The Hobbit and The Battle for Box Office Dollars

The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies in how it’s presented is a let down simply in the fact that it is not a self-contained product.

The Hobbit

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?

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Looking At The Hobbit and Beyond The Desolation of Smaug

Fans anxiously waiting for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug may feel dissuaded by the long length, but every moment is well worth the effort.

By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

The Hobbit The Desolation of Smaug Poster

Fans anxiously waiting for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug may feel dissuaded by the long length, but every moment is well worth the effort. Peter Jackson has provided a very meaty story that picks up the pace from where the last movie left off. He felt that there needed to be at least a quick summary of what the first film was about, and that was deftly handled without weighing the rest of the film down.

Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) finds himself having to deal with Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) more often than with the wise old wizard, Gandalf (Ian McKellen). The mage has to forge ahead and look into more disturbing manners. If this movie was to foreshadow anything about a fellowship, then what it foretells is more like the parting of the ways in order to get the last job done. There will be more issues to come that readers of the book will know about when the final chapter, The Hobbit: There and Back Again, releases at the end of next year.

By then, fans of the cinematic series will have plenty to think about before seeing what Jackson and writers Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and Guillermo del Toro have in store for this cinematic rewriting of J.R.R. Tolkien’s material.

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The Fantasy and Freedom Found with The Flight of Dragons

Peter Dickinson’s The Flight of Dragons looks at the mythical origins of the creature and postulates how they may have evolved based on real life science.

The Flight of Dragons Book Cover
This book is available for those who know where to look.

Not since 30 years ago has there been a worthy look at the nomenclature of dragons. Author Peter Dickinson and illustrator Wayne Anderson crafted the brilliant The Flight of Dragons. It’s a book that’s sadly forgotten. This unique tome and movie based on it looks at the mythical origins of the creature and postulates how they may have evolved based on real life science.

Literary observation and historical research fills the pages. The read is like that of a textbook. Dickinson draws upon centuries of research from clerics to theologians to explore the habitat and biology of a dragon. In what he gleams from various novelists, especially from Tolkien to McCaffrey, the ideas presented here read like something Charles Darwin would write.

Some readers might liken this work to that of On the Origin of Species. The prose is sometimes difficult to read, and whats presented is nothing like the Book of Dragons, as penned by a youthful Hiccup in the animated series How to Train Your Dragon. In the novels, Fishlegs is responsible for chronicling what they discover. His version gives stats and descriptions alongside illustrations. In Dickinson’s version, the drawings are phenomenally detailed. It’s doubtful that Hiccup will ever dissect a beast just to explain how the digestion system works.

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The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug, Production Diary Day 11

In this production video director Peter Jackson covers additional photography for Hobbit’s movie 2 and 3.

The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug screenplay by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro.

Starring Martin Freeman, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ian McKellen, Richard Armitage, Cate Blanchett and Orlando Bloom.

In Theatres December 13, 2013.

Official Website

Source(s): Peter Jackson

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