Well, I finally, finally got around to seeing The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Considering that the Lord of the Rings series from ten years ago are among of my favorite films, it's a shame I didn't go to see this in the theaters, and something I intend to do with the other two entries.
A lot has been and can be said about the Hobbit film and the oncoming trilogy that brings up unfavorable comparison with the Lord of the Rings. Chief amongst those is that the novel on which it is based, The Hobbit, is shorter than any of the individual volumes that make up Lord of the Rings, and thus to stretch out an entire film trilogy that aims to be just as epic in length and scope as the original is, well, perhaps a little odd.
When Lord of the Rings came out, you didn't really see many fantasy films (LotR and Harry Potter were really the two instigators of the revival.) Sadly in the decade that followed, we didn't really see a renaissance of original stories or passion projects so much as we saw cash-grab after cash-grab, soaking up every property or public domain story. We even saw things like Alice in Wonderland transformed from surreal puzzles into dragon-slaying, a sin I will never forgive. Thus, it is not without justification that one could consider the Hobbit to be another example of film studios jumping to capitalize on the memory we have of that great film series, and stretching it to three films so they make three times the money.
On the other hand, this isn't just cooked out of nothing. Even the stuff that doesn't happen in the book (ok, except Azog being alive) has a basis in Tolkien's writings. And as I've noted about Game of Thrones, in a way a longer series is a more appropriate way to adapt a true novel to the screen. Feature films are actually very short, when you see them on the page (generally 100-120 pages with a whole lot of double-spaces and blank areas.) Any novel adaptations has to cut enormous swaths, but if you give it more room to breathe, you can save more of the original piece.
The point I'm getting to, before I've even addressed the film itself, is that for all the complaints, I actually really liked this movie.
One of the challenges of the Hobbit is that there are way too many characters, and even Tolkien seemed to be too overwhelmed by them to give them unique names. Thus we have Dwalin and Balin, Kili and Fili, Dori, Nori and Ori, etc. As Dwarves, these guys have lots of comic relief built in. Despite this, the dwarves do have a certain sadness to them. Tolkien based the Dwarvish language on Semitic tongues, and I believe has actually said that the dwarves were supposed to be reminiscent of the Jews. Sure, there are some unfortunate implications there, given the dwarven fixation on gold, but ultimately what they are is a tough, resilient people who have lost their homeland. And with that lost to them, they are treated poorly by the people with whom they are forced to stay. The Hobbit was written before the establishment of Israel, but I would guess that Tolkien was an advocate of Zionism.
One thing I found pretty interesting is the way that the "monstrous" races have a great deal more personality here than they do in Lord of the Rings. In part, I believe that's true of the book (Tolkien was writing for a different audience.) But basically, this actually enriches the world a bit more. Sure, the orcs, trolls, and goblins are all evil, but you can sort of understand that there is, in fact, a kind of culture to which they belong. Without the presence of Sauron (well, not entirely without...) the monsters don't really have any sort of centralization. In Lord of the Rings we were dealing with the armies of Isengard and Mordor (and the Moria goblins/orcs.) Here, we have sort of independent bands. Azog is a warlord with his own pack. The Goblin King (with a disgusting "beard" made out of some kind of cyst) is a leader of his own people.
Bilbo's discovery of the Ring was done very well - in that it looked almost exactly as I remembered reading it (many years ago.) Andy Serkis (who was the 2nd unit director on these films) doesn't get a lot of time to inhabit this incredible role, but he makes the most of it.
Oh, and let us not forget to talk about Martin Freeman. As always, I love his performance. Martin Freeman excels at playing the everyman, from Arthur Dent (say what you will about that movie, but he and Mos Def were perfect casting) to John Watson and now Bilbo Baggins. Bilbo is of course a very different kind of hero than Frodo, who allows the other three Hobbits to covey the innocence and naiveté of Hobbit-ness while he's a little wiser and quieter. Bilbo, on the other hand, is basically the first Hobbit to leave the Shire, and it takes him a long time to adjust. There's plenty more for him to do, so let's keep an eye open.
Now, the biggest insertion into this story is that of Gandalf's travails with the White Council and "the Necromancer." In the book, we only hear tiny bits of this after a long absence by Gandalf. Now, however, we get to see a little more of the workings of the Wizards and other powerful people. While the two, unnamed Blue Wizards don't get to make an appearances (some sort of legal thing, I believe, with Tolkien's estate,) we get to see Radaghast, who is a far sillier than Gandalf and kind of a super-nature-hippie (birds in his hair, ok. Bird shit down his face... a bit much.) Some sort of evil presence is killing everything in the forest, and when he goes to investigate the old fortress of Dol Guldar a very familiar Ringwraith shows up, except as a total ghost. So I guess they were undead? I guess that was kind of implied anyway.
So we have Elrond and Saruman (who is not yet evil, which is kind of cool to see. Seems Saruman's old personality before, you know, Mussolini to Sauron's Hitler, was that of the stubborn but benevolent father - ever authoritative and calming, even if he's wrong) who are skeptical that this is anything more than just a human doing a little black magic (actually, one of the things I've never been totally clear on in Tolkien's world is the capabilities of mortals performing magic. Apparently they can.) Galadriel is with Gandalf and Radaghast, and I'm sure we'll see a pretty epic confrontation by the end of the films where they push Sauron back, but allowing him to escape to Mordor.)
The Hobbit manages to escape most of the problems of prequels. Part of that is that the book, was, in fact written first. It also concerns itself with an entirely different villain, and while the stakes are not low, they are nowhere near as high as that of the Lord of the Rings. And Middle Earth, being such a well-conceived fictional setting, is rich enough that I'm happy to spend more time there.
I cannot look into the minds of the filmmakers, but unlike a lot of the last decade's blockbusters, this doesn't seem like a heartless cash-grab. I think that there was a story there that deserved telling. Is the story groaning under the weight of three films to support? Actually no, if you ask me.
So, Hobbit. Good. Fun. Will see next one.
