Film Yoga

In honor of the release of The Desolation of Smaug, part two of Peter Jackson's three-part adaptation of a one-part book, I decided to finish my review of part one, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. I started writing this about a year ago, but was soon overwhelmed by the number of problems with the movie and as a result stopped writing in my blog altogether. Yes that's right, this movie broke me. The review became so long that I considered splitting it into three separate reviews. But I didn't because that's dumb.

I went through a number of possible titles for this post. Here are a few.

“The Hobbit: The Line Between Excess and Excessive”

“The Hobbit: The Story of When Peter Jackson Forgot How To Edit”

“Deleted Scenes: The Movie”

“The Hobbit: A Little Man Lost In A Pile of Shit”

Eventually, however, I settled on one that best articulates the most frustrating thing about the movie. And so, without further ado:

THE HOBBIT:

A Series of Fixable Problems

The Hobbit: An Unexpectedly Long Movie

One word that comes up a lot when discussing Peter Jackson is “excess”-- and for good reason. His 1992 film Dead Alive held the record for most gallons of fake blood used in a film for over 20 years (only recently surpassed by the 2013 remake of Evil Dead). Over the years, he's treated us to over-the-top performances, wacky camera angles, insanely long epic fight sequences, a zombie priest having sex with a zombie nurse, and an entire film where Jackson himself is continually shoving his own brain back into his skull. Excess is his thing, his style, his way of interpreting life. One thing that was great about early Jackson, though, was that he knew the place of excess. He had a talent for interweaving surplus with subtlety, balancing visual overload with an airtight plot. There is a point, however, where excess just becomes...well, excessive.

That's one of the reasons that The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was so disappointing. It was all excess and nothing else. There was just too much. Too many protagonists. Too many unnecessary scenes. Too many unrelated plots. Too many frames per second. At the heart of it, it's just painfully clear that The Hobbit is too many movies. In more ways than one.

Let me just say -- and I can't emphasize this enough -- I wanted to like this movie so badly. I love the book. I loved Peter Jackson's take on Lord of the Rings. I tried so hard. I even went to see it a second time with the hope that somehow I'd missed the entire point. But despite my best efforts, I was just . . . bored.

The Basic Story, For Those of You Who Were Never Children

While Lord of the Rings deals with complex issues and the evil that dwells within all of us and blah blah blah, The Hobbit is all about "I found this awesome ring AND THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH IT." And what awkward, introverted kid doesn't dream of the ability to turn invisible at will? The point is – as a kid, I read The Hobbit countless times and constantly lamented that the only film version available was the balloon-face-Bilbo cartoon version (1977), which weirded me out almost as much as the rotoscoped nightmarefest that was Ralph Bakshi's Lord of the Rings (1978).

Why why why why why why why why why

The point is – while Lord of the Rings was great, The Hobbit was pure, awesome fun. And still is. Sure, it's simpler, lighter than the trilogy which followed, but that's its charm. That, therefore, was Peter Jackson's dilemma.

Jackson's Dilemma

By making Lord of the Rings first, Jackson wrote himself into an impossible corner. The studios and fans would be expecting one thing while the source text leaned the opposite direction. I'm really fighting for Jackson to still be the voice of reason in this situation, so this is how I like to picture the meeting:

STUDIO EXEC

So it's going to be just like Lord of the Rings, right?

PETER JACKSON

Kinda...

STUDIO EXEC

By kinda, you mean it's gonna have Frodo in it, right?

PETER JACKSON

Why would Frodo be in it?

STUDIO EXEC

And Legolas? And Saruman?

PETER JACKSON

They don't really have anything to do with it.

STUDIO EXEC

How about a sexy bearded man trying to reclaim his throne?

PETER JACKSON

IT'S JUST ABOUT A FUCKING HOBBIT.

STUDIO EXEC

. . .

PETER JACKSON

. . .

I'm sure this in no small part influenced his initial decision to step down as director, relegating the job instead to the Spanish version of himself, Guillermo del Toro. This was a great decision: both to alleviate some of the insurmountable expectation that a new Jackson-helmed Middle Earth film would generate – and more importantly to give the reins to someone who actually had something to prove.

Remember who you are, my son.

One of the reasons that Fellowship was so great was that it had to be – both for Jackson and for New Line. There was a desperation that drove it to be as great as it was.

Then they switched places. Jackson back as director, del Toro as a co-producer.

Then they changed it from two movies to three movies.

Every step of the way, it got closer and closer back to a Lord of the Rings remake – something it could never hope to attain based on the fact that The Hobbit just isn't Lord of the Rings. It's a simple story about a little pacifist struggling to make sense of the Icelandic epic that's going on around him. But it's about him, not the epic. That's what makes it different and interesting. Bilbo is the hero of his story, but not of the big story.

So again to Jackson's dilemma – how do you reconcile two inherently different types of stories into the same franchise while remaining true to both?

It's an interesting exercise. Jackson definitely actively tried in a number of ways.

How He Tried To Fix It

Jackson had a few primary approaches to adapting the text to be more Rings-y.

Make it three movies
Make it three hours long
Add in familiar characters from Lord of the Rings
Shove Bilbo into scenes where he doesn't belong

Unfortunately, all of these approaches suck.

Okay maybe that's rash. Not all of them suck in theory. But they definitely all suck in execution. It's like one person spent a lot of time coming up with the ideas, then found a crazy hobo, gave him a typewriter and a copy of The Hobbit and said "GO!"

Two of them suck outright, though. If you're going to make something a trilogy, it had damn well better have to be a trilogy. And if a movie is going to be three hours long, it should have to be three hours long. Otherwise you're just padding.

Worst of all, each of these approaches correlates directly to each of the film's major problems.

The pacing is terrible.
The pacing is TERRIBLE.
There are a bunch of scenes that have nothing to do with the main plot.

And finally, the fatal flaw with the film...

4. They lost Bilbo as the protagonist.

PROBLEM ONE: There Ain't Enough Hobbit In My Hobbit

Like I said before, the thing that makes The Hobbit so interesting is the fact that it's seen through the eyes of someone who doesn't really want to be there. Bilbo has a constant struggle within him – the naïve child yearning for adventure versus the aging grown-up who just wants a nice dinner and his pipe. The Took in him versus the Baggins.

The importance of a protagonist, especially in a fantasy world, is to give us an anchor amidst otherwise unfamiliar territory. Otherwise, we're just watching a bunch of weirdos talk with no emotional connection to them. The protagonist should be at the very least relatable – and ideally at least a little likeable. Bilbo fits both of these criteria while – this is the key point here – no one else in the story does. Let's take a look at the other candidates:

PROTAGONIST CANDIDATE 1:

GANDALF THE GREY

Super likeable but not particularly relatable, being a mysterious wizard who is always hiding everything from everyone. His entire role in this story is to be frivolous and then disappear for long periods of time.

GANDALF

Sorry I'm late. I had to go fight the Necromancer in a super sweet battle.

YOUNG CHILDREN
EVERYWHERE

Awesome! When do we get to see that?

GANDALF

Never.

Even during the Battle of Five Armies, the one epic battle that does have to do with the story, Bilbo is asleep for most of it and therefore we don't even see it happen. This stuff happens over and over just to remind us that while this world does contain some pretty kickass epicness, that's not what this story is about.

PROTAGONIST CANDIDATE 2:

THORIN TOO-SEXY-FOR-MY-BOOTS OAKENSHIELD

Almost totally unlikeable and only relatable if you also happen to be a dwarf lord bereft of his kingdom by a dragon. Thorin is a terrible protagonist.

In contrast, let's take a look at Bilbo.

PROTAGONIST CANDIDATE 3:

BILBO BAGGINS

Bilbo is likeable. He's relatable. He's a fish out of water, just like the audience. He provides an outsider's view and therefore an extra layer of conflict. Tolkien further hinted at Bilbo's aptness as a protagonist by subtly NAMING THE FUCKING BOOK AFTER HIM. YOU HAD ONE JOB, PETER JACKSON. HOW DID YOU SCREW THIS UP.

Jackson tries to make this movie equally about Bilbo, Thorin and Gandalf. The result is that we're bouncing between characters so much that we have no time to latch on to anyone. And we're left with large chunks of the movie where we forget that Bilbo is there.

A good test for any screenplay or film is how well the audience can track the protagonist. At the end of every scene, everyone watching should be able to articulate exactly what the protagonist feels. If they can't, it signifies a certain emotional disconnect. There's a line in the film where Thorin Sexypants says “Our burglar has been lost ever since he left home.” He's completely right. As soon as Bilbo leaves Bag End to join the dwarves, we as an audience almost completely lose track of his emotions for at least the next hour of the film – the only exceptions being whenever he is in immediate peril, when we assume he is somewhat frightened.

Hey Bilbo, we're having a secret council. Do you want to come
stand in the back and look confused? Great.

Then there are the times that they throw Bilbo in the background of a scene and have him stand and watch, because if there's one thing that people love, it's watching people watching other people. They're trying to keep Bilbo at the center, but they're just not trying hard enough. Don't just put Bilbo in a scene -- use Bilbo to show us the scene.

THE QUICK FIX:

Quite simply, just let us know what he's feeling. Flesh out his relationships with the other characters.

Jackson does a great job of distinguishing the dwarves' separate personalities. That's great. Where he fails miserably, however, is in showing how Bilbo feels about each of them. And that is what's more important. Which dwarves does Bilbo like? Which dwarves does Bilbo dislike? Is he angry at Gandalf for dragging him into this or is he excited? We know Thorin doesn't like Bilbo – but how does Bilbo feel about that? Is he resentful of Thorin or does he strive for his approval?

Fish-Out-Of-Water stories are so prevalent partially because they naturally spark emotion from the Fish. When thrown into a new situation, the Fish is forced to quickly make friends and enemies out of its new surroundings. In this case, however, we have scene after scene of Bilbo just kind of . . . existing with the dwarves. They tell him stories. He talks to Balin sometimes. But we get no indication of how he sees any of the dwarves individually.

We know Jackson can do this. Let's take a look at Frodo's relationship with some of the Fellowship.

MERRY/PIPPIN: Friends.

SAM: Close friend.

GANDALF: Awe/ father figure.

ARAGORN: Initial distrust, moving toward respect and later friendship.

BOROMIR: Distrust.

In contrast, here's what I can tell of how Bilbo sees the dwarves:

BIFUR: Dwarf.

BOFUR: Dwarf.

BOMBUR: Dwarf.

OIN: Dwarf.

GLOIN: Dwarf.

DORI: Dwarf.

NORI: Dwarf.

ORI: Dwarf.

BALIN: Dwarf.

DWALIN: Dwarf.

FILI: Dwarf.

KILI: Dwarf.

THORIN: Mean dwarf.

GANDALF: Wizard.

You might argue that the book of The Hobbit doesn't clarify these relationships either. The book of The Hobbit, however, is fast-paced and maintains a constant check on Bilbo's inner monologue. In a movie version that goes less than a page a minute, we need something to clue us in to our protagonist's emotional state – or he ceases to be our protagonist.

The thing that I find most irritating about this is just how much better the movie gets whenever they throw us a morsel of Bilbo emotion. They actually built in a really great emotional arc for him. He moves from the reluctant adventurer to a burglar with a mission. He finally connects to the dwarves' plight by realizing how much he misses home, just like them. His love of his home is precisely the thing that spurs him on. It's simple, elegant and beautifully Bilbo. But we get a grand total of three scenes dealing with it. That's one scene per hour. Apparently it's the one aspect of the film that they looked at and went "Whoa, let's not be overindulgent here. I'd rather devote this time to more shots of people falling off of things."

PROBLEM TWO: Unnecessary Characters (aka There's A Reason No One Read The Silmarillion)

No one has ever read a fantasy novel and said "Yeah, it was good. I just wish there were more characters."

For some reason, fantasy is the one genre where it's totally cool and acceptable to introduce a billion characters with batshit crazy names like Mardegloth Borkenslair of the Nine Isles. Outside of Russian literature, that is. And then it's totally your fault when you get Mardegloth confused with Madrigoth Borkenslair, his disinherited son who's exiled and presumed long dead because come on, were you even paying attention?

Anyway, the point is that most of the time, the first task in adapting a fantasy novel to film is to get rid of characters. Figure out who's important, who isn't, who can be combined and who can get skipped entirely. Again, looking at Rings. Jackson and his team got rid of countless characters throughout the trilogy. And it always made it better.

Yes, this movie. The one where it was
comical how many people were on the poster.
This one needs more characters.

But for some reason in The Hobbit, he decided to expand characters that were barely mentioned in the book because apparently a hobbit, a wizard and THIRTEEN DWARVES aren't enough to satisfy Jackson's gaping maw.

But okay. If we're accepting the fact that this is now three movies, it definitely gives time for a little character expansion. So let's look at one particular character as an example.

One of the primary expansions was Radagast, the brown wizard who loves animals. He's played by the supremely weird Sylvester McCoy, which is an automatic plus. But despite McCoy's best efforts, the film still dragged whenever he showed up.

I heard a lot of criticism of Jackson's portrayal of Radagast the Brown – that he was too silly, too cartoony, that he was a Middle-Earthian Jar-Jar Binks. I had no real problem with him as a character. The problem wasn't that he was weird, but that his weirdness had almost no bearing on the story. It's all about the way he was incorporated into the plot. Quite simply, he wasn't.

Pretty sure McCoy just showed up like this on the first day.

Radagast isn't in the book of The Hobbit. He's vaguely mentioned and then mentioned again occasionally in Lord of the Rings, but he's not in this story because he has nothing to do with the plot. This gave the filmmakers a lot of freedom about how to incorporate him into these films. Since they were throwing him in anyway, they could basically do whatever they wanted with him. But they didn't really. They just kinda fleshed out what it's implied he's doing in the book: stuff that we didn't see because we didn't need to see it because it has nothing to do with this story. Again, I'm not against Radagast and the Necromancer's inclusion into the movie on principle – but if Jackson is going to put them in, he has to at least tie them into the main plot somehow. And it's really easy.

THE QUICK FIX:

Make Bilbo and the dwarves need something from him.

Just make him necessary. I don't care how. Make Radagast's cottage the first planned stop on the journey. It doesn't matter why. There are a billion reasons you could come up with for them needing to consult Radagast. They need to ask him about the birds returning to the mountain. They need to ask him about the significance of trolls coming this far south. They need him to help unlock a clue on the map. Anything.

This not only introduces Radagast in a more natural way, but more importantly it justifies his quirks. Now his weirdness, his obsession with hedgehogs, his penchant for pulling bugs out of his mouth – these suddenly become important because they are obstacles to Gandalf et al getting what they want. He's still weird, but no longer unnecessarily so.

PROBLEM THREE: The Stone Giants

Goddammit.

I often watched Lord of the Rings and said "The only thing that would make this better would be Rock Em Sock Em Robots."

No wait. I didn't.

THE QUICK FIX:

Why is this even a question.

And finally, the film's biggest problem . . .

PROBLEM FOUR: Tooooooooo Loooooooonnnngggg

I recognize the supreme irony that, in complaining that this movie is too long, this review has become too long. Well if Peter Jackson would just do his job next time, maybe this wouldn't happen.

There are so many examples of unnecessary padding in Unexpected Journey that if I were to go through all of them, I would basically be describing the entire film. So I'll just focus on one egregious example.

In case you forgot, this film starts out with a deleted scene from Fellowship of the Ring in which Bilbo and Frodo exist for a while. Fun to see, sure. Unfortunately it's bullshit.

1. It slows down the film.
2. It has nothing to do with The Hobbit.
3. It introduces us to the wrong Bilbo.

The worst thing about this frame story is that it uses up the first twenty minutes re-introducing us to old Bilbo, rather than young Bilbo. Not only do we already know old Bilbo – he's not our protagonist. The Bilbo we need to get to know is the young, never-been-out-of-The-Shire Bilbo. We get introduced to an entirely new Bilbo about twenty minutes into the film – one who we know almost nothing about. Gandalf has to explain to us almost everything about him – his inner desire for adventure, what he was like as a kid, everything. These are the kinds of things that we should learn from watching Bilbo, not having to take the word of a different character.

THE QUICK FIX:

Get rid of the frame story. (For starters.)

After the dwarves' backstory, all we need is a shot or two of Bilbo and that one shot of Frodo looking carefree, eating an apple. It's really simple. That gives us everything we need. It gives us the anchor of “remember Bilbo from the other movies” as well as a really quick nostalgic “aww, remember when Frodo's life wasn't ruined.” Bam. That's it.

The reason I'm harping on this is that the time spent on the frame story could be much better used focusing on other stuff. Such as:

Young Bilbo's routine

The more we establish his routine, the more interesting it is when it gets broken.

Young Bilbo's likes and dislikes, including but not limited to:
- His love of maps
- His fascination with elves

These can be little visual things, but they serve as indicators. They let us know that young Bilbo dreams of the world outside. That way, Gandalf's words about Bilbo's secret yearning for adventure ring a bell with us – we see there is a grain of truth in them.

The culture of Hobbiton and the societal pressures implied.

This is important to explain the other half of Bilbo's personality – the desire to stay at home. Once you understand the culture of the town, the stakes of Bilbo's leaving are much higher. It's not just a question of maybe getting killed by a dragon – even if he does come back, all the other hobbits will look at him askance, suspicious of him for the rest of his life because he left the Shire. For him to even think about leaving is not just a drastic change in his own character, but in the character of the entire village.

Most importantly, all of this could be done in five minutes. And then we move on.

In Save The Cat, Blake Snyder talks about how a good screenplay should have the "embarking on the journey" moment exactly at the 25-minute mark. Now, while that is obviously an insanely rigid statement, the idea is solid: get the ball rolling as soon as you can. In An Unexpected Journey, Bilbo doesn't accept his call to action until about 50 minutes into the film. This is quite an expected journey. I can't emphasize how much we all expect this journey by this point.

aka The Moment When I Said "Oh My God, It's Only Starting."

Fellowship had the benefit of a ticking clock: the Ring. It's evil. It's in the Shire. Big scary black horsemen are coming for it. What are they going to do? The Hobbit doesn't have that luxury. The stakes at the beginning of the story are low. If Bilbo stays in the Shire instead of going to chase a dragon . . . then I guess he might feel vaguely unfulfilled? The stakes only start when Bilbo leaves. That's why by the end of the first chapter of the book, Bilbo is on the road and there's no turning back.

Why, Peter Jackson? Why.

The thing that I found most annoying about this movie was how close it was to being good. They had an incredible cast. They had a huge budget. We know that Peter Jackson is capable of telling a good story. That's why it was so frustrating. It seems like they didn't really even try.

I would love it if they could turn this around and make the next two movies as phenomenal as they're capable of being. Personally, I haven't given up hope yet. All they need to do is release an Unexpected Journey director's cut -- and make it an hour shorter. Then I'll be back on board.

So at the end of the day, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey gets two and a half faces on the face continuum.