Could The Hobbit trilogy be reduced to a single film?

[The Nth Doctor]

The great tragedy of The Hobbit trilogy is that deeply buried beneath it all is an amazing film trying to escape.

I was never a fan of the trilogy idea. I was originally against the two-film idea but the it eventually grew on me considering the inclusion of the Dol Guldur storyline. However, after watching The Battle of the Five Armies, I can't help but wonder if a singular great film exists within the trilogy.

There are many things the trilogy accomplishes masterfully: Establishing the dwarves and the unexpected party, Martin Freeman as Bilbo, Gandalf, "Riddles in the Dark" (although I still wish we got all of the riddles), Beorn (even if his appearance was limited), Mirkwood (especially in the extended edition), Smaug, The Siege of Dol Guldur, and Richard Armitage, Ken Stott, Graham McTavish, and James Nesbitt as Thorin, Balin, Dwalin, and Bofur, respectively.

But on the flip side, there is so much that it is a complete waste: the Tauriel/Kili romance, the Thorin/Azog conflict, Alfrid (especially in the third film), and the over-the-top action sequences in the caves of the Misty Mountains, during the barrel escape, and much of the Battle of the Five Armies.

With this in mind, would it be possible to reduce the trilogy with the existing footage by removing the above issues into an admittedly long single film, or two shorter films? I would keep the Dol Guldur scenes because they aren't very long and they add to Gandalf's motivations, but I would heavily reduce (if not entirely eliminate) Legalos' role.

 

[Gaith]

There are several fan edits both already completed (of the first two films) and in the works over at fanedit.org and its discussion forum.

Myself, the experience of DoS made me realize that I don't care about pretty much anything in the Hobbit story aside from Bilbo finding the Ring. Don't care what happens to Thorin, don't care whether the dwarves get their kingdom back, don't even really care how Gandalf escapes Dol Guldur, and I certainly don't care about Laketown or Legolas' jerkass dad or what-have-you. I don't give a single s*** about some human boatman and his kvetching about whether his ancestor missed a spear-shot or not, don't care about that injured dwarf, or Legolas' crush on Tauriel, or about her mutual crush with said dwarf: don't care.

I pretty much only care about Bilbo discovering his sense of adventure, meeting Elrond and seeing Rivendell for the first time, becoming friends with Gandalf, and acquiring the Ring from Gollum. All that stuff is great, and it's all in AUJ. If one were to marathon the movies in chronological order, not only could one skip DoS and TBotFA without any narrative hiccups, I think doing so would actually enhance the experience by making the confrontation with Smaug a Noodle Incident that's more fun to think about than to actually see. Much like Anakin's fall to the Dark Side: even if it had been well-written and well-acted... did we really ever want to see all that? No doubt some, or even many, did, but myself... now that I reflect upon it all, no, not so much. Even if the PT were actually good movies, I think I'd prefer to sit on a nice, comfy chair and re-read the Thrawn trilogy instead.

 

[Professor Zoom]

I would watch it if it was a single movie. Maybe. I thought the first Hobbit movie was so devoid of soul that I haven't been back.

 

[Kemaiku]

You could, but at nearly 10 hours (7.5 hours theatrical, 2.5 roughly extended material) cutting it by half would still get you a 5 hour long film.

No one will sit through a 5 hour movie. So two films just over a two and a half hours long would maybe do it, as they originally planned to do.

Then again the original LOTR in the 50's was 6 books in 3 volumes refered to as the names we know now, so they really could have (if they wanted to) have made 6 of those, but still compressed all down to the 3 films. They didn't mind shoving it all into as little room as possible then.

 

[Relayer1]

I think it would have worked best as two 3.5 hour films rather than three 3 hour plus films.

I approve of adding material from the LOTR appendices and extrapolating on the somewhat brief treatment the novel gave some events. 7 hours would have been more than sufficient, with maybe an extra half hour added to each film for the extended bluray releases.

 

[RoJoHen]

There are several fan edits both already completed (of the first two films) and in the works over at fanedit.org and its discussion forum.

Myself, the experience of DoS made me realize that I don't care about pretty much anything in the Hobbit story aside from Bilbo finding the Ring. Don't care what happens to Thorin, don't care whether the dwarves get their kingdom back, don't even really care how Gandalf escapes Dol Guldur, and I certainly don't care about Laketown or Legolas' jerkass dad or what-have-you. I don't give a single s*** about some human boatman and his kvetching about whether his ancestor missed a spear-shot or not, don't care about that injured dwarf, or Legolas' crush on Tauriel, or about her mutual crush with said dwarf: don't care.

I pretty much only care about Bilbo discovering his sense of adventure, meeting Elrond and seeing Rivendell for the first time, becoming friends with Gandalf, and acquiring the Ring from Gollum. All that stuff is great, and it's all in AUJ. If one were to marathon the movies in chronological order, not only could one skip DoS and TBotFA without any narrative hiccups, I think doing so would actually enhance the experience by making the confrontation with Smaug a Noodle Incident that's more fun to think about than to actually see. Much like Anakin's fall to the Dark Side: even if it had been well-written and well-acted... did we really ever want to see all that? No doubt some, or even many, did, but myself... now that I reflect upon it all, no, not so much. Even if the PT were actually good movies, I think I'd prefer to sit on a nice, comfy chair and re-read the Thrawn trilogy instead.

I'm more or less in the same boat. I haven't seen the new one yet, but my experience is the same. I just don't care about anything going on. The story elements that I do care about are the ones that directly tie into LOTR. Bilbo finding the ring. Gandalf investigating Dol Goldur. I really enjoyed the scenes at Rivendell in "An Unexpected Journey" between Gandalf, Saruman, Elrond, and Galadriel.

And while I think the Smaug scenes in "The Desolation of Smaug" are very impressive to look at, I don't care at all about the Dwarves or their journey.

 

[Professor Zoom]

I wish that pretty much all of the Lord of the Rings stuff, material from appendices, weren't in the movies. I get it, it's a "prequel" to Lord of the Rings, but, it felt distracting from the story that was being told. Or should've been told.

Rather than adapting the book, Jackson was trying to recreate Lord of the Rings.

Couldn't The Hobbit just be it's own thing?

 

[Relayer1]

I wish that pretty much all of the Lord of the Rings stuff, material from appendices, weren't in the movies. I get it, it's a "prequel" to Lord of the Rings, but, it felt distracting from the story that was being told. Or should've been told.

Rather than adapting the book, Jackson was trying to recreate Lord of the Rings.

Couldn't The Hobbit just be it's own thing?

But how many of us would have wanted to see a rather superficial and childish kids movie ?

Jackson deliberately turned it into something that stylistically reflected the LotR movies rather than the source material. The additional material more closely links it to LotR and helps stitch it all together as a coherent story.

 

[Mr Light]

Let's face it, a direct adaptation of the Hobbit as a lighthearted children's romp would not have done good at the box office. The general audience, which knows nothing of the source material but liked the movies, would hate it. If they're going to continue making billion dollar movies, they need to continue making LOTR movies.

 

[Trimm]

From a pure moneymaking standpoint, doing The Hobbit as three movies fully in the LOTR style made the most sense, which is why they did it.

For me personally, I think you could have done two 3 to 3.5 hour films without including all the extra material borrowed from the LOTR appendicies, and in a tone (if not style) very different from the Jackson LOTR films. Those two films would probably have had a good chance to be successful, but not the LOTR sized blockbusters that we ended up getting. I do think that I would have found them significantly more satisfying in the end.

 

[Mr Light]

Personally, I love the Hobbit movies for the same reason I like the Star Wars Special Editions. When you've already seen/read your favorite story a hundred times, getting to see an extended edition of it with new material is really exciting. It makes it fresh and interesting again.

It's just a really exciting game of What If? What if the Dwarves go in with Bilbo and have a huge fight scene with Smaug? What if we get to see Gandalf going to the tomb of the Nazgul? What if Sauron fights Gandalf?

 

[mos6507]

Amen about "not caring".

A story has to have a need to be told. The script in the films so far doesn't make a strong enough case that this was a story that needed to be told. Trying to make Thorin into an Aragorn sort of Matinee idol was a bad idea also. The dwarves don't feel particularly dwarvish.

There is just a "strained" feeling to these films, like they are trying to suck on the leftover vapors from the LOTR production, like the reintroduction of Legolas, and because so much time has gone by since LOTR mania that culminated in the oscars, it just doesn't resonate anymore.

There's only so many times you can see a bunch of CG orcs swinging swords and clubs around before it start to bore you, and when some of these things are rendered in caricature like that the goblin with a stork-like double-chin that puts George Lucas to shame, it really does risk going over the line into self-parody.

By LOTR having so much genuine story to cram into three films, Jackson was forced to adhere closer to the source material. By stretching The Hobbit into three films, it gave Jackson more room to indulge in his tendency to go down lengthy tangents, similar to King Kong which took forever for them to just get to Skull Island.

 

[Mr Light]

I do agree that King Kong was ridiculously padded. With Tolkein, you have the right (and the obligation) to throw as much stuff in there as possible because you have the source material. But King Kong? Really? We need to spend an hour with an actor and a director before they even get to the damn island?

 

[Saul]

Well the last Harry Potter movie could have easily been 3 films since the Deathly Hallows is longer than the Lord of the Rings.
I thought at least King Kong was good. I felt I got my value for money and at the end there was nothing left hanging for sequels thank Gods. 3 hour movies almost seem to have become Peter Jackson's thing nowadays.

When I watched the first Hobbit movie the plan was still to do just 2 movies. But even after the first film I thought 2 movies are too much. When you consider how he artfully made a great movie out of the Fellowship of The Ring book. He could have easily made a fantastic Hobbit movie in a single go. 2 would have been satisfactory. 3 is just milking it.

What's worse is that even if you factor in Tolkein's material as filling these movies out a lot of his stuff is reduced to squeeze in unnecessary characters and romantic entanglements. So what I really wanted to see wasn't given enough attention because he was too focused on trying to make this into a trilogy rather than a good movie that did the Hobbit justice.

 

[Mr Light]

The other thing is, if you're going to make a four quadrant movie that appeals to women, the perception is (for better or for worse) that you need to have romance and female characters in it. The Hobbit book doesn't have any women or romance in it, and thus it had to be invented. It's the same reason we had those endless scenes of Arwen pining for Aragorn in the LOTR movies.

I'm probably in the minority on this, but I wish they kept Arwen in Helm's Deep. At least then she would have been contributing directly to the story and could have been part of the army. They had Elrond's sons with them in the book, so why not her? (not at Helm's Deep, I know, but later)

 

[RoJoHen]

For whatever it's worth, the Arwen scenes in LOTR are some of my favorite parts of the movies.

 

[Mr Light]

I would have appreciated her so much more if she contributed to the story the way she did in the first one. She rescued Frodo and faced off against the Nazgul, which was great. And then... she feels sad for two movies. I wanted to see her fighting side by side with the love of her life. At Helm's Deep. On the Paths of the Dead. On the Fields of the Pelennor. Before the Black Gates.

 

[Daddy Todd]

My fantasy is that one of the special features on the Battle of the Five Armies extended edition would be a "Hobbit Only" edit of the three films, boiled down to a single 2-hour film. That's the version I would watch again and again.

 

[Mr Light]

Now why would they do that, when they could release that as a separate Blu Ray and make you pay for it all over again?

 

[RoJoHen]

I would have appreciated her so much more if she contributed to the story the way she did in the first one. She rescued Frodo and faced off against the Nazgul, which was great. And then... she feels sad for two movies. I wanted to see her fighting side by side with the love of her life. At Helm's Deep. On the Paths of the Dead. On the Fields of the Pelennor. Before the Black Gates.

She's one of the reasons "Fellowship" is my favorite of the trilogy. I appreciate the other films, and I like the story that they tell, but there's just something so much more fun about having all the characters on a journey together instead of spread all over Middle Earth doing different things.

I enjoy her scenes at Rivendell with her father, but I agree, I would have loved her to have more to do, though if you give her too much to do it might feel like she was stepping on Eowyn's toes.