Cut out all the travelogue stuff about all the scenery the characters are walking through and LotR is about half the length. 
Too much money?
Too much beer?
Too much Hobbit?
All three of the above are impossible - you can’t have too much of any of them laying around.
The Hobbit universe is rich in atmosphere, color and back stories. Peter Jackson has shown great love for this universe - I don’t think anyone need worry about spending too much time with Pete at the helm. Sit back and enjoy. I would be happy if he spends one film just wandering around the Hobbit neighborhood, getting to know the locals.
The only thing I’m concerned about is the addition of the female character purely for “equality”. That just bugs me. Let the girls root for the legit characters.
This, too, is my issue. (Though there were also a few things that were changed that seemed pretty unnecessary and just done to cater to Mr. Jackson’s strange tastes.) But there’s really nothing up there with “Aragorn goes over the cliff” or “Skull avalanche in the paths of the dead”.
I guess they hope so. . . the Star Wars prequels were very successful.
Bullshit, the prequels have one of the most masterful political villains of all time, because kids just love plots of false wars being used to grind down a republic? Moral ambiguity out the anus, I don’t see how you can say they are designed for kids.
The prequels are both childish AND mature.
Better than the original movies, yes.:smack:
Ok, any potential Jar Jars identified yet. Besides whoever the hell Benedict Cumberbatch is playing?
I assumed or got the impression somewhere that all along the intention was to bring in big chunks of backstory and “meanwhile, in another part of Middle-Earth” happenings just to get two movies. There is half a book of Gandalf doing White Council deeds, visiting the Necromancer’s castle and setting up the Battle of Five Armies while Bilbo is wandering around Mirkwood and having some R&R in Laketown. There is a huge amount of set-up to bring us to Thorin & Co picking up Bilbo and heading off to the Lonely Mountain. There is the opportunity for Gandalf to talk about (and PJ to show) a bit of the Fall of Gondolin when they pick up weapons in the troll cave.
Lots of easy pickings to take the story and characters in The Hobbit and give them the full adult fantasy (no, not that sort, although I’m sure it is in the works) treatment. I don’t think it is even necessary or desireable to pull in story filler after Bilbo returns to Bag end to get three 2 or 2+ hour movies.
^ This. There are a couple of directors out there who I trust implicitly, and Jackson is one of them. I simply wonder if he will embue The Hobbit with the same atmosphere as the novel, which I felt was lighter and more playful that LOTR overall.
BC’s character won’t be the Jar Jar. He’ll voice Smaug himself, and and a terrific choice. BC does a chilling, velvety voice in the best Shakespearean tradition, and interacts well with Martin Freeman to boot.
That’s not to say there won’t be a Jar Jar. Hopefully it won’t be Radagast. Sylvester McCoy looked like a big ham in that latest vlog.
Yeah, if they were gonna do that, they should have shown the Scouring of the Shire.
Bombur the fat pathetic dwarf is a possibility; he was basically played for laughs in the book, after all.
This is exactly what I’m worried about. I’ve read Tolkein and I like his books but it’s not a blind love. I’m not going to sit there and say anything that’s up on the screen is great because it’s Tolkein. You can make a good movie from a bad source and you can make a bad movie from a good source.
Has Jackson ever said why the hell he added that?
So Liv Tyler could be in the second film would be my guess. I’m just thankful that PJ resisted the temptation to have Arwen show up at Helm’s Deep as commander of the elven archers.
I doubt it, but based on the last two movies in The Lord of the Rings, King Kong, and that dead girl movie, I don’t expect them to very good.
The book is actually quite dense - just going by book sequences, without any backstory, we have Shire->Trolls->Rivendell->Misty Mountains(Storm Giants!)->Goblin Capture->Gollum->Escape->Eagle Rescue->Beorn. And that’s all before we get into Mirkwood!
A wizard did it?