Quote:
Originally Posted by Morthoron
Strip the story of its elegant simplicity and linear quality by adding a fan-fic rendition of the White Council (which Tolkien didn't even waste words on), and you eliminate the qualities of the book. Smaug and the greed Smaug engendered are the antagonists of the story, not the Necromancer. Throw in a bewildering array of nonessential characters and lose the heart of the tale.
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Leaving aside for the moment the subject of non-essential characters, Professor Tolkien himself elegantly summarized the essential story of
The Hobbit with two Third Age calendar entries in Appendix B of
The Lord of the Rings:
2941 Thorin Oakenshield and Gandalf visit Bilbo in the Shire. Bilbo meets Sméagol-Gollum and finds the Ring. The White Council meets; Saruman agrees to an attack on Dol Guldur, since he now wishes to prevent Sauron from searching the River. Sauron having made his plans abandons Dol Guldur. The Battle of Five Armies in Dale. Death of Thorin II. Bard of Esgaroth slays Smaug. Dáin of the Iron Hills becomes King under the Mountain (Dáin II).
2942 Bilbo returns to the Shire with the Ring. Sauron returns in secret to Mordor.
In other words, little Bilbo Baggins found the Ring -- or the Ring found him. Then Bilbo returned with the Ring to the Shire -- or the Ring escaped from underneath the Misty Mountains. Everything else that happened in Middle-earth during that one year concerned the geopolitical machinations of Wizards vs Sauron, a.k.a., the Necromancer. As Gandalf said to Bilbo at the end of
The Hobbit:
"You don't really suppose, do you, that all your adventures and escapes were managed by mere luck, just for your sole benefit? You are a very fine person, Mr. Baggins, and I am very fond of you; but you are only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all!"
Yes,
The Hobbit tells the linear tale of the "little fellow" and one could leave it that -- as the children's magic adventure narrative originally published in 1937. But Professor Tolkien did not leave it at that, and instead revisited and rewrote key parts of
The Hobbit so that it would fit appropriately into the story of "the wide world" as well. Consequently, one finds references to both the Necromancer and his stronghold at Dol Guldur in the very first chapter of
The Hobbit: "An Unexpected Party," and the final chapter, "The Last Stage." So, I don't think one can accurately maintain that Professor Tolkien "didn't even waste words" on the White Council, Dol Guldor, and the Necromancer, by which he understood the larger Manichean struggle between Good and Evil that backgrounds the charming story of Bilbo Baggins' atypical -- for a hobbit -- adventure.
The Appendices to
The Lord of the Rings has a wealth of information dealing with Gandalf's strategy for using the Dwarves of the Iron Hills as a counterbalance to Sauron who might use Smaug the Dragon to possibly attack the Elves in Rivendell. Here, Gandalf's "chance meeting" between Gandalf and Thorin at Bree shows how Gandalf appeals to the Dwarves' notorious craving for vengeance as well as their greed for treasure. In this larger strategy, the Dragon Smaug figures only as a possible weapon that needs neutralizing in the North while the main struggle against Sauron takes place elsewhere. Bilbo and the Dwarves, therefore, have their parts to play, but the larger picture remains essentially hidden from their limited perspectives.
In short, Peter Jackson has a wealth of genuine Tolkien material to exploit if he wishes to do so. Everything will hinge on whether he brings Tolkien's world to life -- both microcosm and macrocosm -- or falls willing victim to hackneyed Hollywood cliches, latest-and-greatest computer graphics gimicks, and fanboy slaughter extravaganzas to give Orlando Bloom something to do in a story that doesn't need him.