Wednesday, April 01, 2009

The Hobbit - A Trilogy? I Hope Not.

I'm not a big fan of reading blog-news on April 1st, because you never know what's a joke and what's not, but I have to say, I believe this is true, but in a way, I'm a little disappointed...

Apparently the much-anticipated Hobbit film adaptation, Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labrynth, Hellboy, and Mimic) is directing has already been split into two films, but now is being discussed as a possible three film trilogy.

I love the story of the Hobbit (prequel to the Lord of The Rings trilogy). In fact, when I read this Hobbit as a middle schooler the story captured me. Yet, when I started to read the Lord of the Rings trilogy, beginning with the Fellowship of the Rings, I found it very detailed, as these books are saturated with so much more detail. I began the Fellowship, and by page 100 we were still at Bilbo's birthday party...and that was about as far as I got reading the trilogy (thank you Peter Jackson for making a movie so I can know the whole story).

To split the Hobbit into 2 films in itself is crazy...that is one film too many, and to make the Hobbit into a trilogy...I can't even comprehend, unless Gillermo del Toro is going to drag it out with special effects and images that makes the slowest moving film ever.

I remember renting the 1977 TV version of the Hobbit after reading the book, and found it relatively comprehensive, and only lasting 90 minutes. (Image from this version above)

I'm fearful Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro might potentially be thinking about the dollars and not the story with their thoughts of over extending this story, especially when this book is significantly shorter in length than each of the three book in the Lord of Rings trilogy.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Umm... That was an April Fool's Day joke. It's not going to be a trilogy. You've been had.

Dad said...

As I've read it the first film will be the story from the book The Hobbit. The second film will follow the story between Bilbo returning home with the ring and Bilbo passing the ring on to Frodo.

The third film is probably a joke, but I would never underestimate the greediness of movie people. Of course, I have read the Hobbit and LOTR multiple times as well as appended material. So I think they should make as many movies as possible. LOTR should have been six movies since it was actually six books in three volumes.

I always thought that the material should be a TV series. I don't know all the challenges involved, but if they could do Zena for all those years, surely Hobbit and LOTR material would be good for at least a few seasons. Heck, I'd like to see parts of the Silmarillion adapted to screen, but what a challenge that would be!