"The Hobbit: There And Back Again" To be Renamed "The Battle of the Five Armies"

[Morthoron]

While stirring up the pot over at the OneRing.net forum (one of my favorite pasttimes as of late), I made the simple point that the change from TABA to BOFA was inevitable, as "There and Back Again" refers to the main character of The Hobbit. But there has been a diminution of the character (if a hobbit could be further minimized) that has been an ongoing point of annoyance in the first two films of this bloated trilogy.

As Zigur inferred, Tolkien primarily centered on a single character, Jackson on so many sundry subplots (whether canon or fan-fic) that poor Bilbo is no longer the central attraction in his own story. So, the Battle of Five Armies will take up 45 minutes to an hour of film and the Battle of Dol Guldur will hog another 1/2 hour of the movie, and dear old Smaug must get another 1/2 hour to complete his fiery swan song. Throw in the probable tear-jerking death of Tauriel in the arms of a sobbing Legolas, and you really haven't got much left for Bilbo Baggins.

[Michael Murry]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

Throw in the probable tear-jerking death of Tauriel in the arms of a sobbing Legolas, and you really haven't got much left for Bilbo Baggins.

Yes. Implausibe from a Tolkien point of view, but commercially crass and predictable from Peter Jackson and the studios who gave him half-a-billion dollars to play around with. Someone apparently wants a more substantial return on their investment. Personally, though, I think I covered this whole "Mary Sue Does Middle Earth" thing in my Elf Chick Security Guard cycle of poems a few years back. Like, for example:

"Implausible Cliché Scenarios"

She thought she'd live a life of dedication
To fighting in her Woodland King's defense
But found that exercise and perspiration
Brought little in the way of compensation
And left her feeling frustrated and tense.

Yet with a youthful elvish lord's appearance
On set, the script required for her to swoon
And fantasize that with some perseverance
She might obtain her king's discharge and clearance
To consummate their love beneath the moon.

But then a hobbit and some dwarves upended
Her dreams when they came blundering on scene.
And thus she found her reveries suspended
When duty called and greedy foes contended
For treasure guarded by a dragon mean.

She suited up for fighting then, deflated,
For as her part demanded, she must die.
The writers of the script had her created
To love a young Elf Lord she never dated
While only grinning goblins said: "Goodbye!"

Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright 2011

I'll have to go back and revist the other poems in the cycle just to check, but I think even I did not anticipate the cheesy "check in my trousers" innuendo between the incarcerated dwarf Kili and the Elf Chick trying to stir up a little jealousy on the part of Prince Legolas -- destined for his own bromance with the dwarf Gimli in the later annals of Middle Earth. Nope. The Elf Chick will just have to die after slaughtering countless orcs but failing to save Kili in the Battle of Five Battalions. It simply had to happen. So it will.

[Mister Underhill]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

I was intrigued to see that the Hobbit movies have not made the masses of money the studios expected. I haven't seen this fact before, but then I don't roam around movie sites. I might even say it's a pleasant surprise.

Eh, the Hobbit movies have made plenty of dough. LotR was like a tsunami of money (considering the lower budgets back then and adjusting for inflation). The Hobbit is perhaps merely a heavy downpour. Right now AUJ and DoS stand at 17 and 24 respectively on the all-time worldwide chart. Add in ancillary streams like DVD and cable and I bet Warner Brothers is already trying to figure if they can expand the appendices into movie trilogies. Appendix E - Writing and Spelling: The Quest for More Lucre. It is with regret that I report this.

Originally Posted by alatar

That's showing your age (and mine).

C:\>

^Not an emoticon.