The Trouble with Trilogies

Hey, lookit this. Peter Jackson, the director most famous for re-making King Kong and some obscure series of fantasy movies, has decided to split the already one-movie-too-many Hobbit duology into three movies. Yeah, that's right, THREE movies. And because he hates us, each one will be released a year apart.

'As a director, I feel like I haven't done my job unless your ass is numb, your bladder
is on the verge of bursting and you have to wait 'till 2014 to see how it ends.'

-Peter Jackson, Director, asshole

'Settle down kids, it's all part of the show.'

-The end of Ice Age Continental Drift

You're probably wondering how I could possibly complain about more Middle Earth movies. The Lord of the Rings movies were like really, really good so how could a Hobbit trilogy be a bad thing? It probably can't. Jackson did a bang-up with LOTR. My problem is more about why it's going to be a trilogy. Does everything have to be a trilogy? Sure the ancient Greeks invented the three-play structure, but they were also into baby pits and animal sacrifice. But unless they plan to have an usher kill a goat during the end credits, I think we can all move on.

Above: The one thing that could have
taken Fellowship from good to excellent. 

Look, The Hobbit is like the shortest of Tolkien's Middle Earth novels. My paperback copy has like 300 pages. All three Lord of the Rings books? A combined 129 billion pages (roughly). Yes, Jackson left out Tom Bambadil in Fellowship, but did the movie really suffer for it? Wait, Tom who? Exactly. Only the hardest of hardcore Tolkienites even cared that a magic forest man who likes to watch Hobbits roll around naked in the grass was cut from the script.

The Hobbit: An enchanting tale
of robbery and murder. 

What I want to talk about is where he's even going to get three two-and-a-half to three hour movies worth of material out of The Hobbit. Gandalf and some Dwarves roll up to Bilbo's house, they draw up plans to rob the shit out of Smaug's cave, there's some trolls, Bilbo wins the One Ring in a drinking contest with Gollum (doesn't he?), there's a big battle (as is now mandatory in all fantasy movies) and the titular Hobbit goes home with a cut of the Dragon's horde. It's basically Ocean's 11 with beards. So a Hobbit trilogy?

Yes, the band from the Star Wars
cantina scene has a backstory and
action figures. Well played Lucas.

He's going to have to pad the hell out of these movies and says as much in his statement mentioning "related material in the appendices of 'The Lord of the Rings'". Yup, appendices. So if half of Hobbit 2: The Legend of Curly's Gold is devoted to the childhood exploits of Glóin (Dwarf #4) then we'll know for sure that Jackson is taking a page from George 'never leave a dime on the table' Lucas when it comes to milking the source material.

Hey Peter, looking for Tolkien filler material?
Well then, jackpot buddy, jackpot.

'...thin, sort of stretched, like
butter scraped over too much bread.'

-Bilbo Baggins

"We know how much of the tale of Bilbo Baggins, the Dwarves of Erebor, the rise of the Necromancer, and the Battle of Dol Guldur would remain untold if we did not fully realize this complex and wonderful adventure,"

-Peter Jackson on why it's his moral obligation 

squeeze every last gold coin out of Tolkien's work

And the award for making 50% more
money from the Hobbit goes to...

The least Peter Jackson could do is come clean about how this is about getting more Bilbo for his buck. Just say: 'Hey everybody, you love Lord of the Rings, I love money and Oscars. Who's up for more?' I know I'm in. I mean, the thing's already filmed, he just figured out a way to edit it into three movies instead of two. It's less of an adaptation of The Hobbit and more like a prequel trilogy to the LOTR movies based on The Hobbit and whatever the hell else he can find in Tolkien's writings, and that's fine, but dude, be honest. 

He kind of makes it sound like the only way he can possibly do justice to The Hobbit is by delving ever deeper into Tolkien's (let's face it) kind of crazy ramblings. All I'm suggesting is that not every story needs a prequel, and not every movie becomes fine art just because you make a Trilogy out of it. 

Case in point.