I’m worried about The Hobbit. I’m afraid it’s going to end up as nothing more than a visual sleep aide. I’m afraid it is going to be to the Lord of the Rings trilogy what the Star Wars prequels were to the original Star Wars trilogy.
The Lord of the Rings is a seriously long story. Three books. A massive amount of information. Almost every character is developed in detail. Most of them are dealing with deeply personal issues on top of the whole end of the world crisis. There is just so much there. If they had shortened the films at all an enormous amount of important story would have been sacrificed. Even more than there already was. The story required three ridiculously long movies. There’s no way it would have worked otherwise.
The Hobbit is, what… 400 pages? For the most part it’s a light weight tale of short people wandering around a fantasy land. Compared to the intricacies of Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit is kids stuff. The good guys are good, the bad guys are bad, no one except Bilbo does any growing or changing throughout the story, and Bilbo only does in that he acts in ways that are unexpected. He doesn’t so much grow as a person as roll with the punches.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the book. I just think it’s a little insulting to have this story ballooned into three, three hour films. It’s going to result in exactly two things. One, a shit load of money in the studio’s bank account. Two, lots of really bored movie goers.
There, I said it. It’s going to be boring. Really boring. Even if they add in mountains of content from the Lord of the Rings appendixes and what not, it’s still going to be hours on end of a bunch of Dwarves walking around with a Hobbit.
I still want to see it, but as the reality sinks in… we’re looking at nine hours of movie to interpret a 400 page book. Even if it’s decent, it’s still never going to live up to the Lord of the Rings. It’s never going to live up to its own hype. This whole thing is a disaster waiting to happen. I hope I’m wrong, but somehow… I don’t think I’m going to be.
Inside the Red Head's Head 