Aiya Iluvatar

The Hobbit - A Tolkien Midrash

 

A hot dwarf?

My passion for Tolkien is pretty well known to my parishioners - I'm bound to get a chuckle whenever I mention his works. So it's pretty natural for them to ask me my opinion on the first of Three films to adapt The Hobbit.

I'm gonna keep it short and sweet, ignoring the new film technology (which is interesting) and the score (which was awesome) and concentrate on the adaptation of the story.

First of all, the choice to take such a short book and spread it over three movies is interesting. What this indicates is that the studios are so convinced Jackson is going to make buku bucks that they are giving him creative reign to do whatever he wants to tell the story. This is good news. Jackson and his team are excellent story tellers, so it should be a good ride over the three movies.

Second, The text of The Hobbit was one in flux during Tolkien's lifetime. It was his first book written as a children's story, and he revised it after the publication of The Lord of the Rings to bring it into better sync with the rest of his legendarium. In addition, there are additional writings, most notably an appendix in LOTR, that show that Tolkien was constantly re-thinking the material.

While being somewhat lighter in tone than Jackson's LOTR trilogy, it is notably darker than the book, and deserves its PG-13 rating. Instead of being a stand-alone adaptation of the book, it impresses the esthetic of the film trilogy on the text, making it more of a prequel. Jackson and his writing team freely adapt Tolkien's additional materials and come up with text of their own, weaving a meta-story around the original text. In effect, they manage to create one vision of what Tolkien might have done had he continued to revise the text to bring it into line with his mythology. It's simultaneously very different from the text, but seems very true to Tolkien's intentions (with some notable exceptions.)

I find this similar to the Jewish tradition of midrash, a method of scriptural interpretation that uses story to explore difficult passages of scripture. Jesus' parables are a prime example of this. If one is looking for an exact adaptation of The Hobbit, you won't find it here. But if you are looking for one that is true to Tolkien's themes and maintains consistency with LOTR, you've found your movie.

Overall, I was extremely happy with this first movie. I'll give my biggest gripe and my biggest cheer (Can't decide which category Radagast would be in, so I'll leave him out).

Biggest gripe: OK people, Pipeweed is TOBACCO! It's stated explicitly in both The Hobbit and LOTR. The continued portrayal of Pipeweed as marijuana is a holdover from the "Frodo Lives" movement from the 60s. Hey people, Tolkien was not a hippy - he was an uber-conservative Roman Catholic with an ecological bent. More of a Teddy Roosevelt than a Timothy Leary.

Biggest cheer: How in the name of Aulë did they manage to make Thorin hot? Dwarves in the book are sometimes comical, sometimes dangerous, but never attractive. But here we have a capable and worthy leader of a nation that makes feminine hearts go a patter. I think Richard Armitage's portrayal is amazing, and his character should give hope to shorter men around the world.

All in all, I really liked this movie. I'll be taking Brendan to see it, and I can't wait to see how much rich depth Jackson and his team pull out in the remaining two movies.

 

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Into the Wardrobe

I finally got around to seeing The Lion. the Witch and the Wardrobe the other night.  I thought it was an amazing film - possibly the best film adaptation of a novel I have seen.  There are three things that have converged to make this film so great:

1. 1. The CG.  Obviously, the advances in CG make minotaurs, centaurs and even beavers come alive in a way they never have before (remember the guy in the beaver suit in the BBC adaptation?).
2. The choice of a slim novel that is easier to film.  As much as I love The Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter films, the books are huge volumes.  A 2.5 hour movie is too little time to capture the full scope of the book  The "Back story" of Narnia is also simpler.  You don't have to explain who Isildur or Sauron was or why anyone should care about rings.  In a fairy-tale like the Narnia stories, you can spend more time on the main story.
3. Studios have, thanks be to God, noticed that audiences appreciate attention to detail and a movie of sufficient length to tell the story properly.  WETA did a fantastic job with props and costumes like they did in LOTR (I want the sword of Peter), and the confluence of short novel length with long movie length made it possible to stay true to the novel in a way that has not been possible with Tolkien or Rowling.

The movie maintained the Christian allegory (or "supposal" as Lewis would have put it) without overly forcing it.  Only minor story changes were made to make it easier to film.  Liam Neeson was not the voice I thought of as Aslan (thinking more of James Earl Jones) but all in all, I was very impressed and am looking forward to the following movies, as well as seeing this one again.  I would not reccomend it for younger children, as it does have some very tense and violent scenes.  Go see it!

David+

Orson Scott Card on Religion in Star Wars

One of my favorite Science Fiction Writers, Orson Scott Card who wrote Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, etc. has weighed in on religion as found in the Star Wars universe and found it wanting.  The entire article can be found on beliefnet here.  Here's an excerpt:

"The overt religion of Revenge of the Sith is a kind of democratic pantheism, but the real religion is for the privileged few, who get to decide what’s best for everybody else and then enforce their own rules, all in the name of “the Force.”

How did a nice Protestant boy like George Lucas come up with an official religion more rigidly hierarchical and doctrinally uniform than Catholicism?

It’s the religion of the people who are Chosen, and you aren’t ready to have a share of the power until we say you are. Quite the opposite of, say, the Quakers or even the Puritans, who eschewed permanent religious hierarchies.

Even the afterlife is reserved for the few, the proud, the Jedi. As we learned at the end of Return of the Jedi, even the most dark-side-serving of ex-Jedi mass murderers can, with a single “good” act like refusing to murder his own son (which even the most evil men generally avoid), earn the right to eternal life as the equal of true saints like Yoda and Obi-Wan.

But not one of the others who died in the war against the evil Sith emperor was similarly granted a life after death—or at least, if they were, they apparently weren’t allowed on camera at the end of Return of the Jedi. Maybe the non-Jedi had to stay in their own segregated section of rock-'n-roll heaven.

No!  That’s not fair!  The Jedi devote their whole life to the service of others!

But they’re not chosen on the basis of their virtue—for all we know, there are millions of people more virtuous and unselfish than they. And since they alone get to determine what “the good of others” actually consists of (though it does seem to include a lot of killing), how are the Jedi distinguishable from any number of other dictatorial groups that justify their actions by claiming that they do it all for the little guy?

So it might not be such a good thing if the Star Wars films become the first movies to lead to a real-world religion."

Only a Sith deals in absolutes

Went to see Revenge of the Sith last night.  Very impressed!  Redeemed all the things I disliked about episodes I and II. 

One thing especially caught my ear - a quote: "Only a Sith deals in absolutes."  The more I think on this, the more I am convinced that Lucas has something here.  The claim is not that truth does not exist, or that truth cannot be absolute.  The claim, as I hear it, is that it is impossible for human beings to fathom the entire absolute truth.

A compelling part of the movie is the rationalization Palapatine uses to convince Anakin to come over to the dark side.  In addition to saving Padume, he promises an end to war, peace and solid rule.  What is revealing is that Palapatine delivers exactly what he promises here.  The Republic is unified into an empire that knows peace and strong rule, but it is a rule of the Sith.  All people rationalize their actions, good or bad.  The difference is whether we aknowledge this fact and hold it up to the scrutiny of others.

Those human beings that dare to believe they can deliver the entire truth - that absolutes lie within their feeble human grasp - are playing into the hands of pride and hubris, which can only lead to evil.  This does not mean that we cannot seek the truth, or that we cannot perceive it in part, but it is like the reflections on the cave wall (Plato) or through a glass darkly (Paul).  Our truth-seeking must be done in a spirit of humility and we must truly listen to others, accepting that they may have pieces of the truth that we don't. 

In a world that seems so frightening (although I would maintain that Americans have very little to fear in comparison to 90% of the world population) people want absolutes so that they can hide from their fear.  But as Christians, the only absolute we have is the person of Jesus Christ.  To insist that Christianity should be a religion that provides absolute answers to all questions of belief and ethics without serious discernment on our part is to force it into a mold similar to the religion of the Pharisees of Jesus' time that he derided.

Sith deal in absolutes and are supremely confident in their world view.  Jedi understand the world is not so clear-cut and are humble before the powers that form us.

I think I'll stand with the Jedi - even if it means being offed by a petulant cyborg with a light saber.

David+

Hitchiker's Guide

Went with the Canterbury Club to see the new Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie on Friday.  I was pleasantly surprised.  It took a lot of liberties with the book, but then again, any film adaptation has to, especially with a book that relies so much on an inner monologue.  I felt it was true to the spirit, and many of the things I really wanted to see were there.

I especially liked the show tune, "So long and thanks for all the fish."

When I was in High School, HHGTTG was like a Bible to me, actually more than that - I could quote it cover to cover.  It was nice to see the high school kids arriving in bathrobes with towels over their necks.  The torch has been passed!

David+