Hey Reader!
So, as you might recall from our discussion about The Lord of the Rings
movies and
books, this year we're doing some literary study and comparing the books and movies tied to Tolkien's legendarium, and this week I'm kicking us off with a look at
The Hobbit. In our last discussion on the Lord of the Rings trilogy I largely agreed with Tiberius's thoughts: the movies are pretty good adaptations and do a lot of things really well.
Today's post is not going to be as understanding to the Hobbit movies, though admittedly I have toned back a lot of my rhetoric because 1) people do like the movies, and I don't want to rain too hard on their parade, and 2) because I really am trying to cut back on being salty about most things in life, so I have to practice somewhere, :P
Like last time, this is not intended to be exhaustive: I've kept myself to five overarching reasons, but you can definitely add more in the comments if you wish. But as someone who had the equivalent of a Literature minor in college, has spent a lot of time specifically studying faerie literature and Tolkien's works, and even wrote a high school course on The Hobbit and its themes, it will surprise no one when I tell you that I have thoughts on this.
I think the Lord of the Rings movies are decent adaptations of the books: it's not a 1:1 recreation, but it does try to remain faithful to the themes and (generally) character arcs in the original text. I do not think the Hobbit movies are faithful adaptations of the source material, as a lot of what they do in them takes away from the central themes of the story, and overly complicate what should be a deeply resonant story for all of us who have ever felt like we weren't quite "home" yet, and are still searching for that place in our hearts (if not our physical bodies). And as a literary person, I really don't like it when themes aren't properly adapted from the source material.
So let's get started.