Why Did Peter Jackson Change Azog from the Book?

Q: Why Did Peter Jackson Change Azog from the Book? (Also: Is Azog in The Hobbit?)

ANSWER: It’s not my place to speak for Peter Jackson as I have no direct knowledge behind his decisions but it makes sense to me that he would do this. As a devoted Tolkien fan and reader I have no personal objections to the change. In the book (The Hobbit) Azog is little more than just a name. He was anecdotally slain by Thorin’s cousin Dain Ironfoot. The only full account of the event is Tolkien’s description of the Battle of Azanulbizar in Appendix A to The Lord of the Rings. In the published book, The Hobbit, the Goblins are led by Azog’s son Bolg of the North. It does appear, from credits listed at IMDB for “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” and “The Hobbit: There and Back Again” that Bolg will appear in one or both of the next two movies in Peter’s “Hobbit” trilogy.

So I think Peter expanded Azog’s role for several reasons. First, Azog becomes a personal adversary for Thorin. Of course, Smaug is a personal adversary for the Heir of Thror but, let’s face it, Thorin is not going to kill Smaug. I suspect that Thorin will kill Azog either in the second movie or the third.

In my opinion the role of Thorin was expanded in order to give the audience a heroic figure to root for. Thorin is more sympathetic in Peter Jackson’s “Hobbit” than in J.R.R. Tolkien’s book. Anyone familiar with the story knows how Thorin’s part plays out and I suspect that his final scene in the movies will be emotionally wrenching. Sean Bean may have to share “best death scene” with Richard Armitage — or maybe Richard will take that glory from him.

Azog also creates a real sense of danger for the journey long before the Dwarves arrive in the Misty Mountains. Although the Lone-lands seem desolate in the book they should have been more dangerous than The Hobbit made them out to be, given the retroactive history that Tolkien devised for them in The Lord of the Rings.

Furthermore, it seems to me that Peter is using Azog’s intrusion into Eriador to enhance the significance of the presence of the three trolls who capture the Dwarves. Whereas in The Hobbit the trolls are just a random encounter on the road, in the “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” Gandalf uses the presence of the trolls and the orcs west of the mountains to argue that some great evil has arisen (of course, Radagast’s visit to Dol Guldur helps reinforce that argument).

So I think Peter is trying to present a more coherent story about Sauron being the source of the evils that plague Thorin and Company on their quest. Tolkien hints in his retroactive history this may be the case so Peter is just capitalizing on the hints and using them to create a more focused threat to Middle-earth, thus connecting the “Hobbit” trilogy more firmly to the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.

It’s not necessarily a brilliant bit of rearrangement of the materials but it is, to me, a logical one and so far I think it works well enough. I think the story flows better when all these perils share connections with each other rather than if they are just apparently random events that are quickly tied up in Bolg’s sudden attack on Erebor as in the story. Peter Jackson’s audience is larger and somewhat more sophisticated in tastes and expectations than Tolkien’s young sons were when he first composed the tale — and even J.R.R. Tolkien himself wanted very much to rewrite The Hobbit so as to be more mature, less condescending, and darker than the original children’s book. Although he might not have approved of Peter’s changes, I think he would have understood them.

See also:

• Why Is the Hobbit Movie so Different from the Book?
• Why Did Peter Jackson Change the Hobbit from the Book?
• Why Is Azog Called the White Orc?
• How Faithful is Peter Jackson’s “Hobbit” to Tolkien’s Book?

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