The Hobbit

A movie adaptation is always going to place a lot more emphasis on those sorts of scenes, or would you rather be treated to internal monologue and description? Tolkien can spend pages describing a setting, but in a film setting is just in the background. Much like PJ can spend most of a film on battle scenes while Tolkien can't. Different media.

That's what I've been saying this whole time; Film is a visual medium, you need to Show, Not Tell. Whereas books are allowed to use words to describe what's happening.

I've said once but I'll say it again; If you don't want ANYTHING altered from the books, just read them and avoid the movies.

There's a considerable difference between changes to adapt to a different medium and changes made just because you can. The latter tend to stick out and be at odds with whatever the original author was trying to convey.

Honestly nothing about the Hobbit books would translate well to film. A goofy group of faceless dwarves and a hobbit go on an adventure. What makes it a good book is Tolkien's description and the world building, which PJ can't adapt into film. He uses action scenes for world building and pretty effects in the place of description, and tbh does a damn good job of it.

That is a bald-faced lie. Even the Rankin-Bass 1 hour cartoon communicated the book just fine and dandy.

The bigger issue is that Jackson expanded a 200 page book into three movies.

Can you say Padding?

Most of The Hobbit had nothing to do with THE FUCKING TITLE CHARACTER!

I mean, having to import useless, unrelated shit from The Simalliron, including Legolas (WHAT?), inventing a new female elf (WHAT?!?!), and then you have idiotic shit like bringing in Saruman, Radagast, Galadriel, etc. WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

This song basically tells the entire theme of The Hobbit perfectly.

"Wow, how dare they bring Galadriel and co. back for some cool worldbuilding and interesting action scenes! How dare they up the stakes and tie in Sauron! Let's instead try to remake a cartoon adaptation that got middling reviews and nobody remembers!"

Really, if you want perfect accuracy, the books are still there. I love the Hobbit, but to be honest I wouldn't watch it if it were adapted more faithfully. It just doesn't translate well into film.

Like, I'm the first to neckbeard and complain when people make changes to source material. The amount they cut from the Lot R movies really annoyed me. But when they add stuff in? Like the Dol Guldur conflict which was going on during the time of the Hobbit and is an excuse to show off more or middle earth, how is this bad and "idiotic shit"?

edited 21st Dec '14 1:00:09 PM by vincentquill

For that matter, the inclusion of the White Council was a change that was actually greatly received, because most fans I've talked to agree that (i.e how the Hell the White Council kept Sauron at bay) is a story worth telling, which Tolkien never explored to its potential, leaving as a sort of Offscreen Moment of Awesome for the White Council.

It's not as if we actually know whether a faithful adaptation of The Hobbit would translate well to film or not, since aside from the Rankin-Bass cartoon nobody has really tried.

"For that matter, the inclusion of the White Council was a change that was actually greatly received,"

By whom? And it's irrelevent.

It's not The Hobbit, and the movie sucks.

Please, God, don't tell me there will be Lucas Prequel Defense on this.

"It is not x thing that I like the exact way I like it in the exact way I wanted it done, therefore it sucks."

That argument is not exactly an appealing one.

I for one have not seen the third movie yet, but I definitely plan to.

edited 21st Dec '14 2:01:59 PM by NickTheSwing

Well if you're going to counter-argue everything with "No, it sucks" then there's not much of an argument to be had, is there?

The movie did a very good job with the War Is Hell thing, I thought.

Besides, saying that the cartoon version of The Hobbit was superior to the Peter Jackson film is like saying the animated adaptations of the other three books were better as well, even including the fact that the Witch-king of Angmar sounded like a fucking robot.

edited 21st Dec '14 4:44:29 PM by theLibrarian

You're right. Most of The Hobbit did have nothing to do with the title character. You are, however, mistaken in assuming this is a matter that is solely the fault of the book.

For half the book, Bilbo is just sort of there, and even when he does start contributing, the Ring does the heavy lifting.

Yeah. He is literally only there as a good luck charm and to do his thing when they finally get to Erebor.

While some of the songs are catchy, I don't think anyone would say the Return of the King animated movie is better than Jackson's version.

Eh, there's one entry on the Narm page for Western Animation where someone posting the video used as an example says "See what can be accomplished without live action and fancy special effects."

No, wait, I found the comment:

edited 21st Dec '14 6:53:43 PM by theLibrarian

That comment makes me laugh because:

1. The Witch King cannot be taken seriously because he sounds like Skeletor and Starscream's bastard love child, and

2. Tolkien's dialogue, while creative, sounds very stilted and awkward in real life and you would sound like a bad D & D character if you said them to someone.

edited 21st Dec '14 7:28:17 PM by PrincessGwen

Yeah. When you think about it the LOTR books are really cliche. Like, I know they came before being cliche was even a concept, but nowadays you can do anything like it and as long as its own unique things and write well it's child's play to make a LOTR lookalike. Aside from opening up the epic-quest genre there's literally nothing that makes them special aside from being the Trope Codifier for pretty much every fantasy trope.

edited 21st Dec '14 7:30:56 PM by theLibrarian

So it's a case of Seinfeld is Unfunny? Granted, I still like LOTR and The Hobbit, but that doesn't mean I have to like everything about it.

For example, I never liked Tom Bombadil, and I thought it was wise for PJ to remove him from the movies because he wasn't that important to the plot.

Yeah, it's not a bad thing to like it but not like some parts of it. I also hate all of the filler in it, which is one reason why I like the movies more than the books; the plot progresses faster. Yes, there are plot holes, but those are kind of unavoidable when you have to compress books that are tens of thousands of words into movies that are two and a half to three hours long.

Like for instance, I can imagine that the reason that the Grey Company didn't make an appearance in the ROTK movie was because even in fantasy it would be a very big stretch for 30 soldiers to turn the tide of a battle where you're massively outnumbered like in Pelennor Fields.

edited 21st Dec '14 7:48:31 PM by theLibrarian

Well, the world I'd still consider uniquely detailed and overall Tolkien captures the epic and myth-like feel very well. However this just doesn't translate at all into film, visual medium and all.

True. Plus you can do in film that can actually be better than the book.

@vincent It's probably because movies are limited in what they can put in to make it good, whereas books are allowed to expand more on the setting and how the world works. But because of movies and books are two different mediums, there are some things that have to be taken out.

Still, PJ did the best he could with what he was given with LOTR and The Hobbit, and I enjoy the movies for what they are, rather than being 100% accurate to the books.

Indeed. Expecting a movie to be 100% accurate to the book would not only make it unnecessarily long, it might also actually make the movie bad.