Unexpected being the key word, in this case.
If you’ve been following this blog with any regularity, you know that Wood-walkers just put on a symposium on the subject of The Hobbit. While the presentations there did tie in with the new Peter Jackson three-part epic of the same name, quite a few of them (and in turn, quite a few of us) were more focused on the original text as a part of Tolkein’s work. Don’t get me wrong- we did talk about some of the later versions of The Hobbit, and the keynote address about different illustration styles used across the globe was absolutely fascinating – but these were usually in context of how the variations were more or less faithful to the original. There was a good bit of good-natured trash-talk about the animated version, for instance, which seemed to be widely considered… well silly. Unfaithful to the original, certainly, and at least a little nonsensical in how it had changed the story. We weren’t all clear on how Tolkein’s slim children’s book would translate into three movies of at least two hours, not yet, but surely it couldn’t be worse than that Rankin and Bass tomfoolery.
So it was with the symposium in mind that I went to the pre-screening of The Hobbit, with a copy of the book in my bag and, if not exactly high expectations, then at least expectations of something good. What I got instead was confusing. (Here There Be Spoilers.)
Those of us old enough to remember when The Lord of the Rings came out (and I devoutly hope that’s all of us) might recognize this feeling. In large part, the movie is line-for-line faithful to the book, which just increases the sense of disorientation when something, usually something big, is suddenly and completely off. In The Lord of the Rings, for me, these moments happened about once a movie – the confrontation with the Witch-King in The Two Towers is the most memorable example. In The Hobbit it happens almost once a scene- some big, usually character-level change that sends me blinking out of the movie, wondering what just happened and why I’m suddenly contemplating directorial choices rather than enjoying the film as a film.
Most of the time, these changes have to do with how they’re writing Bilbo. Fans of Tolkein’s bumbling and reluctant hero might be in for a shock, here. There’s a good deal more Took in this Baggins, who takes up a far more straightforwardly heroic role in several scenes. It’s Bilbo, not Gandalf, who outthinks the trolls, for instance, Bilbo who stands over Thorin’s body and holds off the orcs trying to kill him long enough for the Eagles to arrive. He is, in short, a far more Hollywood character, twisted ever so slightly from Tolkein’s original to be more in keeping with a movie that features high-speed chases and massive battlescenes. Don’t get me wrong, Martin Freeman plays the role with heart and skill, and is actually the best casting I can imagine for the Mr. Baggins I am familiar with from the books. The changes come from the script itself and are, I think, a symptom of the main problem with the movie.
That problem is its inherent confusion about what it is trying to be. There’s a struggle in the script, I think, between maintaining a loyalty to the text and atmosphere of the original and creating a continuity with the far more serious movie trilogy with which Jackson made his name. The result is sometimes whiplash-inducing. Thorin appears in the doorway of Bilbo’s house as a hero should- in profile, with a surge of music and the genuflection of his followers. This, in the context of a slapstick-heavy rendition of “That’s What Bilbo Baggins Hates” is almost an unnerving shift of atmosphere. The same thing happens when Jackson includes Radaghast the Brown – a character so drenched with whimsy that his first heroic moment is saving the life of a hedgehog named Sebastian, and yet who features prominently in the politics of Middle Earth and even in at least one chase scene. (Sorry, Mr. Jackson. I’m not sure that a rabbit-driven bobsled being chased by warg riders carries the kind of gravitas you intended. And what was with the drug subculture jokes? I know this was popular in the seventies, but really? Was that necessary?) The movie is trying to do so much, and maintain so many different genres (political thriller, adventure, epic fantasy, comedy, children’s movie) that it is in turns jarring, poorly paced, tonally dissonant, and poorly scripted.
Because of this, the really great parts of the movie, and there are quite a few, are often glossed over or forgotten. Freeman shows every ability to carry the movie by himself, with his personable brand of preturbed Britishness, but the focus on the dwarves and the Guardians of Middle Earth means that he’s often overshadowed, an odd fate for a title character. One of the only times he’s given the chance to own the role is, coincidentally, the one moment when the movie really shines – the section in the Goblin caves that covers the events of the “Riddles in the Dark” chapter. For a moment, while Serkis and Freeman traded their riddles, I forgot that I was in a theatre. I stopped considering how the script had changed, stopped questioning the purpose of characterization or the often-gaudy, always-noticeable special effects. For a moment, I was just watching the book as reimagined by two actors at the top of their game. It was pitch-perfect, true to the original and splendidly done.
Then Bilbo rejoined the company and had a short speech about how he would risk his life to make sure they found a home, and I was back in my seat, straining to remember that passage in the book and deeply suspicious that it didn’t in fact, exist.
The problem I have with the movie isn’t that it changes the book – it’s that Jackson is obviously trying to maintain a loyalty to the book while changing it, which leads to the film itself fluctuating wildly between being solidly good, problematically serious, and absolutely ridiculous. At the end, it left me shaking my head and feeling much as I expect Bilbo did at the beginning of his journey – someone had just come into my world, thrown everything out of order, eaten all the cakes, and then put things back safe and recogniseable and deeply, deeply changed.
I had a similar reaction to Radaghast and his bunnies. In the chase scene, it felt as if the bunny sled was just moving to and fro and Thorin and Co likewise running and ducking haphazardly. And what about the double-chinned (or all-chin?) goblin king, whom they slay as he says, “That will do it.” From the book, I’d imagined that this would be terrifying. At least he didn’t say, “By my chinny chin chin, I die.” But this adaptation felt different from LOTR in other ways too. Did anyone else get a sense that it was moving from action to action to action without the best pacing? A lot does happen in the book, yet the book never gave me the sense of being on a roller coaster. I’d have appreciated more moments of pause in the film–if only to better appreciate the gravity and tension of the ensuing action. I had a slight headache at the end, though it could have been from the 3D glasses. Well, so much for the grumbling. Jackson did a super job with so many aspects of the film. The song of the Misty Mountains–beautiful doesn’t do justice (although why did they make it so short?!). Martin Freeman is great in his role. I wondered about why he seemed so much more Tookish on film; in the book, a lot of his Baggins-Took struggle is internal. The narrator tells us for example, “Then something Tookish woke up inside him.” Perhaps it was hard showing these internal struggles on film. And I actually like the reinvention of Thorin. He’s still curmudgeonly, but not comical–which helps with the gravitas. I hope part 2 will have more balanced humor, better pacing… and about twenty more minutes of the Misty Mountain song!