“...If someone would cut the three Hobbit movies down to one there might be a movie there.” [Sans-Culotte, post 24]
There are difficulties that can never be entirely overcome, in translating a written work into a film work. They are two different artistic media; of necessity, they focus on different aspects of perception and thought.
Written material can do a better job unpacking the inner workings of a character’s mind, with moral/intellectual conflicts and ordeals, than can film, the impact of which is primarily visual and must be briefer.
Thus, Peter Jackson’s Lord of The Rings films convey grand visions of JRR Tolkien pretty decently: the travels of the Fellowship, the escape from Khazad-dum, the ruin of Isengard by the Ents, and various battles (Helm’s Deep, Pelennor Fields etc) pretty decently. But they run into trouble with the more cerebrally and historically oriented portions of the books: Gandalf’s revelations to Frodo in “The Shadow of the Past,” the Council of Elrond, the fall of Boromir, and especially the moral trials of Faramir during his encounter with the Ringbearer in Ithilien, were much more difficult.
Jackson & crew were aware of the media crossover difficulties: probably why the skipped “The Scouring of the Shire” and watered down Faramir’s capture of Frodo into a contest of wills and father-worship containing none of the moral dilemmas the book explored.
Many purist fans resent the absence of “The Scouring of the Shire”, but constraints of time and money probably forced the action; fan upset over the films may have been focused and intensified by what the author put into his preface to the revised edition: that “Scouring” was an essential element of the story, foreseen from the very beginning (of his writing task).
It’s been missed by many, but the film-makers did slip a couple elements into the denouement:
1. The culture shock evinced by Shire-hobbits on witnessing the return of the Four Travelers - two rich kids, an eccentric scion of a family once seen as the pinnacle of respectability, and a gardener disappear, then come back over a year later, dressed in finery of questionable taste. And carrying swords! The pity of it all: they used to be so respectable.
2. The total inability of the stay-at-homes to grasp the importance of what Frodo and Company have been up to. Somebody in Bree or the Shire reminds the Travelers that the (yet-to-be-written) book had better address local events, because a book that mostly dealt with doings “away south” wouldn’t sell.
On film, these two instances are covered with deft brevity:
1. The Four Travelers pass Odo Proudfoot, who pauses in sweeping his porch, to frown in disapproval and shake his head. Frodo, Merry, Pippin, and finally Sam ride by on their ponies, grinning a little and nodding to Odo.
2. In the tavern scene shortly later, Frodo wends through the company, narrowly avoiding slopping ale from the four earthenware mugs he carries, as the locals laugh and cheer the arrival of the impressive pumpkin. He then sets the mugs on the table in front of his companions. They gaze about, exchange glances, hoist mugs, and clink rims - silently toasting their success, and the memory of those they helped (or were helped by) during the Quest, fallen and living. It dawns that their fellow hobbits will never even know what happened: you can see their facial expressions change. Then they take a draught from their mugs and accept reality. Clueless or not, the Shire-folk have not been found wanting - neither by the Four Travelers, nor the many who strove, suffered, and in some cases perished in their defense.
Bringing any written work to the silver screen faces difficulties; bringing a children’s book to that screen is tougher still. Jackson & crew did that with The Hobbit, transforming it from a beloved children’s book into an action film aimed at a wider general audiences. Purists are of course free to disagree, but there isn’t much point to making a film that follows a book faithfully but flops commercially, because it failed to attract the huge majority of moviegoers who haven’t read the book.
It can be argued that Jackson & crew’s biggest achievement was to transform the dwarves of Thorin & Company into real characters one could recognize, and still care about. Books for children cannot be too realistic, but general movie audiences will refuse to see a film that fails to interest viewers in characters as “real people”, flaws and ambiguities and all. And those audiences do contain at least some adults.
Perhaps the best we as admirers of JRR Tolkien’s writings can hope for, is that the Jackson films will ignite an interesting a few moviegoers, and seduce them into actually reading the books.
I really did not have a lot of problems with faithfulness to the books. I thought LOTR was remarkably faithful, considering how unfaithful most film adaptations are. Many of the great moments from LOTR (Rivendell, Lothlorien, the Return of Gandalf, etc) were visually stunning and thrilling.
My problem with The Hobbit was that they simply padded it out with too many Orc battles. The Hobbit films reminded me of Man of Steel, the first Superman reboot, which was endless battles between Superman and Gen'l Zod and crew. In the age of CGI effects, I am not as impressed with spectacle for spectacle's sake because the creation of the effects is becoming sort of routine. Sure, there was some padding in the LOTR films (mainly in The Two Towers), but most of the great story elements were Tolkien's. I don't think the padding for The Hobbit was terrible interesting. They could have made one 3 hour film, or at the most, two; but the third was really pushing it. I hope I never see another Orc battle again! Even though it was a prequel, I think they felt the need to make it bigger (or at least as big as) LOTR.
There is no way a well made 1 or 2-part version of The Hobbit would have flopped. They probably wanted the earnings that a third film would generate. Can't say I blame them. I just didn't find it terribly interesting. The third film was for me an endurance test.