# LOTR film trilogy vs. The Hobbit film trilogy: why did the latter suck? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 15, 2015, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-film-trilogy-vs-the-hobbit-film-trilogy-why-did-the-latter-suck/722589 "2015-06-15T17:40:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-film-trilogy-vs-the-hobbit-film-trilogy-why-did-the-latter-suck/722589/41 "2015-06-16T00:01:45Z")
A Middle Earth where Beorn’s ponies and dogs can set a table of bread and honey for the dwarves is a Middle Earth where a wizard with a sled pulled by giant rabbits makes perfect sense. Radagast was fine, seriously. Martin Freeman did an excellent job as Bilbo. Perfect casting. And Thranduil was good, just what an asshole elf-lord should be. And the dwarves singing “[The Misty Mountains Cold](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pyy_FIYE7EE)” was perfect. Set design, character design, all was good. There were a lot of great parts in the Hobbit movies. Some changes made the story better, like that Thorin had a plan beyond wandering to the lonely mountain and then seeing what happened. But there were some horrible parts too. The Tauriel-Kili-Legolas subplot? Horrible. The numerous extended cartoonish action sequences? Horrible. The extended Azog vs Thorin subplot? Horrible. Even the White Council vs the Necromancer subplot didn’t work. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-film-trilogy-vs-the-hobbit-film-trilogy-why-did-the-latter-suck/722589/42 "2015-06-16T00:32:19Z")
> [@fachverwirrt](#): > > Second, he went effects crazy. In LOTR, there’s really very little in the way of CGI. The orcs were mostly actors in costumes and makeup, and most of the effects were camera and staging tricks. In the Hobbit we just did everything on the computer which makes everything really sterile. Aside from the criticisms about bloat, pacing, and plotting (which I agree with), this was the real deal killer for me. The entirety of Middle Earth suffered from a very bad case of The Uncanny Valley, and as such the films could not draw me into their world. ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-film-trilogy-vs-the-hobbit-film-trilogy-why-did-the-latter-suck/722589/43 "2015-06-16T00:56:50Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > A nitpick, but if you go by word count, the ratio is closer to five to one. Trying to fill all the screen time with so much less content threw off the pace of the movie. There were so many scenes that just didn’t work but Jackson couldn’t edit them out because he needed the minutes. If you wanna get specific, The Hobbit was 319 pages long (original published edition). The movies in their theatrical cuts: An Unexpected Journey - 169 min The Desolation of Smaug - 161 min The Battle of the Five Armies - 144 min Average: ~1.49 min of screen time per page of book. LoTR series: Fellowship - 432 pgs / 178 min Two Towers - 352 pgs / 179 min Return - 432 pgs / 201 min Average: ~0.46 min of screen time per page of book. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-film-trilogy-vs-the-hobbit-film-trilogy-why-did-the-latter-suck/722589/44 "2015-06-16T00:58:40Z")
> [@salinqmind](#): > > THERE IT IS! For me, anyways. Utterly repellant and ridiculous. > > Another thing which I don’t think I’ve ever seen addressed: Why do the dwarves, the majority, look like they’re wearing big rubber Halloween masks, or big papier mache fake heads. Yet there are two or three that look more like humans, in fact are not too bad looking (I suppose for purposes of Romance With Elves). It’s like once dwarves reach a certain age, they turn into ludicrous comical/ugly charicatures of ‘dwarves’. > > A stupid, stupid movie. I love LotR trilogy beyond reason, I love fantasy of any kind, and this is the kind of movie I would have on in the background while doing something tedious. But I didn’t like it at all. Though I thought Martin Freeman as Bilbo was EXCELLENT! Honestly that bird shit nonsense was pretty off putting. It almost took you out of the movie. ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-film-trilogy-vs-the-hobbit-film-trilogy-why-did-the-latter-suck/722589/45 "2015-06-16T01:17:57Z")
Well, as people keep saying, the book version of the Hobbit contained a lot of light-hearted whimsey and humor. And the movie avoided humor and charm at every chance it could. Admittedly, they kept the dishwashing/cleaning up scene, but they lost the bit where Gandalf introduces the dwarves to Beorn and they completely altered the part of the movie where Bilbo bungs up the dwarves in barrels to escape the elves. Possibly the role of the greedy guy who looked like Mr. Bean was supposed to be humorous, but they didn’t actually do anything with it or even have it lead to a satisfying come-uppance, so that was just wasted padding. Thorin’s death, which was supposed to be noble and atoning was exchanged for some stupid boss fight from a comic book movie. The TL;DR is that they didn’t respect and possibly didn’t even understand the material. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-film-trilogy-vs-the-hobbit-film-trilogy-why-did-the-latter-suck/722589/46 "2015-06-16T02:18:13Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Honestly, I think Rankin and Bass did a better job of _The Hobbit_ than Peter Jackson did. It pains me to admit it, and it’s a close call, but I would have to agree. The Dwarves also looked better - not just humans in big boots and silly hair, but better-proportioned for (at least my mental image of) their fictional race: [http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-r4QIMn15QhM/U8vv2-KkP8I/AAAAAAAAA28/WH361f8vZwI/s1600/00316977.JPG](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-r4QIMn15QhM/U8vv2-KkP8I/AAAAAAAAA28/WH361f8vZwI/s1600/00316977.JPG) ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-film-trilogy-vs-the-hobbit-film-trilogy-why-did-the-latter-suck/722589/47 "2015-06-16T02:31:34Z")
> [@dracoi](#): > > I think The Hobbit is just an inferior story compared to LOTR. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good reading. But fundamentally, The Hobbit is the sire of D&D dungeon crawls. Characters meet at a pub. They kill stuff. They take the loot. . . . Say what one may about the movies, they were actually better than the book. Take the chase in the tunnels under the mountains: at least in the movie, the dwarves fight. In the book, they only ran. The movie showed them as the deadly foes we knew they really could be. And in the entire damn book, Nori (and I believe Ori) do nothing. At least Dori carries Bilbo a couple of times, but the other two have ZERO to do with the story. Bifur, too, has, if memory serves, only one moment of action, when he gets hauled up on ropes to the thrush’s ledge, along with Bofur. Thranduil gets some actual dialogue and motivation. In the book, he’s just a cardboard cut-out. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-film-trilogy-vs-the-hobbit-film-trilogy-why-did-the-latter-suck/722589/48 "2015-06-16T05:20:00Z")
> [@salinqmind](#): > > Another thing which I don’t think I’ve ever seen addressed: Why do the dwarves, the majority, look like they’re wearing big rubber Halloween masks, or big papier mache fake heads. Yet there are two or three that look more like humans, in fact are not too bad looking (I suppose for purposes of Romance With Elves). It’s like once dwarves reach a certain age, they turn into ludicrous comical/ugly charicatures of ‘dwarves’. Note that the three dwarves who looked more “human” (Kili, Fili, and Thorin) were the three who died in the Battle of the Five Armies. It’s been hypothesized that this was intentional – that, because they looked more human, the audience would empathize with them more, and thus be hit harder when they died. ---
**Author:** ![standingwave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@standingwave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/standingwave)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-film-trilogy-vs-the-hobbit-film-trilogy-why-did-the-latter-suck/722589/49 "2015-06-16T07:59:42Z")
> [@Rigamarole](#): > > If you wanna get specific, The Hobbit was 319 pages long (original published edition). The movies in their theatrical cuts: > > An Unexpected Journey - 169 min > The Desolation of Smaug - 161 min > The Battle of the Five Armies - 144 min > > Average: ~1.49 min of screen time per page of book. > > LoTR series: > > Fellowship - 432 pgs / 178 min > Two Towers - 352 pgs / 179 min > Return - 432 pgs / 201 min > > Average: ~0.46 min of screen time per page of book. I can’t tell what editions you’re using because those page counts seem out of whack with respect to the number of words. Maybe the Hobbit (as a children’s book) had a larger type because as has already been noted, LOTR boasts more than five times (481103 to 95356) the word count of the Hobbit. So using word count against your film run times I get: LOTR: 862.2 words per minute Hobbit: 201.2 words per minute That’s a lot of padding. ---
**Author:** ![Stealth\_Bragg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4bbf92/32.png) [@Stealth\_Bragg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stealth_Bragg)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-film-trilogy-vs-the-hobbit-film-trilogy-why-did-the-latter-suck/722589/50 "2015-06-16T10:22:44Z")
I know I’m in a minority of one, but I really didn’t like Martin Freeman in the Hobbit movies at all. I don’t think he can actually act - he does the same face and actions in everything. He doesn’t have the screen presence to drive these sort of movies. Here in the UK he was brought to the public’s attention as a simpering feeble loser in the “Office” comedy show and I think the feeling has stuck. ---
**Author:** ![Smid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/838e76/32.png) [@Smid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smid)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-film-trilogy-vs-the-hobbit-film-trilogy-why-did-the-latter-suck/722589/51 "2015-06-16T10:51:59Z")
I often ask the question “If they edited the Matrix 2 and 3 into one movie, will it be any good”? The general conclusion is No. Mainly due to the story. However, if they edited the Hobbit down to one movie. Perhaps. Unextended edition? No Rhaderghast the brown? (which I still await the definition as a swearword in Viz’s Profanisaurus) ---
**Author:** ![Lightray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightray/32/391_2.png) [@Lightray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightray)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-film-trilogy-vs-the-hobbit-film-trilogy-why-did-the-latter-suck/722589/52 "2015-06-16T13:24:30Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Say what one may about the movies, they were actually better than the book. > > Take the chase in the tunnels under the mountains: at least in the movie, the dwarves fight. In the book, they only ran. The movie showed them as the deadly foes we knew they really could be. > > And in the entire damn book, Nori (and I believe Ori) do nothing. At least Dori carries Bilbo a couple of times, but the other two have ZERO to do with the story. Bifur, too, has, if memory serves, only one moment of action, when he gets hauled up on ropes to the thrush’s ledge, along with Bofur. > > Thranduil gets some actual dialogue and motivation. In the book, he’s just a cardboard cut-out. That may have been a problem with the book, but it is not a problem that the movies fixed. **The Hobbit** has, as main characters, _thirteen_ dwarves AND a hobbit. That is already starting with a large and unwieldy cast of main characters. Yet Jackson for some unfathomable reason thought that he needed to add _more_ main characters - Radagast, Legolas, Tauriel, etc. _And_ numerous subsidiary characters such as Bard’s family. _AND_ added _both_ the Necromancer and Azog as antagonists (when you already have Smaug! why do you need additional enemies WHEN YOU HAVE A DRAGON?) The result is that the book’s main characters are actually shoved offscreen for much of the action in the movies. Instead of allowing the dwarves to actually _do_ something in the Battle of the Five Armies (which, in the book, mostly passes with Bilbo conked out), we get a half-hour of Legolas’ amazing video-game adventure, running up rocks falling in midair. The dwarf who actually gets additional action added to his character, only does so to shoehorn in the coked-up Tauriel romance subplot. Now, I’m aware that JRRT wasn’t so inclusive with women characters, and **The Hobbit** in particular suffers this, but jamming in a female character for a _romance_ subplot is still problematic. Worst of all, instead of an entire movie with Smaug as the main threat, he has to share screentime with the Necromancer and Azog subplots. The whole thing was a hot mess, because there was no one willing to edit out the cruft and keep the movies focused - they were all blinded by the $$ in their eyes, drooling over the prospect of another lucrative fantasy series. ---
**Author:** ![campp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@campp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/campp)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-film-trilogy-vs-the-hobbit-film-trilogy-why-did-the-latter-suck/722589/53 "2015-06-16T13:30:26Z")
I LOVED the LOTR films. I never saw the Hobbit movies, because I couldn’t get excited enough to sit through three long movies that apparently should have been one. Maybe someone could edit out 2/3’s of the baloney and make a real (single) Hobbit film? ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-film-trilogy-vs-the-hobbit-film-trilogy-why-did-the-latter-suck/722589/54 "2015-06-16T14:21:55Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > I’d love to see a heavily-cut edit of the \*Hobbit \*movies that left out so much of the padding Peter Jackson added, and got closer to Tolkien’s original vision. I’m pretty sure someone did exactly that. An alternate version of the hobbit where he kept only the content that originally was in the book and cut mostly everything else. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-film-trilogy-vs-the-hobbit-film-trilogy-why-did-the-latter-suck/722589/55 "2015-06-16T14:26:48Z")
> [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](#): > > I haven;t even seen the third of the trilogy yet. But besides the bloat, besides the cartoonish, overblown, and physically impossible action sequences, the number one reason the Hobbit sucked was that we had to look at Radagast always running around with birdshit crusted on his face. Agree. About the action sequences (I don’t like much action sequences to begin with unless they’re epic and gut-clenching) and about Radagast. I like the character, so making a bunny propelled clown out of him pretty much killed the movies for me. Plus the litteral cliffhangers. How many times was a character about to plunge to his death in these movies? It felt like it was happening every ten minutes. Generally over the top everything. ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-film-trilogy-vs-the-hobbit-film-trilogy-why-did-the-latter-suck/722589/56 "2015-06-16T14:34:37Z")
> [@campp](#): > > I LOVED the LOTR films. I never saw the Hobbit movies, because I couldn’t get excited enough to sit through three long movies that apparently should have been one. > > Maybe someone could edit out 2/3’s of the baloney and make a real (single) Hobbit film? Yeah. The first trailer I saw seemed to entirely consist of comedy dwarves, so I knew right away that I wouldn’t be seeing it. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-film-trilogy-vs-the-hobbit-film-trilogy-why-did-the-latter-suck/722589/57 "2015-06-16T14:46:17Z")
Watching the Hobbit movies after seeing the LOTR movies is like watching Babe Ruth hit a double. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-film-trilogy-vs-the-hobbit-film-trilogy-why-did-the-latter-suck/722589/58 "2015-06-16T15:12:32Z")
> [@Stealth\_Bragg](#): > > I know I’m in a minority of one, but I really didn’t like Martin Freeman in the Hobbit movies at all. I don’t think he can actually act - he does the same face and actions in everything. He doesn’t have the screen presence to drive these sort of movies. Here in the UK he was brought to the public’s attention as a simpering feeble loser in the “Office” comedy show and I think the feeling has stuck. Although I think he made a credible Bilbo, now that you mention it I did see a lot of Arthur Dent twitches. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-film-trilogy-vs-the-hobbit-film-trilogy-why-did-the-latter-suck/722589/59 "2015-06-16T15:39:28Z")
Freeman specializes in playing “everyman” characters. I dunno, maybe he really can’t do anything else… but as long as he is actually playing an everyman, what does that matter? And that’s what was called for for both Bilbo and Arthur Dent, and he delivered it well. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-film-trilogy-vs-the-hobbit-film-trilogy-why-did-the-latter-suck/722589/60 "2015-06-16T15:50:26Z")
Sure. But Robert Hardy could’ve done it better. (D&R) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-film-trilogy-vs-the-hobbit-film-trilogy-why-did-the-latter-suck/722589.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-film-trilogy-vs-the-hobbit-film-trilogy-why-did-the-latter-suck/722589.md?page=4)