I sat down to give Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy an honest watch.
I can't do it.
Setting aside all of the changes from the source material, it's the narrative choices which would be unneeded if the series was pared down to, at most, three hours total.
Rankin and Bass managed to get the story into just 77 minutes, and they included musical interludes! They skipped the material that Jackson added back in from the appendices of The Lord of the Rings and remained focused purely on the book.
It's the pacing that kills it more than anything. The "exciting" chase scenes plod along as filler just as much as the sweeping vistas. They don't advance the plot and make us wonder why dwarves are afraid of dragons when they can survive all the blunt force trauma of their escapes from Goblin and Elf!
A more focused version would have been able to skip the conceit of the personal feud between Azog and Thorin. Which is forced in just to pad the run time.
Strangely I also noticed on this watching that Azog shouldn't be speaking Black Speech, but normal Goblin. Misty Mountain Goblins aren't from Mordor!
I can't do it.
Setting aside all of the changes from the source material, it's the narrative choices which would be unneeded if the series was pared down to, at most, three hours total.
Rankin and Bass managed to get the story into just 77 minutes, and they included musical interludes! They skipped the material that Jackson added back in from the appendices of The Lord of the Rings and remained focused purely on the book.
It's the pacing that kills it more than anything. The "exciting" chase scenes plod along as filler just as much as the sweeping vistas. They don't advance the plot and make us wonder why dwarves are afraid of dragons when they can survive all the blunt force trauma of their escapes from Goblin and Elf!
A more focused version would have been able to skip the conceit of the personal feud between Azog and Thorin. Which is forced in just to pad the run time.
Strangely I also noticed on this watching that Azog shouldn't be speaking Black Speech, but normal Goblin. Misty Mountain Goblins aren't from Mordor!