(avg. read time: 19–37 mins.)
Of all the movies, this one was the closest to The Hobbit. It has the humor and greater lightheartedness compared to LOTR. We get a real sense of a Hobbit out of his element as his ordinary life intersects with a history and world deeper and larger than his Shire. However, it only took this movie to show me that I would not be getting the quality adaptation I was hoping for from Peter Jackson and co.
The Opening (a.k.a. Where the Problems Begin)
I liked the framing device at first. The story is told from the perspective of Bilbo writing his book There and Back Again: A Hobbit’s Tale. This scene showed what an organic connection to LOTR looked like and how it contrasted with the rest of the references. However, I am also conflicted about this framing device in retrospect. The story told within this framing device implies that Bilbo sure put a lot of fluff into his story with over-the-top action, a plodding pace, characters inserted for no real purpose, and a third part that is extremely bloated for a description of one battle. These movies do not reflect well on Bilbo as a writer.
Bilbo begins with the story of Erebor and its fall. He narrates that when Thror found the Arkenstone, he took it as proof that his right to rule was divine. This line is peculiar not only for having no book counterpart, but also for being an explicit mention of divinity in a series that is famously subtle in its articulation of theology and religion (though it is much more explicit in The Silmarillion and various volumes of The History of Middle-earth). The Hobbit is especially sparse, even by the standards of Tolkien’s other works on Middle-earth, and most of the relevant texts are in narration. But they dropped those bits of narration and inserted one that does not make sense in the context of Tolkien’s sub-creation. That is not to say that the leaders of Middle-earth, including Dwarf kings, could not be arrogant with an exalted sense of self-importance, but it is nowhere else expressed in this fashion. Furthermore, it never comes up again in the movies, even after Thorin’s return to Erebor, so what was the point of inserting such a note here?
This introductory sequence also sets up the notion of a love of gold so great that it is a sickness and an affliction of Thror. The rest of the movies refer back to this notion, and it is not entirely out of keeping with Tolkien. Greed and over-mining of resources cause some of the Dwarves’ most significant problems over the course of their history, especially for their kings. These qualities also led to the downfall of Khazad-dûm/Moria, the greatest of Dwarven kingdoms, when the quest for unearthing mithril led to unearthing a Balrog. Tolkien himself wrote, “Dragons steal gold and jewels, you know, from men and elves and dwarves, wherever they can find them; and they guard their plunder as long as they live … and never enjoy a brass ring of it.” I will address how the third movie handles this theme, but I will say for now that I was not necessarily against this concept, even if I think it got too much focus in the last movie, and how it was executed in the last movie undermines Gandalf persuading Thorin to retake Erebor.
One of the many things in this movie that was not in The Hobbit or LOTR that I thought was simply an awful substitute for what was there was the backstory of Thranduil and the Elves of the Woodland Realm refusing to help Thorin on the day that Smaug attacked. This backstory accomplishes two purposes: 1) it explains Thorin’s hostility towards Elves that will come up multiple times over the trilogy; 2) it begins the portrait of Thranduil as a douche instead of simply a suspicious king who did not trust strangers in his land because he constantly must deal with enemy incursions into it and a regular enemy presence on its borders. I will have more to say about Thranduil’s character with the second movie, but for now I want to point to other problems with this backstory. First, what exactly were the Elves supposed to do? Sure, the filmmakers made them gratuitously callous by having them turn their backs on the Dwarves fleeing from their burning home, and the Elves could have found some way to render aid to the refugees, but with a dragon torching everything in sight, were they supposed to come rushing in and die by the droves? Second, and more importantly, this backstory is entirely unnecessary for explaining enmity between Thorin (as well as the rest of the Dwarves) and the Elves. While Elves and Dwarves were capable of peaceful and even friendly relations at times, the history of their interactions was generally one of mutual misunderstanding, suspicion, alienation, enmity, and (on occasions) even outright bloodshed. While Tolkien never fully explains this enmity in canon, there are enough indications that by the time of the story being told, it is not relevant to know the specific story/stories in order to understand this enmity, especially since those specific stories may not have any real impact—except reinforcement—for how these races often relate to each other. They often do not like each other simply because they do not understand each other, they do not live together, they have starkly different interests, cultures, and languages, and there is some deep-seated sense of grievance among both races that does not necessarily require much specification and explanation. Enough such relationships between different people groups similar to this one have occurred throughout human history that the audience could understand it well enough without needing to demonize one party in this relationship, as the backstory here does. In terms of explaining the enmity, all that would be necessary would be something along the lines of Gandalf’s line in The Fellowship of the Ring: “If all the grievances that stand between Elves and Dwarves are to be brought up here, we may as well abandon this Council” (II/2). When you try to get too specific, without actually delving into Tolkien’s deep history of his sub-creation, you end up with this silly story instead.
An Unexpected Party
After that bit of narration, we arrive at one of the more famous scenes of the book. This is when Bilbo and Gandalf meet for the first time and when Bilbo wishes Gandalf, “good morning,” Gandalf questions what he means by this ambiguous phrase. It is a scene befitting Tolkien’s passion for language, Gandalf’s analytical, incisive, and alien character, the manner in which Gandalf often disorients others with the riddling quality of his speech, Bilbo’s comparative simplicity, and the humorous character of the book. On this score at least, the movie perfectly captures the atmosphere of the scene with good performances and deliveries by Freeman and McKellen. It gave me hope that the backstory was a misstep and that the rest of the movie would right the adaptation ship.
The next sequence of the Dwarves’ progressive arrival to Bag End (after Gandalf marks his door for the Dwarves to meet at) mostly confirmed my hope. But then Thorin showed up alone with the other Dwarves responding reverently, rather than, as in the book, him showing up with the last group of Dwarves that fall onto the floor as Bilbo opens the door. While the movie version may fit his regal composure, this first appearance (or first in the book, rather) originally signified the contrast between his present humble circumstance as a wanderer among other Dwarf exiles and his sense of self-importance as the rightful King under the Mountain, which the rest of the quest to Erebor would portray as well. This scene exemplifies some of the exaggeration I mentioned in the previous part, and it misses some of the dramatic contrast of the book. Though I regard the portrayal and performance of Thorin as overall accurate to the book, scenes like this one make me qualify that judgment.
Meanwhile, this movie is the only one that makes a slight effort at replicating songs from The Hobbit, the likes of which aided the book’s silly elements and aim at children. Most notably, the Dwarves have a cartoonish sequence during dinner and clean-up that accurately portrays the Dwarves’ playfulness in Bilbo’s house, even if (like in the movie) they did actually clean up their messes. While this scene is fit for purpose and fits the adaptation, it also shows the confused tone of the movie. The overall sense of trying to be like LOTR, but with more comedy, makes scenes like this one feel out of place, even though they actually fit the tone of the book.
During the subsequent meeting after Thorin arrives, Jackson introduces a couple of problems for the movie’s relationship to the book and for the movie’s internal logic. First, Thorin is late to the party because he has come from a meeting with other lords of the Dwarves somewhere in Ered Luin. None of them are willing to provide help on the quest to Erebor. Dwalin then brings up Dáin Ironfoot specifically, who is Thorin’s cousin and king of the Iron Hills, which are even further east than Erebor. Apparently, Dáin will not help this quest either. This statement creates an inconsistency with Dáin showing up later with 500 Dwarves to help Thorin, but it also raises questions as to why he would travel so far, why he did not help his own kin, and why they did not simply travel back east together.
Second, Glóin and Óin say something about reading the portents and how they show it is time to return to Erebor. Thorin responds by urging caution, because surely others have read these portents. The inclusion of this idea is problematic on two fronts. One, you guessed it, the idea is not in the book. While some have objected that this raises the question of other portents and prophecies, as well as the question of who made them, I am less concerned about these questions than I am about the other problem of putting this idea into the film. Two, when Thorin says that others would have read them and considered potentially plundering the vast treasures of Erebor, if Smaug is indeed gone, the problem is that this idea is so badly implemented into the movie that the audience never once sees anyone else interested in travelling to the mountain to plunder the treasure. Rather, everyone seems to know better than Thorin’s company that Smaug is still there and that their quest is thus too perilous.
Finally, because the movie radically restructures Gandalf’s story arc, the reason for which Thráin entrusts Gandalf with the map and key to Erebor—and not his own son—becomes unclear. There are several other problems with the changes in this story arc, but this scene is the first instance showing the cascade effect these changes have. In the book, Gandalf receives these items for safekeeping from Thráin while the latter is imprisoned at Dol Guldur and the former is investigating the fortress to confirm whether or not the Necromancer who is lord over it is, in fact, Sauron. This event happened over 90 years before the quest to Erebor and Thráin had suffered so much in Dol Guldur that he could no longer remember his name or his son’s name, which is why Gandalf held on to the key for so long instead of taking it straight to Thorin or starting a quest with him soon thereafter. The filmmakers could have shown the individual effects of Sauron’s cruelty on someone who was supposed to be a great lord and established the presence of Sauron early on, without necessarily mentioning his name. Instead, they wildly screw up the chronology and the story with it. We will see more effects of this restructuring later on.
Stumbling out of the Gate to Adventure
The movie also changes how Bilbo leaves Bag End to join the company. In the book, Bilbo leaves because Gandalf aggressively nudges him out the door after he had already agreed to join the quest. In the movie, Bilbo does not initially join the quest and only decides to leave after giving the matter some more thought, and then he gleefully runs after the company, excitedly exclaiming that he is going on an adventure. Personally, I think this is a good, lateral change from the book. I liked Gandalf’s aggressive needling in the book, but I also liked Bilbo’s childlike excitement and desire for adventure in the movie. Freeman perfectly portrays this desire for adventure welling up from inside him and its eventual bursting forth. This particular change was both harmless and an endearing tribute to the book and the adventure it took its readers on.
What was not a good series of changes to the book was another scene that produced another cascade effect through its changes to a story arc. Balin tells Bilbo of a battle where Thorin made his name (by using an oak branch as a shield after losing his regular shield) and showed himself to be a leader worth following. This battle was the Battle of Azanulbizar, the climactic battle of the War of the Dwarves and Orcs. The Dwarves won this battle and ensured that the paths of the northern realms were much safer than they otherwise would have been, but their losses were great, and they could not ultimately hope to retake Khazad-dûm. This was also the battle where Dáin Ironfoot earned his renown, as he slew the great leader of the Orcs, Azog, at a mere thirty-two years old (the Dwarves of Durin’s Folk at this time had an average lifespan of ~250 years). The movie makes the following changes. 1) In this battle, Azog beheads Thror, which leads to Thráin going mad with grief and fleeing the battle (Thror died years earlier; in fact, it was his death that sparked the War of the Dwarves and Orcs, as Thráin gathered the Dwarves for such a fight). 2) Thorin turns the tide of the battle by fighting Azog and slicing off one of his arms (Dwarf reinforcements led by Dáin’s father Náin turned the tide in the original battle). 3) Azog survives this battle and becomes one of the main antagonists of the trilogy. Since it is not relevant to the story of The Hobbit, the movie omits the issue of Khazad-dûm’s reoccupation.
The biggest problem with the changes is the last one because it is completely unnecessary, contradicts the source material, and the villain is entirely uninteresting and bland. If they had to include the backstory and have it be more faithful to the source material while adding to it, they could have had Bolg, his son (who is a subordinate villain in the movie version who exists only to not be killed by Tauriel and to be killed by Legolas), be vengeful toward Dwarves. He could be especially vengeful toward Thorin and Dáin, since the latter killed his father and the former is the son of the Dwarf who started the war. The Necromancer could have used this vengefulness to recruit him to lead an army of Orcs against the Dwarves to prevent Erebor from becoming reestablished. This faithfulness and addition would also serve the purpose of avoiding demoting Bolg to being a simple excuse for the existence of another storyline.
In fact, I could suggest another alternative storyline if they wanted to keep some of the changes that emphasize Thorin’s position. 1) Keep the story of Thror as it was and tell the audience that it started a great war between Dwarves and Orcs that culminated at this battle. 2) Have Thorin co-lead the reinforcements with Dáin while Thráin is being pressed by Azog. This could introduce us to Dáin visually and show he is important while keeping Thorin at the center. 3) Have Thorin fight Azog, if you must, and kill him decisively. Again, this could emphasize Thorin’s heroism and leadership status. 4) Introduce Bolg as Azog’s son, an Orc that Thorin and company did not previously know, and state his vengefulness for his father’s death. He could appear near the end of the movie (if the bad idea of a trilogy is maintained), whether in the battle sequence or away from it, and begin hunting Thorin while also amassing an army to finish off the Dwarves east of the Misty Mountains once and for all. This would not fix all the problems with having an interesting persistent villain—a couple of other steps are necessary—but an Orc on a determined, active quest for vengeance for his father’s death is more interesting than an Orc who simply did not die the first time around due to a lack of diligence and who often hangs around in the background providing narration (instead of being an active threat). They could have gone a few different ways with this storyline, and it looks like they picked one of the worst options.
Radagast (a.k.a. More Bad Decisions)
Our next scene with the group is another traveling scene that also serves the purpose of introducing characters the others besides Gandalf have not met yet. This is more of a trivial point, but I like the insertion of the reference to the Blue Wizards in the midst of Gandalf talking about other Wizards. It was not strictly necessary, but it was a subtle wink to the source material and the mystery surrounding the fate of the Blue Wizards who went into the east. Ultimately, the dialogue is there to introduce Radagast the Brown, but it manages to accomplish more than that purpose.
As for Radagast’s introduction, I have already stated what I think of his portrayal. His ridiculous appearance combined with the overzealous portrayal of him as a wackadoo make him difficult to take seriously, even at the level that Gandalf does (in contrast to Saruman, as is accurate to the source material). However, they at least offset that foolishness ever so slightly by giving us a display of his healing power. I say “ever so slightly” because it is a small consolation in view of the rest of his portrayal and because even here he must heal while his eyes roll up and cross.
Radagast turns out to be the one who first knows of the Necromancer and scouts out the abandoned fortress of Dol Guldur. Once again, this screws up the chronology and creates problems I mentioned earlier, as well as ones I will mention later. Another problem with this scenario is that Dol Guldur was never abandoned up to this point in time. There was no need to change this fact from the books and no reason to displace the time of the investigation from a point in the past to the present time. I am not necessarily against Radagast’s involvement and his acting as an informant on Dol Guldur, but such could have been done in the context of Gandalf’s effort to get the White Council to drive Sauron out and they could have avoided all the unnecessary changes with regard to Radagast and the state of Dol Guldur.
The Trolls
When we return to the group, we see that Gandalf and Thorin have an argument, which was not in the book, and this serves as a setup for the sequence with the Trolls. I have two major issues with it (I do think the voice acting for them was spot-on, on the other hand). First, there is too much gross-out humor, as the writers go out of their way to make the Trolls extra disgusting. If most jokes don’t work, the audience simply doesn’t laugh, but if gross-out humor doesn’t work, the audience not only doesn’t laugh, but is also put off. Second, they might as well have kept Gandalf as the one who saved the company by imitating a Troll voice and confusing the debate on how to cook and eat the Dwarves. With Bilbo being the one who primarily contributes to their rescue—and Gandalf splitting a rock to reveal the dawn (rather than simply delaying them until dawn, as in the book)—the movie screws up the arc of Bilbo’s growth in bravery and usefulness over the course of the book. It also messes up the internal logic of the movie when Thorin later says that Bilbo does not belong with them after he has to save him from falling off a cliff side, which is overly harsh, unreasonable, and not something one can easily make sense of considering that Bilbo already saved all of them on one occasion not too long ago.
After this whole bit with the Trolls, we get scenes that ultimately serve to give Gandalf, Thorin, and Bilbo the weapons they will carry for the rest of the trilogy (and beyond), as well as to transition us to the next action scene. Gandalf has a speech here with Bilbo about taking care in making the decision to take a life, which is meant to impact a crucial scene near the end of the movie, as well as reflect a similar scene with Frodo in The Fellowship of the Ring. It’s fine for what it is, but it is ultimately unnecessary, as I don’t know that we needed a speech to help explain Bilbo’s pity that shapes the course of history hereafter. Also, the idea that we get here that Thorin would actually consider leaving a sword behind just because it was made by Elves is, frankly, foolish. Fortunately, he does not, but there was no reason for him to even think of it, except to make him excessively hateful toward the Elves just to justify the changes Jackson and co. make to the story.
A Nonsensical Escape
Gandalf then meets with Radagast, whereby the former receives intel. They are then alerted to a pack of Warg-riders approaching, which Radagast is going to try to distract. The Warg chase scene had the following purposes: 1) to transition Radagast out of the film; 2) to allow Radagast to serve as a distraction so that Thorin’s company could escape; 3) to get Thorin’s company to Rivendell against Thorin’s will; 4) to build up to the reveal that Azog is still alive. I have already talked about the problems with 4) and the scene serves 1) well enough. But purpose 2) was horribly executed. Because the chase scene is so sloppily done, it is hard to tell if Radagast, the company, or both are at fault, but Radagast is supposed to be leading the Wargs and Orcs away from the company, which would seem fairly easy, as he could just pick a general direction opposite of where they are going and go that way. Yet on more than one occasion he leads them almost right to the company so that they had to stop and go another way. It is all for naught in the end because the Wargs and Orcs find the company and surround them, leading to what was intended to be a harrowing escape, but was really uninteresting because the action sequence to that point had been a complete mess. Also, I understand why they had purpose 3) in the movie, because of the detrimental changes they made previously, but that does not change the fact that it was unnecessary. Book Thorin was not completely friendly to Elves either, but the necessity of his quest overruled his prejudice and discomfiture. When the movie has Thorin being so against going to an Elven place that he would almost rather die and still object to being led there after the Elves and Gandalf’s guidance saved his life and the lives of his company, all of it makes Thorin look awful and pettily racist. This scene either could have been done better with better writing surrounding it or (more preferably due to the overabundance of action sequences) been left out altogether. Nothing of value would have been lost.
As we move to Rivendell, it is worth noting that one of the major issues in relating The Hobbit to the rest of the Tolkien canon is the conduct of the Elves in Rivendell. Apart from Elrond, they are quite different from Elves in the rest of the canon in how playful, silly, and seemingly carefree they are. They are more akin to traditional descriptions of elves than Tolkien’s Elves. Thus, I do not blame Jackson and co. for avoiding portraying the Elves in Rivendell like their book counterparts. It would open up too many questions in the wake of LOTR and confuse the tone even further.
Rivendell and the Best Line in the Movie
Some of the scenes that follow this in Rivendell are … mostly fine. They are nothing remarkable. They follow the book reasonably well while adding in some comedy that sufficiently illustrates differences of Elves and Dwarves beyond the obvious visual ones (as well as a joke at Bilbo’s expense concerning his sword). They may not be remarkable, but they are preferable to much else of what we get in the movie.
Like pretty much everyone, I did not care for the semi-romantic feel of the scenes with Gandalf and Galadriel. It is especially off-putting because we are apparently supposed to overlook that Galadriel has been married for thousands of years to Celeborn (Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Film, who, though he is not mentioned as a member of the White Council, may well have been a member, since he was among the wisest Elves in Middle-earth). Gandalf and Galadriel did have a deep respect for each other—and she wished that he was the head of the Council rather than Saruman—and they were often in agreement, but how anyone could look at what is in the books and come away with a sense of a pseudo-romantic intimacy between them is beyond me.
In my aforementioned category of forced connections to LOTR is the introduction of Saruman. His presence is treated as something for Gandalf to be worried about and his ominous theme from LOTR, which fit in that context, plays the first time we see him. This will not be the last time that the movies remind the audience, “Hey, Saruman is really a bad guy.” We saw LOTR, we know what happens; you could just let us fill in the blanks and try to portray him straightforwardly without these hard winks at him being evil (of course, the book portrayal is more complicated than that, but that is a whole other discussion).
I suppose this is the best point to evaluate the White Council scenes throughout the series. I am not against the concept, as the White Council did act during this quest and there was buildup to that action over the course of many years. The Hobbit even makes reference to this action near the end. Since it is coterminous and significant to the course of the story, it is perfectly fine to include in the movie’s story. My problem is with the writing of the particular scenes. Some should have been flashbacks leading up to the Council finally taking decisive action against Sauron in Dol Guldur, instead of royally screwing up the chronology and the facts of Tolkien’s mythology.
This first scene of the White Council has two major problems in this regard. One, Elrond references the 400 years of peace they have had to this point. In the Middle-earth chronology, nothing significant has happened 400 years or so ago to create peace. The closest thing to it—the War of the Dwarves and Orcs and the climactic Battle of Azanulbizar—ended 142 years prior to this quest. In the years prior and following, plenty of crises had occurred all over Middle-earth, but the northern regions were as safe as they had been in many years thanks to the aforementioned war. Even then, the Fell Winter had happened only thirty years prior, during which the Shire experienced one of its few crises. There was a period of almost 400 years known as the Watchful Peace between TA 2063 (when Gandalf first investigated Dol Guldur and Sauron fled) and 2460 (when Sauron returned to Dol Guldur). But as you will notice, those dates are well before 400 years prior to 2941. Elrond is off in his chronology by almost 500 years, as if he suddenly does not remember anything happening in that stretch of time, like, just picking at random, his wife Celebrían leaving Middle-earth. I simply do not understand why Jackson and co. decided to contradict Tolkien’s chronology so much as to displace almost 500 years of history and act as if the White Council is acting at the end of the Watchful Peace.
I know all of these criticisms of screwing with the chronology may sound like kvetching over minutiae. But I care so much because Tolkien clearly put a lot of meticulous work into constructing his history of Middle-earth, all leading to the crescendo of meticulous chronology during the Quest of the Ring. It seems disrespectful for the makers of this film to contradict Tolkien’s chronology so blatantly after he put so much care and work into it when there was no good purpose served by the alterations.
Anyway, another problem with this White Council meeting is Galadriel saying that the Witch-King of Angmar was buried. No such thing happened. In fact, he was notorious for not being dead yet. After he had orchestrated the destruction of Arnor’s successor kingdoms, the Witch-King’s forces were defeated in the Battle of Fornost by the Host of the West, but he alone survived. In fact, Glorfindel famously foretold that the Witch-King of Angmar would not be killed by a man and this was mentioned in the movie version of The Return of the King. He was also never buried because he was the Lord of the Nazgûl and would thus have nothing to bury when he died. Once again, the movie contradicts Tolkien’s work to no purpose, since the Witch-King obviously returns in this series and in LOTR, and the freaking foretelling is mentioned in Jackson and co.’s own movie.
But then Gandalf almost redeems the foolishness of this Council with his monologue about Bilbo and “little people” that sounds like something straight from Tolkien, because it almost literally is. When Galadriel asks Gandalf, “Why the Halfling?” Gandalf responds, “I don’t know. Saruman believes that it is only great power that can hold evil in check. But that is not what I have found. I’ve found that it is the small things, everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Simple acts of kindness and love. Why Bilbo Baggins? Perhaps it is because I am afraid, and he gives me courage.” This line perfectly exemplifies the wisdom of Gandalf that he was able to see what other Wizards could not, and it exemplifies why he most clearly fulfilled the task given to them. His statement is like Elrond’s in The Fellowship of the Ring, “This quest may be attempted by the weak with as much hope as the strong. Yet such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere” (II/2). Likewise, Tolkien’s letter to Milton Waldman (Letter #131) says that the Hobbits are made small, “partly to exhibit the pettiness of man, plain unimaginative parochial man,” but, “mostly to show up, in creatures of very small physical power, the amazing and unexpected heroism of ordinary men ‘at a pinch’.” And most fully he says:
But through Hobbits, not Men so-called because the last Tale is to exemplify most clearly a recurrent theme: the place in ‘world politics’ of the unforeseen and unforeseeable acts of will, and deeds of virtue of the apparently small, ungreat, forgotten in the place of the Wise and Great (good as well as evil). A moral of the whole (after the primary symbolism of the Ring, as the will to mere power, seeking to make itself objective by physical force and mechanism, and so also inevitably by lies) is the obvious one that without the high and noble the simple and vulgar is utterly mean; and without the simple and ordinary the noble and heroic is meaningless.
For its delivery (along with the Hobbit/Shire theme playing during the scene), its wisdom, and its harmony with one of Tolkien’s most important themes, this is the brightest spot of the movie and a reminder that there are good things in it. I would say that between the three movies, there are enough good features and qualities to make one good movie out of The Hobbit (and as others have tried to do in making their own edits of the trilogy).
Spoiler Alert: Unnecessary Action Sequences Are Not Going to Stop Anytime Soon
Unfortunately, such a wonderful line cannot redeem the whole movie and Jackson and co. have to undermine its quality by immediately following it up with another unnecessary action sequence featuring the Stone-giants, who are only mentioned briefly in the book. Instead of Thorin’s company traveling through this region while Stone-giants above them play a game of throwing and dashing rocks during a great thunderstorm (described like a thunder-battle), the company finds itself in the middle of a fight between the giants and they even end up on the legs of one. This leads into another brain-numbing action sequence that is only here to take up time, providing extra padding in a vain attempt to justify a trilogy of movies of similar length. I know movies frequently present us with implausible circumstances, but when we can tell an action sequence is trying too hard to impress us, it takes us out of the action. Why should we be invested in an action sequence where the Dwarves and Bilbo are 1) on a path just big enough for them, 2) somehow must hang onto it through the pouring rain and the swinging rock face, and 3) every single one survives with nary a scratch when really all of them should have died and had their corpses crushed into oblivion? Piling random acts of peril on top of one another does not make the journey more perilous if there is no suspense and sense of danger. They somehow ended up exactly where they needed to go, and no one was worse off for it. It’s almost as if the random act of peril made no actual difference in the plot and it would not have been missed from the story if it were deleted.
The way the Goblins captured the Dwarves also represents a negative change from the book. In the book, they open up a path in the back of the cave and carry them off, which is much more practical and feasible than having a floor that can collapse into multiple pieces. Then again, Gandalf was supposed to be with them to thwart the attempt to capture him and to follow the Dwarves to rescue them. The way it works in the movie in this regard raises way too many questions. How did Gandalf know which path the Dwarves took through the Misty Mountains, since he would have had no way to track them through the Stone-giant fight? Did he have to go through Stone-giants fighting it out as well, or was he lucky? Given what happened with the Stone-giants, how did he make it to the right cave? Did the floor return to its place by the time Gandalf arrived and he had to re-collapse it? How did he make it down to the Goblin town without raising any alarms? Or are we simply supposed to accept that, “Eh, a wizard did it”?
The Great Goblin here refers to Azog in a scene to taunt Thorin. This introduces Thorin to the idea that Azog is still alive, which he does not yet believe. If the filmmakers made the slight alteration I mentioned earlier and picked Bolg rather than Azog, this would introduce Thorin to the idea that Azog had a son who is pissed about the Dwarves who killed his father. A couple of scenes later, he could have met him for the first time before the Battle of the Five Armies. But alas, that is not what we get.
The Riddle Game
In another case where my opinion agrees with everyone I have read thus far, I think the riddle scene with Bilbo and Sméagol/Gollum was well done. It is a joy to have Andy Serkis back to reprise the role that made his name in movies. He and Martin Freeman played perfectly off of each other, balancing well the humor and danger of this scene. They are playing a game, but it is a game for Bilbo’s life. We see something of old Sméagol emerge against the will of his split personality. It shows what Gandalf said to Frodo in The Fellowship of the Ring, “There was a little corner of his mind that was still his own, and light came through it, as through a chink in the dark: light out of the past. It was actually pleasant, I think, to hear a kindly voice again, bringing up memories of wind, and trees, and sun on the grass, and such forgotten things” (I/2). This little piece of him trapped in a prison of his mind’s own making combined with the corruption of the Ring, along with the miserable state of his existence, are what make him such a pitiable character. Bilbo himself thinks this in the book,
He must stab the foul thing, put its eyes out, kill it. It meant to kill him. No, not a fair fight. He was invisible now. Gollum had no sword. Gollum had not actually threatened to kill him, or tried to yet. And he was miserable, alone, lost. A sudden understanding, a pity mixed with horror, welled up in Bilbo’s heart: a glimpse of endless unmarked days without light or hope of betterment, hard stone, cold fish, sneaking and whispering.
While the movie does not unpack this narration, obviously, it combines Gandalf’s advice on knowing when to take a life and when to spare it with Bilbo’s and Gollum’s emotion-rich expressions. All around, the riddle scene and the aftermath with Bilbo and Sméagol was one of the best parts of the movie and one of the few times I felt like I was actually watching a proper adaptation of The Hobbit.
An Unexpected Journey to a Pirates of the Caribbean Movie
Unfortunately, this scene is juxtaposed to a sequence that belongs in Pirates of the Caribbean rather than in The Hobbit. The book’s blinding flash, killing of the Great Goblin, and an escape with the Goblins hot on the company’s heels has been replaced with the Dwarves—most of whom are supposedly not warriors—perfectly coordinating an escape while mowing down Goblins by the dozens and catching a ride down on the world’s most inconsistently sturdy wooden bridge. The part of the bridge that bears the weight of the Dwarves and Gandalf manages to hold through a deep plummet onto rock and maintains structural integrity just long enough to reach the bottom. Nothing like an action sequence with self-defeating peril to take you out of the movie, I guess.
An Ending That Doesn’t Work Well for a Movie That Doesn’t Work Well
The last over-the-top disengaging action sequence is followed, with only a brief reprieve, by another action sequence. While something like it is in the book, it was only in a field of trees, not a bunch of trees leading up to the edge of a cliff (including one on that edge). Up until the trees fall over and Thorin’s company fights the Orcs and Wargs, the scene adequately reflected the book (once you get past the foolishness with Azog). After Gandalf’s act of turning pinecones into fireballs, he attempts to leap down to cast a powerful spell, but the Eagles arrive just in time to rescue everyone. The filmmakers avoided that to have Thorin fight a pointless battle with Azog, have Bilbo save him (which, once again, screws up his character arc in terms of his emerging bravery), and have most of the company have one last fight while the other members hang on for dear life. Because we have not had a fight to the death in an absurd circumstance since five to ten minutes ago.
Now let’s talk about the Eagles. People do not like their role as deus ex machina and Tolkien struggled with this fact of their existence as well (Letter #210). He realized that they were more of a burden on his writing than he recognized when he first involved them in his story, and he tried to limit their involvement. People tend to exaggerate how often Tolkien uses them as a plot device: twice in The Hobbit, three times in LOTR, and more frequently in The Silmarillion. The last point fits with the direct presence of the Valar in Arda because the Eagles are the servants of Manwë, the king of the Valar (and properly of all Arda) and chief servant of Eru Ilúvatar in the created world. As such, they are a more concrete—though far from the only—instrument of divine providence, which is an important element in Tolkien’s stories. And in The Hobbit and LOTR, their presence is always tied to Gandalf, who is a Maia servant of the Valar sent on a mission to help Middle-earth against Sauron in the Third Age, and who saved their chief (later named Gwaihir). Their involvement in The Hobbit is related to this last deed as they repay the debt owed to him by saving him and his company, and it is related to their observation of an army being assembled to march on Erebor and their help to protect Gandalf and the lands of the North. They are able to do these actions because their Eyrie is in the Misty Mountains, and from there they go out to keep watch.
I give all of this backstory and explanation because none of it is in the films. Furthermore, the Eagles speak in Tolkien’s world, which goes toward justifying their presence at particular moments (as Tolkien attempts to use them sparingly and explain each use), but they never speak in the movies (whether in The Hobbit or LOTR). They always just show up. Most of the time, their arrival is tied to this insect that Gandalf speaks to (a movie-only invention). But one has to wonder how fast that insect can fly, because in this movie Gandalf talks to that insect and within a few minutes the Eagles show up. There is no explanation that they were in the area and saw what was happening; it is all tied to that silly bug. So yes, when they appear in the movies, the moments have more of a feeling of, “Well, I’m not sure how else to get out of this, let’s just throw the Eagles in there.”
This lack of speech and explanation creates another problem in the movie when it comes to the ending. The Eagles seem to arbitrarily set the company down a long way from their destination (though in Middle-earth terms, they are actually around 200 miles away when the Eagles set them down at the Carrock, so they should not be able to see Erebor as closely as they did in the film). In the book, this is explained by the Eagles not wanting to get near the Woodmen of the Anduin Vale who shoot arrows at them to keep them away from their sheep. That may seem a bit arbitrary given that they show up later in the book at the Battle of the Five Armies, but that could be explained by the greater problem the army presented and the need to respond, and it is never explained how far the Eagles can go in carrying others without rest or something to eat (though that raises further questions of how long it had been since the Eagles ate, how often they need to eat, and so on). It also could have something to do with how flying too far in either direction to avoid these Woodmen would throw off the timing of the quest too much, since time is of the essence to reach Erebor by Durin’s Day. While there may be problems or further questions raised by this explanation, it is at least an explanation. But in the film no explanation is given, not even by Gandalf. It is certainly an odd note to end on.