Let's talk about this guys. The second movie in The Hobbit trilogy. There are some complaints I have been seeing about the movie (or questions, depending on how they're worded). And then I have some concerns of my own. If you haven't seen the teaser trailer for The Desolation of Smaug, you can watch it here. Watch it? Okay, good. Let's begin, shall we?
Why is Legolas here?
The dwarves and Biblo are passing through Mirkwood. They encounter some elves. The king of Mirkwood is involved. Well, Legolas is the prince of Mirkwood. That's not so much of a stretch it is? Remember how the Rivendell elves were different from in the book (no tra-la-la's from them!), and how they had to be for the movie to be any good? Obviously, we are replacing the notion of elves in The Hobbit with the notion of elves Peter Jackson adapted while being quite true to the books when making LOTR. There is no reason why Legolas wouldn't be in Mirkwood at the time. So why isn't he in the book? Well, the book might have been written before Tolkien thought up Legolas' full story. The book is just something very different.
Why isn't Aragorn here?
He's nearly 90 in the LOTR. Not 30, not 200 -- 90. And Bilbo turns 111 at the beginning of LOTR. Bilbo is about in his 50's in The Hobbit, so we're talking a time-difference of about 60 years. Then add the nearly 20-year gap between the birthday party where Frodo gets the ring, and the time Gandalf comes back and Frodo leaves Bag End. That's 80 years. Aragorn is about 10 years old during the Hobbit. Perhaps a little young to really play any major role. Adding Legolas isn't a stretch -- it's natural. Adding Aragorn would take some real explanation.
I wish Peter Jackson didn't "re-write" the story!
Peter Jackson didn't really re-write the story. Tolkien did. It's the same argument Tolkien-fans have been making for the past couple of years. The Hobbit doesn't work as a movie for the LOTR movie audience if it is exactly like the book. Jackson needs to change things. And he does, change them from the book. Not the story. He's staying very true to the story. He is using all sorts of Tolkien's writings to make the story the movies tell as objectively as possible. Bilbo wrote The Hobbit, in theory. Not to mention, it has undergone a manuscript tradition, itself, still in theory. It's not an objective story. Jackson is trying to back out of Bilbo's point of view, and make The Hobbit as seen through the same lens as LOTR. He's doing a very good job. The mood is still lighter, frequently. But the content is the full story. As for "re-writing," Tolkien went back and corrected inconsistencies in The Hobbit in later editions, based on the rest of the world he created. There are other inconsistencies it wasn't so easy to change. Now that there's an opportunity for change when adapting the book for film, I highly doubt Tolkien would have been terribly opposed.
There are too many elves! (my own complaint)
There are too many elves. I adore the dwarves. It's a dwarf sort of story. They area already not taken very seriously, which I can understand, because that's just the way it all has to be handled. Fine. But adding more nad more elves and leaving the dwarves for comic relief? Let a dwarf watch this movie and see what happens. Oh, wait, you won't be able to see what happens, because he'd cut your head of halfway through! I'm just saying.... So anyway. Tauriel is fun. Let's add more girls? Okay, fair enough. I don't mind unequal representation of gender, personally. Not all stories can have all types of people equally represented. That's just the way stories work. There aren't many African or Asians in these movies, either. Have you noticed? Perhaps because the mythology Tolkien used doesn't particularly have influences from those cultures. It happens. Not every story is a global one. And not every story is one with a lot of girls. Deal with it.
But I know, people want more girls. Got it. Let's make one up. Let's add Tauriel. Evangeline Lily makes a great elf -- though I don't think she makes a great wood-elf. The hair! What's up with the hair? Did she have to have read hair? It doesn't look good on her, and I'm also not so sure that elves even have red hair. She would make a great elf in Rivendell. I was excited when I heard she was cast, because I thought she could look the part, but she really just doesn't do lighter hair well. But aside from looks, I knew that they had expanded her part. We all knew that over a year ago or so. And I we didn't know what that really meant. We didn't know what her role would be, or how much of it there would be. But judging by the trailer, there's a lot of it. I'm definitely seeing a lot of Tauriel in that trailer. Too much for an invented character. Not Tolkien's character, an invented one. Nervous, nervous, nervous.
And was there something about something going on between her and Kili? Aidan Turner play "Kili, the hot dwarf," as he has been dubbed. And that came out of no-where. But I loved what Jackson did with Fili and Kili in the first movie. They have fantastically developed characters. That's perhaps the best surprise from the movie, looking at how dwarves were handled and looking at how Jackson set them up to be dealt with in later movies. It was marvelous. But we're talking about Tauriel. Does she do all this fighting and then also have this little love-interest with Kili? That's a little too much. Hopefully, that part was exaggerated, since we didn't see much sign of that in the trailer.
But really, elves, elves, elves. The first movie made me realize just how much I like the dwarves. I'm not an elf person, I'm a dwarf person, surprisingly. And I don't think I want to see the elves take over.
In conclusion, those seem to be the biggest points of discussion by random people and myself. What did you think about the trailer?
Why is Legolas here?
The dwarves and Biblo are passing through Mirkwood. They encounter some elves. The king of Mirkwood is involved. Well, Legolas is the prince of Mirkwood. That's not so much of a stretch it is? Remember how the Rivendell elves were different from in the book (no tra-la-la's from them!), and how they had to be for the movie to be any good? Obviously, we are replacing the notion of elves in The Hobbit with the notion of elves Peter Jackson adapted while being quite true to the books when making LOTR. There is no reason why Legolas wouldn't be in Mirkwood at the time. So why isn't he in the book? Well, the book might have been written before Tolkien thought up Legolas' full story. The book is just something very different.
Why isn't Aragorn here?
He's nearly 90 in the LOTR. Not 30, not 200 -- 90. And Bilbo turns 111 at the beginning of LOTR. Bilbo is about in his 50's in The Hobbit, so we're talking a time-difference of about 60 years. Then add the nearly 20-year gap between the birthday party where Frodo gets the ring, and the time Gandalf comes back and Frodo leaves Bag End. That's 80 years. Aragorn is about 10 years old during the Hobbit. Perhaps a little young to really play any major role. Adding Legolas isn't a stretch -- it's natural. Adding Aragorn would take some real explanation.
I wish Peter Jackson didn't "re-write" the story!
Peter Jackson didn't really re-write the story. Tolkien did. It's the same argument Tolkien-fans have been making for the past couple of years. The Hobbit doesn't work as a movie for the LOTR movie audience if it is exactly like the book. Jackson needs to change things. And he does, change them from the book. Not the story. He's staying very true to the story. He is using all sorts of Tolkien's writings to make the story the movies tell as objectively as possible. Bilbo wrote The Hobbit, in theory. Not to mention, it has undergone a manuscript tradition, itself, still in theory. It's not an objective story. Jackson is trying to back out of Bilbo's point of view, and make The Hobbit as seen through the same lens as LOTR. He's doing a very good job. The mood is still lighter, frequently. But the content is the full story. As for "re-writing," Tolkien went back and corrected inconsistencies in The Hobbit in later editions, based on the rest of the world he created. There are other inconsistencies it wasn't so easy to change. Now that there's an opportunity for change when adapting the book for film, I highly doubt Tolkien would have been terribly opposed.
There are too many elves! (my own complaint)
There are too many elves. I adore the dwarves. It's a dwarf sort of story. They area already not taken very seriously, which I can understand, because that's just the way it all has to be handled. Fine. But adding more nad more elves and leaving the dwarves for comic relief? Let a dwarf watch this movie and see what happens. Oh, wait, you won't be able to see what happens, because he'd cut your head of halfway through! I'm just saying.... So anyway. Tauriel is fun. Let's add more girls? Okay, fair enough. I don't mind unequal representation of gender, personally. Not all stories can have all types of people equally represented. That's just the way stories work. There aren't many African or Asians in these movies, either. Have you noticed? Perhaps because the mythology Tolkien used doesn't particularly have influences from those cultures. It happens. Not every story is a global one. And not every story is one with a lot of girls. Deal with it.
But I know, people want more girls. Got it. Let's make one up. Let's add Tauriel. Evangeline Lily makes a great elf -- though I don't think she makes a great wood-elf. The hair! What's up with the hair? Did she have to have read hair? It doesn't look good on her, and I'm also not so sure that elves even have red hair. She would make a great elf in Rivendell. I was excited when I heard she was cast, because I thought she could look the part, but she really just doesn't do lighter hair well. But aside from looks, I knew that they had expanded her part. We all knew that over a year ago or so. And I we didn't know what that really meant. We didn't know what her role would be, or how much of it there would be. But judging by the trailer, there's a lot of it. I'm definitely seeing a lot of Tauriel in that trailer. Too much for an invented character. Not Tolkien's character, an invented one. Nervous, nervous, nervous.
And was there something about something going on between her and Kili? Aidan Turner play "Kili, the hot dwarf," as he has been dubbed. And that came out of no-where. But I loved what Jackson did with Fili and Kili in the first movie. They have fantastically developed characters. That's perhaps the best surprise from the movie, looking at how dwarves were handled and looking at how Jackson set them up to be dealt with in later movies. It was marvelous. But we're talking about Tauriel. Does she do all this fighting and then also have this little love-interest with Kili? That's a little too much. Hopefully, that part was exaggerated, since we didn't see much sign of that in the trailer.
But really, elves, elves, elves. The first movie made me realize just how much I like the dwarves. I'm not an elf person, I'm a dwarf person, surprisingly. And I don't think I want to see the elves take over.
In conclusion, those seem to be the biggest points of discussion by random people and myself. What did you think about the trailer?