The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum - View Single Post - An Unexpected Journey, or the morning after

Zigûr · 12-27-2012, 02:28 AM

I apologise for this post being so long but I wanted to get everything down while it was fresh in my mind.
We finally got the film here in Australia on Boxing Day. I've just returned from seeing it. I must admit that I researched as many of the changes from the book as possible to reduce my disappointment; with that in mind I thought it was adequate fare. If I hadn't I suspect I would have felt very frustrated. I understand perfectly that no adaptation can or really should cleave exactly to the source material; what I just find disappointing about adaptations of Professor Tolkien's work is how often they substitute perfectly good dialogue/events from the original with invented material and so the screen misses out on what is, in my view, stronger storytelling from the Professor's own hand.
With this in mind I found An Unexpected Journey to be satisfying in some ways and similarly frustrating in others. I was satisfied to an extent with the use of the Battle of Azanulbizar to flesh out the history and characterisation of the Dwarves, for instance. I found the development of the Necromancer/Dol Guldur plot, however, to be rather frustrating. The Azog plot I simply don't understand; couldn't Bolg have served the same purpose equally well without so substantially altering the original storyline?
This is part of what I suppose I found the most wearisome about the film: the characterisation of Thorin. In the novel we're presented with Thorin as a proud but rather pompous old man who is a "good sort" but needs a bit of a push, but I felt that in this film PJ and co went down the maddeningly predictable route of turning him into an archetypal brooding, angst-ridden Hollywood "bad boy" figure. This wasn't helped by the establishment of his vendetta with Azog, a necessary but weak consequence of limiting Smaug's role in the first film. His motivations of revenge on the dragon and the reclamation of his homeland were muddied with this conflict with the Orcs to the extent that I felt like Thorin's character arc was a little overcomplicated, especially for a story where the focus, in my opinion, should really be on Bilbo.
Now I'm no screen writer but were I in the position of "Hollywood-ing up" The Hobbit (as much as I personally feel that such a notion is both unnecessary and distasteful), I would have played the whole situation a little differently in such a way that it could maintain Professor Tolkien's own story whilst padding out the length and the characterisation. Have Thrór killed by Azog; Thráin and Thorin swear revenge, but in the end it is the stripling Dáin who slays the Orc and wins the day. Thráin eventually goes missing. Thorin, despite being king of his people, is left in an awkward position: not only does he lack a true kingdom but the hero of his people is not him but Dáin, his cousin. This adds to his motivations for reclaiming the mountain: if he can win back Erebor he will also win not only the treasure but the dignity of his kingship or something like that. He will finally have achieved greatness. It could add to the nature of his greed; greedy for the respect he thinks he deserves as well as the gold. It's unnecessary nonsense of course, but if they really need to "sex up" the story a bit I feel that could have been a stronger way of doing it. It might make Thorin less sympathetic but hey, we're meant to sympathise with Bilbo anyway. Thorin is, in my view, a deuteragonist in the classic Tragic mould: his hamartia is his greed, which he pays for with his death. We're yet to see how this plays out with PJ's Thorin but I feel that something like what I've suggested could have stayed true to Professor Tolkien's original storyline while still expanding and "modernising" things, so to speak.
The Dol Guldur plot, on the other hand, I felt was overcomplicated for no good reason. The situation in Professor Tolkien's original story is, I feel, fairly straightforward. A shadow is growing in Mirkwood from Dol Guldur; Gandalf investigates and discovers it is no enemy less that Sauron; coincidentally he receives the key to the secret door of Erebor from Thráin. This could all have been established quite succinctly, and were they insistent upon featuring Galadriel and Saruman the White Council meeting could have been held with the information of Sauron's whereabouts revealed; Gandalf agrees to part ways with Thorin and Company in time to meet with the rest of the Council for the attack on Dol Guldur. This would have actually tied in far better to the story of Bilbo and the Dwarves with absolutely no need for Radagast, "Rhosgobel Rabbits" (I'm surprised we didn't encounter any Seventh Doctor-esque rolling rs in that scene) or bizarre duels with the ghost of the Lord of the Nazgûl, all of which primarily reflect nothing more than the hyperextension of the storyline to stretch across first two and then three films. There was certainly no need for the completely unnecessary butchering of the Angmar storyline, which needn't have been present whatsoever. All the talk of tombs and "black magic" and a Necromancer who could literally raise the dead (rather than prolonging through the use of rings) and so on made the entire White Council subplot seem like something from a trivial Tolkien rip-off like Dungeons and Dragons or Warhammer. It riddles Professor Tolkien's work, the Fantasy archetype, with Fantasy clichés which derived mostly from his imitators pasticheing his stories with none of their metaphysical integrity.
My most nit-picky complaints (beyond the use of plate armour and other such anachronisms) are the use of terminology like "divine" in regards to Thrór's right to rule and Saruman's frustrating use of the word "human" which always sounds out of place in a Tolkien context.
I might also quibble about some elements of pronunciation. Names like Glóin, Óin, Thráin and Dáin were pronounced with their vowels as dipthongs. I was taught in my Old Norse course at University that names like these should be pronounced something like "Glowin" and "Owin", and "Thrawin" and "Dawin" where the ó is pronouced as a sort of clipped 'or' as in 'bore' and á sounds a bit like the vowel sound in 'pound'.
The plot involved too many portents and omens and the like which jarred oddly with the genuine (and pleasing, to me) bits of "coincidence" ie fate which were either pointed out or at least implied, such as with the moon letters or Bilbo's discovery of the Ring which referred more genuinely to Professor Tolkien's recurring theme of the subtle hand of providence (or more appropriately Eru) at work.
I felt the designs were mostly good, although I feel the Dwarves were overdesigned and despite everything still lacked a natural dignity which began with the misinterpretation of Gimli in the films of The Lord of the Rings. In the novel I derive far more humour from the image of this rather large assortment of fussy, somewhat incompetent middle-aged and (mostly) upper-class men trying to get their home and money back than the film's reliance on belching and throwing food and general rowdiness. The songs were nice but I would have liked more, and more instruments. I think Balin was portrayed well; Fili and Kili's obvious repurposing for keeping the girls interested was a bit too "modern" for my tastes as well but at least they were used well enough.
As for Hobbits, I thought the entire section with Ian Holm and Elijah Wood should have been left on the cutting room floor. The CGI on Ian Holm's face was distracting. I heartily dislike establishing monologues in films (I find the one at the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring to be a long-winded and cheap way of drawing the audience in with some early action) and this wasn't much of an exception. It was too long and could have been explained elsewhere. The opening dialogue of the film should, without a doubt, have been "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit."
Martin Freeman I generally find to be quite watchable and I enjoyed his appearance as Bilbo. I can definitely say that the section in Rivendell where we became so distracted from him was my least favourite part of the film, although I generally thought he was sidelined too often, another casualty of the unnecessary inflation of the story. On the other hand I feel Freeman's typical "bemused everyman" performance didn't always gel especially well with the image of a comfortable, sedentary homebody forced into difficult situations, because he almost felt too world-weary already for a character who is notionally having his eyes opened to life beyond the familiar.
As for the rest I thought Azog looked incredibly phony and that the CG in general wasn't spectacular. I didn't like the goblins of the High Pass whatsoever - Professor Tolkien goes to great lengths to describe in the novel how technologically advanced they were (albeit not in a good way) yet they were rendered as typical enemy troglodytes led by a Great Goblin who was exaggerated to pointless proportions. This is what irks me about these films. They could do something a bit different by actually following what Professor Tolkien wrote but they insist on following Hollywood clichés which render the material stale and inconsequential. Some argue that these clichés are necessary for adapting the stories as mainstream cinema. If this is true, which I suppose it is, then I think that in many ways these films shouldn't really be made at all, because I really think that so many of the sensibilities of modern Hollywood are more or less entirely incompatible with so much of the thematic content (and especially a lot of the subtleties) which Professor Tolkien's work tries to express that the adaptation comes across as entirely shallow compared to its source material. I think this needn't be the case but when they're forced by commercial concerns then, from artistic grounds, what's the point? It's really adaptations like these which have caused me to doubt the artistic value of cinematic adaptation in general.
All this aside I found the film to be reasonably entertaining if too long. Were the opening scenes with Old Bilbo omitted along with the majority of the Radagast and White Council material I think it would have been much more enjoyable despite the changes. To me the film suffered quite clearly from this decision to present it as a trilogy rather than two films or even one. It was, in my opinion, adequate adventure material with some unnecessary deviations from the source material and decent presentation and performances despite some unpleasant CGI.

12-27-2012, 02:28 AM	#111
Zigûr Ghost Prince of Cardolan Join Date: Aug 2012 Posts: 785	I apologise for this post being so long but I wanted to get everything down while it was fresh in my mind. We finally got the film here in Australia on Boxing Day. I've just returned from seeing it. I must admit that I researched as many of the changes from the book as possible to reduce my disappointment; with that in mind I thought it was adequate fare. If I hadn't I suspect I would have felt very frustrated. I understand perfectly that no adaptation can or really should cleave exactly to the source material; what I just find disappointing about adaptations of Professor Tolkien's work is how often they substitute perfectly good dialogue/events from the original with invented material and so the screen misses out on what is, in my view, stronger storytelling from the Professor's own hand. With this in mind I found An Unexpected Journey to be satisfying in some ways and similarly frustrating in others. I was satisfied to an extent with the use of the Battle of Azanulbizar to flesh out the history and characterisation of the Dwarves, for instance. I found the development of the Necromancer/Dol Guldur plot, however, to be rather frustrating. The Azog plot I simply don't understand; couldn't Bolg have served the same purpose equally well without so substantially altering the original storyline? This is part of what I suppose I found the most wearisome about the film: the characterisation of Thorin. In the novel we're presented with Thorin as a proud but rather pompous old man who is a "good sort" but needs a bit of a push, but I felt that in this film PJ and co went down the maddeningly predictable route of turning him into an archetypal brooding, angst-ridden Hollywood "bad boy" figure. This wasn't helped by the establishment of his vendetta with Azog, a necessary but weak consequence of limiting Smaug's role in the first film. His motivations of revenge on the dragon and the reclamation of his homeland were muddied with this conflict with the Orcs to the extent that I felt like Thorin's character arc was a little overcomplicated, especially for a story where the focus, in my opinion, should really be on Bilbo. Now I'm no screen writer but were I in the position of "Hollywood-ing up" The Hobbit (as much as I personally feel that such a notion is both unnecessary and distasteful), I would have played the whole situation a little differently in such a way that it could maintain Professor Tolkien's own story whilst padding out the length and the characterisation. Have Thrór killed by Azog; Thráin and Thorin swear revenge, but in the end it is the stripling Dáin who slays the Orc and wins the day. Thráin eventually goes missing. Thorin, despite being king of his people, is left in an awkward position: not only does he lack a true kingdom but the hero of his people is not him but Dáin, his cousin. This adds to his motivations for reclaiming the mountain: if he can win back Erebor he will also win not only the treasure but the dignity of his kingship or something like that. He will finally have achieved greatness. It could add to the nature of his greed; greedy for the respect he thinks he deserves as well as the gold. It's unnecessary nonsense of course, but if they really need to "sex up" the story a bit I feel that could have been a stronger way of doing it. It might make Thorin less sympathetic but hey, we're meant to sympathise with Bilbo anyway. Thorin is, in my view, a deuteragonist in the classic Tragic mould: his hamartia is his greed, which he pays for with his death. We're yet to see how this plays out with PJ's Thorin but I feel that something like what I've suggested could have stayed true to Professor Tolkien's original storyline while still expanding and "modernising" things, so to speak. The Dol Guldur plot, on the other hand, I felt was overcomplicated for no good reason. The situation in Professor Tolkien's original story is, I feel, fairly straightforward. A shadow is growing in Mirkwood from Dol Guldur; Gandalf investigates and discovers it is no enemy less that Sauron; coincidentally he receives the key to the secret door of Erebor from Thráin. This could all have been established quite succinctly, and were they insistent upon featuring Galadriel and Saruman the White Council meeting could have been held with the information of Sauron's whereabouts revealed; Gandalf agrees to part ways with Thorin and Company in time to meet with the rest of the Council for the attack on Dol Guldur. This would have actually tied in far better to the story of Bilbo and the Dwarves with absolutely no need for Radagast, "Rhosgobel Rabbits" (I'm surprised we didn't encounter any Seventh Doctor-esque rolling rs in that scene) or bizarre duels with the ghost of the Lord of the Nazgûl, all of which primarily reflect nothing more than the hyperextension of the storyline to stretch across first two and then three films. There was certainly no need for the completely unnecessary butchering of the Angmar storyline, which needn't have been present whatsoever. All the talk of tombs and "black magic" and a Necromancer who could literally raise the dead (rather than prolonging through the use of rings) and so on made the entire White Council subplot seem like something from a trivial Tolkien rip-off like Dungeons and Dragons or Warhammer. It riddles Professor Tolkien's work, the Fantasy archetype, with Fantasy clichés which derived mostly from his imitators pasticheing his stories with none of their metaphysical integrity. My most nit-picky complaints (beyond the use of plate armour and other such anachronisms) are the use of terminology like "divine" in regards to Thrór's right to rule and Saruman's frustrating use of the word "human" which always sounds out of place in a Tolkien context. I might also quibble about some elements of pronunciation. Names like Glóin, Óin, Thráin and Dáin were pronounced with their vowels as dipthongs. I was taught in my Old Norse course at University that names like these should be pronounced something like "Glowin" and "Owin", and "Thrawin" and "Dawin" where the ó is pronouced as a sort of clipped 'or' as in 'bore' and á sounds a bit like the vowel sound in 'pound'. The plot involved too many portents and omens and the like which jarred oddly with the genuine (and pleasing, to me) bits of "coincidence" ie fate which were either pointed out or at least implied, such as with the moon letters or Bilbo's discovery of the Ring which referred more genuinely to Professor Tolkien's recurring theme of the subtle hand of providence (or more appropriately Eru) at work. I felt the designs were mostly good, although I feel the Dwarves were overdesigned and despite everything still lacked a natural dignity which began with the misinterpretation of Gimli in the films of The Lord of the Rings. In the novel I derive far more humour from the image of this rather large assortment of fussy, somewhat incompetent middle-aged and (mostly) upper-class men trying to get their home and money back than the film's reliance on belching and throwing food and general rowdiness. The songs were nice but I would have liked more, and more instruments. I think Balin was portrayed well; Fili and Kili's obvious repurposing for keeping the girls interested was a bit too "modern" for my tastes as well but at least they were used well enough. As for Hobbits, I thought the entire section with Ian Holm and Elijah Wood should have been left on the cutting room floor. The CGI on Ian Holm's face was distracting. I heartily dislike establishing monologues in films (I find the one at the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring to be a long-winded and cheap way of drawing the audience in with some early action) and this wasn't much of an exception. It was too long and could have been explained elsewhere. The opening dialogue of the film should, without a doubt, have been "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." Martin Freeman I generally find to be quite watchable and I enjoyed his appearance as Bilbo. I can definitely say that the section in Rivendell where we became so distracted from him was my least favourite part of the film, although I generally thought he was sidelined too often, another casualty of the unnecessary inflation of the story. On the other hand I feel Freeman's typical "bemused everyman" performance didn't always gel especially well with the image of a comfortable, sedentary homebody forced into difficult situations, because he almost felt too world-weary already for a character who is notionally having his eyes opened to life beyond the familiar. As for the rest I thought Azog looked incredibly phony and that the CG in general wasn't spectacular. I didn't like the goblins of the High Pass whatsoever - Professor Tolkien goes to great lengths to describe in the novel how technologically advanced they were (albeit not in a good way) yet they were rendered as typical enemy troglodytes led by a Great Goblin who was exaggerated to pointless proportions. This is what irks me about these films. They could do something a bit different by actually following what Professor Tolkien wrote but they insist on following Hollywood clichés which render the material stale and inconsequential. Some argue that these clichés are necessary for adapting the stories as mainstream cinema. If this is true, which I suppose it is, then I think that in many ways these films shouldn't really be made at all, because I really think that so many of the sensibilities of modern Hollywood are more or less entirely incompatible with so much of the thematic content (and especially a lot of the subtleties) which Professor Tolkien's work tries to express that the adaptation comes across as entirely shallow compared to its source material. I think this needn't be the case but when they're forced by commercial concerns then, from artistic grounds, what's the point? It's really adaptations like these which have caused me to doubt the artistic value of cinematic adaptation in general. All this aside I found the film to be reasonably entertaining if too long. Were the opening scenes with Old Bilbo omitted along with the majority of the Radagast and White Council material I think it would have been much more enjoyable despite the changes. To me the film suffered quite clearly from this decision to present it as a trilogy rather than two films or even one. It was, in my opinion, adequate adventure material with some unnecessary deviations from the source material and decent presentation and performances despite some unpleasant CGI. Last edited by Zigûr; 12-27-2012 at 05:08 PM.