The Hobbit Book Vs Movie
A major downfall of the movies compared to the book is the added characters and storylines. While some of the added storyline help to clarify parts about the battle of five armies, it also serves to muddle up parts of the movie and making them hard to follow, such as the story line about the Necromanser and all the death he is bringing back to reclaim the mountain. Another one of these completely unnecessary use of additional characters and storylines is the love story between Kili and Tauriel. Even the addition of Tauriel’s character into the story of The Hobbit is completely unnecessary. Her love story with Kili doesn’t really serve to enhance the plot of the story, its use is just to lure the audience into a love story.
Another disappointment
in the movies is how they were narrated. While the book is written by Bilbo, it seems to be more narrated by the author and his “translation” of Bilbo’s story for the readers. The movie is Bilbo narrating the book as he writes it. This difference causes a lot of the foreshadowing done by who is assumed to be Tolkien, to be lost, which takes a lot of clarity away from the story, and the obvious benchmarks of Bilbo’s character growth.
However, there were also things the Peter Jackson did well with the films. One of which is Bilbo’s encounter with Smaug. Jackson made Smaug slyly clever and kept true to the dialogue in the book. The acting on both parts of Smaug and Bilbo highlights how intimidating and truly magnificent, and terrifying the dragon is. Conversely, it also shows Bilbo’s character and how brave he is in this situation, but also how terrified he is. Due to this juxtaposition, the particular scene was done very well and it does the book justice; it encapsulates the terror, tension, and the intimidation that the scene is really about.
Another thing that was depicted really well in the films was the power of the ring and the gold. The ring has Bilbo hearing what seem to be voices telling him he shouldn’t let anyone know about the ring. While this does differ from the book as the dwarves find out about the ring when the whole debacle with the spiders occurs, the ring still has fearsome power over Bilbo and what he does with it, which is exaggerated in the movie for effect, but it still works extremely well. To go hand in hand with this is the treasure inside the mountain and the extreme influence it has over Thorin’s decision making. The best example of this is in the film when Thorin knows that his kin are dying. He has what best could be described as a hallucination which really shows his madness and greed, and that the power of the gold has taken him over, but also pushes him to act and help out his brethren that are getting slaughtered in the battle raging on outside the mountain.
Another disappointment
in the movies is how they were narrated. While the book is written by Bilbo, it seems to be more narrated by the author and his “translation” of Bilbo’s story for the readers. The movie is Bilbo narrating the book as he writes it. This difference causes a lot of the foreshadowing done by who is assumed to be Tolkien, to be lost, which takes a lot of clarity away from the story, and the obvious benchmarks of Bilbo’s character growth.
However, there were also things the Peter Jackson did well with the films. One of which is Bilbo’s encounter with Smaug. Jackson made Smaug slyly clever and kept true to the dialogue in the book. The acting on both parts of Smaug and Bilbo highlights how intimidating and truly magnificent, and terrifying the dragon is. Conversely, it also shows Bilbo’s character and how brave he is in this situation, but also how terrified he is. Due to this juxtaposition, the particular scene was done very well and it does the book justice; it encapsulates the terror, tension, and the intimidation that the scene is really about.
Another thing that was depicted really well in the films was the power of the ring and the gold. The ring has Bilbo hearing what seem to be voices telling him he shouldn’t let anyone know about the ring. While this does differ from the book as the dwarves find out about the ring when the whole debacle with the spiders occurs, the ring still has fearsome power over Bilbo and what he does with it, which is exaggerated in the movie for effect, but it still works extremely well. To go hand in hand with this is the treasure inside the mountain and the extreme influence it has over Thorin’s decision making. The best example of this is in the film when Thorin knows that his kin are dying. He has what best could be described as a hallucination which really shows his madness and greed, and that the power of the gold has taken him over, but also pushes him to act and help out his brethren that are getting slaughtered in the battle raging on outside the mountain.