At eleven o'clock in the morning, on the 17th of December, with ears like elves and stomachs like hobbits, my friends and I got very comfortable on the couches, and began what is one of the greatest marathons of all time: Peter Jackson's Middle Earth Saga (Extended Edition).
We managed to sit through the first two Hobbits, laughing, debating, eating, referencing the Tolkien companion, arguing, eating again, tearing up, eating some more, and wondering greatly how Jackson would treat the ending. Would he be faithful to it? Would he ruin it like he'd ruined other parts of the book? How would he kill Thorin? How would Legolas factor into this? Does Tauriel die? Does Kili die in her arms? Would there be a thirty endings this time? Would Thranduil the pie-maker resurrect the line of Durin?
(Alright, we didn't talk about the last one, but a girl can dream, can't she?)
After the film, we spent a couple hours at Denny's hashing it out, chatting about how they dealt with dragon fever, what would be in the Extended Edition, war pigs (WAR PIGS, guys), Legolas' gravity-defying moves, Smaug's cameo, and a dozen other things. All but one of us enjoyed it (the one who didn't is a purist who managed to get off of his war elk onto his high horse and is calling it progress).
Though I enjoyed it, there were things I didn't like. For example, how they dealt with Thranduil and his wife, but I assume there will be more in the Extended Edition dealing with it. Billy Connolly and his swearing was out of place (but I'll get to what I think is the root of it shortly). "Because it was real." "Because it was real." Come on, guys. And the rushed ending was bothersome.
But I did love it. I loved most every ridiculous battle scene, all of Legolas's impossible moves, Tauriel and Thranduil getting into it, Elrond fighting off some of the Nine, Bilbo and his acorn--I enjoyed it immensely.
Here's the thing: there is something qualitatively different about the Hobbit. We could chalk it up to the scale of the stories, the length of the original text, the pressure on Jackson the first time around, the novelty of the first film--and I think that while all these things are true, there is something else amiss. Well, I think two things are amiss.
The first is tied into Billy Connolly and his swearing. There was never anything like that in the first set of films. The same can be said for the Goblin King and his weirdness in the first one, And the gratuitous presence of the Master and Alfred in the second and third. My friends and I tried to think of what was the difference, what was the root cause of the discrepancies, and came to two conclusions:
The first if this: after talking with her genius brother about the film, my friend Sarah shared his wisdom with us: Guillermo del Toro. He helped write all three of them and it is his influence, I would contend, that is, in part, responsible for the difference in style and feel of the two trilogies. Now, I love some of his work. The Hellboy films? Great fun. Pan's Labyrinth? What I've seen and heard, I've liked. Films he's done creative consulting on like Megamind and Rise of the Guardians? Love 'em. He's brilliant, incredibly creative, wonderful, fun, and not in the same vein as Peter Jackson.
All of those things mentioned previously, and the general campiness of the films, felt like del Toro to me. They feel out of place in Jackson's vision of Middle Earth which has much more gravity to it.
But it would be very poor form to blame all of this on del Toro (plus, wildly unfair, since he wasn't all that involved in the final product). Now, I don't like doing this, but I think a lot of this is on Peter Jackson. (Obviously.) Let me explain why and what I mean.
It felt like fan-fiction. It was indulgent. It was gratuitous. It lacked emotional punch. The timing was awful. Harsh, but, I think, true.
Ninety percent (erm, or so) of Legolas' fight sequences in BOTFA were the stuff of fan-fiction. The bat? The stairs bit? Even the surfing in the shield this time around--fan-fiction. Or Tauriel and Kili and the scene where they save each other from the final blow one too many times, thus dragging out the death scene. I mean, Tauriel is a whole different post in and of herself, but it was just too much.
A lot of it was too much. The war pig for instance. A war elk is one thing. Sure, perhaps a bit much, but there's only one of it. Now we not only have the elk, but a pig, and a few rams. Minor things, but these movies are known for the minor things. Or the over-use of Alfred, the sniveling, uni-browed coward to whom the film devolved far too much precious time. Why do these things? I have no idea other than Jackson was being indulgent.
Now, most of that silliness and ridiculousness I would be willing to overlook. But the real issue the movie had was that it lacked emotional punch and resolution. When Fili died, I should have been crying. When Kili died, same thing. When Thorin died, I should have been weeping like a little baby. I did none of those things. I cried a bit at Thorin's death, but most of that is due in part to Martin Freeman's performance (which is something I'll get to in a moment). I didn't feel their deaths. Not like I had when Boromir died, or even, to a lesser extent, when Haldir died. When friggin' Haldir died, you felt it. And that's because the film breathed properly.
("Breathing properly" is a term I use a lot when describing films. It's just about the pacing and editing and how films allow enough time for the story to take moments for the characters and the audience to deal with things.)
While part of the lack of emotions is a writing issue - Thranduil's parting with Legolas left something to be desired, and Thranduil's final moment with Tauriel was written badly - it is also a problem with the timing of the time. Fili's death was too quick and not executed (ooh--too soon?) in the right way. I've no doubt that part of it is because of the camera work, but the pacing just didn't allow us time. We didn't spend enough time in that moment with the characters. Same for Kili's death, and same for Thorin's death.
Thorin's is particularly frustrating for a number of reasons. The chiefest of which is that they didn't give Martin Freeman enough time on screen to process it. I'll be honest--I just like watching him act because of how well emotes, so perhaps I'm biased, but the editing cut short his mourning shots. The cuts were rushed. Jackson also deviated from the book rather badly by not showing the burial scene with Thranduil which might have given some emotional closure to his arc as well.
See, that is one of the biggest problems though--the incredibly rushed ending. While we all enjoy joking about the million endings at the end of ROTK, having just sat through all six films recently for two straight days I can tell you that the multiple endings don't bother me at all. They breathed right. They gave us and the characters time to process and cry. The ending to BOTFA didn't do that. There was no closure. No closure for Bard or Tauriel or Thranduil or any of the dwarves really. And most of it is due to the lack of burial scene. Now, I'm hoping that'll be in the Extended Edition, but it needed to be in the theatrical edition. The ending of the story was too short without it.
It is frustrating, all of this, because not only did Jackson fail to live up to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but, more importantly, he failed to live up to the ending of the book. He botched what should have been an easy ending to one of the greatest books ever written and that makes me sad because I love these films. I do. I love the LOTR films and I even love the Hobbit films at the end of the day because I grew up with these stories and characters. They have been a part of my life for most of my life. So, despite my frustrations and while the Hobbit films might be sub-par, compared to their predecessors, I will love them regardless.
Because, after all the problems with the ending of the story, after all the lack of emotional depth, after all the silliness and weirdness, and all the things he messed up, he did, in one respect, get the ending of the trilogy completely right. Because when Gandalf knocks on Bag End's door and Bilbo begins to shout, "No thank you!" we all find ourselves right back at the beginning of it all, in a hole in the ground, with very old friends.
And for getting that right, for all that he has done before, and for taking us one last time on a great and wonderful adventure through Middle Earth, I think I can forgive him and take the Hobbit films as they are to enjoy. Because truly, truly, I did enjoy most every silly, outrageous, gratuitous, over the top moment of these films and shall continue to enjoy them both independent and in conjunction with the book for many years to come.
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