The Hobbit: An
Unexpected Journey begins with four people looking through memories of a
glorious past, dreaming of the day when those glories will come again. Bilbo Baggins is an old hobbit. He turns 111 years old this very day, in
fact. It has been 60 years since
he went on a great adventure, and his hole is filled with reminders of this:
golden treasures lie about, an old map is on a table, and a strange sword sits
in a chest. Bilbo finds a drawing
of his younger self and gasps in astonishment at just how young that hobbit
looks (though how will this make sense with the exclamation soon to come that
he hasn’t aged a day?). And those
of us familiar with the events to come know that later this day, Bilbo will try
to reclaim the past and begin a new adventure. But before he does this, he wants to relive his memories one
more time and pass the true version of the events to “my dear Frodo.”
Yet, telling his tale requires memories that belong not to
him, but to the dwarf prince Thorin Oakenshield. Thorin is heir to the kingdom of Erebor, the Lonely Mountain
that was the home of the dwarves until they were driven out by the dragon
Smaug. For many years, Thorin has
wandered in exile, but now the time has come for him to not just reclaim the
homeland of his people but also to reclaim their glorious past.
The decision to begin the story with 111-year-old Bilbo
looking back on his memories was absolutely correct (even though the scene ultimately
goes on a bit long with Bilbo and Frodo discussing the problems with the
Sackville-Bagginses) because it sets up the thematic nature of the tale. This is a story about characters that
are living after the glory days.
Old Bilbo sets this up because he has been living “peacefully” in the
Shire for 60 years after his adventures, wanting to go on another adventure,
wanting to see mountains again, “mountains, Gandalf!”
And while this is not the Bilbo we see once the real story
begins, the Thorin that we see for the entire story has been living with the
glory days of his people in the past.
The Dwarves wander in exile.
There is organization among them, enough for them to have a council that
Thorin has just returned from when he arrives at the Unexpected Party, but none
of them are willing to confront Smaug and reclaim their lost kingdom. None, that is, save for 12 dwarves. The heart of the picture comes during
the party in Bag End, after the dwarves have had their fun at Bilbo’s expense
and Gandalf and Thorin have explained the quest. Balin, Thorin’s oldest friend, tells the prince that it
might be best if they did not undertake this journey. “What are we?” he asks. “Miners, tinkers, toy makers.” And the few warriors they have with them are “old warriors.” One of the gifts of the decision to
expand the story into three films is the time spent with the dwarves in Bag End. When Ori stands up and exclaims that he
is not afraid of the dragon before his brother Dori brings him back down to his
seat, we can sense the uncertainty in his voice, and we know that these dwarves
might not be ready for this journey.
But they were the only ones who answered Thorin’s call. Balin knows that the dwarves have been
brought low, and he wonders if it might not be better to stay that way. He tells Thorin that they have a good,
peaceful life now that is “worth more than all the gold in Erebor.” But Thorin knows that this is his last
chance reclaim his heritage.
The emphasis on the past is very fitting because the third
person who begins The Hobbit by
looking into the past is J.R.R. Tolkien.
You could say that The Shadow of the Past plays a large role in all of
Tolkien’s work. Much has been
written about Tolkien’s fondness for the English countryside before it was eaten
away by industrialization, but even without knowing about the author’s life, it
is clear that the past is very important in his stories. The
Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings
take place in a world that has already seen its glory days. The events that Tolkien describes in The Silmarillion are so epic that they
dwarf (pun intended) the most spectacular events of The Hobbit and LOTR: the
Battles of Five Armies and Pelennor Fields pale in comparison to the Battles of
Sudden Flame and Unnumbered Tears; Smaug and Shelob would be no match for
Glaurung and Ungoliant; even Sauron is never as powerful his old master
Morgoth. Yet all of this makes the
tales of the Third Age all the more powerful. It gives the stories an incredible sense of history. The Balrog in Moria and Shelob in
Cirith Ungol are not just monsters; they are the remnants of a lost world. As much as I love The Silmarillion and The
Children of Hurin, I’m more interested in the stories that take place when
the glory days are only a memory.
The elegiac feeling of The Lord of
the Rings is part of what makes it so powerful.
The Hobbit is not
as elegiac as The Lord of the Rings,
perhaps because Thorin would rather fight to reclaim Erebor than write an elegy
for it, while the Elves write elegies for the lost land of Beleriand. Yet the past is always present in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. While on the road, Gandalf comes across
a ruined building and observes to himself, “A farmer and his family used to
live here.” After a group of
trolls turn to stone, Gandalf again looks into the past, saying that trolls had
not been seen so far from Misty Mountains in a long time: “not since a darker
power ruled these lands.” And that
brings us to the major subplot of the picture: the return of Sauron. The adaptation adds a scene only
described in the Appendices of The Return
of the King depicting a meeting of the White Council: Gandalf, Galadriel,
Elrond and Saruman. Tolkien does
not specifically describe this meeting beyond saying that Gandalf believes an
evil power has come to Dol Guldur and that Saruman will not agree to an
attack. The meeting is also a
little different in the text: Tolkien has the meeting occurring 90 years before
it occurs in the film and specifies that Gandalf has already discovered that it
is actually Sauron in Dol Guldur while in the film he never actually says
this. However, even with the
changes, this scene in the movie does justice to Tolkien because its presence
emphasizes how important the past is to this story. Does the past remain in the past as “no more than a
memory?” Or (to quote another
great 20th Century writer) is it “not even past?”
Actually, there is an interesting parallel (one that I’m
sure Professor Tolkien would reject, but no matter) between Sauron and Thorin:
two figures who were driven from power and seek to reclaim what they once
had. And that creates a parallel
between Smaug and the White Council: both have grown too comfortable in their
power, not foreseeing that an ancient enemy will return for revenge. There is a danger in ignoring the past,
yet I think Tolkien also sees a danger in trying to reclaim it. After all, Thorin, Bilbo and Sauron are
all unsuccessful in their attempts to reclaim the past. I suspect that Tolkien would not quite
agree with Faulker that “the past is not dead; it is not even past” or with
Fitzgerald that we are “borne back ceaselessly into the past.” While Tolkien constantly looked to the
past, would have us be mindful of the past, and probably believed the past to
be better than the present, The Lord of
the Rings, with its elegy for the Eldar Days and its greeting of the new
Age of Men suggests that Tolkien believed that the past is the past and will
probably stay that way.
And this creates interesting implications for the fourth
person reliving the glorious past at the beginning of The Hobbit: director Peter Jackson. It would not be a stretch to claim that The Lord of the Rings trilogy was probably the peak of Jackson’s
career. Not only was it a
milestone in the history of cinema, but it also lifted him to a level of
success and acclaim beyond anything he had reached previously, even the
Oscar-nominated Heavenly Creatures. And he has not been able to repeat the
same success or acclaim since, though his remake of King Kong has moments of real beauty and majesty and I haven’t seen
The Lovely Bones so I cannot pass
judgment on it. It would be
tempting to characterize Jackson’s motives in making The Hobbit as greedy, particularly as there are so many references
to gold in this picture. But I
just don’t think this is really the case (also, speculation about the
filmmaker’s motives doesn’t really belong in film criticism, though I know I’m
kind of doing that anyway). The
impression that I’ve gotten from Jackson’s production videos is that he is
genuinely excited to be making another trilogy in Middle-Earth. To indulge in some inappropriate
speculation about filmmaker motives, I would say that I think Jackson wants to
repeat the experience of The Lord of the
Rings which means the experience of making the movies, spending years with
Tolkien’s mythology and then giving it to the fans for several years.
So, the question on everybody’s mind (and the question that
it took me nearly two thousand words to finally start answering) is this: is
Peter Jackson succeeding in his quest to reclaim the past? Of course, it is impossible to fully
answer that question until the quest is complete, but at this point, my answer
is yes. Well, it’s not as good as The Fellowship of the Ring, but I put
that picture on my list of the Ten Greatest Films of All Time, not to mention
that it’s probably my favorite movie ever made. I can hardly penalize An
Unexpected Journey for not equaling that. Part of the reason it falls short is because I don’t think the
source material equals LOTR
either. And while The Hobbit will ultimately end up with
some big emotion, the emotions in Unexpected
Journey don’t reach the level of the powerhouse sequences in Fellowship, particularly the Bridge of
Khazad-dum and the climax at Amon Hen.
And there are some missteps. The prologue with Frodo and Old Bilbo goes on a bit too
long. A little bit of it is good,
but at a certain point we want to get into the story (though I like the
transition from Old Bilbo to Young Bilbo). Despite what you may have heard, the pacing of this movie is
not too leisurely, but actually a little too frenetic at times. One section involves, in quick
succession: a battle with trolls, a false alarm with Radagast, a flashback to
Radagast’s investigation of Dol Guldur and a subsequent chase through Mirkwood,
a quick fight with wargs, then a lengthy chase scene with the wargs. I think the quick rhythm of these
scenes prevents each of them from really being involving on their own
terms. Finally, while I’m sure the
scenes involving Dol Guldur and the return of Sauron will pay off in films two
and/or three, the lack of payoff in this film is a little frustrating.
But even with those missteps, what a glorious film this
is. Martin Freeman is terrific as Bilbo,
and Ian McKellen is great as Gandalf, not unexpectedly. Their first meeting is wonderful. The dwarves are all great, too. And what a fantastic, wonderful idea to
slow down the film and take time to set up the characters and the tone for the
story (something I find lacking in a lot of modern cinema). The whole Bag End sequence
is a masterstroke: the arrivals and introductions of the dwarves, the first
dwarf song, the scene of Gandalf explaining to Bilbo why he should go on the
quest, the conversation between Thorin and Balin (both of whom are shaping up
to be great characters), and the chilling second dwarf song. The big action sequences do not
disappoint either; the standouts are the battle with the three trolls, the
stone giants in the mountains, and the dwarves’ escape through Goblin Town
(there is an interesting parallel between the dwarves and the goblins: they
both have vast, subterranean dwellings that look very similar). But I think the scenes that meant the
most to me where some of the dialogue scenes: the sequence in Bag End, a
conversation between Bilbo and Bofur, and of course, the riddles in the dark
between Bilbo and Gollum followed by what may be the most important moment of
the entire saga. I even liked the
3D! I haven’t seen it in 48 frames
per second so I can’t comment on that yet. But I liked how the 3D gave a sense of depth to the visuals,
particularly the scenes in Bag End.
By the end of my first viewing (I’ve seen it twice now), I was rather
exhausted by the picture’s frenetic pace (which, even though I thought it was
too frenetic in the first half, works rather well in the second half), but I
was thoroughly exhilarated and eager to see the story continue.
Is The Hobbit
equal to The Lord of the Rings so far? No, but then Rivendell is not equal to
Gondolin. It cannot quite equal
the glories that have come before.
But you know what?
Rivendell is pretty great, too.
From now until 2014, the experience of The Lord of the Rings is not just a memory. So far, Peter Jackson has been
successful in reclaiming the past.
