More on the First Hobbit Movie Because Words

Here's something more on the first Hobbit movie before seeing the second...

First, a reconsideration.  Back when I first impression'd PJ's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Series of 3-D Action Sequences, I gave it a hazy 85%.  That was then.  I've now seen the movie again (at home this time), and I've decided that Peter Jackson has far too much money and cred to deserve a B just for trying.

Seeing the first movie again, not so flushed with the sheer happiness of just being back in cineMiddle-earth, I'm disappointed with many of the choices made.  Lots of people have already remarked on the frantic, manic quality given the action.  Plenty have complained about the departures from the novel's plot.  A necessary and sufficient number have been offended by Radagast. 

What tipped it for me, however, was the erasure of William's, Bert's, and Tom's best lines.

William, Bert, and Tom, of course, are the three trolls encountered by the party on the road east of the Shire in Chapter 2, "Roast Mutton." In Tolkien's book they are every bit as Cockney and rough as in PJ's movie.  They are definitely played for larfs; they're even drunk.  And they treat the dwarfs at least as cruelly as their movie counterparts do.  The difference is in the escape and how the sticky situation is resolved.

     "No good roasting 'em now, it’d take all night," said a voice. Bert thought it was William's.
     "Don't start the argument all over-again. Bill," he said, "or it will take all night."
     "Who's a-arguing?" said William, who thought it was Bert that had spoken.
     "You are," said Bert.
     "You're a liar," said William; and so the argument beg all over again. In the end they decided to mince them fine and boil them. So they got a black pot, and they took out their knives.
     "No good boiling 'em! We ain't got no water, and it's a long way to the well and all," said a voice. Bert and William thought it was Tom's.
     "Shut up!" said they, "or we'll never have done. And yer can fetch the water yerself, if yer say any more."
     "Shut up yerself!" said Tom, who thought it was William's voice. "Who's arguing but you. I'd like to know."
     "You're a booby," said William.
     "Booby yerself!" said Tom.
     And so the argument began all over again, and went on hotter than ever, until at last they decided to sit on the sacks one by one and squash them, and boil them next time.
     "Who shall we sit on first?" said the voice.
     "Better sit on the last fellow first," said Bert, whose eye had been damaged by Thorin. He thought Tom was talking.
     "Don't talk to yerself!" said Tom. "But if you wants to sit on the last one, sit on him. Which is he?"
     "The one with the yellow stockings," said Bert.
     "Nonsense, the one with the grey stockings," said a voice like William's.
     "I made sure it was yellow," said Bert.
     "Yellow it was," said William.
     "Then what did yer say it was grey for?" said Bert.
     "I never did. Tom said it."
     "That I never did!" said Tom. "It was you."
     "Two to one, so shut yer mouth!" said Bert.
     "Who are you a-talkin' to?" said William.
     "Now stop it!" said Tom and Bert together. "The night's gettin' on, and dawn comes early. Let's get on with it!"
     "Dawn take you all, and be stone to you!" said a voice that sounded like William's. But it wasn't. For just at that moment the light came over the hill...

The voice that sounded like William's but wasn't is of course Gandalf's, and he has been ventriloquizing half of the argument to keep the trolls bickering until the sun comes up.  The mixture of humor and danger is top-notch, like Abbott and Costello with baseball bats, and the stakes are high.  The trolls are defeated in the book just as soundly as in the movie, but they're defeated by their own defining stupidity, and they're defeated with words.

Peter Jackson, for some reason, decides to replace this whole dialogue with a medley of snot jokes, fart jokes, eye pokes, and yet another fight scene.

Unfortunately, this isn't the only place where Peter Jackson ignores or dismisses JRRT's fun with words.  The substitution of huge heavy action sequences for important language is at least partially inevitable when translating a sprawling novel to the big screen, but it is also sometimes symptomatic of a failure of imagination and a failure to apprehend themes.

More on that in a later post.