When I was a kid, Tolkein wasn't just some writer and The Hobbit wasn't just some book. It was one of the few things my father and I could talk about without our mutual awkwardness dominating and forcing one of us to retreat.
I borrowed the cartoon from the library at least once a month and when my dad was teaching me to draw, the goblins were one of the things he really wanted me to try. He loved how they looked and he loved my version of them. We watched it hundreds of times, sang the songs, and when I was able to, he gave me his childhood copy of the book and I read it, several times. I also read the trilogy, but The Hobbit was my favorite and still is so I was beyond excited when I heard they were making them all into movies. I loved all of The Lord of the Rings ones and kept waiting and waiting for them to make The Hobbit movie. Finally they released a date for when it would be in theaters and I decided I'd read the book again before the movie. It was as good as I remembered and I got even more excited to see it in live action on a giant screen. Hearing they were going to somehow stretch the book into three full length movies was disappointing, but then I thought hmm, maybe they're going to include every single aspect of it. (Which would be fucking awesome.) They'd have to if they were going to have enough for three movies. I was counting down the days and then I saw The Onion's A.V. Club review... shit. They are usually pretty damn accurate and they gave it a B-, while also tearing it a new asshole, so I started getting a little nervous. Surely Hollywood wouldn't butcher another childhood favorite as they did with the computer animated Lorax, Transformers, Super Mario Brothers, and the numerous Tim Burton train wrecks like Alice in Wonderland and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Then I saw the fucking thing...and of course they twisted it into almost complete garbage.
If it wasn't enough that they ripped it apart and made three movies out of it, they also added a bunch of bullshit that has nothing to do with the book instead of including all the little details that make it so enjoyable. First, there's some ridiculous overarching storyline that is not only nonexistent in the book, but also makes Thorin into some courageous hero rather than who he actually was, a greedy, proud, hard-headed dwarf with a thirst for riches and reverence. Because of that storyline, there are far too many orcs included, when there are none at all in the book. They didn't show up until the trilogy because that was when the darkness they came from began to emerge more thoroughly. The Hobbit is an allusion, an introduction to the trilogy and by including orcs in the movie to this extent, they have systematically destroyed what ends up being the entire purpose of the book. Not only that, but when the goblins show up, even I was confused as to what they were. They look so much like the orcs that they're almost indistinguishable. The goblin king was pretty disgusting and pretty cool, but where the hell were his enormous teeth? And their discussion with him about the swords… they didn't even say their names! "Glamdring the Fohammer, nooooo!" Granted that was the corny cartoon's rendering, but it was so much better than not including them at all. Speaking of not including things, the songs for christsakes. Most definitely my favorite parts of the cartoon version, and along with his map drawings, one of the things Tolkein seemed to really devote a lot of extra time and care to. And what, we get half of one verse of two of them but they can include some wizard, Ratagast, who has no part in the book and his fucking rabbits? Granted, he was a pretty cool character, but god damn it! Don't sacrifice what's actually in the book for shit that isn't! And what the fuck was with Frodo hanging around in the beginning chatting with Bilbo and such. No, no, no! Also not part of the book. But the thing that really killed me and had me throwing my hands up in the theater was the scene just before the Eagles come and pluck them off the burning tree. One, the fucking goblins were riding wolves and chasing them, not the orcs. Two, when they got there they sang an awesome song about fifteen funny little birds with no wings. Three, Thorin did not have some intense, dramatic, history filled showdown with the head orc/goblin/what-the-fuck-ever. Four, if he had, Bilbo most certainly would not have thrown himself into the mix in some heroic effort. Five, Gandalf did not talk to a moth and ask him to go get the eagles to come save them. Six, the tree was not precariously leaning over a cliff. I could continue, but at the risk of being nitpicky (as if that hasn't already happened) I won't.
Basically, they sacrificed the really great details (the songs, dialog, specifics) to make an attempt at tying it together with the trilogy movies and creating three epic masterpieces that rake in the revenue. Of course I'm going to go see the other two, and I'm sure will be writing two more blogs with very similar content, but still, I just wish they would have for once let the whole making millions of dollars thing go and made a quality movie actually using the book as a rather literal screenplay. I'm disappointed. Also, screw you Hollywood.
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