ampdead

12/18/07

Just leave it alone...

New Line and Peter Jackson have kissed and made up.  The Hobbit will, unfortunately, become a film.  Maybe I'll be the only person to say this, but please just leave it alone.  Don't make it into a film because stuff will inevitably have to be cut out - as it was in the Lord of the Rings films.  It will look great, I'm sure - also like the Lord of the Rings films - and it will follow the basic storyline. 

Even so, essential elements of the story went missing - entire scenes that pushed the characters along and changed them forever, and the characters themselves were fiddled with (sometimes making them unrecognizable).  Aragorn was not a reluctant leader.  Gimli, Meriadoc, and Peregrin were not merely comic relief.  The Hobbits did not come home to a Shire that had magically remained untouched by the wider world - killing any notion about no trouble finding you if you don't go looking for it.  Nevermind the encounter with Tom Bombadil or the Dead Men of Dunharrow (i.e. the "radioactive scrubbing bubbles"").

Books generally don't translate well into films.  The best that can be hoped for is an attempt to stay true to the underlying themes of the story.  While LoTR looked magnificent, it strayed pretty far from that hope.  Just leave The Hobbit alone.

And, uh, The Lord of the Rings was the sequel to The Hobbit.

Posted by: Jason at 08:43 PM in Book Notes | No Comments | Add Comment
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