The Hobbit!

[David]

Anyone else totally excited for the final Hobbit movie?

Any other Tolkien fans just want to geek out a little bit?

We could chat about the use of story in apologetics, how great the books are or the movies.

[Jake]

I can't wait. Ever since I completely gave up on the hope that they would be accurate I've been enjoying them a lot more.

[David]

I think the adaptation is accurate enough. I mean, I think most who complain about the movies would not like the movie they think they want, based solely on the book. In the book Gandalf disappears for half the story, no one knows where he went, and then he shows up and says he was fighting the Necromancer. Based on book alone, which some seem to want, we do not know that is Sauron. Would that make sense?

ANother - Bard does not show up in the first Laketown chapters as Tolkien did not invent him yet. So when the dwarves get to Laketown we would not meet Bard if you are strictly following the book. He'd just show up and kill Smaug. That would be jarring.

Maybe if they had filmed the Hobbit first, but in choosing to make Lord of the Rings first, they couldn't make the Hobbit a simple kids story. Heck, even Tolkien changed the Hobbit when he wrote LOTR - Gollum was a friendly guy who gave Bilbo the ring originally, TOlkien changed this to make the ring more scary.

[Matthew]

Hey guys I'm pretty new to the apologetics group but saw this topic and had to chime in... I am a huge Tolkien fan and all throughout the movie adaptations of both LOTR and The Hobbit I have tried to be optimistic and understanding of the process and how the canonical story has to change in an audio/visual format. So overall I have enjoyed the experience. Having said that, I do think that some of the sense of grandeur and high drama that are central to Tolkien's essentially medieval texts are missing in the movies.

[David]

Matthew, it is interesting to think about how the format changes how they tell the story. I think of the barrel ride in the book - that would be dull to watch, just closed barrels floating down a river. Makes sense to add an action sequence.

I always tell people - don't be a purist! It is more fun.

Have you read the Quest for Erebor? I forget if it is there, or in the appendix to Return of the King, where Gandalf relates his meeting with Thorin (seen in beginning of Desolation of Smaug movie). He relates how this led to the defeat of the dragon which changed history as, had this not happened, the dragon might have shown up to attack Gondor in the end. It is an interesting thought on providence, or as Tolkien called it, Eucatastrophe. Have you read On Fairy Stories in the Tolkien Reader?

[Matthew]

I have read On Fairy Stories though it was some time ago. I agree that being a purist robs you of the joy that seeing a new interpretation of a well known story can bring. I went to the theaters with the pre conceived mindset of the purist and got what I deserved, a bitter experience. I then bought the movie and changed my attitude beforehand and enjoyed it. The difficult job Peter Jackson had of adapting what is essentially a children's story with very tenuous connection to the medieval epic that is the LOTR deserves respect and admiration!

[Matthew]

I just wish he had gone a little farther into the self referential storytelling that Tolkien does in The Hobbit. It is a medieval quest story and awkward love triangles and sleds pulled by bunny rabbits among other things jarred me out of Middle Earth a few too many times.

[Jake]

I forgave Peter Jackson for most of the inaccuracies once Bombur's arms popped out of the sides of that barrel.