Not really looking forward to it. I have been listening to the audiobook at work about a dozen times recently, and the hobbit movies are just at the weird point where they are too close to the book to be taken as a separate story, yet the differences are so big and often as to be constantly jarring.

I'd enjoy them a lot better if I weren't familiar with the book.

Best to think of the movies as a smershing together of the book and lots of information from information presented in other works but contemporaneous with the time period.

Personally, I don't care for it when a Director uses that old B.S. "artistic license."

Stick to the book . . . or don't make the movie. I love J.R.R. Tolkien and couldn't give a load of horse hockey for the Director's "vision." If his vision is so great, why doesn't he have a pot load of novels?

That's my biggest gripe with the LOTR movies as well.

There, I said it.

Contemporaneous is an awesome word.

I've always found the actual adaption to be as interesting as the movie or book themselves. I find it interesting how the different mediums tell the same(ish) stories through different methods.

I'm looking forward to the third movie.

I don't like Tokien.  I respect what he did for the fantasy genre but I can't stand reading his writing.  Didn't like the Hobbit when i read it.

Watched the lord of the rings trilogy, each one when it came out in the theater and then the extended version of each movie on DVD.  I will probably never watch any of them ever again.

I didn't see the first hobbit movie, i had no interest is going to the theater to watch half of a movie based on a story i didn't care for by an author i didn't like.

The movies are visually stunning, i have to give them that.

In reply to Mystic-Scholar (msg # 5):

There are some things you can do in a book, introspection / internal dialogs for instance, or narrative background, that are somewhere between clunky, hard, or outright impossible to do in a movie.

In reply to otghand (msg # 8):

This is true, but it goes far beyond that. People tend to think that books and movies are similar, because they both tell stories. But they're very, very different media and tell stories in completely different ways.

Film, and especially Western/commercial/mainstream/Hollywood films, have a very definite structure and very set (almost rote) rhythm. Writing a (good) screenplay is a lot closer to writing highly structured poetry than it is to writing fiction.

There are lots of things in books that you could film with very few literal changes, but that would just lie there dead on the screen, or interrupt the flow, or just feel boring or strange.

And that's before you get into the time constraints. Films have very definite limits on length, and so each portion of the film needs to fit into very small boxes.

It's fascinating process. And one of the reasons I enjoy adaptations so much.

In reply to otghand (msg # 8):

In the last chapter, of the last book, we "hear" the name Arwen.

Sorry, but I am not the least bit interested in having my "stories" screwed with, the satisfy female movie-goers.

Sorry ladies, but no, that is NOT how it happened. The Director of the movie LIED to you.

Ask for you money back.

In reply to Mystic-Scholar (msg # 10):

A movie is not the book, it is its own story based on the story in the book.  This has been true so long as movies have been made from books.

if the hobbit book was made into a movie exactly as is, it would be 45 minutes long with about 8 mins of dialogue and a lot of walking.

I love Tolkieen I first read them, and I don't completely agree with every change Jackson made, but I think he very much stuck to the over all spirit of the books, and made very entertaining and enjoyable movies to watch.  That's all you can really ask for.

Staying true to the book when converting to a film means keeping the characters and factions true to their roles, and not adding major characters or factions. (Minor background references, such as signs and text are acceptable).

I.E. not turning Azog from a mere reference, that killed and was then implied to be killed in return, into a force that chased characters throughout when the book didn't even have that force at all in any form.

Altering dialogue, or adding a conversation, or other minor things to illustrate things stated in the book (but would take too long or can't be reasonably shown on film), but that don't really alter the flow or tone of the story, are all things I see as acceptable in staying true to the book.

Ninjad edit, I would agree with that more on the lotr trilogy but not with the hobbit. Of course I'm far more familiar with the hobbit (the book) then the lotr trilogy.

I agree, some of the changes were unexpected and more invasive in Hobbit than LOTR.  As a tolkien nut, I also agree that changing Azog is a big change in the realm of middle earth lore.  But I honestly don't think it changes the feel of the story too much, if you keep in mind that Jackson is intentionally adding in the other events that tie the hobbit to the LOTR, and shifting the feel away from a children's book to something more serious like the LOTR.

Which is honestly something Tolien expressed a desire to do himself toward the end of his life.

There was nothing "implied about Azog's death. In Third Age 2799, after 6 years of war between the Dwarves of Durin's tribe and their Allie's against the Orc's Azog was slain at the Battle of Azanulbizar by Dain Ironfoot and Thror's murder avenged.

All the little things didn't bother me that much: Radagast's rabbit's, "Pretty" Dwarve's (they are rather good looking to be dwarves), Legolas who was never mentioned in the book (but was alive at the time). The "Tomb's" of Nazgul was silly. They were never "slain" in Saurons defeat or sealed away in tombs, they went into hiding in the east to await their masters return.

But the Zombie Albino Orc chasing Thorin and Company all over the place made me cringe and almost walk out of part 1 every time he came on the screen. If you must add this to the story why not use Azog's son Bolg who lead the Orc's and Warg's at the Battle of Five Army's 150 years after his fathers death?

In reply to darknash (msg # 15):

The main thing that bothered me about the orcs in the Hobbit is that they're CGI and the orcs from the first film trilogy were actors in costumes.

The ones in the first film were far more terrifying because there was a weight to their bodies, I'm more afraid for Aragorn in the fight on Amon Hen against Lurtz than I am any time orcs are barreling down on anyone in the Hobbit.

I'm bothered that of my two favourite dwarves (who I'll admit became badass after the Hobbit in the Lord of the Rings) one (Balin) is good (but*) and the other (Ori) is a snivelling and cross-eyed child apparently who fights with a slingshot. There are so many traits to Ori (could write in Elvish, COULD WRITE) that set him apart from the rank and file. How could would one scene where Bilbo (who also knows Elvish) and Ori compare phrases in their educations, or speak with elves in Rivendell briefly? Nope, never mind that he was the last dwarf to die in Moria!

*-Balin doesn't have his axe . . . the axe that was buried with him that Gimli uses from the Balin's Tomb scene onwards. He has instead some sort of broad chopped blade, which is worse since that's basically an axe and why couldn't they simply just use the axe!?

Balin gets the axe in Erebor.  My guess is he will use it in the third movie.


I never said anything about Azog being implied.  I know they changed it, a lot.  I don't really know why, but I don't think it ruins the movie.  I actually think he's a pretty cool villain.

I don't think the inclusion of the female elf warrior romance with Kili adds anything to the story, but it isn't so horrible that I can't enjoy all the other stuff, just like the new version of star wars will probably have things I don't like as much, but that won't keep me from enjoying watching x-wings fight in the big screen, something I haven't seen since I was 5.

and the detail stuff like Ori, or the past conflict between orcs and dwarves, are the type of thing Tolkien buffs get excited about, and the average viewer could care less.


I guess, ultimately, it comes down to if you don't enjoy it, don't watch it.  That's fine.  I enjoy them, so I will.  And we can all still enjoy the books, they didn't get destroyed when the movies came out.

I don't like those movies because there is a serious lack of funny hats the dwarves wear. Lame.

The point I was going for was that the movie itself had nothing really wrong with, but the relation between the movie and the book and ruin the enjoyment of the movie even if the movie itself doesn't have have anything bad about it.

I guess I disagree.  But I understand what you are saying.  But it happens all the time in movies.  The Bourne movies have almost nothing to do with the books once you pass the beginning of the second movie, but I enjoy them as movies despite them being completely different from books I enjoy as well.
I guess I feel Jackson stayed close to the spirit of the books, which is as much as can be expected from Hollywood.  The opposite would be a movie like Troy, which changed the feel and ending of a 3 thousand year old piece of literature.

In reply to Undeadbob (msg # 18):

Funny hats or the lack thereof are a perfectly acceptable criteria to judge movies by, no foolin'.

Really though, I enjoy the Hobbit movies as spectacles and I have fun seeing them at the theater with other people, but I also see them as fundamentally weaker films than the LOTR trilogy. I'm not a Tolkien nut or anything; I enjoyed reading the Hobbit quite a bit as a kid, but aside from that I don't have any particular nostalgia clouding my vision. I understand how essential it is to change things when you adapt a piece of fiction to another medium. This is more from the perspective of a film dork who likes to examine movies with a critical eye.

Mostly, I just find the pacing is all over the place, the over-reliance on CGI over practical effects can be a bit poor-looking, and some of the action scenes are kind of lame and weightless, not really tense or especially whimsical.

I still have fun watching them with people, and I'm not a nitpick-in-the-theater type. But talking about them online? Ehh, yeah, I can acknowledge the (in my opinion) flaws.

I guess the thing to remember is that any film adaptation, EVERY film adaptation, is a cultural artifact inspired by another cultural artifact. There is no way to 'perfectly' adapt one storytelling medium to another, even if we could all agree on what 'perfectly' means (which we can't), it would still be impossible.

For example, the one thing that I feel was lost in the LOTR film trilogy was the tone of the novel. The book had a lot of noble, high-minded people calmly and careful discussing noble and high-minded things and calmly making noble and high-minded decisions. That's one of the things I really enjoyed about it. In the films, there was a lot of fighting and bickering and yelling and in-fighting and self-doubt and such.

But the film is NOT the book. It's a movie inspired by a book. I don't want to go all McLuhan and start up with the 'the medium is the message' but it is true that a work can't really be separated by the means by which that work is communicated.

Movies (especially especially western mainstream movies) are not books. It's not even really fair to talk about what is gained and what is lost. They're just different. You might as well watch an opera inspired by a statue. Or a sonnet inspired by interpretive dance.

While they may be different, you can get a close approximation, or you can make things very different, or anywhere in between, however, once you make enough changes, one really has to wonder why you are even bothering. At that point, would it not be better to make something completely differentthat simply dhares the basic plot? Like Disney's take on fairy tales, recognizable for the tale they stem from, but so far different that they are more like similar stories rather then one based on the other, thus it doesn't have the original hanging over it.

I.E. I could take the lion king but write a similar story about dwarves and elves with the same premise. A dwarf king, his evil brother, and his son. Similar, but no one would be bothered by how different it is from the original.

So I consider a movie as true to the source when changes are minimized and done only to account for the difference in medium. Otherwise, quit pretending, and just make something "new" with it's own characters and world.

I'm confused about what you're trying to say here. Are you saying that an adaptation should make either no/few changes or LOTS of changes? That doesn't make a lot of sense. Every adaptation makes just as many changes as it needs to be the work that [whoever] wants it to be and no more and no less.


So why does Disney's The Frog Prince (or, even more egregiously, Pocahontas?) get a pass and not the Hobbit? My argument is that there's no clear defining line between 'some changes' and 'a lot of changes' and 'too many changes' and/or 'the wrong changes.' Every film adaptation should be looked as inspired by the book. in the same way that Disney fairy tale cartoons are inspired by 'the original' and no more.


You could also argue that the Lion King is mostly retreaded Hamlet and few would argue with you.


I would argue that every change is done solely to account for the difference in the medium, once you take into account the process(es) by which the two are created and sold. I don't think anyone is pretending, but rather making the best use of the material that they can, given the circumstances.

At the end of the day, one thing can be said of every movie, every TV show, and every book...  Some people will like it, some will hate it.  And, thanks to the miracle of personal taste, both sets of people will be right.

So what's the point in arguing about it?  If you like it, enjoy it.  If you don't, then there'll be something along in a little while that may be more to your taste.

Yeah, but it rarely works that way.  But it doesn't matter.  If you don't like them, don't see them.  Plenty of movies out there other people love that I don't enjoy, and vice versa.  Life goes on.



Or...exactly what Bigbadron said as I was typing this.

The Lion King is actually Hamlet (never seen or read the play or was made to study it at school but I know the basics and TLK was my favourite film growing up, I still think it's brilliant, so it would've been kind of impossible for me not to have learned that particular fact at some point ;)), so it is based on an already-existing story itself ;).

I don't mind film adaptations of books but I pretty much always find I like the book(s) better. I got bored with the Harry Potter films by Goblet of Fire, by which point they were missing out entire subplots. But that aside, I like the way you get more description and the private thoughts/opinions/emotions of characters in a book which you can't really put into a film. When they make a film of a book (or series of books) they always change some things but sometimes it's only little changes, sometimes they'll make huge alterations about characters and/or events, moving them around or removing htem entirely, or even making new stuff up and throwing that in. Sometimes it's okay, sometimes it's like what I've seen of the Eragon film...omg that film...

As for the Hobbit/LotR films, there are some changes in them that I don't like, some that I'm not fussed about...some I'm just kind of "Huh? Why did they do that?"...more so with the Hobbit, I think. I'm approaching the Hobbit films more as a silly couple of hours of fun than from a "serious" PoV, otherwise I don't think I'd even bother. Because you can totally float in a minecart thingy through a river of molten gold without being vapourised or anything :P. It also bugs me somewhat the constant little things they throw in which say "Hey, don't forget - this film is a prequel to Lord of the Rings!", like using a particular camera shot or having a character use a certain line which came up in the LotR films.