Posts Tagged: Bilbo Baggins

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2
Feb 12

Why LOTR Sucks: Faramir Is A Dick Too

I’ve figured out the pattern that Peter Jackson is following. He is taking all the heroic characters from Lord of the Rings and altering their personalities in one of several ways:

  • Turning them into comic relief (Gimli, Pippin, Merry, etc.)
  • Marginalizing them by having them cry, whine, or pine. (Frodo, Eowyn)
  • Making them into huge dicks (Elrond, Theoden, Galadriel)

The only characters spared this treatment are Gandalf, Aragorn, Bilbo, and to some extent Legolas (though he’s little more than eye candy and he’s kind of a dick at times too.)

The worst offense, by far, is what happens to Faramir. For no good reason whatsoever, Faramir goes from one of the novel’s greatest heroes to inexplicably dickish in The Two Towers. He tortures Gollum, decides to take the ring back to Gondor, and comes off as a bigger douche bag than his brother. No wonder his father hates him. I would too.

Making matters worse, we have some stupid explanation for why Frodo refuses to wear the ring when Faramir decides to take him to Gondor. He’s suddenly about to succumb to the ring’s power, so he can’t use the ring to escape. Yet he used the ring when Boromir was about to take it at the end of the first movie, and he will use the ring again in the third movie. But for this brief interlude, he must refuse for some reason, otherwise Peter Jackson’s added detour could never have happened.

Any fan of the books knows that changing Faramir’s character is sacrilegious. It totally goes against the spirit of the novels. Nor does the change serve any meaningful function in the movie.

Peter Jackson, I will never forgive you for this.

Minutes Watched: 2.2:29.24

Number of Montages: 10

Number of slow motion close-ups of people crying: 39

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26
Jan 12

Why LOTR Sucks: Ground Already Covered

Frodo spots Gollum following them in the mines, the perfect occasion to have a conversation about a topic that has already been discussed earlier. Now would have been the perfect time to introduce that Gollum once carried the ring. Or perhaps allowed a couple of glimpses of him first, tease the mystery, and then explain that Bilbo got the ring from him. It works for both readers of the book and people completely new to the story.

It’s far better than having a conversation about something that has already been shown.

Minutes Watched: 2:08.02

Number of Montages: 5

Number of slow motion close-ups of people crying: 5

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26
Jan 12

Why LOTR Sucks: Bilbo Sees The Ring

This is a nice scene, when Bilbo gives Sting and the elf mail to Frodo, and he asks to hold the ring again. It’s scenes like this that make it unnecessary to pontificate about the evil of the ring. Show it through character interaction. Unfortunately, Peter Jackson loves to have his characters pontificate, especially if it’s a voice over montage.

Also, we get another close-up of someone crying, this time Bilbo.

Minutes Watched: 1:48.38

Number of Montages: 4

Number of slow motion close-ups of people crying: 4

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26
Jan 12

Why LOTR Sucks: A Modest Proposal

As I’m sitting here watching Frodo and Sam talking about going home, as if the movie is over at barely over an hour in, I am reminded of my idea for fixing the movies (besides going back in time and killing Peter Jackson’s grandfather). Instead of three movies, they should have been six. Then they would have been able to fit in all the important parts of the book, and we wouldn’t be stuck with so many fucking montages. We could have ended movie one right here, and we wouldn’t have had to cut out Tom Bombadil and all the other parts that would have been worthwhile to see. Seeing as how much money they made, I’m sure New Line would have loved to have doubled their income.

The fact they divided the Hobbit into two movies gives me hope.

Btw, we had a close up of a weepy Frodo being reunited with Bilbo. I wouldn’t say that I saw tears, but it was definitely in slow motion. I’m going to count that as close enough.

Minutes Watched: 1:29.48

Number of Montages: 4

Number of slow motion close-ups of people crying: 2

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25
Jan 12

Why LOTR Sucks: Waste Of Time

I’m going to be harping on this theme continuously, but when you are adapting three novels into 10 hours of screen time, you need to be efficient. Things have to be cut out, and in general I won’t complain about what’s been left out. But please, Peter Jackson, stop wasting our time. Do Frodo and Bilbo need to see wood elves leaving for the Gray Havens? Does that help us learn anything about the plot, or develop their characters in any meaningful way? No and no! Besides, it’s high elves that leave for the Gray Havens, so they didn’t even get the details right.

Minutes Watched: 46.01

Number of Montages: 3

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25
Jan 12

A Tricky Problem

Adapting a beloved novel is always going to be difficult. One with as much backstory and history as Tolkien puts in his works might seem nearly impossible to satisfactorily condense into three hours.

As an example, in the book, Bilbo leave Frodo the ring and leaves the Shire. Gandalf warns him to keep it safe. Then many years pass. The novel informs us that time as passed, and explains what has happened in the interim, but not much story happens. Then Gandalf comes back and determines that it is indeed the one true ring, and warns Frodo that he must take the ring to Rivendell. How does a filmmaker deal with this elapsed time, and make it work in a movie?

It seems to me there are two possible solutions. And then there’s the way Peter Jackson handles it.

Solution #1: Condense the two meetings into one. Bilbo leaves Frodo the ring, and Gandalf immediately warns him of danger. The ring needs to be taken away, but Gandalf doesn’t have the time to do it. With this one, you probably have Bilbo leave Sting and the elf mail at the same time, and we would never see him at Rivendell. It’s a shame to marginalize Bilbo even more, but it saves time, and people that haven’t read the books have no attachment to Bilbo anyway. Tough choices have to be made sometime, and this will save considerable time.

Solution #2: Create a buffer between when Bilbo gives up the ring, and Gandalf comes back to warn him. Make it clear a great deal of time has passed. Move the introductions of Merry and Pippin (and possibly Sam) to here, and shorten the introduction to the Shire. This stays truer to the book and would be about the same length. You’d have the change to build up some suspense for Gandalf’s return and the growing threat of Mordor.

Peter Jackson’s ‘Solution:’ Have Gandalf leave, look at a book. Immediately come back. You haven’t established any time has passed, Gandalf’s departure allows him to learn information we’ve already been informed of twice already, and the introduction of the Black Riders is handled clumsily and does a bad job of creating suspense. This could have easily been handled more effectively. The movie has begun to devolve.

Added bonus: we get our first montage of people walking through beautiful New Zealand scenery.

Minutes Watched: 44.14

Number of Montages: 3

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25
Jan 12

Bilbo Gives Up The Ring

This is a nice moment. Bilbo, one of the greatest characters in the history of literature, finds it is difficult to part with the ring. Even after Gandalf convinces him to give it up, he still manages to walk off with it in his pocket. When he finally does yield it, it’s only by dropping it on the floor. Once it’s out of his hand, the audience feels a shadow has lifted. Very nicely executed scene. there is real tension born out of character and situation, not from cheap conjurer’s tricks, as Gandalf would say.

Minutes Watched: 29.14

Number of Montages: 2

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25
Jan 12

Why LOTR Sucks: In Which The Ring Is Used For The First Time

Nothing that we’ve seen so far suggests the opening montage was in anyway necessary, and I am more and more convinced that it was a huge mistake. Bilbo has just used the ring for the first time, after giving his birthday speech which was nicely lifted from the book. We now know that the ring grants invisibility. Of course, if you had watched the opening montage and didn’t know anything about the ring before, you are confused. Because when Sauron wore the ring, he wasn’t invisible at all. So perhaps this ring of Bilbo’s is a different ring. Without the montage, we would have just gained one more piece of information about the ring and would still be wondering what it’s about. Peter Jackson, suspense and mystery are good things when it comes to film!

All we needed at the beginning was the poem about the ring. Nothing else.

Minutes Watched: 25.35

Number of Montages: 2

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24
Jan 12

Why LOTR Sucks: The Better Way To Introduce The Ring

If we had cut out the opening montage, our introduction to the ring would be this scene, with Bilbo thinking he’s misplaced it, then finding it in his pocket to his relief. Combine that with the simultaneous conversation between Frodo and Gandalf and the worried look that creases Gandalf’s face, and the audience would already be clued in that something is amiss without even having seen the ring yet.

Minutes Watched: 13.41

Number of Montages: 2

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24
Jan 12

Why LOTR Sucks: Where The Movie Should Have Began

Post-montage, we listen to Bilbo narrate a bit from his memoir, There and Back Again, giving the audience something they do need to know about, hobbits. (Of course, if they had filmed The Hobbit first, like what I would have done, this would have been unnecessary.) I think we’d have been better served prolonging the darkness just a bit. Let’s start by letting the audience know about hobbits, what a quiet and simple life they lead, how they don’t like adventures, why Bilbo is seen as an eccentric for having gone on his adventure, and how Frodo may be following in his footsteps.

Of course, this is montage number two, in the first ten minutes, but who’s counting?

Minutes Watched: 10.22

Number of Montages: 2

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