Posted by Bob Muir on Jul 29, 2014 in
Cinema 
Sigh. Even when I heard that The Hobbit would be stretched out and expanded to two, then three films, I held out hope that it would capture my heart the way The Lord of the Rings films did. (After all, I actually liked the original book better than The Lord of the Rings books!) But the first two films have shown just how detrimental many modern filmmaking trends are. The story meanders, the visuals are compromised with excessive CG, and everything feels like a videogame — all setpieces and not enough to justify them. Oh well, let’s return to Middle-earth on the big screen one more time with this trailer for the final film, which has been retitled from The Hobbit: There and Back Again to the much more epic The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. Hey Hollywood? Not everything in fantasy needs to set up massive battles to compete with The Lord of the Rings! And I doubt The Hobbit will somehow out-do the Battle of Helm’s Deep! Read more…
Tags: Peter Jackson, The Hobbit
Posted by Ben Huber on Apr 25, 2014 in
Cinema 
Peter Jackson is a fickle man, it seems. First The Hobbit changed from two films to three, then the titles got mixed around, and now the third film is getting a name change. Originally it was subtitled “There and Back Again,” but now it’ll be altered to a much more straightforward subtitle: “The Battle of the Five Armies.” I imagine this was mainly because it sounds more interesting and exciting (and promises plenty of battles to audiences), but Jackson also lays out other reasons on his Facebook post: “[…] with three movies, it suddenly felt misplaced—after all, Bilbo has already arrived ‘there’ in the ‘Desolation of Smaug.'” You can read his full reasoning here, but he does mention that “There and Back Again” may return as a box set title in the future. Read more…
Tags: Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson, The Hobbit
Posted by Bob Muir on Nov 6, 2013 in
Cinema 
Have you been watching the production videos of The Hobbit film trilogy? Nothing will ever match the sheer quantity and quality of the bonus content for The Lord of the Rings, but these have been pretty interesting for fans of Middle-earth. The latest production video covers the ten-week summer pick-up shoot, when more footage was shot for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (coming soon on December 13) and The Hobbit: There and Back Again (due out December 2014). Take a look and see the outtakes of a frustrated Ian McKellen trying to say his lines. Gandalf swore! Read more…
Tags: Peter Jackson, The Hobbit
Posted by Tim Sheehy on Mar 22, 2011 in
Cinema 
We’ve been hearing about it for years, but it seems Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit has finally started production. Things had been looking pretty grim when the Tolkien Estate & British publisher HarperCollins filed suit against New Line cinema over a breach of contract. Following that debacle, Guillermo del Toro had been attached to direct the project, only to pull out when MGM’s financial issues had sidelined the project indefinitely. Thankfully, those issues have been resolved, and Jackson looks to be directing the project once again.
Read more…
Tags: Peter Jackson, The Hobbit
