The Tolkien despoilment

I discovered J.R.R. Tolkien, like many of my generation, in college. I read the trilogy, The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit and I was transported. I reread the books many times over the years. In fact, for several years, it was my annual ritual to reread The Lord of the Rings, so all those years later, in 2001, I was excitedly anticipating the release of Peter Jackson's filmed version of the first book in the trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring. I wasn't disappointed. I thought it was a wonderful movie and I've rewatched it many times.

I should mention that in the intervening years between college and 2001, I had had two children to whom I had passed on my love of Tolkien and when the first movie came out, we went to see it together. And the same for the next two. We enjoyed them all, though, for my money, The Fellowship of the Ring was still the best of the lot because it was closest to the book.

When it was announced that there was going to be a Hobbit movie, I looked forward to it. Then I heard there would be not one but three movies based on the book, The Hobbit. How would that even be possible, I thought. After all, The Hobbit is a slim volume, essentially a children's adventure book. There's not enough action there to warrant three Peter Jackson-length epics. 

Of course, there is a lot of related Middle Earth information in the appendices of The Return of the King and in The Silmarillion and even other unpublished materials that could be drawn upon. Even so, it seemed to me that it was a daunting assignment to construct three full-length movies from it.

However, one should never underestimate the determination of the Peter Jackson writing team once they get the bit in their teeth and one should never underestimate the greed of movie production companies. There would be three Hobbit movies released in three successive Decembers. I waited with some trepidation to see what would emerge.

Once again, the first film in the series was pretty good, I thought. It stayed close to the text of the book and Martin Freeman made a wonderful Bilbo Baggins. The next one was a bit bombastic and strayed pretty far afield with a romantic interest between a dwarf and an elf invented, but Benedict Cumberbatch as Smaug was a winner. He was born to be a dragon!

Yesterday, on a cold and dreary New Year's Day, my younger daughter and I went to the theater to see the latest offering, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.  It gave a whole amped up meaning to the word bombastic. There wasn't much there that I could recognize from that slim book that I read long, long ago. Oh, the basic elements of the story were there, right enough, but you had to ferret them out under layer upon layer of augmentation. 

I didn't mind the insertion of Legolas into the story - after all, who doesn't love Legolas? But much of the other augmentation bordered on despoilment of the Tolkien tale, in my opinion, and was a bit harder to swallow. I could certainly understand the complaints by Tolkien's son, Christopher, about these interpretations of his father's work.

And so we've come to the end of the J.R.R. Tolkien/Peter Jackson saga. It's been entertaining, to say the least, sometimes magical, sometimes gross and over-the-top. I wonder how it will all stand up over time and what film critics and historians will say about it years from now. Regardless, I suspect fans will still be watching and rewatching for years to come.

The last film, like the others, had its moments, even though I couldn't love it in its totality. Smaug was still wonderful. Has there ever been such a dragon? One could almost - almost - pull for him to win. 

But most of my favorite moments came near the end. The quiet time between Gandalf with his pipe and Bilbo and their parting. The parting of Legolas and his father and the king's speech telling his son that his mother (who died at the hands of orcs) loved him more than anyone and that he should go north and seek a ranger called Strider. Yes, that was a nice moment, even  though it wasn't in the book.   

My favorite moment of all was not in the action of the movie at all but it came while the credits were rolling. Billy Boyd sang a summing up of the six films called "The Last Goodbye." It's a really nice, really appropriate farewell. Not even Christopher Tolkien could object.

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien: A review

Like many of my generation, I first read The Hobbit as a college student many years ago. I confess I had reread it once or twice since, but it has been a very long time - probably at least thirty years - since I had last read it. I decided to reread it again in advance of the new Peter Jackson film which opens here next week. 

When I first read the book, I loved it, even though it was technically a children's book and I was at an age when I was trying very hard to be an adult. It was a good story and had a character I could care about. What was there not to love? I wondered if I would feel the same all these many years later.

I wanted to remind myself of the story in advance of seeing the film. I admit I'm feeling a lot of reservations about this film and Jackson's handling of it. After all, he's stretching out what is essentially a rather short novel with not a lot of action into three movies, which I feel sure will have an abundance of action. 

I know, I know, he's using material from the appendices of The Lord of the Rings trilogy which fleshes out the story and gives it context and a history. Still, The Hobbit is a special story all on its own. I would hate to see it changed and stretched beyond recognition for the sake of creating blockbuster movies. It really is a pretty gentle story about a gentle soul, Bilbo Baggins of the Shire, who wanted nothing more than to sit by his own fireplace and enjoy a pint of ale and a smoke with his friends. He was pushed out of that existence at the behest of a wizard and had many wonderful and terrible adventures before finally finding his way back home again with a secret treasure in his pocket. It's a story where the scariest things happen in the background, never directly to Bilbo. It's a story that would not give a child nightmares. One wonders how it will be altered for dramatic effect on the screen.

But, back to the book.

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit."

It was a very fancy hole, a super-deluxe hole that had long been the abode of the Bagginses. Bilbo lived there alone very comfortably. He had no wife and children. Of course, he had lots of nieces and nephews, one of whom we would get to know very well indeed in The Lord of the Rings. (Correction: I was referring to Frodo, of course, but actually he was Bilbo's cousin, not his nephew. I misremembered.) He had a quiet life, enjoying the company of his friends, and he never had any adventures.

Then one day, the wizard Gandalf shows up at his door and engages him in conversation. When Bilbo goes back inside his hobbit hole, Gandalf marks a secret sign on his door. Later a party of dwarves shows up and invite themselves inside - thirteen in number. Bilbo is alarmed but tries to be a good host. 

Finally, Gandalf returns and the plot begins to thicken. It seems that the thirteen dwarves are going to the Lonely Mountain to try to reclaim it and their lost treasure from a terrible dragon named Smaug. Since thirteen is an unlucky number, Gandalf has drafted Bilbo (unbeknownst to him) to travel with the dwarves and become the fourteenth member of their expedition.

The good-natured Bilbo is appalled. He wants no adventures but he is prevailed upon to accompany them with a promise of a one-fourteenth share of the recovered treasure. And so they set out. At first Gandalf travels with them but he leaves them before they enter the dark forest of Mirkwood.

The most famous scene, of course, is the meeting of Bilbo and Gollum, when Bilbo becomes separated from his companions in a tunnel where he finds a ring and slips it into his pocket. He becomes lost and encounters Gollum whom he asks to show him the way out. Gollum proposes a game of riddles. If he stumps Bilbo, Gollum can eat him. If Bilbo stumps him, Gollum must show him the way out. They go back and forth with riddles until, finally, Bilbo cannot think of another one and in desperation he yells, "What have I got in my pocket?" And the rest, as they say, is history. Well, Middle Earth history anyway.

It didn't take me many pages to find that I am still captivated by this story, not unlike I would be by The Velveteen Rabbit or Alice in Wonderland or any number of another favorite children's classics that I used to read to my children when they were little. Unfortunately, I no longer have any children in my life to read to because my offspring have been significantly negligent about providing me with grandchildren. So, I have to invent whatever excuse I can - an upcoming movie, e.g. - for reading the book for myself.

Incidentally, I may have reservations about the movie, though I'm trying to keep an open mind, but I think Martin Freeman was an inspired choice to play Bilbo. His persona seems perfect for the part. We'll find out for sure next week.