The Hobbit: An Unexpected Desolation?

Dear Readers,

Those of you who have been following my posts for a while are probably familiar with my deep and abiding love for the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, and the mix of apprehension and excitement with which I approached the first Hobbit movie, and with which I am going to approach the second.  Just like last year, I watched the movie once, and decided I needed another look before I actually reviewed it.  Thus, nearly a month after I first saw the movie, I have finally gotten up the nerve to write.

When I walked out of the first Hobbit movie last year, my initial response was “I could kiss Peter Jackson right now.”  The little moments from the book made the first Hobbit movie my favorite of 2013, and one of my all time favorites.  A second and third viewing gave me a more balanced view of the film, but still left me a very happy Tolkien fan.  You can imagine my excitement, then, when opening night finally came for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.  Featuring some of the best parts of the book, from the dwarves meeting with Beorn, to Bilbo’s encounter with the spiders of Mirkwood, to the dwarves escape from the dungeons of the elf king, I was hopeful that the second Hobbit movie would be better than the first.

When I walked out of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, my first comment was, “I want to tar and feather Peter Jackson right now.”  While the first movie was very deliberate in its attempts to include little moments from the book, the second rushed through what should have been the best parts in order to make room for the inclusion of unneeded battle sequences, tacky gags, and a non-textual love sequence that added little if anything to the overall story.  A second viewing again tempered my initial opinion of the film, and I can say in all honesty that I enjoyed the movie, but I still suffer from my initial disappointment.

So, in an attempt to be fair to the movie, while expressing my own outrage and disappointment, I will speak first to what the movie did wrong, and save the good moments for the end.  This will mean some slogging through negative comments, spoilers, and criticisms before the movie is allowed to redeem itself somewhat.  If, like my sister, you are of the opinion that “A Hobbit movie is better than no Hobbit movie, so just shut up and enjoy it,” then you might want to skip to the end.  If, however, you want a Tolkien nerd’s opinion on the film with all the highs and lows, read on!

The worst part of the movie, in my opinion was the addition of a romantic element between Tauriel (a non textual elf woman created specifically for the movie), Legolas (an old familiar face for Lord of the Rings fans who was not in the book, but who could conceivably have been a part of the events of the Hobbit), and Kili (the strangely good looking dwarf who was a bit of a non entity in the book, but who is developed nicely for the films).  First, let me speak to all the feminists, anti-feminists, and post’s feminists; I understand that the addition of a warrior female character was supposed on one hand to balance out the visual impact of 13 dwarves on the film, while also allowing for the presence of a powerful female presence in the film.  I understand the addition of the character for the sake of a change of pacing and perspective within the film.  I am even willing to admit the possibility of a non-textual romance as a way of developing her presence in the film (although, as a bit of a feminist, I am vaguely offended by the fact that you cannot have a woman character without also providing her a male companion and a romantic involvement).  What I found so disgusting about her presence in the movie was the three way love triangle between her Legolas, and Kili.  While there is some textual basis for dwarves having crushes on elven women (consider Gimli and Galadriel in Lord of the Rings), there is no basis for any reciprocation on the part of the elf.  The addition of Tauriel’s affection for Kili, as well as her ambivalent feelings for Legolas lead to the creation of a love triangle more reminiscent of Twilight or Hunger Games than of anything out of Middle Earth.  Furthermore, the excessive amount of time dedicated to this romance, from the lingering looks between Tauriel and Legolas, to the flirtatious banter between her and Kili, from Tauriel’s reckless abandonment of her duty to the elven king in a headlong chase to help save Kili, to her assurance that Legolas would follow her to help her, to her abandonment of Legolas to fight the orcs alone so she could play doctor with Kili, serves no purpose other than to detract from what should be the pivotal moments in the story, such as the development of the dwarves respect for Bilbo when he saves them in Mirkwood.  So much time is devoted to the romance between these non critical characters, that the important people like Bilbo, Thorin, or the really interesting characters of the story like Beorn do not have the opportunities they need to develop.  The story would have been better served if there had been no addition of Tauriel’s character, or if they had kept her role, like that of Galadriel in the first Hobbit movie, to that of counter-voice against the elven king.  The elimination about the romantic aspect of the story would have allowed for a better development of significant characters and more time for the slower moments in the book that the true Tolkien fan cherishes.

While I am ranting about additions that add nothing to the story and take critical time away from where the true development should be happening, I need to address the dwarves and Smaug.  In the book, the dwarves are cowardly, well aware of the fact that they are not heroes who are able to kill a dragon.  They never see the dragon, cowering either on the doorstep, or inside the secret passageway, while Bilbo and Bard of Laketown are the only two to directly confront the beast.  In the movie, however, there is an extensive sequence in which the dwarves scramble recklessly through the halls of Erebor, while Smaug, seemingly grown incompetent by years spent in comfortable wealth and sleep, is unable to singe a single one of them.  They then attempt the most ridiculous plan in the history of dragon confrontations; to douse the fire breathing, gold loving dragon with heated liquid metal.  Seriously?!?  What scriptwriter thought that was a good idea?  Dragons, especially fire dragons, are notorious for their love of heat!  He likely melts all that gold up himself once a century to take a long bath!  Dwarves, particularly dwarves with a vendetta against a fire dragon would have known better than to try to kill it with molten metal.  If the writers had (out of a misguided desire to include more action sequences than are provided in the book) to have the dwarves confront the dragon, they would have been better served to try and use the vast fountains that the dwarves used for dousing their creations.  The water would have been glacial, and the movie made it appear that there was enough stored in the Mountain to effectively submerge and quench the dragon and his fires.  Instead, viewers are left with a nonsensical sequence which serves no purpose other than to convince us of the dragon’s ineptitude and the dwarves idiocy.

The next issue I need to address is the “Barrels out of bondage” sequence.  Again, the writers felt the need to add fight sequence to this section which serves only to prolong the film and undercuts the development of the characters.  What made the barrel sequence so enjoyable in the book with the triumph of mind over steel and stone; Bilbo spends weeks in the halls of the elven king before he discovers a way out, and when he does, he manages the escape so neatly, that none of the elves are aware how the escape happened.  The little hobbit, lacking a warrior’s skills, uses his head to get his friends out of a tight spot and once again earns their respect and trust.  The plan is subtle and affective.  Instead, conscious only of the short attention span of the modern audience, and looking for the easy fix, filmmakers turned this sequence into an extended action flick, involving a three way fight between the dwarves, elven guards, and a random orc party that is magically able to appear in the middle of the elven king’s domain without any suspicion of their presence, and then to escape mostly intact despite the impromptu unspoken truce between elves and escaping dwarves.  While I understand the issue of audience attention, there could have been more subtle ways to deal with the problem.  Instead of creating a huge fight sequence, the writers could have treated the escape with subtlety, building the tension with every close call while emphasizing the sneaky nature of the escape.  This element is used later, in the dwarves arrival to Laketown, but would have been better utilized over the entire escape sequence.

It was not just the addition of large, unnecessary sequences that was disappointing.  Those were compounded by a myriad of little insults, tacky additions that won cheap laughs and “feels” from the audience, but were utterly out of place in Middle Earth.  The most obvious of these moments came during the “Barrels out of Bondage” sequence, in which the buffoon Bombur’s barrel bounces improbably through the goblin forces without injury.  The moment is designed to be laughably absurd, but fails to take into account that Middle Earth functions under the same constraints of gravity, material strength, and probability as our own.  It cheapens the story and adds nothing more than a cheap laugh which could just as effectively been gotten through clever repartee in the dialog (as was the case with Legolas and Gimli in the Lord of the Rings trilogy).  Another cheap moment was a result of the romance between Tauriel and Kili, in which Tauriel is locking Kili in the elf king’s dungeons and Kili queries, “Aren’t you going to search me? I could have anything down my trousers.”  Even Tauriel’s snappy response to this obviously sexual comment is not enough to redeem the moment.  Yes, characters in Middle Earth have sex.  Looking at the number of kids some of the characters have, it is even fair to think they really enjoy it.  But they don’t talk about it in the middle of a quest, certainly not when they have just been made prisoner with little to no hope of a rescue!  There is a place and time for sexual innuendo, but having just been thrown into the dungeons of a dangerous elf king who is willing to let you rot for centuries in order to accomplish his purposes is neither the place, nor the time.  It was not only laughs that the movie fished for with cheap gags, it was for “feels” as well.  The absurd fight during the barrel escape furnished the most blatant of these appeals for emotion.  Kili, the young, handsome dwarf that Desolation of Smaug seems inordinately fixed upon, having just revealed to Tauriel that he promised his mother he would come home safely, is struck in the leg by “a morgul blade.”  Now since this is not actually a sword or dagger carried by a Ring Wraith, but simply an orc arrow, this is an obvious misuse of the term “morgul,” but I will come back to that in a moment.  Greviously wounded by the poison from the arrow, Kili is unable to continue with the company on the quest to the Lonely Mountain, and is instead left in Lake Town.  There, on the brink of death, he saves the life of Tauriel (who, hearing of his poisoned condition, decided to follow him), during another extra-textual orc attack.  Seeing Kili on the brink of death, Tauriel decides to abandon her chase of the orc pack (and Legolas, who had already left in the pursuit), in order to try and save Kili.  What follows is a bad mashup of the Arwen scene from Fellowship of the Ring, and a sappy romance novel, ending with Kili delivering a great pickup line from his apparent deathbed, his brush with his own mortality seemingly having had no effect but to strengthen his crush on Tauriel.  In a movie that was trying to be “much darker than the first film,” and that should be following in the vein of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the cheap gags and calls for attention were not appropriate and ended up lessening the impact of the movie as a whole.

I might not have been so appalled by the scenes the filmmakers added if they had not been at the expense of should have been the best parts of the story.  When telling a story, pacing is key.  There have to be moments when the action pauses, where the characters are allowed to take a breath, before the action begins again.  Unfortunately, there is very little breathing time in Desolation of Smaug.  In The Two Towers, the story begins with Gandalf’s confrontation with the Balrog, but then returns to the journeying of the heroes, and includes great moments of rest; Frodo and Sam stewing rabbits with Golum, Merry and Pippin waiting while the Ents debate going to war, Legolas, Gimli, and Aragorn drinking in the halls of Theoden.  Each of these moments allows the heroes to mentally prepare for the next confrontation, the audience to glimpse the world for which the characters are fighting.  The book, The Hobbit has many of these moments written in; the dwarves stay at Beorn’s house, Laketown, searching for the secret door, and even their imprisonment in the Elven king’s fortress allows the heroes moments of rest before they continue their journey.  The aggressive pacing of the movie, however, forces these moments to be shorter or non existent.  The dwarves are allowed no rest at Beorn’s house as the skinchanger chases them in the form of a bear, and is openly hostile to them as a man.  Where is the warm figure of the books, delighted by Gandalf’s tale of their story and openly affectionate toward Bilbo, if not toward the dwarves?  Where is the compassion he demonstrates toward his bees, his ponies, and the other animals that surround him?  Viewers take such delight in the pastoral images of the Shire; Beorn’s house should have been as beautifully portrayed, rejoicing in wide fields of flowers and beautifully carven wood.  While the movie creatively indulges the dark moments, particularly the appearance of Dol Guldur, it does not take time to enjoy the flashes of light and humanity that should illuminate the quest.  Another such moment should have been the dwarves arrival in Laketown.  While there is a submerged sense of political maneuvering on the part of the Master of the town, any misgiving is overrun by the nearly universal acceptance of the dwarves (with the exception of Bard).   Instead of sneaking around like common criminals, the dwarves openly marched into the city, expecting and receiving the support and hospitality of the inhabitants.  Instead, the political aspect is highlighted, and much of the dwarves stay in Laketown in characterized by furtive gatherings and an unsuccessful raid on the city armory.

It was not just the calm moments that were rushed, however.  What should have been the central confrontation of the film, that of Bilbo and the dwarves with the spiders of Mirkwood, was hurried and minimized.  What is a great moment of personal achievement for Bilbo, single handedly rescuing his friends, is clouded and undercut by the decision to focus on the negative aspects of the ring.  Bilbo is shown to be falling under the influence of the ring very quickly, and his choice to rescue his friends seems more a result of his own sense of invincibility because of the ring, than any heroic aspect of his character.  In the book, Bilbo’s battle with the spiders happens in waves, with him luring them away from their nest with creative insults, before sneaking back to free the dwarves and rally them for a defense.  The lull allows Bilbo to exemplify, not just the courage he has acquired, but also a new leadership ability, earning the respect of the dwarves, and later, the jealousy of Thorin.  Instead, Bilbo is given no credit by the dwarves for their rescue from the spiders (as he is wearing the ring when he saves them and has no opportunity to explain the situation), and ends up focused more on the ring than on his friends’ struggles against the spiders.  In the end, it is the wood elves who save the dwarves from the spiders, not Bilbo Baggins, and the development of the dwarves respect for his leadership is undercut at its root.

Now that I am done complaining, let me mention what the movie did really well.  At the top of this list there are simply two names: Martin Freeman and Benedict Cumberbatch.  Freeman is a fantastic actor, and even though the story shifts focus away from his character, he is brilliant in his performance.  From little humorous motions of his hands and twitches in his face, to the looks of exasperation he shoots towards the dwarves, from the mixture of terror and determination as he faces the spiders, to the outright awe he conveys in the face of the dragon, Martin Freeman perfectly animates Bilbo Baggins.  And, as anyone who has seen the two of them in Sherlock knows, he has great chemistry and timing when acting across from Benedict Cumberbatch.  The scene between Bilbo and Smaug was the highlight of the movie; brilliant acting, incredible voice work for Cumberbatch as the dragon, beautiful visuals of the dragon’s hoard, combine with a dialog that is almost word for word from the book to bring to life the strange mixture of danger, banter, and a weird enjoyment that sums up the conversation of the dragon and the hobbit.

As I mentioned earlier, stories need to take the opportunity to breath between action sequences, and the two moments where the story did were some of my favorites in the film.  First, when the dwarves are lost in Mirkwood, there is a beautiful moment where Bilbo climbs a tree to attempt to figure out what direction they should travel.  When he reaches the top, and breaks through the upper branches, there are beautiful butterflies dancing on the cool breeze, a moment of relief movie, the moment is beautifully worked, the accelerated pacing leading to the presence of gorgeously colored autumn leaves to accent the brilliant butterflies.  It is a pause, a break, a moment to simply think, “even darkness must pass, and when the sun shines out, it will shine all the clearer.”  The second moment is at the entrance to the secret passageway.  Having rushed from Rivendell to the mountain, the dwarves are unable to open the secret passageway.  The last light of the sun fades, and the dwarves despair.  They leave Bilbo alone standing before the blank wall, as he relentlessly tries to determine what happens next.  The world holds its breath as the little hobbit tries to figure out the riddle on the map.  Then the moon breaks through, and the last light of day illuminates the keyhole.  There is no danger, only a fear of failure that speaks more eloquently to the human nature than any battle sequence, and the only victory is the hobbit’s decision to persevere, even when all hope is lost, and that is a virtue that touches the soul.

Overall, the film was well acted and the effects were excellent.  The problems lay in poor pacing, and script decisions that undercut the major themes of the story and the development of the characters.  The addition of irrelevant extra-textual characters and events detracted from what should have been critical moments, and shifted the focus of the story from the main characters struggle to less important characters.  While this was done out of a desire for political correctness, as well as a desire to flesh out the vast cast of dwarves that people The Hobbit, the result was a tacky romance more suited to the spectacle that is Twilight rather than the vast reaches of Middle Earth.  Although the film had its issues, overall it was enjoyable to watch, and delightful performances from the entire cast made it worthy of its predecessors, The Lord of the Rings, and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

Well, back to reality!