We're Going to Cover That In Phase 2

Yay – they are making not one but two “Hobbit” movies! Um… actually… I take that “yay” back because upon further review, besides the fact that Guillermo del Toro based on beard, glasses and job description seems to be a cleaned up version of Peter Jackson, there are many reasons to worry about the quality, the story, the style – basically everything – about these new “Hobbit” movies.

One reason to be wary is because of how del Toro feels about the genre. In 2006 he said,

“I was never into heroic fantasy. At all. I don’t like little guys and dragons, hairy feet, hobbits — I’ve never been into that at all. I don’t like sword and sorcery, I hate all that stuff.”

The second reason this director should not be trusted with the Tolkien franchise is that (to quote the Salon piece), “his aesthetic is darker, more Gothic and more grotesque than the Tolkien-via-Jackson universe; it derives more from the medieval mire of middle-European fairy tale than from the high-toned, pre-modern northern European epics Tolkien was channeling.”
Something is rotten in the lands of New Zealand and Tinseltown. Read the full Andrew O’Hehir penned Salon article (just click on the top right where you see the small words in a red box that say “Enter Salon”) for all the reasons you should temper your enthusiasm. I have two words for you: George Lucas. ‘Nuff said.