Oh, PJ, What Have You Done?

Rating: 1/10 (26 May 2016)

I just finished watching Peter Jackson, the director (in case you've been under a rock for 15 yrs), say, in the special features of The Hobbit:AUJ, that he really didn't want to copy, emulate, retread, or even direct this movie (and felt STRONGLY about not directing it (so what are we to expect then?), but due to a Tolkien estate rights problem it took way too long to get green lighted, so that the director that was hired, Guillermo del Toro, had to move on, but I would have oh so loved to have seen his take on it as it couldn't be any worse, certainly).
OK, so know that PJ's heart was not in directing this. Great idea to have someone else direct it and PJ & Co. could still write and produce it. He still could have hired another director, when del Toro had to leave, but pre-production had gotten too far along to bring someone else in. So, there were all these other considerations weighing it down, right off the bat, that LOTR didn't have. There was a nice innocence to LOTR, esp the first one. There was no urgency to make another 'Avatar' back then (which PJ's effects company, Weta Workshop, worked on), and no one knew that LOTR could even be done. Plus a lot of old school techniques were used, and that became an echo in the those films which was appropriate. Tolkien would have never wanted things to diverge so completely into the high tech world of The Hobbit! So of course MGM was pressuring for a repeat and I understand that, to a *certain* degree. PJ seemed to be able to deal with that in LOTR and naturally come out on the other side with 3 very watchable movies (well, the extended versions, anyway; I never really 'got' the success of the theatricals nor did I even see them all, preferring to wait for the extended versions).
As far as this film goes, and by now, all 3 have come out... First, I should say that I have been a rabid Tolkien fan since the 60s when it was required reading in elementary school. So my first thought on hearing there were to be 3 movies made from a small children's book (although we adults certainly read and enjoy it) was that PJ must have been kidding. Right there it took the turn of being all about the money. Let's take this book that 100 million people have read for generations, which is a reference point for so many people, and bloat it up out of all reason. One reviewer said that you could do that for an obscure novel, but this is canonical Tolkien, and I very much agree. Plus, IMO, I don't think The Hobbit, as a novel, stands up well to LOTR, and it was never meant to; it was a doddle of sorts while grading papers, for his kids, and is endearing and adventurous but not of an epic nature, nor a good foundation for a big movie. LOTR and what became The Silmarrion were Tolkien's magnum opus pieces.
Thus, PJ, to make a blockbuster out of it, had to really prostitute himself in this case, and throw the mostly loving care he had for LOTR out and *use* The Hobbit to his and MGM's ends, which is a bit unforgivable. It tries to be an action/fantasy movie, which is a tough balance that he got pretty right on LOTR, but this one strays so far from the book and the whole theme is just 'big, big, big' (the crew even says that is what he told them was the main theme and it is not even a BIG book!). It is also very hard to make people care about 13+ characters (mostly new) in a movie, no matter how long. Esp Dwarfs. I didn't find them esp compelling or attractive, just cartoonish, with all apologies to the actors who were doing the best they could with the material and silly costumes.
Then there is the heavy weight of LOTR, with the same scenes/plots from LOTR, which he said he would NOT do, so it is all the worse knowing that. The pacing is terrible, I think I could do a better job. Sometimes *nothing* is going on. Action sequences are way too long with nothing new going on. This from the director of the 2 epic battles from LOTR, which are hands down the best battle sequences I've ever seen.
I really could not get through these movies, and oh how I tried, but I was just bored and then angry when seeing scenes ripped off 100% from LOTR or gratuitous stuff. There *are* LOTR characters in The Hobbit but PJ got carried away. In trying to make it work as well as LOTR, he got trapped into using that reference way too much and using retread material.
Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn in LOTR) said, re LOTR, that the success was much like The One Ring, which started taking over the project, and the movies became more about awards and the hoopla, thus diminishing the heart of them. And The Hobbit suffers from this many times over. If PJ wanted to depart so much from the book, he should based it on Middle Earth legend/culture and not called it "The Hobbit".
I say all this with as much respect as I can for the actors and crew who worked, obviously, very hard on this movie and put their hearts into it. And I started to give it two or three stars for that, but in the end, the rating is for the film as a whole, so no "A" for effort.
This film and the sequels are a travesty of the highest order. PJ ripped off Tolkien's name and book for this movie, plain and simple. Grrrrrrr.