{"id":65726,"date":"2012-11-24T05:19:50","date_gmt":"2012-11-24T10:19:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/?p=65726"},"modified":"2012-11-24T05:19:50","modified_gmt":"2012-11-24T10:19:50","slug":"imagining-peter-jacksons-the-hobbit-part-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/2012\/11\/24\/65726-imagining-peter-jacksons-the-hobbit-part-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Imagining Peter Jackson\u2019s The Hobbit: Part One"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over coming days, in this four-part series, guest writer Eric M. Van<\/a> will draw together the threads of known facts, and add a dash of logic to speculate on how Peter Jackson and his crew may have imagined their version of JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit. In the first part, he takes one of the most mysterious sections, how The Necromancer, Sauron, and the wizard, Radagast the Brown, will weave into Bilbo Baggins’ much-less-epic (yet no less important) adventure.<\/p>\n

Imagining Peter Jackson\u2019s The Hobbit<\/h3>\n

Part 1: Sauron and Dol Guldur. Radagast and Rhosgobel<\/h4>\n

\"\"<\/a>
If Peter Jackson’s version of The Hobbit mirrors his Lord of the Rings, timelines will be compressed.<\/figcaption><\/figure> \u201cWhat\u2019s it going to be then, eh?\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the question we\u2019re all desperately asking about Peter Jackson\u2019s adaptation of The Hobbit. We have a collection of puzzle pieces\u2014here a Morgul-blade, there a hedgehog\u2014and we\u2019re trying to put them together to make some kind of picture of the trilogy, especially the fast-approaching first installment. <\/p>\n

But one can also simply do what the screenwriters have done: take a close look at the novel and see what changes need to be made to adapt it successfully. This humble effort thus begins with a set of solutions to all the major extant mysteries, before turning (in a series of follow-up features) to a general overview.<\/p>\n

And, sure, that\u2019s backwards, but I\u2019ve got an empty Nazg\u00fbl tomb that\u2019s just aching to be filled with some kind of sensible explanation.<\/em><\/p>\n

One of the hallmarks of Peter Jackson\u2019s Tolkien adaptations is the compression of story timelines. It\u2019s always for the same reason: the Wise regard Sauron as an imminent rather than a long-term threat. In Tolkien\u2019s The Lord of the Rings, Gandalf takes sixteen-and-a-half years to confirm that Bilbo\u2019s ring is the One, once he first suspects it; Jackson has Gandalf accomplish this in what appears to be a single year. <\/p>\n

(It\u2019s about 1000 miles to Minas Tirith. A hundred miles per day is a perfectly manageable rate for a horse over adequate roads, and consistent with the 120 that Gandalf managed on Shadowfax with Pippin, according to The Atlas of Middle-earth. It would thus take less than a month to ride to Minas Tirith, view the scroll of Isildur, and return. But in the next scene both Frodo and Gandalf behave as if at least several months have passed. A full year would not only provide adequate time for Gandalf\u2019s pursuit of and interrogation of Gollum, but maintain the seasonal timelines of the book). <\/p>\n

Tolkien has Frodo dawdle for 163 further days before leaving Bag End; Jackson gets him out the door the next morning. If this were a contemporary film, we\u2019d be expecting Fed Ex product placement.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
A compressed timeline dramatically would increase the perceived threat of Sauron.<\/figcaption><\/figure> With The Hobbit, Jackson and his fellow screenwriters, Fran Walsh, Phillipa Boyens, and Guillermo del Torro, have made a precisely analogous change, only this time it\u2019s supersized. In LOTR\u2019s Tale of Years, it takes the Wise 790 years to confirm that Sauron has returned once they first suspect it, and another 91 for the White Council to decide to attack him. In the film version, the 790 years have been reduced to what appears to be a few months at most, and the 91 years seem likely to be reduced to no time at all. The investigation of Sauron\u2019s possible return has been moved 878 years later, to form an entire parallel storyline to the quest of Erebor. And if Jackson is true to form, the White Council will feel so much urgency over the threat of Sauron that the decision to attack Dol Guldur will be a foregone conclusion. (Why 878 and not 790 + 91 = 881? It\u2019s another compression; in the book, after the Wise first suspect Sauron has returned, they let three years pass before Gandalf goes to Dol Guldur to investigate.) <\/p>\n

Both of these timeline compressions dramatically increase the perceived threat of Sauron, but there is a second very good reason for excising the 91-year delay between confirming Sauron\u2019s existence and attacking him. In the books (LOTR and \u201cThe Hunt for the Ring\u201d in Unfinished Tales), the White Council meets in Rivendell a year after Gandalf has confirmed that the Necromancer of Dol Guldur is Sauron. And Gandalf does urge an immediate attack. Saruman \u201coverrules\u201d him (presumably by persuading Elrond, C\u00edrdan, and the other members, since there is no indication that Saruman, even as head of the Council, had ultimate authority) and Gandalf immediately suspects Saruman\u2019s true motive: he wants the Ring for himself, and wants to leave Sauron alone so the Ring can seek its master.<\/p>\n

In Jackson\u2019s necessarily simplified version of the history, Saruman never overtly desires the Ring for his own; he is a true ally to Sauron rather than a false one who secretly desires to supplant him. For the most part, he turns traitor not because of his desire for power, but because he looks in the palant\u00edr<\/em> and is persuaded of the utter certainty of Sauron\u2019s victory. (In the book, this is what happens to Denethor, although he responds by despairing rather than collaborating. Denethor\u2019s palant\u00edr<\/em> was written out of the film apparently to avoid redundancy with Saruman\u2019s; unfortunately, that had the side effect of diminishing his character, since in the movie version he has to be weak enough to fall into despair even without a push from Sauron). Since Saruman only becomes a traitor when he becomes convinced that Sauron\u2019s victory is inevitable, he can\u2019t possibly already be one at the time that it\u2019s first discovered that Sauron has returned, when he is yet to rebuild Barad-D\u00fbr or amass his armies. So the Saruman we see in The Hobbit will be unfallen (as Christopher Lee has stated in interview), and without a fallen Saruman there is no plot mechanism for delaying the attack.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Peter Jackson’s Saruman in The Hobbit will be ‘unfallen’.<\/figcaption><\/figure> Even leaving the history aside, though, an unfallen Saruman makes for much better storytelling. We know that Gandalf has no suspicion of Saruman\u2019s fall when he first leaves for Isengard in FOTR, so there can be no hints of any corruption in his interactions with the Council in The Hobbit (anything we as viewers could discern would certainly not escape Galadriel). Therefore, the only way to portray a fallen Saruman would be to show him working behind the scenes to undermine the attack on Dol Guldur, and in a way that neither Gandalf nor Galadriel ever becomes aware of. Even if that were credible, it doesn\u2019t seem to add anything to the story. And if future viewers of all six films in internal chronological order first see Saruman as a good guy, they\u2019ll be as blindsided as Gandalf when he turns traitor in FOTR. The only narrative function of a fallen Saruman in The Hobbit would be to spoil that surprise. (Part 2 of this series has much more to say about the interaction of the two trilogies.) <\/p>\n

In fact, I think we\u2019ll see in this trilogy just why Gandalf regards Saruman as \u201cboth wise and powerful\u201d (though admittedly somewhat proud, stubborn, and conservative, since he is apparently skeptical about the significance of the Morgul-blade). We\u2019ll even see Gandalf and Saruman collaborate on creating devices to help win the Battle of Dol Guldur (in the books, credited largely to Saruman alone). And we\u2019ll come to understand that Saruman\u2019s invention of the Olympic Explosive Device in TTT was inspired and informed by Gandalf\u2019s mastery of fireworks in The Desolation of Smaug; that Saruman mimics Gandalf\u2019s magic with technology makes this a cruelly ironic application of Clarke\u2019s Law.
\nOops, I said the magic words: Morgul-blade. We\u2019ve learned quite a bit about how the Sauron storyline has been revised for the movie, but what we\u2019ve learned raises many further questions, some of which are so subtle that I haven\u2019t seen them asked yet. Let\u2019s look at what we know and what we don\u2019t know, and see if we can figure out the missing details of this major (but quite justifiable and dramatically effective) revision of Middle-Earth history.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Things we know (plus a few immediate inferences):<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The White council will debate the implications of the Morgul-blade<\/figcaption><\/figure> \u2022 From the second trailer, we know that Radagast is among the first to recognize that \u201ca Dark Power has found a way back into the World.\u201d A giant spider attacks him in Rhosgobel, his home on the edges of Mirkwood, and he perhaps flees on his rabbit-sled.
\n\u2022 From the footage shown at CinemaCon, we know that Gandalf presents a Morgul-blade to Elrond, Galadriel, and Saruman (but not Radagast) at a White Council meeting in Rivendell, and they debate its significance. We can easily infer that Gandalf has initially shown the blade to Elrond upon his arrival at Rivendell, and that the Council has subsequently been summoned.
\n\u2022 In the same scene, we learn that at some point in the past, the Witch-king and the rest of the Nazg\u00fbl had been entombed \/ imprisoned by the D\u00fanedain, in crypts protected by powerful spells. One might ask why the D\u00fanedain didn\u2019t simply destroy<\/em> the Nazg\u00fbl, and the clear answer is that they must have tried and failed\u2014and so sometime in the trilogy we\u2019re likely to see a flashback to this, and learn the origin of the belief that \u201cno man can kill\u201d the Witch-king.
\n\u2022 Again from CinemaCon, we learn that Gandalf and Radagast meet at the tombs, investigate them and find them empty\u2014unambiguous evidence that Sauron has returned, because only he could break the spells put there. Entombing the Nazg\u00fbl strikes me as the boldest of all of Jackson\u2019s changes to Tolkien, and it seems clearly motivated by the need for such an unambiguous sign, one that does not involve Gandalf going to Dol Guldur and seeing Sauron himself (as he does in the book). When this was screened, the first movie was going to continue much further. Since this scene must be the conclusion to the investigation of Sauron\u2019s return and begin the sequence leading to the Battle of Dol Guldur, it now seems very likely that we won\u2019t see it this December.
\n\u2022 From the figurine character biographies, we know that the company encounters an apparently resurrected Azog (the orc captain killed long ago at the battle of Azanulbizar), and that Gandalf regards this as a clue as to the nature of the evil that dwells in Dol Guldur. This tells us that the film emphasizes Sauron\u2019s powers of necromancy. <\/p>\n

Things we don\u2019t know:<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Exactly when, and how, will Gandalf find Thrain’s Key to the secret door of Erebor?<\/figcaption><\/figure> \u2022 How well established is it, at the time of the story, that there is a malign presence in Dol Guldur? If such a presence is well known, is it already called \u201cthe Necromancer,\u201d as in the book? And who do the Wise think it is?
\n\u2022 On a possibly related note, why was Gandalf in Dol Guldur many years previously, where he encountered mad Thr\u00e1in and got the map of Erebor and the key? In the book, Gandalf was on a successful reconnaissance mission to determine whether the Necromancer was in fact Sauron, as long suspected.
\n\u2022 Where does Gandalf get the Morgul-blade?
\n\u2022 Who could possibly have lost the Morgul-blade? It certainly wasn\u2019t lost by one of the Nazg\u00fbl.
\n\u2022 Why is Radagast absent from the White Council meeting? (In the book, he doesn\u2019t seem to be a member, but you\u2019d want to include him in the movie, it seems clear.)
\n\u2022 If giant spiders attack (and presumably destroy) Rhosgobel, where does Radagast spend the rest of the trilogy?
\n\u2022 Is there any reason for introducing a giant spider attack before the dwarves get to Mirkwood, other than the coolness thereof?
\n\u2022 Where are the tombs of the Nazg\u00fbl, and when do Gandalf and Radagast investigate them?
\n\u2022 Why is Gandalf missing during much or most of the journey from Hobbiton to the Trollshaws? (Check out the scenes of running dwarves in trailer two.)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Who is the master of Dol Guldur?<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a>
When Jackson’s story begins, the Wise do not know that Sauron has returned and is master of Dol Guldur.<\/figcaption><\/figure> The first questions we need to deal with are the ones regarding the perception of Dol Guldur at the time of the story. Fortunately, they yield fairly well to common sense. Dol Guldur is a scary-looking place in a haunted forest\u2014it seems to be an ancient ruin, probably dating back, as in the book, at least to the days of Angmar. And Gandalf has been there to check it out and found a crazed imprisoned dwarf. So it must be well established that it is has been ruled for a while by some malign presence.<\/p>\n

Next, since necromancy is a major weapon of Sauron\u2019s in these movies, the name \u201cthe Necromancer\u201d must be used prominently. However, when Azog shows up resurrected, it\u2019s a clue as to the nature of the evil presence in Dol Guldur. So this is the first time that Dol Guldur has been linked to the art of necromancy, and that tells us that its master is not already known as \u201cthe Necromancer\u201d (whereas in the book, that\u2019s his longstanding name). Since necromancy was a well-known specialty of Sauron\u2019s going back to the First Age, that means that \u201cthe Necromancer\u201d in the movie is instead merely an old name for Sauron\u2014one that\u2019s being revived now as particularly appropriate. <\/p>\n

So, at the time our story begins, the Wise know of the existence of a malign presence in Dol Guldur. Not only do they have no suspicion that it is Sauron returned, they don\u2019t believe it is one of the Nazg\u00fbl, since they are all imprisoned. And most tellingly, they have not yet acted against it. We can figure out quite a bit from these facts. First, they must have investigated Dol Guldur as soon as they became aware of the evil there, and identified its master to their satisfaction<\/em>. And they must have concluded that he was someone ultimately non-threatening to Middle-earth at large \u2014 not a Dark Power, but a mere orc chieftain or descendent of Black N\u00famenoreans. This in turn gives us a time frame for his first appearance in this version of the history \u2014 within an orc or human lifetime of the present, whereas in the book he\u2019s been doing his thing in Mirkwood for over 1800 years and is responsible for the forest (formerly called Greenwood the Great) becoming evil.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Bolg is the overseer of the dungeons of Dol Guldur.<\/figcaption><\/figure> All of this makes good sense as storytelling. It\u2019s terrifying for the Wise if they realize that Sauron returned a hundred or so years ago, and has been planning his attack on them the whole while, while remaining essentially undetected. It\u2019s much less scary (and hence much less interesting as a story) if the Wise have succeeded in identifying Sauron immediately upon his actual return. This plot point has been kept out of the trailers and character biographies, but it\u2019s crucial: the danger is not merely that a Dark Power has returned to the world, but that he did so some time ago and is now beginning to move openly against the Wise.<\/p>\n

And now we know enough to answer one of our major questions. Just as in the book, it must have been Gandalf who first investigated Dol Guldur to try to identify its master, and that\u2019s what he was doing there 91 years previously when he encountered Thr\u00e1in. This version of the history thus combines Gandalf\u2019s two visits to Dol Guldur \u2014 his initial unsuccessful investigation of 2063, and his successful one of 2850 \u2014 into one. In this revision, he succeeded in identifying the nature of the evil in Dol Guldur on his first try, and reported his finding back to the Council… but he got it wrong<\/em>. All we have to do is figure out whom he believed was in charge there.<\/p>\n

Hmm… is there anything else we know, something I may have left out of the above recap for phony dramatic effect? Yes, we know (from the figurine character descriptions) that Bolg is the overseer of the dungeons of Dol Guldur<\/em>. How old is Bolg? He\u2019s the son of Azog, who in the book is slain at the Battle of Azanulbizar in 2799. Unless the orcs have sperm bank technology (credible only in a Rankin-Bass adaptation), Bolg was alive when his father was killed (even if only in utero). So when Gandalf investigated the first reports of an evil presence in the ruin in Mirkwood, Bolg was at least 50, plenty old enough to have been enlisted by Sauron as a lieutenant. (It\u2019s also worth noting that Bolg is at least 141 when he is killed in The Hobbit in 2941; I believe this is the only orc lifetime established by Tolkien.)<\/p>\n

So when Gandalf found Thr\u00e1in in the dungeons of Dol Guldur, Bolg was not only there, he was the character Gandalf was likeliest to encounter. It\u2019s perfectly reasonable that Gandalf could think he was in charge of the place. And that\u2019s why Bolg has been made Sauron\u2019s lieutenant (by both Sauron and the screenwriters): so that Gandalf and hence the White Council could think he was the master of Dol Guldur<\/em>. And to return to an earlier point now that we\u2019ve solved this riddle, it\u2019s entirely credible that the Wise would not summon an army to drive Bolg from Mirkwood. He represents no long-term threat, Mirkwood is already a place that prudent people avoid, and there are plenty of other evil things in the world. From their point of view, he\u2019s like Saddam before he acquired imaginary weapons of mass destruction; just one bad guy of many, and you can\u2019t take them all on.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Morgul-blade revealed!<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a> Now that we\u2019ve dispensed with the preliminaries, let\u2019s get to the good stuff. In my humble opinion, the best of these questions is: who lost the Morgul-blade? Because a mere Morgul-blade doesn\u2019t mean much. Consider, for example, the obvious and common guess that the blade is found in the troll\u2019s treasure along with Orcrist, Glamdring, and a Sting to be named later. (Never mind that that\u2019s bad storytelling, as it fails to make the finding of the blade special in any way.) Elrond tells us that the trolls must have \u201cplundered other plunderers\u201d in a succession that reaches all the way back to the fall of Gondolin in the First Age. And in fact there\u2019s no reason why a Morgul-Blade from a thousand years ago, before the Witch-king was defeated, couldn\u2019t be found in any treasure-hoard. Nope, you can\u2019t just find a Morgul-blade. You have to know it was recently used by an enemy<\/em>.<\/p>\n

And who could that be? Who might be wielding a Morgul-blade, other than a Nazg\u00fbl?<\/p>\n

A barrow-wight, that\u2019s who. A barrow-wight, as in a spirit re-animated by necromancy<\/em>.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s right, Gandalf, Bilbo, and the Dwarves must unexpectedly encounter and defeat a wight\u2014and this discovery of necromancy is itself possible evidence that Sauron the Necromancer has returned to Middle-Earth. The White Council meeting is probably as much about the encounter with the barrow-wight as it is about the retrieval of the Morgul-blade from him; we\u2019ve been shown the latter to whet our appetites while the former has been kept under wraps. Yet the Morgul-blade is far from trivial. To create the proper level of uncertainty within the Council, necromancy of this simple sort must be rare but not unheard of in Jackson\u2019s version of the history; presumably Sauron taught the art to other, lesser practitioners, and that knowledge has been passed down through the ages. That the corpses in the barrows of the ancient kingdom of Cardolan (I\u2019m guessing this happens somewhere east of Bree) have become reanimated does not necessarily point to the Necromancer as the culprit. But if they have been armed with Morgul-blades, that makes it far more likely.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
We may see a diversion to the Barrow-downs before the Company reaches the Trollshaws. Artwork: John Howe.<\/figcaption><\/figure> I\u2019ve been advocating for the insertion of \u201cFog on the Barrow-Downs\u201d since the movie was announced, with the idea that wight activity would be one of the reasons the Council decided to attack Dol Guldur. And that\u2019s because adding such an episode would serve no less than four<\/em> other purposes.<\/p>\n

First, and most importantly, it inserts an adventure between Hobbiton and the Trollshaws. In FOTR that journey fills nearly twenty-five minutes of action (in thirty-four of running time, the other nine being three Saruman sequences). Without an added adventure, The Hobbit would likely cover the same territory in a fifty-second montage of walking and running to the tunes of Howard Shore, a la<\/em> the Ring going south in FOTR. And that would seem odd and abrupt to everyone familiar with the FOTR version of this journey. <\/p>\n

Second, if Gandalf stays behind to further investigate signs of barrow-wight activity, it provides a much more satisfying reason than the book\u2019s for his absence when they encounter the trolls, and hence a much more dramatic reappearance (and of course explains why he is missing from all of the walking and running footage in the second trailer). <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
A diversion to the Barrow-downs brings in action before the Trollshaws.<\/figcaption><\/figure> Third, you can provide an early, important hero moment for Thorin, by making him the only dwarf who can overcome the spell and battle the wight, thus keeping the rest of the party alive until Gandalf can open the tomb. <\/p>\n

And fourth, it would break up the comic tone that dominates the story from the Unexpected Party through the Trolls. (I was thrilled to see Thomas Monteath make the same guess in his September 5 piece on the figurine character biographies, and I hope I\u2019ve provided the rationale that he mostly left missing.)<\/p>\n

Oh, and \u201cFog on the Barrow-Downs\u201d rocks. (Or \u201cstanding stones,\u201d if we can make that a verb.) <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Radagast and the tombs of the Nazg\u00fbl<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Radagast may be introduced to the audience by his absence from the White Council meeting.<\/figcaption><\/figure> This would make a good name for a standing stone group, but what can we figure out about them? The Radagast story line is predictably the toughest to parse, since it\u2019s entirely invented. But let\u2019s start with the background insight that Dol Guldur has been moved significantly northward, much closer to Rhosgobel. In the book, Dol Guldur is due east of L\u00f3rien, which would mean the battle of Dol Guldur would be fought by elves from there and not from the Wood-elves\u2019 realm in northern Mirkwood. <\/p>\n

In other words, if we stay faithful to the book\u2019s geography, we\u2019d see Haldir instead of Legolas at the battle\u2014and we know we\u2019re seeing Legolas. Furthermore, LOTR is meant to take place on a larger canvas than The Hobbit, so we want to leave some regions of Middle-earth unvisited until the later story. It thus makes sense to show us only one of the two great Elven refuges now, and that means highlighting Rivendell while writing L\u00f3rien out of the story. All of this explains why there are no reports that L\u00f3rien will be in the film, even though Galadriel will be.<\/p>\n

Moving Dol Guldur northward also strikes me as an improvement on Tolkien; it\u2019s always been a puzzle as to why Sauron would have built it a hundred miles due east of the home of the mightiest and most perceptive of the remaining Eldar of Middle-Earth. A location close to the middle of Mirkwood, halfway between the Old Forest Road and the Gladden Fields, makes more sense. Tolkien only located Rhosgobel in a late note, cited in Unfinished Tales (which Jackson has no rights to), but it would make sense for Jackson to put it where Tolkien did\u2014near the Forest Road and hence on Thorin and Co.\u2019s original intended route.<\/p>\n

We can next ask, how can you introduce Radagast? Never mind that he\u2019s barely in the book\u2014he lives alone, meaning no one ever addresses him by name. The one way that\u2019s easy and straightforward is to have the White Council introduce him by discussing his absence. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Radagast discovers that “a dark power has found its way back into the world”.<\/figcaption><\/figure> Their debate about the likelihood of Sauron\u2019s return and the necessity of examining the Nazg\u00fbl tombs could end in a deadlock, with Gandalf and Galadriel concerned but Saruman and Elrond unconvinced. And Saruman could break the tie by reminding them that Radagast sees things the way he does, and would certainly take his side if present. Cut directly from Saruman\u2019s assertion to Radagast discovering that \u201ca Dark Power has found a way back into the World,\u201d and the irony is chilling.<\/p>\n

However it plays out, Radagast\u2019s absence from the Council makes it clear that he and Gandalf initially have separate, independent storylines, where each finds evidence of Sauron\u2019s return. That\u2019s good storytelling. And like you, I am dying to find out just what Sauron can do to a hedgehog that would be as scary to Radagast as the re-animation of the dead is to Gandalf. But this invention of Jackson\u2019s seems nicely in accord with the concern that Tolkien always shows for the natural world. A hedgehog by any other name would be a tree.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m guessing there\u2019s at least one scene that escalates this initial discovery of hedgehog evil blight, before the big third act event: giant spiders attack and presumably destroy Rhosgobel. This has two related consequences: Radagast, driven out of Mirkwood, must go somewhere else, and he must relay this news to the Council as soon as possible. Now, we\u2019re fairly certain that Radagast is a master of sending messages by animal, bird, or moth, but it would be intensely undramatic if he were able to able to pass this news along without any trouble<\/em>. In terms of making things difficult for the good guys, it\u2019s already problematical enough that Elrond and Galadriel can communicate telepathically. If Radagast never finds it a challenge to send messages, you\u2019ve essentially given the rest of the White Council cell phones, albeit very slow ones and almost certainly running Windows. Sending messages has to take him time and effort.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Radagast must convey news to the White Council.<\/figcaption><\/figure> As we\u2019ll see below, we can be sure that this attack is not random, but part of a plan to get Radagast. That means that a party of orcs and\/or wargs will be waiting for our wizard just outside of Mirkwood\u2014perhaps the same party (probably led by Azog) that had Thorin and Co. up in the treetops a day or two before. And this plot requirement meshes with the three we just laid out. Radagast flees; his goal is to get someplace that\u2019s not only safe, but where he\u2019ll have time to summon and instruct the proper messenger. The obvious destination is the nearby hall of his friend Beorn. It\u2019s likely that Radagast\u2019s rabbit-sled was invented (by both Radagast and the screenwriters) to make a pursuit by and escape from Wargs not just credible but exciting; rabbits and wolves run at roughly the same speed (especially true of rabbits and an imaginary species<\/em> of wolf).<\/p>\n

Jackson being Jackson, the pursuit sequence will be garnished with an especially exciting incident or two (think crumbling bridge in Moria); we\u2019ll see below that there\u2019s probably one such incident good enough to function as a film-ending cliffhanger. There may be dramatic tension as we wonder whether Radagast will arrive at Beorn\u2019s before Gandalf leaves (I\u2019m guessing he doesn\u2019t), and downright anxiety when we see that Beorn has left to accompany his guests to the eaves of Mirkwood, and won\u2019t be there to defend Radagast against his pursuers. (That job could be handled by ordinary bears\u2014but at this point I\u2019m just making wild-assed guesses, and, what\u2019s more, probably guesses about the beginning of the second film.)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Radagast II: where are the tombs, and when do we see them?<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Gandalf investigates the tombs of the Nazg\u00fbl.<\/figcaption><\/figure> Let\u2019s jump ahead now to the end of this sequence, where things become clear again. The Council (perhaps just Elrond) has received Radagast\u2019s terrifying message that a Dark Power had attacked and destroyed the home of a Wizard. They have responded urgently: the Nazg\u00fbl tombs must be examined at once. The investigation of the tombs is the final Radagast scene we know of\u2014and as already noted, it\u2019s unlikely that we\u2019ll see it in December. However, I think we can figure out exactly when in the story it must happen. When Gandalf goes to investigate the tombs, he\u2019s leaving the Dwarves. And we know when and where he leaves the Dwarves: at the eaves of Mirkwood. This is a dramatic scene in the book, one far too good to omit. And Jackson can use the expanded Sauron storyline to make it significantly more effective.<\/p>\n

That Gandalf is not formally a part of Thorin\u2019s group is of course a central plot element: it\u2019s because he can\u2019t be counted as one of the party that the Dwarves need Bilbo to be the lucky fourteenth member. In Tolkien, there are two types of reason for this. The authorial<\/em> reason is that Gandalf is too powerful a character, and his permanent presence among the company would restrict the range of perilous situations that Tolkien could have the company face. The reason internal to the story<\/em> that Tolkien then invented was that Gandalf had other wizardly business he expected to have to attend to, and therefore could not commit to accompanying the Dwarves the entire time; specifically, Gandalf expected to be working with the White Council against the Necromancer.<\/p>\n

(The glib jest here is that it\u2019s a good thing for Jackson that he did, because without the Necromancer storyline there might not be material for more than one movie. The truth is that without this seemingly offhand connection, there might be no Hobbit or Lord of the Rings at all. Tolkien abandoned The Hobbit in the middle of the first chapter, and when he picked it up again about nine months later, he introduced the Necromancer (Sauron) within pages. Had Tolkien consciously decided to set this new story in the world of his legendarium, and is that the reason he resumed work on it?) <\/p>\n

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Gandalf leaving the Company at the eaves of Mirkwood increases the story tension.<\/figcaption><\/figure> The book thus features a tension between the Dwarves\u2019 knowledge that they\u2019re not supposed to count on Gandalf, and their feeling that he\u2019ll always be there to save them, as he did from the Trolls and the Great Goblin. This tension comes to a head when Gandalf leaves them at the worst possible place, at the eaves of Mirkwood.<\/p>\n

So there is a big scene where the Dwarves groan and look distressed and plead with Gandalf and offer him \u201cdragon-gold and silver and jewels\u201d not to leave them. But this doesn\u2019t happen at the eaves of Mirkwood, where it would be most dramatic. It happens at the Carrock. Gandalf has given them two days\u2019 advance notice of his intentions. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s a good internal story reason for this: Gandalf is wise and good-hearted, and telling the Dwarves in advance, so that they can get used to the idea of his leaving, is the right thing to do. It\u2019s in character. But there is, I think, an even stronger authorial reason. Gandalf leaving the Dwarves in the lurch at the edge of Mirkwood has no sound story reason; Tolkien simply needs Gandalf out of the way to make the forest sequence work. It\u2019s an authorial contrivance, a diabolus ex machina<\/em>, and Tolkien cheerfully admitted this in his letters. Gandalf\u2019s advance notice that he\u2019s leaving is designed to alert the reader as well as the Dwarves of this unsupported upcoming plot turn, and hence make it seem more organic and less arbitrary.<\/p>\n

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The dwarves must dread the thought of Gandalf leaving the Company at Mirkwood yet hope he won’t.<\/figcaption><\/figure> The storytelling actually stumbles at Mirkwood. The advance warning ends up accomplishing little or nothing; when the Dwarves realize Gandalf is leaving, they are \u201cin despair,\u201d and they argue with him to try to change his mind, not only that evening but the next morning as well. And there is no internal story reason for this. In fact, all it does is make the Dwarves look bad; they\u2019ve had plenty of time to get used to the idea of Gandalf leaving and should be accepting his departure with equanimity. No, the reason is strictly authorial: to make Mirkwood scary<\/em>. The Dwarves are again a reader surrogate, and they have to act despairing at the thought of facing Mirkwood without Gandalf, or we readers won\u2019t dread Mirkwood the way Tolkien wants us to.<\/p>\n

All of this can be fixed and improved in the movie. First, we now have an internal story reason for Gandalf\u2019s departure\u2014in fact, we\u2019ve made it an entire parallel storyline to the Quest of Erebor. So there\u2019s no longer any authorial need to tell us of Gandalf\u2019s departure in advance; it will still seem uncontrived even if it comes as a surprise. So why not make it one? You can have Gandalf tell the Dwarves that he might have to leave them just when things will get scariest, but that he very much hopes not to. The Dwarves can steel themselves against this possibility while hoping fervently that it doesn\u2019t come true.<\/p>\n

And just as they are preparing to enter the forest together, Gandalf can get a message from Radagast: meet me at the tombs, now<\/em>. Everyone is surprised, everyone is distressed \u2014 Gandalf included. Mirkwood\u2019s even scarier now that we see how badly Gandalf wanted to help the Dwarves deal with it. The Dwarves\u2019 despair at his absence doesn\u2019t make them look bad, because they were blindsided at the last possible moment. And we can see them tighten their belts and summon the courage to plunge onward nevertheless. It seems to me to be inescapably better storytelling, and I don\u2019t think Jackson will miss it. <\/p>\n

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Gandalf must divine what has brought the Nazg\u00fbl back.<\/figcaption><\/figure> Hence the investigation of the tombs will happen parallel to the dwarves\u2019 first Mirkwood adventures. And that leads us directly to the one truly counter-intuitive insight of this analysis. The D\u00fanedain cannot have entombed the Nazg\u00fbl anywhere in their bailiwick, not in Angmar, Rhudaur, or elsewhere in Eriador, even though that would seem to make sense for them. The tombs must be somewhere in Anduin Vale. It\u2019s pure plot expediency; the tombs must be relatively near Mirkwood for screenwriters\u2019 reasons. It would take weeks for Gandalf to journey back over the Misty Mountains to tombs in Eriador. <\/p>\n

That journey would have to be either uneventful or eventful, and both are unacceptable narrative choices. We\u2019ve just gone to great lengths to establish that a journey through the Mountain Passes is dangerous, so Gandalf\u2014and separately, Radagast\u2014just can\u2019t go waltzing over them unhindered; that would weirdly undermine the previous thirty minutes of the movie. And yet the two known perils of the Passes, goblins and stone-giants, have been used already, which means the Wizards would have to face a peril that was either redundant, or wholly invented and thus intrusively unfaithful to the book. More importantly, encountering any sort of difficulty wouldn\u2019t serve to advance the story, but in fact would hinder it. We want to get to the Nazg\u00fbl tombs: that\u2019s the next story point<\/em>. They need to be nearby. So Jackson needs to come up with an internal story reason<\/em> why the D\u00fanedain would entomb the Nazg\u00fbl in Anduin Vale, far from their own homes. <\/p>\n

And it turns out that the reason is right in Tolkien. In LOTR, the Witch-king alone \u201ccomes north\u201d to Angmar and is not even recognized as one of the Nazg\u00fbl. Tolkien never specifies where the other eight are at this time, but it\u2019s not Mordor, which is still closely guarded. Dol Guldur (400 miles south of Carn Dum in Angmar, and 300 miles east) is probably the best guess. And in the movie, having the rest of the Nazg\u00fbl be the original lords of Dol Guldur would serve three purposes: it would explain Mirkwood\u2019s initial darkening, it would make Dol Guldur\u2019s later occupation by Sauron himself more credible to the Wise, and it would thus increase Gandalf\u2019s regret at having missed this.<\/p>\n

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Jackson will make the Stone-giants a key obstacle to the Company on the journey to Erebor.<\/figcaption><\/figure> (As we\u2019ll see in a moment, Gandalf\u2019s mistakes and regrets will be a major theme of the new trilogy.)<\/p>\n

So here\u2019s our new backstory. The D\u00fanedain defeat the Witch-king in Eriador and, after failing to destroy him, immobilize him with spells; they then bring him East to Dol Guldur, and work the same magic on the rest of the Nazg\u00fbl. <\/p>\n

(Note that separating the Witch-king from the other Nazg\u00fbl here helps explains why there is a prophecy only about his death, and not about the Nazg\u00fbl in general.) <\/p>\n

They\u2019re not going to carry all Nine back to Eriador; they\u2019re going to entomb them nearby. Nor is that an impractical idea, if the tombs are located between Elrond, Galadriel, and Radagast. <\/p>\n

And here\u2019s a bold guess for exactly where the tombs are: the Carrock<\/em>. To begin with, it already has a cave. It\u2019s surrounded on three sides by a river, and hence the burial of the Nazg\u00fbl here would echo the suggestion in Tolkien that the Nazg\u00fbl don\u2019t much like water, and thus have an evocative resonance with their defeat at the ford of the Bruinen in FOTR. <\/p>\n

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The tomb of the Nazg\u00fbl may be inside The Carrock.<\/figcaption><\/figure> You\u2019d get two uses from one location design, and you\u2019d make the location important and memorable without having had to invent it. And if we hear quite a bit about the tombs, visit the Carrock without giving their location away, and then come back there to reveal it, it would be a very cool surprise.<\/p>\n

The one obvious drawback to this idea is that it seems to open a plot hole: why doesn\u2019t Gandalf stop and investigate the tombs the first time he\u2019s there, after the Eagles have dropped him right on top of them? But this actually fixes a plot hole that was latent in Tolkien and that Jackson has probably exacerbated by having orcs about, and still presumably hunting them after the treetop rescue. Why wouldn\u2019t Gandalf have the Eagles take them much closer to Beorn\u2019s? Why land seven miles away, at the Carrock? The Eagles don\u2019t like to fly within arrow range of human settlements, and Gandalf doesn\u2019t want to get within easy sight of Beorn\u2019s halls, so he can work his two-at-a-time ruse. <\/p>\n

But there\u2019s no good reason why they couldn\u2019t land a mile or so away and spare themselves an entire morning\u2019s journey. So what I think might happen is this: as they circle high above Anduin Vale, Gandalf has the Eagles look for signs of orc and Warg activity. The Eagles see some (mostly pursuing Radagast, although only we know that), but Gandalf makes the decision to land at the Carrock to investigate the tombs, even though that would be time-consuming.<\/p>\n

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Eagles don’t like to fly within arrow range of human settlements.<\/figcaption><\/figure> When he gets there, though, he changes his mind. Probably he sees or hears something that causes him to reconsider the risk, and then he allows himself to be reassured (against his better judgment) by the skepticism of Saruman. <\/p>\n

So he instead decides to seek out the safety of Beorn\u2019s lodgings as quickly as possible. (All of this we would understand only after the fact, when we return to the Carrock. And if Jackson has really introduced a party of orcs from Dol Guldur hunting the company as soon as they get East of the Mountains, they need to be put out of action for a while to allow the party to get to Mirkwood, and then the tombs to be examined\u2014this may well be connected to Radagast\u2019s escape.) <\/p>\n

I might be entirely wrong about this, but I include it as an example of something the movie will stress: Gandalf\u2019s occasional uncertainty and self-doubt. In both the book and the movie, the Istari (Wizards) have been sent to Middle-Earth in advance of Sauron\u2019s return and have spent many long years preparing for that eventuality (the only difference being that in the book, Sauron returns much sooner and goes undetected much longer). By delaying the Sauron storyline, Jackson can show us the crucial moments when Gandalf first takes on the great task that has long been appointed for him: being the enemy of Sauron. Tentative first steps and missteps, and the lessons they teach, make for terrific drama; the better Gandalf gets at his job, the less interesting a character he becomes (although he becomes more inspiring to an almost precisely opposite degree). Gandalf is the one character who has a story arc across all six movies; an unsure Gandalf is precisely what Jackson wants to show us here at the start. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Radagast III: knitting together the story strands<\/h3>\n

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The attack of the spiders upon Rhosgobel helps weave the story threads together.<\/figcaption><\/figure> And the<\/em> key moment for Gandalf is now upon us. Gandalf hears Radagast\u2019s story of the destruction of Rhosgobel by spiders. What does that remind him of? Being attacked in the Misty Mountains by stone-giants (an episode which has been expanded by Jackson not only because it\u2019s exciting, but to contribute to this logic). The heretofore-autonomous nasty things of Middle-earth seem to be suddenly turning concertedly against the Wise, as if directed by some ruling malign force. And the point of this is not to simply ratchet up the threat of Sauron. <\/p>\n

The purpose is to unite the two separate strands of the movie, the quest of Erebor and the return of Sauron, and it goes back to Tolkien himself.<\/p>\n

After finishing LOTR, Tolkien was faced with a vexing plot question: if Gandalf had been sent to Middle-earth to be the enemy of Sauron, why had he invested so much time and energy to helping the dwarves recover their kingdom and treasure? The answer must have come easily. Years earlier Tolkien had written the tale of the destruction of the elven refuge Nargothrond by the dragon Glaurung, who frankly makes Smaug look as threatening as a third-grader. (If you\u2019ve not read The Children of H\u00farin, stop and do so now. I\u2019ll wait.) <\/p>\n

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Glaurung the dragon, one of the chief weapons Morogth used to defeat the Eldar in Beleriand. Artwork: John Howe.<\/figcaption><\/figure>And Glaurung, though he seems to be utterly self-willed, is at the same time a weapon of Morgoth, the original Dark Lord, in his war against the exiled Noldorin high elves. Smaug, then, could have been used by Morgoth\u2019s old lieutenant Sauron as a weapon against Rivendell. That was Tolkien\u2019s retcon (which you\u2019ll find in the final section of LOTR\u2019s Appendix A, \u201cDurin\u2019s Folk,\u201d and in \u201cThe Quest of Erebor\u201d in Unfinished Tales and The Annotated Hobbit): Gandalf aided Thorin because he hoped it would lead to the death of the dragon\u2014and hence save Rivendell.<\/p>\n

At the start of the movie, Gandalf no longer has this rationale consciously, but it is completely within the spirit of Tolkien to give him a foresight that he should aid Thorin, just as in \u201cThe Quest of Erebor\u201d he has a foresight that Bilbo must join the company. And then along the way, the reason for his foresight is discovered. When that happens, the response to Sauron\u2019s threat becomes twofold, as it is in the books: attack Dol Guldur and drive Sauron from Mirkwood, and complete the quest of Erebor to remove Smaug as a potential weapon.<\/p>\n

While it would seem obvious to Tolkien that even a creature as intelligent and self-willed as a dragon could be used in such a fashion by a Dark Power, it wouldn\u2019t seem anywhere as evident to film audiences who know nothing of the Glaurung story. So that\u2019s why Jackson has the stone-giants attack Gandalf and his party, and giant spiders destroy Rhosgobel. It\u2019s not just that it gives Gandalf the chilling insight that if Sauron has indeed returned, he is very likely planning to use Smaug in a similar fashion as a weapon against Rivendell. It\u2019s that it makes this credible to the other members of the Council\u2014and to us. <\/p>\n

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Gandalf’s foresight drives his aid for Thorin’s quest.<\/figcaption><\/figure>This knitting together of the two separate story threads will likely happen just after the two Wizards find the tombs empty, setting off the entire parallel storyline climaxing in the Battle of Dol Guldur. The now-homeless Radagast will clearly be an important figure throughout it; I suspect we\u2019ll even see him at The Battle of Five Armies.<\/p>\n

At the end of the tale, though, he will tell the rest of the Council that he\u2019s had enough of dwarves and elves and men, and wants to devote his energy in any upcoming battle against Sauron to the protection of animals: someone has to look out for them. (And in a late note, Tolkien imagined that he was sent to Middle-earth by the Vala Yavanna for just that purpose, contradicting the statement in his essay on the Istari in Unfinished Tales that he had failed in his mission by doing so.) By this time, we will understand that the moth in LOTR was his messenger. Radagast is thus given an explicit presence in the other trilogy at the same time that his absence from it is explained.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

How exactly does An Unexpected Journey End?<\/h3>\n

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The barrels out of bond sequence has been shuffled to the second film.<\/figcaption><\/figure> (While this has little to do with the revision of the Sauron backstory, it is the other major revelation that folks have tried to divine from the available clues.)<\/em><\/p>\n

We know that the first movie continues as far as the rescue by the Eagles from the treetops, since we see that in the revised scroll. And not only has Beorn been excised from the scroll, there\u2019s no longer any mention of him in the synopsis or cast list. This has led some to conclude that we know that the movie ends there, and others (including myself) to complain that that\u2019s a lousy and uncharacteristic place for an ending.<\/p>\n

However, while the original scroll ended with \u201cBarrels Out of Bond,\u201d the revision ends not with the treetop rescue, but with a generic shot of Thorin and Gandalf, standing vaguely in front of Erebor\u2014which they are certainly not getting anywhere near. I can think of two possible reasons for this. First, it might indicate that the treetop rescue is not the last scene in the movie, but is followed by a scene or two that are either new or thoroughly changed, so that any portrayal of them in the scroll would have been incomprehensible or a spoiler. Additionally, it could be a placeholder indicating that there may or may not be significant additional scenes. It\u2019s perfectly credible to think that the revised scroll, synopsis, and cast list were produced at a time when Jackson wasn\u2019t sure where he was ending the movie. If he were unsure where it would end, he would have them include just what he knew would definitely be in the film.<\/p>\n

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Wargs will pursue them through the forest.<\/figcaption><\/figure> We can make sense of this muddle by looking at the way Jackson ended FOTR and TTT. We\u2019ve essentially seen four segment endings already, since each movie featured divided storylines. In three of them (both stories in FOTR, and Frodo and Sam in TTT), the characters were actively moving from one stage of their journey to another more dangerous or difficult one, and we knew at least a little of what the new stage entailed. Jackson is so fond of this structure for story suspension that he had Gandalf in the other half of TTT invoke it: \u201cThe battle for Helm\u2019s Deep is over. The battle for Middle-earth is about to begin.\u201d (The difference here is that the increased difficulty is coming to them, rather than their actively choosing it.) None of this is true of being carried away by Eagles. The characters have not decided what they\u2019re doing next, their journey is not entering a distinct new stage, and in the book there\u2019s no hint of increased danger or difficulty.<\/p>\n

However, if we continue until Thorin and Co. have been deposited on the Carrock, we do have a classic Jackson stopping point. They\u2019ve successfully gotten themselves over the Mountains, and now they\u2019re in sight of Mirkwood, which promises a new type of danger. And this is especially true if they\u2019ve just learned that the land between them and the forest is teeming with orcs and Wargs, as I speculated above. Meanwhile, in the parallel Radagast storyline, Jackson could both create a sense of stage transition and give us his first cliffhanger. Radagast could see an unexpected opportunity to briefly elude his pursuers, and use it to get his message off \u2014 only to find that the effort has put him in impossible peril. I can imagine cutting from the Lord of the Eagles telling Gandalf that he sees orcs and Wargs, to the scene of them surrounding or trapping Radagast, and then back to the Carrock landing, where Gandalf (after hesitating mysteriously and appearing unsure of himself) says cryptic things about where he\u2019s taking them next. And then the credits. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Ending II: The Eagles are changing!<\/h3>\n

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Jackson’s The Hobbit may exaggerate that the Eagles “are not kindly birds”.<\/figcaption><\/figure> One problem with this ending is that the last dwarves\u2019 sequence, their stay in the Eagles\u2019 eyrie, would seem to be undramatic, far less satisfying as a climax than the treetop rescue. After all, the end of ROTK establishes that the Eagles are not just Good Guys, but the closest thing in Middle-earth to Deus ex Machina<\/em> Airlines, as Bored of the Rings put it. (To Tolkien\u2019s credit, he was acutely aware of this and leery of overusing them as a device). In The Hobbit, Tolkien creates some temporary dramatic tension when the Eagles refer to \u201cthe prisoners,\u201d and Bilbo interprets this as \u201cour prisoners\u201d rather than \u201cthe ex-prisoners of the goblins and Wargs.\u201d The solution here would be to make Bilbo\u2019s fear legitimate rather than mistaken. <\/p>\n

The Eagles of the Misty Mountains were, after all, \u201cnot kindly birds,\u201d so immediately after the rescue, let\u2019s make them surprisingly inimical to Thorin and Company. Why might they rescue them and then be unfriendly? It\u2019s a puzzle, but by no means an impossible one for the screenwriters to solve. For instance, they might mistakenly believe Gandalf and the dwarves responsible for some hurt or harm, and desire to interrogate them and, if appropriate, punish them themselves. This twist would essentially end the movie with \u201cout of the frying-pan, through the fire, then down the garbage disposer,\u201d to coin a proverb you\u2019re unlikely to ever hear again. <\/p>\n

At first glance, this might seem like adding obstacle for its own sake, and it will certainly remind some viewers of Treebeard\u2019s surprise initial decision not to attack Isengard. But there\u2019s another reason to turn the Eagles sequence on its head, one I feel Jackson will find irresistible. In the book, it\u2019s noted that Gandalf had once healed the Lord of the Eagles of an arrow-wound, thus beginning the great friendship between Gandalf and the Eagles that reaches its apotheosis near the end of LOTR. <\/p>\n

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The help of the Eagles at the Battle of the Five Armies is what Tolkien called a “eucatastrophe”.<\/figcaption><\/figure> Jackson loves to take elements from the backstory and place them in the present action\u2014for instance, we witness the first time that Treebeard sees the destruction of trees he knew, when in the book that had been going on for some time. So Gandalf wouldn\u2019t just convince the Eagles that he and his companions were innocent; he would fix whatever it was that had made the Eagles so angry (or promise to do so and then later make good on it), and this would replace the healing of the wound as the origin story<\/em> for his friendship with them.<\/p>\n

And that in turn would change the dramatic impact of both the Eagles\u2019 tide-turning arrival at the Battle of Five Armies and (for future viewers of the films in chronological order) near the end of ROTK. \u201cThe Eagles are coming!\u201d is an exquisite example of what Tolkien, in his groundbreaking essay \u201cOn Fairy-Stories,\u201d called eucatastrophe<\/em>, the sudden unforeseen turn for the good that causes the heart to catch, and which is an essential component of the classic fairy-tale. (It occasionally crops up in realistic narratives, too, including one of the most critically acclaimed films of the last few years. Note that simply knowing that there is a eucatastrophe, even without knowing what it is, spoils the ending, so click at your peril<\/a> if you want to know which one.) <\/p>\n

The only problem is that he used the exact same eucatastrophe outside the gates of Mordor. Changing the Eagle story in The Hobbit, though, would give the two eucatastrophes very different dramatic flavors.<\/p>\n

The arrival of the Eagles in any version of The Hobbit will always be an unexpected thrill, but the full emotional palette that blooms in the next few moments, as we think about the story, depends on the dramatic circumstances. In the book, their participation in the Battle is essentially a gift, since even if the reader remembers the bit about the arrow-wound, that debt has already been repaid with the treetop rescue. By putting Gandalf\u2019s favor to the Eagles into the story, after the rescue, we turn their arrival at the Battle into something our heroes have earned<\/em>, into a payoff<\/em>. We\u2019ve created a causal connection between the earlier Eagle episode and the victory in the Battle, whereas in the book they are both the result of an event long ago.<\/p>\n

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Like with the Rohirrim in Lord of the Rings, Jackson may shift the Eagles’ motivations from the past into the present.<\/figcaption><\/figure>Jackson loves to tighten and amplify dramatic rationales in this manner, a quintessential example being Rohan\u2019s participation in the Battle of the Pelennor. In the book, that\u2019s never in question because it rests on an unshakeable alliance forged long ago (a tale told beautifully in \u201cCirion and Eorl\u201d in Unfinished Tales). Jackson applies his Rule #1 to this element of the backstory: have it happen now, and show it to us. Hence we get what might be the most thrilling sequence in the original trilogy, beginning with the lighting of the beacons and climaxing with Th\u00e9oden\u2019s \u201cAnd Rohan will answer!\u201d That\u2019s why I\u2019m almost certain he\u2019ll do the same thing with the Eagles: put the reason why the good guys show up to save the day into the movie<\/em>, rather than leave it as history. <\/p>\n

Ordinarily I would regard this change as a mixed blessing, because there\u2019s something to be said, after all, for having the Eagles arrive and save the day for no reason other than that they want to. But that is what we\u2019ll see three movies later near the end of ROTK, where it will be especially gratifying now that we know the whole story. Changing the flavor of The Hobbit eucatastrophe is a win-win when it makes ROTK\u2019s unique.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Ending III: alternatives<\/h3>\n

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The introduction of the Company to Beorn will be better suited to the beginning of film two.<\/figcaption><\/figure> If we don\u2019t end at the Carrock, where else might we? There\u2019s an even more classic stopping point when they reach the eaves of Mirkwood, when Gandalf is called away to investigate the tombs of the Nazg\u00fbl and hence perhaps deal with the return of the Dark Lord himself, and Bilbo and the Dwarves must steel themselves to face the terrors of Mirkwood without him. And like the ending of FOTR, it\u2019s the point where the characters divide into two separate storylines, where they\u2019ll remain throughout the next film. However, as others have noted, the visit with Beorn seems weak as a penultimate sequence and likely to work much better as an opening one. Furthermore, if they\u2019ve retained more or less intact Gandalf\u2019s ruse for introducing all fourteen of his companions to Beorn two at a time, then the episode starts with a built-in summary of the end of the first movie in the form of Gandalf\u2019s narration. <\/p>\n

On the other hand, it\u2019s quite possible that the Beorn stopover has been made more exciting, enough so that it would work perfectly well as a near-final sequence. That\u2019s why I can\u2019t completely dismiss the possibility that Jackson was hedging his bet here. Remember, as originally conceived, the film was supposed to end in neither of these places. I can imagine Jackson wanting to watch both versions, plus (no less importantly) each corresponding rough cut of the beginning of the next film, before making a final decision. I think it likely that it ends at the Carrock as I just outlined, complete with a bold and uncharacteristic cliffhanger in the wholly invented parallel Radagast storyline. But no-one should feel shocked or misled if it unexpectedly goes on a bit further.<\/p>\n

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We’re all going on an adventure.<\/figcaption><\/figure> Finally, I also think there\u2019s a small chance that Jackson is acutely aware that everyone is expecting one of his classic endings, and is determined to throw us a changeup. In which case, he could be going for a double<\/em> cliffhanger, one with Radagast and one with the invented conflict with the Eagles. The suspense in the latter would lie in not knowing how<\/em> the situation could possibly be resolved. (That, after all, is the case in any great perilous moment involving James Bond, Captain Kirk, or any other continuing character whose death is in practice impossible.) <\/p>\n

And if Jackson has not only invented a credible threat from the Eagles but one so seemingly intractable that we\u2019ll spend a year trying to figure out how Gandalf, Thorin and Bilbo could possibly extricate themselves from it (and, oh yeah, turn it into a friendship profound enough to figure in the climax of both trilogies) \u2026 well, I suppose I could live with that, too.<\/p>\n

The second installment coming soon: The Initial Adaptation Challenges<\/i><\/p>\n

About the author:<\/b> Eric M. Van is well-known in the literary science fiction and fantasy community as the founding and longtime Program Chair of Readercon<\/a>; in 2010 he and three colleagues became the only people ever to be nominated for the World Fantasy Award (Special Award\u2014Non-Professional) for running an sf convention. He moderated the Tolkien panel at the only World Fantasy Convention he\u2019s been to and has been on many Tolkien \/ Jackson panels at cons in the Boston area, including the Third Conference on Middle-Earth. He\u2019s also a fanatic film buff who has seen 111 movies released in 2011 (so far), and a writer who has been working for fifteen years on a big, intricately plotted fantasy novel\u2014so he\u2019s thought a lot about how narratives are constructed. Like everyone else, he has a blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The views in this post are his own, and do not necessarily represent those of TheOneRing.net or its staff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over coming days, in this four-part series, guest writer Eric M. Van will draw together the threads of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":85,"featured_media":65828,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"TORn guest writer Eric M Van imagines Peter Jackson\u2019s The Hobbit in the first of a four-part series. http:\/\/wp.me\/p1tLoH-h66","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[499,331,22,7,4,148],"tags":[1788],"class_list":["post-65726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hobbit-movie-characters","category-greenbooks","category-headlines","category-hobbit-book","category-hobbit-movie","category-hobbit","tag-library"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/00-hobbit-gandalf.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1tLoH-h66","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/85"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65726"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65830,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65726\/revisions\/65830"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}