The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
discussion
What do you think about Peter Jackson adding a new character in The Desolation of Smaug movie?
A female elf warrior? I have no problem with it as such. The Elves of Middle-earth may follow rather strict gender roles, but I would be surprised if you didn't see the little Wood Elf girls learning archery by their brothers' sides. That Tauriel has attained the rank of Captain, however, is exceptional. It tickles my interest, I want to learn more about her, and her potential for development. The problem, to my mind, is that Tauriel is not given enough non-combat screen time and Middle-earth time in general for us to either get to know her, or for her dramatic character developments to be credible. Well. The same can be said about Kíli, her enamorado. But let's take a look at a few days in immortal Tauriel's life, shall we?
Day 1: Tauriel faithfully serves as a captain of the Guard when she encounters a party of Dwarves, who are enemies of her people since time immemorial.
Day 1-2: Tauriel gets attracted by one of the Dwarves, Kíli, and she spends a couple of hours talking to him through the bars of his cell. The attraction seems to be mutual.
Day 3: The Dwarves escape, Tauriel and Legolas pursue them but end up fighting Orcs. That evening Tauriel learns that her new Dwarf friend has been wounded and is presumed to be dying, whereupon she abandons her post to go help him.
Day 4-5: Tauriel is joined by Legolas and they save the Dwarves left in Laketown. She decides to aid Kíli, like she set out to do, disregarding Legolas' order to follow him. Tauriel heals Kíli's wound and is clearly torn when he expresses his romantic feelings for her.
Now, I like a touch of romance to adventure stories; heck, let there be a ton of it, if handled well! Buuut that's just it - it needs to be handled well. And I just don't think it is, in Desolation of Smaug. A romance is never better than the characters depicted. We don't see Tauriel and Kíli enough, don't get to know them well enough, and their relationship moves at breakneck speed in spite of it requiring a long time to get properly built up.
I liked Desolation of Smaug a great deal, in spite of its shortcomings. It will be interesting to see where it will all end in the concluding movie.
Redhead elf chick, what's not to like ? Love the books, loving the films.
I really liked the first installment of the Hobbit movie, but this second part I didn't like at all. I read the book, and the movie strays so much from the book. And adding a story line, the romance, that wasn't in the book at all crosses a line to me. Maybe it's the author in me, but to add to a movie something that was not in the book drives me nuts.
Ashleigh wrote: "It was enjoyable but from a literary view it detracted too much."I am not occupied with the literary merits of Jacksons movies after having enjoyed LOTRm as movies and books should not be similar. Both are the result of the vision of their artists, and while Jackson is a great fan of Tolkien they have a different vision, thank some deity for that.
I think the addition of Tauriel makes for a better movie. Having a film with a dozen major characters -- none of them women -- would be ludicrous today. It made sense to write an adventure that way in Tolkien's time, when women had just gotten the right to vote. Today, it would be anachronistic.
Rick wrote: "I think the addition of Tauriel makes for a better movie. Having a film with a dozen major characters -- none of them women -- would be ludicrous today. It made sense to write an adventure that way..."Agreed. Who doesn't love a good female character?
I would be fine with all these comments support PJ, if this was an original story by him (or one of his writers). But its not. This is a tale of a group of dwarves and a hobbit, as told by the hobbit. Everyone else is secondary, female or otherwise. To now see a character receiving more face time than 90% of the dwarves (and did not even exist in the book) is even more ludicrous. Where do you draw the line? Is it ok for Gollum to now show up to show off some nice CGI? Shall we have the White Wizard ride Smaug around? Or even better have Tom Bombadil finally make an appearance?
Again, I do like Tauriel, but she just doesn't belong in this movie. Perhaps some sort of original spin-off movie looking at the elves of middle earth, or even a Legolas story movie, but not the Hobbit.
Well Erik, tough for you but Tauriel is here to stay.
Erik wrote: "I would be fine with all these comments support PJ, if this was an original story by him (or one of his writers). But its not. This is a tale of a group of dwarves and a hobbit, as told by the hob..."I don't think Tauriel's screen time was ludicrous. I don't think that her story-line was bad. I don't care that she wasn't in the initial story 'The Hobbit.'
Tolkien created this vast world with myriad different peoples to populate it, but he only gave us a handful because only a handful were needed to tell the tale he chose. Does that mean we leave all of the possibilities that could be to rot? I have absolutely no problem with Jackson creating characters in this world that can support them. Just because Tolkien only gave us five elves does not mean there are only five elves. I am 100% okay with Non-canon characters; especially when they're as cool as Tauriel was.
I am surprised and amazed at the astonishment and outrage people still feel when a movie is made that isn't like the books. How long has the industry been massacring books?
@ Mark... it's not all that tough for me, but thanks for your concern. As for her longevity, I doubt she survives. That will be tough for you. : )@ Iris... Tolkien did introduce us to many more people and races, but in his other books. My question is this: Would it have been ok if Tauriel was male? We both know the answer to that, as adding another male would have been very odd and done nothing for sales. This was a PR stunt by PJ to add sales. I get it. I have not even said it was done badly. But it still was unnecessary for a great book like the Hobbit. My opinion.
I'm not particularly outraged either, but feel sad for the many folks whose first exposure to this story is the movie. Who wants to read any books post movie? After seeing the movie then reading the book, you may feel a tremendous letdown when you don't see page after page of action and shield riding elves shooting arrows. What a rip-off these books! : )
There is no need for Jackson to augment sales by adding a female carácter. In any event, sales will be astronomical, so I don´t buy that comment at all. No, he´s making the movie more relevant to contemporary sensibilities. And yes, he gets to exercise his creative juices a great more by adding Tauriel.My suspicion is that Jackson feels restrained by adapting a well known novel to the screen and needed to exercise his imagination and creativity to a greater extent than just that of an interpreter of another persons literary Works. I hope that he goes the next step further when he completes the 3d episode and goes on to make films which he has written the scripts for out of his own head. Perhaps that´s what he needed to do before he started putting Bilbo´s tale on the silver screen.
It is literary treason of the highest degree! But I must admit I liked Tauriel's story and the actress playing the role did a phenomenal job. Next to Smaug, she was the best thing happening in the film. Her affair with the dwarf parallels the love story between Aragorn and Arwen in LOTR. Liv Tyler and Evangeline Lilly---Spock never made pointy ears look so alluring. Let's hope PJ gives Tauriel some seductive scenes with elvish whispers in the final installment. I apologize for the literary heresy but movies are after all a "visual" format.
These days, before a movie gets any kind of go-ahead in Hollywood, it has to have a tie in to toys, video games, soundtracks, theatrical musicals (think Disney’s Frozen), and worse. Did anybody else smell the platform game tie-in from that under-the-mountain goblin-chase in the first movie? Don’t some of those action sequences only make sense if you realize it’s the set-up for a level of a video game? And don’t forget about those awkward poses some of the characters make mid-scene just for the sake of freeze-frame poster merchandise to go on the walls of love-sick teenagers all over the world (or at least, the part of the world that watches these movies.) It is all about marketing. And it all started with the Silmarilian. Follow the money trail back to the author’s son, who was not satisfied with sales from the completed works of Tolkien and so had to throw together a bunch of author’s notes and “What if” scenarios into a new collection of works that sold well but may or may not have represented what the author wanted to have said. If my kids ever did that with all of the “maybe I should add this character here” and “maybe this should happen here” notes on my writing desk, my end-results would get pretty muddy, too. I can totally see the author turning over in his grave.The question you have to ask is this: what was the author trying to say? He wasn’t rushing out a pulp novel because he needed a few quick bucks. He wasn’t churning out what the readers were buying back in the mid-twentieth century. As a kid, I didn’t think much about how much effort it takes to write a good, well-written book like his, but as an adult and a writer myself I now do. He obviously had a reason for his story. Here we are arguing about Jackson’s reasons, but has anybody ever bothered to find out what Tolkien’s reasons were?
I understand that Jackson would have to make some changes to make the story work on the big screen. I understand that there were months spent in the elven kingdom that Tolkien did not elaborate on. I’m okay with Jackson elaborating on that. But what really irks me is that Tolkien was not writing a story about killing orcs. He was not licensing a video game. Count the calories, folks. Consider how much effort he put into writing about battle compared to what he wrote about the moral questions being considered. It’s obvious from his other writing that he could have focused on hacking and slashing and rapid-firing arrows. But he spent an entire chapter focused on how Thorin was not satisfied with the spoils of the mountain because he could not find the Arkenstone of Thrain—on how the dwarves’ greed made them cold to the requests for help from Dale and resistant to Bilbo’s diplomatic pleas for compassion. How blind do you have to be to not realize what Tolkien was trying to say?
What Jackson has succeeded in doing with his orc-killing bloodfest is to take a deeper message and replace it with just another senseless, two-dimensional battle of “good and evil” where good is just the people we are following through the movie and evil is anything ugly that gets in their way (like orcs, trolls, Voldemort, etc.) It’s like taking the teachings of Buddha and turning it into a statue that people pray to, or taking the virtues of Mohammed and turning them into reasons to kill people who don’t look like you, or like taking the scientific discoveries of Einstein and Bohr and turning it into an atom bomb. When will you humans ever learn?
Good comment Robert. I think what Jackson wanted to do was put his mark on the story, or make it his own in a way. We unfortunately get to see this in major sporting events when some celebrity butchers the national anthem for the sake of making it their own. Conceit, pride, and ego are probably the drivers for most, and perhaps the case for Jackson here.
Or perhaps Jackson is so creatively bent that he had to modify and add to the story. When one is an interpretive artist there is always the risk of adding material when the creative urge is so very great. It would have behooved Jackson had he written a script and directed his own film between the two- LOTR and the Hobbit. It would have satisfied his need to exercise his creative powers. Unfortunately, a simple adaptation of Bilbo´s tale was insufficient.
https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...This is a blog post that details my thoughts on the film.
Regarding Tauriel specifically, I must say that I was always intrigued by her during the movie. I was always looking forward to her next scene. I thought Evangeline Lilly was awesome in Lost, and so it was nice to see her again and I don't know why she hasn't been front and center in lots of other movies.
I don't have a problem with her, I thought she portrayed a very different kind of elf, not the elves of Lorien and Rivendell. She was a bit childish and flirtatious, but with an air of epic-ness. I do think that she was way better in Lost. She just looked so much more comfortable and relaxed and free to move in Lost than she did as Tauriel. I think that needing to live up to being "epic" was the worst part of her acting. Let the woman move her arms when she walks!
As a concept though, Tauriel is fine. Her love story was atrocious. Keep it just to legolas. That would be fine. Love triangles are just overdone right now. I can see what Jackson was trying to do, and I agree with those of you saying its all for the merchandising and advertisements.
They could have done more with her. Give her more freedom. Get her off the green screen and into some badass woods and let her crouch and drink water and smile more... I don't know. The world is perfect as it is. But sometimes its fun to rant and rave.
Steve wrote: "I loved the LOTR movies, but what Jackson is doing to the Hobbit is blasphemy."hear, hear!!! Well said!
Kenneth wrote: "Jessica wrote: "While I dislike changing the storyline (cause Tolkien is awesome) there are virtually no female characters in The Hobbit and I can understand why adding some might be necessary to p..."Totally agree! Lots of authors write that way, because that is what makes them comfortable. Chaim Potok couldn't write a female character to save his life and it shows. But his books are very good.
F.F. wrote: "https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...This is a blog post that details my thoughts on the film.
Regarding Tauriel specifically, I must say that I wa..."
Comfortable and relaxed, childish and flirtatious, give her freedom? All fine; every bit of it. Except that Tauriel is also supposedly the Captain of the Guard. That requires iron discipline, unswerving loyalty, attention to duty, leadership and tactical command skills. This is especially true since Tauriel, being a Silvan (Wood Elf) has risen to her rank in spite of high command being reserved for the Sindar, the elven kind to which Thranduil and Legolas belong. Much is expected of her. Yet after a couple of hours of getting to know one dwarf (arch enemy of her people) she abandons her post to go save him. What would you feel about giving Tauriel a different job, that suits her personality and inclinations? And as always, these are my very own views, please argue back!
I liked her a lot- but seriously guys? Add one female character= LOVE TRIANGLE! Ugh.
One small mod on my last post: I did appreciate Tauriel requesting from Thranduil that she be allowed to take the fight against the giant spiders right to their lair in Dol Guldur. At least she has some strategic sense even though her king lacks it.
Petter wrote: "We don't see Tauriel and Kíli enough, don't get to know them well enough, and their relationship moves at breakneck speed in spite of it requiring a long time to get properly built up. ..."Totally agree. Look how much trial and tribulation it took before Gimli and Legolas could get around their long-standing animosity. But their friendship matured. In the end, they agreed it was not a bad thing to be with each other facing certain death.
Petter wrote: " What would you feel about giving Tauriel a different job, that suits her personality and inclinations? ..."By adding Tauriel to a wider vision for females in Tolkien's world, Jackson giveth. By making her chase her fancy, disregard her command position and post, and place personal emotions over the larger mission, Jackson taketh away. Is he saying, Tolkien was correct for not have female warriors. Or is he saying, 'love and compassion (a women's realm)will conquer all regardless of duty.' Kinda hippie.
Do I remember the movie correctly? Did Kili the Dwarf while locked up by the elves tell Tauriel he was possibly part fairy. Or am I channeling 'True Blood.'
Kerry wrote: "Petter wrote: " What would you feel about giving Tauriel a different job, that suits her personality and inclinations? ..."By adding Tauriel to a wider vision for females in Tolkien's world, Jack..."
Hahaha! Giveth and taketh; nice way of putting it, Kerry.
Petter wrote: "Kerry wrote: "Petter wrote: " What would you feel about giving Tauriel a different job, that suits her personality and inclinations? ..."By adding Tauriel to a wider vision for females in Tolkien..."
Well, she didn't blink when her command (elves she's known forever, literally) took a butchering at the barrel gate. Now pursuit for both raw revenge and a commanders urge to take the fight to the enemy, that rings true. Being female, Tauriel might feel the need to be firm and aggressive to maintain respect. But Lilyiel of Lost is about confusing emotional relationships.
Kerry wrote: "Petter wrote: "Kerry wrote: "Petter wrote: " What would you feel about giving Tauriel a different job, that suits her personality and inclinations? ..."By adding Tauriel to a wider vision for fem..."
Right. And Thranduil should really embrace the concept of "decisive victories". Little skirmishes like the one at the barrel gate might well bleed his people white in a matter of decades at that rate. Elves simply don't breed fast enough to keep pace with Orcs and Giant Spiders, so they can't win a war of attrition.
And on that note, Elves must be exceptionally brave to risk their immortal lives in battle.
I understood the Wood Elves to be more savage, primal even. I always envisioned a more Amazon tribesman type than the wood elves portrayed by PJ. I also understood that the wood and sindar elves did not get along... lived in separate cities. A form of class division or caste even. I would have expected Tauriel to be passionate, but distrustful and fierce. Fierce she was, but lacking any other traits her kind might have been expected to exhibit.Thranduil was played perfectly in my mind. Deceptive, sneaky, pompous, and even sinister. The elves he represents were always above all others, in their minds. A movie about the elves would be very welcome, and perhaps allow PJ some freedom to be creative. Spin-off Legolas origins movie anyone?
Becky wrote: "I'm interested to see more from the Mirkwood Elves' point of view. I hope Tauriel will accomplish that. I do wonder why the position of head of the Elven Army was not given to Legolas, though."Well, Legolas wasn't in the Hobbit. Of course, neither was this other made-up character.
Erik wrote: "Spin-off Legolas origins movie anyone? "Absolutely!
I think almost everyone here agrees that Tauriel was in there for TEH MONEY. Amongst other insignificant issues such as the NEED for a female character. Most changes done to the story were made for it to appeal to wider audiences, not to portray the work of Tolkien. This all "not enough feminine touch" is just an excuse. Tolkien does not need to create a "balance" between sexes, this was not his vision. I am a woman and I don't find it sexist. All of this is PJ's vision and the money-making movie recipies. We have to respect these recipies if we want to attract as many ticket buyers as we can, right? After all, they did work in every other superheroes/fantasy/sci-fi B movie out there. Tolkien needs to be sold, not understood for what he is.I would have probably accepted Tauriel being in the story if she was a little more interesting and wasn't shooting arrows all the time. Also, if she left more time to the real story (that of the book) to be told. I do not accept the mess they made by introducing her. I am sure they could have found ways to make this work even for Tolkien fans, but I think they honestly didn't care. I have nothing against Evangeline, she makes a pretty elf. But that is it. Tauriel is pretty and elvish looking (except for the goblin ears) and can ninja-slash through tones of orc flesh. And that's about all. I won't talk about the healing scene. Or the love-triangle. Just...no. The dialogue was awful. Sometimes it was so bad, it was funny.
I don't think I want to say more. There was a time when I hoped The Hobbit will be followed in the future by Silmarillion (before the first movie). I was so dissappointed by PJ that now I am actually relieved to find out they won't be able to get their paws on the copyright. This should remain untainted by their greedy hands.
Alexandrina wrote: "[Silmarillion] should remain untainted by their greedy hands. "Agreed!!
I was wondering why Legolas has blue eyes in the 2nd Hobbit ? Or have I missed something pivotal to the story ...
Alexandrina wrote: "I think almost everyone here agrees that Tauriel was in there for TEH MONEY. Amongst other insignificant issues such as the NEED for a female character...."I think that pretty well sums it up. I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with "added content" in and of itself, but one does have to assess that material on its own merits. A lot of the material that PJ's films are including are really what any number of fanfic writers could do if they had a massive budget at their disposal. They really only serve at all because of the framework provided by Tolkien's original materials; they couldn't stand on their own. Their merit is that they pack the product and turn what probably should be two films into three, increasing the potential profit of the adaptations by another film.
To me, Evangeline Lilly (sp.) is the best representation of an elf in all the movies. While the invented characters are not Tolkien's in actuality, I think they do him justice thematically as well fit just fine into the world that Tolkien created. If anything, Gandalf's encounter with the Necromancer is troublesome. I'll have to go back and watch the LOTR but it seems as though Gandalf now had more information that he should. This would create a break in continuity or at the very least diminish Gandalf's greatness. I could be wrong.
John wrote: "While the invented characters are not Tolkien's in actuality, I think they do him justice thematically as well fit just fine into the world that Tolkien created"I disagree. I think they fit just fine into the world PJ created. Which, as far as The Hobbit movies are concerned, is extremely shallow and lacking the whole idea of JRRT's book. Therefore, they should stop using Tolkien as a means to sell their poor storytelling.
I have to note that Tolkien has a warrior woman in Eowyn when he wrote LotR. She wears armor, hides her identity in her zeal to go to war, and then defeats the Witch-king--with a little hobbit assistance. That's Tolkien doing the feminine aspect of the warrior spirit.I don't think we can legitimately say that casting the ridiculously sexy Evangeline Lilly is some sort of nod towards characterizing the warrior aspect of women. It's like casting Keira Knightley as Guinevere and then having her run around half naked on a frozen lake with a bow. The lesson from such casting and characterization is: women with arrows are SEXY, not some sort of post-Tolkien gender equality statement.
I think it is great!
Gary wrote: "I don't think we can legitimately say that casting the ridiculously sexy Evangeline Lilly is some sort of nod towards characterizing the warrior aspect of women. It's like casting Keira Knightley as Guinevere and then having her run around half naked on a frozen lake with a bow."Exactly. At least they kept Tauriel's clothes on... for now.
Alexandrina wrote: "Exactly. At least they kept Tauriel's clothes on... for now."
I'd go see that movie.
I hated it. Not only that, but I don't like the fact that they took the smallest and simplest of the 4 main books (i.e. The Hobbit + Lord of the Rings trilogy) and stretched it out into three movies, when they had only devoted one movie each to the three LOTR books. To me that was just blatant proof of excessive greed on Jackson's part.
Elessar wrote: "Unless she is some person up high, rank-wise. But I agree with Elisa, Legolas should lead. Maybe they sort of share? I wonder what her lineage/rank is. If she takes some part in the killing of Smaug, though . . . "I have seen the movie and I can tell you that Tauriel was NOT "some person up high, rank-wise", as you put it. In fact, in the movie, Legolas' father berates him for being attracted to her because she's a commoner.
Gary wrote: "Alexandrina wrote: "Exactly. At least they kept Tauriel's clothes on... for now."
I'd go see that movie."
Same here!
Greedy, greedy, greedy! Read LOTR and Hobbit in my teens and loved them. Jackson has no business adding characters, or stretching the Hobbit into 3 movies. I used to like his work (The Frighteners) but now I hate him and if I were a Tolkien family member, I'd be mad.
Arnav wrote: "Gary wrote: "Alexandrina wrote: "Exactly. At least they kept Tauriel's clothes on... for now."
I'd go see that movie."
Same here!"
Hope PJ doesn't read this.
Lizy1357 wrote: "Gary wrote: "I have to note that Tolkien has a warrior woman in Eowyn when he wrote LotR. She wears armor, hides her identity in her zeal to go to war, and then defeats the Witch-king--with a litt..."You didn't like Eowyn? Oh man, she was my absolute favorite! Oh well, to each his own I guess.
We need to keep in mind that this is a MOVIE. And a BUSINESS. Nearly every movie has some hint of romance and as a novel, a brilliant piece of literature, doesn't need that romance. As a movie, the Desolation of Smaug was great. Giving insight into that world that would spark an interest in the book itself is an accomplishment even if it includes a different character.
As a film adaptation of the book, however, The Hobbit movies, though a joyful piece of entertainment, is inaccurate and will never do the book justice.
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The 007 franchise has done some changes in style, and you not seeing all that difference would make for an interesting discussion on any 007 forum as how you perceive no difference in the movies and erás of the different actors. The differences being rather huge in more ways than just the violence, shows you just do not know enough on the matter of the subject. Even EON the movie producers have enlarged characters from the books like M & Moneypenny, the famous Q is mostly non-existing in the books, he is a character created by the folks from the movies. And guess what people love him and do consider him a great extra. The fans of books have never objected to the character of Q and the size of his parts in the movies through 5 decades. The movies have been good to the character of James Bond 007 and with each new actor we see something new and the movies have a different colouring.
Aliens was not about testerone but about how not just the strong survive but also how being clever also plays a role. Ripley is not physically strong as the Marines are, but she is mentally strong and with the help of Hicks, the corperal who gets wounded by saving her, she finds a way to oppose the mothercreature of the Aliens. In essence it is mother vs mother both fighting for the ofspring of their race.
Tauriel adds something missing from the Tolkien books namely a female heroine that is relatable for quite a large generation of younger girls. As I believe she is mentioned in the Tolkien book her part is being enhanced for the movie public, she might get as popular as a character named Q from another franchise.
Does this make the Tolkien book a lesser book? No it doesn't, it however makes the movie the Hobbit a nicer place to watch. I must admit that it was nice to see a female into the male mix which lightened the mood greatly. Evangeline Lilly is imho the best choice possible for Tauriel.
I love the Tolkien books and love the movies so far as Peter Jackson has gone easily beyond my expectations in creating Middle Earth. And with his adding and keeping out bits he left the books a whole different place to read. I do not always enjoy straigth adaptations when I have read the book, a movie should offer something new. Peter Jackson has done that made a brillaint world with recognisable stories and at the same time gives me as a reader a reason to return to the books because of bits he did differently, better or worse. My favorite book remains TFOTR because of Bombadil and the story around that part. While I find the Hobbit highly pleasurable I do enjoy Jacksons enhancement of certain parts and they do make more sense objectivly.
Looking forward to Jacksons conclusion next year and the dvd/bluray extravaganza with six movies placed in Middle earth.