Barrel-rides and She-elves: Audience and "Anticipation" in Peter Jackson's Hobbit Trilogy

Abstract

Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy, to the audience that loved the Lord of the Rings films, is an exciting opportunity to revisit Tolkien’s fantastic world and see favorite characters acting out their earlier adventures. The reader of the books, though, is often likely to find the difference in tone between the children’s book and the vastly expanded films jarring. This talk will explore audience expectations, the difficulties of filming a “prequel” after a “sequel,” and issues of “anticipation” in relation to character development. The Hobbit has been part of my life since I was seven years old, as comfortable as an old chair by the fire with the kettle beginning to sing—and yet still able to waken a in me Tookish desire to visit the elves and wear a mithril coat and see a dragon. Today I want to talk primarily about Peter Jackson’s three-film adaptation of The Hobbit, but first a little general background on some other attempts to film these books. Writers, both professional and amateur, began trying to adapt Tolkien’s masterpieces The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit for film and stage almost as soon the ink was dry on the first printings. Before Jackson’s Lord of the Rings series, released 2001-2003, there were a number of other efforts to develop a Hollywood movie based on that book. The Tolkien collection at Marquette University in Milwaukee holds materials relating to three of these attempts: the 1957 Zimmerman treatment, which Tolkien read and annotated; the 1970 draft script by John Boorman, which was never filmed; and three revisions of the Chris Conkling-Peter Beagle script for the 1978 Ralph Bakshi film that covered up through the Battle of Helm’s Deep. There was also a 1981 cartoon from Rankin-Bass Studios, titled The Return of the King. The Hobbit hasn’t been quite as tempting to film-makers, as far as I’ve been able to tell, though there have been a number of stage adaptations, often aimed at younger audiences. In 1977, the TV network NBC aired the Rankin-Bass animated version of The Hobbit, which won the Peabody Award and Christopher Award. When Jackson originally pitched his idea of a film series based in Middle-earth, he wanted to start, as Tolkien did, with The Hobbit, but the studio wanted The Lord of the Rings first, probably expecting it to reach a wider audience than a film based on a children’s book. A few years after the Lord of the Rings films, Jackson tried to go back to The Hobbit, but his lawsuit against Warner Brothers made them reluctant to work with him. But it wasn’t long till they settled their differences and had him back as executive director, with Guillermo del Toro as director and primary writer. Filming delays and