5. Pointless shoe horned love plot
In my opinion, this is one of the most pointless stupid parts of the whole Hobbit franchise. For me the worst part is – I think I know why this was shoe horned into the movie.
So we have our Dwarf (Fili) fall in love with Tauriel. Why is this stupid? It feels stupid and forced, which from what I have read is pretty much what happened. It was never truly in the story but the studio had them do reshoots so it could be in the movie.
The Hobbit – Tauriel
Why is this in the movie? It’s called spelling it out for the audience. See the people who make movies tend to view the audience as not the brightest so they need to spell it out for them. I personally view this as their attempt to explain why Legolas and Gimli could have become good friends in The Lord of the Rings. For me personally Gimli and Legolas friendship felt more comradely, brothers in arms so to speak. Two warriors who become friends on the battlefield.
6. Keep shovelling in more! We need to make 3 movies!
When The Hobbit was announced on 30 July 2012 I had my doubts that it could be made into a trilogy such as The Lord of the Rings. The Hobbit isn’t a very thick novel and doesn’t lend itself to a trilogy. This being Peter Jackson, I guess his ego fuelled his ambition to make the movie into a trilogy instead of the proposed two movies. The problem is the movie doesn’t feel as if it was intended to be a trilogy. Scenes get played out forever and lasts way too long. What we ended up with was a movie that would have worked if it was one film or maybe even two being stretched so thin that there was little content to be had. Sure they mined the appendices and added more, but you can feel the parts in the movie which was part of the book and which parts were shovelled into the movie to make it a trilogy and thus make more money for the studio and those involved in the movie.
7. Peter Jackson’s Ego
There’s still some more I could write about The Hobbit trilogy, but for now I am done with The Hobbit . Before I leave I want to touch on something which I think is the downfall of The Hobbit Trilogy. It’s not the High Frame rate shooting, it’s not the pointless shoe horned love story, it’s not the lack of practical effects and it’s not the constant shovelling of crap onto the screen. Nope it’s unfortunately Peter Jackson’s ego.
Now it must sound as if I don’t like Peter Jackson, far from it. Some of my favourite movies were made by the man – from the gore fest of Dead Alive to the Frighteners, but after The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, I feel something might have changed with him.
I noticed it first in King Kong. Though not a bad movie in itself, it just felt like the whole film was dragged out for the sake of I am Peter Jackson, I made The Lord of the Rings, I can make long movies now because I am Peter Jackson. The movie felt loose, it wasn’t tight, some scenes dragged on for too long. I saw the movie once at the cinema, but I haven’t had a desire to see it again since I saw it that night. I don’t know why but I sometimes get the idea with some film makers in Hollywood that if they find success in a film, it goes straight to their heads and they believe they can do no wrong.
Anyway I have talked about The Hobbit Trilogy for far too much – it’s time to move on. But for my closing statement I will say if someone invites me to watch The Lord of the Rings extended cuts back-to-back I would probably say yes and look forward to it. If someone asks me to watch The Hobbit Trilogy with them, I would probably decline. I can’t even be bother with the regular version, even less so the extended cuts.
