Sleezy Recasts The Hobbit

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In the Beginning...

Radagast the Brown

No disrespect to Sylvester McCoy, who is a fine actor, but the approach Peter Jackson took with Radagast in The Hobbit films is a significant misfire for me. His soft-spoken, scatterbrained demeanor and bizarre physical appearance made the character far less believable than his Istari brethren. Radagast is certainly eccentric, but a cartoon he is not.

I would have taken a more subtle approach to Radagast's eccentricities: still a somewhat disheveled recluse, but a proud and confident wizard nonetheless. (For God's sake, no dried bird poo in his hair.) The late Pete Postlethwaite would have brought just such qualities to the character. Behind his kindly eyes, the audience would find a tender, quirky, but ultimately wise and authoritative personality.



In the Beginning...



Another pair of reprisals. Cate Blanchett and Christopher Lee were perfectly cast in their roles as Galadriel and Saruman the White, respectively. Although the characters don't actually appear in the book, both actors would have certainly reprised those roles for the White Council scenes in The Hobbit.



In the Beginning...

The Great Goblin

The corpulent goblin chieftain of the Misty Mountains is another brief but significant character in The Hobbit, and one the film almost got right. Aside from the obvious issue—an overly designed CGI character that would have benefited from a more practical approach—Peter Jackson's Great Goblin felt much too articulate and sophisticated in his demeanor. I understand the reasoning: the director wanted a refined personality to juxtapose with the character's repulsive appearance. But the Great Goblin of the book is not one to take his afternoon tea.

The actor who provided the voice, the legendary Barry Humphries, is highly versatile and could have delivered a harsher, more unsettling performance with the right direction. But I think the better bet would have been Australian Hugh Keays-Byrne, whose Shakespearian background coupled with his penchant for playing unsavory characters would have provided the right mix of malice and intellect for the role.



In the Beginning...

Bard the Bowman

I don't think it's a coincidence that Tolkien chose to make his unlikely savior of Lake-town the quintessential "everyman." Of course, the great dragon Smaug is felled by a simple archer with hidden, abounding courage: an obvious allegory to David and Goliath. And Luke Evans turned in a suitable performance to match, giving the audience a likeable hero and genuine leader to cheer on.

Unfortunately, Luke Evans looks strikingly like Orlando Bloom. That's not a major issue, per se, but it undercuts the relative obscurity that Bard the Bowman is supposed to invoke. And just after the Lord of the Rings films, Evans would have been only 24.

Instead, I would have cast Jim Caviezel, a versatile actor who projects the "everyman" quality with nearly every role he takes on. In particular, his performances in The Thin Red Line (1998) and The Count of Monte Cristo (2002) demonstrate the emotional depth and humanity that Caviezel could have brought to Bard the Bowman.



In the Beginning...



One final round of reprisals (sorta). Despite some overwrought character design issues—a consistent problem across all of the dwarves in Thorin's company—Ken Stott and Graham McTavish brought the right qualities to their performances as the cousins Balin and Dwalin, who are probably the most pivotal dwarf characters after Thorin himself. Both men were active and working around the mid-2000s, so it's conceivable they would have auditioned for the roles.

I won't cast the rest of the dwarves due to their extremely supporting nature, but I think it's fair to say the direction would be more grounded and the design approach would be far less cartoonish. Also, I can guarantee there would be no bizarre "love triangle" involving Kili, Legolas (who doesn't even appear in the book), and a completely new character that Tolkien never created.



In the Beginning...
And finally...


Smaug the Terrible

Honestly, there's not much Peter Jackson and company got wrong with their iteration of Smaug, the greedy and loquacious dragon that ruins Dale, claims Erebor for himself, and later transforms Lake-town into a smoking ruin. The character design is suitably ferocious and his fiery attack on the lake equally breathtaking. Benedict Cumberbatch's performance also works well, teetering cleverly between arrogance and brutality.

Of course, Cumberbatch was in his mid-20s and not quite a household name in the years immediately following the Lord of the Rings trilogy. For me, the clear man for the job was Timothy Dalton, a brilliant character actor with a fantastically deep voice and a penchant for playing cruel and scheming villains. Smaug speaks to Bilbo with a sort of polite nobility—which only adds to his monstrous nature—and Dalton, I think, would have deftly channeled that sense of intelligence and self-importance: one of the character's most vital qualities.



Similarion. Would Smeagol be ion their a different dragon then Smog Legolas??? other names places.

GOLLUM made the Hobbit Series, the Hobbits too of course, the Elv's.



Registered User
jakco

Radagast the Brown

No disrespect to Sylvester McCoy, who is a fine actor, but the approach Peter Jackson took with Radagast in The Hobbit films is a significant misfire for me. His soft-spoken, scatterbrained demeanor and bizarre physical appearance made the character far less believable than his Istari brethren. Radagast is certainly eccentric, but a cartoon he is not.

I would have taken a more subtle approach to Radagast's eccentricities: still a somewhat disheveled recluse, but a proud and confident wizard nonetheless. (For God's sake, no dried bird poo in his hair.) The late Pete Postlethwaite would have brought just such qualities to the character. Behind his kindly eyes, the audience would find a tender, quirky, but ultimately wise and authoritative personality.
Jackson's misfire on Radagast was one of the worst misfires in a film (let;s consider the Hobbit movies as one movie released in 3 parts) the was full of misfires.
I am one of those who was tremedounly dissapointed in the Hobbit movies. Not in the same universe of quality as his LOTR films.