The Hobbit: An Unexpected Letdown
The first installment of film “The Hobbit” camouflages
itself deep within the placid darkness of “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy’s
mountainous shadow.
If you read J.R.R Tolkien’s “The Hobbit,” Peter Jackson’s
cinematic interpretation leaves much to be desired and will have you
questioning what the hell he was thinking at times.
The novel itself is frivolous, good humored, and told in a
colloquial fashion as if the reader was a child, sitting on Tolkien’s knee. And
I understand that this was not as dark a story as the Lord of the Rings, but at
its core, it still needed to coincide with Jackson’s three previous films. This
wasn’t achieved.
For me it wasn’t one of those films that you got lost in.
Instead of living vicariously through the characters, I couldn’t wait to get
home and reread the novel to set everything right again. Frustratingly I could
not help feeling that Jackson himself was confused where he wanted to go with
the story.
(Spoilers in the following)
There were times where Jackson’s script followed too closely
to the script, where the end product just didn’t translate fluid enough between
mediums. The first interactions between Gandalf and Bilbo, the songs of the
dwarves, and a few other scenes just felt too staged, for me, even though they were
directly out of the book. But I cannot fault Jackson on these parts. I respect
his intent to stay true to Tolkien’s words and so even though I am a little
critical of these aspects in his film, I won’t let it bring me too down. After
all, I was looking for perfection.
But since Jackson portrayed some scenes so similarly to the
novel, it was even more flummoxing when he added completely new scenes and
characters. It was as if the audience was being lead down a nicely defined
trail and then Jackson took out a machete, started cutting, and in the end only
achieved a massive detour. This happened a myriad of times and left me boiling.
There was absolutely no need to add the wizard Radagast into
the story. I can think of no other excuse for the director than that he had
some quizzical need to further establish that fact that this story preluded the
LOTR trilogy. As if we already didn’t know! And the fact the Radagast was
portrayed as this loony furry completely upended the intrinsic antiquity that
was previously established in wizards like Gandalf and Saruman. Jackson could have cut out that whole spiel
with Radagast, the stupid rabbit bobsled, and the Necromancer; the flick would
have stayed linear, been terse, less confusing, and overall better.
The capricious conflict between Thorin and “the Pale-Faced
Goblin” was farcical and selfish on Jackson’s part. Nowhere in Tolkien’s novel
did this happen. Were trolls, wargs, goblins, giants, and Gollum not enough
antagonists for him (let alone Smaug)? It seemed to me he was creating some
sort of parallel with difference between this Pale-Faced Goblin and Lurtz from
the Fellowship of the Ring. Pete, you didn’t need it; it wasn’t that cool; and you
expounded upon a story that didn’t need any addition.
Now I’m a sucker for aesthetics. The LOTR trilogy was
brilliant. Every character was expertly cast and I didn’t have any qualms. This
was not the case in the first “Hobbit” film. I’m not going to break down each
dwarf, but while reading the story I always pictured these guys as small, but
dense and fierce (sort of like variations of Gimli). Maybe its ignorance on my
part, but a bunch of dwarves who looked dissimilar and would not exactly
inspire fear in an adversary, was not what I was hoping for.
I don’t want to know who had the bright idea of making the
voices of the trolls and the goblin king sound like an eclectic group of
Transformers, but they need to be admonished. I cringed when I heard Megatron
talking to Bilbo. Megatron. Are you kidding me? Where was the ingenuity? And
one of the trolls sounded like he was having his crotch vice gripped. I haven’t
the faintness clue how the team of people who came up with the voice of the
Nazgul, the Mouth of Sauron, Gollum, and Saruman got the voices in this flick
so incredibly wrong.
The made-up sequence, right before the company arrived at
Rivendell, where the dwarves (on foot) were being chased by wargs killed me.
First of all, how the dwarves never got caught is beyond me. The wargs seemed
to get lost in the labyrinth that was an open meadow. An open meadow. Then, if
you look back on that scene, the company got chased through what looked to be
parts of the Shire, Rohan, Mirkwood, and the Mines of Moria all in about 45
seconds. There was no continuity with the scenery. And those dwarves, who in
Gimli’s own words “were not meant for long distances,” still didn’t get caught!
There was also Elrond and the Elves riding, in what looked to be Rohan, to save
the dwarves. Not in the book. Not needed. Finally Gandalf and the dwarves jump
down a rabbit shoot, in the middle of a prairie, and are somehow in the middle
of the forest that is Rivendell. How do you think I feel about that?
Also, the quarrel between the giants along the Misty
Mountains was overly theatrical and too up close and personal for my taste. In
the novel, the giants’ acrimonious conflict took place off in the distance
where they created a thunderstorm. It was over the top and just added on the
films frivolous nature.
For some reason Jackson wanted to include every character
from the first trilogy in this film as he could. There was no reason for Galadriel
or Saruman to be in Rivendell. Actually, Galadriel looked great and was a
soothing reprieve in this bewildering film. Saruman, on the other hand, was
not. I realize that Christopher Lee loves LOTR and he was great in the previous
films. But he looked awful, sounded fine, but looked depressingly emaciated. I
know that in real life he’s really old and not doing too hot. I hope the best
for him, but frankly, his character served no purpose in this flick and wasn’t
needed.
I found a copious amount of faults and errors in this film,
but they were alleviated temporarily but some extraordinary scenes. The
filmmakers deserve some credit because they got the “Riddles in the Dark”
sequence with Bilbo and Gollum spot on. Definitely the highlight of the film.
Also, the sequence where the Eagles carried our contingent away was visually
spectacular. I have yet to make a definite opinion on the opening sequence when
Smaug takes Erebor.
A massive deterrent in this movie was that it was filmed in
3-D. Peter Jackson had a momentous task to
create something in the realm of equal to the LOTR trilogy, and the 3-D
experience of “The Hobbit” took from and gave nothing back. The cinematography
in this film doesn’t even compare with the others. The grandeur and realism
that helped you connect and believe in Middle Earth so much is absent. Instead,
it is replaced with comic relief and overly fictitious action sequences that
attenuate the film in visceral ways.
I saw the film with a few friends who didn’t read the book
and they enjoyed it. For me, not so much. The same magnetic attraction didn’t
resonate within me. I didn’t feel like I was watching something special and I
am crestfallen because it. Peter Jackson should have just stuck to his bread
and butter, not done 3-D, and just make the best story possible.
There’s a brilliant scene at the end of “The Two Towers”
where Gollum is leading Sam and Frodo through the woods adjacent to Mordor. The
camera pans out wide and gradually shoots up to view Mt. Doom and Barad Dur,
foreboding and looming with Nazgul flying in the distance. Emilianna Torrini’
is singing “Gollum’s Song,” giving goose bumps and overwhelming you with anticipation
for the next film. It’s cinematic ecstasy.
No such moment in “The Hobbit” comes in the vicinity of
inspiring such reverie.
