I'm not really a massive movie guy, but I have noticed that a lot of people criticize movies that are based on books when they leave out large amounts of material from the books, as you're missing out a lot of what made the books good, which is understandable. I've also noticed that a lot of people criticize movies that end up doing a Part 1 and Part 2 thing - Deathly Hallows, Mockingjay, etc, for being cash-grabs, which is understandable. But these seem like criticisms that are pulling in opposite directions. It seems very difficult to do a book adaptation that doesn't piss off a substantial number of people from at least one of these camps. The Lord of the Rings trilogy is the only one that I know of that actually managed to do it great, and so, a lot of people like it.
In the case of the Hobbit, it goes too far into the latter category on all accounts - it's really a Part 1, 2, and 3 for one book, and pretty obviously seeks to emulate the Lord of the Rings success case by trying to copy it, and fails. But I like it for really digging deep into the whole book. It's almost the perfect example of what happens if you actually seriously try to transcribe a whole book into a movie or set of movies. And then it has to add even more (most of it superfluous, like the stupid fucking romance between elf lady and dwarf man, and gandalf and galadriel) in order to not make it too boring to actually watch.
So I guess I like the trilogy because of that reason. To me, it's a perfectly enjoyable if not objectively good set of movies that are almost certainly just cashgrabs seeking to exploit your nostalgia for some actual good movies using a ton of CGI. And it represents the madness of trying to go too far in one direction. And a lot of people dislike them, but setting all the troubled movie production that fucked over New Zealand's actor union and cashgrabbyness aside, I think they're a perfectly fine way to waste a day. They're fun movies, y'know? They're simultaneously a bunch of action scenes sprinkled with decent humour and obligatory serious emotional scenes, and an unintentional statement about the hubris of film production studios.
I'm not really a massive movie guy, but I have noticed that a lot of people criticize movies that are based on books when they leave out large amounts of material from the books, as you're missing out a lot of what made the books good, which is understandable. I've also noticed that a lot of people criticize movies that end up doing a Part 1 and Part 2 thing - Deathly Hallows, Mockingjay, etc, for being cash-grabs, which is understandable. But these seem like criticisms that are pulling in opposite directions. It seems very difficult to do a book adaptation that doesn't piss off a substantial number of people from at least one of these camps. The Lord of the Rings trilogy is the only one that I know of that actually managed to do it great, and so, a lot of people like it.
In the case of the Hobbit, it goes too far into the latter category on all accounts - it's really a Part 1, 2, and 3 for one book, and pretty obviously seeks to emulate the Lord of the Rings success case by trying to copy it, and fails. But I like it for really digging deep into the whole book. It's almost the perfect example of what happens if you actually seriously try to transcribe a whole book into a movie or set of movies. And then it has to add even more (most of it superfluous, like the stupid fucking romance between elf lady and dwarf man, and gandalf and galadriel) in order to not make it too boring to actually watch.
So I guess I like the trilogy because of that reason. To me, it's a perfectly enjoyable if not objectively good set of movies that are almost certainly just cashgrabs seeking to exploit your nostalgia for some actual good movies using a ton of CGI. And it represents the madness of trying to go too far in one direction. And a lot of people dislike them, but setting all the troubled movie production that fucked over New Zealand's actor union and cashgrabbyness aside, I think they're a perfectly fine way to waste a day. They're fun movies, y'know? They're simultaneously a bunch of action scenes sprinkled with decent humour and obligatory serious emotional scenes, and an unintentional statement about the hubris of film production studios.
Have you tried watching any of the recuts?