Will The Hobbit do damage to the books?

[Zigûr]

To touch upon a recurring issue of mine, once again the Facebook pages for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings give damning evidence of how the films are bulldozing the books in the popular consciousness. Both pages, which are for the books and run by the very publishers of those books, posted in accompaniment to Professor Tolkien's illustration of Rivendell:

"There is some good in this world, and it's worth fighting for."
-J.R.R. Tolkien

Balderdash. As some right-thinking commenters have pointed out in the comments section, this line is only from the film script. I might tolerate that, barely (although it would still be frustrating to see it from the Facebook page for the books) but the fact that it is misattributed to Professor Tolkien is firstly a disservice to the man, who would not have written such a cliché or in such a trite idiom, and secondly is evidence of how incompetently handled his life's work is by its very publishers. This is not the first time they have posted this film quote and attributed it to the Professor either.

Interestingly in the comments it is mentioned that according to certain DVD special features this was a line the filmmakers deliberated over at length and included, allegedly, even though they considered it to be hackneyed and cliché, which adds insult to injury when it's misattributed to the Professor himself in my opinion. This may seem like an overreaction but I think this kind of thing is both appallingly unprofessional and genuine evidence of the adverse affect the films have had by corrupting knowledge about the books.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Big, big thumb up for Zigur.

And Morthoron not only is entirely correct on the linguistic point, but there is also the cultural issue as to whether any Dwarf would be versed in herb-lore. Dwarves on the whole were unconcerned with growing things, as befitted troglodytes, and never farmed if they could possibly buy foodstuffs via trade in manufactured goods or products of mining, or even manual labor of the sort thwey preferred, masonry and roadbuilding etc.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Zigûr

Interestingly in the comments it is mentioned that according to certain DVD special features this was a line the filmmakers deliberated over at length and included, allegedly, even though they considered it to be hackneyed and cliché, which adds insult to injury when it's misattributed to the Professor himself in my opinion. This may seem like an overreaction but I think this kind of thing is both appallingly unprofessional and genuine evidence of the adverse affect the films have had by corrupting knowledge about the books.

Hackneyed and clichéd are attributes that to me the LOTR films struggle mightily to avoid in general. Where they succeed, it is in spite of the filmmakers' best efforts otherwise.
I was always irked by that "even the smallest person can change the future", that sounded more apt for a Disney cartoon.

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

And Morthoron not only is entirely correct on the linguistic point, but there is also the cultural issue as to whether any Dwarf would be versed in herb-lore. Dwarves on the whole were unconcerned with growing things, as befitted troglodytes, and never farmed if they could possibly buy foodstuffs via trade in manufactured goods or products of mining, or even manual labor of the sort thwey preferred, masonry and roadbuilding etc.

Well, there were Mîm and his sons foraging for their "root bread", which it was claimed even the Green-Elves were unaware of. That sort of behavior does indeed seem to be lacking among Third Age Dwarves in the west of Middle-earth, though.

[littlemanpoet]

Maybe this is not harsh enough, but after viewing Hobbit 2 by PJ, my sense was "hyper Baroque". Plastered thick. So dense with extra stuff, none of it needed, that you can barely see the architectural design underneath. A pity, since the architecture is of such high quality.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

Maybe this is not harsh enough, but after viewing Hobbit 2 by PJ, my sense was "hyper Baroque". Plastered thick. So dense with extra stuff, none of it needed, that you can barely see the architectural design underneath. A pity, since the architecture is of such high quality.

Yes, if it aint Baroque, don't fix it.

[Galin]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

Yes, if it aint Baroque, don't fix it.

Still, I rather wish Arthur Nouveau had directed these films, although that's just my impressionism from seeing the trailers.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Would it really have been too much to ask, or to expect, that when somebody finally made a serious attempt to film Tolkien the goal would have been cinema that fell into the category which might be roughly defined as "cerebral epic" or "big-budget art film," a category which would include, say, 2001, Apocalypse Now and Ran?