Peter Jackson Explains Why the ‘Hobbit’ Movies Are Such a Huge Mess

[Kuruharan]

Originally Posted by Nerwen

I think much of the hostility to the "different mediums" argument from book fans comes from the way it has often been used as a supposedly irrefutable blanket defence of, well, everything. Also, perhaps, the fact that some of its proponents want to have their cake and eat it- some people who don't think the films should be like the books ("different mediums, guys") will happily bash the books for not being more like the films ("all those boring descriptions"). This was particularly noticeable in "The Hobbit" honeymoon period, when one heard quite a lot about how Jackson had "treated the material with more respect than Tolkien ever did"- because apparently JRRT wrote the book as a children's story by mistake.

There is much merit in what you say.

I also object to the implication that seems to underlie the assertions made by various people in this vein over the years that the way Jackson chose to adapt the novels is the only way the novels could be adapted and are therefore immune to criticism because, "It is an adaptation across different mediums, you ignorant toad! Changes must be made!"

I understand that changes must be made but I do not believe that the changes themselves are beyond criticism, especially if they are ineffective, implausible, distort the original story, or remove artistically effective or essential material in favor of stuffing in ill-conceived or tasteless bloat.

Originally Posted by The Sixth Wizard

Narrative tension must be driven by characters. The book's excitement comes from material constraints - can they muster enough of the Rohirrim and travel to the Pelennor in time? There is less sense of geography in a film, where characters can travel hundreds of kilometres between scenes, without page-turning establishing a feeling of time passing, so we need something else to establish the same narrative roadblocks. That's why we need Denethor refusing aid, Theoden refusing to help, Faramir's rout, and Gondor's military failure all building towards the final triumph. The long list of failures makes final success more vivid - Theoden's initial reluctance ramps up his change of heart and bravery in the battle as well.

I wholly disagree with this. These are ham-fisted solutions to problems of the director's own making. In addition to agreeing with Nerwen's point that this sort of strawman problem-solution scenarios renders the repetition of them tedious, it also strains suspension of disbelief to the breaking point (or past) while more serving the purpose of bloating the film rather than compressing.

I much prefer to see things handled with subtlety and finesse, qualities that Jackson and Friends do not seem to possess.

To break this down a bit further, let us look at the events surrounding Faramir, specifically during The Two Towers.

Originally Posted by The Sixth Wizard

The enjoyment of meeting Faramir in the novel comes from learning about his people and history, and we don't need him to desire the ring to keep us entertained. But it would undermine the dread surrounding the Ring to see him resist it in the film. We've already seen Galadriel, Gandalf and Aragorn bypass the temptation of the Ring at that point - how can we fear its corruption if some guy we just met resists it as well? It gives our heroes another challenge beyond "pit-stop at the Forbidden Pool" for TTT.

In the books, while the unveiling of a bit of the history and lore of Gondor is certainly a high point, Faramir's discovery of what Frodo carried and his reaction to that are a critical part of the scene. Instead of dealing with the scene with any kind of subtlety, Jackson has Faramir do exactly what Boromir tried to do and seized Frodo.

Faramir's actions take Frodo significantly out of the way, and expose him to various extra dangers, the most "serious" of which being a Nazgul.

You want to talk about the dread of something being undermined, how about how that sequence serves to undermine the dread of the Nazgul?

This also breaks suspension of disbelief because Frodo has now been carried out of his way and exposed to extreme danger...just to provide another eye-roll inducing scene of faux-drama. This scene took me completely out of the film when I first saw it...not that there was much of me invested in it by that point I was so irritated by how badly most of the rest of it had been done.

The treatment of Faramir in that sequence was a terrible, terrible way of adapting the scene and there are better ways of doing it. Pretty much anything would have been an improvement. The only way Jackson could have screwed it up worse was if he had Faramir take Frodo right to the threshold of Barad-dur.