Robert and I headed off in the snow to see The Hobbit last weekend (it's taken a week to post this). He's the alpha Tolkien fan in our household who's read LoTR several times; I'm at best a fellow traveller, having gotten through it once (and trying again).
However, I'd greatly enjoyed the Hobbit, and had re-read it, to remind myself of the story. I had vague memories of the hobbit-hole, the ring, 'what has it got in its pocketses', and enjoying the story greatly - and not a lot else.
This is good and bad; you enjoy the details and the effort made to bring the story to life, but it means you cannot ignore the great swathes cut into the storyline, the rearranging, and the complete loss of the cheery, warm, good-humoured tone that makes The Hobbit such a delight to read.
It was this loss of tone that I felt was the biggest...artistic decision? change? choice? mistake? that for me, broke the film.
From the outset, the tone of the dwarves was, frankly, unpleasant and threatening. Aside from the first arrival, they help themselves to the larder and ignore their host. These are two things that would get a child reprimanded at a guest's house, never mind an adult.
The fun of the book was the (very British) sense of obligation that Bilbo faced trying to address surprise guests who felt so free at putting in orders, and the awkwardness of pointing out that in fact, he wasn't a burglar, when they were treating him as one.
British humour is brilliant at social awkwardness; Hugh Grant is one of the masters at that excruciating social embarrassment, that made him so good in Four Weddings, and in Sense & Sensibility.
And it's completely *lost* in this dining scene; the dwarves simply seem rude and greedy slobs.
Robert pointed out that they were excruciatingly polite in the book, doffing caps and 'at your service'-ing, even if they were demanding. They asked, but they never took.
And none of Bilbo's waffling between a quiet life and his Tookish side full of bravado, comes through.
Generally, the dwarves are a let down. Their leader is surly, glowering, and hostile; no amount of flashback to a great battle scene by the 2iC can save him from being a grumpy git, and he's out and out rude to the elves who are, again, their hosts.
Leaders have to be more than fighters; they have to embody their cause and demonstrate it was just and worthy. In this regard he fails fairly thoroughly; why would you ever support this guy?
And: where are their hoods?
What good is a dwarf if he doesn't have a splendid hood to sweep off and bow with?? Are these dwarves broken?
Something else that Robert pointed out: in the book the travellers set out with food and baggage, but *no* weapons. Noone was armed. They found a cache of weapons, and armed themselves when they had the opportunity - but they did not start out that way.
Being weapon-less obliged Gandalf and Bilbo to be very clever and use their wits when they run into the trolls - since noone was armed, noone could fight. This focus on using your wits is preserved a bit with the film dialogue, but it's not a patch on the original and frankly isn't as funny.
The whole business of being chased by orcs all the way through the trip seems another attempt to lard up the CGI'ed fighting scenes - wasn't running into goblins and trolls and spiders enough? Sheesh.
I can live with re-ordering the story, because the book is deliberately indirect. I can live with spinning it out to three films.
But the tone is what makes the book special - Tolkien's affection for hobbits and their fondness for good living, the mixed feelings about dwarves, the imperfection of the characters. With that gone, it might as well be a disneyfied fairy tale.
Verdict: A lost opportunity. Will wait for video for films 2 and 3.
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