Why the Hobbit movies weren’t as good as the LOTR movies?
-Three movies instead of two. They originally planned for two movies and the decision was made to go to three while they were already in production, which means Jackson had to cobble together the middle film out of whole cloth.
-Filming the Hobbit after Lord of the Rings. IIRC, Jackson actually thought about making the Hobbit first, but the rights tangle was too much. Jackson was bound to follow precedents established in LOTR. He also seems to have a strong need to “top” himself in every movie as far as stunts/fight scenes, battles sequences, and SFX, so everything was completely ridiculous by the fifth and sixth movie in the sequence.
-The above-mentioned rights tangle is what forced Del Toro off the film, as he was left cooling his heels for so long while the studio tried to straighten everything out that he had to drop out because of other commitments. This left a somewhat reluctant Jackson to take the helm, but with a LOT less prep time than he had for LOTR. With all that prep time for LOTR, he was able to plan out lots more non-CGI shots, and try and discard tons of ideas before winnowing the films down. He didn’t have that luxury for the Hobbit.
And John Watson. A bit less of the everyman there, although his ability to project utter normalcy is critical to the chemistry. But he clearly has resources of his own.
I thought MF’s portrayal of Bilbo to be about the only good thing in the movies. I did not see the 3rd one, and I thought the 1st one was better than the 2nd. The first one was mildly entertaining, but not even remotely in the same class of either of the LOTR films.
Too many dwarves. You never get to really know their names, much less what makes them tick. Thorin Oakenshield isn’t someone you care about. Okay, that foreshadows his descent into greed and madness. But for the first two movies you want to root for him but he glowers too much for you to care.
I agree with this. It was the sole scene in any of the three movies that felt as well done as good scenes in the LOTR movies.
In second place is the scene between Bilbo and Gandalf after the war of the five armies, just sitting down to chill afterwards, Gandalf having a smoke and both of them looking at each other.
I entirely agree. I singled out that second scene in the movie thread, in particular. After all the sound and fury and meaningless action, it was a perfect little scene.
I really like the scene with the trolls. I assume that a lot of people find the humor to be out of place in the movies (a viewpoint I understand) but that humor is in the books and it’s one of the areas I thought PJ did well. It’s tough to pull off a slap-stick scene in an action-drama movie.
I find it hard explaining why I was thoroughly unimpressed by lotr movie while I found the hobbit movie passable. One reason perhaps is TH in its main essense can be captured on film, even with second rate talents. Not so with LOTR. In TH, the food scene, gollum, beorn, thorin’s pride, and shots of bilbo alone in a dark tunnel were the essentials.
I’m basing this partly on viewing the documentaries available on the extended editions of the movies: PJ was much less respectful to the source material with the Hobbit movies.
It seems to me that everyone involved in LOTR was devoted to the books and were determined to be as accurate as possible. There’s several bits in the LOTR documentaries where others kind of reined PJ in saying, no, you can’t do this. The mantra “if it’s not in the book, it’s not in the movies”, is repeated numerous times in the documentaries. Yeah, there were some instances where PJ went off the rails, but many more where he listened to others and made a more accurate choice (anyone remember the Arwen in Helm’s Deep uproar?). The scenes where they did go off the rails was usually explained (Faramir had to have a story arc, Arwen had to be there to prevent it being a total sausage-fest, you can’t make a modern movie without a love story, etc). Whether you agree with the explanations is up to you, but at least some of the choices were explained.
In the first Hobbit documentary, it seemed like they weren’t as mindful of the source material and much more willing to stray from it. PJ’s attitude seemed to be much more “these are my movies and I’m making them the way I want because I made mega blockbusters from the first ones”. And it seemed like everyone else was afraid to say no to him. “A sled pulled by giant bunnies? O…o…okay Pete, you’re the boss”. I’m sure a huge part of it was also, as others in this thread have said, just that there was so much less source material to draw from, giving them some freedom to “fill in the blanks”, rather than pare it down but still make it accurate.