On The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and weaknesses in the source material

Enlarge / Peter Jackson's second The Hobbit film is here, giving nerds on the Internet something else to argue about.

Before going forward, an important spoiler warning: this article assumes that you've seen both The Hobbit films and read the book and takes no pains to avoid spoilers for any of it. As such, it will spoil not just the movie and the book, but probably also many elements of the next Hobbit film. If you haven't read the books and want to be surprised by the next movie, do not pass beyond this point.

Let me begin by saying that I didn't dislikeThe Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.

This was emphaticallynot the case with last year'sAn Unexpected Journey, which has a whole pile of structural and thematic problems.Peter Jackson and crew took what could have been a reasonably watchable two-hour fantasy film and padded it out to three hours with interminable chase sequences, memorable-for-all-the-wrong-reasons rock monster battles, and pointless Elijah Wood cameos.

The new movie inherits a few of these problems. There are still more than a few chases, and the scenes thataren't chases are often overly talky sequences where ominous figures drone on ominously about an ominously ominous Coming Evil. Most of this is done to set up the third movie, which will wrap up the story ofThe Hobbitbut also bridge the gap between these prequel movies and theLord of the Rings films. These ponderous speeches and jumps away from the main action still drag Desolationdown, but the storyline is more straightforward (and, at a mere two hours and 40 minutes, moves more briskly) than the previous film.

Last year we took a wide-ranging look at many aspects ofAn Unexpected Journey, but this year let's focus on one aspect of the new movie that has some of the Tolkien faithful up in arms: it changes the story. It changes it kind of a lot. And these changes run deeper than the ones made to expand material from Tolkien's other writing and shoehorn Sauron (a present-but-unnamed and largely backgrounded figure in the book) into the main action.

The movie's many changes have been compared to the biggest and most egregious change in theLord of the Rings trilogy (if you don't count the absence of "The Scouring of the Shire"): Faramir's behavior inThe Two Towers. In both the book and the film, Boromir's brother Faramir is presented with the opportunity to capture Frodo and take the Ring from him by force. Book-Faramir chooses to help Frodo along in his quest and give up the Ring, an action that drives home for the reader the fact that Faramir is in many ways wiser and better suited for leadership than his brother Boromir (who failed the same test). Movie-Faramir is so desperate for his father's approval that he captures Frodo and Sam and tries to bring them back to Gondor, letting them go only after a close shave with a Ringwraith.

It was a change made because theTwo Towers film ended earlier in the timeline of events than theTwo Towers book and because Faramir's brief internal struggle probably wouldn't have thrilled a mainstream audience as much as an Orc battle and Ringwraith encounter. But it changed Faramir for the worseit took one of the book's better characters and more important character moments (seriously, being able to reject or let go of the Ring of one's own volition is a big deal) and tossed it out because it wouldn't have looked cool.

The Desolation of Smaug makes changes and additions as large and larger than these, and unlike the first Hobbitfilm, the events of the second one depart from the booksignificantly. Still, I'm more inclined to defend changes toThe Hobbit's story becauseThe Hobbit's story is less complex and less satisfying thanThe Lord of the Rings'. Too much happens by chance or by accident. Too many characters are left undeveloped. To make a story that's satisfying to adults and not just children, you've got to give the source material some help.

An Unexpected Journey was pretty faithful to Tolkien's source material, which meant that it imported some ofThe Hobbit's less-plausible turns of events. The most noticeable of these are the story's manydei ex machina, the times when Bilbo, Gandalf, and the dwarves are saved from certain doom through coincidence and luck rather than their own skill and resourcefulness. Any time an eagle has to fly in from nowhere to save the day, you should realize you've written yourself into a corner.

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On The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and weaknesses in the source material