The trailer for the next installment of the Hobbit, The Desolation of Smaug, has finally been unleashed, but the question remains…Will part two be a better movie?
It was geek nirvana when Peter Jackson decided to return to Middle Earth, but there were a lot of problems with the first Hobbit film, many of them having to do with bloated delusions of grandeur. Many felt the book is way too short to stretch into three movies, and many felt the first movie was an endurance test to sit through.
Not only did the critics find it boring, but there was also controversy over Jackson shooting the movies at 48 frames per second, which made the movie too hi-def for its own good. (The joke about The Hobbit looking like a Telemundo soap opera popped up frequently.)
The three Lord of the Rings movies got progressively better and better as they went along. Will The Hobbit films get better with time? We hope so, because the Tolkien stories are timeless classics, and Jackson got it right the first time. If the Hobbit trilogy doesn’t turn out as well, it won’t ruin what Peter accomplished with the original LOTR series, but it would be a shame if the Hobbit flicks ultimately didn’t measure up.
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug will be in theaters on December 13, 2013.
