think the best comments so far address the disastrous length of all the screenplays and the lack of understanding of Tolkien’s high concept of fantasy.
While I’m pretty sure that’s not going to happen, I am certain there’ll be tech-savvy Tolkien-nerds out there who will make the sort of cuts we desire.
A prophecy:
In latter days, a hero shall arise, who shall lead a movie studio out of bondage to sequel-worship and box office numbers. He shall be the Chosen One, the director of a tightly-plotted, merchandise-free, made-for-grownups, 110-minute adaptation of Tolkien’s true masterpiece, the Fall of Númenor. And the people who watched movies in darkness shall see a great light.
I suggest you start writing letters to Kevin Feige. He seems to be the only guy in Hollywood who’s noticed that following the source material is an easy way to make good movies…
Maybe he’ll get bored with comics…
Um, that’s your opinion. If Bombadil had been named Mike Yanagita, no one would have mind, I guess.
Glorfindel was given a sex change to what was it Even-star or Star-buck, and Galadriel is or isn’t a cylon, etc.
The Two Towers was the worst.
…
Everyone thinks they know better than the author and his family.
“Invited to meet Peter Jackson, the Tolkien family preferred not to. Why? ‘They eviscerated the book by making it an action movie for young people aged 15 to 25,’ Christopher (Tolkien, editing The Silmarillion,) says regretfully. ‘And it seems that The Hobbit will be the same kind of film.'”
I always thought of The Hobbit as the wonderful little story that inspired The Lord of the Rings. When I heard Jackson was turning it into a trilogy I could not believe it. Apparently he’s trying to squeeze out every last drop from Tolkien. Instead of the concise, adventure packed novel I fell in love with the movie has become bloated and rather slow. And since they got Benedict Cumberbatch to voice Smaug that dragon won’t shut up. Blah, blah, blah….I mean really. The animated version has better pacing.
I hope Peter Jackson doesn’t read the Axis trilogy by Sara Douglass. He could make a dozen movies out of that.
OK, had to go look that one up. It turns out it’s from a Le Monde interview he did.
It turns out we can blame Peter Jackson’s abominations on Socialism:
“In 1969, the writer sold the movie rights, along with the rights for derived products, for The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings to United Artists for £100,000 sterling, a considerable sum at the time, but paltry when the current value is considered.
“This amount was meant to allow the writer’s children to pay their future inheritance taxes. Tolkien did it early because these taxes were very high under the UK’s Labour government of that time. He also feared that changes in American copyright laws would damage his children’s rights….”
But here’s the full quote:
“”They eviscerated the book by making it an action movie for young people aged 15 to 25,” Christopher says regretfully. “And it seems that The Hobbit will be the same kind of film.”
“This divorce has been systematically driven by the logic of Hollywood. “Tolkien has become a monster, devoured by his own popularity and absorbed into the absurdity of our time,” Christopher Tolkien observes sadly. “The chasm between the beauty and seriousness of the work, and what it has become, has overwhelmed me. The commercialization has reduced the aesthetic and philosophical impact of the creation to nothing. There is only one solution for me: to turn my head away.””
On the other hand, perhaps Jackson wasn’t the worst thing to have happened:
You do realize, I hope, that Arwen Undomiel (Evenstar) is straight out of “Lord Of The Rings”? Jackson didn’t invent the character, he simply gave her a more prominent role.
You won’t find a bigger fan of Tolkien than I am. But reverence to the source material can be taken too far. There are tweaks that improve the story on the screen, and there are gratuitous inventions that detract. Jackson did both.
LMAO! When I get this feelin’, I need – sexual healing.
I chuckle every time I watch that video, second favorite part is “Make Gandalf Senile”.
I always thought Yoko sounded (and looked) more like Gollum.