With LotR they were restricted in what they could do - there was just so much they had to include from the books. Certainly they played around with episodes in the book but there was little stuff they actually invented outright. The problem with TH is you've got enough material for a good three hour movie but its stretched over 9 hours. To do that you either massively over-extend each episode to the point almost of filming it in slo-mo, or you invent six hours of stuff & insert it at various points in the three hour story. Actually, from many of the reviews I've read they've gone for a mixture of the two. Eru knows what we'll get in the extended editions.
Too much of the new stuff seems to smack of loss of control, not knowing what to do with the time they have to fill, & frankly of boredom on the part of the writer/director. I don't pick up the same level of 'excitement' coming from Jackson/Boyens this time as I did back in the LotR days.
I think its a foregone conclusion that the first movie will be a mega hit, but I wonder about the second..
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