- J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth.
The world that codified the genre of modern fantasy.
Tolkien's stories of middle earth
depict a deep and wondrous world of complex lore
and fascinating, intricate backstory.
Peter Jackson's The Hobbit trilogy, not so much.
I think we can all agree that we'd rather be wearing
a billowing cloak and carrying a broadsword
than sitting at our desks all day.
And usually I'm all for any sword and sorcery movie.
And The Hobbit movies are fine if you're looking for
a mindless action romp or some zone out CGI eye candy,
but in The Hobbit trilogy
there's one thing I just can't get over.
The dwarves.
I wish you all could have re-watched these movies with me
because I almost lost my voice yelling at the TV.
As a refresher of the plot here's a quick summary.
Some dwarves have a late lunch at Bilbo Baggins' house
and then it's three two hour movies of crazy battle scenes
and depictions of the dwarven people
that are just plain wrong.
It's well-known that these movies
had a pretty troubled production.
But I think that's no excuse to disrespect
the dwarves we all know and love.
So without further ado I give you
everything The Hobbit trilogy gets wrong about dwarves.
We can all agree that a stone dwelling race
of miniature warriors with big beards
and even bigger axes is pretty freaking cool.
Which is why I was so upset that the writers
seemed to ignore one of the coolest
things about the dwarves; they're kick ass backstory!
The Tolkien smith God-like figure Aule,
first created the dwarves before the dawning of time.
But the creator of the universe, Eru Iluvatar,
had wanted the elves to be the first people
to walk on the earth.
So he put the dwarves underground
and put them into an enchanted sleep
until they awake eons later.
All this is to say the dwarves were crafted
directly by the hands of a noble smith God
with a great love and dignity that doesn't exactly
translate to characters behaving like this.
- Bombur, catch!
(dwarves cheering)
- My major problems with the dwarves in these movies
all fall into one of three categories.
Physical, historical, and cultural.
And by the end of this video I think you'll agree with me
that for all the things this movie did wrong
their worst offense is completely mischaracterizinging
some of the coolest characters in Tolkien's lore.
Physical.
We know they're short and stocky,
which the film actually got right,
but that's about the only physical thing
they didn't whiff on.
Not counting the physically ridiculous things in the movie
like surviving this fall and subsequent
tonnage of Goblin King squishing you.
And not suffocating when all your air is cut off
because you're covered in mackerel.
There's so so much wrong with the way
the dwarves look and act
based on their physicality in these movies.
I'm gonna start with the big one here.
Beards!
Dwarves are born with fully grown beards.
Fun fact, both male and female dwarves have beards.
Awesome, kick ass, I wish I had a beard.
There is a possible explanation as to why
some of the dwarves in this movie don't have bushy beards.
The only time a dwarf will shave
is in a moment of great shame.
Kind of like the Dothraki warlords and their sick ponytails.
Fili, Bofur, and Ori barely have beards at all.
And this poor mans Legolas
has nothing more than a five o'clock shadow.
They could have shaved them off and be growing them back
because of something shameful they've done.
Looking at you Kili, you little pervert.
But I find it hard to believe that the noble dwarf strider,
oh, sorry, Thorin, would have any dwarves
with that much shame on their conscious in his employ.
Speaking of Thorin and dwarves follicles,
this is a minor point, but why does Thorin have highlights?
Because dwarves live to be about 250 years old
they don't come of age until they're about 35 years old.
But again, they're born with full beards
and Thorin's super squad are all of age in this story.
Do not tell me this is a 35 year old beard.
He used to be an adventurer but then, well, you know.
Next we come to Oin.
In the books he's a noble warrior,
in the movie he's an idiot old man
with a stupid, stupid ear trumpet.
This doesn't make any sense on a bunch of levels.
The first being that Thorin
is the oldest member of the company.
He's an estimated 195 years old
at the start of The Hobbit.
So why does he look so dramatically hale
while Oin, who's a couple decades younger,
look like a dirty Santa Claus
who's gone off his dementia medication.
Physically the dwarves are the hardiest
of all the races in Middle-earth.
They live for hundreds of years
without any real sign of physical decline.
So miss me with this ear trumpet nonsense.
Also I know I just said that they are the hardiest
people on Middle-earth,
but they're not Wolverine or Deadpool.
So the ax in the forehead on Bifur is really pushing it.
Before I move on from the physical
I need to point out one of my least favorite parts
of the movie; this mess.
If you absolutely have to change anything
about this fantasy classic,
adding a female character seems like a good place to start.
But introducing the character solely to be a love interest,
real classy move there Hollywood.
Also as a side note, Kili is supposed to be blonde.
Just FYI.
Historical.
Dwarves are an ancient and noble people
with a long and storied history.
From the moment the seven dwarf fathers
were reawakened with their wives who, again,
look a lot like dwarf men,
they spread out over Middle-earth
and began to build marvelous cities
and honed their arts of engineering, mining,
and crafting beautiful and powerful weapons and items.
Knowing all this and having a great respect
for the dwarven people,
I was obviously upset over scenes like this.
(dwarf burps) (crowd laughing)
(dwarf burps loudly)
(crowd laughing)
While there are many, many scenes in these movies
which don't line up within the history of Middle-earth
as set out by Tolkien like this nonsense,
and also this one which is really
more about physics than history
because that's not how barrels work.
I'm forcing myself to stay on the topic of dwarves.
Let's start with the fact that half
of the historical plot points are just plain wrong.
Azog, besides being a silly billy with salad tong hands,
was killed long, long before the events
of The Hobbit took place.
Thrain, Thorin's papa, though he did go to
Sauron's stronghold and was driven mad by Sauron's power
working through the ring he possessed,
died almost 100 years earlier and did not have
these weird, unnecessary scenes with Gandolf.
And speaking of Thorin Oakenshield,
there are a couple scenes in the movies
when the dwarves all talk about
what steps to take next on their journey.
And while a bit of this is normal on any quest,
Thorin is their king and the choice to downplay
his role as leader and final decision maker
is just lazy writing.
You know what's not lazy writing?
Tolkien's complex and beautiful linguistic systems.
He basically created all these stories in order
to have a place for the languages he spent years creating.
Guess what?
He created a whole language for the dwarves
but you'd never know it from these movies.
A huge missed opportunity is the dwarves
constantly referring to the wizard of the group
as Gandalf, which does happen in the original book,
but in the dwarven language Gandalf is known as Tharkun
which translates roughly to staff man
and is a totally sick nickname.
Remember earlier when I mentioned
that the dwarves were created by essentially a smith God?
And the well-known fact that dwarves
are master engineers and craftspeople
who lovingly create awesome structures
out of living rock that stand for millennia?
Yeah, I'm pretty sure they would know
that kicking the door wasn't going to work.
Thorin screaming.
- [Thorin] Break it down!
- Was a huge plot hole
that made me scream at my TV.
There are also many, many scenes throughout these films
where some rocks get wantonly tossed into dwarven structures
quickly bringing down massive parts of walls and cities.
Who would win, eons of magical engineering
from a race who can build the most powerful buildings
on the planet or one boulder boy?
Cultural.
And now my sweet friends and precious hobitses
we come to the meat of the argument; dwarven culture.
It makes me sad that these noble people are portrayed
as completely the opposite of what Tolkien intended.
Let's start with my least favorite scene
in all these movies.
The dining scene when they first meet Bilbo.
Dwarven culture is founded around strong social norms
with roots as deep as the mountains
where they make their homes.
Politeness to a guest or a host is paramount.
The dwarves, upon arrival, greet Bilbo politely
and hang up their gear.
They don't actively try and fuck up Bilbo's house.
After they eat and eat they clean up very quickly
without being asked.
And while they do tease Bilbo about breaking his dishes,
they're actually very orderly and clean.
They don't slobber everywhere, they're not covered in dirt,
they're all proud warriors from a noble lineage
who are vowing to take back their homelands.
Not grubby bros who spit up all over themselves.
Anyways when they get to Rivendell to ask Elrond's advice,
I fucking lost it.
Not only do they make a homophobic joke.
- [Dwarf] That's not an elf maid.
(slow harp music)
(crowd laughing)
- (laughs) Such a funny joke, how could anyone
possibly ever be attracted to someone of the same gender?
Ha-ha isn't that hilarious, let's shame Kili!
But they also insult the elves music which is not cool.
- [Gandalf] They've got a deep love of the arts.
- Change the tune why don't you.
I feel like I'm at a funeral.
- Did somebody die?
- Dwarves have a deep love and respect for music
and in Tolkien's lore nobody does tunes
better than the elves.
In the book the dwarves actually all play instruments
and Thorin is so classy that he plays a golden harp.
Very cool.
As I re-watched these trash fires,
I asked myself one question over and over.
Why?
Why are they so bad?
Why did they change so much from the books?
Why did they take a beloved children's classic
and turn it into three exhausting movies.
The explanation isn't too complicated,
but it also isn't an excuse
for the treatment of dwarves in the films.
After the monster success of the Lord of the Rings trilogy,
making The Hobbit was the logical next step.
And very excitingly famed director Guillermo del Toro
was brought on to direct and help write
a two part movie version of the story.
Financial uncertainty at a MGM caused del Toro
to jump ship and Peter Jackson,
who directed the Lord of the Rings trilogy
and was already helping with the script, was brought on.
He took the movies in an entirely new direction.
Wiping the creative slate clean
from important design elements
like costuming, characters and story.
Studio pressure combined with the wheels
of this huge $800 million production
already having been in motion for years
meant that Jackson and all the people working under him
had to make a movie and make it quick.
Filming began without a finished script.
Props and costumes were often brought to set
the day of a shoot, and Jackson went into grueling
days of shooting with no time to story board.
And despite some supremely awesome scenes like this one,
the frantic and chaotic production
shows through in the finished product.
I remember standing in line for the midnight release
of the first movie very excited
and exiting the theater with so much rage I felt crazy.
But years later the jokes on me
because these movies have grossed
almost $3 billion worldwide.
And grossed is the right word because that's disgusting.
In summary, Tolkien's dwarves are people of honor
and dignity is the cornerstone of their culture.
So yes, it's totally fine if you enjoyed these movies
or found the dwarves endearing or funny.
But there's only one hobbit movie in my book,
and that's this one.
And even that one is,
it's weird, it's really weird.
So, anyways, I'm Carolyn Page
and thanks for watching Today in Nerd History.