How to Train-wreck Your Dragon

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is the first of three (yes, three) movie adaptations of Tolkien's shortest and simplest book. And While this obvious market exploitation is not enough to keep those with vacation homes in Middle Earth away from the theater, it is the reason these same fans feel some vague disappointment despite (or perhaps because of) their love of the source material.  If you're anyone but Peter Jackson, your film needs to truly be great to justify a nearly three hour run time. It needs to bursting at the seams with story, design, characterization, theme and everything else. Unfortunately, to quote Bilbo in The Fellowship of the Ring, this movie feels "thin - sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread."

Rarely am I bothered when a movie adaptation deviates from its literary source. Books are different from movies. As such, filmmakers ought to make changes in order to best tell the story in the language of cinema. While many of the liberties taken in the Lord of the Rings trilogy annoyed fans, these changes honored the spirit of the novel. When the Hobbits return to the Shire in The Return of the King so much is said without saying anything at all. They look across their pints at each other and their faces tell you that home is not the same. Their adventure has changed them. This is done in lieu of about a hundred pages that Tolkien wrote in a chapter titled 'The Scouring of the Shire' which ultimately conveys the same theme. The merit of an adaptation rests in those decisions, and more importantly, why they were made. 

The main issue with the The Hobbit is that Jackson and Co are not interested in adapting a novel. Instead they attempt, rather unsuccessfully, to make a prequel to a much better movie. As such, instead of a loosely adapted depiction we have something rather akin to the The Phantom Menace of the Tolkienverse; a movie that is both overlong and terribly unsatisfying because it awkwardly distracts from itself and can't seem to focus on one thing. While there are some cool moments involving what Tolkien mysteriously referred to as 'The Necromancer' in his book, to spend 20 minutes of dialog on the possibility of the return of Sauron is quite boring (Cate Blanchett aside) because we've already seen The Lord of the Rings.  The 'prequel' has already been beautifully told in a stunning prologue at the beginning of Fellowship. So like a college student padding his term paper, this stuff exists to justify our total running time - which will probably come close to nine hours  from Shire to dragon (and back again). The length of a movie should depend on the story, not the other way around. 

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy was a story which required three movies. The Hobbit is three movies that require a story. 

If you must make a 165 minute movie out of 105 pages of a book, there are still opportunities for embellishment that exist right on the page. Fifteen of them to be exact. 14 Dwarves, a Hobbit, AND a wizard.  That's a box of donuts full of characters; characters that might be interesting. For an audience to emotionally engage with what's going on we need to see some emotion from the characters when they encounter excitement and danger. And while we see plenty of action sequences in The Hobbit, our adventurers leap through them with neither fear nor courage. It's more like watching a World of Warcraft raid than seeing dwarves fight goblins and trolls (heh).

In Fellowship, we see the most badass heroes of Middle Earth wet their pants over a few thousand goblins and balrog of Morgoth. We see simple Hobbits slowly pluck up the courage to draw steel and hold the line. When Sam stops in the field at the beginning of his journey and states "If I take one more step, ill be the furthest from home I've ever bean" we feel something. Subtle moments grounded in real emotion make the quest to Mordor all the more epic.

In An Unexpected Journey, our characters only become three dimensional for boring dialog scenes which exist as breaks between empty episodes of commotion. It is difficult to really care about Bilbo Baggins or be apart of his great adventure. 

To be fair, The Hobbit did have its moments. Fans will appreciate the completely unabridged 'Riddles in the Dark' scene; which is so engaging mainly because Gollum is an incredibly designed character that continues to be performed incredibly by Andy Serkis. The obligatory prologue at the beginning of the movie has great moments and is a solid introduction to the story, especially for those less familiar with all this business with gold and dragons. Real Tolkien nerds will also be happy to hear verses from the songs found in the book. "Chip the glasses, crack the plates..." and others are paid their due Respect. As always, Gandalf has a wealth of thoughtful things to say that are worth considering (if not hanging up as needle-points).

"Saruman believes that it is only great power that can hold evil in check. That is not what I've found. I found it is the small things - everyday deeds of ordinary folk, that keeps the darkness at bay" 

Wise words for the world to live by, and a quote that is all too relevant in light of recent events.