The perfect adventure: The Hobbit

Tolkien’s The Hobbit is a perfect example of adventure. Everything about the tale is large—the cast, the location, the story.

The array of fourteen characters is distinct. No one would confuse the somewhat attractive flirty dwarf with the fat one or the surly dwarf who would be king. Nope, I don’t recall a single name or characteristics beyond the superficial ones—hair color, size, attitude. But were the characters meant to be distinct or just parts of a whole. Excluding Gandolf and Bilbo, personalities reflect societal characters—the brave, the talented, the young, the old, the fat, the leader, etc.

Please don’t assume this generalization is bad; in fact, it helped me. The cast is large, and although they are not all primary characters, the dwarves frequently share the screen as a unit. It is easier to understand and accept the group when the individuals are treated generally. In contrast, learning every nuance and backstory of fourteen characters would exhaust and overwhelm me.

So, I appreciate a little clumping and simplification of personalities because the story is not short.

His characters traverse the highs and lows of an epic journey up mountains, in the depths of the Earth, and through forests (was there a river?). The locations create limitlessness and far-flung distances. The viewer accepts the journey is long and wonders where else they’ll go and what’ll happen next.

The length of the journey impressed me.

An hour of the journey flew by, and then I realized there were two more hours, and even then, the story isn’t nearly over. Three hours was too long, right? The extended version was excessive.

Something must be cut. So, The Hobbit shifted from viewing pleasure to challenge. What scene was unnecessary? Which character could be eliminated?

The epic tale included every scene recommended by Save the Cat writes a Novel. It traveled through every trial of an adventure—from call to action to dark night of the soul to the final image—with no wasted luggage. (This doesn’t mean I didn’t have “why did he do that” moments.) But even the meal at Rivendell with the sloppy eating and boisterous singing was a character-defining moment. The contrast between the dwarves and the elves is stark.

Shockingly, I wanted more. I waited for scenes that never appeared like a confrontation between Bilbo’s life before the ring, Thranduil and Thorin, Thorin concurring Azog, and Azog’s survival.

So, The Hobbit was good, but it lacked the critical parts I wanted to see.