The Hobbit- and its many adaptations by Annika Noel

The Hobbit- and its many adaptations by Annika Noel

I finished reading the very iconic and pretty old The Hobbit, written by J.R.R. Tolkein in 1937. I have read older books before of course but never really for myself and usually just for school so I don’t know if it's just a Tolkein thing or an older authors in general thing but there were some very distinct differences in how Tolkien wrote the story and how the Hobbit changed in more modern adaptations like the very famous trilogy of live-action movies.

    In the book, there were quite a few characters and in the main group, Thorin’s company, there were 13 dwarves. A lot of the dwarves also have very similar names like Dori, Nori, and Ori or Oin and Gloin. These very similar names and the sheer number of characters that I was introduced to very quickly lead to them all kind of blending together. There were some character descriptions thrown in but for the most part, the focus was Bilbo Baggins and it often seemed like side characters they passed on the way to the Lonely Mountain got more description and personality, like Beorn for example, than Bilbo’s most constant companions did. The lack of characterization and personality of the dwarfs seemed to come back and bite the reader a bit because when they finally reclaimed the Lonely Mountain, which was the point of their journey, Thorin seemed out of character for his selfishness. I saw it as strange that the leader of this company and this steadfast hero became a selfish and frankly bad king as soon as the mountain had been reclaimed.

                                            

Though not in the book, the dragon fever or gold sickness that Thorin suffered in the live-action movies really helped me make more sense of Thorin's character and the ending of the book. Oftentimes, live-action remakes get a lot of bad attention from everything that they changed, left out, or added in for the movie but I actually really enjoyed how the live-action movie trilogy, directed by Peter Jackson, turned out. Jackson added a lot of new things into the movies, one of the reasons it was made into a whole 3 movies instead of just 1 or 2. The Hobbit is not a very long book but it is a lot of content that takes place over a year condensed into just 310 pages.

The Jackson addition I thought made a lot of sense and really added to the characters and story. The added fight scene with Smaug before he went to Laketown was amazing visually but also showed the cleverness of the dwarfs and demonstrated how they worked together as a fantastic team in order to inflict as much damage as possible on Smaug. The completely new added-in characters of Legolas and Tauriel weren't my favorite but were still really cool and added another layer to the movies which was great. However, there were some things that I didn’t like as much that were added or changed from the book to movie. As much as I loved the extra lines and personalities added to the dwarfs, truly making them memorable individuals and not just a blur of general dwarfiness, the characterization, and personalities of Beorn and Elrond really threw me off. Beorn was one of my favorite characters from the book despite his brief appearance because I felt like I really got a feel for his personality and life. Though I know every reader has their own interpretation, Beorn in the movie felt distinctly at odds with what I had read in the book. A lot of the scenes in the book just wouldn't have really worked with a typical movie audience and I understand why they changed it but Beorn’s character, who I was really excited to see, was a disappointing addition to the changes.

Despite my numerous complaints and praises of the book and the movie adaptations, I still recommend both to anyone who likes fantasy, action, or adventure. I still thoroughly enjoyed the book, though it was a bit different from what I was used to, and the movies were great story-wise and visually despite the changes.