The Wisdom of a Two-Part Hobbit Movie

The new movie based on J.R.R. Tolkien's work, The Hobbit, has been in the works for some time now. Directors have come and gone and perhaps will even return (Peter Jackson is rumored). But The Hobbit won't be just one movie; two are scheduled to be shot back-to-back in New Zealand. Three movies were probably needed to do justice to the 3-book series The Lord of the Rings (LOTR). But are two movies really necessary to bring the single volume of The Hobbit to the big screen?

The LOTR series does stay pretty true to Tolkien's books, but there are some scenes that are just in the movies, especially in the extended editions. Some of these are actually good inclusions because they help round out the characters. For instance, Pippin's declaration of having eaten four lembas cakes shows the hobbits' ability to eat and gives a much needed moment of levity. Another is the Aragorn/Eowyn soup scene when she learns of his past, telling the viewer much about the Dunedain from a brief conversation. But others that made it into the final theatrical release of LOTR were just unnecessary, seeming to be filler to make the movie longer and more expensive. The whole beginning of Return of the King is one of those; we already had Gollum's story, so why did we need to see more? Similarly, Arwen and Aragorn's romance was clear enough from the scenes Tolkien did write in LOTR. Using her as the elf who finds the hobbits and Aragorn at Weathertop is fine because she simply replaces a male figure instead of the scene being added or tremendously drawn out on her account.

Will the same visual verbosity of LOTR find its way into The Hobbit? The fact that it is being filmed as a two-parter makes that conclusion seem foregone. The Hobbit book does have a number of different events, but the book is no longer nor more complicated than many others that have been made into movies. The cartoon version of The Hobbit from 1977 includes many of the events, adds music, and is still under 90 minutes.

It seems that to get two movies, The Hobbit film will have to have more detail than the book really allows. Andy Serkis is supposedly reprising his role as Gollum, so it seems likely that his role will be expanded. Gollum's part in The Hobbit is really quite small, although terribly important for the later story retold in LOTR.

Rather than focusing on the ring and its travels, The Hobbit focuses on the journey of Thorin and his party of dwarves to take back an ancestral home currently occupied by a dragon. Two large battles take place as the dwarves travel and attempt to reclaim the caves. It is in this arena that it seems most likely the movie will require so much extra time. Such an extension seems that it will take away from the heart of the tale, however, which involves the relationships among living creatures, both among the other types of creatures and among their own. To know they are willing to fight for what they do really tells enough. Following Tolkien's narration of battle events is appropriate, but expanding the war to show your cleverness with CGI and special effects or, worse yet, dragging a movie out so far that it becomes two and so garners more money in sales, is not fair to the fans who have so loved and stayed true to Tolkien's text for so long.

Tolkien fans were concerned that the movies would depart from the books, and many were appeased by Fellowship, the first in the LOTR. By the end of Return of the King, however, many of those fans had become disillusioned with the movies. Expanding The Hobbit with longer fight scenes and excessive extra material is sure to alienate them more.