Hello good reader!
I was first introduced to Star Wars relativly (or rather very) late in my childhood, through it’s spinoff series The Clone Wars, wich I loved, even as a 15 year old. I watched the original trilogy with my father, who was a fan. I absolutely loved those movies, and I couldn’t wait to see the prequels, and then I watched them…
Well, dissapointed is a good word to use to descirbe my feelings. Don’t get me wrong, I liked some of the characters, the beggining of the clone wars was one of my favourite movies scenes from childhood, and seeing Yoda fight the emperor was a dream come true. But alas, a menagerie of hollow characters, some convoluted plot lines, and having to hear Anakin bitch about anything and everything that didn’t go his way ruined the movies for me. I can only hope that next years The Force Awakens salvages the broken masterpiece that is Starwars.
As the final chapter in The Hobbit film trilogy was released last week, it made me lament what The Hobbit trilogy could(n’t) have been, and what it is. As much as I want to love The Hobbit films like I love The Lord of The Rings trilogy, I just can’t. The three movies suffer from the same ailment as the Star Wars prequel trilogy, albeit in a far less offensive manner. Now I do like The Hobbit films, I haven’t yet seen the final one, but I do like the first two, but in no way do they live up to the expectation that TLOTR set for them, and I was always worried this would be the case.
Making The Hobbit films as well as TLOTR, I think, was an impossible task, so all things considered Peter Jackson did a monumentally good job. Nevertheless trying to make a children’s fantasy story into an adult-steered epic like it’s succesors could not be done. Each of the films has jarring shifts from beheaded goblins and orcs and sprays of blood, to the kidsy humour of the notorious barrell riders scene. Cutting this scene out, however, would take away any semblence of this being a children’s story, therefore not remaining true to the story itself, and making it purely a child-friendly fantasy tale would in no way fit the TLOTR trilogy. The films could never have worked perfectly, unless, just maybe, The Hobbit was made first and allowed to mature into a different, slightly more fantastical version of TLOTR (a la a grownups how to train your dragon), but that is a longshot.
As it stands The Hobbit trilogy is still a decent lot of films. With it’s fantasy scenes (such as the Wargs battle with the dwarves on the cliff) that look like Zach Snyder and Guillermo Del Toro had a really beautiful baby and made Tim Burton the godfather, the humourous dwarves, and the tale of comraderie and acceptence that emerges from Bilbo’s journey with them, The Hobbit films still earn a place in my heart (or DVD shelf as it is). So let’s not look at them as the terrible prequels that ruin a fantasy epic, but rather as the scar of not-quit-ness on the almost flawless journey.
Until next time.
That is All.
The Mind Cellar 