The Hobbit - a philosophical review

[TheMisfortuneTeller]

Beginning an article on philosophy by confusing it with psychology sort of explains the uncritical mentality which can't differentiate a fan-fiction turkey like The Hobbit: Goblins and Dwarves from Peter Jackson's far better adaptation of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. What next: Sigmund Freud as Plato Baggins?

I've posted this reminder before, but it bears constant reiteration in the context of standard heroic quest literature:

[No matter what tale we hear told, in no matter what language or culture] “... it will be always the one, shape-shifting yet marvelously constant story that we find, together with a challengingly persistent suggestion of more remaining to be experienced than will ever be known or told.

“The standard path of the mythological adventure of the hero is a magnification of the formula represented in the rites of passage: separation—initiation—return: which might be named the nuclear unit of the monomyth.

" A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.” – Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces

Difficult to believe that Peter Jackson could take such a basic, timeless plot outline and turn it into a confused and tedious hash of tired Hollywood clichés. Perhaps a psychoanalyst could explain the particular pathologies at work here -- ego, greed, and self-indulgence -- but I doubt that a philosopher would find much of profound, general interest.