A Quick Tip by Count_Orlok_22

To steal a phrase from another classic trilogy that was ruined by horrid prequels and the corporate greed of the director (which seems altogether appropriate), "I have a bad feeling about this."


So, here is my brief overview on The Hobbit film adaptation (including important events leading up to the conception of the film):

1937 - John Ronald Reuel Tolkien's mythopoeic children's novel The Hobbit is published to widespread critical acclaim and would later be the basis for his epic and ambitious three-part sequel The Lord of the Rings.

1977 - The Hobbit animated musical television film is released by Rankin/Bass and is critically panned despite later developing a cult following

1995 - Peter Jackson and company show their desire to make an epic live action film trilogy consisting of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (the three volumes of the novel being condensed into two films).

2001-2003 - The Lord of the Rings films are released as a full trilogy over the course of three years and rumors of a Hobbit film circulate amongst rabid Tolkien fans. The films would become the most high profile fantasy series other than Harry Potter and would be nominated for numerous awards including 30 Academy Award nominations for which the trilogy would win a total of 17. The films were almost universally acclaimed by critics and audiences though some Tolkien fans were disappointed with the departures made from the novel.

2005 - Peter Jackson launches a lawsuit against New Line Cinema for denying him revenue on The Fellowship of the Ring resulting in New Line co-founder Robert Shaye saying that Jackson would never work for New Line again. At news of this, thousands of fans of both J.R.R. Tolkien and Peter Jackson expressed their wishes that he should be allowed to direct the film and even went so far as to create extensive petitions to encourage New Line to reconsider their stance.

2006 - Amidst the ongoing dispute between Peter Jackson and New Line Cinema, MGM (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) offered to help get the film made under their banner. MGM also put forth the idea of making two films rather than one, suggesting that a film to take place between The Hobbit and Jackson's trilogy would be of interest.

2007-2008 - After a series of films failed to provide New Line with either the critical prestige or the commercial success they hoped for, various studio execs including Robert Shaye made comments that they would like to see Peter Jackson involved in some way in a film of The Hobbit.  Then in December of 2007 it was announced that The Hobbit was indeed going to be getting made into a film and that Peter Jackson would serve as a producer. Not only that, but rather than one film, it was officially announced that there would be two films. Initially, the idea was to adapt The Hobbit into one film and then create a sequel which would serve as a bridge between the events in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings taking additional material from the appendices in the books. The suggested release dates were December of 2011 and 2012.

2008-2009 - In April of 2008, Mexican director Guillermo del Toro was chosen to direct the films, much to the approval of fans, as well as serve as a co-writer.
In August, the early stages of writing the script began with Guillermo joining Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens. In August of 2008 del Toro announced that the proposed bridge film had been discarded and that the two films would now be solely based on The Hobbit essentially splitting the story into two halves. This decision was met with skepticism by fans and critics for a number of reasons, most notably that The Hobbit is shorter than any of the individual volumes of The Lord of the Rings and that splitting the story up seemed like it was purely for commercial gain (giving the studio and the executives the potential to make twice as much money from one property)
In February 2009 The Tolkien Estate and HarperCollins filed a lawsuit against New Line Cinema claiming that the films based on Tolkien's work were a breach of contract and for fraud. The estate claimed that they had only been paid $62,500 despite the fact that The Lord of the Rings films has grossed around 6 billion. In September 2009, a settlement was reached and it was acknowledged that New Line could move ahead with pre-production of the proposed films.

2009 - Peter Jackson announced that the screenwriting process was taking longer than expected.

2010 - In January of 2010 it was announced that the films would not be released until December 2012 and December 2013. As Guillermo del Toro posts various comments and interviews and engages in online chats with fans, readers become aware that he intends to stay very true to the book and place a great deal of emphasis on Tolkien's characters and themes. In addition, del Toro explained his ideas for the visual in the film stating his love of animatronics, models, and miniatures over CGI, though Gollum would remain a digitally animated performance using motion capture technology. However, in May 2010, after MGM had reported numerous financial problems, del Toro left the project as it had not yet been officially greenlit for production and that he had other films that he wanted to do in the meantime which could not be pushed back.
Countless rumors began to circulate as to who would step in to fill the director's shoes.
In June, Jackson was reported to be in negotiations to direct the films, which was what many fans had been hoping for from the start.
In September of 2010, an actors strike was organized and a boycott of the two films was suggested, though later this was resolved.
In October, New Line announced that the films would be shot in and shown in 3D (something that del Toro had explicitly said he did not want to do) and that Jackson would be directing.

Since then, there have been last minute changes to the cast, announcements that Jackson intends to add material to the films from the appendices (material which Tolkien chose not to place in the book for a reason), as well as announcements that Jackson has added characters to the film to form a love story (none of which was in the book) and that he would have actors and characters from The Lord of the Rings return in The Hobbit despite the fact that they weren't included in the book (some of them didn't even exist at the time of story) and that they in no way played a part in the events as created by Tolkien.



How do I feel?
... Personally, I liked it a lot more when Tolkien's books were on the shelf as close to perfection as he was able to get them, before corporate greed set in and everyone decided that Tolkien's literary masterpieces belonged to companies and studio execs who could alter and exploit them for commercial gain.

Do I think I could be wrong?
... Yeah, sure, of course I could be. But how many times do these long-awaited films that have been through production hell actually turn out to be good? The Star Wars prequels, The Matrix sequels, the last Indiana Jones film - all of these were huge disappointments to fans and critics, but filmmakers and studios made millions, billions even, because of them.

What's my point?
... It's obvious that film adaptations of source material - be they books, comics, myths, TV series, etc. - will always have a great deal of artistic and financial potential. But when the desire to make money becomes the primary objective and overshadows the desire to do justice to a good tale or to please the fans who made that tale the pop cultural phenomenon that it is, then studios need to wake up and realize that the power lies with us, the viewers. We can choose not to see these films. In fact, maybe that's what we need to start doing. Somehow, we need to show them that media interaction between fans and creators is essential and that from a commercial standpoint they cannot succeed without our paying to see these films, and that we will not see them unless there is a genuine effort to preserve the source material which we have elevated in our hearts to a level of true transcendent art. Art... that's something that we see rarely these days.