Mark Kermode recently
brought my attention to ‘The World Hobbit
Project’ and a questionnaire surveying fans who have seen the films and what
they thought of them. I thought this was interesting as the findings of the
study are largely irrelevant but it is not often the opinions of regular fans
without YouTube channels or large followings on social media sites can have
their opinions heard if only in a small way.
When the Hobbit films were originally announced I wasn’t
very optimistic, my first thought was that they were going to be to the Lord of
the Rings trilogy what the Star Wars prequels were to the original Star Wars
trilogy. After viewing ‘The Battle of the Five Armies’ and reflecting on the
trilogy as a whole the films were underwhelming to say the least. They were not
bad films by any means but failed to capture to magic of Peter Jackson’s first
three ventures into middle earth.
Without ranting and raving a summary of the films is that
they were too long and stretched out. The series would have benefited from
being two concise movies rather than three which was clearly done to make money
for the studios. Some characters were unnecessary, for example, Legolas and
Tauriel were not in the hobbit book and I felt they took screen time away from
the central character of Bilbo without adding too much to these films. Martin
Freeman's performance was the best thing about the movies and his talents were
criminally underused considering it was 'the Hobbit' trilogy.
Splitting a book into two or three films to make money and
capitalise on the fact that fans will go and see these movies is completely
understandable from the studios point of view. The downside of this is story,
characters and quality suffer. By the
end of ‘The Battle of the Five Armies’ I was very bored and the fact that the
most exciting thing about the 3 hours I spent in the cinema was the teaser
trailer for the new Star Wars film was the most exciting thing says a lot about
this film.
Part of the hype of ‘The Unexpected Journey’ was that it was
in 48 frames per second and was the first feature film to achieve this. I
personally don't feel it adds anything to the film, it is a money making
gimmick in the same way as 3D. The most important parts of any film are a good
script or interesting story, caring about the characters and being entertained.
If a film achieves these things the fact that it is in 48 frames per second or
3D is irrelevant, you forget about it anyway after 5 minutes of the movie and only
if the movie is bad do you actually take any notice of it. I for one will not
be rushing to pick up the extended edition, 3D blu-rays.
kermodeandmayo YouTube video about the World Hobbit Project:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mA8-LsT0rws
Link to the World Hobbit Project if you want to take the
questionnaire yourself: http://www.worldhobbitproject.org/en/home/
