It’s been a good few years since Peter Jackson decided to bring Tolkien’s other epic to the big screen, and in that time, fans of the Lord of the Rings trilogy have had a lot of time to wonder quite how the Kiwi director would approach making what amounts to a children’s book for fans of his very adult fantasy trilogy.
And now that the first part of the Hobbit trilogy – An Unexpected Journey – has landed in cinemas, we have our answers. But there will be some out there who want to know a little more about what Peter Jackson has created in the name of Tolkien and how he has handled the very exacting demands of fleshing out the book’s main narrative with the Appendices of the Lord of the Rings books, plus other Tolkien-penned material to make a far more substantial story, worthy of three films.
So, with that in mind, we’re looking at twelve of the most significant plot elements of An Unexpected Journey to reveal and review exactly how Jackson has brought the first part of The Hobbit story to screen, including the changes he has made to the original text, and how successful they were in the film.
Without further ado, we present, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’s spoiler-tastic analysis.
And in case you missed it: THIS ARTICLE INCLUDES SPOILERS!
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3 Comments
The White Council is also misplaced in time…that seemed a bit odd to me
What was the need for all the embellishments in the movie, other than padding to fill two now three movies? Had Peter Jackson and team adapted the source novel the same way they adapted the individual ‘…Rings’ novels, the big-screen adaptation of ‘The Hobbit’ could and should have been a single 200-minute movie; a bright, brisk, breezy adventure tale of derring-do with a lightness of touch in comparison to the more apocalyptic content of ‘…Rings’.
Whilst ‘The Hobbit’ is only a 300-plus page book, Tolkien himself skimmed over much detail in many scenes, often with a mere line or two… once you break the book down to actual incidental beats, the story is considerably larger than first appears, meaning at least two films would be needed to do the story justice onscreen (the approach that Guillermo del Toro was taking when he was to direct the films), and if you want to tell it RIGHT, then three films is the best and most ideal option (what with Smaug the dragon, the epic Battle of Five Armies, et al)
Added to all that is the fact that once you show where and why Gandalf disappears intermittently during the adventure, you have to run with that onscreen, meaning you then get into the extensive additional appendices material that Tolkien penned, this in turn means that the films have much more material at their disposal to work into the overall broader narrative… more than justifying three films.
All that being said, could ‘An Unexpected Journey’ been a little tighter in terms of running time, perhaps about 140 minutes all told, probably, leaving more stuff for the inevitable extended edition, but all things considered, who wouldn’t want more of Peter Jackson’s return to Middle Earth… and if a little-longer-than-it-should running time is the worst thing about this new trilogy, I’d say there’s no downside at all!