5 Reasons Why Lord of the Rings Is A Masterpiece And Hobbit Is Not
Five times when The Hobbit failed to live up to the greatness of the original trilogy.
Making a good movie is difficult, and even brilliant directors sometimes fail. Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy remains one of the greatest cinematic achievements of all time.
So why did The Hobbit, the prequel to the main story of Middle-earth turn out to be many times worse than the legendary Lord of the Rings trilogy?
1. The Lord of the Rings story was in no need for revision
If we take into account the size of the narrative described in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, then the last story is almost three times shorter.
When filming the story of the Ring’s destruction, Jackson carefully chose what to include in the movies and what not to. While in The Hobbit, he had to add non-existent and essentially unnecessary storylines in order to somehow fill the screen time of all three movies.
There are many main characters in LotR: Frodo, Aragorn, Gandalf, Sam. However, the common main goal of destroying the Ring binds all these characters together, and each of them plays his part in achieving it.
In the movies about Bilbo, it is not always clear who the main character of the story is. The focus shifts from movie to movie.
The first one is focused on Bilbo, but the second movie introduces many new characters: Tauriel, Legolas, Thranduil, Bard. All the stories follow each other very quickly and chaotically.
3. The Hobbit was not able to convey the atmosphere of the original source
Jackson managed to bring the atmosphere and spirit of LotR into his adaptation – it reflected the deep themes of the original source.
The Hobbit was created on the basis of a children's fairy tale, and probably only the first movie is perceived as one. The subsequent movies are more concerned with entertainment and a strange love story.
In LotR, there was less CGI and more emphasis on high quality make-up.
This is not surprising, as CGI was far from perfect at the time, but the masterfully made-up actors look much more alive, realistic, and frightening than the computer effects in the Hobbit trilogy.
5. LotR had more attention to detail
Surprisingly, even a movie as long as The Return of the King has its own director's cut. This is because these movies have something to show and reveal in more detail.
In LotR, there were no teleportations from point A to point B due to editing, and no plot holes like in The Hobbit.
