So I have lots of OPINIONS about how things are adapted into movies. Big, overreaching opinions about how they should be done. This all started when my Actual Favorite Series Ever, Harry Potter, was adapted into a somewhat disappointing movie in 2001. Shortly after, my Actual Favorite Movie ever was released (LOTR: FOTR) and I was destined to become an annoying movie critic forever. Then, in 2012, the director of my Actual Favorite Movie released an adaptation of my Actual Favorite Childhood Book, The Hobbit.
And so began The Unexpected Sadness.
My biggest rule I have when it comes to how to make a movie from a book is to, above all things, make a good movie. Even the most faithful of adaptations can be a sub-par movie (In my opinion, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone), and I firmly believe that nothing you do in a movie that is bad can be defended by citing that it was in the source material. Some of the best beloved films based on books (like, for example,Lord of the Rings) hack and slash at their source material, and come out as better movies because of it.
I had to stick to this rule myself, before finally citing it as a reason, as to why The Unexpected Sadness hit me so hard. Was The Hobbit mediocre because it changed things from the book? No, not exactly. A lot of what was bad came from things that are not in the book The Hobbit, but (besides messing up the narrative structure) that wasn’t why they were bad. Are the added things justified because they are from Tolkien’s expanded works? NO. WHY WERE THOSE THINGS THERE. FUCKING PALE ORC POINTLESS BULLSHIT. GODDAMN. WHY IS THERE SO MUCH GODDAMN ACTION IN THIS MOVIE. IT’S THE GODDAMN HOBBIT, NOT SOME BLOCKHEADED TRANSFORMERS FROM MICHAEL BAY!
…Anyway…
Overall, I think a lot of the problems I have with The Hobbit are the deviations it made from the book, not to make a higher quality adaptation, but a more acceptably mainstream one. Lord of the Rings was popular, and had action scenes, and that is why the action scenes are in The Hobbit. Trilogies are popular, which is why it’s a trilogy. Relatively smaller stories on which the fate of the world do not lie on a chosen one aren’t popular with the kids, so we have to find a chosen one and a world ending evil plot in a story about a bunch of dwarves kidnapping a hobbit and dragging them along with them to reclaim a treasure. Oh, and let’s throw in A FUCKING COMEDY RELIEF JAR JAR BINKS CHARACTER WHY THE FUCK DON’T WE?!?! AND WE’LL GIVE HIM AN ACTION SCENE! EVERYONE AN ACTION SCENE! ONE FOR YOU! ONE FOR YOU! BILL THE PONY AN ACTION SCENE! GODFUCKINGDAMNIT I WILL KILL EVERYTHING
…so back to adaptations.
I am not particularly looking forward to The Desolation of Smaug. A large part of it is because the first one underwhelmed me so, but everything I hear about it prior to its release makes it seem as though they are making the same kinds of errors in adaptation all over again. Take, for example, Tauriel, the female archer-elf type character they’ve added to Mirkwood. Now, the simple addition of a few more named Elf characters wouldn’t bother me, but a lot of the rhetoric surrounding her seems quite… pandering? They didn’t simply need a captain of the elf guards and created a female character, they wanted to add a STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER. She’s a WOMAN. Who FIGHTS. Instead of a female character who’s a soldier. And I know, I KNOW that she’s going to have her own action scene. MAYBE SHE’LL GET HER OWN CHASE SCENE BECAUSE YOU KNOW WHAT THE HOBBIT NEEDS?! EVEN MORE SCENES THAT HAVE GODDAMN NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING AND DON’T EVEN HAVE THE FUCKING TITLE CHARACTER IN THEM. LET’S GET SOME MORE OF THOSE. IT’S NOT LIKE THE NECROMANCER ISN’T ALREADY GOING TO BE TAKING ENOUGH TIME AWAY AS IT IS FROM THE ACTUAL GODDAMN PLOT. SERIOUSLY IS BILBO EVEN GOING TO BE IN THIS GODDAMN MOVIE?!
….In conclusion…
I could write a whole in depth movie review of The Hobbit: The Unexpected SadnessJourney (Summary: Needs More Martin Freeman), and I could write a thesis on what I think makes a good adaptation, but the point of this post is simply that I am dreadingThe Desolation of Smaug. Like, seriously? Are they going to get to the destruction of Rivertown already in this movie?! Then what the hell is the third one going to be about? The Battle of the Five Armies? The event that gets a whole FIVE PAGE SUMMARY 280 PAGES INTO A THREE HUNDRED PAGE BOOK and for which THE MAIN CHARACTER IS UNCONSCIOUS?!
I guess I will just have to, once again, scream emptily into a loud din of praise my combined film and nerd rage, and let the people enjoy their big Hollywood trilogy. In the meantime, I’ll just re-watch my favorite Big Hollywood Trilogy, and try to forget what other projects its creator has released.
But yes, I will probably be seeing it on opening night. Goddamnit.
TOP HAT ROBOT 
To be fair, while Unexpected Journey’s pacing was terrible, the book’s pacing was terrible too, just in the opposite direction. I’m not sure what an outstanding adaptation of it would look like. The Battle of Five Armies being a five-page summary was super disappointing. “Oh, hey Bilbo! Yeah, there was an epic conflict–climactic, even. Major characters died. Gee, you should’ve been there.” The tone of the Hobbit is (as I recall–haven’t read it in a year) also weirdly inconsistent, kind of bouncing back and forth between levity, Tolkien worldbuilding-tour, plot excitement, and ‘then this happened’. The films are trying to make it a larger story than it is, and exacerbating the tone inconsistency as they do so–the goofy stuff gets goofier, the dramatic stuff gets more dramatic, and the dissonance feels sloppier as a result.
That said, really enjoyed UJ and I’m looking forward to Desolation of Smaug, fully aware that the first was a mess and the second is likely to also be a mess, because I am a sucker for the atmosphere and I will literally watch anything that is people running around New Zealand doing Fantasy Things with gorgeous music in the background on a big budget. 😡 Not really defending UJ’s flaws here. Just remarking that on a storytelling level the book’s got nearly as many flaws, and if more faithfully adapted would be sort of difficult to pinpoint an audience for.
For me, The Hobbit in both tone and pacing is very childish and humorous. It’s not a huge, world changing adventure, it’s not an epic- it’s a children’s story. So for me, having it played very serious, very BIG EPIC ACTION MOVIEish is against everything I like about it. I actually really enjoy the fact that the Battle of the Five armies is skipped- a giant battle isn’t what the story is about. It’s about Adventure, the kind that kids play at, not war. Of course the pacing isn’t amazing still- Tolkien made a great world, but oh, his writing- but I find the pacing of The Hobbit kind of unforgivable regardless from a film standpoint.
I am just planning to, when all three are released, sit happily in my room with my fan-cut (containing only scenes from the books) with all the lovely New Zealand, Middle Earth, Perfect Bilbo (Like, seriously! HE IS A PERFECT BILBO), and ignore the other three hours. Oh, and the trailer actually made me cry with fan-sadness, because though most of it looked so bad, the scenes with Bilbo and Smaug were basically exactly as I’d always wanted them.