The Hobbit: The Desolation of Tolkien

Let me tell you what's wrong with the Hobbit.

First off, there's been a lot of knob-slobbering about the second film in Jackson's self-indulgent trilogy.  Critics are raving with statements like "it's not nearly as bad as the first one" and...well...other statements.  Honestly, if all the critics were calling the film terrible, I'd be the one piping up to sing the film's praises (it's what I do--that is--not think like the general media), but in this current example, it falls on me to be the naysayer.

The movie is a mess.

You'll sit there in the dark for 3 zillion hours and constantly say to yourself, "aw...this isn't so bad" or "gee-whiz, I'd really like to like this."  But in the end, you're going to find yourself comparing the film unfavorably to the 1977 animated version which, for all its flaws, has one major thing in its favor: IT IS TRUTHFUL TO THE BOOK!

 Notice what's better about that scene? Yeah...Bilbo is invisible, because if Bilbo WASN'T invisible the scene would be TOTALLY RIDICULOUS!

But you know what else is better about this scene?  The dialogue is more accurately lifted from the book.  In the Jackson version, most of that dialogue still gets in, but the effect is muted because Jackson took it upon himself to scrawl in a bunch of other crap that Smaug never said, and YES you notice when somebody other than Tolkien is penning the dialogue.

I was pretty taken by "The Fellowship of the Ring" but with every subsequent film I've been more and more disappointed.  Back when "Fellowship" was still in its promotional phase and we were all worried that Jackson was the wrong guy for the job, he said something in an interview that calmed me (and I'm going to paraphrase it out of respect for Jackson's belief that you should never quote an artist accurately).  He said that when they were doing the screenplay, they found themselves running into trouble only when they deviated from the printed text.  Jackson then went on to gush about how well-thought out the book is and how it needed to reproduced as accurately as possible.

Well...

Then the first movie was a big hit, then the second movie was a big hit, and by the third movie we've got scenes with guys sliding down the trunks of elephants.  Yeah...that scene isn't in Tolkien.

What happened was an attack of Hubris.

Jackson started out respecting Tolkien's work, but as this process spread out over decades he started to think of himself as the living embodiment of Tolkien in the modern age...like the words of Tolkien can come out of his mouth.

In one of the very first scenes of Hobbit 2: Electric Boogaloo you see Jackson as a drunken townsman in Bree.

HUBRIS!

Look, here are my thoughts.  Yeah, Jackson is a talented director, but too much of the first movie is just recreating effects we've already seen in LOTR (I mean, you can only have a guy fall on his back and have a ring fall on his finger so many times...Tolkien never even used that once).  Oh how I lament that Guillermo del Toro wasn't given the reigns as had been initially planned.  I believe this trilogy is in desperate need of the fresh blood of a different visionary director (and there are few in the business as visionary as del Toro, if we're lucky, somebody will give him a crack at the whole series someday...him or Terry Gilliam, imagine a Terry Gilliam LOTR!).

If you're going to make a film and call it "The Hobbit" then stick to the book.  It's a little bit disrespectful to dead authors to hijack their characters and substitute your story with "The ballad of the blond elf with the whirling knives."  Look, Mr. Jackson, if all you want to do is follow an elf around as he slaughters people, then adapt R.A. Salvatore's novels to film and keep your hands of Tolkien.  Tolkien's books star HOBBITS!

I've had my problems with the reviews of Roger Ebert in the past, but in his initial treatment of FOTR he said that the Hobbits had unfortunately been pushed to the background.  I didn't see it then, but I see it now.  It's odd how after watching 6 hours of this gargantuan Hobbit epic, it's hard to look back and think of an emotional scene involving Bilbo Baggins.  

What's really weird is that a lumbering 9 hour adaptation of a 200 page book goes at such a breakneck pace that there is still time to leave things out.  For example, the approach of the company to the home of Beorn the skin changer involves this delightful little deception where Gandalf makes all the dwarves approach two at a time, so he can get Beorn involved in a story without overwhelming him with the numbers of the group.  It's a clever little moment that tells us a lot about Gandalf's character.

Jackson deleted it in favor of having the company be...chased into Beorn's house, by Beorn in bear form.

Also rushed is the Spiders in Mirkwood scene.  I don't know, that could have been a half hour or so because it's a pretty seminal moment for old Bilbo now isn't it?  But Martin Freeman barely has a chance to say, "I shall call you sting" before the wood elves appear (except they're never having a feast as appeared in the book).  I guess Jackson was just more excited about filming his new character Tauriel who he just invented for the series so that Kili could have a love interest.

Yeah, it's a interracial/interspecies love triangle--how forward thinking Mr. Jackson, Tolkien was too wrapped up in his conservative life philosophy, glad you "fixed" that.  But Legolas is going to be pissed.

These days I've got kids, so I don't live and die so much by what films are being released.  I only got the chance to see this one due to a thousand year alignment of the stars.  Sure, I left the theater more or less satisfied, but I've been finding myself growing angrier at the film upon reflection.

The worst of it is that it's just a shame.  Massive budget, talented actors (although Richard Armitage does not look like Thorin Oakenshield, heck, he doesn't look like a dwarf at all), beautiful cinematography, and it's all ruined by pride.

The Hobbit is not a story that belongs to you Mr. Jackson.

If you want dwarves to go down water slides on rivers of gold then write your own epic.  If ideas like that aren't strong enough to stand on their own, then who are you to be injecting them into Tolkien's expertly crafted world?