Why The Hobbit Sucks Part Five: Philosophy of Adaptation

[@neddles33]

The fact we never got to know Gloin in all that time is criminal. Imagine what meeting Gimli would be like if we had.

[@MrOnomatopoiea]

Yeah, so much for "connectivity" or continuity between the two trilogies!

[@nemou4985]

@@MrOnomatopoiea THey only care about continuity with elves...

[@wheresmycar9676]

@@nemou4985 Yea I think Jackson is a dwarf-bigot.

[@SerMattzio]

What about Gimli's cousin too, the dead one from Moria? Assuming he was still alive around Smaug time, it would have it much more emotional in LoTR to see that everyone was killed by the Balrog.

[@viniciusvyller9458]

He's in the movies, the white bearded dwarf with red clothes

[@CursedPhoenix94]

I don't know if anyone has said this but the reason why Thorin sounds so different when talking to Bilbo at 9:50 with the line "I will not part with a single coin! Not one piece of it!" is because it's from Bilbo's perspective. He's seeing a parallel between Thorin and Smaug as Smaug says the exact same line in Desolation and Bilbo is seeing Smaug in Thorin at this point.

[@RC15O5]

Alex Hensen Should have had a reference like that done in the same movie -- OH WAIT

[@Fearofthemonster]

RC1505 It happens in another part am I correct?

[@Rob1bis8228]

@@Fearofthemonster it wasnt in the same but with 2 movies it would be

[@nunkatsu]

It's not the scene itself, it's the way it's executed. He looks like he's saying "dick. God I love dick."

[@rosesongoku6980]

It just seemed like Smaug was possessing him as a spirit.

[@tazelator1]

I'm surprised you didn't mention the god-awful CGI-Characters and Armies. The shots where units of soldiers were involved looked like the total war series computer games and the mass battles looked scripted. The ride of the Rohirrim looked real because it WAS real. Lurtz was loved despite not being in the books because he was REAL (check out the picture where the actor holds up a little boy. It's hilarious.). Helm's deep was actually built, the orcs and the normal soldiers were real actors. It's baffling to me why the Hobbit cost so much more, yet has so much fewer actors in it.

[@xtraplayer7281]

actors and scenery/backgrounds.

[@COMMANDandConquer199]

The thing is, that CGI ends up costing more than hiring stunt actors to play the people in the armies. The CGI is just quicker and less messy as you don't have to manage all these actors and do reshoots if they fuck up a scene.

[@Myfaceuh]

Eh total war looks better!

[@tazelator1]

@Raymond Tremblay "They also used cgi therefore they used as much cgi."

[@tazelator1]

@Raymond Tremblay They were partly scripted. They also had 500 people on horseback in Rohirrim costumes charge multiple times to get the close up footage. That's the difference and the reason why LotR still looks great while the Hobbit never did. There's a picture of Lurtz holding up a screaming blonde kid. That Orc from the Hobbit was entirely Cgi.

[@cassuttustshirt4949]

Orcs follow Sauron because they have no real choice. They were first "made" by Melkor the Morgoth to be completely evil, and completely obedient to him. Since he is dead, that obedience fell to Sauron, his chief lieutenant. At least that's my understanding.

[@RedFloyd469]

I believe the Shadow of mordor/war games did something in this regard. The Orcs are driven by an utter lust for war and domination. That's simply their nature. How these things are achieved can differ. The orc Ratbag is small and weak, and therefore uses his cunning and more diplomatic skills to achieve his goals, to great effect (and also to his own demise). There is a constant power struggle among the captains, with squads of orcs killing each other as easily as they kill the enemy, all to gain a higher rank or more power. Sauron, and within the game, the player as well, have a power that allows them to creep inside the mind of the orc and fill it with fear. Fear is what makes all orcs fall in line, both to their brethren and to Sauron or the Bright lord. Yet they also benefit from this hierarchy of fear. In this culture, they all get to have a taste of warfare and domination, their primary goals. They have no sexual drive, and their foods are awful even to themselves. War and inflicting pain is their nature, and so naturally, their culture revolves around it. The bright lord and Sauron might frighten them, but they also give them the means to wage war: a general hierarchy of power and rank. This benefits their war-efforts due to loyalty between squad members and to their lord, while allowing some leeway in the form of assassinations or straight up duels between competing captains. It's also revealed later that the power to inflict fear to an orc's mind is not total. In Shadow of war, one of the trolls betrays the player, despite having been marked by the hand of the bright lord. Orcs have their own inner motivations, and act on them, even if fear is still the major element. This is a coherent explanation of why the orcs follow sauron: his magic allowed him to gain a following through fear and manipulation, as well as through the memory of his earlier conquests, no doubt. The orcs always need a supreme commander, because they are always on the lookout for more war. Sauron fills that role perfectly, PLUS he is pretty much indestructible to boot, while having no trouble with allowing the orcs to fulfill their darkest war-lusting desires. The perfect ruler for an orc.

[@nick-jo3hy]

I thought orcs were just GM elves ?

[@revdraco]

@@nick-jo3hy Truly they are. Elves warped and misshapen by Melkor. Dunno if they're fertile or not.

[@chiffmonkey]

Both orcs and dwarves are basically drones in the books.

[@Duchess_Van_Hoof]

And this is when I point out that The Battle Of Five Armies had absolutely nothing to do with Sauron, at all. It was about Bolg's quest to avenge his dead father, about the goblins of the Misty Mountains seeking the riches now that the dragon is dead. Sauron was too busy haunting a ruin to be relevant.

[@T2266]

Thorin doesn't have Dragon Sickness. Peter Jackson has the George Lucas Sickness.

[@peterjoyfilms]

T2266 No he doesn't do your research

[@bluesaberproductions8991]

At least the prequels were still true to the OT. The Hobbit films turned a classic epic into a pop culture action movie, with stupid stuff like Tauriel to appease feminists.

[@masterpenguin8472]

Bluesaber Productions Dude, the prequels still sucked (except Revenge of the Sith, that film's actually pretty good)! Also, "pop culture action movie"? Is that really your argument against The Hobbit?

[@bluesaberproductions8991]

What I mean is they focused so much on making epic battle scenes to pander to modern fans that they totally trampled on the original story. At least the LOTR films still had the same tone and feel as the book. The Hobbit films just seem like something a modern writer whipped up using a loose outline of Tolkien's story and throwing in random fight scenes every once and a while. And the action scenes in LOTR movies are still interesting and suspenseful. They build on the story. But the Hobbit scenes are just crazy, but you know all the dwarves will survive, even falling off cliffs, flying across the river in a runaway barrel, standing on each other's heads (!), or being blasted by Smaug. For more on this, see Part 2 of this series: kzbin.info/www/bejne/mnfUZIl9i6Zrlbs Also, how are the prequels so bad aside from JarJar and "I don't like sand"?

[@masterpenguin8472]

Terrible dialogue, videogame-like effects, some incredibly wooden performances, uneven pacing, and one of the worst romances I've ever seen put to film.

[@kloggmonkey]

peter jackson does get a lot of shit for this trilogy, bear in mind he was a last resort. they went through several directors before settling down with jackson and by then most of the trilogy was already in production. had peter been the main director from the start i reckon the overall focus would be more on point. on another note, i saw one of these fan edits where everything that wasn't at least somewhat related to the book was cut out, leaving it a roundabout 4 hours long adventure film about an epic treasure hunt (rather than revenge, war, foreboding sauron-sideplots and overall videogame-segments) and it was absolutely beautiful! it matched the more innocent tone of the book perfectly. just imagine what could've been.

[@heyits17]

Where can I find such an edit?

[@nemou4985]

Yeah whoile watvching these reviews I though of making an edit myself. With the extended cuts there should be enough material.

[@joaodorjmanolo]

@@heyits17 I want to see it too

[@MoonlightGreatsword]

Just search "The hobbit fan edit" first result should be it. It requires downloading a torrent (6bg for best res.)

[@haukikannel]

The movie is good. The fan Edit has one flow, it did not revove the hunt dwarfs part. Takin away that 10 minute of nonsense and that fan Edit would be douple good!

[@Titan360]

I think that Thorin's slow-motion voice was in Bilbo's mind. It was supposed to be Thorin's voice mingling with SMAUG'S voice, as he repeated Smaug's "I will not part with a single piece of treasure" beat. It was supposed to be Thorin reminding Bilbo of Smaug.

[@CaptClawCaribbean]

"Shouldn't all the Dwarves have dragon-sickness?" Yes, and in the book, all but 3 (Fíli, Kíli, and Bombur, each for specific reasons) do. Would've been cool to include that in the film.

[@matthewmuir8884]

Also, if I recall correctly, isn't the "dragon-sickness" non-literal in the books?

[@greyLeicester]

When, where and how could it have been included? People already complain the trilogy was long and unnecessary 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️ useless!

[@reubensimp5348]

@@matthewmuir8884 yes

[@matthewmuir8884]

@@reubensimp5348 Thank you; I just wanted to make sure. I have read The Hobbit many times (it's my favourite of Tolkien's books) and every time I read it, I interpreted the "dragon-sickness" as a metaphor.

[@reubensimp5348]

@@matthewmuir8884 me too haha I prefer lotr books to hobbit tho

[@cristincik91]

No one said to follow the book 100%, the point is don't change TOO MUCH. Lords of the rings is an example of a good adaptation of the source material, but those who red the book know how many changes were made. Arwen is not that courageous elf woman who helps Frodo, it was her brothers who did that. But we don't really care because Arwen helping Frodo and her lover Aragorn in the same time is as good as the book version of the things, or even better. The fight scenes are not that long in books especially when it comes to war, the Helm's Deep battle was 1 page long, we don't get to read about the comedic relief between Legolas and Gimli or the fact that Aragorn throws Gimli on bridge etc etc etc. Changes are good, but you have to be careful not to change the most important things in the book. That's why people are mad about Legolas being in Hobbit in the first place, that kind of change distracts from the dwarfs, just like the elf woman who wasn't in the book.

[@headphonic8]

The worst change they made in LOTR was turning Faramir into an asshole in Two Towers. I kind of understand how it was used to show the power of the ring’s allure but I wish they didn’t take it to the point where he was going to bring the ring to Gondor. Sam and Frodo only got out by luck in the movies, but in the book it’s made clear that Faramir lets them go because he’s not the type of man his brother was

[@rostigerrolf4490]

@@headphonic8 I dont know If its only in the extended cut but he lets them go in the movies as well in the end. So you still get the same theme in my opinion.

[@imamfakhruddin1015]

@@rostigerrolf4490 True, I watched the extended cut many times and Faramir did let Frodo and Sam go by his own will even when his men warned him that he will be punished by Denethor. Plus, he also threatens Gollum when he finds out that he's leading them to Cirith Ungol.

[@beyondthecamera333]

Change as much as you want as long as it’s good.

[@valrond]

Not in my edit. I just can't watch The Two Towers. Too much stupid Peter Jackson nonsense.

[@davidkglevi]

Tolkien straight up tells us what the most important events are. Bilbo returning to the company after they've been separated in the misty mountains, Bilbo killing the first spider and, most importantly, Bilbo battling with his own courage in the tunnels of the lonely mountain, before meeting Smaug. You could also make a case that there is a fourth moment when Bilbo returns to Bag End and reclaims his home.

[@francisbowman8702]

Yes, it’s called the hobbit for a read

[@UnexpectedFilmStudio]

Thought you might find this interesting, back in November of 2015 I got to meet Jed Brophy, an actor of one of the Dwarves and has a bit of a closer relationship with Peter, Fran etc through a bit of a quick convo he told me he thought himself that they went too far and the films separated too far from the books and just didn't work as movies. Also interestingly he said that Martin Freeman was disappointed with how the movies turned out and that they barely focused on Bilbo in comparison to the book.

[@tedito1231]

From what I've read the actors who play Tauriel and Kill didn't want the romance to be included. Also, despite loving and respecting Peter Jackson, Elijah Wood doesn't really like the films as well.

[@kingrichardiii6280]

"what is sauron promising the orcs that would make them so loyal" *sauron in dol guldor* "the age of elves is over. the age of the orc has come" well ruling the world sound nice.

[@chiffmonkey]

Which makes me wonder how both Sauron and Saruman recruited humans.

[@tiaaaron3278]

Why is Just Write such a freaking dumbass?

[@bluecedar7914]

The fact that Sauron, in the movies as well as the books is a master of corruption, mind control magic and manipulation would also help.

[@headphonic8]

chiffmonkey he leveraged their loss against them. Saruman is basically a master of manipulation. That’s how he even got Theoden under his control (and in the book, Theoden’s control is more like manipulation than the literal possession they portrayed it as in the movie)

[@blarpax9061]

He mind controls his orcs

[@Wheja_sciart]

Maybe I wouldn't CUT dwarves from the story, but DIVIDING them would be a good idea. Looking a LOTR, nine main characters is a lot to handle. Even Joss Whedon, who is known for handling big casts well, would only go as far as nine when writing Firefly. They fixed this in LOTR by splitting the fellowship into three distinct teams, each exploring different themes with their own problems. Frodo , Sam, and Gollum need to destroy the ring and learn about trust and friendship along the way. Merry and Pippin (in Return, Gandalf and Pippin) learn about what it really means to fight for something bigger than yourself. Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli talk about leadership and respect through loyalty. Because we aren't following one story, but three, we feel like there is more time to know the characters because it's more organized. We never got that through the Hobbit trilogy because every dwarf besides Thorin and maybe Kili has the same problem and motivation: get the gold in the mountain. As such, they are always on the same path and say what amounts to the same things. If they were able to split the group into camps of sorts and limit the number you see on screen, then at the very least we could tell what dwarf has which name.

[@Jegfil]

Wow, yeah that would be great, also why I can't see text after " Frodo , Sam, and Gollum need to destroy the ring and learn about trust and" ...?!

[@becki8000]

Yeah plus we have the initial groups in the first film; the four hobbits together, then you add Aragon to that foursome and they all bond. Then they establish the Aragorn- Boromir and Gimli- Legolas dynamic after the council of Elrond. & Gandalf is the papa of the group with a particular bond with Frodo from the start. In the hands of the team on the hobbit and that production- it would have been a mess!

[@Noone-of-your-Business]

You do realize that you are referring to the source material's characteristics here, not the movies', right??

[@jklinders]

Clearly, The Lord of the Rings saved Jackson from that error by the way it was written. Tolkien arguably did not know what he was getting into by having so many primary characters in The Hobbit. It was written as a kids book and was relatively short so it avoided the worst of that pitfall. But those dwarfs did not have the individual character in the source material either. It is nearly impossible to give that many characters sufficient screen time to develop them as individuals by having them all grouped together. It should have been 6 or at most 8 dwarfs, not 13. Purists be damned. They just did not have sufficient character to be worth what little screen time they had. With 6 or 8 the dwarfs could have been functional as characters, shallow but functional. With 13 they were completely interchangeable. It's an adaptation. You can't keep everything and not expect tripe. Jackson not only tried to keep it all, he added crap too. The whole thing collapsed under its own weight.

[@blutygar]

Think you're right about splitting them into smaller teams since I think within the group of dwarves there could have been other story themes should have brought up, like the three royal ones dealing with succession and kingship and maybe other friendship or adventure.

[@mylamename14]

Forever bitter that the studio stole this series from Guillermo del Toro. God, it would have been marvelous.

[@radiantlight2361]

Guillermo is nothing compared to Peter.!

[@radiantlight2361]

@Neil Deep whose?

[@jontaffersliver3627]

@@radiantlight2361 yours

[@tweezertvgaming1347]

The studio stole it from him?! Why?

[@DragonSlayerCommentariesHQ]

Both are good directors, but if you want a good explanation for how this actually happened watch Lindsey Ellis' video on it since it goes into full detail. To summarize, it was mostly studio mandate from 5 separate studios.

[@OfficialRedTeamReview]

Funny that Stephen King hates Kubrick's version yet when he did the Shinning (the mini series) it was just boring.

[@ollyf5088]

Yes I think it made king look very egotistical and vain too.

[@captaindeadeye788]

@@ollyf5088 tbf, although I haven't read the Shining book yet, I've heard that it's different from the book in many ways. If a story of my own was adapted to film and significantly changed, I'd be annoyed as well.

[@TheHonoredMadman]

I mean Kubricks adaptation is insanely different than kings novel, for better or worse its understandable to agree or disagree with someone's changes on something you created. That being said he accepted the money so it was no longer his say on whether or not Kubrick followed his novel or went off on his own, there's nothing wrong with Kubrick tossing kings script in the trash because it wasn't what he wanted to make

[@DougWIngate]

The miniseries is good if you appreciation the themes of the book. Actually I find the original 1980 movie more boring now that the scares have worn off. At least the miniseries has interesting characters

[@Milk27]

Novelists doesnt equate to screenwriter usually. Just like Rowling

[@jakesisko1480]

I dont think that dragon sickness was ever meant to be literal.

[@matthewmuir8884]

It certainly wasn't literal in the book.

[@emilylike-the-soup2502]

@@matthewmuir8884 The movie would have been so much more interesting if the "dragon-sickness" was just a metaphor. If Thorin's choices are all the result of mind magic, then it absolves him of responsibility for his actions!

[@matthewmuir8884]

@@emilylike-the-soup2502 It's been a long time since I've seen the movie, but I think certain scenes in the movie were trying to imply that it was just a metaphor (like the one where Thorin's greed and internal conflict causes him to hallucinate) but other scenes made it very unclear. These films were rushed out the gate and were not planned out at all, and it is a real shame. I would've loved to see a well planned-out set of Hobbit movies that treated The Hobbit as The Hobbit; not as The Lord of the Rings: The Prequel.

[@TheSuperRatt]

In the grand mythology of Tolkien's work, it is meant to be literal. The entirety of Middle Earth has been infused by Melkor's corruption, and doomed to slowly crumbling (this is the fading of magic). That corruption is concentrated in gold especially, as a metaphor for the evil of greed and materialism. Why else do you think that the One Ring was made of pure gold, and not some fantastic metal like mithril?

[@Kitties_are_pretty]

In regard to Alfred: Why can't they cast ugly people to play ugly characters? Why get a handsome actor and them ugly him up? THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO ARE ALREADY UGLY. EVERYWHERE.

[@scholarlydragon6074]

This made me laugh. XD

[@marcomeme4875]

It’s discrimination against ugly people 😩

[@frankwu4747]

Joshua Brooks are you prejudiced against ugly people?

[@aaronh8095]

Put that on the audition flyer. “Male around 30 years old, preferably ugly.”

[@chrismaddock5790]

True, but the Hobbit isn't LoTR. IN the LoTR trilogy of books, the groups split up anyways, so obviously in the films they would have had to do the same, in the Hobbit book, the dwarves and Bilbo pretty much stick together throughout the whole thing - except in the chapters where Bilbo loses them on occasion every now and then. I guess it does stem from the problem that being too close to the source material is somewhat flawed (heck, even in the book, only six of the twelve dwarves have anything important to do) but trying to make it into another LoTR would have just created more problems than solved - especially when my personal gripe with the films is that they tried to add so much side storytelling that ultimately adds nothing to the plot, that the main plot itself feels like just another side story....

[@dion789]

With adaptations, I don't think it's as simple as saying that changing stuff from the books is good or bad. It can be either, depending on how it's handled. In the Harry Potter series for instance, some changes worked really well, while others diminished the characters. It's not the the fact that it's changed that bothers people, it's when the movie doesn't do the book justice that fans get upset.

[@guibox3]

Yes, I've been having this debate for over a decade regarding LoTR. It is a straw man argument that is developed when film adaptation defenders say that the literary purists 'want a carbon copy of the book'. That simply is not true. Fleshing out and adding things the book does not do (I for one would have had no problem with Jackson fleshing out the backstories of some of the dwarves better and for the most part, had no problems with all the battle scenes at the end because Tolkien really doesn't go into too much detail on the specifics of the Battle). But when you change characters' motives and add or remove plots for no apparent reason, that can change the whole dynamics of the source material. That is not, as you said, doing the book justice.

That's simply not true, people complain about stupid things all the time, the audience's criticism of the films is rarely sound at all.

[@theWebWizrd]

@@guibox3 To add to your point, Game of Thrones is the perfect example of both good and bad adaption. There are parts, in particular in the earlier seasons, that is extremely well done and adds a lot to the story - to the point where the books are lesser for not having those moments. Arya-Tywin interaction is one example of that, but there are many. But then they sometimes - and often in the later, much worse seasons - add stupid stuff that ruins characters or makes no sense. And that's when people get upset. It's exactly about staying true to the material and characters in the original work and just doing a good job writing.

[@ginogatash4030]

Dion7 what your'e saying is true, but most fans don't know why bad changes upsets them because not all of them care about analyzing movies and books in great detail. so whenever a bad change in an adaptatio occours, they think it's bad because it wasn't in the book.

[@noonehere4332]

Would you really like the Tom bombadil part in the movie?

[@brendondevilliers1350]

I think cutting dwarves from the movie would have been a bad idea. Cut the elves from the movie, cut the whole 'Necromancer' story-line with Gandalf, maybe tone it down a bit with Bard and definitely tone down the action sequences. Having 9 hours to tell a 287 page story is MORE than enough to time to build relationships between characters and audience while not losing anything from the story. But personally I'm the type of person who appreciates characters in a story (with or without dynamics between characters) more than either story, lessons or action.

[@brennag7962]

Cut the dwarves! Other than a comical introduction and Bombur falling in the enchanted water, most of the time while reading the book the dwarves beside Thorin are just kind of there in the background in a big group anyway.

[@tiaaaron3278]

Except the dwarves suck and are repetitive and have little personality as a whole.

[@chiffmonkey]

I liked the Dol Guldur side thing of setting up LotR, it helped solidify the sense of Middle Earth being one big place with a lot of things happening in it at once. The problem is that it's not done subtly enough to allow you to watch the films in the chronological order.

[@tiaaaron3278]

@@chiffmonkey The story with elves and men of Lake-Town is more important. Thranduil's story shows why and how the dwarves of Erebor brought misery upon themselves. And the way Thorin deals with men and elves shows how low he has sunk. More important than Dul-Guldur and other pointless dwarves.

[@chiffmonkey]

@@tiaaaron3278 But the failings of those arcs aren't due to the inclusion of Dul Guldur, they're crap because they're crap.

[@redblaze8700]

3:27 I seriously thought he said "Dumbledore" XD

[@TheGamingSpoon69]

He said DolGudor, but yes, it did sound like dumbledore XD

[@nickx__2167]

same

[@CalebePriester]

haha Me too!

[@velvet_victor]

This is the best review of the Hobbit trilogy I've ever seen/read. Congratulations! Subscribed :)

[@eva9749]

Victor Vaz go watch lindsey ellis’s version. Have you Deen that one yet?

[@Fishhunter2014]

I think the honest trailer guy said it best: "From the man that isn't done picking over Tolkien's bones . . ."

[@LordoftheRings3000]

You should make another video called: Spectacle Instead of Subtle Remember in LOTR when you see the emotion of a character based off their expressions? That's subtle. It bothers me when every little thing has to be explained with words instead of camerawork or the soundtrack. The soundtrack is just THERE in the Hobbit. It doesn't make you connect to the characters the way it did in LOTR. In the Hobbit theres not enough emotion and more cgi action scenes.

[@Tronk_]

I felt like the dragon sickness was almost taking effect in Desolation. When Bilbo confronts Smaug and hears him roar, and Thorin said he was more focused on the mission than his friends, and Bawlin says Thorin isn’t being himself

[@Wildstag]

Jackson couldn't have cut the number of dwarves. The entire reason Bilbo was involved in the story was twofold: Thorin's Company needed a thief. They also needed every hand they could get, but ended up with 13 dwarves, a very unlucky number. As suspicious folk, the dwarves needed to cut two dwarves and replace one with a thief, or hire a 14th person to be the thief, thus changing the number away from the unlucky number 13. And before someone counters with "but hey Gandalf was there, so it wasn't 13", I want to point out that at least in the book, Gandalf doesn't count as part of the number because he tells the dwarves at the start that he will only intermittently be travelling with them, which means they need another person to be Number 14. The exact number of dwarves in the group was incredibly important to the plot of the story. Changing that number would make it so Bilbo would have no reason to be involved.

[@EliasSchnetzer]

They could just change it so that they needed a Hobbit to sneak into the mountain. 7 dwarfs wouldhave been more than enough.

[@Herirra]

@@EliasSchnetzer They also could have changed Bilbo to Beorn, I mean, what's the difference? Also, they could have changed Smaug to Ancalagon, it would have been so much cooler. Also, why did the Battle of five armies had just five armies? They could have added like, ten more, would have been more fun, eh?

[@autobotstarscream765]

@@EliasSchnetzer Bilbo Baggins and the Seven Dwarves

[@RagPlaysGames]

Thorin beginning to talk in slow-mo is Bilbo's perspective. Through Thorin's words he's hearing the voice of Smaug, the personification of greed. Not just a slowdown, but a metamorphosis.

[@craigfoulds8657]

I kind of got the sense that Jackson didn't want to be a part of these movies because he didn't want to be a part of these movies.

[@ouicertes9764]

who put a gun to his head and forced him to? his greed made him do three horrible movies, he will just have to live with it. I don't think he is naive and doesn't know how the film industry works. he made those bad movies, and got paid for it, and we know now it doens't bother him to offer us shit movies as long as he is paid.

[@jesperburns]

MGM made him to after Del Toro left. Also, it was already his production but he wanted Del Toro to direct it, and when he couldn't find someone else he did it himself. At least, that's what I heard.

[@DIEGhostfish]

+ouicertes I've heard two explanations for his accepting the role: Either there was something in the contract of the original LotR movies that let them drag him back in, or it was a genuine desire to salvage something after the studio threw Del Toro out. Basically him saying to himself "Well, it'll probably be even worse without me."

[@TwelvetreeZ]

@@DIEGhostfish the worst thing is, he would've been right! The films were bad, but they would probably still be worse without Jackson on board. I think he's still partly to blame, but the studios have a lot to answer for

[@K-Ville]

The background music was too loud in this video, but other than that I've thoroughly enjoyed this whole series of videos! ^-^

[@JustWrite]

+K-Ville Entertainment Glad to hear you enjoyed them. These were pretty much my first serious attempts at video editing, so mistakes were definitely made!

[@dysmissme7343]

@@JustWrite Holy shit dude!! This was your first attempt!? You killed it!! Seriously! 🤩

[@alejandroalcantar7007]

You’re trippin boi lmao

[@Battouga]

About the Dragon sickness thing, I believe Tolkien was well versed in mythology and the Smaug/Thorin duality must be based on Fafnir from norse mythology. The dwarf that gets so greedy he turns into a evil dragon.

[@jbrisby]

3:26 I thought he said 'Gandalf and Dumbledore'. Hey Jackson, hands off MY fanfiction!

[@mgfverse]

I also think Jackson was pressured to perform for the economy of New Zealand. He employs so many people in the country, and the films have become such a tourist draw to the country. I wonder how much they influence New Zealand's annual GDP.

[@jmitterii2]

Well... range $145 to $185 billion GDP in USD 2016 value per year, over the past 10 years... its not like that country is an economic basket case depending on a movie trilogy. LOL! WTF?

[@trequor]

He brought about 500 million juicy, American dollars to New Zealand. That's pretty significant for such a small country

[@snowleperdsrule]

I disagree on your arguments in regards to adapting books to the screen. Typically, book fans look forward to watching on the screen what they have read on paper (which is why I'm confused about why you say "people don't want to watch the same thing twice", because that's not the way it works- you read it once and perhaps envision it in your head, and then literally watch it). For myself in particular, I'm not great at imagining spacial proportions and scenery, so seeing that kind of thing translated to the screen is one of the reasons why I watch movie adaptations of books. I also disagree because while I agree that a movie adaptation can never be completely loyal to the book (and in most cases, the source material *can* be improved upon in some way, which is where I disagree with say, most Harry Potter fans who regard any changes from the books as for the worst), the thing that tends to bother me most is what you describe as major thematic changes. When you change the point of something that completely, you're basically taking the name of something and its characters (to some extent) and writing your own story over it, which seems not only in bad faith but to be a strange choice. If I go to see a film of the book, I want to be able to see the heart of the book within it. Not whatever the people working on the movie think would be a "better" core of the book if only the author had done x differently.

[@antemorph66]

Well put, i agree

[@CampingforCool41]

I haven't seen the Hobbit yet, but what you said about adaptions is so true. Part of why the third Harry Potter is so good- a great leap from the previous two- is because it can stand on its own as just a good movie. It doesn't follow the book religiously, but because of Cauron's phenomenal sense of movement and background detail, out of all the movies it not only captures the feeling of magic of the book better than any of the others, but even surpasses the book in its atmosphere at times.

[@Moonfired]

Alfonso Cuarón is a great filmmaker. Have you seen Children of Men or Y Tu Mamá También?

[@lukeh567]

CampingforCool41 the problem with this adaptation is that it goes way too far outside of the book, more than Harry Potter or any other good adaptation has. The creation of completely new characters or characters which are not active characters in the book makes for quite a fake adaptation.

[@Hetschoter]

The problem here is that the author of this video doesn't see difference between adaptation of another medium and inspiration by another medium. The trilogy Hobit is inspired by the book because it is too different from the source material. Adaptation is transition from one medium to another (more or less because different medium needs different aproach but author tries to be as close to the original as possible).

[@XandriaRavenheart]

As a die hard fan of the Harry Potter books, I hated the movies from the third movie onwards. Whenever I read a book first before watching the movie, the movie almost always becomes sub-par to the book. And I hated. Micheal Gambon.

[@_catulus]

“Why do we need to sit through the same thing twice?” “It’s boring to sit through the same thing twice.”

[@bryanbarcelo5440]

those gems ACTUALLY belong to the elves, they were stolen by the dwarves, and Thranduil wants his family heirlooms back.

[@chaosmos24]

What is even worse than what Jackson did to the material himself (especially after doing it so well with LOTR) is that we were robbed of a Del Toro Hobbit. Just imagine how dark some of this material could be in his hands. Missed opportunity on top of an immense disappointment.

[@chaosmos24]

Hah, my bad, wasn't at the part where you mention Del Toro. XD

[@CESSKAR]

Can you guys stop equating "dark" with good?

[@chaosmos24]

CESSKAR Certainly something being 'dark' doesn't mean it will be good, but I personally enjoy Del Toro's film-making. I can't imagine he could do worse than what we ended up with. Even if it wasn't a masterpiece, I would take his vision over the final product.

[@Jegfil]

"I would take his vision" we don't know how his movie would look...I understand what you mean, but Hobbit we got is not that bad (not even bad imo) that everything would be just magically better.

[@chaosmos24]

We don't know what it would have been, but I would still take that gamble over what we got. Jackson didn't even have time to properly prepare for these films. The entire thing was hastily thrown together, and it shows.

[@PauloPereira-hk9nw]

I agree that films shouldn't strive for fidelity but I don't think they should strive for infidelity either. I mean, why not just create your own story at that point? The Hobbit films are nothing more than fan fiction. BAD fan fiction.

[@oscarstainton]

Paulo Pereira Funny, I see that phrase used a lot in the context of the Hobbit films, but not NEARLY enough in the context of last year's Maleficent. A film that turned good guys evil and stupid, a great villain into a soppy antihero, and manage to dumb down and distort the original Sleeping Beauty unto something that made The Hobbit trilogy look a whole lot more faithful by comparison, in addition to being horribly made and acted. The whole thing feels like somebody else's interpretation of Maleficent, who most of us know well from the original animated film. At least the essential themes, characters and storylines are present in all three Hobbit films. That's not to say it should have been three movies, but they at least had a better sense of identity and purpose than some other recent fantasy movies.

[@PauloPereira-hk9nw]

Oscar Stainton I haven't seen Maleficent so I can't really debate this point, but, in general, hasn't the Sleeping Beauty story already seen many different interpretations, of which Disney's is but one? Wasn't Maleficent herself created by someone at Disney? Again, though, not going to defend something I haven't seen and don't have much interest in. But I suspect even if I did see it, it wouldn't improve my perception of the Hobbit movies.

[@oscarstainton]

Paulo Pereira​ True, Jackson doesn't own Tolkien's stories, but he at least stayed mostly true to the characters all throughout. Disney does own Maleficent as a character, and in all her appearances she's been a villain, from the original film to Kingdom Hearts and Once Upon A Time. This is a fundamental thing that shouldn't be changed. Even if they wanted to do a 'Wicked' kind of story, that didn't work because the writing is not smart enough to develop the characters as we know them and give them shades of grey, instead turning a 180 on almost everything and it feels incredibly dishonest. What Disney did in the recent movie to Maleficent was the equivalent of rewriting Gandalf to be a Machiavellian evil genius who was plotting with Sauron the whole time and Saruman was actually trying to stop them both! Now I'm not suggesting you see this movie in order to appreciate the Hobbit films, just know that as far as adaptations of stories and characters go, there are some pretty insane examples out there.

[@castellanofgundabad5]

Maleficent was advertised as a new take on the sleeping beauty tale, except that it was actually a completely different story, indeed like bad fanfic.

[@PauloPereira-hk9nw]

Castellan of Gundabad Hey, I'm sure you're right. Heck, I'd say the same for Snow White and the Hunter.

[@fantasywind3923]

I disagree that fidelity to source material is bad for creativity, especially when most of the problems with hobbit movies came from bad invented stuff and it's poor insert into the canon story. But most of your points are spot on, this was really well done review from beginning to end :). Also despite the fact that book (even adding stuff from appendices of Lotr) is short, they cut out surprisingly lot of material (or did not use material from appendix A section Durin's Folk that would be relevant, not the info on White Council) whole sections and scenes from book are missing, some scenes that in book were longer, are shortened significantly or replaced by something different, also there a whole lot of alternative character interpretation that results in story problems. For example Elvenking Thranduil from book is totally different character than movie elvenking, they act in opposite ways. Book here showed much more nuanced character and people call The Hobbit a children's book! While movie made this character into almost supporting villain, Elvenking from book is actually the one who is reluctant to start a war over treasure: "But the Elvenking said: “Long will I tarry, ere I begin this war for gold. The dwarves cannot pass us, unless we will, or do anything that we cannot mark. Let us hope still for something that will bring reconciliation. Our advantage in numbers will be enough, if in the end it must come to unhappy blows." Not to mention he had justified reason and full right to imprison the dwarves who were in his realm under his law, trespassing on his territory, rousing spiders causing danger to his people, and from the perspective of witnesses, the party goers in woods, attacking the elves, also they were complete strangers who insulted and needlessly angered the king, refused to reveal any information about themselves or the goal of their journey when questioned and king had a full right to ask them what they're doing in his realm (Thranduil it appears did not recognize Thorin in book, they might have never met before), in a increasingly hostile world in a dark forest swarming with monsters, it is natural and even expected that the elves would be wary of strangers and suspicious of those who hide something. Other characters who were done disservice include Gandalf and rest of White Council who were made in to incompetent and foolish instead of the group of wisest and most knowledgable, mightiest people in Middle-earth), also in books both in Lotr and in The Hobbit Gandalf used much more magic than was shown in movies, which is suprising, this is ideal chance for some special effects, but for reasons entirely beyond me PJ seems to have aversion to showing magical powers and so he emphasized the weakness of Gandalf instead of his cleverness and great might (also the infiltration of Dol Guldur in source material was fully successful, Gandalf managed to enter find out everything he could and escape, NEVER being captured, this unfortunately is another call back to Lotr movies, it seems the hobbit films repeat the same schematics: one of the party seriously wounded and healed by athelas and glowy elf present-check, Gandalf imrpisoned and losing a staff-check). Also character of Tauriel, I think she does not work in the role she was given and would have been much better to be one of those spies Thranduil send: "He at any rate did not believe in dwarves fighting and killing dragons like Smaug, and he strongly suspected attempted burglary or something like it-which shows he was a wise elf and wiser than the men of the town, though not quite right, as we shall see in the end. He sent out his spies about the shores of the lake and as far northward towards the Mountain as they would go, and waited." Being one of those spies send by king Tauriel would have story reason to be there at all, she would be doing her job, keeping an eye, gather news for the safety of her people and from orders of her king, who would be also shown be deeply interested in goings on in the world and NOT as isolationistic as in film. Thranduil's elves are frequent guests in Esgaroth, they engage in trade and local policies retain friendly relations with neighbours. Also I think they should have killed Azog off, have him appear simply as very powerful badass orc commander in a flashback (maybe even showing his duel with Dain and this would be first introduction of that character) and from then on have Bolg of the North son of Azog as personal nemesis for Thorin, not to mention it gives wonderful villain motivation, the dwarves killed his father he wants revenge, while Thorin does not forget that Azog murdered Thrór. It's much better motivation that movie version Azog wishing to end line of Durin just...because I guess (though Orcs are known for random acts of cruelty they also have their own goals and dreams :) even the Orcs were eager to a portion of treasure and power they would get as they "resolved now to win the dominion of the North). The whole White Council sections were atrocious and even though there was enough info on it in source material they discarded all that in favor of the 'original' version of the final script. In short there was a massive number of poor storytelling decisions and very bad use of source material that could have made awesome stories. Also one note Bilbo character seems to fade into background in his own movies! He's the main star so to speak, and yet his accomplishments are overshadowed by other things.

[@OpiatesAndTits]

Agreed if they set out to adapt the book they mainly had to bring it in line with the tone and ascetic established by the lotr trilogy at worst or create some additional character development. Although they could just focus on it from bilbos perspective which in the book is a essientislly a coming out of your shell story. Bilbos no burglar let alone an adventurer but by the end he becomes something more.

[@ajmoore9758]

"Dragon Sickness" is carried over from the Nordic mythology Tolkien was orginally inspired by. Most greedy characters (Dwarfs) in norse mythology literally metamorphize into Dragons from humans upon discovering and hording gold. That is Thorins character arc essentially in the book but he doesn't change form, unlike in the mythology, which the "dragon sickness" was inspired by.

[@rafexrafexowski4754]

I always thought the dragon sickness was refering to a person becoming like the dragpn that once owned the gold, not an actual disease caused by gold dragons own. It would also be way more faithful to Nordic mythology.

[@1stDragonlord]

@@rafexrafexowski4754 In Tolkien's work it's up in the air what it really is. It is called sickness, but used more like a curse. The gold is cursed with Smaug's greed and lust for gold. And Thorin wasn't the last person to get Dragon Sickness in the written works. The master of Laketown takes the gold the people of Laketown get from Dain and flees north into the wilderness where he starved. Dain Ironfoot luckily was spared from the curse.

[@BarkingCur]

I do love your series and I find your views and insights fascinating and instructive. However, I strongly disagree with your views on adaptations. I agree that a director can and should make changes. The absence of Tom Bombadil in the Lord of the Rings is an excellent example. I think Peter Jackson made quite a few tweaks in those movies that enhanced the story greatly for trimming the fat from Tolkien's work. However, where this worked in the Lord of the Rings is that Peter Jackson made changes, but stayed true to the characters and the theme. It all worked because the central framework of the story, with its message and character arcs, remained in tact. In The Hobbit, Peter Jackson brought in characters that had no place in the story, (Legolas, Galadriel, Radagast), or at least should not have had the prominent roles they did. Furthermore, he took a character who's true strengths were his resilience and his ability to think his way through problems, (in contrast to the Dwarves' blunder and bluster), and tried to turn Bilbo into an action hero. He is a thinker and, aside from his confrontation with the spiders, not a fighter! Once Bilbo starts fighting Orcs, like he is becoming another Dwarf, the theme is destroyed. The book had an underlying anti-war message, most likely based on the author's experience in two of them. The movie completely undermined that until the actual moral of the story is unrecognizable. Look, I understand directors wanting to be creative. But, if this is the case, don't do adaptations! Create something new! Or, if you really feel compelled to build from a literary work, CHANGE THE NAME, (i.e The 13th Warrior from The Eater's of the Dead). There were a million ways Peter Jackson could have tweaked the Hobbit, stayed true to the framework / characters, and made it work. Peter Jackson just made bad decisions and tried to pass it off as creative license. The reality of it is, he just should have done something else. Now, if we want to talk about a Tolkien novel that is just begging for a re-interpretation, there is always The Silmarillion...

[@AcesMaven]

Yes! I agree completely!

[@MillarVideoProductions]

Finally another fellow silmirillion fan

[@feanor1488]

I just hope that if they are ever going to make a TV series based on the stories of the Silmarillion, that they at least stay almost completely loyal to the book.

[@taterboob]

You're in luck. I guess that the Amazon series is going to be set in the Second Age, and largely focus on Numenor.

[@beyondthecamera333]

I would pay money to not watch the Silmarillion TBH

[@prodprod]

If you watch something like The Dirty Dozen, they certainly didn't make every one of the Dirty Dozen a distinct and identifiable character, but certainly I think most people who've seen the movie can think of eight or nine right off the top of their heads -- because you got to know them through the whole "training" sequence of the movie. The point is, The Hobbit had that whole initial journey which could have served as the same thing -- exposing the various strengths and weaknesses of the characters as they faced various trials during that initial journey, revealing the strengths and weaknesses that they'd then have to take into that final battle. It was easier in Lord of the Rings because we met many of the "Fellowship" characters one at a time, first Frodo, then Gandalf, then Sam, and Merry, and Pippin and Aragorn -- and so by the time we get to the Council of Elrond, you only have three left and it becomes relatively easy, with one being an elf, one a dwarf, and one a surly human, to distinguish them. But again, just because all of the dwarves arrive at Bilbo's house at one time doesn't mean that they all have to arrive at one time in the movie -- they could arrive one or two at a time, so that we get more of a chance to meet them as individuals (and it might actually have made for a funnier scene -- with an endless number of Dwarves continually showing up).

[@milesrout]

+prodprod Yeah what actually happened in the book is that they took FOREVER to all arrive. It would have made much more sense.

[@aspie182]

+prodprod Peter Jackass’ idea of differentiation is costumes and hair. I think you would get some very interesting responses if you told his fans to describe each of the Dwarrow without saying what they look like or what their role/profession in the film is, or anything that is only mentioned in a Tolkien text. Thorin, you could probably construct a sentence or two about, but the rest of them, I have trouble even remembering who the hell they are when they are on the screen.

[@mordirit8727]

Actually in the book the dwarves arrived separately, some arrived alone and others arrived in pairs or trios. The way they worked in the book was that most of them were groups of personalities. For example, you don't see many times the name "Fili" without it being immediately followed by "and Kili", so we know them both as one character: a pair of young brothers who are reckless, brave, quick to action, almost always the main muscle strength of the group. We know almost all dwarves as working pairs: Bombour is almost always together with Bifour, who constantly complains about the trouble that is caring and watching over the fattest member. It is much easier to know the dwarves when you cut them in half because all you know is how the smaller groups work within themselves. The movie had a bit of Fili and Kili and made Thorin pair with Dwalin for some reason (he should be the loner), but other than that every other dwarf just stands around as if they were part of the scenario.

[@aspie182]

The same problem applies to the Lord Of The Rings characters. Even most of the Fellowship, you could not describe them for more than three sentences without finding that you are repeating the same ground. What does Aragorn do other than tell other Fellowship members what to do? Even Sam demonstrates the director’s indifference concerning the difference (that I am not able to describe) between “rustic” and “retarded”.

[@heartsteme8329]

Your last Point is very good. They could have Set up the beginning like the Book Scene with Beorn - because that scene is amazing but actually didn´t fit into the film at that Point. In the beginning, it would be fun, give the characters the space they needed and develop Bilbos character as to Polite to refuse visitors instead of... well, just Letting them in for no reason and without us knowing how he can´t stand up for himself.

[@AppleJack4000]

Instead of cutting the numbers of dwarves in the company, they should have made less emphasis on them. Give the screen time to developing Bilbo and Thorin's relationship instead.

[@PauloPereira-hk9nw]

Rod Munch Also, less emphasis (as in zero) on a nothing character like Alfrid.

[@_Fornad]

Paulo Pereira Exactly. It makes no sense to say "Well Tauriel was a good idea in theory" and then complain about the lack of characterisation amongst the dwarves. It's trying to have your cake and eat it.

[@Springheel01]

That's the key right there. "The Hobbit" is supposed to be Bilbo's story, and these movies weren't his story AT ALL. They were Thorin, Tauriel and Bard's stories. Jackson admitted to having to remind himself that LotR was supposed to be Frodo's story, not Aragorn's. He clearly would rather write for action heroes.

[@defaultuser9423]

The movies needed less Lego lass. He had no purpose to be there and he was vastly out of character from his LoTR self. And one of Bolg or Azog should have been taken off. Take off Azog I say. He was supposed to be long dead by the time of the Hobbit and then you can have his son Bolg trying to avenge Azog's death like in the books. Also I think Tauriel should have died at the end with Kili. That would give at least some sort of consummation to that plotline. And a reason for Lego lass to be have a grudge against dwarves in the Fellowship.

[@GummBo3]

dragon sickness is like mediclorians in the star wars prequels

[@marcosrecio4062]

Your comment is to intelligent for the audience of this video.

[@GummBo3]

Adrijana Radosevic You can find deep explanations and justifications for almost any bad movie in any bad plot ever. However, it's the directors duty to explore these elements and display them to the viewer. And if the point was that he became a dragon, then that explanation was poorly explored by the director

[@superduperfreakyDj]

Dragon sickness is actually an established thing in the Tolkien universe. For exemple the Nauglamir caused dragon sickness.

[@ETBrooD]

I understood dragon sickness perfectly well the first time I watched the movies even though haven't read anything from Tolkien besides some of the LotR books.

[@theMad_Artist]

It's way worse. I mean they literally could've just gone with "Thorin has become greedy" instead of he has "dragon-sickness." Dragon sickness??? WTF?!!

[@joeschmoe3665]

I mostly like Peter Jackson's adaptation of Tolkien's Middle Earth my favorite part of the Hobbit is the prologue and the introduction of Gandalf and the dwarves because it is directly adapted from the book. Therefore I disagree with you about not being faithful to the source material The Hobbit started strong but increasingly declined in narrative and tone as they changed it into a war epic, which it never was or should be !!

[@nahor88]

IMO, it's only OK to change the source material if what the director comes up with is BETTER than the book. This very often was not the case with the Harry Potter movies. We lost a ton of great scenes and character development that would've been great to see in live action cuz the directors had their own vision. OOTP is prolly the best example of this. Why eliminate the scene at St. Mungos? Is it central to the main plot? No, but it was a great scene for developing Neville's character. It would have made seeing Neville's triumph and Bellatrix dying that much more satisfying. That said, the way David Yates did the possession scene was 10x better than what we got in the book, which was just confusing (though he fucked it up by toning down the Voldemort/Dumbledore duel).

[@valrond]

Exactly. One of the very few things that the LOTR trilogy movie was better was at Boromir's death. Most of the things they added were crap, and many of the changes too (Faramir character assassination in TTT, Elves at Helms Deep, Sam go home, the general disdain for men and love for elves, Ents not wanting to go to war, the Army of the Dead, etc). With The Hobbit, PJ had a lot less to work with, so nearly everything he added was just useless crap.

[@S4ns]

Wait, why would we have to have a better movie OR a faithful adaption? Why can't we have a better faithful adaption?

[@TwelvetreeZ]

It's because novels and films are very different mediums. There's a lot you can do in a novel that won't work in a film and vice versa. On top of that, a novel is often (but not always) one person's artistic vision, while films are collaborative projects with lots of artists working together. For instance, they had to change huge plot points and or leave out chunks of the book in the film version of Ready Player One, because the novel was almost unfilmable. Reading about a character playing Joust, for instance, is fine, but not much fun to watch

[@SaintCronch]

@@TwelvetreeZ Reading the Hobbit for my son as a bedtime story for the moment and that book could easily been made into a good adaptaion without all the extra stuff put in the movie. It's a pretty simple book, it goes from point A to point B.

[@tiaaaron3278]

Hobbit is a kid story. It doesn't even feel like it's in the same world as LotR. There is a reason Tolkien wanted to rewrite The Hobbit.

[@glykera]

@@tiaaaron3278 Then The Hobbit should have been made as a kid movie 🤷‍♀️ Tell all the heavy lore in a Silmarillion series instead.

[@matthewmuir8884]

@@tiaaaron3278 Except he *did* rewrite The Hobbit; every edition after the first was made after he wrote The Lord of the Rings and includes his rewrites. The Riddle in the Dark scene with Bilbo asking "what have I got in my pocket?" That was a rewrite; in the original version, Bilbo wins the riddle-game and Gollum lets him leave freely with the ring. If he wanted to, he could've rewritten the book a lot more than that, but he didn't.

[@Tw0tson]

the fact that stephen colbert went on set and beat the entire hobbit film team in a trivia competition, shows how doomed this stupid ass trilogy was, no credit taken from colbert and his hobbit headedness

[@magiv4205]

TW0tterT0N Watching that giant nerd Stephen slay the entire cast with knowledge about the world THEY are supposed to be experts in was simultaneously great and depressing

[@jackward6726]

These videos all had brilliant criticism man, especially the second one where you talk about the lack of tension in the action scenes. I first saw the LOTR when i was 8 and those films not only turned me into a huge tolkien fanatic but also made me fall in love with cinema. What made me more angry and disappointed than actually watching the hobbit was seeing how everyone just seemed to accept them as fun, or even good films. I guess it says a lot about how little people expect from blockbusters in this age of Avengers style superhero films. I mean back when the fellowship came out, Gladiator won best picture the year before and titanic won 11 oscars a few years before that. These were epic blockbusters that were so big in scope that they required an epic amount of love and dedication to pull off beautifully. Anyway, would love to have a massive LOTR geek session with you dude, you seem like a real fan :)

[@trevorrogers95]

jack ward hey the Avenger movies are decent, far better than the Hobbit.

[@bluejayfan5584]

You don't know how important fun is?

[@stanjuan1178]

Ok ok ok, you had me up until this video. 1) Not even die hard book fans, expect movies to be faithful word for word to the books. case in point. Tolkien fanatics, of which I am one, ADORED the LOTR Trillogy movie adaptation. There is no question what so ever that licence was taken with the book version in the adaptation. Elves at Helms deep anyone? The point is, the movies stayed faithful to the core of the books, even while cutting out bits, and adding in new bits. The LOTR movies were, are, revered by Tolkien fanatics and random movie goers alike. For good reason. Reasons you pointed out in videos 1-4. 2) The best part of the entire Hobbit train wreck, from a Tolkien purest point of view, was the first half of movie #1. Why? Because that portion of the movie was FAITHFUL to the core of the book. Perhaps un-ironically, the first half of movie #1 was derided by random movie goers as being "To Slow and Boring". Apparently either straight up not knowing, or maybe simply not giving a flying fuck, that the Hobbit is an adventure story set in a High Fantasy setting. NOT the fucking fast and the furious part 20. (Though that's exactly what it felt like by the end of movie 3). I particularly like one criticism about the first hobbit movie, where one know it all critic derided the "Golf Joke", which "Took the reviewer out of his head space" . Fucking wanker, the Golf Joke was ACTUALLY PART OF THE ORIGINAL STORY, unlike the whole train wreck that was fabricated from whole cloth which ran as a 3 movie long chase scene between an orc that actually was slain like two got damn ages prior, and the Dwarvers. The golf joke this ass hat has an issue with, but not the egregious things that Peter Jackson did? FFS!!!! In the begining, nobody wanted 3 hobbit movies more than me. MORE MIDDLE EARTH? SIGN ME UP PLEASE!! There were SO MANY THINGS that could have been done. SOOO MUCH LORE that they could have included. 3 Hobbit movies? I want a 30 season long Game Of thrones style telling of ALLLLLLL Tolkien lore. This is what I was hoping for in the Hobbit movies. What did we actually get though? What ever it was, it was not 'The Hobbit". Am I the only one to have noticed, that the central character of the fucking book, essentially was relegated to a second string supporting character role? WTF??If Peter Jackson wanted to make his own movie, set in the Tolkien universe, he could have done anything he liked, good bad or indifferent. I would have went to see it. I would have cheered. Maybe. And that's what he SHOULD have done here, made his own fucking move, and left Bilbo "The Hobbit", out of it. You get ONE CHANCE, to make the hobbit. Should a reboot ever be made, it won't be in MY LIFETIME. I am saddled with this POS for the rest of my days. I didn't want a new story in place of the god damn Hobbit. I wanted to see The Hobbit, brought to life in the big screen, like they did for The LOTR. My false hope, was that maybe we would see in 3 fucking movies, more about the hobbits back story, they have one you know. Fucking interesting as hell too. Or maybe more background on the Numenoreans, or the Elves, or the Dwarves. The brought bejorne into this. FUCK YEA, tell me bout Bejorne. But what did we actually get? A WASTE OF TIME!!. Tropes up the ass hole. Shitty action scenes, one after a fucking nother. SO MANY FLASHBACKS TO THE LOTR MOVIES!! WTF? Peter, you know the LOTR happened AFTER The Hobbit right? The fuck you flashing back to it for 150+ times for? Smaug, was awesome in the war of words with Bilbo, THANK YOU CUMBERBATCH!. Then they FUCKED his character into the ground. WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED? I haven't thought about this in a long time. I watched these videos and I am going into meltdown again. God Damn It!

[@public.benemy]

Don't hold back, tell us what you really think

[@elijahjames8837]

We dont have The Hobbit we have Peter Jackson's Prelude to His Lord of the Rings! He totally lost the charm of the Hobbit by doing this and those extended fight scenes are nothing more than footage for the video game market. Too bad for the most part I thought he did a good job on LoftR but he seriously dropped the ball on this one.

[@circedelune]

Exactly!

[@headphonic8]

I’m a fan who got into Tolkien AFTER seeing the LOTR movies. I hate to say it, but these movies honestly kind of put me off reading The Hobbit (plus everyone is always saying it’s just a fanciful kids book)

[@circedelune]

headphonic8 you should still read the book. It’s more fanciful and less dark than The Lord of the Rings, but still fun. I’ve read it both as a child of about 12, and as an adult. The movies were awful, but they bear little resemblance to the book, so don’t worry about that. I can understand your reluctance, but I hope you do read it some day.

[@GRUSTLER]

He didn't know Bilbo had the ring because Bilbo never told Gandalf until Lord Of The Rings.

[@matthewmuir8884]

Gandalf knew about the ring; Bilbo never told him, but Gandalf knew. What he didn't know until LOTR was that it was *the* ring.

[@AlfredoPuente8]

1:19 Woah, I had the exact same idea for how to structure the triology if it was divide in just two parts, that way you have all the things related to Smaug in just one movie.

[@FilmForceStudio]

I agree with most of what you say, but I'd like to add something to your argument about how adaptations don't have to be 100% faithful: It's okay for me that movies don't follow the book. As long as it works for the movie, and the general theme and tone remains the same, it's all good. However, the Hobbit book is just one part of a giant mythology encompassing several novels and a spectacular amount of lore; almost everything in the book is weaved into the Middle Earth Universe perfectly. The changes Jackson makes to the Hobbit doesn't just change the story, it changes how the entire Universe works. It's the same with the LOTR movies; I get that the Hobbit is smaller in scale and not as dark and brooding, but the two become so vastly different that it's hard to see how they're part of the same mythology.

[@BruisedASScheeks]

Whhhy the fuck did they rely on soo much CGI, I would of much rather of them use makeup and props; it makes the movie feel so much more real and makes it so much better. Felt like I was playing a video game the whole time, all the orcs had a weird ass texture that made them look flat. The CGI wasn't even that good, like Planet Of The Apes had better CGI.. and all the landscapes where CGI too, in the Lord of the Rings, the landscapes were real for the most part, the orcs were real, the props were real... And Gandalf was real the whole time, cuz I'm pretty sure even Gandalf was CGI a few times in the Hobbit movies. Overall the Hobbit movies didn't even come close to the Lord Of The Rings. The hobbit movies were still kinda enjoyable, but I don't really wanna re-watch them. The Lord of the Rings I can re-watch every few months and I fucking LOVE it! Hardcore! Not that often but iv seen the LOTR trilogy at least like 6-7 times. Anyone else agrees?

[@kebismyname8995]

no. I don't agree. CGI reliant films are normal and it looked good, to me. What producers should start to pay more attention to, is writing the film.

[@superduperfreakyDj]

Simple, no prep time. For LotR all props and set were almost done before shooting. With the Hobbit there was almost 0 zero prep time because of the deadline. Props came in the day of the shooting, prosthetics were adjusted the day of the shooting, sets were modified the day of the shooting. Really all of it was in some way adjusted, they had literally zero time to actually prepare those things so they just said 'fuck it, we'll just use a computer' and that's where the CGI comes in.

[@fioreblu1804]

LOTR visual effect > Hobbit

[@Bloggerboy1000]

Costumes and props looked better than cgi, which was distracting.

[@cookiehunter6106]

GarlicKnotz ii

[@Dachusblot]

I think the reason fans are often so insistent that movie adaptations stick with the book is because for a lot of people, the appeal of seeing a film adaptation of a book is just getting to see something you had previously only pictured in your head brought to life on the screen. There's something about seeing something in live action that makes it seem more "real." It's why Disney is making tons of money by turning it's classic animated films into live action films. We're seeing the same story, and it's not even a matter of taking something non-visual and making it visual - the appeal is just getting to see something you love done in a bigger and more "realistic" way. Hence, when movies deviate too much, fans get annoyed because that's not what we paid to see. There's nothing at all rational about it, of course; it's just a strange yearning people have that doesn't make much sense. The problem is that obviously with something like The Hobbit, simply translating it from page to screen without any changes wouldn't have worked. The book is too episodic and is written more like a fairytale, which would have seemed strange in comparison to Jackson's LOTR films. Also, much as some fans may not want to admit it, the books themselves are not perfect. For example, if the Fellowship of the Ring movie was precisely faithful to the book, the movie would have taken quite a long time to get Frodo out of the Shire, which would have totally killed the pacing at the beginning of the movie. Speeding things up a bit there was a good call on Jackson's part, as was having Merry & Pippin run into Frodo & Sam together instead of Merry meeting them at the Brandywine Bridge like he does in the book (which would have killed the tension from them being chased by the Nazgul). Little changes are often important to get the movie to flow well, and I think most fans are aware of that and can accept it. What bothered me most in the Hobbit films was that they had so much room to expand on the characters from the book, and instead they chose to pad it out with overly long action scenes that put me to sleep. Also, the movies all had a weird tone problem that's a little hard to pinpoint, but it's stuff like Kili's dumb "I could have anything down my trousers" line, which was an attempt at humor but was just so... non-Tolkienish, that it threw off the whole scene. The movies were full of odd little moments like that. There's nothing wrong with adding dialogue, but if that dialogue doesn't mesh well with the spirit of the book, it just leaves a bad taste.

[@FranzFerdinand76]

While I appreciate the effort and thoughtfulness of this series, none of your points touched on the real flaw of these movies. Everything you mentioned weren't deal breakers. The real flaw is simple - they tried to make the story bigger than what it was. They took a simple children's story about a journey for treasure and tried to make it on par with the epic scope of the LOTR trilogy. The plot of The Hobbit didn't have enough gravitas/weight/importance to come close to warranting that. All of the flaws you outlined can be traced back to the film makers losing touch with the simple charm of the book, and in an attempt to make it a grandiose epic, produced a bloated mess.

danielsan7876 If they can be traced back to the main problem, then he *did* succeed in addressing the movie's flaws.

[@kartos.]

This is why people should be more accepting of fanfiction. Once you start viewing movies as well done fanfic, a good retelling doesn't step on the toes of the fandom, it's just an alternate.

[@breadordecide]

Thorin: Let's make laketown great again.

[@bul13ts]

He then built a wall and made the elves pay for it.

[@MrCesar90403]

Poirot's Mustache hahabbabah

[@3195Rafa]

Kubrick didn't change the ending of clockwork orange. It was just that the version he was working on didn't include that last chapter where alex is rehabillited. It was just a mistake of the american publisher, not a concious choice. Besides that it's a terrible example since a clockwork orange is propably the most faithfull adaptation ever done. Even Kubrick said that he didn't want to change much because everything that could be said about the story was in the book...

[@Palmieres]

Rafael Amanatidis The saddest part of the adaptation is that the author deliberately rehabilitaded Alex to get closure on the event that inspired him to write the book in the first place. His wife was attacked by four men, an attack wich ultimately resulted in her death. He lost her and the child she was carrying. His choice to make Alex repent, form attachments and finally return to society helped him heal, by trusting people could in fact change for the better. The movie ending undoes all that.

[@miguelpereira9859]

palmieres Well Kubrick was a very cynical artist, I think he didn't believe that a person like Alex could actually turn into a nice guy. Kinda like how he went with a different take on The Shining fron the book because he didn't believe in ghosts.

[@jorgizoran4340]

No the Author Anthony Burgess;s wife died from liver cirrhosis not from the attack

[@headphonic8]

He changed a lot in The Shining though

[@minveraz2843]

The problem is when the directors substantially deviate from the plot and the movie doesn't make any sense as a result. It's easy to loose the soul of a book by doing that--that's why fans worry.

[@BinkyTheElf1]

minvera z - Somewhere in the added material for LOTR, Jackson even admits that Tolkien’s story & beats were best, and when he diverged from them, the results were mixed.

[@horricule451]

What's important to me is if it has the spirit of the source material. If it just followed it directly, then I'd just go to the source material instead.

[@thisisfyne]

To be fair, the problem is not the *amount* of dwarves in the films, but how they are *used* . The group of 13 should have been treated like a microcosm of the film's characters: 1 or 2 main one, a few secondary ones, and those that are always in the background. This way, you can focus more on developing characters while still knowing that they are part of a larger group. The storytelling choice now becomes which ones are more important and which ones are less, and to which attribute which archetype. In the Hobbit, this was very poorly executed.

[@iansarmy1]

To be fair to Jackson, the decision to do three movies was mostly the studio's and they meddled in many other aspects as well. Jackson didn't even want to direct the films and came in late in pre-production after Guillermo del Toro backed out. The studio then cut the production time table to the point that Jackson almost had a nervous trying to get the films finished on time. Jackson has been very frank in interviews about how he was unhappy with many aspects of the finished product.

[@dw1419]

According to an interview with Jackson on the DVD extras, he felt the need to make a third film when it was time to film the Battle of the Five Armies and they had no plan for how to do the battle because they were so far behind. So the third film bought PJ some time to come up with something.

[@GheyForGames]

do you think that instead of treating each hobbit as their own character and giving scenes to each specific hobbit, they could have grouped them up and made scenes for specifc pairs or trios of the group? a lot of the hobbits are family or have their own pairings in the book so they could have condensed them down to that treating 1 pair as 1 character as such and gave a few scenes to each pair

[@sirdragonfall8474]

+GheyForGames I think you mean dwarves not hobbits but I see your point.

[@GheyForGames]

Sir Dragonfall whoops yeah! dwarves

[@JustWrite]

+GheyForGames If I'm writing this screenplay, this is exactly what I would have done.

[@GheyForGames]

Sage Rants cool that we are on the same level, i think given the hellish production cycle of the films they came out pretty well, like the core film isnt too bad, but the 3 films really fucked it up.

[@notsoaveragejoe2039]

+Sage Rants I actually like your other idea better where you cut out some of the dwarfs out of the story so its just the leader, mentor, angry one, and the comic relief. Either one would be a lot better than what we got of course lol. Amazing work on these videos man! You have just become one of my favorite KZbin channels!

[@jessica_jam4386]

Thank you so much for making this. I've been a LOTR fan for almost 15 years, and The Hobbit movies disappointed me on so many levels. I never wanted a 3 movie epic adaptation, I wanted a character driven fantasy/adventure movie (yes just one movie, granted it would probably still need to be 3 hours). The tone of the Hobbit book is so different than the tone of the Lotrs books, that it's baffling to me to try and frame the hobbit in the way that they did (except of course because the studio wanted $$$) smh

[@abi6126]

Directors shouldn't strive for complete fidelity to the source material if it is a hindrance to the creation of a good film but completely changing the source material isn't an adaptation, it is a fan-fiction. If you want to create something wildly different, use your own creativity, write yourself a new story and then do it, but don't do it under the guise of an adaptation of an existing story, because it isn't. The Lord of the Rings was done well. A fantastic film with some changes from the source material, but it wasn't a complete bastardisation of the Tolkien's books.

[@kevingil1817]

Anyone who reads the books replaces the names of half the dwarves with, "one of the dwarves" in their head. He couldve just treated it like that.

[@kstorm4]

All you say is so true. I found the book didn't give any insight on the character's personalities really and was disappointed that the movie didn't do better in that regard. One of the biggest issues I had with the movies, besides the unresolved plots and useless scenes.

[@JustWrite]

Karin Storm Definitely one of the rare cases where the film needed to go further than the book. Thanks for your thoughts!

[@tSp289]

+Sage Rants I loved all of these except this one. I do agree that a good director should be given more license to diverge if they are actually going to make the thing better but I'd say nearly all of Jackson's failings are about his failing to understand the source material. I honestly think del Toro would have made a much better series for the sole reason that he is outstanding at creating atmosphere. Pan's labyrinth was great in that regard. With Jackson, there's a bit in the making of LotR that exemplifies the problem: a prop designer is continually told 'bigger bigger! More gnarly! when designing diseases for an orc's face, and in his exasperation he just picks up a handful of clay and slaps it on the model, and Peter Jackson's response is 'perfect!'. That whole 'more! Bigger' thing is what undermines the feel of LotR and the Hobbit. Tolkien was a veteran of some of the most brutal fighting in human history, and a lover of ancient landscapes and tales so he wrote some very mature books about land, history and war. He grew up in a country where every hill has old earthworks, and remants of forts and settlements stretching back tens of thousands of years, burial mounds from the stone age, castles and watch towers now in ruins. I'm not saying you have to be born in an old country to get these things - George RR Martin wasn't and he definitely gets it - but I think PJ had no instinctive connection to the underlying atmosphere of Tolkien because he grew up in a country with a very short history, even if the land itself is beautiful. You talk about his attention to detail, but PJ's adaptations are basically set-pieces set on a blank canvas; they take all the surface stuff, like Minas Tirith being a big ringed city, and then just drop this amazing city onto a big empty plain with no farmland, no apparent history or complexity, as if he simply did not understand how these things worked in real life. How did thatmany people feed themselves? Doesn't matter! Battle! He only puts in the landmarks, onto a huge empty land with no depth, and he often does the same with his characters; they lack complexity and humanity, when they are full of it in the books (LotR more than the Hobbit, admittedly). Listen to the BBC radio adaptation (it's on soundcloud) if you want to get a real idea of jsut how much more complex and interesting Frodo is, for example, when he was played by Ian Holm (Bilbo in LotR). So that went a bit off track but my core point is; PJ was attracted by the set pieces in LotR, but not the underlying atmosphere. I think if a director wants to make changes to the source material they should first fully understand and respect the soul of the piece and not just the surface features. From there, they can wrangle a story that stays true to the spirit, if not the specifics. That is how you create a deep and engrossing fictional setting

[@Starforge1]

ISp289 If I could thumb that up 1000 times I would. Well stated.

[@Emarella]

While I actually adored the LotR films, I do agree that Peter Jackson didn't make The Hobbit films true to the spirit of the book. That's one of my biggest issues with the first Hobbit film (the only one I dared to see; I'd seen enough from that to know I wouldn't enjoy the next two movies, and these videos only confirmed my suspicions). The Hobbit was written as a fairytale, not an epic as LotR was. You have to treat the films as such, not make a second LotR. I liked the LotR films because they shared the same epic feel of the books, issues with adaptation aside. The Hobbit films tried to be another epic with a story that was not meant to be an epic.

[@mrcat3493]

The book vs film debate is endless. Francis Ford Coppola didn't want Mario Puzo to write the film adaptation for Godfather, he only changed his mind when they were at lunch and Puzo tossed the book on the floor and said "What book?" To me its more important to portray the spirit of the books and not literally recreate every thing line by line. Also lets face it some books are popular but not that good (looking at you Hunger Games) and will always be bad movies. Films like Harry Potter are the exception and not the rule when it comes to strict translation. Where I disagree (director change and assorted problems aside) is that they did change the book, they added so much filler and created the forced ties to LOTR that it's really unrecognizable from the source material. In doing so they sucked the heart right out of whats really a simple children's fantasy/fairy tale that loosely sets up the much darker and thematically richer LOTR trilogy.

[@vermis8344]

Mr Cat True. Making details of the adaptation different is one thing, but too many adaptations change things to the point that the spirit and characters are different too (not just in subjective ways), and it doesn't mean the same thing anymore. Take Luke Skywalker in The Last Jedi as a movie-to-movie example, and also a chronological one: it's been thirty-odd years so of course he should have changed some, but to the extent of what we got...?

[@PurpleIsALetter]

What are you on about, the Harry Potter movies were terrible. They left out important details from the books that later turned out to be really important, not to mention cutting important character moments that reveal motivation as well as additional IMPORTANT characterization that would later come back to haunt the movies. Outside of maybe the first two, the rest are pretty much unwatchable to someone like me who is a huge fan of the books.

[@edureal21]

Very good rant. About the final conclusion, I agree they could had cut some of the dwarves, however the main problem was not the things they not cut, but the stuff they add. The Hobbit is a simple story, the book have only 320 pages and they stretch it into three long movies, they bloated the story with A LOT of pointless filler: All Azog plot is filler, much scenes in Laketown is filler, so is all Alfryd scenes. If they had put all in two movies all this would be unnecessary, the pacing would be much better (that was the main problem in the first movie) and th tone would be much more consistent.

[@thexalon]

To provide some idea of how much filler is in this version of the Hobbit, consider that this wasn't the only time somebody attempted to show the story in film. The running times: - Ralph Bakshi: 78 minutes - Vladimir Latyshev: 65 minutes - BBC's Jackanory: no more than 90 minutes - Peter Jackson: 462 minutes (theatrical), 532 minutes (extended) One of these things is not like the others.

[@aarongoddard2642]

You support cutting dwarves out of the story? Fuck. You.

[@McLenwe]

Thanduil appears in a different light when you know that the white gems had a special value for him. They are the Gems of Lasgalen, Thandruils wife had worn them, when she was tortured and murdered by the Orcs in Angmar. The Gems were the only thing left of his beloved wife and the dwarfs required Thranduil to pay for the gems even though they do not really belong to them. So now you can decide yourself, who the Baddies in this story are.

[@natehanna3813]

Just a note about A Clockwork Orange: In the book, Alex is not 'rehabilitated'. The book, like the film, heavily criticizes the treatment he underwent, they just do so in similar ways. Kubrick didn't really change the ending; the ending of the film is the original one presented in the USA, where the last chapter was omitted. The book ends on a very similar note if the last chapter is omitted. What you're referring to as the book's ending is the omitted final chapter where Alex simply grows out of his tendencies. Rather than Kubrick's movie (and original ending) which shows the treatment failing and Alex returning to his hedonistic ways, the book goes further to show him growing out of them naturally, thus exposing the horrible treatment as entirely unnecessary.

[@earthbjornnahkaimurrao9542]

They could have "cut out" some of the dwarves without cut them out but rather keep most in the background and focus more on a few and develop their character more.

[@joshuacooley1417]

When it comes to adapting things I think you miss a couple of points. #1 - The source material belongs to someone. It is someone else's creation. That demands that the source material must be treated with respect. People who adapt have a responsibility to the original creator. #2 - The adaption is being sold primarily to fans and they are buying it BECAUSE they want to re-experience the material in a new medium. This is why they get upset when you give them totally different material. It is basically false advertising. You could argue that the adaption is being sold to more than just fans, but the only reason to buy the rights to a given story is because you know it has lots of fans and thus has a built in market. #3 - It's obvious that some adaptions and changes have to be made to accommodate the fact that film is a different medium than print. Problems generally occur, particularly with something like LoTR, because the people doing the adaption don't really understand the material they are adapting, or they have philosophical differences with the material that they are not willing to set aside. As a result they make changes that don't make sense, or that destroy important elements of the original work. #4 - If a director feels that it is too constraining creatively to work within the bounds of the original creator's work, then don't take the job. It is incredibly selfish and egocentric to think that you have the right to betray the original creator and the fans of the work simply to indulge your own creative vision.

[@DIEGhostfish]

Fellinux, no that's just a bunch of greedy business decisions masquerading behind postmodern disdain for the past to cloak itself as "Art."

[@joaodorjmanolo]

@@DIEGhostfish The first thing that I remembered from your comment is Rian Johnson and Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

[@elsie8757]

"If you want to tell your own story, _tell your own story._ If you want to tell the author's story, tell the author's story. But don't try to make the author's story into your own." --Paraphrased from Dominic Smith of the "Lost in Adaptation" series

[@AcesMaven]

Yes, thank you! All the other videos in this series I agreed on except this one. Thank you for putting my thoughts into words.

[@Torthrodhel]

Not convinced, not in the slightest. Here's a long rant against your points as to why. :) 1: An adaptation has to be different, because mediums are different. Well yeah. Obviously. But that doesn't mean you have to have free reign to change any random detail no matter how big, how small or how little it has to do with the necessities of making an adaptation. Are you going to make a movie runtime as long as a novel's expectable read time? No, clearly not. But that doesn't mean you get to change characters to the point of them being unrecognizeable, or flip the entire point of the original work on its head and teach the opposite lesson. It might mean you had to find a singular meaning for a highly vague fleeting description. It doesn't mean you were forced to throw in a romance because "adapting is hard". 2: Why do we need to see the same thing twice? Because some book readers don't watch movies and some movie watchers don't read books. Plainly. But also, because an adaptation if done right can bring an entire new sense of wonder to an artwork, it being necessarily different since it's in a different medium - a different medium with other focuses, other necessary attributes, and other possibilities. Same goes from any other medium to any other other medium. Video games to movies have suffered absolutely horrific adaptations, but I'd still love to see a good one (it just hasn't happened yet). There are really good reasons people generally prefer closer adaptations to more distant ones. At the end of the day, if you don't actually want to make an adaptation, then how about, oh... I don't know, here's a crazy idea... *don't make a bloody adaptation*. How about that? Make an original film. Eh but I guess that wouldn't guarantee you an audience fanbase, huh? Ah, well therein lies the rub, don't it. And then the adapters get all huffy about the crazy fanbase going all nitpicky on them... well here's a clue to why that happened: you chose to attach your project to them in the first place! You were the ones that decided to do this, and call it that, and say to them, "here is that thing you love" and "this is what that means now", and lest we forget "this is also what every new fan of this thing will think of it as, instead of what you know it to be!". That's what it means to adapt something. People have to stop just dismissing this responsibility, because that's why we get SO many godawful bad adaptations. And yeah, I am saying fuck some famous directors, and fuck some classic movies. And yeah! Fuck them. What? I'm not cowed by popular opinion and neither should you nor anyone else be. Fuck them and their bad adaptations. If they're good movies despite that? Then sure, they can be good movies despite that. And still bad adaptations. So fine love your good movie. I'm not saying don't love that. I am saying, it shouldn't have been an adaptation in the first place. And that pretty much covers your point 3, of just letting creative people be creative. Be creative. Make what you want. But don't call it what it isn't. That's the problem here. Hell, do you want to do a remix? Then yeah, do a remix. But don't blatantly promote it as though it's the original. The problem with us as the audience "just understanding that's what they mean by it" is that that very clearly isn't what they mean by it - the hoardes of unearned fanbase going to see their movie *relies* on that not being what they mean by it. Call it "based on the Hobbit book" and see how many bums in seat you get from that. If you take their money, then you take their fair criticism of what you did, based on what you used to take their money. That's only fair and right. So yeah I'm utterly against what you say here and I completely side with the fanbases on this. You can make whatever you want! Please make whatever you want. And then call it what it is. If it's not an adaptation, then don't call it an adaptation. Nobody is forcing you to. I don't write original songs and call myself the Beatles and give my songs the titles of their songs, and then act all surprised when angry fans don't understand the nuance of me being 'inspired' and making 'interpretations'. If I remix one of their songs? I'll label it as a remix, and absolutely not be guaranteeing myself anything like the same audience. And that is fundamentally fair! For I would not have been the one to create that guaranteed audience in the first place. And if music doesn't get away with that blatant manipulation, then neither should movies. It doesn't matter if you're going from one medium to another, or reimagining something in the same medium a bunch of years after the fact. Either way, don't be dishonest about the audience you're choosing to court, and what you're very deliberately leading them to expect, after you've made your creation. In short, fans have a right to be cross at this nonsense, and expect a much much higher standard.

[@seriall1337]

I just wanted to say that I agree with your points and I appreciate the time your spent typing them out. You are spot on.

[@Torthrodhel]

@@seriall1337 cheers! And no worries. :)

[@tankmaster1018]

2:12 Honestly, I can't believe that hasn't been done yet. All I could think about during that entire scene was how easy it would be to make a water ride based on it... and with some theme park's dedication to building zones based on popular movies (like Harry Potter world) it would just seem like a slam dunk for a ride. And its not like Peter Jackson wouldn't have cooperated since he helped design the 4D King Kong part of the Hollywood Train at Universal Studios. You could make a decent river rafting ride out of this, with one of those circular rafts that holds like 8 people!

[@brianmarini1888]

Homeboy, Laketown was built there before the dragon showed up...

[@circedelune]

Brian Marini actually, it wasnt. There was a laketown, but it was on the shore. They rebuilt the town on the water after the dragon came.

[@thomasdenney8859]

@@circedelune nooooo...the settlement had existed for years and years and got bigger thanks to the flourishing economy afforded by the Dwarves of Erebor. Tolkien wasn't so stupid as to write retarded people who build fucking stupid city under the dominion of a fucking terrifying dragon dude

[@tiaaaron3278]

Just Write is a fool who hasn't read the book.

[@gabrielleandsamuel4073]

While I agree with you that making changes from book to movie is necessary (due to the medium transfer) and great if it improves the story, I respectfully disagree with the idea that directors should be able to change whatever they want, with the implication that we shouldn't criticize them for such changes. When books become popular, it's because something about them struck a chord with their audiences. So when a director makes a film adaptation and then disregards that something, it shows a lack of respect for and/or understanding of why the original was so loved in the first place. This is why an adaptation like Netflix's Death Note movie infuriated the fan base, while the Japanese Death Note movies are largely respected by the fans. Netflix's version ignored the core of why Death Note is so loved--the cat and mouse game between Light and L--and instead focused on a romance. They disregarded a key element of what made Death Note special. On the other hand, the Japanese version changed a lot of things: it gave Light a girlfriend, had Light kill said girlfriend in a completely new ending, and then significantly altered how the story concluded. However, they kept that core intact: Light and L. To wrap up this far too long post, I'll just say this: if a story is beloved for one specific reason above all others, directors should probably include that in their movie adaptation. If they don't, then why were they interested in adapting this material in the first place? (other than the obvious: $$$)

[@majungasaurusaaaa]

See, that's why people like you are the problem. Directors are terrified of backlash and instead choose to play it safe. A book is a book. A movie is a movie. You go into the cinema to watch a movie, not an a book transferred to the big screen. Screw the book fan base. Make a good movie and you'll regain other fans and more.

[@eccemono6534]

@@majungasaurusaaaa Right, screw the fan base, 'appeal to mothers and NFL players'. That worked amazingly for GoT.

[@majungasaurusaaaa]

@@eccemono6534 Last time I check, GoT was hugely successful even with shit writing towards the end. Most of the show's fanbase had never read the books.

[@eccemono6534]

@@majungasaurusaaaa People were hooked on season 1, the season most faithful to source material. GoT was "successful" in spite of the showrunners turning the show into shit because source material was that good.The only thing that proves is that a captive audience will stay just to see how it ends. Take any product and slap on it "from the creators of Game of Thrones" and people will avoid it like the plague, the same can't be said for GRRM.

[@majungasaurusaaaa]

@@eccemono6534 There is good adaptation and bad ones. D&D did a bad job several seasons in a row. A faithful adaptation of Tolkien's work would end up with horrid pacing. The books were a chore to read at times.

[@irvyne6111]

Another option might have been to keep 13 dwarves OVERALL, but maybe drip-feed their introduction. Start with 3 or 4, and have the company grow throughout the quest. Maybe have some leave the company to do other things at some point. (They did eventually do this at the end of Desolation, of course) Definitely needed more development on all of them though.

[@RecklessDemonX]

Great points once again, Sage! I regret being akin to a PJ apologist a few years ago. It's just... oh fuck it, the dude lied his ass off, and I'd say the fans have every right to be pissed off. Told us there's plenty of material for three movies because of the appendices, then turning around and adding TONS of filler and additional crap of which only 5% was ever even mentioned in the LOTR appendices in relation to The Hobbit. Also told us there would be no romance between Tauriel and Kili, yet there ended up being one and it completely ruined parts of DOS and BOTFA with unneeded crap that seemingly managed to take the place of character moments for the characters these movies are actually about! Told us that the third film was really gonna tie things up, that it was going to be where everything would come together, then turning around and sacrificing that for ridiculous action sequences, leaving us with too many unresolved plotlines. I just can't respect PJ anymore after all of this nonsense. The Lord of the Rings films were an instant hit for me - watched all three of them, boom, my new favorite films. Watched all three The Hobbit films. Boom, gonna have to pretend they don't exist or else I'll despise PJ and co for what they've done to Middle-Earth quite a bit too much..

[@sovietsandvich8443]

Pretty sure the dragon sickness thing was supposed to be a metaphor, not a literal disease that everyone magically catches

[@sidnew2739]

Yeah, it's just greed, plain and simple.

[@mariacargille1396]

Adaptations by their nature will absolutely have differences. I'm good with that. What frustrating is that a lot of adaptations just seem to miss the point. They take a lot of the trimmings, but frequently neglect the heart, the core appeal of an original work. As an invested fan, that can be heartbreaking.

[@1805movie]

Adaptations are like a game of Jenga. If you take out the parts that have little to no point to the story (or just don't go anywhere), then it holds up fine, but if you take out the wrong ones, then the story falls apart.

[@morganstasney1934]

"Thorin earned it". Thorin took a long hike. Bard (assisted by Bilbo) is the one who killed the dragon and won the mountain back. The people of lakedown suffered the losses. Thorin earned shit.

[@brianmckinney3843]

The dwarves actually stole thranduils gems so theyre kinda in the wrong there

[@borysvengerov3398]

Can we just appreciate that funky song on the background? It's brilliant!

[@triceranaps]

Just an idea, but I think they should have modeled these as heist films rather than action/adventure. Gandalf needed a burglar (even though bilbo had never burgled anything), and in the book they are mostly trying to avoid confrontation and steal their home back. Bilbo has to steal the dwarves from the elves and spiders, steal the ring from Gollum, and they are all trying to steal the mountain from the dragon. Heist films are usually ensambles with each team member bringing a different skill to the table. This could have been a way of further developing characters than what we got in the source material. It could have been a story of Bilbo learning to be a burglar from a band of dwarves, being accepted into their brotherhood, learning skills from each and using his own innate skills (riddles, etc.) to improve upon what they taught him step by step through their trials till he’s ready to get Smaug out of the mountain. They tried to make these too much like lord of the rings, which the hobbit has little in common with other than setting.

[@petrmiros9908]

- Thorin promised Dale enough gold to rebuild Esgaroth ten times over (quote), there was a specific sum - The white gems belonged to Thranduil, he sent them to dwarves to forge a jewelry for his wife, but dwarves stolen them. Thorin selling the gems to the elves is exactly the same as Bard selling the arkinstone to Thorin. - Thranduil didnt betrayed the dwarves, 1st they robbed him, 2nd they lured in the dragon, 3rd their king went insane, 4th elves didnt have the Windlance, only weapon capable of killing the dragon, so If he wouldnt retreat they would all die - Thranduil was a good guy and Thorin was a prick all along

[@rafexrafexowski4754]

- He was imprisoned by those people for no reason. Wouldn't you also lie to people who did that to you? - None of that is shown in the actual movie to my knowledge. - 1st again, not in the movie to my knowledge, 2nd not actually the dwarves' fault 3rd why not help them anyway, who cares that their king is insane 4th to my knowledge it's never said that it's the only weapon that could kill him. Also Thranduil literally imprisons the dwarves later just because they are dwarves. - Thorin was a good guy and Thranduil was a prick all along.

[@TheSgtkite]

Awesome, awesome stuff. This series deserves a ton of views.

[@SunburnCity]

Fun rant series all the way. One point you do make that is interesting and a major flaw on Jackson and Co is their use of "dragon-sickness" as the driving force for Thorin's mental degradation. As it turns out dragon-sickness is not and has been a thing (like a disease or mental condition) in Tolkien EVER, so for them to inflate what is essentially a descriptive term in the book for a particular character developing an insatiable lust for gold (similar to a Dragon, hence the term) is right fudge out of nowhere and ultimately devalues Thorin's actual struggle with, not a magical sickness, but with himself. Also something of note is the argument you make against absolute fidelity when adapting books, i agree to some extent with your position but see that with this film series there in fact were many elements and entire subplots that were left out or significantly reduced (detrimentally so).

[@RickJaeger]

I really appreciate the comprehensive detailing of all the weaknesses of this video series. I'm glad I stumbled on this.

[@Bradgilliswhammyman]

How about using Tolkein's actual dialogue from the book, it makes the book a fantastic piece of fiction. In the book...basically the Dwarves vacillate between greed and opportunism and genuine friendship.

[@insaincaldo]

Well, there would have been no reason to write out dwarves, just make the ones that have an actual part to play more reconcilable and make sure to flush them out, even if that means that like 7 of them are just background filler.

[@paullynch2747]

'Producers and directors become terrified of doing anything that might piss off the ultra loyal fanbase' Disney, Lucas Films and Kathleen Kennedy- 'Hold my beer!'

[@blindeagleace3629]

paul lynch To be honest, the only main criticisms of the Star Wars I keep seeing is “Mary SUe, Feminism propaganda, SJW garbage and complaining that the movies supposedly have a Anti white bias. Like how is anyone supposed to take their fan base seriously or improve the next movie with criticisms like that? Not to mention harassing two the actress on Twitter and Instagram and misrepresenting Rian multiple times. Star War fanbase is probably the most toxic fanbase yet. It just seems like anything could set them off.

[@nemou4985]

@@blindeagleace3629 If you think the movies are good you are blind AF and I say that as a west-hating communist.

[@Mick0Mania]

@@blindeagleace3629 Although it is difficult to ignore the existence of such people, the only reason you have only heard about such complaints is because those are the ones pushed to the forefront in an attempt to make the film makers look like the good guys and the people the bad guys for not blindly consuming their products. If you want to hear about legitimate complaints about the sequel trilogy, it really isn't that difficult to find them. Though I must admit a lot of them are riddles with politics and nitpicking, but not all.

[@blindeagleace3629]

Okay, lol. Guys I am not defending the new movies. I haven't even seen any star wars movie. Not the Prequels or sequels. It's like you people are arguing something else. All I'm saying is that when your main argument against a movie is some nonsense culture War that means nothing then no one can take you seriously. And these types of "critiques" aren't being pushed to the forefront by the media. It's in every comment section even talking about the new Star Wars movies, it's on Twitter, Facebook, heck it's some of the many "criticisms" that some of these edgy prominent youtubers have. And the harassment of two Star Wars actors. The media doesnt have to push a narrative when that narrative is already alive and well. So don't blame the media when you're doing it yourself. Hell, this isnt even anything new. Ashoka was called a Mary Sue and Feminist fantasy. People actually thought the prequels were feminist propaganda because of Padme being capable of taking care of herself. The only thing different from now and then is now all of you have a platform that can easily reach millions. When before there was only forums. The star wars fanbase is toxic. It's most likely the most toxic fanbase I have ever witnessed.

[@blindeagleace3629]

@Frank Castle Dude, I honestly dont care. You guys call every woman character you dont like a Mary Sue. Rey, Ashoka, Tauriel, Captain Marvel, Wonder Woman, Doctor Who, that Star Trek woman. Yadda yadda. It's the same old, same old. Oddly, enough theres zero complaints about Gary Stus but double standards. Right? Also Anakin redeemed himself? Didnt he blow up a planet full of people and committed a few genocides? I don't think theres any real way for a genocidal maniac to be redeemed.

[@o-k9267]

Cheap writing, cheap action, cheap CGI, that's the problem. Jackson jumped on the bandwagon of "modern technology" blockbuster bullshit, totally forgetting that he already had the perfect formula. He held no respect for the source material, not meaning the book, but the world he himself created on the screen in LOTR. It's just shameful.

[@Wistbacka]

Where have you (just write) been all my life? Such a phenomenal channel and rant!

[@thomasfoster1181]

You have to admit, Thranduils voice was badass

[@kassi420]

But they didn't follow the book... The worst part of the Hobbit was Peter Jackson's made up filler.

[@lonrot]

Excelent review, thanks for making this!

[@papillonrouge6037]

I completely agree on everything you were saying until now :D! But in the case of the Hobbit I don't get your point of "the director shouldn't stick to the book". That is because NOTHING in those movies you're critizising has anything to do with the original Hobbit-Story ;)! As far as I can see it would have been better to stick a little bit closer to the book in this case or at least telling what Tolkin really wanted to say with his story instead of turning it into some random action bullshit :( And if one can handle to establish a fellowship of 9 people and a bunch of supporting charakters into three movies, than you should be able to do this with 13 drawes as well (at least if you don't give trivial characters like Bart, this random doucheback of rivendell or Legolas such an amount of screentime :D)

[@kevinslater4126]

I'm tired of people who think they know enough about movies to discuss them online. That isn't you. It's very refreshing to see someone that knows what they're talking about deconstruct what works or doesn't in a movie. Thanks for this.

[@rebeccaabbott6817]

This was great - enjoyable and really insightful. Thanks for taking the time to make it!