Warning: This review may contain spoilers; if you have not seen the movie and haven’t read the book, please do not read further if you do not want key plot points revealed to you.
If you are going to see The Hobbit, and you expect a straightforward, word-for-word and scene-by-scene rendering of the book into a movie, you will be disappointed. If, however, you are a Middle Earth fan who is familiar with the interplay of the entire canon of Tolkien’s works, you will likely be pleased with Jackson’s adaptation. I was not disappointed.
Peter Jackson said that he was going to turn The Hobbit into three movies, not one. As this book is approximately the same length as The Two Towers, that statement should have made it obvious to everyone that this adaptation would include more than just a dramatization of the story as told by J.R.R. Tolkien. Much has been included in the movie that was touched on only briefly in the actual text of The Hobbit, but that is told in more detail in the appendices to The Return of the King and in other of Tolkien’s Middle Earth writings.
It is only natural that Jackson would include the finding of the Arkenstone and the sacking of Erebor by Smaug the Firedrake, as this explains the reason for Thorin Oakenshield’s journey to the Lonely Mountain, as well as the importance of the Arkenstone to Thorin’s people. It also makes sense to include the feud between Thorin and the Orc King Azog, although admittedly, Jackson does change the details of this story. (The Azog story is told in The Return of the King, appendix A, and Azog is actually killed by Dàin, son of Nàin at the Battle of Azanulbizar.) Despite the altered details, Jackson’s inclusion of this particular story explains why Thorin is called “Oakenshield” and provides an understanding of the deep and abiding enmity between dwarves and orcs that will be so very important in The Lord of the Rings cycle. It’s very important to remember, when watching The Hobbit, that it is the backstory to Jackson’s previous Middle Earth movies.
Many scenes in the movie expand on ideas that are merely mentioned in passing in the book. For example, Gandalf mentions his meeting with “his masters” only in passing, but Jackson fleshes this meeting out, providing important clues to the state of Saruman’s mind at this time, and giving the first intimations that he may be falling under the influence of dark powers. The Necromancer is introduced, and his role, while not important in the early part of The Hobbit, will undoubtedly become more so in the trilogy’s progression. (It does in the book.) Radagast, too, is mentioned very little in either The Hobbit or in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but he is given a larger role (albeit an odd one) in this adaptation.
For all the strengths of the movie, however, there are some weaknesses. One of the biggest is unanswered questions. For example, because the council at the eagles’ aerie is not detailed, many people have asked why the eagles don’t just fly the fourteen companions directly to the foot of the Lonely Mountain instead of leaving them at the Carrock. (For those who don’t know, it’s because they do not wish to fly where they might be shot at by men who would assume they were after their sheep.) My hope is that these loose ends will be tied up by the end of the trilogy. The fight scenes are a minor weakness; they are just a shade too long, and while I didn’t find any of them gratuitous, I did find them a bit tedious.
Other minor weaknesses come in the character development. I found Radagast’s strangeness overdone — while Tolkien certainly describes him as odd, I never got the impression that anyone except Saruman viewed Radagast as insane. I very much doubt that Tolkien envisioned him as having a river of bird-droppings running down the side of his head.
The dwarves, too, are oddly undifferentiated. Only Thorin and Bombur are easy to remember. (And Bombur only because of that silly jump-rope of a braided beard.) I hope that this will begin to change as the trilogy progresses, but without my cheat-sheet of beard styles, I did not know who was who. It was not until the movie’s end that I could reliably name Balin and Bofur. And the belching contest. I found that … unnecessary. And a little out of character. While dwarves and hobbits definitely had different rules of etiquette, Tolkien does make clear that the dwarves are not unmannerly louts.
These minor points notwithstanding, for me, the movie was a welcome return to Middle Earth. The story was a solid introduction to what I hope will be a trilogy that rivals The Lord of the Rings in quality, and it was produced well, with skillful use of CGI and sound effects, marvellous costuming and makeup, an outstanding (and oddly haunting) musical score, and the overall attention to detail that I have come to expect from Peter Jackson and his team.