Re: The Official "The Hobbit" movie thread
The Radagast/Jar Jar comparisons are lame. Radagast was a character that had never been fleshed out very much by Tolkien, and should have at least appeared in Jackson's FOTR. Jackson made up for his lack of inclusion in FOTR, and did a great job of creating a character unlike any we had seen in Middle Earth at that point. Sure, Jackson took some creative liberties with Radagast, but a character with powers equal to Gandalf and Saruman, but has chosen to cohabit with wildlife instead of humans/elves/dwarfs, etc WOULD be eccentric. I didn't view Radagast as an attempt at comic relief or there to get laughs from kids, in fact his introduction dealt specifically with the death of animals and his reaction to watching animals he cares about die, which traditionally are difficult scenes for children to watch in films. Jar Jar, on the other hand, served no purpose other than to act silly, offend people of certain ethnicity, and sell action figures to kids (and adults).
Radagast has depth that is masked by his appearance and behavior, however with Jar Jar, "what you see is what you get".
Additionally, I would like to add that the scenes that Jackson chose to expand upon or add to the Hobbit that weren't in the book: Radagast, Azog the white Orc, the Witch King and Dol Guldur, Bilbo and Frodo preparing for the party, Gandalf bumping his head on the lamp...I enjoyed all of them immensely and those scenes helped to build a bigger narrative and tie this trilogy into the previous trilogy. I can't wait to be able to sit down and watch all 6 films chronologically.