The rich landscape that author J.R.R. Tolkien created in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings series is so vivid and thoroughly detailed that readers feel like they are actually in the Shire and trekking across Middle Earth. The characters are just as rich and developed with fascinating backstories and personalities that are relatable despite them being a hobbit or dwarf or elf with a superiority complex.
Tolkien's blockbuster trait as a writer is that he shows readers that we’re all the same. Whether you have hairy hobbit feet or pointy elf ears we’re all fighting for the same innately "human" things in the end: love, freedom, honor, and safety for our loved ones. The different groups (hobbits, dwarves, elves, etc.) in this world go about obtaining those things in different ways, which is very realistic and relatable. It's also a clever method to explore some pretty complex and heavy themes without hitting the reader over the head with Gandalf’s staff.
Despite being the first novel in the series, The Hobbit movie adaption didn’t come out until after the blockbuster Lord of the Rings movie trilogy blew our minds and attention spans in theaters. My personal take is that this was a smart, strategic decision. If the movies had been released in chronological order, I have to admit I would not have jumped on the Tolkien movie bandwagon. The Hobbit is full of silly-looking dwarfs and humor and singing. Oh, the singing...
The Hobbit movie comes across as a bit childish, IMHO. But the Lord of the Rings trilogy is epic with an elegant grittiness and clear life-and-death stakes…as well as a few hot sword-wielding gents to keep those less fantasy-inclined interested.
The Lord of the Rings movies take themselves very seriously, whereas The Hobbit has a bit more fun on the screen. That said, these were both blockbuster adaptations, and I think it all goes back to Tolkien’s world building. The vastly layered landscape and backstories each character carries makes this fantastical world feel real. The real world is complex and layered too, but in the Tolkienverse good prevails against all odds. We don’t get that in real life very often. It's an escape we want and maybe even need given the current societal climate.
The Tolkienverse is a blockbuster escape into a fantasy land, but there’s a twist that’s elevated this series' success. Tolkien’s characters don’t give us an escape pass to disconnect from the horrors of the real world. Instead they show us that the battle will be hard fought and devastating at times, but it’s very important that we keep fighting, and when we do good prevails. Now that's a fantasy I'd like to see come true.
XO
B
The reason The Hobbit comes across as childish is because it's literally based on a children's book, unlike the LotR, which was written for a more scholarly sort of adult with complex adult themes like generational honor and the price of immortality. The Hobbit's main themes are more simple and easier for a child to relate to: friendship with those different than you and yearning for the safety of "home", wherever that may be (in a hole or in a mountain).
ReplyDeleteI think it was intentional that Jackson's adaptation leaned into that whimsy heavily. There's less overall horror (even the goblins seem softer), much more comedy—although that changes as the trilogy progresses. When script writing started on The Hobbit, the 2008 crash had just happened. By 2012 when the first film was released, audiences were still looking for something engrossing to escape into. It's another right place/right time sort of film.
I agree with Beth that the movies come across as childish, and sometimes a bit too much so. After all, why do children's movies have to be silly and filled with hyjinks? Handled with care, children's media can address some very heavy materiel and serious subjects. The book was accessible to children, but it wasn't a children's book per-se. It has death and moral complexity (Bilbo's literally a burglar after all), and most of the whimsy came from Bilbo's commentary and not cartoonish action sequences. That's part of the trouble with the discourse on these movies I think: everyone has their own personal mix of what they like and what they hate about them; what they think was faithful to the tone of the book (sometimes serious, sometimes silly), and what goes too far.
ReplyDelete