The Hobbit was better than Citizen Kane?

No.  Not really.  Not even close.  We saw it last night.  Went to the old Strand Theater, with its newly refurbished bathrooms, and sat through the near three hour spectacle.  I can say it didn't suck.  Perhaps it's because I've heard and read so much of the negative, I went into it with such low expectations, I was actually pleasantly surprised.  Surprised as long as I overlooked the typical Jacksonian way of over-directing just about every scene imaginable.

For the most part, that's Jacksons's fatal flaw.  If a scene could be done in 30 seconds, he'll stretch it to a minute and a half.  If an event could be told in three quickly edited shots, he'll have eight or nine shots in a row, often simply duplicating each other.  If there is a chase scene that could last up to ten minutes, you can bet he'll stretch it out to 25, with most of the extra just repeating itself.  In the end, Jackson is not a good storyteller.  And his tendency to ramble is proof.

To that end, many of the parts, such as the Dwarves' escape from the goblin caves, goes on so long you're eventually rooting for the goblins.  You're rooting for anyone who will end it all.  This, in addition to the cartoonish over-the-top CGI shots that eventually run together, cause some parts that could have been thrilling to watch seem interminable.  Scenes like that are a reminder that a substantial portion of Jackson's audience - at least in Jackson's mind - are those who think that The Empire Strikes Back was the worst Star Wars movie, and The Phantom Menace was one of the greatest movies of all time.

Other parts suffered the same fate, being drawn out far too long, or with too many unnecessary shots added.  The reliance on CGI villains takes away the humanity of the villains, and you really don't care that goblins by the truck load are falling to their deaths.  You don't care if ugly wolves are killed, orcs slain, or dwarves hacked to pieces.  It's all CGI.  Likewise, many of the CGI sets, while pretty to look at, are almost inherently shallow.  CGI sets remind me of that scene in the movie The Fly, when Geena Davis eats a piece of teleported steak, then promptly spits it out, citing a 'synthetic' taste.  Same with CGI.  The spectacularly drawn CGI sets at Rivendell simply don't have the same real, gritty feel that the desert had in Raiders of the Lost Ark - because that desert was real.  Likewise, when the villains die - even in the most spectacular fashion - there is a real response because they were real actors, as opposed to CGI effects.

But some of this is simply the modern age.  Like it or not, most big budget movies are becoming nothing other than elongated video games with occasional human interaction.  It seems to be what people want, so it will be the way of things in the future.  Sadly, however, this lets some of the real talent of the actors get pushed to the sidelines. I think Martin Freeman was wonderful as Bilbo, though it would have been nice to have more of Bilbo in the actual movie.  And Richard Armitage was also a strong presence at Thorin, if not removed of his gray hair for Jackson's belief that the old folks are better as support cast rather than actual movers and shakers.  Ian McKellen was his usual capable self as Gandalf.  Hugo Weaving was a million times better as Elrond, and I wish they could re-shoot his scenes for Lord of the Rings now that he's learned how not to roll his tongue on every consonant and stretch words out three times longer than needed.

The rest of the cast was good for what was needed.  Nobody doubted that Andy Serkis would knock it out of the ballpark, and he did.  The climatic scene where Bilbo shows Gollum mercy is wonderfully done, and shows what this, and indeed all of Jackson's movies, could be if he trusted his actors, the source material, and quite frankly, trusted his audience to want more than just an ongoing forty minute video game.

Still, as I said, my expectations were so low, that I was pleasantly surprised.  In the end, it was entertaining, if about 45 minutes longer than needed.  If Jackson shaved off 15% of most of his scenes, and eliminated a few altogether (Radagast's chase across the moors could be taken away and nothing lost), he could have had a tight, well told adaptation of Tolkien's classic children's book.  But then, of course, the cash cow factor comes in, and Jackson has to validate his decision to take a single children's book and stretch it across three three hour long epics.

Perhaps the biggest problem was, as with The Lord of the Rings, that Jackson is a mile wide and an inch deep.  He just doesn't seem that introspective,  or given to long reflections on the nuances of his movies.  This is demonstrated in the movie's finale.

Spoilers here, if you don't want to know how it ends.

The movie finishes as the dwarves are rescued by the eagles.  Before the rescue, Jackson has a long, drawn out battle involving wolves and orcs and dwarves, including the movie's token bad-guy, Azog (from the LoTR appendixes).  There was a point, a moment, when the dwarves were all in one giant pine tree, and suddenly the tree broke from its roots and almost fell over a cliff, dangling precariously as the dwarves scrambled to hold on, that I said, 'dear me, let the eagles come now and rescue them, before Jackson messes something up.'

But, alas, they did not come.  Azog - as Thorin's main nemeses - draws Thorin away from the tree, and the two enter into a dual to the death.  Just as Thorin lays wounded and helpless, ready to be beheaded at Azog's command - in leaps Bilbo to save the day!  He slays the servant orc, and buys enough time for the eagles to then arrive and carry them all to safety.  At that point, on the eagle's eyrie, Thorin takes back his doubts about  Bilbo and welcomes him officially into the company, letting all bygones be bygones.

But here's the problem. The Hobbit, unlike The Lord of the Rings, was more fairy tale than myth.  But it was still written by Tolkien, a brilliant scholar who was also wise beyond his subject matter.  A combination of a reflective mind and a life of hard knocks, Tolkien knew there was more to the world than CGI battles and riding off into the sunset or even saving the day, then going on about life raising a family and getting married.  In The Hobbit, there are two people who learn lessons.  Bilbo learns more about himself than he thought, but in the end never loses the essential parts of who is he.  Thorin, on the other hand, learns the most.  Often frustrated at Bilbo, and at first distrustful of his usefulness, Thorin begins to warm to Bilbo until the very end, when Bilbo's attempts to reconcile clashing armies brings the wrath of Thorin down upon him.  As Bilbo gives away the Arkenstone, Thorin calls down curses on his former ally's name.

Then, when the battle is over, and Thorin lays dying of his wounds, he has a chance to reconcile with Bilbo, finally realizing all that Bilbo had that Thorin had never learned. And he gives a final speech to Bilbo that rivals many a Pulitzer prize winning novel's dialogue:

“Child of the kindly West, I have come to know, if more of us valued your ways - food and cheer above hoarded gold - it would be a merrier world. But sad or merry, I must leave it now. Farewell.”

That's the heart of the book.  Through it all, Bilbo showed Thorin that it isn't gold and warfare that makes life, it's the simple things.  It's that walking stick instead of a sword.  It's that garden and twilight rather than gold and precious gems   That is Thorin's redemption moment, and it comes as he reflects on all that Bilbo has shown him.  All that Bilbo demonstrated in his manners of peace and comfort.  Yes, Bilbo learns that there is a world out there he must sometimes confront, even if it means leaving that comfort that he holds so dear.  But he also never leaves the heart of what makes it dear in the first place, and its that clinging to the peaceful life that saves Thorin from the goldlust and material world perspectives that dominate his world view.

Now, Jackson has done two things.  First, he has reconciled Thorin and Bilbo very early on in the adventure.  Sure, Thorin can get mad again later, and then be reconciled again and again and again   But this was such a finishing point in the movie, any later attempts will be, as my sons said, redundant.  Second, and this is the part I've heard many criticize, Thorin accepts Bilbo because Bilbo saved his life, and he did it not through cleverness or wit, but by simply lunging at an orc and slaying him with a sword.  Bilbo became everything Thorin sees value in, and for that, and the simple fact of saving Thorin's life, Thorin accepts Bilbo as one of the company.

How will this figure in the end?  Jackson could still manage to move the story around to come to that deathbed moment, but many doubt that Jackson has the depth or know-how.  For that matter, many I've heard wonder if Jackson even gets it.  Does he get what he did to the ending?  A reader sent me his review of the movie some days ago.  This is his conclusion:

"But I suppose since the tale is a straightforward kids' story, it was harder for Jackson to mess it up--LOTR was obviously too complicated for him to 'get'.
 But, and this is a major but, Jackson essentially made it into an modern action adventure story. It is no longer a kids' tale. You absolutely couldn't take any kids younger than their teens to see it, and even then they'd have to be violence-desensitized kids. It has a lot of violence, far far too blood and guts for pre-teens.
 So, in a sense, Jackson still just "doesn't get it"." 

In that sense, I think he's correct.  Jackson, at the end of the day, approaches Tolkien's works with the mind of a child, and that's a shame.  Since Tolkien wrote his books - The Hobbit at least - for children  but with the  mind of an adult. At this point, then, I will probably still look to Rankin/Bass for the definitive version of the book, and Jackson when I want a drawn out adventure yarn that bears a striking resemblance to ideas from Tolkien's fictional world.

By the way: Side note.  I notice that most of the names from Tolkien's works prompt a spelling error on my blog, including Gandalf, Elrond, and Gollum.  On the other hand, just about every name from Harry Potter is accepted.  Sign of the times I guess, and it could explain a little about Jackson's mentality when it comes to who he makes movies for.