How Do You Split A Hobbit In Three Parts?

[woodwardiocom]

With an axe!

(Goblin humor is not subtle.)

So, I hear tell there will be three Hobbit movies. The paperback copy I have to hand has 305 pages. Splitting it evenly, the first movie would therefore end about when the party has escaped the tunnels of the goblins, but before they travel to Beorn's house. The second movie would end at the point the party arrives on Smaug's doorstep.

That's probably not how the movies are going to be split, however. Their respective subtitles are An Unexpected Journey, The Desolation Of Smaug, and There And Back Again. So, Smaug is nigh-certain to appear in the second half. Given that Smaug appears shortly after page 200, and dies around page 250, the last chunk of the book will require a lot of expanding. The obvious place for that expansion is the Battle Of Five Armies, which is skimmed over in the text, but has room to become the hour-long centerpiece of the third movie.

There's also the question of whether they split the movies on cliffhangers or not. Do you end the first film at the introduction of Gollum? Or when the party is stuck up a tree with goblins and wolves below? Or when they enter Mirkwood?

Comments

[ceo]

My understanding has always been that the movies were going to go into a lot of the backstory and concurrent events that are mentioned in passing in the book, e.g. Gandalf's et. al. driving Sauron from Dol Guldur, possibly Gandalf's recovering the key and map from Thrain on his earlier visit there, etc.

Jackson didn't end the first two The Lord Of The Rings movies on cliffhangers (even though the books kind of do); they both end at some natural break in the action.

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

I submit that Merry and Pippin getting captured by orcs is a cliffhanger in both the books and the movies.

[ceo]

Looking at the book, that actually happens in the opening chapter of The Two Towers. Jackson moved it into Fellowship so as to give it a better ending, so I suppose that is more of a cliffhanger than in the book. But, the Frodo/Sam section of The Two Towers ends on a cliffhanger and the movie doesn't.

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

I have heard the word "appendices" bandied about in a lot of the reporting. So that may be the place to look.

[ceo]

The leading theory is that they went to 3 films because that's the only way they'd be able to fit all the appendices and making-of features onto the DVDs.

[thorkell.livejournal.com]

Three? I'd always heard two, which to be honest was stretching it a bit.


Can directors these days edit their stuff and release a two to three hour movie? Must they use every damn yard of film they have?

My estimation

[mizarchivist]

They will probably end 2 when Bilbo gets knocked out during the battle of 5 armies.
And? 3 Hobbit movies. I don't see a downside here.

[thorkell.livejournal.com]

I do. Can you imagine all the endings Peter Jackson will put into them? I mean Return of the King had at least three, and I can't see this series doing any less.

[minkrose]

I see no downside either! I'm very happy about this, in a kind of ridiculous way. I've watched all of the extras on the extended editions twice... Technically, I'm still partway through a third run (but I lost interest a few months ago; I did watch all the movies, and my favorite extras, but not all of the commentaries.)


ANYWAY, there just can't be too much content for meeeeee! :D