As readers of my blogsite know, although an occasional book review pops up on this blogroll (never in my own field, since I wouldn’t be so gauche as to do that outside of professional journals), I hardly ever comment on films. I did write a piece on Bladerunner after seeing the sequel a couple years ago, and it was largely a favorable one. Bladerunner is one of those rare movies where the film surpasses the original book (in my opinion at least), and it has proven a great classic in filmdom.

Unfortunately, with the Hobbit films, it’s the opposite case, proving that books are still the best form of storytelling by far. 

I first encountered The Hobbit in the way that many people my generation (X) did: by having a trusted family member read it to me. The first reading, I recall vividly, was by my dear departed Uncle James Ellingboe, who read us the first chapter of the story in his home in Littleton Mass., right next to my own hometown of Acton. I was there along with my sister and our cousins, and I’d guess I was under ten at the time.
We gathered in the cozy confines of my uncle and aunt’s living room, warmed by the fire of a wood stove, and dug in with hot mugs of cocoa after a cold winter day of ice skating on the lake, as Uncle Jim read us the opening of this miraculous tale. I probably nodded off at some point. It was hard to follow, and there were a lot of complicated details. I recall thinking that the Hobbit was a dragon, because that was what was on the cover of the book, but I eventually realized he was just a little furry creature, some sort of rabbit-like critter that lived in a hole in the ground (not a smelly, wormy hole mind you…). Dwarves were a bit easier to relate to, since we’d all seen Snow White. Gandalf was like somebody’s Great Uncle, the old bearded man with a twinkle in his eye, who always gave you magical presents at Christmas.

Well, needless to say, we didn’t get that far in the book, but my curiosity was stoked. The next reading was by my own stepfather Andy Bodge, who is also a big Tolkein fan. He read it to me and my sister, and again I recall readings by the warmth of our own woodstove on a cold winter’s night. This time, we went through the entire journey together. Of course, he supplied voices for the characters, which added to the drama, and we could imagine them coming to life in our minds through the evocative descriptions that Tolkien supplies for his readers.

A few years later, maybe when I was 13 years old, I read through the entire Lord of the Rings saga on my own. Again, I recall turning the pages on cold winter nights, in my bedroom which was heated by a vent from the downstairs living room where the wood stove was going, or in a cabin during a skiing trip to Maine. It was tough going, and there were plenty of passages that required some skimming to get through, but the backbone of the story shone through the details, and kept me reading on.

What could lead a ten-year-old or a thirteen-year-old to identify with such a story? Well, for Tolkien fans, I think the answer is obvious. Not so obvious if you watch the films, but certainly so if you read the books. The simple answer is that you identify with the Hobbit. He is a small guy in a great big world, just like you are at that age—or girl, though I don’t recall girls being as interested in these largely male tales of adventure. He loves his creature comforts, his home, food and warmth, as do you. He also has a side of him that is up for a bit of adventure. And he gets drawn into it far more deeply than he’d ever imagined.

For humble folks like me, hailing from a small town surrounded by forests and ponds and streams, these sorts of high adventures kept me dreaming and seeking. Okay, I admit that I was also deep into Dungeons & Dragons, and that I practically memorized the Monster Manual, the Dungeon Master’s Guide, and the Player’s Handbook, and I would spend hours at home creating my own adventures, whether my friends joined them or not. Later on in high school, I took an interest in other sorts of fantasy fiction, including Frank Herbert’s epic novel Dune, and Michael Moorcock’s Elric series (along with just about anything else he wrote), and everything that Piers Anthony wrote as well, before graduating to the incredible world of Stanislaw Lem. Tolkien was my gateway to these higher adventures, and yet something always brought me back to his works.

Fast forward to my 40s, when I reread The Hobbit after having lived a life of some adventure, most of it in the Asia Pacific. I remember thinking what a literary gem this was, and looking forward to the day when I would be able to read it to my own daughters. Unfortunately, my older daughter Sarah outgrew my readings before I had the chance to spring it on her.

Fortunately, I have a second daughter Hannah, who is an avid reader of stories involving magic and potions and such. So last year, I read the Hobbit to Hannah over a period of several months, finally finishing it in Bangkok of all places. Since I was terribly ill at the time, I asked Hannah to finish reading it to me, which she dutifully did, and she never ceases to remind me of that fact. Then we were on to another great fantasy tale: The Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K Leguin, which we read together in the wake of the coronavirus and our epic retreat from China to the USA. 

Moving to the USA earlier this year to evade the virus reminds me of a particular chapter in The Hobbit, which any avid Hobbit reader will instantly guess. Yes, its chapter 6, “Out of the Frying Pan.” After escaping from the goblin-infested mountain, where he meets Gollum and steals the ring, Bilbo reunites with his dwarf companions and with Gandalf the wizard, only to find themselves up a tree (literally) while surrounded by goblins and wargs. They are saved when the great eagles take pity on them and fly them to safety in their eerie. What a magnificent part of the story! You can feel yourself being swept up in the eagles’ talons and carried off, while getting a view of the entire Middle Earth in the process, until you see that Lonely Mountain off in the distance. And yet, those nasty goblins are ever in pursuit!

Okay, so after all this reminiscing, now I’m going to get back to the original point of this piece: The Hobbit movies (directed Peter Jackson, 2012-2015), and why they don’t measure up to the book. I realize that I am preaching to the choir here, as anybody who has read this far obviously shares my love for Tolkien’s tales, and would be in total agreement. Certainly there are plenty of articles out there on the internet that are deeply critical of the Hobbit movies. But I find that most of them focus more on technical issues and less on the storytelling itself. So here it is in a nutshell:

The Hobbit was given that name for a very important reason: It’s the story of Bilbo Baggins and his great adventures! It’s not the story of Gandalf, or Thorin, or god forbid Legolas and his red-headed companion (lovely as she may be), who don’t even feature in the book at all. If you read the Hobbit, you will find that almost the entire story is told from his perspective and his alone, which is what makes it such a wonderful, magical, and classic tale. It is the journey of one person, struggling to survive in a great big world full of malevolent and powerful creatures that are far bigger and nastier than he is or ever will be. And while he shows great courage, resourcefulness, and cleverness throughout the journey, he does not become a warrior. He remains true to himself throughout the tale.

The films on the other hand turn Bilbo Baggins into one of many characters and offer many different points of view. One moment you’re with Bilbo and his party, and the next you are swept up in Gandalf’s tale, or in the story of Gandalf’s wizard colleagues. Or you are following the story of the villains, the orcs, who also do not get even a mention in the book (certainly they do in the Lord of the Rings but that’s a different tale altogether). How the orcs got their own say in this story is beyond me.

And then there is the Necromancer, who is barely hinted at in the book, but gets some major scenes in the movies (spoiler: he turns out to be Sauron, the Evil One in the Lord of the Rings tales). It seems the Hobbit movies are meant mainly to connect viewers to what they saw or plan to see in the Lord of the Rings film series, not to tell a story that is complete and perfect in its own right.

Let’s not even mention the completely fabricated parts of the tale that are missing entirely from the book or else told in a very different way. Okay, let’s do so anyhow. There’s the story of how Bilbo frees the dwarves from the confines of the wood elves’ dungeons, for example. This is a fantastic part of the Hobbit’s tale, but it is turned into a Disneyland ride in the movie. Same for the escape from the goblin tunnels. As for the Battle of the Five Armies, while it does cleave to the basic story of the book, the film takes great liberties with that episode. In the book, you only learn about snatches of the battle, which Bilbo almost completely misses after being knocked on the head while wearing the ring. In the movie, he is a player in the battle that seems to go on for half the story. Well, the list goes on. 

Last week, we decided to watch the film series along with my parents and my daughter Hannah. Her attention to the film or lack thereof indicates to me some of the fatal flaws in the series. Every time the red-headed female elf got together with Kili the dwarf, Hannah fled the room—and no wonder! Could this have gotten any more schmaltzy? And when the battles were raging, Hannah simply lost interest and left altogether. There was no suspense, no horror in these scenes, as there should have been. Instead, the main characters all perform superhuman feats of derring do, which never seem to cease topping the previous ones. I mean, Legolas using a bat to fly up to the ramparts, and then stepping over falling stones on the collapsed bridge to safety on the other side? Come on! The silliness just compounds itself over time and competes with the real drama of the characters.

I will admit, it was still fun to watch the series, even if it bungles the book beyond recognition at times. One can hardly find fault in the actors, who are superb of course. It’s just that the storytelling gets lost in the endless chain of action scenes. 

Some have tried “salvaging” the film series by cutting and pasting it into a four-hour “complete” film. I have yet to watch that movie, and I don’t intend to do so any time soon. In my opinion, the best part of the Hobbit series is the first fifteen minutes of the first film, when the dwarves gather in Bilbo’s hobbit-hole for dinner and break into song while not breaking his dishes. After that, it just goes downhill from there.

I sincerely hope that this doesn’t mean the end of making Hobbit movies. I’d like to see someone make a complete film of the Hobbit story, focusing as it should be on the story of Bilbo Baggins, told from his perspective. I really think it can be done without sacrificing the fine details that go into this story. Well, okay, maybe a TV series instead?