stepped into it by accident."- CS Lewis commented on "The Hobbit"
in "The Hobbit 2: The Battle of Smaug" in 1937 (hereinafter referred to as "The Battle of Smaug", directed by Peter Jackson once again played a cameo as a passer-by who passed by in a small human city, still eating a carrot as he did 12 years ago. See also Gandalf the gray-robed wizard and the barefoot Hobbit, and the grand dwarf dungeon And the gloomy forest, it seems that more than ten years have passed, the story of Middle-earth is still being told, and it is only us who have gone back and forth. Jackson and his team have adapted Tolkien's works again, with the intention of crossing the gap between fairy tales and epics , But this step was staggering, reluctantly.
Bilbo’s path of keeping the precepts is different from Frodo’s
"Great things often start in the last." ("Prometheus")
"In the cave mansion underground There lives a hobbit". In 1937, the sentence at the beginning of the original book opened the door to Middle-earth for readers. The story line of "The Lord of the Rings" has gone a long way on the map, starting with the Hobbit. .Elves, Numenores, dwarves, wizards, treants, skin changers, trolls, half-orcs... In Tolkien’s land, besides humans, there are too many strange races. Why do we talk about the adventures of a hobbit every time?
Of course, in the author's setting, only the desireless and unquestioning of this race can "resist" the Lord of the Rings that use desire to capture prey, Bilbo and Frodo's uncle and nephew It is a destined preceptor. And at the narrative level, letting a hobbit who lives in a paradise and uncontested "accidentally set foot in", "a long-existing" huge world, greatly facilitates readers to substitute for themselves. Every time the two encounter new things, they are drawing a depth of field for this non-existent world.
But no one can step into the same river. Bilbo took a different path from Frodo. "This book is just a map, without any illustrations. It is good enough to be seen to attract all 5-9 year olds." Before "The Hobbit" came out, the publisher Stanley Unwin asked his 10-year-old son Rainer to do so. Father reports. This was originally a bedtime story that Tolkien told the children at home. It was about a reckless trip. The dwarves didn’t have any plans for slaying the dragon. When they saw Bilbo stealing the gold cup, they were “excited” first, and soon they were “in a mess” and began to complain that he disturbed the dragon. He was brave and innocent. It only stopped at reaching Gushan, "I didn't bother to think about how to transport the treasure."
At that time, the Supreme Lord of the Ring looked like an accidental treasure that was accidentally obtained on an adventurous journey and made people invisible. It stands to reason that dwarves are greedy for money and humans are weak. In addition to Guru, almost no one in the book is interfered with and coerced by it. . In "The Lord of the Rings", as many as wizards and high elves, down to the Numanor royal family and ordinary humans with elven blood, and even the hobbits who have long-held the ring, they have to resist the temptation of the Supreme Lord of the Ring, even for It's hurt by the darkness. Bilbo’s trip to the Lonely Mountain was a veritable “go and return”, and Frodo could no longer integrate into the peaceful rural life of the Shire after returning from the Doomsday Volcano.
The difference between the fate of the two nephews and uncles is "time changes things are easy". In Tolkien’s original work, in the era of The Hobbit, Sauron’s power in the ring is still sleeping; while in The Lord of the Rings, he is already actively operating for a comeback. The Supreme Lord of the Rings has sensed the owner’s intentions, and Riveted enough to get back into his hands. Thinking about it this way, in order to take the path of the war epic, the film made Sauron high-profile decades in advance, and the internal logic cannot be self-consistent.
This ancient world has the potential to transform into an epic
Even though "The Hobbit" is shown as a fairy tale, the middle-earth in the book is not a children's version or a semi-finished product. In the movie "The Lord of the Rings: The Invincible King", the withered white trees on the Gondor castle are derived from the gold and silver double trees that shined on the western maritime paradise before the sun from Middle Earth. The tragic story of the destruction of the double trees is published in The Hobbit Shi has been brewing in Tolkien’s hands for a full 20 years; although the dwarves’ heads are sometimes as simple as children, Tolkien moves forward thinking about letting them harvest the first-age high elves forged in Gondolin. The sword later thought that the half-orcs "may invent some machines that later harmed the world"-as if pointing to the terrifying large-scale siege machines in the "Lord of the Rings" campaign such as Holy Helm Valley and White City.
Bilbo was still young and naive at this time, but the world is ancient and sophisticated. In other words, this fairy tale-style "Lord of the Ring" history has the potential to be transformed into an epic. In fact, it was written in Tolkien's unpublished manuscript that Gandalf wanted to destroy Smaug before Sauron made trouble again, so as not to become Sauron's help. The dwarves were actually fooled by him to fight "agent wars." Up.
But unfortunately, in my personal viewing experience, only two and a half scenes in the 160-minute movie of "The Battle of Smaug" touched me with epic strokes. Everyone passing by the destroyed River Valley Town is a reproduction of the scene in the book, but similar passages have appeared again and again in "The Lord of the Rings", which can only be regarded as "half". The plots of the other two films are even more moving. The boat entered Long Lake and saw the long-awaited hometown Lonely Mountain emerge from the mist. The dwarves stood up and stood solemnly; Bud rushed to find the old tapestry embroidered with the dwarf genealogy, while paralleling the fishermen chatting in the city in montage. The prophecy of the descendants of Turin gossip: The king under the mountain will return to the throne, and even if the celebration bell rings, everything will eventually return to sorrow.
However, there are too few such paragraphs. Only one-sixth of the story of "The Lord of the Rings" had to be made in a movie of the same length and had to live up to the expectations of an epic film. The "Hobbit" movie series put too much effort into the big scene. "The Battle of Smaug" is especially obvious at this point. What is the difference between this and Hollywood's sci-fi skinned action blockbuster? The most exaggerated is the residence of the dragon. In the original book, it is a wine cellar or a dungeon. The treasures are in rows of urns by the wall. In the movie, it becomes a tall hall filled with mountains and plains—I doubt it. Can the productivity of the entire Middle-earth produce so many treasures?
In my opinion, the epic is not a battle against the crowd in the battle scene, or how to renovate the battle scene, the battle of the Helm Valley against the enemy's 10,000 troops, the sense of tragic and heroic is not weaker than the 200,000 enemy forces in the city. Battle. According to the current plot trend, the third "Battle of the Five Armies" is likely to be changed to confront Sauron. Since Sauron is so high-profile and illogical, those who have watched "The Lord of the Rings" know that he will have nothing at this time. What is the tension of this big battle?
The distortion of the characters is greater than
I have asked many friends who are enthusiastic about "The Lord of the Rings" which scene is their favorite. The one with the most votes is actually a short transitional drama with no fights and no lines: The boat passes by on a peaceful river" "The Gate of the Kings" are the standing statues of two ancient Gondor kings on both sides of the river at the same height as the mountain, originally used to demarcate the boundary. What I can't forget most is that Frodo and Sam are driving in the forest eroded by dark power. A seated king's figure has long been separated, and its head is in the weeds and wildflowers on the ground. They walked by accidentally, and the sun suddenly shattered. The cloud came out and hit the head, and the pale wild flowers suddenly glowed golden, like a crown. Sam said excitedly: "Look, the king has a crown again!"
Anyone only lives in the present. The solemnity and tragic deep in history have always been conveyed by the protagonist in the story. The silent scenes of the stone statues above can move people. It is not that the stones can speak, but the key is that they communicate with the mood of the characters secretly, and directly point to the theme of the movie. Two tall stone statues 1,500 years ago guarded the border of Gondor, and now the land under their feet has long been lost. The Lord of the Rings Alliance lost Gandalf when passing by the gates of the kings, and was about to fall apart. Everyone had their own minds and worried about the meeting on the shore. There are chasing soldiers. In another scene, Sam had just finished speaking, the sun suddenly disappeared, the king's "crown" was also eclipsed, his and Frodo smiles solidified.
The big history and the fate of the little individual blend here, and set off each other: With a civilization that has been retreating before the dark forces, the last hope placed on the League of the Rings is worrying; and after the alliance is broken, Middle-earth The hope pinned on the two hobbits was as weak as the ray of sunlight in the dark. At that time, neither Frodo nor Sam believed they could go back alive.
In the "The Hobbit" movie series, in order to be more like an epic, the personalities of the main characters, except for Gandalf, have more significant changes. Most of them did not evolve from the lively fairy tale characters to the noble heroes in the epic, but became actions. Some of the stylized characters in the blockbuster have been "blackened". This deviation from the original work is related to the tendency to pursue big scenes too much, and it also becomes more dazzling in "The Battle of Smaug".
The biggest failure was Bilbo. With the idea of creating an epic, how can the author of the film give up using the inner drama of the first protagonist to reflect the big history? But if you look at a complex world from a child-like perspective like the original book, it might be better than the finished product of the current four. In the movie "The Lord of the Rings", the impact and changes that Middle-earth has brought to Frodo and Sam after leaving home are very delicately portrayed, while Bilbo's travels are just running, fighting, and occasionally making tricks, which are both lost. Having lost the childishness in the original book, it hasn't filled up with the new personality that can be supported, and it has become a hollow person.
In "The Battle of Smaug", the popular character Elf Prince Legolas in the movie "The Lord of the Rings" appeared. His ancestors were indeed high-species, but starting from his grandfather, most of the rulers were wood Elves, there is no sign that the royal family of the Black Forest wants to "draw a clear line" with the masses. In the original "Lord of the Rings" Legolas often calls himself the wood elves, but in order to arrange a bloody love triangle, the movie has to let his father Thranduil gave birth to a sense of racial discrimination and prevented the original wood elf characters from marrying into their home. Legolas's behavior is also very strange. Most of the time, he stared coldly at the female elf that he is said to admire very much, or looked at everyone with cold eyes. This may be to fit the killing environment of the Black Forest. ? The elven prince played by the same actor in the movie "The Lord of the Rings" has seen a 700-year-old oak tree withered and was a little bit naughty when killing. He would be at a loss when he saw death and inadvertently explained what immortality is.
The "blackening" of the dwarf Thorin is even more awkward. From a book who loves money as a "decent man", he has become a complex character who always shoulders the task of restoring the country without hesitating to sacrifice a "chess piece". In order to highlight the "tallness" of this operation, the film raised the height of the gem of Akon. As iconic treasures of the two generations, the three gemstones have the brilliance of the double tree, and the Lord of the Rings stores part of Sauron's power. The divine power of both originates from the Western Paradise and surpasses the people of Middle-earth. The Akon Gem is just a precious family gem. It is impossible to say that the seven clans of dwarves can be summoned without resetting the source in the Middle-earth system. In this way, Thorin, with a face of bitter feud, also became a character without a trace.
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