C. S. Lewis Blog: Adaptation vs. Transformation – Peter Jackson’s Hobbit Experiment.
Since most of my readers know that I am something of a Tolkien Scholar (okay, “scholar” is probably too fancy of a word…but I have read much of the extra writings and I know much of the back story), I’ve been asked a lot about Jackson’s first movie about Tolkien’s The Hobbit. Mr. Starr’s excellent blog post does a fine job of explaining one take on the movie. I agree with most of his explanation about the challenges of adapting a book to film. My friend Rob McCaffrey has been telling me most of the same info. My only quibble in general is the same that Starr talks about as a “faithful adaptation.”
Starr takes Jackson to task on The Hobbit about “altering the plot and tone too much.” Note, Starr LIKES the movie, but feels Jackson has strayed a bit. He, however, thinks the LOTR trilogy is faithful. I felt the opposite…that Jackson’s altering of key figures, especially Aragorn, was ruinous to the adaptation part. The LOTR trilogy is a wonderful set of movies that I have watched many times in the decade since Fellowship was first released. However, Jackson departs from the books in the character development. I think by Return, Jackson brings it all home faithfully enough, so the movies are certainly worth watching.
Give the blog a read. Starr’s has solid insight to the challenges of adapting movies, and I think he is spot-on as to what Jackson has attempted to do with this movie version of The Hobbit. If you are curious about the tone of the movie, or why Jackson chose to expand the short book to a 3 movie set, I think Starr is spot-on with his ideas.