Hobbit concerns....

[TheLostPilgrim]

I have some big time concerns about The Hobbit:

1) I worry a lot of the central story of Bilbo's adventure will be lost in the shuffle of PJ's additions. That he's spreading the original, core story too thin by spreading it over three films.

2) That the tone will be all over place--That it will jump between too dark and too light and childish. That it will come off really inconsistent.

3) The second trailer REALLY worries me...The CGI looks HORRIBLE, as compared to PJ's LOTR films (which had GREAT effects). A lot of the film looks very fake and overly bright and shiny...As compared to his "Rings" adaptations which at least look like a fantasy world grounded in reality...The lighting and general look of this film reminds me of Tangled by Disney or a Narnia film.

4) He took the scene with Gollum, it seems, and has turned it into a comedic moment. Bringing back the cutesy, sympathetic Gollum from The Two Towers. I always pictured the Riddle Game as being intense and very eerie and creepy the whole way through...Bilbo alone in a dank, dark cavern near a turgid underground lake with a strange, mad creature that talks to itself, which wants to eat him. The '77 animated version got the "feel" of the Riddle Game at least partially correct.

5) Too much juvenile humor. Too many goofy jokes, whether it be about Goblins falling on the party or the Dwarves' weight. Tolkien is humorous to be sure, but it's a very dignified, old fashioned sense of humor. This seems like typical road movie, juvenile modern day humor. Like humor you'd see in a typical comedy film. The Hobbit--Tolkien's Hobbit--has comedic moments, but it's more an enchanting adventure. Which is what I was hoping for here--an adventure film with the grandness of a classic Disney film (but not the tone), with the visuals and whatnot of PJ's Rings. A faithful adaptation which could enchant as much as the books did.

6) The Dwarves don't look very...Dwarf-ish. I can't explain it. Perhaps I'm too used to the typical depiction in Fantasy of Dwarves (IE, like Gimli--short fellows who seem older than they are, with a bit of a temper or a humorous sort of personality). But these guys just seem like Game of Thrones characters miniaturized. Some of them don't even have full beards, just light scruff. Kind of sacrificing the characters for the sake of attractive leading characters.

7) Too many call backs to the LOTR films. I think shoehorning Frodo, Legolas, Saruman and Galadrial into The Hobbit is just fan service but it doesn't work. Frodo would be fine to frame the story and is justifiable but the other three have no place in The Hobbit, they were never in the book. I worry it'll be overdone fan service--the way Lucas connected every character in the Prequel trilogy to every character in the original trilogy. Gandalf and Elrond's presence alone should be enough of a reminder that this film is in the same "series" as Lord of the Rings.

8) The Three Trolls don't look anything like how I pictured them, to be honest. They just look like dumb monsters out of an RPG game, to be fought.

9) The Bunny Sled? REALLY?

I just worry that with all these various elements, the film is going to be really crappy, that a lot of the subplots are going to seem crammed in there and detract from the core story, that with the story being split in two, the first movie will end in an utter anticlimax which will alienate the audience. I just think a Hobbit film had potential to be even BETTER than the Rings because The Hobbit story is a thinner, quicker, pure fantasy adventure.

To be honest, I'm worried about a flop (in terms of reception) on the scale of Phantom Menace. I'm worried about this being considered just a bad movie overall.

It's the last period of time where there is a spark of innocence, magic and light in Middle Earth, without the fate of the world hanging in the balance. Really in some ways it's last magical adventure of Middle Earth before the world is mired in darkness and history goes into the Fourth Age, when magic beginz to fade.