'The Hobbit' is One Movie in Two Parts?
Filed under: Classics, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, MGM, New Line, Fandom, Scripts, Newsstand, Peter Jackson, Remakes and Sequels
Middle Earth fanatics have long debated what the heck this whole "second Hobbit movie" would entail. Arguably, there's enough material for a prequel, with Gandalf leading battles into Mirkwood to fight Sauron, who was slowly rebuilding his dark kingdom. But recent news has suggested it is more of a Hobbit sequel, where Tolkien's material is scarcer. Well, MTV News caught up with director Guillermo del Toro, who attempted to shed a little light on the topic. "The reality is that we stopped talking the first movie and second movie, and we just started taking about the movie - the two episodes, or two parts, as if they were a single piece of narrative. We don't even call it the bridge movie, we just call it 'The Movie.' And this is great. When we found what reverberated, and we found it in one of our virtual meetings -- we understood. It's a movie. We all agree that if we do our job right, it should all feel like a continuous journey. That's what we're striving for."
Is that any clearer? No, I didn't think so. But actually, del Toro dropped one hint, one riddle in the dark that might just solve everything -- he let slip where the first movie would end. "We are finding out. I think Smaug dies in the first movie. So draw your own conclusions."
And my conclusion would be that with Smaug's death concluding the first movie, the second would deal with the Battle of the Five Armies, where everyone from elves to the men of Esgaroth have an eye on claiming Smaug's gold. It's pretty epic and vicious, and could easily take up an entire movie. In fact, I'm not sure how they could get all of that into one Hobbit film. I think this is going to turn out to be a sensible move that does the book justice -- not the cash grab we all took it for.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-08-2008 @ 9:38AM
Claudia Lomelí said...
Am I the only one who thinks this ight not end well? I mean, the main characters of the Lord of the Rings have some backstory that could be told, but a prequel? And the fact that what Guillermo del Toro is saying is so confusing doesn't give me much confidence. Just do one movie, do "The Hobbit", didn't they say that if they didn't have story for a second movie there wouldn't be a second movie? Well they better be true to their word.
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10-08-2008 @ 10:37AM
Kurt said...
It's not as bad as you might think--the Tolkien mythologies are expansive, and while lots of "things" happen between The Hobbit and LOTR, there's not a lot of narrative there--but The Hobbit is quite dense, especially when you consider what all goes on peripherally that is incidental to the story of Bilbo but quite central to LOTR.
If the battle against Smaug at Laketown is the end of the first movie, then the Battle of the Five Armies will certainly be the main narrative of the second. When you realize that at the same time as all of this is going on, Gandalf is dealing with the White Council and confronts the Necromancer in Dol Goldur, there's a lot of story there to tell--certainly enough to fill out a second film.
Nerd out.
10-08-2008 @ 9:57PM
Claudia Lomelí said...
Kurt, I'm familiar with Tolkien work, and I agree with you, there's an extensive backstory for all the main characters to be explored, but not enough material for an interquel. However, I think that "The Hobbit" can be perfectly done in a standalone film, look at the original trilogy, they made, and "The Hobbit" is not nearly as long as those books.
10-08-2008 @ 11:06AM
SCIENCE! said...
This sounds exactly like the cartoon version except they stretch it out into 2 movies... which sounds perfect. The Battle of the Five Armies seemed pretty quick in the movie. But if you stick to the book, it's def going to be 2 movies worth.
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10-08-2008 @ 11:11AM
Brant said...
I thought this would be a no-brainer.
Part 1: There
Part 2: Back again
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10-08-2008 @ 12:37PM
Herff said...
I think the main thing we should take away from all this is that they are looking at executing it in a similar fashion to LOTR. When I first heard that it was going to be two parts I was a little worried the studios were trying to milk it, but this is obviously the work of the creative minds pushing the story. Let them figure the whole thing out and film it all at once and I'm sure it will work beautifully. My main concern is that they cast Bilbo correctly. I didn't hate Elijah Wood as Frodo, but I feel like he was the weakest part of the cast. I just really hope they stay true to Bilbo's character.
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10-09-2008 @ 5:17AM
bongo123 said...
Tolkien fanatics need to calm down and wise up, it is only a book after all and after the outstanding job peter & co done on LOTR, you really do have feck all to worry about, this is totally in safe hands.
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11-13-2008 @ 10:22AM
Larry King said...
Does this mean no White Council, no Dol Goldur, sounds like it's going to be just Hobbit with nothing linking it to the FOTR, this sucks. Don't get me wrong the Hobbit story itself is great, but without the White Council, the fight at Dol Goldur, alot of Middle Earth fans will feel somewhat cheated, it's one thing that PJ couldn't be the director, now we get a Hobbit film without some of the side stories that link it to LOTR. No Aragorn, no Arwen, what gives. Are they afraid to spend to spend some extra money to do these stories justice. I said it before and I'll say it again, they should have made this a trilogy like LOTR, that way all the extra stories/appendices or whatever they are calling it this week could have been included.
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