Sad or Elated now the Movies are at an End?

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Faramir Jones

But then, I feel he was sidelined in the Jackson adaptation. The book centred around one hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, and his experiences; yet the films gave too much emphasis to the experiences of others, including those of a character out of fanfiction...

A couple of months ago I read this statement which Peter Jackson made in an interview around the time the third film was released:

"Obviously The Hobbit is the story of Thorin Oakenshield’s quest for the Lonely Mountain, and Lord of the Rings is the story of Frodo’s journey to try to destroy the ring. But they are nonetheless connected and they feed into each other and are in the same world."

Maybe he's just being really literal about what the narrative of The Hobbit is, but assuming he's not just repeating something he's mandated to say by WB, from a thematic or narrative-focus point of view he couldn't miss the point more if he tried. It's funny that he says that "The Lord of the Rings" (I assume he's talking about his films and not the books or anything else) is about Frodo and the Quest of the Ring (which the films are and aren't) but when he's describing "The Hobbit" Bilbo doesn't garner a mention, even though he's just named the film: "The Hobbit".
"This is a story of how a Baggins had an adventure, and found himself doing and saying things altogether unexpected." No? It's about how a brooding Dwarf went to a Mountain? Oh, okay then.

[Faramir Jones]

What you put in your last post wasn't a surprise, Zigûr. He's certainly wrong about The Hobbit being 'the story of Thorin Oakenshield’s quest for the Lonely Mountain'; it's the story of one of the participants in Thorin Oakenshield’s quest for the Lonely Mountain.

[Zigûr]

I suppose you could interpret what he's saying as that his film (rather than the book) is about Thorin's quest for the Lonely Mountain but if that's the case then he and his team either badly missed the point of the source material they were adapting, or chose (or were forced) to ignore it.

In my review on my blog (again warning re some light profanity for comic effect in the blog post if anyone reads it, also sorry for plugging my own stuff) I said the following:

If the character of Alfrid, the Tauriel material and the different silly monsters were extricated it would probably be a stronger product overall, but that wouldn't change the fact that the film is fundamentally undermined by its efforts to hybridise Bilbo's narrative with that of Thorin's, when his isn't inherently important. I note that in an interview for this film Peter Jackson said "The Hobbit is the story of Thorin Oakenshield’s quest for the Lonely Mountain." No it isn't. It's the story of Bilbo's character development. The Mountain is just a plot device. Thorin is a supporting character used to explore the theme of greed. That's why these films don't work: it doesn't matter whether you do or don't alter the source material when you don't fundamentally understand the source material in the first place. Maybe it's just marketing speak and he knows it's not true, because no one could possibly read The Hobbit and think it was about anything other than Bilbo at a fundamental level.

For some reason I want to give PJ the benefit of the doubt and lay this at Warner Bros.' door. Then again considering things he's said in the past, e.g. claiming to be a Tintin fan but also saying he's never read a comic, complaining that there are too many superhero action films in Hollywood these days, it's possible that sometimes he just doesn't always know what he's on about.

[Nerwen]

Zig, I think it's his film rather than the book he's talking about- but I would also agree it's a pretty revealing statement. But then the whole interview has a certain frankness missing from earlier ones- e.g. Tauriel's inclusion is now described as "a very cold-blooded decision" [to appeal to pre-teen girls] rather than being mandated by the Spirit of Tolkien, and the action was apparently driven largely by "ways to kill orcs" and "the next cool thing [Legolas] is going do", which is pretty much what most of us thought all along.

[Faramir Jones]

Originally Posted by Nerwen

Zig, I think it's his film rather than the book he's talking about- but I would also agree it's a pretty revealing statement. But then the whole interview has a certain frankness missing from earlier ones- e.g. Tauriel's inclusion is now described as "a very cold-blooded decision" [to appeal to pre-teen girls] rather than being mandated by the Spirit of Tolkien, and the action was apparently driven largely by "ways to kill orcs" and "the next cool thing [Legolas] is going do", which is pretty much what most of us thought all along.

Thanks for the above post, Nerwen. I guessed as much, in terms of the appeal to pre-teen girls, because of the 'romance' between Tauriel and Fili.

[Lalwendë]

Has the thought occurred to anyone else that inclusion of the Tauriel/Kili storyline may as much have been influenced by modern fan culture as anything else? It struck me that this was Jackson making use of some 'shipping' in his own film. It would certainly not be without precedent, and it's known (not in a Dothraki way ) that film makers, especially those making 'geek friendly' products, are using focus groups more and more, and are very aware of internet culture. Even Sherlock incorporated this in the last series, making use of twitter "OMG he's alive!" quotes all over the screen and having a laugh with (about?) fandom.

An elf/dwarf 'ship' is something lifted directly from tumblr - once the decision was made to throw in a female Elven warrior, it's not long before other ideas would seem interesting.

While I'm on the topic, it shouldn't be underestimated that the LotR films were probably instrumental in kicking off the plethora of geek films/TV we are now seeing. I would strongly argue that No LotR would mean No Game of Thrones, no Doctor Who revival, and no Marvel Cinematic Universe. Or at least, certainly not with the impact they are currently enjoying.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

Has the thought occurred to anyone else that inclusion of the Tauriel/Kili storyline may as much have been influenced by modern fan culture as anything else? It struck me that this was Jackson making use of some 'shipping' in his own film. It would certainly not be without precedent, and it's known (not in a Dothraki way ) that film makers, especially those making 'geek friendly' products, are using focus groups more and more, and are very aware of internet culture. Even Sherlock incorporated this in the last series, making use of twitter "OMG he's alive!" quotes all over the screen and having a laugh with (about?) fandom.

An elf/dwarf 'ship' is something lifted directly from tumblr - once the decision was made to throw in a female Elven warrior, it's not long before other ideas would seem interesting.

While I'm on the topic, it shouldn't be underestimated that the LotR films were probably instrumental in kicking off the plethora of geek films/TV we are now seeing. I would strongly argue that No LotR would mean No Game of Thrones, no Doctor Who revival, and no Marvel Cinematic Universe. Or at least, certainly not with the impact they are currently enjoying.

Of course it was a marketing decision, PJ admitted as much ("cold-blooded" as he put it). Marketing decisions were what ran the entire Hobbit enterprise. From a strictly cynical standpoint, one could say the idea for dragging the story into 3 three-hour films had more to do with marketing and money than plot, and there is enough anecdotal evidence to suggest that was the primary motivation.

Marketing made Thorin, and even more so Kili, look like handsome matinee idols rather than dwarves (which, of course, made the rest of the dwarves look outlandish and alien). Marketing gave us another round of gravity-defying Legolas, with the bloated, contact-wearing Orlando Bloom reprising his stiff portrayal. Marketing gave us uneven Tauriel, who, like Arwen before her, first appears like Xena the Warrior Princess, able to kill scores of orcs and spiders singlehandedly before succumbing to the inevitable weakening of the character until she's incapable of fighting on her own and becomes a pile of vulnerable mush by the end.

Yes, it was all marketing, and the story suffered for it.

[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

Has the thought occurred to anyone else that inclusion of the Tauriel/Kili storyline may as much have been influenced by modern fan culture as anything else? It struck me that this was Jackson making use of some 'shipping' in his own film. It would certainly not be without precedent, and it's known (not in a Dothraki way ) that film makers, especially those making 'geek friendly' products, are using focus groups more and more, and are very aware of internet culture. Even Sherlock incorporated this in the last series, making use of twitter "OMG he's alive!" quotes all over the screen and having a laugh with (about?) fandom.

An elf/dwarf 'ship' is something lifted directly from tumblr - once the decision was made to throw in a female Elven warrior, it's not long before other ideas would seem interesting.

Oh, so you mean this wasn't actually a hoax after all?

[Leaf]

Originally Posted by Zigûr

A couple of months ago I read this statement which Peter Jackson made in an interview around the time the third film was released:

Maybe he's just being really literal about what the narrative of The Hobbit is, but assuming he's not just repeating something he's mandated to say by WB, from a thematic or narrative-focus point of view he couldn't miss the point more if he tried. It's funny that he says that "The Lord of the Rings" (I assume he's talking about his films and not the books or anything else) is about Frodo and the Quest of the Ring (which the films are and aren't) but when he's describing "The Hobbit" Bilbo doesn't garner a mention, even though he's just named the film: "The Hobbit".
"This is a story of how a Baggins had an adventure, and found himself doing and saying things altogether unexpected." No? It's about how a brooding Dwarf went to a Mountain? Oh, okay then.

re: The lack of a Hobbit in a film called The Hobbit

I never saw the third Hobbit- (too lazy to add the numerous and various quotation marks which would be appropriate) movie and I wonder about one thing:

Is there like a final scene with old Bilbo sitting in Bag-End and finishing his journal after all is said and done? You know, like him closing the book and smiling in remembrance or something like that. Somehow I was under the impression that it was intended that the plot of the movies would (more or less) align to what Bilbo wrote in his journal/book. I think the first Hobbit movie insinuated that old Bilbo is the narrator or author of the coming story who tells it from his perspective.


If that's the case this scene would be the most ironic moment of the series.

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Leaf

Is there like a final scene with old Bilbo sitting in Bag-End and finishing his journal after all is said and done? You know, like him closing the book and smiling in remembrance or something like that. Somehow I was under the impression that it was intended that the plot of the movies would (more or less) align to what Bilbo wrote in his journal/book. I think the first Hobbit movie insinuated that old Bilbo is the narrator or author of the coming story who tells it from his perspective.


If that's the case this scene would be the most ironic moment of the series.

Yes it segues into a re-shot version of the scene in "The Fellowship of the Ring" where Bilbo opens the door and greets Gandalf. Gandalf no longer says "You haven't aged a day," because he very obviously has. It's fairly jarring, although in my opinion the final film keeps Bilbo in focus to a slightly better degree than the previous two films.

He ought to have scratched out "A Hobbit's Tale by Bilbo Baggins" and written "The epic love-story of a Dwarf for an Elf and another Dwarf for a huge pile of gold, in which Gandalf and a man with a bird in his hair go to a fortress, and also a scruffy man with a bow has a gaggle of victimised children, there's an annoying cowardly adviser, the Elvenking's son saves the day repeatedly, and a 150-year-old dead Orc uses giant worms to attack a mountain for no discernible reason. Oh, and I saw a bit of it, from quite far away. There may have been a dragon."

Then I suppose he ought to have scratched out "There and Back Again" and written "The Battle of The Five Armies," with the second "The" in very large script, underlined several times.