Agree that omitting Bombadil was an easy call. However..... How would the scouring of the Shire "translate poorly to the big screen"? How would it have been difficult to show 4 hobbits taking it to a broken wizard, a sharp-tongued imp and some big thugs? Whatever you may say about Tolkein, and I think he wrote one of the 8-10 best stories ever, and certainly the greatest imaginative work, he was a bit of clumsy writer. Over and over again, Tolkein posits that hobbits are simple folk, uninterested in adventures, glory or ambition. And yet, it is this simple humility, grounded almost in the very earth, that gives them a strength and self awareness that enables them to withstand the ring's call, that all but the very greatest of heroes cannot. Hobbits are not big speakers: Pippin and Merry goaded Treebeard into action against Isengard not because of their words, but from their very zest for life. Their biggest success: they woke Treebeard up. Bilbo had the strength to use the ring for his own petty purposes for 50 years, and yet he was relatively untouched. And hobbits were largely superfluous to their journey: Pippin steals a look into the palantir. Surely not his best moment. Both Merry and Pip rashly swear their fealty to Theoden and Denethor, and then are still bit players. And all Sam and Frodo can do is plod along towards Mordor, led by only "hobbit" with some ambition: Gollum, nee Smeagol. And yet... they cannot help but be changed. They've witnessed the greatest deeds of 3000 years. Tolkein's humble creatures are NOT heroes, he makes that abundantly clear. And yet they are. When they come back home, for first time really, the Shire itself is threatened. There are no dunedain rangers to watch the borders. The Four must save the Shire, there is no one else. Once again, the powers that be have overlooked the Shire. Now the Four are heroes, and of course, Merry and Pippin are giants among their folk. The Scouring of the Shire is the completion of Tolkein's beloved earth-people. I think it is the most important chapter in the whole book. If you couldn't tell by now, I think much less of Peter Jackson now than I did after Fellowship.
It's too bad that Tom Bombadil and Goldberry were omitted from the movies, even in the extended DVD and Blu-ray versions. -G
Easy answer --- it would have made an already very long movie too long. You're making perfect the enemy of good with this complaint, IMO. I agree that the chapter is important, but not as important as you obviously believe. Also as an aside, while I don't disagree with your interpretation of it, I also think Tolkien's point in writing it was to show that evil can still crop up even though the war has been won, and that good has to be ever vigilant. But again, if things had to be cut for time and money reasons, I don't have much of a problem with the Scouring... being one of those cuts.
Whatever its merits on the screen might have been, the scouring of the shire was my favorite part of the trilogy of books. But what would it mean without Fatty Bolger and the redemption of Lobelia Sackville-Baggins?
1) Would have made the film way too long 2) Would have undermined the climax and main plot resolution Yeah, but I don't care about any of that.
Sure, but it would have been infinitely worse with the tacked-on addendum. Maybe the scene was thematically important but it was terrible writing from a plotting perspective. You don't comprehensively resolve the main arc and then throw in another act where you have a small subset of the characters take on a minor villain. For people not massively invested in the books (i.e. 90% of the audience) it would have been an incredibly schizophrenic and clumsy finish.
This is probably a discussion more appropriate for Literature than for Movies, because my problem is with your "terrible writing" comment, not with the point that it would make for a clumsy finish on film (which I tend to agree with). But I think that one reason why reading Tolkien is so refreshing -aside from his great imagination and story-telling ability - is that he doesn't follow the predictable plot formulas that everybody expects. He tells his story on his terms, and he doesn't care if one long chapter is about a minor character who by his actions contradicts the biggest plot point in the story, or that the book ends long after the climax with the hobbits vanquishing a secondary villain with much less at stake than the main plot of most of the book. Yeah, LotR is uneven, some chapters drag -like for example much of what happens between the destruction of the ring and the scouring of the shire. But the scouring of the shire itself is awesome, it really sheds more light and depth into the hobbits characters and how the journey changed them, and I feel it really adds to the story. And no fantasy author today would dare take such a risk. They would stick to the formulas, because they'd be afraid of the type of criticism that you are dishing out.
I did qualify my 'terrible writing' comment with 'from a plotting perspective'. I agree that it is good in many ways, particularly from a thematic perspective, and I wouldn't remove it from the books. I just think that it would have been a horrible addition to the film, where simple and well-paced plotting with defined arcs, climaxes and resolutions are far more important. Which is basically what I meant when I said I don't care about any of that stuff that Val waxed lyrical about. Making a good film had to take precedence over faithfulness to the source material.
Yep, specifically they're adding in supplemental material that appeared in the LOTR appendices and the Silmarillion. And I also thought 3 movies sounded a little long, but I'm not really complaining. And some of the changes I'm hearing about sound positive (like more light-hearted elves than in LOTR, which in my opinion got the elves completely wrong, particularly Elrond). I just finished re-reading Hobbit with my 10-year-old, and there's definitely enough material between that and the supplemental stuff to fill it out.
I thought Tolkien himself was purposeful in the way he depicted the different sides of the elves. Especially in the The Hobbit, they clearly have a sense of humor (or at least a sense of detached amusement). In LOR, he was writing more about the group of Elves that had come out of the West to fight Morgoth and been banished for it (meanwhile suffering huge losses). They were both exalted (by having lived in the realm created for the Elves at the beginning of the world) and tortured by their memories of the war for the silmarils. Elves like Legolas, whose people had never gone to the West, were simpler and (with the exception of the grouches in Mirkwood) happier. My feeble attempt at deflecting accusations of nerdism: I read both the Hobbit and LOR from cover to cover to each of my kids, which is why I remember them reasonably well.
I agree that the scouring of the shire was not needed in the movie. To convey the idea that the old world of magic is passing away, the movie needed to move immediately from the coronation to Frodo's departure. I found it incredibly moving and emphasized that the LOTR is about WWI, not WWII. There were poppies in Sam's front yard in the last scene.
Oh, I can out-nerd you hands down. After very recently finishing reading the Hobbit to my kid I went onto Wikipedia and read about the history of the elves. I kid you not. (And I did read the Silmarillion maybe 15 years ago but it hasn't stuck with me much.) Some of the wood-elves who Legolas' dad ruled over had never been to the west, but Legolas' family surely had, as the elves who ruled over them were of a higher class (same with Galadriel and her wood-elves). And even in the LOTR novels I find the elves are a little lighter in vibe than the mostly stern portrayals in the movies (Elrond just seemed permanently constipated). Sure they're immortal demigods who've seen a lot of horrible shit but they also like to party.
Very cool reading to your kids. I did the same thing about ten years ago to my kids. When I finished, I got through one or two of the Harry Potter Books with them... I'm going to read the Hobbit before the movie comes out in December. As far as the Elves, I didn't have any issue with their portrayel in the LOTR movies. There were different groups who acted differently. Besides, if I had lived that long, I would be either crazy or drunk or both...
The Colbert Report to spend an entire week talking about The Hobbit Returning the favor for being allowed to cameo in the upcoming Hobbit films and not subsequently being sent to a death trap, Stephen Colbert has announced (via EW) a full week ofHobbit-themed shows set to air the week before the release of An Unexpected Journey. The deeply passionate Tolkien nerd who, unlike many deeply passionate Tolkien nerds, hosts his own successful talk show, will present four nights of The Colbert Report devoted to interviewing guests from the film, including Ian McKellen (Dec. 3), Martin Freeman (Dec. 4), Andy Serkis (Dec. 6), and Peter Jackson (Dec. 5). Thanks to the promise of "The Colbert Bump," The Hobbit now seems poised to be successful.
Should I put a SPOILERS tag on this? I got to see it early today and enjoyed it but there's plenty to say. Basically I love how they turn that world into a visual spectacle onscreen, I love how they've imagined it. But it's the Hobbit, not LotR. It didn't particularly drag to me but it didn't have to be that long and the action scenes were... a necessary evil I guess (since the film was that long). Also, I want to watch it again without the 3D/Imax. I don't recommend it personally.