Just how in the name of Sauron can Peter Jackson fall from grace? He did great with The Lord of the Rings trilogy by crafting a wonderful world that’s interesting from beginning to end. Viewers are left waiting with bated breath for the next film. The same can be said for The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies, but in how it’s presented, the let down is simply with the fact that it is not a self-contained product. Multi-part movies are better when each unit offers something new to the plate to make the whole meal fulfilling. In this film’s case, what’s presented as a conclusion to Bilbo’s tale feels like one half of a six-course meal.
The Hobbit should have stayed a duology as Guillermo del Toro intended that’s self contained than a trilogy which Jackson believed he can expand upon. He believed that he could add to the narrative from the material J.R.R. Tolkien wrote later and make it work. To see Jackson’s team of writers create Tauriel as a new character is fine. But to fill in the gaps of the Hobbit story with moments never written about felt awkward. It felt unneeded since all it does is to establish what’s to come in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. When there is a sixty year gap between trilogies, some viewers will be left asking so what happened during that time?
Continue reading “The Hobbit and The Battle for Box Office Dollars”
The dragon Smaug must be amused at the fact that, like clock-work, an extended version of Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is getting an extended cut. The coffers at Warner Bros. Home Entertainment may well get fatter than the wurm’s very own if fans are being enticed to buy this movie again. But for those who have been waiting for a better release, this may be it. Or they can hold out until all three films have been released to theaters. After that, a penultimate edition may appear.