The Hobbit: An Extraneous Journey

[Boromir88]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

What we *do* expect is adherence to the overall themes, tone and atmosphere of the books; characters which aren't turned into inversions of themselves; and- as important as anything - no additions of subpar rubbish Jackson or Boyens make up out of whole cloth, apparently on the assumption that they can write better than Tolkien. They're mistaken.

That's a rather unfair characterisation. It's tricky using interviews, because most of the time there are word limits to articles so large portions of the interview are removed, or the context is removed to create a "spicy/controversial" quote that will sell more papers. The director commentaries are obviously going to provide their own slant which paint Jackson into a positive light. However, I'll say the furthest I've seen Boyens go is saying she thinks Tolkien would like/be proud of the movies they made. I'd still disagree with her opinion, but that's not at all the same as boasting she writes better, or felt they improved Tolkien's story. Jackson at one time said it was silly tomatos weren't in Middle-earth, so he put them into his movies. Granted they are trying to changes things around to tell their story, but I've read nothing in their interviews to suggest they felt they improved Tolkien.

I should note now, when it comes to subjective loving/liking/hating the movies, I don't give my opinion to demand everyone must see and feel about them the way I do. But I do think both sides of the argument overlook a various points. One side thinks anything Jackson creates is the greatest piece of movie making ever, and he always makes the sage movie-decision. The other side thinks Jackson's a hack who doesn't know anything and can't do anything because his life goal was to turn the Lord of the Rings into his own creation.

For the movies (and now I'm talking about the LOTR trilogy and the first Hobbit) there are two different aspects I take into consideration. The visualisation in the films is very very well done. WETA put stunning detail and visuals into all the pieces they created for the film, and this drives was spear-headed by Jackson who is a very detail-oriented director. He also put together a team that was known and accepted by the Tolkien-community before Jackson's ideas about making the films were formed. I'm talking about John Howe, Alan Lee, David Salo amongst others. People Jackson selected because of their previously establish visualisation, and people Jackson obviously paid a lot of attention to their input in the process of making the movies. I didn't care for Lothlorien in FOTR, and I thought Rohan was not as rich and green as I expected, but the aesthetic part of the movies was fabulous.

Jackson (and Boyens and Walsh) fell well short when it comes to script-writing, however, and could have benefitted from someone who knows how to write a script. On the best of days, their work is mediocre, as many of their characters get beat into an archetype (Aragorn the 'reluctant hero,' Denethor the crazy ruler, Gimli the comic relief...etc) or are just very shallow. In the defense of movies in general, it's difficult to give depth to your minor characters, because the screen time isn't there to flesh out a full and detailed background (as Tolkien had when writing his story). So Denethor really does become simply insane, and in an attempt to show a bit of depth when he sees Faramir burning, it's really unconvincing.

However, even the main characters Jackson creates are nothing to boast about, and you really do have to get the main characters right in movies. Elijah Wood's Frodo is weak and unconvincing, Aragorn is the reluctant hero archetype, it's all very predictable and shallow. The only characters in the film with some depth to them are Boromir, who well dies in FOTR, and Gollum and it is more to Serkis being able to portray convincing emotions, which was ironic being a CGI character (eventhough there were liberties taken with the "split personality," I don't think it's a bad/wrong route to take with Gollum's character).

I thought the first Hobbit film did a much better job with the main characters, Bilbo, Thorin and Gandalf. However, as I've already said, I thought the tension between Bilbo and Thorin was more of the staple of Jackson and Boyens' script-writing...forced, predictable, and cheesy.