The Hobbit Trilogy
...An Expected Blockbuster
A first edition copy of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit (1937) has 310 pages.
The film trilogy of The Hobbit, as told by Peter Jackson, has a 525 minute runtime.
That would be the extended editions, of course. Anything else is considered utter sacrilege and should be avoided at all costs. Except on airplanes—only because the playtime of the theatrical release of The Hobbit trilogy is almost the exact distance between my home and Rome, Italy. Can you think of a better way to be entertained at 36k feet than Bombur and his beloved wheels of cheese? I can’t.
But going back to my original premise, that’s 1.69 minutes per page. For a simple children’s story. Granted, the first 40 pages of the book and a significant portion of the The Unexpected Journey consists of introducing the dwarves a few at a time, detailing their various lineages, and then watching them eat Bilbo out of house and home, so there’s some adjustments that needs to be made.
Regardless, only one word comes to mind:
Bloated.
But compared to other movies that have blown up under the weight of Hollywood’s insatiable greed, this whole movie series is actually really enjoyable. It does nothing better than play glorious fan service to those of us who loved Jackson’s Lord of the Rings. Scene by scene for some of it.
There’s so many Easter Eggs, Jackson might as well have built a hen house in the Shire. It was pure eggstacy. The flash of the One Ring in the mural behind the Shards of Narsil. By the way, the sword shards are in the exact same configuration, too. I checked. Throw in Elrond’s amused glances at the “small people” running around his fair city and Ian McKellen’s Galdalf smashing his head on Bilbo’s chandelier. Again. But technically before.
Can we get the temporal police in here to clear this up? Thanks.
Usually a long movie series starts at the beginning and continues on in an often pleasant arc to the end. But when an obscenely lucrative series such as Lord of the Rings is done, Hollywood bigwigs start scratching their heads and wondering what else they can do to keep the ball rolling. Of course, there’s out-of-canon/alternate-universe sequels and truckloads of cheap merchandise, but after a while, even that gets dull to the fans. Hence, the birth of blockbuster money-grabbing prequels.
But unlike Star Wars or some of the Marvel Universe prequels, The Hobbit debuted to generally good reviews. I saw them in the theater along with just about every other LotR fan I knew. There were complaints by the most pedantic and loyal-to-the-text fans, but even those were enjoying themselves while complaining into their richly buttered popcorn.
The trilogy didn’t have to be made. There wasn’t a glaring piece of the Tolkien universe missing from cinema. It was all there in the excellent rendition of The Hobbit by Rankin Bass in 1977. No one can forget the oogey faces of Bilbo and Gollum in the cave once they’ve seen this film. The images will either influence your next D&D character or give you nightmares for the rest of your life. There’s no in-between, sorry.
Tolkien’s whole world is larger than life, a character unto itself. I truly think it was the passion of the director, Peter Jackson, that brought The Hobbit to life in a way that even the most die-hard book fan can’t help but watch (even if they complain the entire time about how inaccurate it is, Tauriel, Legolas blah blah blah).
His visual retelling is vibrant, comical, and soothing. With our own world as chaotic as it is, a dip into a beautiful, complex world where good always beats evil is so very needed. We yearn to visit over and over. And Jackson delivers over and over.
Especially the dwarves and their culture. They are hands-down my favorite race of fantasy people in any universe. I love their dirty, hard-working hands. Their deep love of all things that can smash or be smashed. Mining, axes, picks, and shield slams among them. Not to mention their love of good food, great drinks, and even better company. If I’m ever re-incarnated as a high fantasy character, I want to be a LotR dwarf.
In case you were curious, my favorite in The Hobbit trilogy is Bombur. Not much dialogue, but a laugh that rings across the dinner table and a deep love of all the cheese he can carry. My hero.
I’m going to leave you with two words: Cannonballing Bombur. Don’t remember that from the theaters?
Then you need to see the extended editions, STAT.
Yes! Great stuff, Ariane. I agree, there's something so inviting about a world where good and evil is so easily defined. A world without an internet. And if we wanted to get information, we'd have to visit that dusty library in Minas Tirith and unroll miles of scrolls. I'm sending that meme to my Dad, the one that popped up earlier in your blog, where Gandalf and Bilbo are wondering what do do with their rest of their lives. That's gold.