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Now We Know Why the Hobbit Movies Were So Awful (theguardian.com)
HughPickens.com writes: Everyone seems to agree that the key to the success of Peter Jackson's Lord Of The Rings trilogy was years of careful planning before production ever began. Now Bryan Bishop writes at The Verge that in what can only be described as the most honest promotional video of all time, we find out why the Hobbit trilogy turned out to be such a boring mess. In the clip, Peter Jackson, Andy Serkis, and other production personnel confess that due to the director changeover — del Toro left the project after nearly two years of pre-production — Jackson hit the ground running, but was never able to hit the reset button to get time to establish his own vision. Once the new director was hired, the harried crew members had to scramble to redesign everything to suit Jackson's vision, but they could barely even keep up with the production schedule, let alone prepare anything in advance.
At some junctures in the process, Jackson found himself essentially having to improvise on set because there was nothing really prepared for his actors to do. "You're going on to a set and you're winging it, you've got these massively complicated scenes, no storyboards and you're making it up there and then on the spot," said Jackson. "I spent most of The Hobbit feeling like I was not on top of it."
But wait: "Peter has never made a secret of the fact that he took over the Hobbit directing job with very little preparation time remaining before shooting had to begin. It was a challenge he willingly took on. His comments are an honest reflection of his own personal feelings at times during the movie's production," says a spokesman for Jackson. "Somebody has decided to create this cut-down, using only the sections of The Gathering Clouds that discuss the difficulties faced, not the positive ways they were addressed and overcome – which are also covered in this and other featurettes."
At some junctures in the process, Jackson found himself essentially having to improvise on set because there was nothing really prepared for his actors to do. "You're going on to a set and you're winging it, you've got these massively complicated scenes, no storyboards and you're making it up there and then on the spot," said Jackson. "I spent most of The Hobbit feeling like I was not on top of it."
But wait: "Peter has never made a secret of the fact that he took over the Hobbit directing job with very little preparation time remaining before shooting had to begin. It was a challenge he willingly took on. His comments are an honest reflection of his own personal feelings at times during the movie's production," says a spokesman for Jackson. "Somebody has decided to create this cut-down, using only the sections of The Gathering Clouds that discuss the difficulties faced, not the positive ways they were addressed and overcome – which are also covered in this and other featurettes."
3 movies for such a short story was what killed it. I mean did it have to take 1 whole movie just reach the damn mountain?
Never bothered seeing the Hobbit movie after i fell asleep during the first one. trend for official re-releases have been to make the movie even longer than before. I've about given up on high minded talk about Vision; use what you have, and leverage the shit out of it. Don't stand on a million dollar set equipped with millions of dollars of production equipment with A listed actors and whine about a redesign. Most directors would kill to be saddled with such high quality problems.
having said that, have there been any fan-edits floating around that have made this watchable? Fan edits like the DeZionIzed matrix, the LOST miniseries, and Phantom Edit have been stellar improvements over the official releases. the hobbit movies are breathtaking, but Jackson is too in love with his creation to edit objectively.
I didn't think there was much of a question; the lord of the rings simply had a huge amount more material that was fully assembled by the original author than the Hobbit did. It was one book, with a scattering of notes and addendums, that got stitched and stretched into three epic movies.
It's interesting that they're admitting directorial mayhem at this point, but the direction taken from the outset was overkill and greedy. I'm sure it could have been better, but still, it took a lot to make this mess.
Of course, I'm still going to watch them again. Someday.
There are two main problem with the movies:
They tried to surpass the epic scale of the LoTR movies, while the book was nothing of the sort. Splitting it into three only made it worse.
They added so much extra junk that was obviously filler. Tauriel should never have been created, and the love story with Legolos should never have been pasted in. While the stuff with Gandalf and the Necromancer was at least legitimate, it wasn't necessary to the story.
The Hobbit movies would have been much better as a 6 part HBO miniseries. If any film project would have benefitted from a smaller budget, it was this.
If I understand correctly....
The Lord of the Rings trilogy was made using a waterfall process, whereas the Hobbit movies were made using an agile process.
The quality of the Lord of the Rings was higher. The Hobbit project was able to turn on a dime and be salvaged rather than die, and the result made money, but it was only barely what the clients wanted.
Sounds about right.
Yes! Look for The Hobbit: The Tolkein Edit. Cuts all the crap out, trims the three to a single movie, and makes it a much better film.