Quote:
Originally Posted by Timboli
I don't know what I would think of it now, but I hated it when it came out. It realized none of the magic for me. I was youngish and no doubt my expectations were high, and it failed to deliver big time. Abysmal and truly awful in fact, are the memories I was left with. 
But hey, I might love it now and think it artistic or something.  |
I didn't care much for the animated version of the Hobbit either and I saw it as an adult (1977) when I was in my full throat Tolkien phase. It was a TV special and the animation was done by a Japanese animation company. It was certainly a lot truer to the tone and spirit of the book than the Jackson movie, but it also had more of an Astroboy look and feel as well.
I tend to agree with Timboli, I really liked the Hobbit movies but considered them movies suggested by The Hobbit book, rather than an adaption of the book. Yes, the studio pushed Jackson into turning it into a trilogy for financial purposes, which meant that a whole lot of filler had to be thrown in. Jackson likely could have done it as a single long movie, or perhaps even two movies and stayed much truer to the book.
One of the issues with The Hobbit is that while the story starts off as a children's tale, it's more like the original dark Brothers Grimm tales than the light and airy Disney movies that kids are use to now. I'm not sure you can make a movie that is faithful to the book and have it be successful. The Hobbit was published in 1937. Children were very different back then than today's modern bubble wrapped children.