Good morning gamers,
Usually, Centaur does our "top ten" posts, but I've been thinking a lot about the various film adaptations that we have for Middle-Earth and figured someone on this platform ought to finally put them in a ranking. Those of us who are excited for new Middle-Earth content and "going back to Middle-Earth" are probably at least a little interested in how the Hunt for Gollum is going to go, so in preparation for that, feast on the following Top Ten list, though I will begin with a couple of quick caveats . . .
First, this is NOT going to include TV shows - which means you will not be seeing either seasons of Rings of Power in this article. Telling a story through 6-8hrs of TV time isn't a fair comparison to the 1.5-4hrs that a film can cover - that, and I know people can have polarizing views on the series. I will keep my opinion about the series to myself (though I think I will not be alone in sharing that I thought the storytelling in Season 2 was tighter than Season 1, perhaps because it had most of its characters introduced in Season 1), but as most of you might be able to guess if you've read this blog for any period of time, I'm generally pretty optimistic and positive about things - and if I can search for good in something, I usually find it.
Second, just because I rank a film on the lower side of the scale doesn't mean there's nothing good in it. Building off the previous thought, there are good things to be found in all of the films we're about to view - but it appears to me that the greatest reason people rank things poorly is because of the "deviation from expectation". If you came to a film like The Desolation of Smaug and expected it to cover just what was in the Hobbit (more on this later), you were probably disappointed - and if you're like my wife, you probably thought that much of the fighting in the Battle of Five Armies and the extra-canonical relationship stuff from the Desolation of Smaug could have been dropped to make the trilogy into two films. Fair enough - those were deviations from your expectations and you're more than justified in feeling that way.
While I will try to manage my criticisms of the films, please understand going into this that my reviews will still be pretty positive - I'm not here to bash someone else's creative genius and I certainly don't think I could have made any of these films better than their creators. I am a fan of all things Middle-Earth and I love a good story - so the films that get me the most immersed into the world and that tell a well-contained story are going to rate well . . . and those that don't will rate less well. With that in mind, let's start off with . . .
#10: "The Lord of the Rings" - Animated Film (1978, 133min)
I first saw this film when I was a kid . . . and I'll be honest, it was early 2002 when I saw it, so I had already seen the Peter Jackson version of The Fellowship of the Ring and was excited for the release of The Two Towers. This film . . . does not stand up well to the test of time in my opinion. For its day, the film was actually quite good - it used paper cartoon animation for all of the Forces of Good characters, while many of the Evil characters were played by live actors who interacted in . . . odd ways with both the animated characters and the cameras. The Orcs in the film look like Tusken Raiders from Tatooine and Treebeard looked like a walking carrot. Maybe you're good with that, but if your expectations are different, maybe this isn't so good.
Another recurring critique that I have of it is that the rights were bought for both The Fellowship of the Ring AND The Two Towers, and instead of doing one animated film for each, both books were crammed into a roughly two-hour film . . . which meant that the content covered was mostly Fellowship and some of Towers. The story is very abbreviated, though as you'll see is true of many of the animated films in this list, many of the songs were retained. This might be because children were a primary target audience, but that's speculation on my part. One might critique the film heavily for how poorly it's aged.
At the same time, however, the idea of mixing live actors with animated characters was . . . kind of what made the Peter Jackson films (especially The Two Towers and The Return of the King) succeed. The techniques and methods that were used in the late 1970s were more or less reused-but-done-better in the late 1990s by Peter Jackson and his crew. With the help of computers instead of "just paper", the transition between live acting and computer-generated acting was seamless - but the ideas for doing this probably had their roots in the 1970s film.
Additionally, as much as one might complain about how poorly the film aged, one must remember that before 2001, this was one of only three film adaptations of Tolkien's legendarium - so even if "it is bad", it was still foundational for getting many Tolkien fans "into the door" and experiencing Middle-Earth. Two of my kids have read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings - and the animated films have certainly helped get them excited to go on the journey. For this, I'm grateful . . . but my gratitude is not enough to raise this film out of tenth place.
#9: The Desolation of Smaug - Live-Action Film (2013, 163min)
The Desolation of Smaug is "the middle film" in the Peter Jackson Hobbit trilogy - and like most "middle films", it doesn't have the opportunity to present the story for the first time and it doesn't get to close it. Its task in the trilogy is to present roughly three chapters of the book and fill in the gaps for what the characters away from Bilbo are doing, as presented in the Tale of Years in the Appendices of The Return of the King. What happened with Gandalf, the rest of the White Council, and a little about the people of Lake-town were all "added" to The Hobbit narrative for completeness . . . and these additions can get a lot of people into a snit.
As much as adding information to the story from the Tale of Years might get some people bent out of shape, probably more people are bothered by the stuff that was "just added." Tauriel's entire character is made up, as are characters like Bard's daughters and Alfrid the Councilor. Other characters are referenced in the books or the Tale of Years (like Bain, Son of Bard and "the Master of Lake-town"), but don't have much in the way of character development in the book. The fact that these characters get a fair bit of time in the sun is both good for the development of characters in a film . . . and an annoyance to purists. I'm not sure how you win in this dilemma, so we're going to leave it alone without probing further.
What I liked about this film is that while the story it's trying to tell doesn't end satisfactorily (though I think I think the ending is brilliant), the story begins with a reach back to before the first film and sets the context for why the journey to the Lonely Mountain is important. This is, in fact, the most important part of the whole film - returning home - and in many ways provides an important narrative for why defending Erebor from invasion is so necessary for the Dwarves in the third film. While there are certainly critics of this film (and I've put it next to last in this ranking), I'm glad the second and third films weren't merged together, but more on that in a bit when we get to the Battle of Five Armies.
Also, the film is only 30min longer than the Lord of the Rings animated film, making it the shortest live-action film on our list today. I'm glad more wasn't added "just because" and I'm not sure I would have added anything else to the film myself. That said, when compared to the other films on this list, I have to rank it low because the story hops around too much for my liking. There are some absolutely fabulous lines that I borrow all the time (and the cameo appearances in the film are excellent). As much as I like this film, I still have to put it below . . .
#8: "The Return of the King" - Animated Film (1980, 98min)
Released just two years after the animated version of Fellowship-and-Towers, the amazing skills of Rankin-Bass released the animated version of the Return of the King. I remember watching this film several times as a youth in prep for the Peter Jackson Return of the King film and it's a pretty decent movie. The film is a pretty standard 1.5hrs for an animated film of its day (and even today, you don't see many going beyond 90min) and it tells . . . well, basically everything in The Return of the King! So why so low if it's doing so much?
The parts that it chops off are the kinds of things that, if I'm honest, I think would have been good to include in the film, both for its internal consistency and for covering the movement of the story in general. Like the animated Hobbit film that Rankin-Bass did a few years earlier (more on that film later), this film focuses greatly on the development of the Hobbits - to the exclusion, sometimes, of everyone else. Frodo and Sam get a lot of time (as they should) and Pippin gets a fair bit too (as he also should). Merry is lost a bit in the crossfire, but the link both at the beginning and the end to Bilbo is a welcome sight for those of us who saw the animated Hobbit film first. I have to say, the distilling of the story to "what happened to the Hobbits" is a good choice for those who are trying to connect to children (who might feel like Hobbits sometimes) and for bringing a complex story with a lot of characters down to a manageable number.
And yet, we don't have the Scouring of the Shire in this film - and you'd think that if the focus was on the Hobbits that this would show up. Instead, the film ends with Bilbo and Frodo sailing off into the west, but their adventure ends when the Ring is destroyed. I'm not saying I would have done better by adding the Scouring to this film, but it's a little sad that it isn't there. Similarly, because so much of the film is focused on the Hobbits, the development of characters like Aragorn, Eowyn, and Theoden is next to zero - Aragorn isn't even introduced until the Black Ships arrive and because Rankin-Bass didn't have the rights to do the first two films, he's not really known and his arrival feels a bit . . . out of nowhere if you haven't also read the books. He's also displayed as a bit of an arrogant and proud man, which I think misses the mark. Since this film might introduce kids to the world of Middle-Earth, it would have been nice to get a scene with the Grey Company (and heck, see more Rohan development) than we get in the film.
For all my griping, this film is an EXCELLENT telling of the Return of the King if you only have 100min to work with. However, we don't have 100min to work with in most of the other films we're looking at, so I'm ranking this one eighth. It's good, but it's not quite as good as . . .
#7: "The Battle of Five Armies" - Live-Action Film (2014, 144min)
The Battle of Five Armies was "the big war film" from the Hobbit Trilogy, but for me, while there was less jumping around in it than in The Desolation of Smaug, there was still quite a bit of jumping around. The beginning of the film is very exciting with Smaug's attack on Lake-town and the ending of the film is very good (bringing emotions out of a lot of characters that don't seem forced to me and that brings empathy to where everyone ended up). The middle can get a bit slow - and the extended cut of the film gets GORY - but it's a fun film and a lot is going on in it.
This film, like The Desolation of Smaug, does get some critique - most of which I don't think is very deserved. The love story between Kili and Tauriel (to say nothing of the love story between Tauriel and Legolas) is completely manufactured, but if you read the books (as I do every year), you'll know that the deaths of Thorin, Kili, and Fili happen off-screen and while losing Thorin feels like a rough thing, the characters of Kili and Fili aren't developed much in the book, so the fact that they die doesn't feel like a big deal. I like that there's more emotion when Kili and Fili die than what we get in the book (and yes, it's not a pretty thing and for Kili's death, we needed something NOT in the book to really drive it home, but I like it all the same).
I like the film - it's fun to watch and fun to paint to - but I have to put it in the bottom-half because it jumps around too much. I also kind of wish that there were some words during the credits about what happened to each of the members of Thorin's Company according to the books (Balin visiting Bilbo in the Shire before going to Moria with Oin and Ori, the rest faithfully serving Dain). I don't mind that the final scene of the Hobbit book (Balin and Gandalf visiting Bilbo) doesn't show up as the final scene of the film - having a transition back into the opening of the Jackson Fellowship film was an excellent touch. Still, there's a lot of storytelling that needs to happen in this film and I'm not sure it does it all well. I rather prefer, in a move that will probably surprise (and maybe even upset) people, the storytelling in . . .
#6: "The War of the Rohirrim" - Animated Film (2024, 134min)
The War of the Rohirrim is the latest venture into the world of Middle-Earth and takes a few lines from the Appendices of The Return of the King and explores how the death of Helm Hammerhand might have occurred. The story mostly centers around his daughter, Hera, and is told via the animated modicum of anime . . . which I haven't ventured into much, but I still enjoyed it. I haven't bought it yet and I've only watched it once, but I've love the new GW models and I thought the story itself was interesting and new.
And yet, the story also felt old - anime films do love their monsters and the inclusion of Mumaks, Great Eagles, and a Watcher in the Water felt like there was far more to Rohan back then than we see in the Jackson films. While this was an animated film, the fact that the team at WETA was involved with the film meant that the Rohirrim architecture, clothing, and weaponry (to say nothing of the famed fortress of Helm's Deep) felt right out of the live action films. One might object to some of the dialogue in the film, but I thought it was fine and certainly good when compared to other anime dialogue I've heard.
That said, the story itself is hard to find as compelling as many other Middle-Earth adaptations because this is the only film that doesn't have a story you can sit down and read in order to get more out of it. Yes, you could sit down with the Tale of Years and read a single paragraph . . . but that hardly counts. The story is good and it's told well, but it's just not as compelling as the other adaptations because this film is really all you have. I love the models in our beloved game that were inspired by the film - and if you haven't played around with the army lists from the film, you really should - so I'm happy to put it at the top of the bottom half, but it simply could not compete with . . .
#5: "The Two Towers" - Live-Action Film (2002, 179min)
Okay, putting any of the original three Jackson films below fourth place is probably going to make someone mad, but if you're going to give one of the films lower than fourth place, it's probably The Two Towers. Let me start by saying that this film is not only one of my favorite films of all time, but it has my favorite opening of any film I've ever seen. I didn't watch Fellowship in the theatres, but I did go to see Towers in the theatres - and I was absolutely blown away as we fell with Gandalf down into the belly of Moria, chasing and hacking the Balrog the entire way. I still get chills when I watch the film at home (on a projector screen not nearly as large as the movie theatre), but golly does it take me back and I love so many parts of the film (but especially the opening).
That said, this is perhaps the most jump-around-the-place of all the Jackson films - Hobbit trilogy included. Because Merry and Pippin spend the entire film away from everyone else, because Sam and Frodo are always away from everyone else, and because Aragorn is occasionally separated from everyone else, we hop around from group to group pretty quickly. Even within these arcs, we get hoppage (Frodo and Sam aren't in all of Faramir's scenes, Aragorn isn't always with Theoden, and we get cameos from Elrond and Galadriel as well - who are near none of our primary characters). There's a lot of hopping - and that can weary some people.
But we also get the defense of Helm's Deep, which not only benefits greatly from the hopping around (so we don't get battle fatigue), but also remains one of my favorite city defense scenes in the films. Helm's Deep isn't massive like Minas Tirith or Osgiliath, so you can mentally keep track of where everyone is, even when we're hopping around to different parts of the fortress. There's also something very exciting about having a limited amount of space to work that makes you excited to see how things are going as the battle progresses. This film is just shy of 3hrs in its original form, which makes it the longest film we've viewed so far.
Besides hopping around, however, there are critiques that this film portrays things that aren't in the book. I've heard critiques of Aragorn's hesitancy to do what he should, the way he interacts with Eowyn (leading her on?), and the reduction of Gimli into a comical side-kick instead of the chivalric knight that he is in the books. All of these critiques may be true - but Aragorn is unsure of what he's supposed to do in the books (especially in Towers), he has a very complicated (and I'm not convinced fully Platonic) relationship with Eowyn, and Gimli does like to reference the beauty and wonderfulness of Galadriel in every other utterance he has in the book (though he is otherwise not as comical as we see in the films). So . . . critique the film if you must, but I think it's pretty great.
When it comes to more closely adapting the source material to the film and not hopping around as much, I think fourth place very solidly (even over this film from the original trilogy) goes to . . .
#4: "An Unexpected Journey" - Live-Action Film (2012, 169min)
The first of the Hobbit Films, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, weighs in at just over 2.5hrs, which is a little shy of the Two Towers, but also tells about half of the book from The Hobbit. As is the nature of the story it's patterned after, this tale doesn't have a lot of hopping around in it and you follow the characters of Bilbo and Thorin throughout the whole of it. While The Desolation of Smaug is very focused on returning home, this story is very much focused on why one would leave home - nearly every encounter makes Bilbo ask the question, "Why the heck did I leave my comfortable house to go on an extended and poorly-planned backpacking trip with a bunch of strangers?" I ask similar questions sometimes on Scouting outings, but I digress . . .
The biggest critique of this film is probably that it still departs from the source material - even though the story itself brings in elements of the book that are obscure (that scene with the stone giants? Yeah, it's in the book - check it out). The addition of Azog as a primary antagonist - a guy who dies to Dain's hand in the Tale of Years at the Battle of Azanulbizar (and no, despite my love for all things Dwarf in The Lord of the Rings, I can never remember how to spell this battle without looking it up) - and the silliness of Radagast (who doesn't even show up in the book) can detract from the otherwise close-telling of the story. Also . . . my kids think that the extended edition scene of the Dwarves in the water fountain is ridiculously funny and at the same time incredibly crude and gross. For the record, I don't disagree on this point.
For my part, I really like that many of the songs from the book - and even a song from Fellowship - made their way into the film. Music was important for Tolkien and it helps to keep the different races distinct and deepens an appreciation for their cultures. In the extended edition especially, we get Bofur's rousing chorus of a song that Bilbo wrote and Frodo sings in Fellowship, as well as a . . . well, not-well-performed song by the Goblin King. It's all very great and adds immensely to the feel of the film (and in my mind, makes it very, very Tolkien-y).
I also really love how each of the Dwarves gets their own feel - no, they don't have equal time (and I think Jackson and Co. did a good job prioritizing Balin, Thorin, Fili, and Kili - though I'm most happy with the way they developed Bofur . . . who honestly isn't a character at all in the books and doesn't have any reason to be prioritized in the films, except as the sympathetic soul for Bilbo). On the whole, I think this was important for the film to work and I'm glad it was done the way that it was. But as great as this film is (and I do think it's great), I think there's a definite gulf between it and . . .
#3: "The Return of the King" - Live-Action Film (2003, 201min)
There are only three films in the history of the Academy Awards to win 11 Awards: Ben-Hur, Titanic, and The Lords of the Rings: The Return of the King - and out of these films, only one got a "clean sweep", winning all of the awards it was nominated for. It grossed over $1 billion, is the second-highest grossing film of all time (behind Gone with the Wind), and on an objective level, is probably the greatest movie ever made. Every time I watch it, there are scenes that move me so much that I start to cry - and I honestly can't help it. I love this film so very, very much.
I also saw it in theatres on opening night with a bunch of friends at 12:01am on December 17, 2003 - yes, I remember everything. I remember laughing out loud at the drinking game, I remember the shouts of disappointment as the screen faded to black with Frodo and Sam's "demise", and the rejoicing that followed a few moments later when the screen lit back up. I remember cheering heartily when it was over, looking at my friends, and saying, "that was so awesome". It was a night to remember . . . and we were all pretty under-slept the following day. Youth might be wasted on the young, but not that night . . .
The film itself is stellar and well-deserving of all the Academy Awards it received. Like the other films in its trilogy, the film holds up to rewatching (even if there's a scene or two where Legolas's digital arrows were omitted). The story jumps around a bit, but mostly because it needs to break up all of the fighting so we don't get fatigued. This film certainly jumps around more than An Unexpected Journey, but the satisfaction of the story throughout, I think, forgives it a bit and makes the whole thing better. Many of the jumps are also moving from one powerful scene to another, so you don't feel a let-down as you move from a storyline you like to a storyline you don't like as much. All in all, it's a thoroughly enjoyable film.
Every time I watch it, I do wonder if it's better than Fellowship - but then again, every time I watch Towers, I wonder if that film is underrated a bit in my estimation. Since I've chosen to not give ties, I'm going to narrowly put this film right below . . .
#2: "The Fellowship of the Ring" - Live-Action Film (2001, 178min)
If any of you thought that The Fellowship of the Ring was going to be top dog (or The Return of the King), you're in good company - I thought so too before I started thoroughly planning this article. This film changed my life - my brothers (who you know as Rythbyrt and Centaur) and I were handed a massive tome of The Lord of the Rings for Christmas in 2001 and were told that the film for the first book was coming out on video (and DVD) in a few months. We were told that it was in the same world as The Hobbit (which we'd read) and if we could get through the book, we could watch the movie. I remember reading for a LONG time that winter and spring, trying to finish before we could borrow the film . . . and it was hard.
I finished it, started The Two Towers, and we borrowed the DVD from a friend . . . and golly were we blown away! The movie was a compact telling of the story, only omitting a few scenes (though my dear friends who object to not having Bombadil will find ample things to critique, even if they otherwise love the film). The movie cast each race in its own unique light and the characters were easy to tell apart. We immediately started to print out uniforms for Lego guys so we could have armies of Elves, Orcs, and Men - and of course, we started reading Towers so we could watch it in theatres. My life was never the same.
But while Fellowship was certainly a world-changing film for me when I first saw it, it has actually grown in my estimation since then. As an impressionable teenager in 2001, of course I loved the film - I also enjoyed The Attack of the Clones . . . a film that has not aged well with me (but I do have a soft spot for the Geonosis arena). This film has incredibly good storytelling - not just in how it tells the story (very little jumping around, a good mix of somber and light-hearted tones, and great dialogue), but the story it has to tell is incredibly good. Frodo is both nobody and really quite somebody in the story. Sam is both nobody and a real somebody in the story. Aragorn is hardly nobody to the people who know him, but he's lived as a nobody for ages by choice. These guys, along with an unlikely cast of characters, join together to do the impossible - and they do it full knowing that they may not come home when it's over. The story gets better and better every time I watch it and there are quotes that I pull from that film all the time that I fit easily into everyday conversation. If that doesn't make a good film, I have no idea what does.
But this film isn't, I think, the best adaptation of Tolkien as a film. For that, I need to go back further than 2001 to the year 1998, when I first watched . . .
#1: "The Hobbit" - Animated Film (1977, 78min)
I had to look up the stats on this film and I can't believe what I saw. This film, released in 1977 by Rankin-Bass, was done on a budget of $3million . . . yes, that little (and yet so much for an animated film at the time!). The Hobbit is only 78min long, making it the shortest of the films that we've viewed today, and yet it's the most accurate telling of any of Tolkien's works. It was also my first introduction to Middle-Earth and has similarly been my children's first introduction to Middle-Earth. While my older two children had to read the book before they could watch the film, all four of my children have seen it and adore the storytelling in it.
The music is amazing - my kids will randomly be singing things like "Fifteen birds / in five fir trees . . ." or "Down, down to Goblin-town . . ." or "That's what Bilbo Baggins hates . . ." as they're going through their exciting lives and might not even notice how the music sticks with them. Every now and again, the songs get stuck in my head while I'm at work because, well, they're that good. I love the songs and they come straight out of the book in a way that changes the way I listen to the audiobook (and I'm certain that both Peter Jackson and Andy Serkis who narrates the most recent version of the Hobbit audiobook leaned on these original ditties as they came up with their own takes). I won't argue with you if you think the live action films improved on any of these, but golly do I love the music.
The story is also incredibly true to the tale - Beorn is omitted, true, and we don't really get battle scenes in it, but these help keep the story light-hearted enough for kids to enjoy and yet the story is still engaging for those of us who have read the story a lot or watched the "grown up versions" a few times. Going back to this film - especially with my kids - is a joy for me and when my older kids were watching the Jackson films for the first time, the go-to choice for my younger lads to watch for their movie night in a different room was, of course, this film - the version of Middle-Earth that they were allowed to watch.
This is also a film that I honestly can't fault - perhaps I'm blind, but I don't know what you need to add to make it better. Yes, if we added 12min of film to make an even 90 minutes, we could have covered Beorn - but that's literally it. Any film that stands that well to criticism really does deserve to be top dog . . . at least in my book.
Conclusion: Why We Care
Top Ten posts are intended, by their nature, to stir up discussion - and when we are looking at film adaptations of books that we love, we might differ on which ones we think are the best. If you're not hot on the animated films (or the Hobbit trilogy), that's fine - you do you. If you think Return of the King has to be top dog, I don't really disagree with you - even without hearing your reasoning! If you think that all of these films are destructions on a perfectly great compendium of written words . . . okay, we may need to have a discussion - or you could just read our articles in Literary Corner on the subject of books vs. films. :)
However you choose to dice it, we all find different methods of storytelling that makes us love things more or less than others. The reason we have these is because good storytelling matters - and hopefully you found something that you didn't know before in this article that makes you appreciate these films just a bit more than you did before finding it. If you have a different ranking (or a story about why you like one of these films over the others), we'd love to hear about it in the comments below! Until next time, happy hobbying!
No comments:
Post a Comment