How does he do it? What can epic make of a furry-footed hero and his vertically-challenged if facially hirsute comrades? So Steve asks a rather profound question of genre and the epic-addled Peter Jackson film:īut Peter Jackson and his machinery will not be denied, and Hobbit 2: Chiefest and Greatest of Calamities walks, quacks, and breathes fire like an epic. Steve notes that The Hobbit (the book) is not an epic and never aspired to be, and its dwarves are - in Tolkien's own words - 'not heroes, but calculating folk with a great idea of the value of money.' Indeed, Tolkien's narrative is classic anti-epic (small in scale, resolutely non-heroic, deeply ambivalent about war).
I knew what I was getting into when I signed up to go to the film, so I don't have any negativity about the thing - yes, it is too long, too self-referential (return of the carrot eating man at the Prancing Pony!), too LotR part deux, too profligate in its gold, bad fan fiction, but, whatever. Read it! I want to reflect here a little on The Desolation of Smaug as (in Steve's apt words) 'an epic whitewater serpent.'
The piece is not only extraordinarily well written, it is hilarious. Steve Mentz has a great blog post ( Just Get There: Hobbit 2 as Whitewater Epic) on the latest installment of the Hobbit trilogy.
