There and back again

Given that it's been out for a month now I'm hoping that posting about the Hobbit3 won't spoil it for anyone reading, but just in case...

****SPOILER ALERT***

So Peter Jackson has wrapped up another trilogy, and first of all I must say he's done an incredible job. Taking such iconic work, especially to fantasy geeks such as I, and giving it a reality is an amazing thing. 

Now I can't say the Hobbit films had the same impact on me as the LOTR trilogy, although visually they were superior. I think that's for a few reasons. Firstly, LOTR remains a work of greater scope, and wider variety of characters (Hobbit has really Bilbo, and less so Gandalf and Thorin- although the films have tried to compensate this as I'll mention below). As a kid, The Hobbit was always the support act you're glad you managed to catch before the main act got on stage.

Second, I think the adaptations that went into making the Hobbit a film were significant with regards the original book. This isn't a surprise- they took a children's book and made it mature, and with the motivation to construct a prequel to the LOTR. But the padding seemed skewed through the films.

When I think of the book and the seminal scenes I think of: The Trolls, the Goblins, then Golem, then Spiders, less so the Elves, then Smaug. Maybe because I'd always peter off reading towards the end (think I've read it four times) I can kind of remember Smaug getting shot, but not much about the Five Armies. In fact when my son asked me what they all were, I struggled (got four by reasoning not memory). So to me, the key events are mainly in film 1, less in film 2, and hardly in film 3. Rather in this movie we have The Battle, with the fluff building up to it, and the bits in Mirkwood setting Sauron's transient defeat and the Nine popping back (which was previously an entry in the Appendix timeline in LOTR, I think).

So given that Hobbit 3 is perhaps 25% Tolkien, 75% Jackson, did it work? As a conclusion to the trilogy- yes, just about. The Thorin-Bilbo storyline felt a touch strained in this film- the obsession with the Arkenstone, and the greed for gold, rather forced. The use of Legolas, whilst fun, was pretty throwaway- especially given that he aids and ultimately respects the dwarves, then in Fellowship has a good old rant at Gimli. The romance between Tauriel and Kili, whilst rather unlikely, oddly worked for me. I liked the idea of developing the dwarves personas- Bofur, Bwalin and Dwalin were all nicely done- especially Ken Stott's Balin. And Bard, with his family, resonated with me too.

In retrospect there wasn't enough time spent on seeing through those characterisations in my mind. The action scenes were awesome ( if vertigo inducing) but the writer in me would've liked those aforementioned characters to get more time. I suppose ultimately all of those characters are just bonuses and it was a film about Bilbo and his journey.

And I think that journey was done well- Martin Lawrence is excellent at conveying that bewilderment, the bravery that surprises even himself, the 'Everyman' in incredible circumstance. And his return to the Shire, and the linking with LOTR was nicely done.

I sometimes reflect on the conclusions to LOTR when Frodo returns to the Shire, but as a consequence of all he has seen and experienced he can never settle. Ultimately there is no place for him in the Shire and hence he sails West. The sequence is analogous to those returning from war, from a high-octane theatre of threat and death, to a world that has continued oblivious to their experience. You wonder as Tolkien wrote it, and Jackson filmed it, whether that was in mind? (I know JRRT hated allegory, unlike CS Lewis, so probably not). And Bilbo becomes tired as his unnaturally slowed aging dissipates in LOTR, and the years (and perhaps the memory of his quest) catch up.

For me there'll never be a set of films as iconic as the two trilogies (I like Star Wars, and Trek, but not approaching that league ). I always loved the Backshi version from early 80s, yet these six films have put fantasy onto a new level and I'm not certain that will ever be topped for me. 

There and back again, and again, and...

First of all, an apology. It’s been over two months since my last confession, sorry, blog post. You know how it is—xmas, work (the one that pays the bills), some writing/editing/proof reading. And I’ve been a little unfaithful to this blog, seeing another blog or two on the side....

Anyhow, happy new year. And to kick off this year’s posts where better to start than The Hobbit. I saw it with the kids in the Xmas holidays at our brand new cinema in Halifax, in glorious 2D (as watching films in 3D when you already wear glasses is little better than watching a dodgy bit-torrent version with Arabic subtitles and little silhouettes walking across the bottom of the screen). Now I should declare that there was no way I was not going to like this film. Seriously it could have been just a 180 minute still of Bilbo with Sting and Gollum and a caption saying ‘Eggsies’ and I would have soiled my seat. I’d been awaiting this film since before LOTR, since I was 11 and read the book for the first time (not least because LOTR pre-Jackson had a great film version already in the shape of Ralph Bakshi’s cartoon).

Yet just before I went to see it, the powers of the Necromancer (Sauron for kiddies) had already worked their wicked way on the public. Little mutters of desecration, alteration, new material, ‘untrue to the book’ expanded into ‘milking the fantasy cash cow’ (and what a gargantuan cow it could be in a fantasy world... a 15HD AC2 monstrosity with udders that imitated a Beholder’s twiddly eye stalks). So I was a tiny bit nervous when I watched it—I felt almost protective of the film, like they were insulting my mother in some strange Scorsese type-way (‘Waddya say about my mudder? Huh? Huh?’). After all, Peter Jackson is the Creator in my eyes—he who has brought forth majestic films for all to see (and I include ‘Bad Taste’, ‘Meet the Feebles’ , ‘Heavenly Creatures’ and ‘Brain Dead’ in that statement too).

And I was content. Because he didn’t screw it up. And I know there’ll be dissenters who were probably the same ones who lamented the loss of Tom Bombadil, the barrow wights, and were irritated by that whole Osgiliath diversion in Two Towers, but I loved all the modifications. Well, I could have skipped Sylvester McCoy as Radagast with his Bunnies of Protection +2, but the rest was perfectly pitched. I thought back to the book, which is after all a kids’ book, and wondered how it could have been done differently. Part of the problem is that there are some great scenes in the book that would be a bit naff if directly translated to film—the Trolls, the scene with Golem, even the Spiders. They would be rather twee if left as they were, and I considered Jackson did a good job of making the first two feel far more dramatic and not so silly. The sub-plot with Thorin and Bilbo was perfect—the characters had to make a journey within a journey or the film has no drive: after all, what is a story if nothing evolves, nothing changes?

The extra material with the White Orc gave a great finale, which came just right after the escape from the Goblin caves. The alternate would have been bringing the goblins out onto the mountains, which wouldn’t have seemed as dramatic to me—less personal for Thorin, less opportunity for Bilbo’s bravery.

Similarly the meeting in Rivendell was well done, if a tiny bit slow. The Hobbit is a prequel to LOTR whichever way you look at it. The dialogue was engaging enough, and I also liked the more sympathetic treatment of Saruman before he becomes swayed by Sauron and the Palantir. You do kind of want to slap them and shout, “Duh! How can you not know who’d hiding in Mirkwood?”

So like many I’m eager for the next film, not least to try and predict where they’ll cut it. Will it culminate in Smaug’s death, or will they put that in film 3? Will they focus on the battle of the Five Armies in film 3 or what? Or more linking material?

And it’s that extra material that is really irking folk, as it did to a lesser extent with LOTR. But why? What is so sacred about Tolkien and his work beyond the devotion of fantasy fans? I adore the books, but I’m happy to see the alterations in the same way I was happy with the ‘modernisation’ of the CS Lewis books for film. They’re good films, after all. I see adaptations that are dire, especially of comics—the League of Extraordinary Gentleman is shocking, despite the brilliance of the comic; Wanted is an OK film, but bears a minuscule resemblance to the comic version. There’s a school of thought that considers all art to be adaptable, changeable. When we see the twentieth interpretation of Great Expectations, or Pride and Prejudice, we don’t kick back over the alterations, the omissions, when the key plot points and most memorable dialogue remain. And that’s all that has happened with The Hobbit at the moment—the plot is still the same, the idea of Bilbo Baggins making a journey both physically and meta-physically, with the great quotes and the great songs, a bunch of dwarves (undoubtedly cooler than any Elf softies) and a dude in a grey hat.

For me the thrill of seeing such works on film is second to none, and the same applies to the adaptation of comics such as Thor, Spiderman, Iron Man, X-men and Avengers. I adored the originals, but they could not be replicated panel by panel on the big screen. And the kids these days don’t know how lucky they are to be seeing such awesome stuff at the cinema!




So happy new year, and I promise it won’t be as long until I post again. And I’ll kill the time to Hobbit 2 by playing the fab Lego Lord of the Rings, which has Radagast and Tom Bombadil in it!!!