Thursday, 20 December 2012

The Hobbit: an Unexpected Journey

The Book

As the film version of the Hobbit has been stretched to the limit of three movies, I will stick to the book's first half (I have only read up to where the film ends). This makes it slightly difficult, but a very good friend of mine has told me what I need to know..
The story was written by Tolkien for his children and I have read it out aloud to my ten year old daughter and have also used passages in recent workshops I organised at the library. It is so well written for this purpose, with asides to the reader and great fun passages to use different voices (The children and I especially enjoyed the adventure with the trolls and guessing the riddles posed by Gollum and Bilbo).
Other stand out passages for me were the fight between the rock giants and the Goblins sneaking the ponies out of the cave. Having seen the film now, I want to re-read this all over again to see where Peter Jackson has taken brief mentions in the text and expanded them to complete scenes.





The Hobbit film website

 


The Film

I was somewhat apprehensive of going to see a 3 hour 10 minute adaptation of just a third of the Hobbit. I imagined it would be stretched out and I would become bored. It was totally immersive, however, and at no point did I feel restless or wish they would get a move on - not even when the dwarfs broke into song! 
Certain areas have been expanded and built upon to add links to the Lord of the Rings. The Rivendale scenes, for example - it was only a short stop on the way in an elvish hut in the book - give us the opportunity to "re-visit" Elrond and Lady Galadriel. In this way its a bit like the Star Wars second trilogy, as we know what is to come. We see Saruman the White before he goes to the dark side, but with all his blind pomposity that leads to his fall, and hints of a darker evil growing. The Necromancer and the scenes with Radagast (Sylvester McCoy doing his usual cross-eyed nutty professor act) are added in and is the Necromancer going to become Sauron? It was also good to see the older Bilbo and Frodo again, with the hints to Bilbo's planned departure and party of Fellowship of the Ring. 
The constant hounding of the dwarfs by the Orcs is not in the book, although they make an appearance later on. I suppose it adds an extra element of pursuit to the journey, but I could have done without them and the wolf creatures they rode on was the poorest rendering of CGI in the film.

The standout episode is when Gollum appears. The CGI for Andy Serkis' creature has greatly enhanced and the riddles felt like a classic scene in the making. His wide blue eyes and his split personality make him a creature you love with a revulsion and pity. Much is made of fate and the start of something big with this journey, but when Bilbo is tempted to kill him, you realise how important it is that Gollum lives - he is the key to all that happens in the future. 

I did miss the more fun elements from the book, like the ventriloquism of Gandalf in tricking the trolls until dawn turns them to stone, but there was still a sense of humour and fun in the script but just a tad darker - the Goblin King is dispatched with a slice to his guts after a defiant speech about his invincibility (No - that'll do it). 

It will be interesting to see what further additions and expansions take place in the next instalment, but I am already feeling sad that once these films are over, there will be no more Middle-Earth adventures. 




 
  

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