An Unexpected Journey, or the morning after

[Zigûr]

This is a slight digression, but it just struck me how similar in some respects "An Unexpected Journey" is to the PJ-co-produced (albeit Spielberg-directed) "Adventures of Tintin" from 2011 (as adaptations and as films in general). Before going on, I should mention that I didn't enjoy the "Tintin" film at all; I probably found it more disagreeable in some respects than "An Unexpected Journey". I'm not the world's biggest Tintin fan (I guess I would consider myself a medium-strength fan; read quite a lot of the albums and enjoy the 1991 cartoon) but I still found it very shallow both as an adaptation and as a film in general. Anyway:
1. Both involved the mish-mash of multiple stories: The Hobbit with the Appendices to The Lord of the Rings and The Secret of the Unicorn with The Crab with the Golden Claws.
2. Both involved a very minor character being blown way out of proportion: Azog and Sakharine.
3. Both had loads of added action: e.g. Warg Chases, Goblin-Town escapades, etc. etc. for "AUJ" and, among other things, that utterly bizarre crane fight for "Tintin".
4. Both featured some characterisation change in their secondary protagonists: Thorin's transformation into the king of angst, Captain Haddock becoming a sort of believe-in-yourself type. Incidentally, Bilbo and Tintin both "give up" at some point in the film; Bilbo tries to sneak off and go home, Tintin despairs of the adventure.
5. Both featured comedy belching.
This is purely my opinion, but I think it's sad to see how utterly homogenised traditional adventure fiction becomes in the Hollywood meat grinder.