Following the success of the infamous Lord of the Rings trilogy, Newline Cinema decided to bring Tolkien’s original masterpiece, The Hobbit, to the silver screen as well. I guess this wasn’t completely unexpected, but it wasn’t necessarily needed. If anything, the Lord of the Rings films encouraged people to read the novelss, as well as Tolkien’s other work. Unfortunately for The Hobbit, it seems Newline was simply trying to milk Tolkien’s legacy and literature for all it’s worth.
As novels, the Lord of the Rings trilogy is arguably some of the best literature ever written. As films, they stand as some of the best cinematic achievements of all time. As a novel, The Hobbit is arguably one of the best pieces of literature of all time. As a film, the first Hobbit film stands as one of the most mediocre films of all time. Why did this film flop? I shall elaborate.
First and foremost, The Hobbit (as a novel) is actually smaller than each individual Lord of the Rings novel. The Lord of the Rings trilogy was one film, for one novel. The Hobbit is apparently three films, for one novel. Why? I haven’t the slightest. My only theory is that they want to have a Hobbit trilogy to accompany the Lord of the Rings trilogy…alongside making a few million dollars. That being said, stretching one novel into three films leaves a lot of needed filler, which The Hobbit film has. The slow pace is derived from the fact they’re trying to make three films out of a novel that could be done in three hours.
The Hobbit film also has the burden of trying to introduce 13 new characters to fans of the previous films (whereas fans of the novel already know these people). Now, some may not think that’s a big deal, as The Lord of the Rings introduced and diversified its 9 lead characters. Unfortunately, The Hobbit has a wizard (Gandalf), a Hobbit (Bilbo), and 13 Dwarves. The Lord of the Rings trilogy has a far more diverse set of characters. This left The Hobbit to unsuccessfully try and bring in 13 new characters, with similar names, and similar appearances. After watching the film, no moviegoer was able to distinguish which Dwarf was which. Essentially, this leaves room for Jackson and company to allow only two characters to develop, while the others just take up space.
The other, and more prominent issue with the film, was its lack of maturity. The entire film comes across as a Harry Potter film, geared towards a much younger audience. It lacked the maturity, grit, and serious tone that The Lord of the Rings films gave. *spoiler alert* The Hobbit has action sequences where you watch Radagast (a wizard rarely mentioned in the literature) ride around on a sleigh, pulled by rabbits. Yup. That’s right. There are also far fetched action sequences that the film begs you to buy into, because you know it defies physics and couldn’t happen. The Lord of the Rings didn’t necessarily have that. The audience already bought into the world, and then they enjoyed the journey. The Hobbit tosses out numerous winks to the audience, in hopes they’ll accept the silly and outlandish action sequences.
*A personal pet peeve I also had was that the film altered some aspects of the novel*
Long story short, read the book. It’s one of the best pieces of literature you will read, and this first film can’t hold a candle to it.
6/10.
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