Hobbitses! We Got Hobbitses!
30 Responses to Hobbitses! We Got Hobbitses!
-
Athenian Stranger says:
Just hope he doesn’t butcher it like he did with The Lord of the Rings.
-
stillaninterestedobserver says:
I’ve been LOLing big time over Radagast’s sleigh drawn by huge attack rabbits. Very _Night of the Lepus_. And I don’t mean this disapprovingly! The lighter tone of the original book seems to have been kept in mind here, so I’m liking the humor; there are some things that just can’t work at all so I’ll be interested to see what’s kept and what isn’t in the end.
As it is, I’m honestly kinda surprised and a little thrilled that the stone giants of the Misty Mountains make an appearance!
Still got HUGE problems with the switch from a two film to three film setup, but roll on December.
-
EngineerScotty says:
One unfortunate tendency that has long been observed by some Christians (and many of other faiths as well), is a dislike of the fantasy genre due to its supernatural elements, which are held to conflict with the Bible. While Tolkien was a devout Christian, his works certainly contain their share of such things as novel creation myths, wizards and spells and magic artifacts, and beings of such immense power that one can describe them as deities (though the deities of the Tolkien universe are mainly discussed in The Silmarillion, not in the Hobbit-themed novels).
One of my sons was excitedly discussing Harry Potter with a school friend, only to be told that the family does not watch Harry Potter.
Fantastical elements which are portrayed as scientific advancement seem to be not subject to the same objections–the child in question gets his fill of Star Wars and the like (and even the one quasi-fantasy element of the Star Wars universe, the Force, was later revealed to be the work of microscopic critters).
The unfortunate thing in this is–it’s fiction. Nobody thinks J. K. Rowling really claims that there is a subculture of hereditary magicians hidden about England. Nobody thinks that Tolkien believed–or is asserting–that the world was formed by powerful beings called Valar. Their fictional nature, it would seem, cancels out any claims that these works conflict in any way with scripture.
Of course, this seems to be better understood for some fantasy works–after all, nobody accuses C. S. Lewis of heresy for writing a series of novels in which God is portrayed as a talking lion in an alternate universe–even though Lewis makes it pretty obvious just who/what Aslan is. (Of course, he ruins it all by including Father Christmas in one of the books…shouldn’t he be called Father Aslanmas in Narnia?
) -
Brian says:
Turning The Hobbit into three movies is absurd. At the very least, we’re owed an apology for the hideous monstrosity that was The Return Of The King, where it’s clear that even if Jackson had followed the current trend of breaking the final chapter of a profitable series into multiple parts, he wouldn’t have been able to put a coherent movie together.
-
Just Some Guy says:
Radagast the Bird-tamer! Radagast the Simple! Radagast the Fool!
-
Jason Gagnon says:
Saturday is Hobbit Day! http://www.americantolkiensociety.org/hobbit_day_and_tolkien_week.htm
-
Charles Cosimano says:
“I like hobbits. They are great barbecued.” Sauron.
-
EngineerScotty: Well, in a way, Tolkien did believe the creation story outlined in The Silmarillion. After all, it was Eru, the One, called Illuvatar (“All-Father”), who sang creation into being, not the Valar. Eru Illuvatar, in Tolkien’s legendarium, was nothing more (or less) than the name Elves called God, and the Valar archangels. Tolkien is quite clever in how he constructs the creation story in a way that can be seen as a series of episodes preceding and parallel to the Genesis accounts; he even strongly implies that the Fall of Man as told in Genesis happened — just offstage, as it were.
I recommend Joseph Pearce’s Tolkien: Man and Myth as an excellent biography of Tolkien that deals specifically with how his Catholicism impacted his writing, including (and especially) Lord of the Rings, and how he conceived of the kind of myth-building that he did as a sort of “sub-creation”.
-
M_Young says:
“Of course, this seems to be better understood for some fantasy works–after all, nobody accuses C. S. Lewis of heresy for writing a series of novels in which God is portrayed as a talking lion in an alternate universe–even though Lewis makes it pretty obvious just who/what Aslan is.”
Lewis was quite intentionally preparing minds for the “True Myth”, as he called Christianity, with his mythopoetic stories. He believed that the rationalism of the modern world left people without the imagination necessary to accept the Christian story.
-
cecelia says:
maybe I have no taste – but three movies is fine for me. As long as I can enter Tolkien’s wonderful world in film – bring it on!
-
Lulu says:
I disagree with the posters who say that the prior movies were bad (this is coming from a lady who spent a good part of 9th grade memorizing poems from the books and drawing sketches of the trees of Lothlorian). But be that as it may . . . I’m looking forward to The Hobbit movie.
A bit off topic, but . . .Did anyone get a chance to see Wagner’s Ring cycle on PBS last week? I became addicted to it, and I realized what Tolkien did to the Norse mythology that both he and Wagner based their works on–Tolkien unsexed the myths (as befits an asexual Oxford don, I guess).
-
Blairburton says:
“I realized what Tolkien did to the Norse mythology that both he and Wagner based their works on–Tolkien unsexed the myths (as befits an asexual Oxford don, I guess).”
Oxford don he certainly was, but Tolkien was married and the father of four.
-
MH - Secular Misanthropist says:
He believed that the rationalism of the modern world left people without the imagination necessary to accept the Christian story.
But is that the fault of the people or the narrative?
-
Lulu: The first two movies were pretty great. The third was irredeemably awful.
-
Eric K. says:
I’m curious to know why some people didn’t like Return of the King.
I’m not looking to get into an argument. I struggled to get through the books and enjoyed the movies, but I wouldn’t consider myself a huge fan of them, so I won’t be offended by any criticism. I’m just interested in knowing what the criticisms are.
-
Blairburton–I stand by my asexual comment based on the books themselves, if not the man himself, especially in contrast to the Norse myths and Wagner’s Ring cycle.
Brian–perhaps I should be ashamed to admit it, but I always cry when, in The Return of the King, Aragorn turns to the Hobbits and says, “My friends, you bow to no one.”
-
JonF says:
I certainly did not dislike the Return of the King, and I even understand why the scouring of the Shire had to be cut from the plot. But there were some flubs: 1) (IMO) the failure to bring Faramir and Eowyn together. Both are built up as major characters in the film, then just forgotten. Even the extended version on DVD does not go there. On a minor note, the special effects got downright cheesy in places– the Dead going after Sauron’s army at Minas Tirith looked like Scrubbing Bubbles kicking butt.
-
Eh, it’s of course aesthetic and down to taste, but to me the main objections were they just destroyed Faramir’s character (yeah, that was mostly at the end of Two Towers, but it carried over), totally ruined the Sam-Frodo relationship, made the Army of the Dead into a cartoon, and in the end just plain couldn’t tell a coherent story. (I’ve read the series several times, and I truly had no idea what was going on for most of the movie.)
I never expected them to deal with the Scourging of the Shire, so that didn’t bother me too much. At least they cut the scene where Sauron comes out to fight Aragorn. What a travesty that would have been!
-
It’s very interesting to watch the extended editions with the commentaries from Jackson/Walsh/Boyens — reading between the lines, it sounds like they started with a script that was even farther from the books than what we got, and then when they started editing together the first film, they realized that they were in trouble and that what they had was terrible, and between a lot of re-shooting and clever editing, we got what we got. They never come right out and say that it turned into a salvage job and got unbelievably lucky with how well the final product worked vs. what they had to start out with, but they get really close.
The changes from the books don’t really bother me all that much; for every person I’ve heard complain about the changes, I’ve heard somebody else complain about how slavishly the books are followed (usually phrased as, “Look, this is a trilogy about a bunch of dudes walking“).
I will say that the main parts of the film for me that haven’t aged well at all are Elijah Wood’s performance and, to a lesser extent, his and Sean Astin’s accents. While these issues didn’t really call attention to themselves in the cinema, in the last 11 years we’ve gotten to see Daniel Radcliffe get better and better with each Harry Potter movie, and Americans have gotten a lot better at English accents.
-
Brain, How did they ruin Frodo and Sam? They did emphasize Frodo falling to the Ring a bit more, but since we can’t get inside characters’ heads in movies as we can in books, I think they had to have Frodo turn a bit nasty to get the point across that the Ring was starting to corrupt him.
As I noted above Faramir just sort of got lost in the third movie. -
Nerd twofer: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5iO25ADvixjJJoeP9qrstog5F6YGw?docId=N0282651348132961031A
-
AnotherBeliever says:
Ha ha, yes the books really are a trilogy about some dudes walking. It’s a great way to describe it! (And heck it applies to half the Bible too…) The first few times you read the Lord of the Rings, it bogs down a little. If it then gets its hook into you, you’re done. You will re-read it until you can finally see the leaves on the tree ents and the stars blazing over the rippling grass and rippling waters and feel the wrath and ruin and world’s ending in your very bones. You’re a goner now. It’s off to the endnotes, and God help you, The Silmarillion and the unfinished stuff published by Tolkien’s son. The Hobbit is just a gateway drug. Fluff, by comparison, but careful…
Clearly, I’m a junkie. But unlike some posters here, I think they did a fair job with the movies. They glossed over some important things, and took a few liberties, but I thought it captured the breadth of the story well, if not the depth. I do think 3 movies for the Hobbit is a bit much. But literally my favoritest book on the planet is the Silmarillion, so I’m likely just being snooty here.
-
Al-Dhariyat says:
I agree with JonF on the movies’ take on the relationship between Frodo & Sam. I thought that wasn’t bad. Although I liked most of the third movie (having only read the books many years ago when I was 9-12), I didn’t enjoy that the last half hour or so was shot in slow motion.
Perhaps if the Hobbit is successful, they’ll have the wherewithal to do the Silmarillion. Is that even possible? Or maybe it would be best suited for a 10 ep miniseries/documentary?
-
Al-Dhariyat: My understanding is that the Tolkien estate holds exclusive rights to the Silmarillion (JRR sold the rights to the Hobbit & LOTR ages ago), and that they HATE Peter Jackson’s films. Word is that they’re itching to sue the pants off him if given half the chance, i.e., if he even thinks about incorporating a whiff of any aspects of the story to which they still hold exclusive rights.
-
Dan says:
If they’re going to make a movie out of the First Age mythos, they should just use the tale of Turin Turambar. After watching Die Walküre the other night, it’d be nice to see a presentation based on Norse myth where incest is a tragic flaw, not the origin of a master race. Besides… it’s just gorgeous.
As for the walking, my take on the movies was that there was no feeling of elapsed time. Tolkien, an inveterate recreational walker, knew in his bones how long it took to walk from point A to point B. For those who don’t understand that, the books drag a bit — until they get under your skin.
-
Franklin Evans says:
I am a bit biased in my view of movies in general, ever since my brother was living with me while a film major (at Temple U., if you must know). He sorta brainwashed me to the point that I can like very bad movies. I catch myself saying it seconds later. How could that be?
The serious side of that is a basic fact: Film-makers adapting a work from another medium simply have to make decisions about things that were brilliant in print (in this case) but will kill the scene (or even entire movie) if kept as-is.
On that basis: I like Jackson’s films well enough, but I have irreconcilable disagreements with some of his adaptation decisions. I hated that he left Tom Bombadil out (I would have cast Tom Baker) but agreed with that. I thought his elevation of Arwen from the appendices to a main character was interesting, but it caused other decisions that hurt the story. The sword Narsil/Anduril is a central plot point, and the best Jackson could do was give it the power to affect ghosts. Yeesh.
My favorite scene: The charge of the Rohirrim at Minas Tirith. Goose bumps, shivers and a lump in my throat, every time I watch it.
One further note: Except for those scenes deriving from those out-of-text decisions, the dialogue was nearly verbatim from Tolkien’s writing. That, I believe, makes the movie trilogy worth the effort.
-
Re: I thought his elevation of Arwen from the appendices to a main character was interesting, but it caused other decisions that hurt the story.
How so? And I thought Arwen’s promotion to actual character was not just “interesting” but necessary. IMO, the biggest plot flaw in the books is the fact that she shows up out of the blue to marry Aragorn.
Re: The charge of the Rohirrim at Minas Tirith. Goose bumps, shivers and a lump in my throat, every time I watch it.
Ditto and amen.
Re: Except for those scenes deriving from those out-of-text decisions, the dialogue was nearly verbatim from Tolkien’s writing.
Even some of the invented scenes used dialogue from the book. Part of Elrond’s conversation with Arwen when she chooses to remain and accept motality came from the expository text of the appendix, describing the final consequence of her love for Aragorn.
-
Jon: I have the trilogy practically memorized… not that I can quote from memory, but when I want to find something, I know within a few pages where to look.
That’s a statement of personal bias, not expertise. My other bias here is a strong commitment to discerning the intent of the storyteller, and to adjust my subjective reactions accordingly.
So, my opinion here… Arwen was part of the backstory, and her “showing up” at the end was the tying of a loose end. I didn’t object to Jackson’s decision to promote the character, I disagreed with it based on the ripple effect that promotion had on the rest of the cinematic story. That promotion demoted Glorfindel and changed the way they told the story of Aragorn’s tensions with Elrond. It rippled into the non-original-text arrival of the Elvish bowmen at Helm’s Deep. It changed the entire plot around the Paths of the Dead. These and other departures — valid as cinematic choices — were not improvements on the books.
-
JonF, Franklin Evans, I am glad to have you both as fellow obsessive travellers through the end notes and appendixes.
The new scene in the movie which really stands out for me is when Arwen turns back from her journey to the Undying Shores after a vision of her future son. That moment and the ensuing conversation with her father were both inspiring and immensely sad. Mortality is the inevitability of losing the ones you love most in the world, or having them lose you. The movies took some liberties, but the union of Aragorn and Arwen really was the culmination of long (long) waiting and many trials.
Not just one trailer, but 5…
And Radagast the Brown, cut from the film version of FotR, makes a triumphant entrance here, pulled by a sled of giant jackrabbits. The sign of a great artist is when a plot description like that seems exciting.