Territorial Hobbitses

[bloodyrosemccoy]

I really loved the Lord of the Rings movies--I even think some of the character arcs were better in them--but I can totally understand Christopher Tolkien's issues with them. If I'd spent my entire life in my dad's world and all sorts of other people started barging into it and crashing around, I'd be a bit territorial, too.

This also made me realize that I am far more worried about The Hobbit than I was about LotR, because I am far more invested in Bilbo as a character. He's a brilliant character, possibly the most relatable hero I've ever come across. And he's very hard to get right--I adored the hell out of There and Back Again, Pat Murphy's awesomely insane space opera remix of The Hobbit, but Bailey Beldon is no Bilbo. And I don't know if Martin Freeman could be, either--though if there were somebody I'd want to play him, Freeman's at the top of the list. Right under a magically age-reduced Sir Ian Holm, really. But even with Freeman playing him, it's a question of whether it'll work. We'll just have to see.

Comments

[stormteller.livejournal.com]

It could do one very long film or two short ones. But knowing Jackson they'll each be 2 1/2 hours, half of that drawn-out combat. I don't think he wanted to do three films and got pressured into it, but there's not a dearth of back-material to work with. It wouldn't be that hard to stretch The Silmarillion into a series of films, probably 4 at least.

The Hobbit is hard to categorise, largely because it predates most of the literature of its type, and that's part of what keeps it interesting to current audiences. LotR is a better example; it's the only example that I can think of offhand for an inverted fetch quest. Another thing that makes it work is that it injects an intended familiar everyman, the quintessentially-English Hobbit, into a mythical/fantasy world, in a much more seamless fashion than the more typical falling-through-a-doorway introduction used by such writers as Lewis.