The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Originally, when you came to Tolkien at a young age, you read The Hobbit first which offered a glimpse of Middle Earth. Searching for more, you then read The Lord of the Rings, which filled in large chunks of Middle Earth, the latter Ages. If you were adventurous and persistent, you would read The Silmarillion and/or Unfinished Tales which expanded Middle Earth, its history, and its cosmology. That was the traditional way if you approached Tolkien through his books.
Now children are exposed to Tolkien from the Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films. They already know Middle Earth, Frodo, Gollum, and Gandalf. They just don’t know Bilbo. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is supposed to rectify that. It was supposed to take the big and epic and make it smaller; a personal journey, Bilbo’s adventure, There and Back again. Unfortunately, it expanded the personal to epic proportions placing it squarely in Jackson’s epic world missing what Tolkien was telling in the tale of Bilbo Baggins.
Jackson’s Hobbit film took the appendices and included them for this film. It includes the stories that were background to Bilbo’s adventure. Remember when Gandalf disappeared for several days? He went to the White Council. Yeah, they filmed that. You remember when you wanted to know about other wizards. Yeah, they included Radagast and his rabbits. Now I don’t remember if Tolkien described it, but I think remember a picture of that.
Including all of that, you forget that it was Bilbo’s journey. When he went and had himself and adventure. The Took in him took him across Middle Earth. But Gandalf is there soaking in everything. The movie forgets it was Bilbo’s journey. While it is not bad, I wish it had been more of Bilbo’s tale.
I’m hoping Peter Jackson doesn’t get to do The Silmarillion. I’m hoping that it will be an animated film.
3 of 5 stars.
