The Hobbit: What Went Wrong With Peter Jackson’s Second LOTR Trilogy – Screen Rant

Where did theHobbit trilogy go wrong? Peter Jackson'sThe Lord of the Rings movies were very obviously a labor of love. Meticulously developed over a number of years, Peter Jackson carried the acornof adapting Tolkien's magnum opus into live-action cinema through many hardships and navigated the challenge of selling such an ambitious project to the businessbrains of the industry. With the backing of New Line, Jackson assembled a cast that would soon etch their names into the annals of film and utilized cutting-edge filming techniques to craft a trilogy befitting in scale of Tolkien's original books.

The Lord of the Rings was a runaway success critically, commercially and during awards season, and even if Tolkien's estate weren't keen on the movies, more or less everyone else in the world was, as a whole new generation discovered Middle-earth for the first time. At this point, movie producers would usually begin making eyes towards a potential sequel, but with much of Tolkien's mythology in the hands of the author's family, the only option was to adapt Bilbo's story inThe Hobbit.

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Released over the course of 3 films,the Hobbit trilogy is generally considered inferior toThe Lord of the Rings. Although each film was lucrative, the profits dropped over the course of the series and reviews were considerably more mixed, with none of the universal adulation afforded toThe Lord of the Rings. With many key figures retained from one trilogy to another, and a beloved Tolkien novel to work from, it's strange thatThe Hobbit couldn't live up to its predecessor, so what went wrong?

When Peter Jackson was developing his originalLord of the Rings trilogy, he intended to cram the entire story into just two films, fearing that no studio would dare take a punt on three. The director was pleasantly surprised when New Line suggested producing an entire trilogy, dedicating one film to each book, and this proved a key factor inThe Lord of the Rings' success, allowing ample time for the story to progress naturally. Precisely the opposite happened withThe Hobbit. Original director, Guillermo del Toro, intended to splitThe Hobbit into two movies, but Jackson added a third after taking over, turning a single, modestly-sized novel into 3 lengthy movies.

As one might expect, thismade eachinstallment ofThe Hobbit feelbloated and meandering compared toThe Lord of the Rings. With so much time to fill, it was clear where sequences were being eked out or padding was being added, drastically sapping the pace and excitement of each movie. Tolkien worked narrative gaps intoThe Lord of the Rings, and the initial film trilogybroadly follows the author's cues, but the breaks inThe Hobbit come across forced by comparison. Although Jackson insists otherwise, it's hard to imagine the decision to producer 3 films wasn't at leastsomewhatfinancially motivated.

As a side point,The Hobbit also falls down when considering each film as an individual piece. The Lord of the Rings is a sterling example of a film trilogy done right; eachinstallment escalates on the next, butsimultaneously work well as separate stories, with clear beginnings, middles and ends. By contrast,The Hobbitis one big 3 part story, and watching just one doesn't bring the same satisfaction the audience would feel after anyTheLord of the Rings effort.

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While dreaming up his Tolkien adaptation, Jackson had plenty of time to map out his first Middle-earth trilogy, followed by a lengthy shooting period where much ofthe material was shot back-to-back. Although filmmakers are rarely gifted as much time of they'd like,The Lord of the Ringsbegan pre-production in 1997,kicked off filming in 1999 and finished initial shooting 14 months later, with each film afforded a year of post-production. Although not always smooth, production onThe Lord of the Rings went about as well as could've been expected for a project of that magnitude, and Jackson was present every step of the way to maintain his vision.

The situation was very different onThe Hobbit, with Jackson himself bemoaning the lack of time he was given to produce a whole new trilogy. The director claims that aftertaking over from del Toro, he was thrust right into filming, with zero time or space for pre-production, leaving him to arrange shots and rewrite scenes on the fly. Jackson admits that he never felt "on top" ofThe Hobbit's production, and it comes as no surprise that a less cohesivecreative processresulted in a less cohesive trilogy.

The reason Jackson initially optednot to directThe Hobbit was to avoid the problem of competing with hisLord of the Rings trilogy, but if production had started from scratchafter he did find himself in the director's chair, or if the issues with del Toro had been resolved,The Hobbit may have been more on par with the rest of the franchise.

Sauron may be a fairly straightforward villain (inThe Lord of the Ringsat least), but it's impossible to question his effectiveness. The single-minded, otherworldly evil of that fiery eye is complimented by the more strategic cunning of Saruman and the outright madness of Denethor to give the trilogy a solid contingent of bad guys. One of the main problems in adaptingThe Hobbitis that Smaug the dragon doesn't fit the mold of a modern villain, being little more than a hoarder with a bad temper.

To solve the problem, Jackson's Smaug was more vicious than his book counterpart, and this alteration worked well enough for film. However, the movies also crafted bigger roles for the father and son orc team of Azog and Bolg, the former especially, who is already dead by the time of Tolkien's originalThe Hobbitstory. Unfortunately, Azog's revival for film doesn't quite fill the villainous void and, much like the other additions, feels tacked-on, distracting from the main story rather than enhancing it. The orc is also hindered by his poor visual execution. After 3 films with the God-like awe of Sauron and the majesty of Christopher Lee, the CGI Azog feels only marginally more threatening than a generic orc.

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Compared to other book-to-film adaptations,The Lord of the Rings doesn't add much to the recipe, insteadfocusing predominantly on stripping elements out of Tolkien's original novels, such as the Tom Bombadil side-quest in The Fellowship of the Ring. However,The Hobbit's philosophy is the polar opposite of Jackson'sonce authentic stance. TheHobbit trilogy adds both entirely fresh materialand elements drawn from Tolkien's wider writings and appendices, both of which come with their own problems.

Among the film-original additions are Evangeline Lilly's Tauriel, the presence of Legolas, a cameo from Frodo, a subplot starring Kili the dwarf and an extended role for Radagast. While Sylvester McCoy's wizard was arguably one ofThe Hobbit's most compelling figures, the other changes didn't work quite as well. Fiddling with Tolkien is tricky business to begin with, but Tauriel had minimal impact on the plot, Kili's story was just filler to see out the 3-movie length and the appearance of Orlando Bloomwas a transparent attempts to draw in casual fans of the previous trilogy.

Tolkien purists might've taken less offense to Jackson working new, but still canon,elements intoThe Hobbit, such as a massively expanded Battle of Five Armies and the Necromancer, but this material came with its own set of problems. There's such a jarring disconnect between the story ofThe Hobbit and the wider material, and that shift is detrimental to the central story. Epic battles and grand armies have no place in the smaller tale of Bilbo Baggins, but there they are anyway, attempting to evoke the same sense of scale and wonder asThe Lord of the Rings.

Away from content and story, theHobbit trilogy is also a huge visual departure fromThe Lord of the Rings. As an exercise in CGI,The Lord of the Rings was a landmark release, even if some of the effects haven't aged particularly well by current standards. But the trilogy also utilizes an impressive range of practical effects that add a grounded realism to the fantasy, helping Jackson's visualization of Middle-earth connect with the audience, while imbuinga dirt-covered rural flavor into the cinematography. Once again,The Hobbit doesn't carry that approach over, instead making full use of the updated CGI available.

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Entire characters are digitally rendered, and not just your Gollums or giant trolls, the 2D miniatures fromThe Lord of the Ringsare replaced by CG models, and entire sequences feel animated, rather than live-action. This CGI-heavy ethos was partly due toThe Hobbit filming in stereo to facilitate the emerging trend of 3D cinema, where practical effects can sometimes by betrayed by the extradimension. Adding to the lack of visual consistency betweenThe Lord of the Rings andThe Hobbit, the latter movies were filmed at 48fps and on RED digital instead of using traditional film a standard frame rate. All of these updated techniques resulted in a near-pristine image that, while undoubtedly beautiful, lost the realism and gravity that made Middle-earth feel so vivid inThe Lord of the Rings.

The Fellowship inThe Lord of the Rings is a delicately-balanced core cast. Originally comprising of 9 individuals, the Fellowship are actually on-screen together for a very limited time, and are rapidly reduced to 8 men when Boromir falls at the end of the first film. Each member of the Fellowship is unique, with grumpy dwarves, joking hobbits, moody men and more, helping each character stand out. FromThe Two Towers onward, the central figures are split into groups and follow separate story arcs. By contrast, the main group ofThe Hobbit isa much larger company with 15 characters, most of whom are dwarves with very similar sounding names and, without wanting to stereotype, designs. Also unlikeThe Lord of the Rings, the group mostly stick together for the bulk of the trilogy, giving a wide base of characters to constantlykeep track of.

This is an unavoidable pitfall of adaptingThe Hobbit, and therefore not entirely the fault of the movie, but where any casual fan could name and describe each and every member of the Fellowship, many would struggle to name even half ofThe Hobbit's adventurers, revealing how few of the dwarf characters are developed effectively over the course of the series. Richard Armitage's Thorin, Aidan Turner's Kili and Adam Brown's Ori are the only truly recognizable faces throughout the trilogy, leaving most of the group to meld anonymously into the background behind Martin Freeman's (admittedly brilliant) Bilbo.

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Craig first began contributing to Screen Rant in 2016, several years after graduating college, and has been ranting ever since, mostly to himself in a darkened room. Having previously written for various sports and music outlets, Craig's interest soon turned to TV and film, where a steady upbringing of science fiction and comic books finally came into its own.Craig has previously been published on sites such as Den of Geek, and after many coffee-drenched hours hunched over a laptop, part-time evening work eventually turned into a full-time career covering everything from the zombie apocalypse to the Starship Enterprise via the TARDIS.Since joining the Screen Rant fold, Craig has been involved in breaking news stories and mildly controversial ranking lists, but now works predominantly as a features writer.Jim Carrey is Craigs top acting pick and favorite topics include superheroes, anime and the unrecognized genius of the High School Musical trilogy.

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The Hobbit: What Went Wrong With Peter Jackson's Second LOTR Trilogy - Screen Rant

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