Movie Review: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Date: 2012

Director: Peter Jackson

Summary: When the wizard Gandalf knocks on his door, the very unadventurous Bilbo Baggins finds himself on a journey to reclaim the stolen gold of a band of Dwarves.  The first in a trilogy.

Review: Despite the changes Peter Jackson’s film made to the source material, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey managed to hit nearly all the right notes.  It deftly balanced the demands to create a work emotionally consistent with the previous Lord of the Rings trilogy while creating something new and exciting.  A cast composed of both old and new characters helped to bridge the trilogies, as did the return to many familiar (and beautiful) landscapes.  Seeing the Shire again felt like coming home after a decade.  The visual appeal of the film as well as the many talented actors involved made An Unexpected Journey into an exciting and heartwarming adventure.  Still, an exploration of the changes made can still prove a worthwhile endeavor.

Although Jackson made major character changes to Faramir, Treebeard, and Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the characters of The Hobbit remain largely as Tolkien wrote them.  The most notable change was probably made to the Dwarves as a whole.  For most of the story, Tolkien depicts the Dwarves as more concerned about themselves and their gold than about Bilbo—or anyone else.  As a result, they can come across as stubborn, petty, and even a tad callous at times, despite the author’s assurance that they really would help Bilbo if he needed it.  Furthermore, the group as a whole seems almost completely unprepared for the quest on which they embark.  They have no long-term plan that will enable them to retrieve their gold and they consistently fail to make short-term plans, resulting in their continued imminent demise.  The Dwarves as a whole thus tend to look a bit ridiculous—or at least they end up in ridiculous situations.

Jackson notes the lighter tone of The Hobbit and takes care to add humor to his story, though his jokes tend to rely on a crude sort of humor rather than the sophisticated underlying irony of Tolkien’s story.  He cannot use this irony, however, because of the fundamental changes made to the Dwarves: his Dwarves are warriors, noble, strong, loyal, and willing to fight. Unlike the Dwarves of Tolkien’s story, they do not find themselves in trouble because they make foolish decisions.  Rather, they enter almost every fight swinging their swords with triumphant music swelling behind them, and find themselves in trouble simply because they are outnumbered or outmaneuvered.  Jackson really wants audiences to feel for these Dwarves and to cheer them on.  Thus, he does not risk making them look foolish.

This change arguably makes sense from a narrative standpoint, as do the changes made to Bilbo’s character.  The changes to Bilbo may seem subtle, but they are important.  Jackson’s Bilbo takes more of an initiative on his journey from the very beginning, when he runs out his front door on his own volition, rather than on the prompting of Gandalf.  He also takes over some of Gandalf’s roles in various situations when attempting to rescue the Dwarves.  Whereas Tolkien’s Bilbo will not really come into his own until he fights the giant spiders, Jackson’s Bilbo consistently does small things to assert his importance to the group.  Again, Jackson wants to prove to audiences that they should care about this Hobbit.

Arguably, however, Jackson would not have needed to give Bilbo larger roles at the beginning of the story if he had stuck to Tolkien’s story.  Jackson’s current contributions to The Hobbit are mostly composed of extended (and, I would suggest, unnecessary) fight scenes.  These bloated the movie to such an extent that Jackson could not reach the stopping point I might have suggested if he produced only two films: the Mirkwood spiders.  If Jackson had could have shown this scene at the end of movie one, he could have adhered to Tolkien’s more subtle character arc.  Bilbo would have begun the film a fearful Baggins, but ended it with two important victories: escaping the goblin caves by himself and using Sting for the first time.  Because this proved impossible with a three-film structure, Jackson had to invent Bilbo’s introduction to combat—a rather confusing fight with random orcs (one of whom should, in Tolkien’s timeline, already be dead). 

Why Jackson added the extended fight scenes as well as the vengeful stalker orc Azog I cannot fathom.  The book does not lack for action.  Indeed, it is composed of a series of episodes that form a narrative of non-stop hair-breadth escapes for the Dwarves and Bilbo.  It is possible to have excitement without the violence of combat.  These changes still worked for the story that Jackson made, but I feel I have to protest them on the grounds that they were only added because of some belief that Jackson could tell a better story than Tolkien.

Even so, the film did a lot of things right.  The cast was extraordinary, especially Martin Freeman, Andy Serkis, and Richard Armitage.  The landscapes were gorgeous and I would have paid money just to have a camera tour of Middle-earth without showing and Dwarves or Hobbits or Elves at all.  Most importantly, however, the film kept the message at the heart of the story: the lesson that “small” acts and “small” people are not small at all.  Gandalf summed it up eloquently in the film, responding to Galadriel’s question: “Why the Halfling?”:

Saruman believes it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found.  I have found it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay…small acts of kindness and love.  Why Bilbo Baggins?  That’s because I am afraid and it gives me courage.

Simply beautiful.