The Lord of the Rings / The Hobbit
Premise - Middle Earth is full of not only men, but of wizards, dwarves, elves, and hobbits! The Hobbit tells the tale of Bilbo Baggins of the Shire, who gets sent on a journey alongside dwarves to help them reclaim their homeland. In the sequel-turned-stand-alone-epic-adventure, The Lord of the Rings, Bilbo's nephew Frodo Baggins must go on a journey to destroy the ring that Bilbo discovered on his adventure all those years ago, when a wizard named Gandalf realizes that it essential in the dark lord Sauron's coming to power.
Review - I need to prepare myself to write this because this is going to be a long one. This is a massive series that I undertook. I consumed this entire series in the order that it was created:
1) The Hobbit book
2) The Lord of the Rings book(s)
3) The Lord of the Rings films
4) The Hobbit Films
The entire process took nearly a year (about 11 months), and the vast majority of that was spent dragging my way through the Lord of the Rings books. When I had finally finished and got around to watching the films, I marathoned the Lord of the Rings movies in one weekend, and The Hobbit movies the next weekend. My main takeaway is that I probably could have skipped the Lord of the Rings books and have gotten just as much out of the series. It was a real strain to read.
I was able to read The Hobbit easily enough, but granted, that is a book for children. It read more like a fairy tale. Reading the 1,000 pages of The Lord of the Rings was more akin to reading the Bible. It was dense, full of extraneous detail, and not very centered on any particular character development or individual experiences. It was far more about world-building than character-building.
This franchise was never a part of my childhood. I was raised on Harry Potter and Star Wars primarily, but not once had I seen a Lord of the Rings film. Therefore the series will never hold a powerful nostalgia for me that it does for millions of others. Unless I get weirdly nostalgic about last weekend. But even if I had seen these films growing up, I can't imagine I would have been as attached as I was to other film series. What I care most about is characters over plot. I don't care for big battle scenes half as much as I care about intimate, dramatic scenes between two characters. I feel as though Tolkien's style is to focus more on the conflicts of societies, cultures, and worlds more than individual character conflict. That's not to say there isn't conflict within individual characters - the ring is a perfect example of that! But it wasn't maximized as much as I would have liked.
For instance, the series was set up magnificently. The Fellowship of the Ring, both book and film, will always be my favorite (minus The Hobbit book, which is more of a fun read). The ring creates such an interesting premise because each character burdened with it faces the ultimate test of willpower. I remember reading in the introduction that Tolkien didn't want to focus too much on metaphor and allegory, and just have readers enjoy the story as is, but it is inevitable that there are connections to reality. The ring reminded me very much of the concept of addiction. Frodo, Bilbo, and Gollum are each drawn to the ring like a drug, and Gollum is the farthest gone. If the whole series were a story about Frodo struggling to overcome the power of the ring, I would have been all for it.
But the second and third books are hardly that at all. The way the books are set up is that the entire first half details the adventures of all the other characters (i.e. Aragorn, Legolas, Merry, and Pippin), and the last half is Frodo and Sam's journey. This is true of both The Two Towers and The Return of the King. Because I only really cared for Frodo and Sam, the first half of each of these books took several months to read. The last half I sped through over a few days. The movies are more digestible because they cut back and forth between both narratives, but really what this means is that only half of the story is Frodo and Sam's. The other half is full of battles that are really not my cup of tea.
The other thing is that our heroes don't really DO much. The exception is Bilbo Baggins, who in The Hobbit, successfully talks his way out of a lot of tricky situations. But even he doesn't really carry the entire narrative. The point of his character is almost that he's a passenger alongside the dwarves' story, and he got to experience it as a mere hobbit! And Frodo Baggins' entire purpose is to carry the burden of the ring. He is the ring bearer. That is it. Everyone else does all of the hard work around him as he just tries to survive and resist the ring. That's a lot on its own, I understand, but we really don't see much evidence that he'd do a better job of resisting it than anyone else (though it's implied just because he's a good-hearted hobbit). At the book's climax, when he and Sam are in the volcano and he has to destroy the ring... he can't do it. The ring is too powerful. And for Gandalf, the great and powerful wizard, I found him to be quite easily irritated, different than the calm and level-headed Dumbledore that I was used to.
It is going to be extraordinarily difficult to give this series a rating because there were such highs and lows with each book, and each film, for such a wide variety of reasons. That's what happens when there is so much content. I think I'll go through these one by one in order, and then provide some averages:
1) The Hobbit book
The most enjoyable of the reads! But still like... not something I was fully engaged in while reading. But still, there were lots of just little situationally comedic moments that would not translate to a film, so I actually think this is the one case where it's probably better to read the book than watch the films?? Maybe?? (84/100)
2) The Fellowship of the Ring book
This is where I personally believe the deepest storytelling was told, as far as the books are concerned. This was a fairly digestible read. I mean, there were some really weird, extraneous things like Tom Bombadil or whatever his name is... but I could buy into the storytelling for the most part. (81/100)
3) The Two Towers book
This is where the books reallllllly lost me. The first half was all of Aragorn and the others, and I skimmed it over several months. I could not process it at all. By the time I reached the Frodo/Sam/Gollum parts, I read it over a week or so and was actually very entertained! (28/100)
4) The Return of the King book
Same exact commentary as The Two Towers book, except at this point I was even more burned out with the Aragorn/Legolas stuff that I really couldn't say I was actually reading it. And the Frodo/Sam/Gollum scenes weren't as interesting in this book either, minus the climactic scenes at the end. I noticed that the way the movies are divided up is that The Two Towers film ends far before the book, and The Return of the King film takes all of the other events from the end of the Two Towers book for Frodo/Sam because otherwise there wouldn't have been much to show. (18/100)
5) The Fellowship of the Ring film
Gorgeous film with a great setup of the characters! This is the most Hobbit-focused story, which is the part of Middle Earth I enjoy the most. Watching this was the point where I thought to myself that I could have just saved a lot of time if I skipped the books and went straight to the films. Faithful adaptation, with all of the important details kept in and the rest eliminated. Most importantly to me, the film was dramaticized in a manner that made the stakes of the journey feel appropriately high. It's a great franchise film. Though I will say that I'm not really a fan of the elves (except Legolas) so the Arwen/Aragorn scenes were a bit weird, as well as Lady Galadriel (gosh I can't STAND HER). Honestly I gave this film a bit of an inflated rating because even though I enjoyed it, I wouldn't necessarily put it in the 90's, but I recognize the phenomenon of this film and its legacy. This is our entry into a visualization of Middle Earth, and the music was absolutely outstanding. (94/100)
6) The Two Towers film
Miles better than having to read the book. But still, it fundamentally comes down to the fact that I didn't have too much attachment to the stories regarding the different battles. I only truly cared about Frodo/Sam's journey, which was cut rather short in this film. Though I do like Merry/Pippin's journey as well. (74/100)
7) The Return of the King film
With the books I rated Return of the King lowest by a significant amount, but with the film I think I enjoyed it better (because it had a lot of Frodo/Sam moments from The Two Towers) and because it wrapped up the series nicely. I do notice that even though we weren't watching the extended versions for movies two and three, it did feel too long for what it needed to accomplish. I think it's in part because there's a lot of slow motion, in all three films, and it was really starting to bother me. I was not into all the slow motion for the trilogy. Maybe once or twice it would have been effective but... there was a LOT of slow motion, during both dramatic scenes, and scenes of them just reuniting and laughing. (77/100)
8) The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey film
The Hobbit movies get a bad reputation, and now I understand what people mean when they say the films took extreme liberties. It's a short book, somehow stretched into three films. I will say that the parts of the film that were adapted from the book were phenomenal. I loved the scene when all of the dwarves come over to Bilbo's house, and the scene with the trolls, and most importantly the cave scene. Somehow though this ended up being my least favorite of The Hobbit films?? Even though the story is definitely the best in this film?? I think it's because visually it was the least interesting. The entire goblin sequence at the end really threw me off. And definitely all of the weird additions to foreshadow The Lord of the Rings were really bothersome. The scene of Galadriel and Gandalf at Rivendell went on for sooooo soooo long. (72/100)
9) The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
There were so many crazy additions to this film and the next, that the series could have been easily shortened to two films instead of three. However, as a stand alone film without ANY consideration of the original text material, I think it was a great film. Cool battles. I just ignore everything to do with Gandalf discovering Sauron in both this film and the next. Though I will also mention that Legolas came back in this film and WHAT WAS WITH HIS EYES?? Also, I did not care at all for Tauriel and her weird relationship with Kili. (75/100)
10) The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
This may be an unpopular opinion but this was probably my favorite of The Hobbit films. I think it had an interesting message because there were no clear good guys and bad guys, just cultural clashes between the different species. It was a fascinating exploration of war. It did drone on for far too long at times, but so did the dragon scene in the second film so I can excuse that. Also Luke Evans was great. Again, ignore ALL of the scenes with Gandalf and Sauron. Ignore the Tauriel storyline. Also, forget any ties to the book. Just thinking about it as a stand alone film, it was pretty good. (78/100)
So you see some intense variability, but most of the films were in the 70's range any favorability for one or the other was very slight and difficult to put into numerics. Overall, the average score for The Lord of the Rings was 62/100, the average score for The Hobbit was 77/100, and my final score is 68/100.
Quote - “Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.”
What to watch for - In the films, I would say watch for Elijah Wood as Frodo. He is so freakin' adorable and I was dying the whole time. I think it's because he kind of looks like Daniel Radcliffe and Tobey Maguire were squished together and they are also both my type. Dark hair, blue eyes, small and skinny... I fell in love with him very quickly.
If you liked this series, I would recommend Star Wars! I know there is this big dichotomy between fantasy and science fiction, but I believe they are two sides of the same coin. Also, I would distinguish Lord of the Rings very heavily from something like Harry Potter. Harry Potter is a world-within-a-world kind of fantasy. Lord of the Rings is what I would call high fantasy, in that it takes place in an entirely fictional world. Star Wars is the same except with science fiction, so I think they are actually more similar to each other.
Written by J.R.R. Tolkien
Published by Allen and Unwin
Directed by Peter Jackson
The Lord of the Rings distributed by New Line Cinema
The Hobbit distributed by Warner Bros.
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