LotR revisited – what Peter Jackson got right and what he didn't

[Wolfie65 1252xp 1]

The problem with The Hobbit is that it sucks rocks sideways.

The first film is vaguely acceptable IF -and that’s a BIG ‘if’ – you can see it as totally separate from the book original and just watch it as an entertaining fantasy action flick that just so happens to borrow – smash & grab seems like a more appropriate term – some elements from Tolkien’s story, but without any real commitment to actually telling said story.

The Hobbit as written by Tolkien is a children’s story, sort of a fairy tale, intended for intelligent children with a good attention span. It wasn’t intended as a prequel to LotR , as I’m sure everyone here knows. What PJ & Co. attempted to do, very obviously, was to basically re-shoot LotR, including, of course, the success of LotR. Which flopped ginormously. They could not have screwed this up any more if they tried.

Parts 2 & 3…..(hand me the bucket…thanks….guuaaarghh….sorry…better now….I think….no, wait……)

Since you mentioned the ‘love story’, whoever came up with the idea that an Elf girl could possibly ever be interested in a Dwarf guy quite obviously does not understand basic female nature at all. She’s constantly surrounded by handsome tall Elf guys and picks a Dwarf ? In no universe would she ever even have a nightmare about doing that .This is so blatantly an attempt to pander to a (largely non-existent) type of audience and most likely driven by someone at Warner Bros, part of an evil agenda better discussed somewhere other than this forum.

For those who want to watch The Hobbit on a screen, get a copy of the Rankin Bass cartoon version. It’s actually not bad, sticks pretty closely to the book and features the creepiest Gollum ever. The ‘riddles in the dark’ sequence could give even adults nightmares.

[grantinvanman 6665xp 0]

My favourite cringeworthy part of The Hobbit is the lava-shield-surfing! Like, hang ten, gnarly dwarf dudes!

[limburger 22095xp 0]

The Hobbit does have a ton material, but I’d argue that with a better focus on what it had to be they would not have over stretched some parts while reducing other key scenes to a fraction of the run time they needed.

And with that much material that silly romance angle only added more wasted runtime on things that didn’t move the plot along.

There’s a good reason why Tolkien only ever wrote the additional stuff as an appendix instead of making it part of the main story. Whoever wrote the scripts should have understood that part before even attempting to plug bits of that into the movies.

 

[bvandewalker 2081xp 0]

Actually the Dwarf/Elf romance thing made sense. I mean all the handsome elf dudes would  probably reminded her  of her brother and she would not be the first girl to have a thing for short hairy men.

[onlyonepinman 18109xp 2]

@Wolfie65 whilst it us true that the Hobbit wasn’t written as a prequel to the Lord of the Rings, the Lord of the Rings WAS written as a sequel to the Hobbit with the appendices really going to some detail of expanding the history of the world and linking the two together in the process.  So I do not think that it was entirely unreasonable to take that approach when making the Hobbit films.  Also, the certainly didn’t “flop”;  They made just under $3b combined on a total budget of around $750m.  Hardley what you would call a flop.

You haven’t really explained why the Hobbit “sucked rocks sideways” though.  Sure, you have given things you dislike about it, although again,  I completely disagree with your assessment of female “logic” dictating that an Elf would not find a Dwarf attractive.  If we assume female elves find the same things attractive as female humans, well you will find that to be a far more complicated (and, IMO interesting) subject than male attraction.  I recommend going talking to one perhaps.   However if we assume that the female elven attraction is based on different criteria to humans, then potentially anything goes.  But also, let’s not beat around the bush. Out of all of Dwarfs, only two of them were designed to look “attractive” our standards;  Kili and Thorin.  So Tauriel and her love interest were intentionally designed to be attractive by human standards in order to make that love story believable.  From my personal perspective,  it adds nothing to the overall story, but I also don’t think it takes anything away.  Then again I also accept that maybe that story arc wasn’t included for my benefit.

[Wolfie65 1252xp 0]

If we assume that Elf females find the same things attractive as Human females, that would be height (!), looks (!), youth, money and social status. And yes, I base these observations on TONS of experience over MANY years. I suppose that the Dwarf in question might qualify as ‘young’ – especially to an Elf, who is functionally immortal and probably at least several hundreds of years old when Peter Jackson hired her, but in all other respects, he fails miserably. No chance.

The only possible way for this perticular romance to ever occur would be if the Elf girl has some very serious issues and extremely low esteem, which seems highly unlikely, in fact, the opposite is probably the case: as an attractive female -of any species – her self-esteem is likely to be sky-high. So high, in fact, that even the son of the King (see ‘social status’, above) isn’t good enough for her. You can find tons of this exact type (human variety, no Elves) in every bar, night club, other social venues and, of course, online.

And guess what: they don’t like Dwarves.

But just to make you happy, I did find one good thing about PJ’s films: the bunny sled. That is cool and would make a great miniature, even if Tolkien spins in his grave…..

[bvandewalker]

Elves, dwarves, orcs, and other races that can successfully interbreed with humans  should be considered human for all practical purposes, at least that is what my Father indirectly claimed in his book “How to Be Good: the Science of Doing Well”  and frankly I agree with him on that one (okay shameless plug done).

Also its very common for writers to use fantasy races as “proxies” for human culture/profession/class X, heck you could argue  all of Tolkien’s races except maybe mankind are different versions of the British  isles cultures (the Hobbits certainly are the countryside farmers but even the Elves and Orcs could be placed on the British  isles comfortably).

So yeah we should assume eleven women think, feel,work,etc. like real human women as far as we know since Tolkien wisely never made the mistake of going into their minds (unlike most male Sci-Fi writers).

• This reply was modified 11 months, 4 weeks ago by bvandewalker.

[limburger 22095xp 0]

We as humans can’t possibly predict how alien/fantasy races would approach inter species romance.

I just think that for a story that’s primarily about Bilbo going on an adventure there were too many subplots that didn’t involve him. It’s also the reason the battle of the five armies is just a short discription with practically zero info on what happened.

Stretching this book over 2 books and a 3rd one meant stuff had to be added where none existed.

[onlyonepinman 18109xp 0]

@Wolfie65 whilst “height” is sometimes a factor, it often is not hence short guys still get married, still get laid.  Youth is NOT generally a priority as age often brings with it increased social status and wealth, which can make men in their 30’s and 40’s more attractive than men in their late teens and twenties.  Female attraction is WAY more complex than a tick box exercise and the relationship between Tauriel and Kili is in no way implausible.  But, if you want to boil it down to simple box ticking:

• He is a decent age
• He has decent looks,
• He shows that he has deeper, sensitive side (when they talk when he is in jail)
• He demonstrates strength and bravery.

He is ticking quite a few boxes there.  It seems to me that you are projecting quite a lot of personal angst into your assessment of the probability of the two ever falling in love. You seem to have a very cynical opinion of women.

@limburger When it comes to romance, I think we are massively over thinking it if we start saying we can’t predict how alien races/species might approach inter species romance.  It’s a film written by humans, for humans and starring humans. It’s supposed to be relatable to humans, it has to be relatable for it to work.  This means that it has to follow human conventions.

[Wolfie65 1252xp 0]

You seem to have a very naïve opinion of women. Ever met any ?

Reading your theories, it sounds like you’ve been watching to a lot of ‘pickup artist’ videos or those where women give ‘dating’ advice to men. FYI : both of those are misleading bs.

I live and operate in the real world.

Making you happy once again, I found more things to like about PJ’s Hobbit:

Lee Pace (Thranduil) is the only PJ-hired actor who – at least in the movies – looks somewhat Elvish. None other do.

Smaug is fairly well done, although I suspect that Thorin may be correct when he accuses him of having gotten fat and lazy – it should be easy for him to just incinerate Bilbo & friends, first try. Then, back to nap time.

[limburger 22095xp 0]

@onlyonepinman yep … which is why instead of trying to pretend we understand alien mating rituals the average writer will write it for humans.

side note : It’s weird how the average RPG tends to have half-human/alien hybrids, but never non-human pairings.
Surely Half-Orc/Dwarf would exist … or Half-Orc/Elves ?

// —

Smaug is fat and lazy by the time Bilbo & co arrives. He’s been raiding the local region since getting to the mountain and the gold fever has affected him too.

In the book Bilbo is the only one daring to get close and his strange non-dwarven smell confuses and intrigues the dragon.
They survive being burned alive because all of them are hiding inside the secret passage the beast hadn’t found, which is why he starts to terrorize the local city instead as he suspects the locals have helped the thieves.

 

[onlyonepinman 18109xp 1]

@Wolfie65 this isn’t dating advice, it’s only an explanation, or rather a counter argument, as to why the relationship between Tauriel and Kili is not exactly far fetched. Kili is made out to be a good man, in almost every way.  I also happen to know number of men who would be considered “short” who are happily married with families, so the height argumen is utter nonsense as well.  Your assessment appears to be built on memes about attraction rather than allowing for the complexity of actual romantic attraction.  Sure, there are some shallow girls out there, but just like shallow men, they aren’t the majority.

So, given that it’s reasonably obvious height ISN’T a deciding factor, that it’s fairly well documented that females are not attracted purely by looks alone and that certain traits in a person will absolutely overrule looks, both positively and negatively,  there is absolutely no reason at all that Kili would not be seen as attractive to Tauriel, none whatsoever.  The fact that they also made the two very attractive, physically, only reinforces it.

You do seem to have taken a particular dislike to that part of the film, which is weird because it’s one of the easiest things to tune out and ignore.   Your reasoning for disliking it also seems to based on a highly unrealistic view of what women actually find attractive.  Of all the things to hate about the Hobbit, whether or not Kili is punching above his weight seems to be a very strange hill to die on.

[grantinvanman 6665xp 0]

[moonunit 4516xp 2]

So, from “what did LotR movies get right” to “would an elf shag a dwarf”, with some sinister undertones of all women being the same, with no room for them to be diverse, nuanced people. God I love the internet. For what it’s worth, LotR trilogy was perfect, the Hobbit movies were ok. Rings of Power is like LotR done on the CW network.

[Wolfie65 1252xp 0]

@onlyonepinman – The impossible ‘romance’ is by no means the only – nor even the main – thing I hate about PJ’s evisceration of The Hobbit.

It looks like we live in completely different universes in regards to ‘dating’, women or related subjects, I suspect I know why but let’s not go there, this is not the forum for that kind of discussion. Let’s just agree to strongly disagree, otherwise, we’ll just endlessly accuse each other of living in a fantasy world…..

@limburger – Maybe the reason why race mixing in fantasy games, novels and movies always seems to have a Human element is because all the authors are, of course, Human, and only very, VERY few of said authors have shown any kind of talent in regards to writing from a non-Human perspective. I can remember maybe a small handful of times I actually felt I was reading or viewing something from the viewpoint of an Elf, Dwarf or other non-Human character. In the hugely overwhelming majority of cases, it all reads Human…… For example, the Elf girl (whose name escapes me) in Dragons of Autumn Twilight (book 1 of the Dragonlance saga) talks and acts like a Human teenager, not a centuries old Elf. You could say the exact same thing about the Elf girl in PJ’s movies.

I cannot see an Elf/Orc pairing at all, but I’m sure onlyonepinman can.

 

@grantinvanman – I could tell you many things about ‘Captain Kirk’ and his ‘guide to women’, but this forum is, again, not the place for discussions regarding the agenda behind the TV- and movie industry.

[Author]

Posts