Making three movies out of the 1,400 page Lord of the Rings Trilogy was one thing but stretching this beloved 270-page children's story across three overlong films? Was Peter Jackson on bath salts?
Needless to say, I feel like quite a fool of a Took after just coming out of the second movie. It was great! What I had failed to understand is that the makers of The Hobbit trilogy are just giving the people more of what they want. After diligent note-taking and extrapolating for the third movie, here, in descending order of screen time, is what the people want:
- 9 Hours - Chase scenes. Endless chase scenes
- 8 Hours - Looney Tunes-esque action sequences
- 7 Hours - Something, anything to keep the plot from moving along before the next movie
- 6 Hours - Credits
- 5 Hours - Pensive glances (usually but not necessarily involving an elf)
- 4.5 Hours - Main characters about to die only to be saved at the last second by an arrow out of nowhere (also works if you replace 'arrow' with 'eagle')
- 4 Hours - Orcs leering menacingly
- 3.5 Hours - Same orcs dying by the hundreds with surprising ease
- 3 Hours - Inter-species sexual tension
- 2.5 Hours - Speaking in made-up languages (often combined with above)
- 2 Hours - Orlando Bloom paying off his second mansion
- 1.5 Hours - Characters/plot from Lord of the Rings
- 1 Hour - Characters/plot from Peter Jackson's feverish nightmares
- 38 Minutes - Characters/plot from The Hobbit
- 30 Minutes - Martin Freeman as Bilbo reenacting scenes from the British version of The Office (Note: not sure if this actually happened, I nodded off during one of the chase scenes)
- 25 Minutes - The least satisfying Stephen Fry appearance
- 5 Minutes - "Clever" Peter Jackson cameos
- 1 Minute - Horrifying moment of clarity upon realizing the irony of paying $15 for a ticket to the second movie of a trilogy where what little can be called a plot centres around a villain who becomes consumed by his greed for money
All and all it was a pretty good ride. Of course this doesn't count all the DVD bonus features such as hours of footage of orcs pumping iron to hone their ripped orc bods and PG-13 sex between an elf and a dwarf.
As you can imagine, I'm pretty excited to see Peter Jackson's version of The Silmarillion due out Christmas of 2016, 2017 and 2018.
