What do you think of the Film Adaptations of LOTR and the Hobbit?

[Vladd67]

I'm just impressed how many films they managed to squeeze out such a short children's book. I can understand LOTRs being split into three films, but the Hobbit?

 

[HareBrain]

I'm just impressed how many films they managed to squeeze out such a short children's book

A lot happens in the book, though; it's just concisely narrated. I think it could easily have made three 90-minute films without feeling at all stretched, though two longer ones would have been better.

 

[paeng]

They're OK, but the problem lies with the novels themselves, i.e., lots of adverbs, lack of adult themes, like those involving sex and religious belief. Also, the recent TV show isn't that good.

 

[Bick]

They're OK, but the problem lies with the novels themselves

I don't think this is a strong argument, given how good the novels are, and how rotten the Hobbit movies are.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

They're OK, but the problem lies with the novels themselves, i.e., lots of adverbs, lack of adult themes, like those involving sex

For The Hobbit, at least, adult themes involving sex would be completely inappropriate, considering that it's a children's book.

And what the over-use of adverbs in a novel has to do with the quality of a film based on that novel, I sincerely fail to see.

 

[paranoid marvin]

A lot happens in the book, though; it's just concisely narrated. I think it could easily have made three 90-minute films without feeling at all stretched, though two longer ones would have been better.

A lot happens in Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone, that was neatly wrapped up inside 2.5 hours. Minimise the huge battle at the end and cut out Gandalfs' excursion to investigate the Necromancer, and there's no real reason why it couldn't fit into one movie.

I think the main issue is that they didn't even try to make it into a single movie. It feels like right from the offset they were faced with the task of making it into a three movie epic, and so had to add lots of stuff not included (or merely hinted at) in the book and drag out scenes to the point that they become overly-long.

 

[paranoid marvin]

In my opinion, The Hobbit is a book accessible by readers of all ages. I would hesitate to call it a 'children's book' as there are themes included that wouldnt necessarily resonate with younger readers, or those less world-wise.

After all, Bilbo is 50 years old at the beginning of the story. For those of us of a similar age, who are now quite happily settled into a sedentary lifestyle; how would we feel if an old friend knocked on our door and asked us to go on an adventure? How would we react to our worlds being turned upside down?

I think it's far more likely for an adult to relate to the reluctance of the protagonist than a child who would jump at the chance of an adventure.

Whilst the lack of female characters is one of the few disappointments (it would have been fun to have had at least a couple of female dwarves in the company), the absence of sex and religion is only to the advantage of the story.

 

[Pyan]

I would hesitate to call it a 'children's book' as there are themes included that wouldnt necessarily resonate with younger readers, or those less world-wise.

After all, Bilbo is 50 years old at the beginning of the story. For those of us of a similar age, who are now quite happily settled into a sedentary lifestyle; how would we feel if an old friend knocked on our door and asked us to go on an adventure? How would we react to our worlds being turned upside down?

I think it's far more likely for an adult to relate to the reluctance of the protagonist than a child who would jump at the chance of an adventure.

The problem with this is that the book was written for, and told to as it was written, Tolkien's children at the ages of 13, 10, and 6.
When the manuscript was complete, JRRT lent it to a student of his to read, who then lent it to an employee of George Allen & Unwin, the publishers. She in turn was so impressed that she gave it to Stanley Unwin, a partner in the firm, who asked his son, Rayner (aged ten), to review it - and it was based on his enthusiastic response that Unwin agreed to publish the book.

Whilst the lack of female characters is one of the few disappointments

Ah, but this was written for boys in the 1930s. You might as well regret that Tintin didn't have a girlfriend, and Biggles wasn't married...

 

[HareBrain]

I think it's far more likely for an adult to relate to the reluctance of the protagonist than a child who would jump at the chance of an adventure.

But I think the idea is not for the reader to sympathise with Bilbo's reluctance, it's for them to urge him to get over that and go.

And a children's book that all ages can happily read is not *not* a children's book, it's just a good children's book.

 

[Dave]

When I moved schools at the age of about 8, the class I joined was half way through the reading The Hobbit, at the end of the every day by the class teacher. When we finished the book, the class had enjoyed it so much that they asked to start it over again from the beginning. And so we did! Definitely a book written with children in mind, and probably a very big influence on what genres I still read today. Thank you teacher! And thank you class too, otherwise I would never have heard the start!

I think it's an almost perfect book, so any problems with the film adaptation have nothing to do with the book. Like others, I'm also at a complete loss about it's perceived problem with too little sex and adult themes, or adverbs. Is it really a book written for only for boys? It was written when society had barriers that prevented women from seeking a life of adventure or danger, or even a career, but that had never stopped women from wishing for a life beyond such gender roles. When I was young, I can't remember ever asking myself if a hobbit was male or female, and the elves in the book were deliberately androgynous, although I would never have understood that word, or it's meaning at the age of 8.

 

[paranoid marvin]

I accept all the reasons mentioned above, I just feel that sometimes it is viewed as a book for children because of the style in which it was written.

Yes, I suppose you could see the point in children urging Bilbo to get up off backside and go on an adventure; but only an adult who has settled down into a comfortable style of life can appreciate what it must have taken for him yo actually do it.

Tolkien I think was mid 30s when he wrote the book, which (in human years) is roughly equivalent to the age Bilbo would have been. I think that he was quite a settled person who rarely travelled, so perhaps part of The Hobbit was JRR himself.

Often in stories we like to put ourselves in place of the protagonist. In some children's books for example BFG as younger readers we would be Sophie, as older readers perhaps the BFG himself. In Charlie and the Chocolate factory we might be Charlie or Grandpa - perhaps even Wonka.

As adults it's much easier to put ourselves in the place of Bilbo, less easy as children. In fact I think all of the characters in the story are adult males.

My comment earlier about no female characters wasn't meant as a criticism. Times were what they were, and an adventure story for boys was less likely to include females in any meaningful way. I just think that it would have added something to the story to have had a couple of female dwarves, as on the whole (and apart from Thorin) they are quite indistinguishable from each other.

 

[HareBrain]

I think that he was quite a settled person who rarely travelled, so perhaps part of The Hobbit was JRR himself.

He admitted there were many similarities, and described himself as a "homebody".

 

[paeng]

I don't think this is a strong argument, given how good the novels are, and how rotten the Hobbit movies are.

Here's the rest of the post: " lots of adverbs, lack of adult themes, like those involving sex and religious belief. Also, the recent TV show isn't that good."

I think Tom Shippey gave similar views. From what I remember, he pointed out that they're all children's books, which is why unlike Beowulf and other works which Tolkien taught, they don't contain such themes, but they became popular only after young adults started reading them during the 1960s.

The last point is notable because from what I read Tolkien was a medievalist who wrote the novels for children so that when they grew up they could move to reading the great medieval works of Europe.

 

[paeng]

For The Hobbit, at least, adult themes involving sex would be completely inappropriate, considering that it's a children's book.

And what the over-use of adverbs in a novel has to do with the quality of a film based on that novel, I sincerely fail to see.

From what I remember, they're all supposed to be children's books.

I think the lack of adverbs, among others, would have led to more leeway in the film adaptations, which I found as ordinary as the source material.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

From what I remember, they're all supposed to be children's books.

Then I am afraid you remember incorrectly.

You seem to ascribe a mighty power to adverbs, if you think they could prevent film-makers from doing as they chose with the source material (any source material) they happened to be working with. As it happens, Jackson's movies—all of them, even the LOTR films—strayed quite far from the books. So it seemed he didn't need any leeway at all to do what he wanted with and to Tolkien's story.

 

[paeng]

Then I am afraid you remember incorrectly.

You seem to ascribe a mighty power to adverbs, if you think they could prevent film-makers from doing as they chose with the source material (any source material) they happened to be working with. As it happens, Jackson's movies—all of them, even the LOTR films—strayed quite far from the books. So it seemed he didn't need any leeway at all to do what he wanted with and to Tolkien's story.

Tolkien was writing for children, and he wanted them to read LOTR so that when they grew up they would read the great works of Medieval Europe, which he taught as a medievalist. Also, his most memorable work for those in the same field isn't LOTR but his paper on Beowulf.

One reason why the novels are written for children is because they don't have much by way of sex or religious beliefs, which are adult themes and are readily seen in Beowulf, the Nibelungenlied, and other works. In any event, such works are properly studied in higher education, which includes the very medieval studies field that Tolkien developed.

What about adverbs and those lack of adult themes? They imply that Tolkien was not so much a professional fictionist as he was an academician, but in this case was encountering a world where people were more inclined to shield children from the horrors of reality, which he understood after fighting in the Great War. Hence, he opted for a writing style that younger children could find appealing and themes that could understand.

Most important is one theme that might be anti-industrial in nature. There's a curious anecdote about him disliking television and so on, and the point that he would have probably strongly disapproved of film versions of his books, as he wanted children to read them so that when they grew older they would read the great works that he admired. Perhaps his experiences of the war had something to do with it, but he thought of seeing a return to Avalon.

Finally, I remember offering something related in one uni class when the movies came out: one film review implied that even though we cheered for the hobbits and other heroes we live in what is essentially a world driven by mechanization, quantification, and hierarchies. And in that world, orcs win.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Tolkien was writing for children, and he wanted them to read LOTR so that when they grew up they would read the great works of Medieval Europe,

I can't imagine where you read that. Please share your source for that remarkable statement. The books are about war and the fear of death, about power and its temptations. Adult themes, even if they are not about sex, or on the surface about religion. (His works are deeply informed by Tolkien's Catholic faith, so my Catholic friends inform me.) His only intention that he ever wrote about was that at one point he meant to create a mythology for England.

but in this case was encountering a world where people were more inclined to shield children from the horrors of reality, which he understood after fighting in the Great War.

He was writing LOTR during WWII, when Hitler was bombing London. How do you imagine people like Tolkien could, or desired to, hide that ugly reality from children? His own children were, of course, adults by that point. Christopher, his younger son, was even serving in the military, with the RAF in South Africa, where Tolkien sent him parts of LOTR as he wrote them.

 

[paeng]

I can't imagine where you read that. Please share your source for that remarkable statement. The books are about war and the fear of death, about power and its temptations. Adult themes, even if they are not about sex, or on the surface about religion. (His works are deeply informed by Tolkien's Catholic faith, so my Catholic friends inform me.) His only intention that he ever wrote about was that at one point he meant to create a mythology for England.

He was writing LOTR during WWII, when Hitler was bombing London. How do you imagine people like Tolkien could, or desired to, hide that ugly reality from children? His own children were, of course, adults by that point. Christopher, his younger son, was even serving in the military, with the RAF in South Africa, where Tolkien sent him parts of LOTR as he wrote them.

They came from three articles, and I think one from Shippey. I'll let you know if I find them.

Tolkien fought in WW1, especially in the Battle of the Somme, and was greatly affected by it:

Opinion | How J.R.R. Tolkien Found Mordor on the Western Front (Published 2016)

The Battle of the Somme, a century ago, left its mark on the “Lord of the Rings” author.

www.nytimes.com

In a lecture delivered in 1939, “On Fairy-Stories,” Tolkien explained that his youthful love of mythology had been “quickened to full life by war.” Yet he chose not to write a war memoir, and in this he departed from contemporaries like Robert Graves and Vera Brittain.

In the postwar years, the Somme exemplified the waste and futility of battle, symbolizing disillusionment not only with war, but with the very idea of heroism. As a professor of Anglo-Saxon back at Oxford, Tolkien preferred the moral landscape of Arthur and Beowulf. His aim was to produce a modern version of the medieval quest: an account of both the terrors and virtues of war, clothed in the language of myth.

Later, his son expressed a dislike of Jackson's films:

JRR Tolkien's son Christopher dies aged 95

Youngest son of Lord of the Rings author was responsible for editing and publishing much of his father’s work

www.theguardian.com

Although he worked tirelessly to protect his father’s legacy, he was not impressed by what he saw as the commercialisation of his work. He was famously critical of Peter Jackson’s Oscar-winning film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings. In a 2012 interview with the French newspaper Le Monde, he said: “They gutted the book, making an action film for 15-to-25-year-olds.”

He also said: “Tolkien has become a monster, devoured by his own popularity and absorbed by the absurdity of our time,” and that “the commercialisation has reduced the aesthetic and philosophical impact of the creation to nothing”.

I think his father's reference to Avalon was similar, and which might explain why the villains in his books represent industrialization:

J.R.R. Tolkien’s little-known feud with cars

Tolkien couldn't stand cars, and his philosophy of embracing walking and biking might just be the key to a hobbit's happy and cheerful life.

aleteia.org

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he named the villain in The Hobbit Smaug, like the smog of factories and machines.

He referred to “destroying Oxford in order to accommodate motor-cars” as an example of “the spirit of ‘Isengard,’ if not of Mordor.”

See also,

The Biggest Villain in Lord of the Rings Wasn’t Sauron - But Industrialization

The Lord of the Rings has many obvious villains from Sauron to Saruman, yet the less obvious one may have been the most dangerous to Middle-earth.

www.cbr.com

Throughout The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien makes his disdain for industrialization clear. The garden-pastures of the idyllic Shire to Tom Bombadil’s stewardship of the Old Forest show Tolkien's love for nature. While the wrath of the Ents at Isengard to the hyper-industrialized descriptions of Mordor, it is clear that Tolkien considers industrialization closely linked to corruption. This disdain for industrialization is matched only by a reverence for the natural world, even while acknowledging its peril.

This is not an unconscious link on Tolkien’s part. In the Foreword to the Second Edition of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien writes, “The country in which I lived in childhood was being shabbily destroyed before I was ten, in days when motorcars were still rare objects (I had never seen one) and men were still building suburban railyways.” Even Tolkien, who venomously rejects reading The Lord of the Rings as an allegory, acknowledges his experiences’ impact on the tale. The War of the Ring is the transitional period between the third and fourth age of Middle-earth. Tolkien and the story together mourn the world that is passing away.

Finally, this might explain not only what you state is my remarkable statement but the last point of my previous post: it's a story that mourns "the world that is passing away" and replaced by an orc world that is entertained by the same.

 

[The Big Peat]

A little digging reveals this thread on Reddit in which someone asks who LotR was written for. Here are some of the quotes from Tolkien himself given by the answerers:

"this work was not particularely intended for children or any other category of people, but to all those who enjoy long and fascinanting stories, a kind that I [Tolkien] particularly love." (Unknown letter and translated from French so possibly not exactly word accurate)

"When I spoke, in an earlier letter to Mr Furth, of this sequel getting 'out of hand', I did not mean it to be complimentary to the process. I really meant it was running its course, and forgetting 'children', and was becoming more terrifying than the Hobbit. It may prove quite unsuitable. It is more 'adult' – but my own children who criticize it as it appears are now older. However, you will be the judge of that, I hope, some day!" (letter 34)

One is a sequel to 'The Hobbit' which I have just finished after 12 years (intermittent) labour. I fear it is 3 times as long, not for children (though that does not mean wholly unsuitable), and rather grim in places. I think it is very much better (in a different way). (letter 122)

I find that many children become interested, even engrossed, in The Lord of the Rings, from about 10 onwards. I think it rather a pity, really. It was not written for them. (letter 188)

And of course there is the foreword in which he does not mention age at all

"The prime motive was the desire of a tale-teller to try his hand at a really long story that would hold the attention of readers, amuse them, delight them, and at times maybe excite them or deeply move them. As a guide I had only my own feelings for what is appealing or moving, and for many the guide was inevitably often at fault." (Foreword)

I would say Tolkien's own words are clear. The work, which started as being suitable for children, mutated and by the end was categorically not intended for children by the end.


I would also suggest that for anyone thinking a lack of adult themes dooms a show to being bad, the problem is with them and not the show.

 

[paranoid marvin]

The style of writing used in LOTR is much more adult than that used in the Hobbit.

'Not intended' can be seen in different perspectives. Was it written with the intention of beung sold as a book for adults? Yes. Was it intended to be inaccessible to children; well, whether it was or it it wasnt, it is.

I first read LOTR around the age of 12 or 13 (possibly younger) and I enjoyed and understood. Perhaps i didnt understand it as well as, or in a manner which the author intended, but i devoured it from cover to cover.

I was entranced by the Black Riders, and by far the most exciting part of the whole story was the journey from The Shire to Rivendell. At the time i wouldn't have appreciated the nuances, but I think yhat yhe same is true for The Hobbit.

Both Lord of the Rings and Hobbit can be enjoyed by adults and children alike. And each age stage of reading brings new meanings and revelations to the story being told.

Many kids of the era of the book had just lived through WW2, or the very hard (in the UK at least) financial times that followed. Britain was broke, and if you hadn't been bombed, evacuated or left an orphan or with parents severley traumatised by the war, you had queues for food and rationing; bombed out areas and unexploded bombs. What horrors could fiction deal you that you hadnt already experienced for real.

It's no wonder that people lapped up Tolkien's stories, and escaped - if only for a short while - in to a fantasy land with places like The Shire, and where the victory of good brought peace and plenty for all.

Sorry if I've gone on a little there, but I do think that the books of both The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings are intended for anyone - young or old - who has the imagination and proclivity to escape into a fantasy world where truth, honour, justice and friendship are the foundationstones of its existance.