The Hobbit could become a Trilogy

I should live so long....


Really, the story ain't that big. When I was 8 or ten years old, I read it over just a few hours. I could read it aloud, to my kids, in 3 bed-times. I re-read it, just a year or two ago in one sitting.

Contrasted with the LOTR trilogy; which ran 14 hours, in the extended DVD versions, and had plenty of source material, and more...

It's hard for me to imaging how anyone could possibly draw 3 movies out of the little Bilbo adventure.
 
I always figured they'd split it just as they enter Mirkwood...I suppose they could put the whole Bear/Spider/Elves section in one, but yes, a LOT of padding would be needed...either that or making a whole deal out of the goblins and Bilbo finding the ring, could maybe stop the first one there, when he squeezes out of the doors, then finish the second one just as they come out of Mirkwood, and then have the last one being a massive set piece and fight...
 
They could add historical back story from Silmarillion in flashbacks, or as told by the Dwarves, or have Bilbo sit and tell the Dwarves about The Adventures of Tom Bombadil.

My personal view is the The Hobbit is just right and needs no extra padding.

My first introduction was at Primary school. I joined a new school when we moved house and it was the story the teacher was reading to the class, a little at the end of each day. Unfortunately, I arrived very near to the end of the book, however, when the teacher finished the class insisted that she read it again right from the beginning.
 
From the link in the OP:
“It’s about taking the chance to tell more of the incredible tale with the cast we have assembled," says a source.
Click to expand...
which, when translated into non-Hollywood English, becomes:
“It’s about taking the chance to screw every last cent out of the target audience, while telling incredible tales to the gullible media we have assembled here today," says a source.
Click to expand...
 
i saw this story and squirmed. two movies is possibly one too many, but three? dear gods. i can foresee george lucas trying to split expanded versions of digitally-padded star wars movies so that each one is a trilogy, just because it seems like the right thing to do to tell more of the story....
 
If two total run time of the two Hobbit movies is over 2 hours each, then the 3rd one won't need all the much extra done.

Instead of having two two-and-a-half hour movies, you have three two-hour movies.
 
I expect Smaug's original attack on Dale and the Lonely Mountain, the doings of the White Council and Gandalf's trip to Dol Guldur (in the category of flashbacks) will anchor much of this, but think of all the dialogue and sub-plots that don't really exist which he'll have to invent. Ugh.

And what's next? Characters that don't even really have basis in the books? As annoying as the Arwen/Glorfindel merger was (for example), at least Arwen's early lines in Fellowship all had foundation in something Glorfindel said or did.
 
I could understand the rationale behind two movies: you get to see Bilbo's journey, and also what the White Council is up to at the point where Gandalf's story veers off from the rest. Also, it is inevitable that the Battle of Five Armies is going to take up a lot of screen time (it is Peter Jackson, and it is meant to fill up those seats in movie theaters).

But three movies? That way lies madness. (Although I would be glad to be proven wrong.)

Stephen Palmer said:
Peter Jackson doing The Silmarillion would be ... mindblowing and trippy
Click to expand...

It would indeed, but there is no way the Tolkien estate would let him or anyone else touch the material.
 
I had a terribley wonderful thought about the Sil...Tim Burton and Peter Jackson...ultimate realism trippy film, right there...
 
I agree with others. I already thought two books was pushing it, three is surely just going to be loads of padding.
 
If they do try to push it to three films I think they'll hurt the franchise in the end. I would expect comments like 'LoTR was great, but The Hobbit was boring and too long'.

I guess they could use the extra time for an in depth look at hobbit culinary techniques, or dwarven bathing habits, or schools of elven dance. You know, the things Tolkein left out of the book but always meant to include.
 
How can The Hobbit be as long as LOTR?

Even at two films, I'm not sure I'd like the Hobbit much, from what I've seen. It seems Jackson has tried to give it the same feel as LOTR (I suppose he had no choice), but the charm of the book is that it feels so different.
 
They keep forgetting the word of gold: less is more. :rolleyes:

What I worry the most is they will keep Martin Freeman too busy to do more Sherlock. That show can stretch forever and I'd never get tired of it!
 
I don't see (and don't want to see) how they could spin this tale out to three films. Apart from - as was mentioned previously - bringing in events that took place prior to the story timeline; hell, just wind it back to Smeagol getting the ring (reuse that footage) and take it from there...

I read Lotr first, so The Hobbit was a bit of a mental gear-change and may have suffered in my estimation because of that.
 
What next? A two-movie, six hour long adaptation of Farmer Giles of Ham, all 96 pages of it? Bah...
 
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