The Hobbit will now be made into three films: too much?

[BelfastBloke]

Do you think this is solely a money-making exercise, or are you happy at so much bang for the buck?

Film One - up until the barrel escape
Film Two - all of Smaug and Laketown until his death
Film Three - Battle of Five Armies and its fallout

It's all extended because there's all the stuff in the LOTR Appendices timeline about the White Council and their suspicions about who the Necromancer might be, and then their attack on Dol Guldur and driving him out (SPOILER he later arises as Sauron in Mordor).

Is this the geekiest first post ever?

By that token: are you saying that, because the Hobbit was unconscious throughout the Battle of the Five Armies and it is therefore barely described in the book, the filmmakers should not film the battle?

I am just repeating my assertion that to fill 3 films (or even 2) they'll need to have a lot of stuff that was not in the book.

The charm of the book is that it is just the tiny visible tip of a massive hidden iceberg of myth and history, so that the ring is just a trinket, and the journey is lighthearted. If you drag the iceberg into view you lose the story that was written and get a different story, which loses what was characteristic of the book in the first place.

Mmmmm aarogan and legolas. I think I need to watch lotr again just to remind myself of the storyline, honest it's got nothing to do with how gorgeous they are when they are dressed like that.
I'm looking forward to the hobbit but three parts, that's a long film. It's just reminded me of when we went to cinema to watch the first part and my HDTV went in a huff cos it never had a proper ending. He didn't know that it had three parts lol.

Bloody autocorrect dh not hdtv

You're right, Trillian. Good thing they do have lots of stuff that was not in the book, but was happening within the same timeframe as the events of the Hobbit.

I'm not saying it will work, I'm saying there's enough stuff that it could well work.

Obviously the studios want 3 films because of money, but there is enough stuff for three films to be justified artistically as well. How it's executed is another matter...

Went to see the film last night.

Basically thought it was very good.

Trills is correct: "to fill 3 films (or even 2) they'll need to have a lot of stuff that was not in the book."

Most of this stuff - all based on Tolkien's 'The Quest of Erebor', 'Durin's Folk', and Appendices to LOTR - was executed excellently.

I'm interested in this notion that the story is being 'stretched'.

Most people who haven't seen the film (and some reviewers who have) grumble that the filmmakers are putting in things which aren't in the novel, and are stretching the material.

It seems to me that it's a misconception based on the differences between novel and film.

When Tolkien writes, 'The Goblins chased the Dwarves and captured them', how much screen time should that chase take? Should it take the two seconds it takes to read that sentence? Or is it legitimately developed into a massive chase sequence - because we're watching an action film?

When Tolkien writes, "All the Dwarves grumbled and groaned, but eventually congratulated Bilbo", what does that mean? What do they actually say? And if the screenwriters are going to come up with things for them to say, isn't it better if each dwarf has his own character, so that what he says has some emotional heft (funny, sincere, etc)? Complaining that Tolkien never wrote Ori as a hippy, or whatever, is meaningless because he only sketched the personalities of a couple of the 13 dwarves, other than Thorin. But they have to have things to actually say.

When Tolkien doesn't really describe the Battle of the Five Armies, because Bilbo is knocked out, does that mean the filmmakers should not film the Battle? And if they do, how long should that battle take?