
I couldn’t agree more with this comparative analysis by DBS Film Society of Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit movies. It’s not just that Peter Jackson artificially broke up a children’s book into three bloated films, it’s that in doing so he emphasized the superficial over the substantial.
This is what Hollywood has always done in response to a popular, critically-acclaimed film: ape its most superficial qualities in the assumption that that was the key to its popularity. It’s a classic case of style over substance. But they’re mistaken. Samwise himself said it best: “…those are the stories that stayed with you, that meant something–even if you were too small to understand why.”
Brilliant and well worth the watch for any Tolkien fan.