Appendix 4: Journey’s End: about the adventure of “reading” “The Hobbit” after „The Battle of the Five Armies“, part 1 (About taking up the challenge)

What finally convinced me to look again at what I had written a year ago about reading the “Hobbit” films was that I took a day off the “real world” just after Christmas and watched the three extended cuts in succession. And I was so pleased to find how well they work “as one film”. Unlike the “Lord of the Rings” where the story is actually getting weaker towards the end, and there is kind of an anticlimactic feeling. Which, of course, is difficult to admit if, after all, it had been this totally special experience of discovering a new world. But now we have “The Hobbit”, and for me “The Hobbit” always HAD TO BE special. A situation to which I reacted in a typical manner by going into total denial. I honestly never watched a trailer or read anything beforehand about the filming, the characters, or the cast – which I am so glad NOT to have done after watching the “specials” when the extended cuts got out! Of course I would go to see it because I couldn’t miss seeing THIRTEEN dwarves … But that was it. I still find this very strange, but, in the end, it turned out as a really intelligent thing to do. I wasn’t even really looking forward to the extended cut of the third film, didn’t even watch it immediately when I bought it because I thought it would be just the battle being still longer. Which is basically true, by the way. But, what was really strange, when I saw the extended cut for the first time it “worked” like this: Though there were two really important scenes added to it (one being Thorin buried under the Mountain with the Arkenstone, which I had so much wanted to see!!!) I saw JUST the battle still being longer and suddenly doubted what I THOUGHT I had seen watching the cinematic version. But I had then done a really clever thing, which was watching the three films in succession in the cinema when I saw it for the first time. And when I did that now, with the three extended cuts, the battle was exactly the right size. And all the other scenes I so loved, even if they take up a comparatively small part of the film, again “worked” the way they were intended to. Even partly BETTER than they did before. And, like in the case of “The Desolation of Smaug”, the extended cut of “The Battle of the Five Armies” was rather a different film. Because in the extended cut the battle finally “made sense”, and it actually is what the final part of the book is about! But, together with the rest, the battle was again put into perspective, and so was the main “human issue” story of the film.

I enjoyed this experience so much and thought all the time: “I have been RIGHT, I have been RIGHT!” ( I mean what should I have made of the fact that they had TWICE put a scene into these movies that I would have put into it as one of my favourite moments which was NOT AT ALL a necessary scene for telling the story!) that I am now really looking forward to reading and editing what I have written about this experience. Even if a big part of it will be kind of redundant, and I probably would write a lot of it differently now. And I will put in these “editor’s notes” about how I see things now probably quite often. But I enjoy reading it as what it really had been: this “battle” about WANTING to read the story the way I understood it. And sometimes this is what it takes, and, in the end, I WON!

„The Hobbit – The Battle of the Five Armies“: last chance of getting everything right about that story, and, surprisingly: they did! Even when I saw the film for the first time I was able to “read” it completely and to see how right they have been about that story. The one that really matters. But it is always easier to say so afterwards. When the battle is done … “An Unexpected Journey” I saw expecting absolutely nothing – and it was great. “The Desolation of Smaug” I saw expecting too much and all the wrong things – so it was rather disappointing at first. I might even say it was a disaster. Seeing “The Battle of the Five Armies” I probably managed to expect the “right” things. But I would never have dreamt of raising my expectations that high!

I know: I should have known. And I probably did. It wasn’t before “The Hobbit” that I discovered ultimately what great achievements the Tolkien films actually are. I have always loved the beginning of “The Fellowship” when everything is dark, and then we hear this voice from the depth of time speaking what instantly became my favourite “bit” from “The Lord of the Rings”: “The world is changing. I feel it in the water …” But it wasn’t until I had finally seen “The Battle of the Five Armies” that I fully realized what great expectations had been triggered already at the beginning of “The Fellowship” and how much they would be fulfilled, for me, by the end of that journey. Of course we can now continue by watching the “Lord of the Rings” again, but “historically” these films were just the beginning.

There are a few things still to be dealt with before I am really going to start on this. The first is that I rather dislike “fantasy” – in literature as well as in film. I had only just started reading “The Lord of the Rings” when I saw “The Fellowship”, and it was probably the instant I heard that special voice speak that first sentence when I thought: This is great! I really must read this …  I remember that thought, and I think I had sensed already at the very beginning of the first film that THIS wasn’t about any “fantasy world”. This was about something completely different. And, from that instant, the films have always proved me right.

Of course the books and the films are about a lot of things. Especially things that people really like, like heroes, strange creatures, battles, weapons, blood and gore … I happen to like some of these things as well. Probably heroes, at least if they have sufficient cause for being one, certainly strange creatures – like dwarves! – and battles as well. (I found out about that strange predilection finally by reading Shakespeare’s history plays again because I understood then that this kind of politics without the battles would have been a bit like sex without orgasm. In the great scheme of things they might not have made much difference, but without them nobody would ever have FELT as if they had achieved anything. Before that I might have felt a little guilty about liking the Battle of the Hornburg so much.) Weapons and bloodshed as such I don’t fancy as much as most of the people who have used and “created” them in these films probably did. But with heroes and battles in the bargain you simply cannot avoid them. And, on the whole, people who tell me what I should or shouldn’t like have always made me suspicious.

So, blood and gore and crazy fighting I have always tolerated very well, or even liked where it really “meant” something in the film. But there is something I have never come to like. It is everything that still looks like playstation – and I think in “The Hobbit” there is even more of this than in the “Lord of the Rings” because in the meantime this has become a “look” generally accepted, maybe even desired, for “this kind of films”. And I am sure the “generation playstation” doesn’t mind, or maybe even notice!, that “The Hobbit” partly looks like “Game of Thrones”. But it isn’t “Game of Thrones” at all! – It is not that I mind the always increasing amount of technical innovation, cg creatures and effects as such. (Apart from what it does to the conditions actors have to work under so that we can see them in 3D – which I don’t like anyway, and almost everybody else I have spoken to doesn’t like any better!) In any case I didn’t mean the things, and especially digital creatures, that look great, which means amazing and “real”, like Gollum or Smaug do. Even the digital orcs in “The Hobbit” look much better than the “real” ones. I think Azog came out really great! But behind any of these creatures stands an actor who was able to make them feel so very special and alive! - What I really mind, and always did mind, are digital “stunts” that look as if anything was possible, even easy, because this makes things appear to be LESS instead of more and damages my perception of Middle-earth as a “real world” – an effect professor Tolkien had been able to achieve by making even the smallest thing feel as if there was an incredible amount of historical detail “behind” it. And that is what Peter Jackson tried to achieve as well. To a level unparalleled until now, I think. - Accordingly, I tried not to mind too much, so as not to spoil the films for myself. But sometimes the “playstation part” becomes predominant and tends to swallow up the “good bits” – which then come out just as “bits”. I really minded that and was afraid that this would inevitably happen in the “Battle of the Five Armies”: the film “going to bits” despite all the great work so many people had done on it. Surprisingly, and contrary to what many people appear to think, FOR ME, it didn’t happen!

The most important thing about me “as an audience” though is that I have always loved the dwarves so much. They have always been my favourite people in Middle-earth, and I am the only person I know who really missed them in “The Lord of the Rings”. And genuinely felt the loss when they travelled through Moria. Of course I know why I stubbornly refused to have any expectations about the “Hobbit” films at all! Thirteen dwarves might just have been too much of a good thing. Not unlike them, I was used to hardship – not to being spoiled like that. But, as I have learned seeing “The Hobbit”: there isn’t “too much of a good thing”. If it is really good. - And it was a good thing as well that I have never been able to imagine them, nor tried, because when I finally saw them I was just amazed. Maybe there were a few “bits” I didn’t like that much, but on the whole they were so great that I was prepared to tolerate that Thorin doesn’t have a dwarvish beard, as I instantly understood why they hadn’t done that, or even that Kíli neither looks nor “feels” like a dwarf at all. Well, maybe not that … But on the whole I was much more than content and just really happy about the first film. Like the little girl who finally gets exactly the thing for Christmas she has wished for, which can never happen in the “real world”. It felt as if I had just wandered into the land of my dreams … But by the time I had seen “The Desolation of Smaug” I had become painfully aware of what a special but really different audience that made me regarding these films. Because, in that way, I was really in for ALL the ups and downs on that journey.

I think, the main reason that “The Battle of the Five Armies”, contrary to “The Desolation of Smaug”, became such an instant success with me is that I had managed to understand until then how important the part about battles and war actually is for that story. One preliminary thing I haven’t mentioned is that I never liked reading “The Hobbit”. But, in the same way I came to read and love “The Lord of the Rings” AFTER having seen “The Fellowship”, I have at least come to appreciate “The Hobbit” as a totally fascinating text after having seen and digested “The Desolation of Smaug”. Because this is how it all began. And through my difficult reading of “The Desolation of Smaug” I developed a theory about how the original text had probably “come together”. Of course, for this to be a serious theory I should have read all the former versions of “The Hobbit” that have survived, and what Tolkien himself said about it, but mine is a very rough theory for “home use”.

As we know, it began with a single sentence that suddenly “hit” professor Tolkien when he was marking his students’ papers: “In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit.” Of course this might be legend already, but, if it is, it is a really good legend. (And, of course, “all good stories deserve embellishment!”) This sentence obviously triggered the idea to make it into a story for his children, and this probably triggered a number of other ideas, with the plot of thirteen dwarves, a wizard, and a hobbit going on a quest for a treasure, stolen from the dwarves by a dragon, as a centrepiece. And I don’t know what kind of a book this would have become, but I know that there wouldn’t have been a “Lord of the Rings” nor “Middle-earth” or any of the many creatures we love so much if Tolkien had just “left it there”. Very likely he saw the limitations of this kind of story very early on and felt that he needed something more to make it into a somewhat satisfying book. And, I think, the “something more” was already there. It was there, but he didn’t know it until he was already rather deep into his story. Because in the “real world” there was still something “going on” which was a completely different type of story. Basically it wasn’t a story at all. It was about people surviving a war, the biggest war the world had ever seen, with a lot of new technology, bigger and better ways of killing people. To us, after the Second World War and the whole world becoming a potential war zone, from which little Europe, not unlike the Shire of Middle-earth, seems still to be excluded, the First World War might appear more like nostalgia. But certainly not to the people who had the bad luck of fighting in it. They wouldn’t have been able to imagine anything that big and didn’t know in the least what they were in for when they joined the army. As did professor Tolkien, together with his closest friends. And it is a long time that I read this, but I am rather certain I remember this correctly because it was a bit that “stuck”: He was the only one who came back.

I have no idea if he wrote a diary, or if he ever really talked about what he had experienced “out there” to anybody. Most people never did. And then, so many years later, he sent a little, rather ridiculous creature on that journey with a bunch of lunatics to show the dragon what’s what! The book even became a success, probably because of the unconventional way he wrote about elves, and dwarfes, and “hobbits” – the endearing little creatures entirely unknown from any other tale. In fact they were the only people in the book he really knew anything about when he wrote “The Hobbit”! And there was a reason for it – the same reason why that book became “English heritage”, but would never have become “world literature” had it not been for “The Lord of the Rings”. Because the parts which it was made from were rather difficult to “fit together”. Maybe I am not the only person who never understood how “The Hobbit” was to be a children’s book. At least I found the way it concludes with a massive battle rather strange. Suddenly there is nothing “funny” about it anymore. And I know now why I was rather bothered by the deaths of Fíli and Kíli, whereas Thorin’s death is just the “natural” ending of his own story. And nobody cares about him anyway because in the book he is just a grumpy old dwarf! But Fíli and Kíli who are “innocent” and generally liked … I think this was the closest Tolkien could come within this story to saying: This is war. Good people die. - But it wasn’t until I suddenly understood my favourite quote from the book that I came to appreciate the story as I do now. It is what Bilbo says to Bard about the Arkenstone: “This is the Arkenstone of Thráin, the heart of the mountain. And it is also the heart of Thorin.” In my opinion, this is the birth of the “ring metaphor”. It is the moment Tolkien first realized what he really wanted to write about. And it wasn’t to tell us about what the war had been like for him. If he had wanted that he might have written his memoires – truthfully! It was about what still bothered him after he had managed to forget about everything else and got on with his life. Bothered him about war, how it can “happen”, and about how evil can take hold of people who he knew hadn’t been “evil” in the first place. I remember to have read that his favourite play by Shakespeare was “Macbeth” – which isn’t so very special as such because it applies to many people, including myself. But it is rather conclusive in this context as it certainly wasn’t just about the moving forest and the “crack of doom”. Because this is exactly what “Macbeth” is about. And maybe Shakespeare has done much better here, writing about the birth of evil and the way it changes people and causes their downfall, but Tolkien didn’t want it “that way”. He still wanted to find out about something else, and THAT was why he needed a hobbit. And why he sent him on that journey.

I suppose, what Tolkien wanted to explore is still the reason why so many people love his books, and why so many rather inferior worlds and stories have been spawned by them – apart from heroes, strange creatures, battles, weapons, blood and gore of course. And it has a lot to do with why I have always appreciated the films so much – not as an opportunity of making another “fantasy movie” with still more battles, stunts, and special effects than the last one … which I haven’t seen and never will because life is too short to waste it on things like this. At least when there are still so many great adaptations of significant literature by the BBC I haven’t yet seen. Because this is what I have always perceived the Tolkien films to be: really great adaptations of professor Tolkien’s books. And the reason I like adaptations of interesting works of literature so much is that they give people the opportunity to think really hard about these texts, and you can see the outcome in a different medium. And of course because they hold so many opportunities for great actors to do “something different” and really use their skills. In a way this is the most significant kind of research that can be done on these books. And I think that THIS is what defines a successful adaptation of a book on screen: not that it is “close” to the original text, because in that case it is probably not a great film, but that it is perceived as a challenge to really understand what the book is about.

(And that was in fact the moment when I found an answer to a question I couldn’t answer before: why I have always been so interested in film adaptations of literature even though the book is usually “so much better”. But that isn’t the case at all! Because making a film about a book, or performing a character from the book, cannot “damage” the book itself but is partly a particularly interesting case of READING – one that I myself am unable to do. And even in the cases where it turns out as disappointing I am learning so much more about my own reading of the book by being able to compare it with other peoples’. And even if in some cases – very seldom, as for example when Ray Winstone played Henry VIII (who is not a fictional character, of course, but a character I know only from fiction) – I don’t need another interpretation of this character EVER, it is usually so interesting to see different versions of a story or a character because it is practically the only way to see how other people have read and “lived” these stories. And sometimes failure is even especially interesting - as I am endlessly fascinated by all the failed attempts of putting Patricia Highsmith’s “Ripley” novels on screen and am following religiously the continuing failure of finding a “final” version of “Jane Eyre”. Because by this you can lay a finger on what might be “wrong” with a book, and this is often the reason why this book is so interesting and such a great success in the long run. Because readers will always be fascinated by its “perversity”.)

And, concerning “The Hobbit”, they had this historical chance not only to write film history but history of literature as well, because of the opportunity of getting this story right in the light “The Lord of the Rings” shed on it. For Tolkien the story was finished when “The Hobbit” was published. There was nothing more to say. But he didn’t discover the significance of some things he had written before he started thinking about “The Lord of the Rings”. The part about the Ring of course, but, generally, the importance of this story within the history of Middle-earth. One of my favourite bits Tolkien wrote about the dwarves is the tale about the “Quest to Erebor” from the appendix of “The Lord of the Rings”, where Gandalf is telling the hobbits, after the War of the Ring, how he had met Thorin Oakenshield in Bree where “everything” began. And the writers of the “Hobbit” films saw the significance of this as well, as they put this in at the beginning of “The Desolation of Smaug”. And this is only one example – though my favourite one! - for the “little” story of “The Hobbit” becoming a significant part of the “big” history of Middle-Earth in the films. (Most of which appeared only, to its full extent, when I saw all three extended cuts!) - On the whole, I’d say, they saw the golden opportunity and seized it!

As I said, “The Hobbit” is about a lot of things. A significant part of it certainly is about a battle, and, more interesting, how this battle came to pass. And, as I had understood in advance why the battle was so important within the context of the book, I was able to “read” that tale already when I was watching “The Battle of the Five Armies” for the first time. And they told it very well. Of course most of the blame fell on Thorin, as I knew it would, but if you look closely it isn’t quite as clear cut. It is a tale about how people don’t understand each other, partly because they don’t want to and partly because they can’t. And I liked it a lot that they really took the time to show this! - And there is a tale “behind” this battle as well which has a lot to do with the most important story about Bilbo and the dwarves. It is about people trying to do the “right thing” when everybody else is only trying to save their own head, or gold, or seeing the opportunity to pursue their own objectives. It is always the most difficult thing to do, of course, and, in the big scheme of things, may appear totally pointless. Bilbo’s attempt to help his friends almost leads to his death, and, in the end, doesn’t help to bring things forward. And then it suddenly doesn’t matter anymore because the big war machinery is marching in. And there are no wizards nor eagles in the real world, nor “super-heroes” like Beorn, to set the score right. But there certainly was advanced war machinery that made the individual look and feel insignificant and completely helpless. Like Bilbo is feeling at the end of that battle. This is the tale professor Tolkien wanted to tell about war in his book, and, on the whole, it is told very well in the film.

So, all is well that ends well. And now I am constantly asking myself why I had been so worried. But of course there were reasons for me to worry. As there are serious limitations for “this kind of film”. I mean the one that has to be entertainment for a large audience. Where should that kind of budget come from if you cannot expect the same kind of money in return? Not surprisingly, a thing like this always gravitates to where the biggest pile already lies. And with that, inevitably, towards insignificance. There WERE serious reasons to worry - two at least. Because, as a considerable percentage of the audience would be young and female, there had to be a love story. There had to be somebody young and hot falling in love with a beautiful female. And NOT somebody with a lot of hair on his face of course – no way! The whole thing might have been spoiled already by the fact that it was impossible to show any of the sexy body parts … Unfortunately, or rather fortunate for me, not every great story is about love. And, apart from the fact that love stories in major feature films tend to get rather boring, they have a tendency to draw the attention from the really important part of the story. At least that was what I feared. And I have been wrong, both times, basically. First about the damage the love story might do because they found a good “place” for it to make it “work”. And probably about the fact that not all important stories are about love …

On the other hand, as another considerable part of the audience is supposed to be young and male, the “playstation sequences” always had to be a substantial part of the film. And the “wrecking ball” had to come in, in the end, and smash everything to bits – apart from the young and sexy of course. At least that was what I feared. But I was wrong again, basically. Both times. And I don’t think I have ever been so glad of being wrong before. Of course Fíli and Kíli had to die! How could I fear that they might change the story at this angle? And of course the wrecking-ball set in really big, but this time, for once, in the end it didn’t win! Because there were two heroes to stand up against it and to outact it seemingly effortless. (And, to nip any misunderstandings in the bud: neither of them is Orlando Bloom!) – So everything was well, in the end. But with all the worries I had I cannot say this often enough: I was completely amazed that none of the things I had imagined finally happened, and that “they” stuck to their story like this and told it in the best way it could possibly be told.

And I know that I should have trusted them to do that. At least when I had understood how great the storytelling had been in “The Desolation of Smaug” – again! But there were more than a few reasons to be worried seeing “The Desolation of Smaug”, especially before the extended cut. In the theatrical version the story is actually “going to bits” more than just a little. The main reason for this appears to be a danger I hadn’t even apprehended because I didn’t know about it. Before seeing the extended cut and the documentation I hadn’t been aware that they had been planning to do “The Hobbit” in two parts even until the film was basically shot. And the long sequence about the dwarves going down the river in barrels and fighting orcs - great “playstation sequence” with very little importance for the actual story - had been intended to be the final sequence of the first film. When I am thinking about the actual ending of the first film, and how important it became in the light the third film shed on it, I might almost want to cry with gratitude that THIS didn’t happen!

So it wasn’t entirely my own fault that I was rather downcast after having seen the theatrical version. To the extent that I wasn’t even able to really enjoy Smaug! But then the extended cut was out and set almost everything right. We see them REALLY meeting Beorn, and REALLY going through Mirkwood - with Bombur falling into the stream and Thorin shooting at the white stag! - whereas this sequence in the theatrical version had felt more like a weird dream. Of course going down the stream for ages, fighting orcs, and Legolas and Tauriel fighting orcs for ages, stays the same and doesn’t get the least bit less boring. But it doesn’t matter that much if we don’t lose sight of Bilbo and the dwarves. And I would never have thought what a difference it would make for me actually to SEE Thráin! (And then it was Anthony Sher! I couldn’t believe it. So many nice surprises already before Christmas this year. I suppose Christmas is going to be shit …) For me this was probably the final affirmation that they took the story I CARED FOR seriously.

In fact, the barrels and the elvish action figures were only accidental. They were to what I attributed what I didn’t like, some kind of scapegoat. What I was seriously worried about were the new story-lines developing during the second film. Because in the first film we basically have Bilbo and the dwarves. And that was, of course, what made it so great for me: a whole film about dwarves! But although it took some time to disabuse me of the notion that this had to go on like that, it was rather necessary. On the other hand it is understandable – and even intended – to make the audience worry about what might happen in the third film! - Well, liking the dwarves so much, I had a hard time to see what they were “really” like. And then, even before having seen the third film, I thought: This is really well done. And not just that: this is EXACTLY as it has to be! Because, to finally understand the story about Bilbo’s friendship with the dwarves and Thorin, you have to accept first that they can be a real pain in the ass: “Obstinate, pig-headed, and difficult”, with the worst manners you can possibly imagine. Great! (It isn’t quite what Tolkien imagined them to be. In particular he made a point of showing that they had very good manners! And what I had always found rather interesting about the dwarves, historically, is that they were the people who created links with the others. They were the ones who made roads and learned Sindarin to be able to communicate with the elves – who continued to entrench themselves in their fortresses. Nonetheless I find the assessment they made of the dwarves in the film very much to the point and very true. “Obstinate, pig-headed, and difficult”!!!) But they never forgot about their good qualities. They only get buried temporarily when they have to deal with “scum” like elves and men. (“This, master Baggins, is the world of men.” I just love it how Richard Armitage said that sentence!)

What made me seriously worry was the Legolas-Tauriel-Kíli story and the way Bard emerges as a “hero alternative”. Now I cannot believe it, but I secretly feared that they would “lose” Thorin, as they did Denethor in “The Return of the King”, and let Legolas and Bard finish “the job”. And I was wrong. Of course I was wrong! As I said: never been so wrong, and never ever been so glad of it!!!