It is an undeniable and unforgettable truth that The Hobbit Trilogy is far worse than the Star Wars prequels.
It is mind-boggling to see how in the online discussion forums which dissect every new release ruthlessly, these two incredibly similar trilogies haven’t frequently been compared. They both happen to be prequel returns of an iconic franchise by a director who was once considered legendary, who supposedly told the story to explain the originals, but, in reality only expanded the franchise.
Three years after The Battle of the Five Armies which was a disappointing finale to the Middle Earth Legendarium (unless The Silmarillion is devastated in a bid to extend the franchise) and The Hobbit has somehow managed to sneak past the extreme criticism that the other space opera faced. A few say that it is in the vicinity of The Lord of the Rings trilogy and it is not a great creation without an iconic predecessor, yet a negative comparison against Episodes I-III is often considered shocking.
That’s weird frankly; just compare The Hobbit to the Star Wars prequels, and you would notice that apart from similar concepts, they do have a lot of common mistakes. Anyone who has endured the three films would know that the key problem with The Hobbit was that it is a short fantasy novel which was painstakingly stretched to a near nine-hour epic. The tone is dissimilar between various fun sequences and the global threat of Sauron and therefore, a lot of additional content is thrust upon us, from The Return of the King’s appendices to the un-Tolkien focus groups. If you delve deeper, then it would come across as such a terrible adaptation that would remind you of something similar.
THE HOBBIT MAKES ALL THE MISTAKES THAT PEOPLE SAY THE STAR WARS MADE
The problems with Star Wars prequels are so famous in pop culture that they don’t even need a mention, however, just for the sake of comparison, let’s state them. The director was surrounded by yes men who couldn’t show the mirror to his high handed creative decisions, an over-emphasis on CGI and a tendency to revolve around the earlier movies than trying to create a well-defined set of fresh characters and scenarios. The storyline was based on poorly depicted politics which made the films not just boring but also with several plot holes. To top it all, the entire effort was focused on the commercial concerns outside the main franchise.
The Hobbit is remarkable as all of the above allegations can be leveled against Jackson’s movies with an even stronger conviction. He was the writer-producer-director, and he had complete grasp on the project which saw so much extra being added. The Hobbit is absolutely flooded by unwanted computer effects to the extent of making Ian McKellen break down during the filming of his first scene. Despite the endeavour to take in the wider Middle-Earth story, no time was given to expand any of the thirteen dwarves that we had to deal with; the wider story was so messed that Gandalf had to keep reminding about the happenings, while the clashes with canon in The Battle of the Five Armies is in itself an entirely separate argument. The series seemingly existed just because Jackson had sunk too much money into the vain pre-production period with Guillermo Del Toro that the films had to be made anyhow. It might not be toys, but, quite a high jumping board which necessitates that the maker should be at the top of his A-game.
We agree that the Star Wars had the problems, but, it is just that The Hobbit had all of them to an even more severe extent. The fact remains that these are two franchises plagued by similar issues.
THE STAR WARS PREQUELS AT LEAST HAVE A COMPLETE STORY
The prequels beat The Hobbit in the area of storytelling. The Hobbit is a fragmented story stretched into a trilogy and sliced randomly, but, each of the Star Wars trilogy movies, The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith had their own separate and well-rounded stories, alongside being linked with each other. The great deal of dumb ideas and mistakes set aside, there was at least an understandable story with properly defined characters and their development and that is something you can’t say about The Hobbit.
This might be attributed as a personal opinion and one’s preferences, but, the question is why The Hobbit is never criticized?
THERE IS NO REAL OUTCOME OF THE HOBBIT
The documentary that accompanied The Battle of the Five Armies Extended Edition, had a six-minute section detailing Peter Jackson suffering burnout on the Erebor set when the absence of pre-production (they started filming almost immediately after Del Toro’s exit) caught up with him and he begun sending the crew on extended lunch breaks so that he could write the scenes and that’s when he ultimately decided to stretch the two-part story into three parts so that he could get adequate break to write the finale. Check it out below:
This honest admission showed that the director was at his lowest and precisely highlights the problems with The Hobbit including the poor story and characterization which was due to the absence of any real script and the story being inflated to allow more time for development (this makes it obvious that the excessive CGI was done to cover up the lack of development). Despite all the film’s problems being officially admitted within a year of the trilogy’s end, the films still are not considered from a harsh standpoint.
On the other hand, Star Wars had no such issues, but, the prequels are panned by fans. There are indeed problems that get a mention in the behind the scenes documentaries, but, these were not as massive. The fact is that The Hobbit’s flaws are not identified.
This could also be due to the passage of time, but, there have been no threads and discussion forums critical of The Hobbit similar to Red Letter Media’s Mr. Plinkett reviews of Episodes I-III, which were almost feature length analyses highlighting the problems. The Hobbit has video essays talking about why they are bad movies, but, they didn’t have any influence in the real sense.
https://youtu.be/SQkygZdZ_Vk
THE HYPE MADE ALL THE DIFFERENCE
The key to the different responses is the differences in the release. The Hobbit had a following, but, nothing like the unprecedented hype that came with The Phantom Menace. There was some disappointment around as the prequels, as well as Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, had hurt the geeks and the void was reduced by the shorter gap between trilogies and also with King Kong and The Lovely Bones coming in. Peter Jackson had a lower bar to cross. Therefore, the kind of hostile response that Star Wars received, was unlikely.
This is also where The Hobbit’s visible flaws protected it. It was an incomplete film. Therefore, An Unexpected Journey’s rambling pace seemed to be vital to the franchise. It is not a strong standalone, but, it also got an extra star for Gollum. Since Jackson’s films came one after another without major gaps of several years, they just rode through on the initial wave created and never really got an adequate critical analysis done.
In the long term, they will be at the same place. They have similar Rotten Tomatoes rankings, and both trilogies affected the directors similarly with them moving away to focus on production. (Lucas paid attention to Star Wars, and Jackson is producing Mortal Engines).
After initially receiving severe backlash, Star Wars prequels are now normalizing and are no longer considered to be the worst things ever. On the other hand, The Hobbit will be headed the other way as more and more viewers will realize that despite Jar Jar being terrible, Wormtongue is no better as we see him stuffing coins into his bra during the climactic battle.
Disgusting? No, that’s exactly what they showed.
