I hear the film-makers say all the time that by the end of it there will be a set of 6 movies that you can watch all at once, but to me the hobbit films are nothing like the middle earth that we were introduced to in rings, its like a total re imagining, they don't even look like they were made by the same director
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I couldn't agree more. The first was a total disappointment and I recently saw the second which was a complete joke. The effects, action, and storyline were ruined and completely awful. I was angered at how bad the first one was, but now I don;t even care these movies are just plain stupid.
shareThe Hobbit is the story of Bilbo Baggins before LOTR.
shareTo be fair, the books don't either. The Hobbit is a small child book while lotr is an epic saga.
So it's ok, just don't watch them together or even consider them related.
You're talking the difference between the stories, events, and tone. That doesn't explain why goblins and orcs look completely different in the two trilogies. That doesn't explain why dwarves look completely different between the two trilogies.
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Strip away the phony tinsel of Hollywood and you find the real tinsel underneath.
I totally agree. With Lord of the Rings Peter Jackson made a great effort to keep to the tone of the book and with a few notable exceptions made a pretty good job of it. With the Hobbit, he threw that out of the window replacing a serious interpretation of Middle Earth with a bloated CGI riddled mess. The realistic fight scenes in LOTR were replaced with stupid ninja moves and the most laughable fight sequence I've seen in decades, the fight by the river when the dwarves were in the barrels. Add a ludicrous love story between a dwarf and a non existent elf maiden (who wouldn't have looked twice at Kili)and invent conflict where there was none and you have a beloved children's book turned into a circus.
Oh gravity, thou art a heartless bitch!
There were some stupid ninja moves in The Lord of the Rings. Legolas surfing down a staircase on a shield. Legolas leaping up onto the elephant. Rocking the broken pillar of the bridge out of Moria.
The difference is that 1. There weren't as many and they weren't quite as farfetched. and 2. There was enough good stuff in between that I was willing to overlook the occasional absurdity thrown in to appeal to the kiddies.
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Strip away the phony tinsel of Hollywood and you find the real tinsel underneath.
While the Hobbit trilogy has its flaws (some of them extreme). I think it works as a set up to LOtR. It helps establish a lighter tone that nicely contrasts the darkness of the next trilogy.... Just like it's supposed to do, like the book does. I like seeing how Middle Earth was slightly more whimsical before the resurfacing of the Ring. It makes the darkness of Sauron seem all the more ominous. Riddles in the Dark is the perfect example of this... Even Gollum can be used for lighter moments before later becoming a major dramatic force... again, just like in the books.
Also, the transition into Fellowship, at least to me, was surprisingly seamless when watching the trilogies back to back. This is especially true with the LOtR EE, which contains more Bilbo and more call backs to TH.
And I would add that many of the intros in TH are well done. Example: Rivendale. It gets a grand presentation in AUJ, and in FotR it jumps right in as if we should already know it. You'll notice little things like this when watching in order.
All those moment will be lost in time... like tears... in... rain
I didn't read all the comments here so forgive me if this is a bit repetitive. But I think the problem is that you were expecting to be watching Lord of the Rings when you watched The Hobbit, this is a mistake.
Yes, there are many continual characters, Bilbo, Gandalf (and now Legolas), but The Hobbit is not Lord of the Rings - at all. In fact, if you read the books in the same order (LotR first) you may be just as disappointed.
Something you should know (if you haven't read the books), Tolkien intended The Hobbit to be for a much younger audience (though it could be argued Lord of the Rings was intended as a children's fantasy too). In reading The Hobbit you would notice the cadence or speech is much different from his later books, so its a tad easier to read. Furthermore, The Hobbit is written from Bilbo's point of view, its his story, (almost like a fish tale - so its a tad far fetched even for a fantasy!). Though Bilbo has some narrative in LotR, it is not his story, it is told (mainly) from Frodo's perspective (though others as well).
I loved The Hobbit and have read it several times alone and to my niece and nephews as well. Lord of the Rings is a much longer, drawn out, in depth, more mature fantasy story (which the movies only depict a fraction of). Keep that in mind when you watch any of these movies and you may have a little more tolerance for the lighter Hobbit franchise.
Personally, I love all of these movies. No, they aren't perfect, but they are pure fantasy and fun.
"Good times, noodle salad"
The Hobbit was never intended to be on the same level as LOTR. Even Peter Jackson acknowledged this. So for fans to expect it to be side by side is stupid.
I do think they complement each-other very well.
But that still doesn't explain why orcs and goblins look completely different in the two trilogies. That still doesn't explain why dwarves look completely different in the two trilogies. We aren't talking about story content here, but the visuals. You're trying to have a completely different discussion.
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Strip away the phony tinsel of Hollywood and you find the real tinsel underneath.
Well, The Hobbit book and LOTR books also didn't stand side by side. One was a children's book and the other was aimed for adults.
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The LOTR trilogy will become a timeless classic (it is already). Totally rewatchable and while not perfect, it's a very good book to movie adaptation. I can't count how many times I've seen these movies.
The Hobbit trilogy, on the other hand, will not be a classic. It's clearly a much weaker set of movies built off the thin (by comparison) source of The Hobbit. The entire production pales in comparison to what it took to make the LOTR trilogy.
I like the Hobbit, but it's not even close to being as good as the LOTR trilogy.
As to the OP's point. I agree. For various reasons, these trilogies don't stack well.
I don't think that Tolkien ever intended for the Hobbit and the LOTR trilogy to be equal the first place. The former is lighter, softer, limited to one book, and is inferior to the other while the latter is more mature, darker, is made up of three books, and superior to the other. Honestly, the Hobbit trilogy being inferior to the LOTR trilogy is just a repetition of history, just with the Hobbit being drawn out into three movies instead of one, thus making the amount of movies equal in amount but still inferior to LOTR.
Welcome to my Nightmare- Freddy Krueger
Most likely Tolkien did not think about The Hobbit and LOTR being on equal terms at all. He just wrote them without giving it some greater thought. One day he just started writing that famous first line about the Hobbit and the Hole because he wanted to create a story for his kids. He said himself he had NO! idea where it would lead and never thought about Sauron and every other piece of background at the beginning. Only after he had progressed into the plot he began thinking about background and history and languages and everything else. But he really did not give it to much thought while completing The Hobbit as a book.
The real creation of Middle-earth startet when he began thinking about LOTR. Only then did he think about history and background and all that. If you read the book u can easily tell that difference ... The Hobbit is a light read and there is no hint of a greater Evil and the One Ring. The ring Bilbo gets from Gollum is just a magic ring, nothing more. There is no mention of bad feeling or a shadowy world when Bilbo uses the Ring. He just becomes invisible and thats it. The only one thing that is a bit forshadowing is his silence about it towards Gandalf and the dwarves .. however in the Hobbit itself he just does not want to give away his secret because its the Ring that lets him be a burglar in the first place. Its not yet about greed or the bad influence the ring has on Bilbo. All that only later becomes an issue with the LOTR. Bilbo uses the ring at almost every other turn without something bad happening. Tolkien kind of red-conned it in a way himself by giving the ring a personality and extending the lifespan of its bearer etc. Nothing of that is even hinted at in The Hobbit.
I dont want to belittle either The Hobbit or LOTR but just look at what Tolkien said himself about the books. Tolkien had not the faintest idea about LOTR when he started The Hobbit and while writing it only imagined a few things about the world and its history. Only later did he really think about all the other stuff we adore so much about his work.