In case the hype machine hasn't told you yet, The Hobbit is the stuff that happens before The Lord of the Rings. J.R.R. Tolkien intended The Hobbit to be a children's book, as opposed to The Lord of the Rings. I've read a chunk of The Hobbit, and it indeed has much better pacing than The Fellowship of the Ring.
Once upon a time, a shrewd man named Peter Jackson thought this children's book could only fit into two films. He has since announced that it can fit into three films.
Jackson's announcement brings up a question: what the hell happened?
Specifically, what happened to one book getting one movie? What happened to getting our money's worth? What happened to writing, an activity that requires one to remove unnecessary words, sentences, and events?
I believe it all started with the two films made out of the last Harry Potter book. Not to be outdone, the second part of a two-film adaptation of Twilight's final book, Breaking Dawn, will be released later this year.
You know what Peter Jackson has to say about that?
"Hey, fuck you guys. The last Harry Potter and Twilight books were hundreds of pages shorter than Gone with the Wind, but you thought you could make more money by adapting them into two movies that, when combined, were longer than the Gone with the Wind movie? Fuck you guys. I can take a 300-page children's book and turn it into three films. I'm good at telling stories. Fuck you guys."
OK, OK. Peter Jackson would never say or think that. He seems like a pretty nice guy. He probably honestly believes The Hobbit needs three movies. This doesn't change the fact, however, that what he's doing is not good for our film culture, assuming we play along with the business plan.
We shouldn't pay more money to see one story. We shouldn't encourage Hollywood to make even longer franchises. We should spend our money on good movies. I was gonna write another sentence with some curse words, but I guess this'll do.
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