Do "The Hobbit"s Deserve the Hate?

June 28, 2022 | Dara Marie | @thornfield_lane

The quickest way to start a fight with a Tolkien fan is to say, “They should have just ridden the eagles to Mordor.” (I warn you not to test this. Just believe me when I tell you: it’s science).

A close second is saying, “I loved The Hobbit movies.” 
J.R.R.Tolkien’s The Hobbit was originally published in 1937 and received instant acclaim. This fantasy adventure tells the story of thirteen dwarves traveling to reclaim their stolen homeland and the halfling hobbit, Bilbo, who gets tagged along as their ‘burglar’. Complete with dragons, swords, magic rings, and elves, it was the modern start of a now beloved genre and led to its greater known successor, The Lord of the Rings.

Director Peter Jackson turned The Lord of the Rings from something only nerds knew to a household name with his film series that won a total of seventeen academy awards–the most for any fantasy film. A decade later, he returned to Middle Earth to tackle another trilogy, this time based on The Hobbit. These films received mixed reviews and the opposers have only grown larger and louder. 

I remember loving them, but I was also eleven, twelve, and thirteen years old respectively when each came out. My taste in movies as well as my understanding of Tolkien lore and storytelling as a whole has drastically changed. Seeing as how I haven’t rewatched a single Hobbit since The Battle of the Five Armies came out nearly eight years ago, I felt it was high time to revisit them with new eyes and see how they hold up. 

As a franchise, it has all the main elements of high fantasy: magic, a quest against evil, a unique world unlike Earth, and a complex and diverse cast of characters. It’s a pinnacle of the genre. 

As a part of Tolkien lore, it is an excellent companion to The Lord of the Rings. The book only focuses on Bilbo and the dwarves, but the films explore other events conspiring around this time that led to the original trilogy. In the extended versions, we hear the explanation of what happened to the seven dwarf rings, which is a question my lesser well-read older brother has asked me regarding the lore. 

I was able to enjoy the plot’s significance to the world’s overall arc even though The Hobbit novel isn’t my favorite Tolkien work. 

As an adaptation: absolutely not. Nope. Uh-huh. Stop it. 

Naturally, things will have to change when you try to bring a book to the silver screen, but Peter Jackson went too far. He was trying to make a second Lord of the Rings but any book fan will tell you, that is not what The Hobbit is. While the Lord of the Rings is intricate with lore and languages and battles and high stakes, its predecessor is a whimsical adventure geared towards children. In no way is it a let’s-have-a-bunch-of-orcs-gets-graphically-beheaded-with-CGI. 

There simply isn’t enough source material from that single book to support a three-movie trilogy. Maybe two movies, but not three. There is so much filler that doesn’t need to be there.

My roommate is a massive Tolkien nerd like myself but she was so disappointed by the first two Hobbits that she refuses to watch the third. She even laughed when I told her I was about to watch it. Honestly, that is well within reason. 

The first movie is actually really good. It doesn’t derail too much from the novel and is enjoyable for book fans. The second one gets more into adder and filler, but it’s still clearly the Hobbit. The last one did not need to be two and a half hours. Could have been one hour and sufficed. In the book, the battle of the five armies takes up two, maybe four pages at most. It’s a solid hour and a half of pure CGI. And not even great CGI. Just plastic-looking CGI. 

I wonder if it would have been better if it had been made closer to The Lord of the Rings, when CGI wasn’t as good. If it has been filmed in the same on-location, mostly prosthetics and minimal CGI, would it have felt so plastic?

For all my criticism, I don’t want to completely bash them. I will say I love the casting. Martin Freeman is a sensational Bilbo–his little quirks never fail to make me laugh. Andy Serkis and Ian Mckellan reprising their famous roles are beyond satisfying. I could talk about how the dwarves don’t match their book descriptions, but considering how breathless I got any time Thorin, Kili, or Fili came on screen, I feel it would be hypocritical. 

So, I enjoy The Hobbits to an extent. They’re entertaining and fun to watch with other people so you can crack jokes and go on nerdy rants the whole time (I can neither confirm nor deny how many explanations of the book, The Silmarillion, and other miscellaneous Tolkien facts my boyfriend had to endure while we watched the trilogy). I acknowledge them as attempts to continue Tolkien’s lore and respect the effort. As adaptations, however, I mourn for fellow book nerds. 

What do you think of The Hobbits? Do you think they deserve the hate? I'd love to hear from you! You can connect with me through thornfield.lane@gmail.com or on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Twitter: @thornfield_lane.