Where did the Hobbit trilogy go wrong? In contrast to The Lord of the Rings, many fans consider Jackson's The Hobbit trilogy to bad at worst, and sup-par or not up to the legacy of The Lord of The Rings at best. The Hobbit director Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings movies were very obviously a labor of love. Meticulously developed over a number of years, prolific director Peter Jackson carried the acorn of adapting Tolkien's magnum opus into live-action cinema through many hardships and navigated the challenge of selling such an ambitious project to the business brains of the industry. With the backing of New Line, Jackson assembled a cast that would soon etch their names into the annals of film and utilized cutting-edge filming techniques to craft a trilogy befitting in scale of Tolkien's original books.
The Lord of the Rings was a runaway success critically, commercially and during awards season, and even if Tolkien's estate weren't keen on the movies, more or less everyone else in the world was, as a whole new generation discovered Middle-earth for the first time. With much of Tolkien's mythology in the hands of the author's family, the only option for future movies was to adapt Bilbo's story in The Hobbit. Each of the Hobbit movies was lucrative, but the profits dropped over the course of the series and reviews were considerably more mixed, with none of the universal adulation afforded to The Lord of the Rings. With many key figures retained from the first trilogy, and a beloved Tolkien novel to work from, it's strange that The Hobbit couldn't live up to its predecessor. So, what went wrong?
One Book Became Three Movies
Part of what went wrong with The Hobbit stems from a dramatic change in narrative structure. When Peter Jackson was developing The Lord of the Rings, he intended to cram the entire story into just two films, fearing no studio would option a trilogy. The director was pleasantly surprised when New Line suggested dedicating one film to each book, and this proved a key factor in The Lord of the Rings' success, allowing ample time for the story to progress naturally. The opposite happened with The Hobbit. Original The Hobbit director Guillermo del Toro intended to split The Hobbit into two movies, but Jackson added a third after taking over, turning a single, modestly-sized novel into 3 lengthy movies.
As one might expect, this made each installment of The Hobbit feel bloated and meandering compared to The Lord of the Rings. With so much time to fill, it was clear where sequences were being eked out or padding was being added, drastically sapping the pace and excitement of each movie. Tolkien worked narrative gaps into The Lord of the Rings, and the initial film trilogy broadly follows the author's cues, but shoehorning arcs to fit the point each installment of The Hobbit trilogy ended felt forced by comparison. Although Jackson insists otherwise, it's hard to imagine the decision to produce 3 films wasn't at least somewhat financially motivated.
The Hobbit also falls down when considering each film as an individual piece. The Lord of the Rings is a sterling example of a film trilogy done right; each installment escalates on the next, but simultaneously works well as separate stories, with clear beginnings, middles, and ends. By contrast, The Hobbit is a single story told across three movies, and watching just one doesn't bring the same satisfaction the audience would feel after any The Lord of the Rings effort.
Production Was More Rushed Than LOTR
While dreaming up his Tolkien adaptation, Peter Jackson had plenty of time to map out his first Lord of the Rings trilogy, followed by a lengthy shooting period where much of the material was shot back-to-back. Although filmmakers are rarely gifted as much time of they'd like, The Lord of the Rings began pre-production in 1997, kicked off filming in 1999 and finished initial shooting 14 months later, with each film afforded a year of post-production. Although not always smooth, production on The Lord of the Rings went about as well as could've been expected for a project of that magnitude, and later The Hobbit director Jackson was present every step of the way to maintain his vision.
The situation was very different on The Hobbit, with Jackson himself bemoaning the lack of time he was given to produce the now-hated (by some) Hobbit movies. The director claims that after taking over from del Toro, he was thrust right into filming, with zero time or space for pre-production, leaving him to arrange shots and rewrite scenes on the fly. Jackson admits that he never felt "on top" of The Hobbit's production, and it comes as no surprise that a less cohesive creative process resulted in a less cohesive trilogy.
The reason Jackson initially opted not to direct The Hobbit was to avoid the problem of competing with his Lord of the Rings trilogy, but if production had started from scratch after he did find himself in the director's chair, or if the issues with del Toro had been resolved, The Hobbit may have been more on par with the rest of the franchise.
The Villains
The enigmatic great eye Sauron may be a fairly straightforward villain (in The Lord of the Rings at least), but it's impossible to question his effectiveness. The single-minded, otherworldly evil of that fiery eye is complimented by the more strategic cunning of Saruman and the outright madness of Denethor to give the trilogy a solid contingent of bad guys. One of the main problems in adapting The Hobbit is that Smaug the dragon doesn't fit the mold of a modern villain, being little more than a hoarder with a bad temper.
To solve the problem, Jackson's Smaug was more vicious than his book counterpart, and this alteration worked well enough for film. However, the movies also crafted bigger roles for the father and son team of Lord of the Rings token arrow-fodder, orcs — Azog and Bolg. In particular, Azog doesn't quite fill the villainous void and feels tacked-on, distracting from the main story. The orc is also hindered by his poor visual execution. After 3 films with the God-like awe of Sauron and the majesty of Christopher Lee, the CGI Azog feels only marginally more threatening than a generic orc.
Material Was Added To Connect To LOTR
Compared to other book-to-film adaptations, The Lord of the Rings doesn't add much to the recipe. The elves at Helms Deep notwithstanding, changes made by Peter Jackson for the Lord of the Rings movies instead focused predominantly on stripping elements from Tolkien's original novels, such as the cut Tom Bombadil side-quest in The Fellowship of the Ring. However, The Hobbit's philosophy is the polar opposite of Jackson's once authentic stance. The Hobbit trilogy adds both entirely fresh material and elements drawn from Tolkien's wider writings and appendices, both of which come with their own problems.
Among the film-original additions are Evangeline Lilly's Tauriel, the presence of a younger Legolas, a cameo from Frodo, a subplot starring Kili the dwarf and an extended role for Radagast. While Sylvester McCoy's wizard was arguably one of The Hobbit's most compelling figures, the other changes didn't work quite as well. Tauriel had minimal impact on the plot, and Aidan Turner's dwarf Kili's story was just filler to see out the 3-movie length and the appearance of Orlando Bloom was a transparent attempt to draw in casual fans of the previous trilogy.
Tolkien purists might've taken less offense to Jackson working new, but still canon, elements into The Hobbit, such as a massively expanded Battle of Five Armies and the Necromancer, but this material came with its own set of problems. There's such a jarring disconnect between the story of The Hobbit and the wider material, and that shift is detrimental to the central story. Epic battles and grand armies have no place in the smaller tale of equally small Bilbo Baggins, but there they are anyway, attempting to evoke the same sense of scale and wonder as The Lord of the Rings.
Overuse Of CGI
Away from content and story, the Hobbit trilogy is also a huge visual departure from The Lord of the Rings. As an exercise in CGI, The Lord of the Rings was a landmark release, even if some effects haven't aged particularly well by current standards. But the trilogy also utilizes an impressive range of practical effects that add a grounded realism to the fantasy, helping Jackson's visualization of Middle-earth connect with the audience, while imbuing a dirt-covered rural flavor into the cinematography. Once again, The Hobbit doesn't carry that approach over, instead making full use of the updated CGI available.
Entire characters are digitally rendered, and not just the different-looking Gollum or the giant trolls, the 2D miniatures from The Lord of the Rings are replaced by CG models, and entire sequences feel animated, rather than live-action. This CGI-heavy ethos was partly due to The Hobbit filming in stereo to facilitate the emerging trend of 3D cinema, where practical effects can sometimes by betrayed by the extra dimension. In addition, the Hobbit movies were filmed at 48fps and on RED digital instead of using traditional film at a standard frame rate. All of these updated techniques resulted in a near-pristine image that, while undoubtedly beautiful, lost the realism and gravity that made Middle-earth feel so vivid in The Lord of the Rings.
The New Fellowship
The Fellowship in The Lord of the Rings is a delicately-balanced core cast. Originally comprising nine individuals, the Fellowship are actually on-screen together for a very limited time. Each member of the Fellowship is unique, with Tolkien's grumpy dwarves, joking hobbits, moody men, and more helping each character stand out. From The Two Towers onward, the central figures are split into groups and follow separate story arcs. Frodo and Sam continue toward Mount Doom, Merry and Pippin meet Treebeard, and Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli decide to take the fight to Mordor. By contrast, the main group of The Hobbit is a much larger company with 15 characters, most of whom are dwarves with very similar-sounding names and, without wanting to stereotype, designs. Also unlike The Lord of the Rings, the group mostly sticks together for the bulk of the trilogy, giving a wide base of characters to constantly keep track of.
This is an unavoidable pitfall of adapting The Hobbit after The Lord of the Rings, and therefore not entirely the fault of the movie, but where any casual fan could name and describe each and every member of the Fellowship, many would struggle to name even half of The Hobbit's adventurers, revealing how few of the dwarf characters are developed effectively over the course of the series. Richard Armitage's Thorin, Aidan Turner's Kili and Adam Brown's Ori are the only truly recognizable faces throughout the trilogy, leaving most of the group to meld anonymously into the background behind Martin Freeman's (admittedly brilliant) Bilbo.
Amazon's Rings Of Power Avoids One Hobbit Mistake (But Repeats Another)
Almost a decade after the release of The Hobbit, Amazon took its own crack at a Lords of the Ring prequel with the streaming series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, which was adapted from Lord of the Rings lore created by Tolkien in various appendices and supplemental texts. The Rings of Power was able to avoid some of the mistakes that plagued the Hobbit movies, most notably the overuse of CGI. The Amazon series used plenty of digital wizardry, but also used real sets and practical effects to create a visually stunning world, including areas such as the island of Numenor that weren't seen in Jackson's Middle-Earth movies.
However, The Rings of Power follows The Hobbit in taking plenty of liberties with Tolkien's original work, from relatively minor points such as un-bearded dwarven women, to more dramatic chronological changes such as a likely introduction of Gandalf much earlier than in Tolkien's canon. Like the Hobbit movies, The Rings of Power sometimes seems desperate to tie into the original Lord of the Rings trilogy as much as possible, and its story can feel similarly dragged out over several hour-plus episodes. Moreover, the writing tonally feels much more similar to other contemporary TV dramas than it does to Tolkien's more mythological approach, presenting Sauron and his minions as people with understandable motivations instead of forces of elemental evil.
Both The Hobbit and The Rings of Power are solid returns to Middle Earth, with some very strong elements as well as some narrative missteps. Their weaknesses show just how difficult it is to adapt Tolkien, even with plenty of money and talent, and if anything should create a better appreciation of how Jackson's original Lord of the Rings films were able to almost miraculously preserve Tolkien's mythic storytelling in a way that was approachable and engaging for a modern blockbuster audience.