(High) Hobbit Hopes

I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to say that I’ve watched both trailers for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey about 50 times each.  I’ve watched all of the production videos multiple times.  I’ve spent hours looking at shot-by-shot analyses of the footage on the Internet.  Not to mention that I’ve read The Lord of the Rings seven times, that I once watched all three extended editions of the movies in one day, and that I listed The Fellowship of the Ring as one of the 10 greatest films of all time.  To say that I’m excited for The Hobbit would be an understatement.  A much more accurate statement would be something like “I’m an obsessive nerd who should probably get a life” but why would I want to do that?

But since I am not just a Tolkien nerd, but a film nerd in general, it seems strange that not once on this blog have I commented on the various issues surrounding The Hobbit that have other film nerds anxious: 3D, 48 fps, two-no wait-THREE movies out of one children’s book!  It seems that everyone with access to a computer has made some comment about all of this, but there’s been silence from Esoteric?!  Well, it’s time to rectify that.

I don’t really want to focus on the 3D/48 fps issue.  I’m not a fan of 3D.  Nothing that I’ve seen of 3D has really impressed me.  I loved Hugo and Prometheus, but when I think about them, I don’t remember the 3D.  Movies that I’ve seen in post-converted 3D like Captain America, The Avengers and Finding Nemo haven’t convinced me that they really needed it.  Then again, I saw Avatar in 2D instead of 3D, so maybe I’m not really qualified to place judgment on 3D in general.  All I can say is that I don’t like the 3D that I’ve seen.

But I’m still willing to give it a chance.  One of Peter Jackson’s production videos demonstrated the system that he is using to shoot The Hobbit in 3D, and I must say that I found it fascinating.  I’m completely open to the possibility that these movies will (post-) convert me to the 3D side.  My plan right now is to see An Unexpected Journey in 2D first, and then see it a second time in 3D on a huge screen, sitting fairly close to the front with a bucket of really salty and buttery popcorn and see if I can really enjoy the experience.  And I would like to give 48 fps a shot, too.  I’d probably prefer to see it in 24 fps for the first time, but I would like to see how this looks.

Neither 3D nor 48 fps really concerns me.  My main focus in this post is with the fact that Jackson and his team are turning a fairly short children’s book (shorter than any one of the LOTR books) into a trilogy of (presumably) 3 hour films.  This decision has caused a great deal of controversy.  I would guess that hundreds of essays and think pieces have been written about it.  I have found very few of these satisfying (here is one exception from Kristin Thompson).

Part of my frustration is with the general characterization that I have seen of the book.  The idea seems to be that this rather short book (not more than 300 pages) could not possibly generate enough material for three movies without feeling bloated and stretched out.  The phrase “butter scraped over too much bread” comes to mind.  I must confess that I had the same thoughts back when Jackson and Guillermo del Toro (remember those days?) were discussing the possibility of two movies.  But here’s the thing: it had been many years since I had actually read the book.  And I think that many of the people criticizing the trilogy decision have also not read the book in a long time or perhaps not read it at all.  I generally don’t have much patience with people who say: “You don’t get it because you haven’t read the book.”  But, well, that’s just the truth in this case.  Because when I went back to reread The Hobbit this summer, I realized how this whole trilogy thing might work.

Jackson has talked about how they have added material to The Hobbit from Tolkien’s Appendices at the end of The Return of the King.  For those unfamiliar with the Appendices, it is essentially a collection of background information about Middle-Earth that Tolkien could not fit into The Lord of the Rings.  It contains histories of men and dwarves (including the Tale of Aragorn and Arwen, some of which appeared in the film of The Two Towers), a timeline of events from Second, Third and Fourth Ages (even covering events that occur after the series ends), information about languages and lots of other things that nerds like me love to obsess over.

Some of this material will add to what is already laid out in The Hobbit, namely the history and culture of the dwarves.  This is something that Jackson did not have much time for in The Lord of the Rings, but will be very important for The Hobbit because of the importance of the dwarves in this story.  This is one of the things that I am most looking forward to in this new trilogy.  The dwarves in The Hobbit are comical, sometimes silly characters, but when battle comes, they are fierce warriors.  Some of this already came across in LOTR, but the story of Thorin Oakenshield adds a new dimension.  Reading The Hobbit on its own, his story is just a treasure hunt, but after reading the material in the Appendices, it becomes a very compelling story of exile and recapturing a lost home.  This will be an incredible way to give the story more weight.

Some of the Appendices material will also go to supplement a plotline that is only hinted at in the book of The Hobbit, but is sure to be emphasized in the films (this may be a spoiler, but it has already been strongly alluded to in the trailers).  In the book, Gandalf joins Bilbo and the dwarves on the journey, but he often disappears for long stretches of time without explanation.  At the end of the book, it is revealed that Gandalf was involved in combating a villain known as the Necromancer who is occasionally mentioned but seemingly irrelevant to the main plot.  But in The Lord of the Rings books, it is revealed that the Necromancer was actually Sauron, the main villain of LOTR, who was gathering his strength in Mirkwood before Gandalf and the White Council drove him out.

Now, think about this for a moment.  Picture The Hobbit with Gandalf just disappearing from the action with no explanation until the very end when he reveals that he was dealing with the big villain from LOTR.  Would you really find that satisfying?  Or would you feel kind of cheated?  Perhaps if Jackson had made The Hobbit before The Lord of the Rings, it might have worked.  But now, they have to address the Necromancer.  Adding this plotline certainly expands the material, possibly enough for two movies.

But three movies? (Possible spoiler territory continuing) While rereading The Hobbit, I noticed a structural reason for this decision.  Namely, the story has two climaxes.  The first climax occurs about two-thirds of the way through the book, and the second occurs close to the end like a standard climax.  This might have worked with two movies if both climaxes occurred in the same movie (distributing the climaxes between the two would have resulted in an overstuffed first film and a comparatively stretched out second film).  But given how frustrated many people were with the “drawn-out” ending(s) of The Return of the King, it’s not hard to imagine audiences growing restless after the first climax.

I’m going to start being more specific now and less maddeningly vague (serious spoilers now, get out if you haven’t read the book, though please come back a little further down the page).

OK, so it’s just people who’ve read The Hobbit now, right?  Remember how Smaug dies well before the ending of the book?  Can’t you imagine people being frustrated and confused during the lead up to the Battle of Five Armies.  I mean, it could have worked, but I think that this might give enough of a rationale to have everything after Smaug’s death be it’s own movie.

And, I think that this could also be an interesting opportunity.  Tolkien sometimes tends to describe momentous events very briefly, while spending pages describing minute details of his world (but this is why we love him).  Sometimes, this also involves spending very little time with important characters.  So, in The Hobbit, Bard is introduced just before he kills Smaug.  Dain only speaks one sentence in the entire book.  The events leading up to the Battle of Five Armies are described very broadly without a lot of specifics.  Now, imagine what all of this might be like if all of these characters and events were given their own movie.

Not only would this mean more character development and more detail, but it also provides an opportunity to deal with some interesting moral questions that don’t often appear in this series.  The buildup to the Battle of Five Armies pushes Elves and Men to the brink of war with the Dwarves.  The enmity between Elves and Dwarves is something that LOTR alludes to, but in The Hobbit, we actually see them prepared to kill each other.  And Bilbo’s story during all of this is fascinating.  He has developed a close bond with the dwarves, but after seeing Thorin beginning to slip into madness, Bilbo is forced to betray his companions.  Imagine what this third movie could be, especially with strong characterization for Bilbo, Thorin, Bard, Dain and Thranduil, something for which more room in the two previous movies could allow.  The Hobbit: There and Back Again could really be something that we haven’t seen before.

Now, there is another opportunity that a trilogy presents, but here’s where I think my hopes may be a bit too high.  The Appendices detail a horrific war between the dwarves and the goblins, something that Tolkien alludes to in The Hobbit but doesn’t describe in detail.  With more room to tell the story, Jackson could develop the culture and characters of the goblins.  This is an area where Tolkien’s stories have been lacking: they have great monsters, but they don’t really have great villains.  If Jackson is able to turn the goblins into really great villains (in addition to Smaug, of course), it could make this trilogy really great.

But there is a reason why I think this hope may be a bit to a high, and it leads into my main concern with the third film.  If they have all of the stuff with the White Council and Dol Guldur, that means they must have Sauron in the film.  This creates all sorts of problems.  One is the issue of upstaging The Lord of the Rings.  Sauron can’t take physical form in The Lord of the Rings, so if he actually appears in The Hobbit, it will undermine what is to come.  He will just be less menacing in LOTR.  There is also the issue that was already there in the material, which is that the Ring passes dangerously close to Sauron during the events of The Hobbit.  And this could lead to the biggest issue of them all: I am afraid that Sauron will show up at the Battle of Five Armies.  There were rumors of this when Benedict Cumberbatch alluded to that possibility during an interview.  And it sort of makes sense.  At the same time that he is driven out of Dol Guldur, there is a battle involving the goblins not too far away, a battle right where the Ring is.  It would make sense that Sauron would be involved with this battle.  What I don’t like about this idea is that it robs the goblins of their agency.  In The Hobbit, Bolg leads the goblins into battle because he wants revenge for the death of his father at the hands (um, axe) of Dain.  It would be much less interesting if Sauron just orders him there. 

But there’s a bigger problem.  If Sauron enters this battle, that means that he must be defeated.  And that.  Can’t.  Happen!  If Sauron is defeated in The Hobbit, it will completely undermine the threat in LOTR.  Maybe my fears are irrational, but I can almost see a big special effects fight between Sauron and Gandalf, which will completely change everything about who these two characters are, not to mention the Balrog (nobody ever thinks about the Balrog).  Gandalf the Grey cannot be someone who has faced Sauron and defeated him.  If he is, why would he possibly be afraid of anything in LOTR?  It would be a walk in the park for him. 

But there’s another reason why I’m afraid of Sauron at the Battle of Five Armies (well, isn’t everybody afraid of Sauron?).  It makes sense from a story perspective to have Sauron there because that’s where the Ring is.  It creates conflict that leads into LOTR and draws Bilbo into the climax, whereas in the book he is largely absent.  The problem is that this is absolutely WRONG!  Sauron cannot know who has the Ring, and he especially cannot know that Bilbo has it.  Sauron cannot have even heard of hobbits until Gollum tells him.  That’s the whole point of this story.  Sauron thinks that these little people are not at all important, therefore HE DIES!  It is completely undermined if he finds out before LOTR that a hobbit has the Ring.  Again, maybe this is irrational.  Jackson (and Fran Walsh and Phillippa Boyens) had originally planned for Aragorn to fight Sauron at the Black Gate, but they came to their senses and changed that.  Maybe they will be sensible here, too.  In the book, Sauron has pretty much left Dol Guldur by the time the White Council gets there, so maybe there won’t be a direct battle with Sauron. 

But just in case: Hugo Weaving said that they haven’t shot the battle yet, so Peter (or Pete or Mr. Jackson, whatever you prefer), if you’re reading this and you’re still thinking about having Sauron at the Battle of Five Armies, please don’t.  I’m not saying this to be a smartass fanboy.  I’m saying this because The Lord of the Rings is my favorite movie (the whole thing, though if I had to chose, I would pick Fellowship), and I want The Hobbit movies to be great.  I want them to be the best movies that I have ever seen.  And I know that you have to make changes with an adaptation, but I really think that this particular change will be very bad not just for The Hobbit, but for The Lord of the Rings, too.  So please, don’t ruin my favorite movie.

OK, so if we still have people hiding from spoilers, you can come back now.  You missed quite a rant, but if you go read The Hobbit, you can come back and read this.  Or you can wait three years, see the entire trilogy, and then come back here to see if Peter Jackson proved me wrong.

As you can see, I have some worries about The Hobbit, too, so I can sympathize with others who are worried about the decision to make this a trilogy.  I think that there is a general fear from many people who do like The Lord of the Rings (if they didn’t, why would they care?) that we are about to see the equivalent of another Star Wars prequel trilogy.  And a lot of people have not found Jackson’s post-LOTR work to be very encouraging.  I have not seen The Lovely Bones, so I cannot comment on that.  But the trilogy decision does seem an awful lot like Jackson’s decision to make King Kong three hours long.

But again, I think I have to diverge with what may be the general opinion.  King Kong has problems, but I don’t think the running time is really a big one.  In fact, the problem with King Kong is not that it’s stretched out, but that it’s overstuffed with more characters than it knows how to handle and too many ideas that it wants to explore.  And in an era when so many movies rush to chases and explosions, why is it a lamentable decision to take an hour at the start of a movie to establish characters and a tone before all hell breaks loose?  I’ve written before about how frustrated I am with movies, especially fantasy movies that don’t want to take any time to establish tone, atmosphere and character and instead rush to the action and special effects.  The Lord of the Rings trilogy is among the few examples of movies that really know how to manage tone, and the purpose of the three-hour running time in King Kong is make sure the movie establishes its characters and its tone before the adventure starts.

And that’s what I’m really hoping for from The Hobbit.  I think what I may be looking forward to most from the first film is everything that happens before the adventure begins.  With more time to tell the story, the Unexpected Party (like the Long-Expected Party in Fellowship) could be like the wedding scene in The Godfather: a long sequence that gives enough time to establish most of the characters that we need to know for this story.  Just thinking about all of the things that Jackson needs to cover here is making me excited: the introduction of all the dwarves, the comedy of the dwarves’ bad manners and general raucousness, the moment (already in the first trailer) when the tone shifts (mirroring how the tone will have to shift between light and dark throughout the trilogy) and the dwarves start singing “Far Over the Misty Mountains Cold”, explaining the quest and the history of Erebor, and then the moment when Bilbo decides to go on the adventure.  After all, that’s the big difference between The Hobbit and LOTR.  Frodo doesn’t really have a choice in the matter, but Bilbo does.  He could very well decide to just stay at home and let the dwarves find someone else.  But for some reason (it’s the Tookish side of him) he decides to leave his comfortable life and go on an adventure (we can already see a little bit of this in the most recent trailer).  This is the moment that Jackson really has to nail, and I think he can do it.

But I suppose many might not be quite won over.  Describing how more time could be used to expand the opening (and probably my mention of The Godfather) might confirm to some that The Hobbit movies will be bloated.  Memories of the hour-long curtain raiser of King Kong might be coming to mind.  Maybe these imaginary objectors will be right.  Maybe this will be another King Kong: an ambitious but ultimately flawed movie that doesn’t really hold together.  Yes, King Kong is “flawed” and doesn’t quite work.  But it has moments of real beauty, and at least it’s clearly made not out of some crass commercial calculation, but out of genuine love for and belief in its material and a desire to create something truly wonderful.  That’s also the spirit of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and even though this new trilogy might not match LOTR in quality, if The Hobbit has this spirit, too, then I’ll be happy.