Monday, November 20, 2006

Jackson Dropped

I sat watching the ‘Return of the King’ the last part of the Lord of the Rings trilogy on Sunday night and thinking how the series of films has never really worked for me.

I think director Peter Jackson did a good job of all three films; most of the actors are excellent with a couple of exceptions. The setting of New Zealand is also idyllic.

So why doesn’t it all work for me?

Firstly they should have made the Hobbit first, the book being the prequel to the Lord of the Rings trilogy should have been the opener, and this could have been used as an ideal platform to set the scene before the trilogy of films and be used to explain previous events. Instead Peter Jackson uses flashbacks in the trilogy and wastes valuable time in doing so, this time could have been used to include scenes and indeed whole episodes of the trilogy he omitted. Ok, so we know the books are vast and it wouldn’t be practical to include everything but he misses the scouring of the Shire chapter out and that’s not only one of my favourites but it’s a fitting end to the whole story as the hobbits through experiencing their adventures have to deal with one last twist of fate at the end of the book. The last chapters are where the hobbits come of age so to speak, where they come into their own without the help of wizards and rapid arrow shooting elves.

For me there are just too many pointless bits in the films and too many important bits left out. That aside the films are still amazing and a great technical achievement, maybe I’m just too fanatical about the books and a bit of a purist.

So, I was surprised to see this snippet of news today that states Peter Jackson will not be working on the prequel film ‘The Hobbit’ to read why click here.

I’m not sure if it’s a good or bad thing? Needless to say I should be signed as the star!

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