How Faithful is Peter Jackson’s “Hobbit” to Tolkien’s Book?

Q: How Faithful is Peter Jackson’s “Hobbit” to Tolkien’s Book?

ANSWER: It seems every critic on the Internet is determined to point out the differences between Peter Jackson’s first “Hobbit” movie and J.R.R. Tolkien controversial children’s book (yes, The Hobbit is riddled with controversies). But how faithful is “The Hobbit” to The Hobbit, really? seems to be the question on many people’s minds.

One of the best scenes in the movie (in my opinion) is the party with Bilbo and the Dwarves. People are actually complaining it’s too long, too drawn out, “like too much butter spread over too little bread”. Frankly, if the scene had been completely faithful to the book it would have been at least 20 minutes longer, maybe 40. Peter and his co-writers cut out a lot of details.

They also compressed the essentials of Bilbo’s conversation with Gandalf the next morning (in the book) into a hasty departure for Bilbo (in the movie). In the book he got up and fixed himself breakfast and was working on a second breakfast when Gandalf came in to make sure the Hobbit did what he was meant to do.

And the departures from the details unravel from there, but as I pointed out in my first review of “The Fellowship of the Ring” many years ago, the movie has to focus on the journey of the Ringbearer, not the details. Don’t get me wrong. I love the details. One does not simply write 600+ articles about J.R.R. Tolkien and Middle-earth without loving the details. But the details of the book (even a book so short as The Hobbit) hold back the cinematic storyline.

I tried to explain that 11 years ago, but frankly I was still grieving over the loss of so many details in Peter’s “The Lord of the Rings” and so my defenses of Peter’s work may not have rung true for everyone (I was certainly accused of hypocrisy). “The Hobbit” (in the first third) at least attempts to restore some of the lost polish by following details in the book more closely. But as I noted in my praise of Richard Armitage’s performance as Thorin, we’re getting (in my opinion) a better Thorin in the movie than in the book. Some of the changes are not simply egotistical embellishment — rather, they improve upon a story that was not composed with a dramatic performance in mind.

The “improvement” may be controversial for many reasons; we do not have to defend it by saying it represents the kind of Thorin J.R.R. Tolkien would have presented in his 1960 Hobbit, had he finished that revision. The “improvement” simply takes us in one direction. But it’s an improvement, and may the Tolkien family forgive me for making the comparison because I don’t believe movie audiences would have warmed to the shallow, selfish Thorin of the book (he redeems himself at the end of the story).

Changing Thorin’s character does change the story in a staggering way; and perhaps Peter is fortunate that audiences are only disappointed at the faithfulness of the movie (can you believe some people are complaining about the stone giants?). To be too faithful to the book is a cinematic sin of which Chris Columbus was accused with the first two Harry Potter movies (even while hard-core fans deplored the loss of so many extra details).

I think it’s reasonable to say that Peter Jackson’s “Hobbit” leaves out much of the detail of the book, and makes some notable changes, but is nonetheless very faithful to the plot; whereas the movie is also intended to enhance the visualization of Middle-earth that was achieved with “The Lord of the Rings”. I have to ask why the people who complain today were not so vocal in 2001-3 when Peter was turning Tolkien’s Middle-earth on its side and shaking out all the pockets.

Yes, purists attacked the films for warping Middle-earth into a sometimes almost insensible treatise of “what if it had been done this way” — but much of that what-ifism was due to compression intended to preserve some elements of the original story. Take the scene where Aragorn is dragged away from his companions by a Warg; he wakes by a river after Arwen magically blesses him from afar and he then sees the approaching Uruk-hai. This scene was one of the most reviled in the second movie, but it allowed the story to unfold and captured elements of what Tolkien had used in the book.

Even the idea of Arwen watching over Aragorn from afar is taken directly from the story — of “Aragorn and Arwen” as found in the Appendix. That particular anecdote had actually begun as part of the main narrative but Tolkien concluded that it was too much of a distraction and therefore he moved it to the appendix. Peter realized the serendipity of using Tolkien’s own imagery to sculpt a small role for Arwen into the story (although I still miss seeing Halbarad arrive with a small troop of rangers and Arwen’s banner).

Whole movies have been based on little more than elevator pitches; and some movies have striven to follow their source material rigidly. In Peter Jackson’s case he seems to be criticized for taking liberties and being faithful at the same time. I can appreciate Christopher Tolkien’s point of view, which is unsympathetic to action-adventure cinematic dramatizations of a serious attempt to craft an artful literature out of fairy-story — I doubt Peter Jackson would represent himself as qualified to translate J.R.R. Tolkien’s literary message into a dramatic presentation.

Such a presentation would, I think, be stodgy and boring. Most people don’t seem to realize just how well Peter Jackson knows the original material; I suspect he and I could spend many happy hours discussing the finer details of Tolkien’s elvish history — and I admit I would love to know why he made some the choices he made, for I have no idea of how I would have abridged the material were I given the chance to make movies like these.

At the end of the day these are just movies inspired by two popular stories; and in the case of “The Hobbit” it’s a story that has received much derision and ridicule on its own. We should not be concerning ourselves with questions about faithfulness and Faith; it’s not Peter’s responsibility to preserve Tolkien’s heritage. The movies should be judged on the basis of their own merits, even if some people feel they are too fan-boyish and boring.

See also:

• How is Thranduil Different from the Book?
• How Much Padding Is There In Peter Jackson’s “Hobbit” Trilogy?
• What Is the History of Dol Guldur?
• Why Did Thranduil Refuse to Help the Dwarves of Erebor?
• Is Tauriel in the Book, The Hobbit?
• Review of “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug”
• Why Does Tolkien’s World Lack Women?
• Why Is the Hobbit Movie so Different from the Book?
• One Peter Jackson’s “Hobbit”: Richard Armitage Deines Thorin Oakenshield
• Why Did Peter Jackson Change Azog from the Book?
• Why Is Azog Called the White Orc?
• Why Did Peter Jackson Change the Hobbit?

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