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Is the Hobbit prequel trilogy suffering the same problems as the Star Wars prequel Trilogy? — Page 3

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Peter Jackson might be the worst thing to happen to Tolkein's books. After Hobbit BOTFA the Tolkein estate probably would never allow his books to be adapted ever again. Dammit, I like a movie, and then someone comes along that  says I should hate it because it doesn't follow the book or its themes.

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I think the movies do a reasonably good job of it. At least a large amount of the material he's using to supplement the Hobbit movies is from other works of Tolkein, if not The Hobbit itself.

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RicOlie_2 said:

I think the movies do a reasonably good job of it. At least a large amount of the material he's using to supplement the Hobbit movies is from other works of Tolkein, if not The Hobbit itself.

 Scouring of the shire.

I don't think mixing the Hobbit source material with other middle earth stories is exactly the best route to go in hindsight (LOTR and its appendices work better though). And isn't Evangeline Lilly's character in the Desolation of Smaug a completely made up person that never existed in Tolkien's books?

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Yup, but this has been Jackson/Walsh/Boyens/del Toro's glorified fanfic from the beginning, and I'm sure their argument for stuff like Lily's character is "but Tolkien never said Legolas didn't have a girlfriend!"

I don't mind the added stuff in concept, it's the execution that was bad. When they first talked years ago about padding out The Hobbit movie with stuff like the White Council, I was picturing something more along the lines of The Council of Elrond and not a long scene with .... just four people standing/sitting/walking around a table.

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generalfrevious said:

RicOlie_2 said:

I think the movies do a reasonably good job of it. At least a large amount of the material he's using to supplement the Hobbit movies is from other works of Tolkein, if not The Hobbit itself.

 Scouring of the shire.

I don't think mixing the Hobbit source material with other middle earth stories is exactly the best route to go in hindsight (LOTR and its appendices work better though). And isn't Evangeline Lilly's character in the Desolation of Smaug a completely made up person that never existed in Tolkien's books?

 True. Among my favourite chapters in The Lord of the Rings was the one about the scouring of the Shire, and I hated the addition of the girl elf falling in love with a dwarf and Legolas's interest in her. However, there wasn't a whole lot else I didn't like. The movie dragged a tad at times, but I didn't mind much. The book isn't much different, and I'm a book guy, not a movie guy, so I have no problem with long, slowly-paced movies.

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Gah, I fully expect film adaptations to alter the story, for a host of reasons: some things work better in film media than print media and vice-versa, presenting for different audiences, etc. Films that stay too close to their source material end up more like fan checklists than enjoyable works of art. See also: Potter, Harry.

Fatty Bolger, Tom Bombadil, the Barrow Downs, Scouring of the Shire, I was very pleased Jackson et al saw fit to cut all of these out. Let alone Tolkien's more overt royalism and racism.

Love all of the books, love some of the films. But I have no expectation that they will be identical.  IMO, that would have made for dreadful cinema.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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Like I said, it's because they split a 250 page book into three movies almost three hours long; basically the Hobbit is a cash grab that needs to justify the nine hour running time. With LOTR that was a product of artistic ambition, with the source material being longer and tonally different: it could be an epic trilogy. You really can't make an epic trilogy out a children's book, even though they are in the same fictional universe. I actually than Jackson for helping me appreciate JRR Tolkien, creative differences aside; but unfortunately he is trying to relive his glory days.

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CatBus said:

Fatty Bolger, Tom Bombadil, the Barrow Downs, Scouring of the Shire, I was very pleased Jackson et al saw fit to cut all of these out. Let alone Tolkien's more overt royalism and racism.

 I agree that Tom Bombadil didn't belong in the movies, but the scouring of the Shire? I loved that part of the book.... I suppose it would have made the movie too long, and made the ending feel less bittersweet and more bitter. Frodo leaves the Shire quite a few years after returning to it in the book, which wouldn't have worked as well in the movie. Still...

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As it is, Return of the King already has something like six consecutive endings. Maybe I could have handled Scouring the Shire if they trimmed off two or three other endings, but as it stands--no, no more fade-to-blacks are needed toward the end of that film, thank you very much.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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generalfrevious said:

Like I said, it's because they split a 250 page book into three movies almost three hours long; basically the Hobbit is a cash grab that needs to justify the nine hour running time. With LOTR that was a product of artistic ambition, with the source material being longer and tonally different: it could be an epic trilogy. You really can't make an epic trilogy out a children's book, even though they are in the same fictional universe. I actually than Jackson for helping me appreciate JRR Tolkien, creative differences aside; but unfortunately he is trying to relive his glory days.

As someone who has always thought Bram Stoker's Dracula should be adapted as a trilogy of films I don't really have a problem so much with The Hobbit being told over three films with outside material and a tone more akin to the Lord of the Rings films. The book is a reasonable length and lots of things happen in it which would be probably have to be cut even in a two film adaptation.

I would have preferred the Lord of the Rings films to be four or may be five films to leave room for the material not included in the trilogy.

To be honest the only Jackson film that really felt Tolkien enough for me was Fellowship of the Ring but the others felt good as movies based on that material  but not as close or literal adaptations. They all feel like they take place in the same universe (which isn't true of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings novels).

The PT however doesn't match the OT's description of the PT era. It doesn't feel like it takes place in the same cinematic universe and they are also three awful films.

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Wait until December; then the real rage will begin against BOTFA. 

45 minute battle sequence=45 minute lightsaber duel?

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The Hobbit prequel trilogy most certainly does not suffer the same problems as the Star Wars prequel trilogy!

Peter Jackson's Hobbit movies are VERY good movies (not merely good).

This thread is comparing two trilogies that are so far apart from each other in quality that they can't even be reasonably compared.

George Lucas's directing of his cast was so poor that even the actors with great talent in the Star Wars prequels came across as bad actors. This issue is 100% absent from The Hobbit movies, where Peter Jackson is proving more than capable of directing quality performances from his cast.

No matter what aspect of the trilogies you compare or what criteria you use, it is still true that even at their worst, Jackson's movies are an entirely different category of quality from even the best of the Star Wars prequels.

And even if someone doesn't put the Hobbit movies on the same pedestal that I do, I'd still say the superiority of the Hobbit movies over the Star Wars prequels remains beyond dispute. The Star Wars prequels are some truly awful movies, practically unique among modern movies in their poorness, so bad that they are beyond comparison with any other trilogy, not just Jackson's.

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Yeah, but which trilogy would be more fascinating in the long run: a cash-grab trilogy that was at least competently made, or a film trilogy very ineptly made by a filmmaker who hasn't directed a movie in decades with delusions of grandeur?

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Lucas waiting two whole decades and not doing any credited directing in all of tnat time are two big strikes against the prequels that the Hobbit movies don't have. It helps that LotR was made after the digital vfx wave had really got going, so that even the cgi overload of The Hobbit doesn't seem too out of place by comparison. The RED cameras are a much closer match to the Super 35 of LotR than the sony 2/3" hd cameras are to the cinemascope of TPM and the OT. You can bet that if The Hobbit actually had gotten made pre-2009, they would've just shot it on film.

The comparison comes from doing the prequel (written first by Tolkien before he wrote LotR) after you've already told the "main" story on film. You suddenly feel the need to force all these connections to the originals. The irony is that the Star Wars prequels, titled episodes 1-3, feel so disconnected from the ones titled 4-6 while a movie of the Hobbit, which could've done its own thing, feels bolted to a movie titled Lord of the Rings.

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You guys think way too much about The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.

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^Everyone needs at least one obsession in life. If it has to be Tolkien-related movies, then so be it.

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The Hobbit has corny stuff too...like that whole bunny sled character...what in God's name was that about and why did he need to be in the movie?

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Frink thinks way too much about what other people think way too much about.

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fullmetal777 said:

The Hobbit has corny stuff too...like that whole bunny sled character...what in God's name was that about and why did he need to be in the movie?

 Hey, I liked Radagast the Brown (he's from the books, by the way). They did invent most of his characteristics and the role he played, if I recall correctly, but I didn't have a problem with that. It was nice to see another of the wizards besides Gandalf and Sauroman (or however his name is spelled).

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TV's Frink said:

You guys think way too much about The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.

 

Pot calls kettle black

Objectively accurate

TV's Frink is pink

Pizza-Burrito 

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This thread seems as good as any for me to throw this out there:

I would have LOVED to see a Star Wars trilogy done Peter Jackson style (either the prequels or the upcoming sequels). That would excite me a lot more than the other director names that have been attached to the films. It's probably the only thing that would have a chance at getting me to reopen myself to the possibility of putting new Star Wars material on a comparable level of honor with my favorite films.

I'm sure this is probably a controversial suggestion. I admit a Peter Jackson Star Wars trilogy would be different from the originals. But I am quite saddened that I'll never get to see what it would be like.

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slickdeals said:

TV's Frink said:

You guys think way too much about The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.

 

Pot calls kettle black

Objectively accurate

TV's Frink is pink

 Now that's what I'm talking about.