Aug 13, 2012

[Movies] The Hobbit: The Unexpected Trilogy


Like many other geeks, the creation of blockbuster budget movies based on The Lord of the Rings was quite the dream come true. We're not talking about some cheap effort to cash in on an existing piece of material as quickly as possible but a seriously well thought-out creative endeavor that truly brought the books to life. And to that the entire geek community has Peter Jackson to thank for making our dreams come true and for making this epic piece of fantasy accessible to the general (non-geeky) public.

And once the trilogy was done, naturally the fans wondered if anyone who create a movie about The Hobbit, which is the prequel novel based on the chronicles of Bilbo Baggins as referenced in the main LOTR books and movies. Initially Peter Jackson stated that he would not be involved in such a project.



But then he eventually caved in and agreed to take control of the project (after it had passed through many potential hands) and the geek community rejoiced. And then we later found out that it would actually be two movies since he really wanted to capture as much of the book as possible, and we were still pretty happy about that since it means more adventures in the LOTR universe.

And then we found out that The Hobbit is now going to be a trilogy of movies and I can only say WTF. The book is actually the shortest of all the LOTR novels and it was written in a more whimsical, almost fairytale-like structure since it was the fond memoir of an old hobbit. But even if he draws a bit from the appendices of the core three books, I don't know how you can stretch the story into three movies. Two was already a bit of a stretch but we all to pay our dues to the studios but THREE movies? This is crazy.

And I know, I know, I'm still going to invest money into watching the darn movies when they come out and I'll be sure to see them in theaters instead of waiting for them on DVD. But I think I wanted it on record that the decision to turn this into a trilogy is an annoyingly bad idea and I'm totally against it. It just means that we're going to go further away from the original story (which seems strange given how faithfully the other three had been adapted, more or less) and thus there will be a lot more artistic license applied to the narrative. And unless it's a pretty darned good story, I don't know how I'm going to enjoy needing to wait at least three years for the full trilogy to be released (assuming annual release dates like every December or something).

Bleh.
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2 comments:

  1. I cannot say I am excited to watch this. The hobbits are my least favorite parts about LOTR, now what more a movie just about hobbits! (By the way, please check the first sentence of your fourth paragraph. I think you want to say that "The Hobbit is going to be a trilogy", not "NOT".)

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  2. Well to be fair, it should be mainly about the one hobbit and a lot of dwarves, but I'm similarly not too keen on the whole thing. Oh well.


    And thanks for pointing out the typo! Silly fingers...

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