8 Films That Would Have Worked Much Better As TV Shows
8. The Hobbit
As a prequel to one of the most unmistakably cinematic series of the twenty-first century, The Hobbit really should be a big screen affair. But with the direction Peter Jackson has taken, creating a long, slow-building story, its becoming increasingly clear this story would work much better if treated like the other big water-cooler fantasy of the moment. The Desolation Of Smaug ended in a way that wasnt totally dissimilar to what youd expect from an episode of Game Of Thrones; massive cliffhanger, audience groans, come back next week/year. The difference is that whereas we buy incompleteness as par for the course with HBO, its not what were used to with films. Even though the original Lord Of The Rings work best as part of the bigger story, there was a sense of localised character development and a clear end point to each chapter. Taking Jacksons Hobbit as it stands (were so distanced from what Tolkien intended that going all the way back to the source is a fools errand), making the three three hour films into nine one hour episodes of a mini-series is not only simple (the trilogy's already pretty fragmented), but itd make the slower moments more enjoyable. An Unexpected Journey was improved no end by an Extended Edition that gave much-needed development to the dwarves and a run time that was a lot more palatable from a sofa than a cinema chair. Sadly, as Jacksons The Lord Of The Rings has become the definitive adaptation (sorry Bakshi), The Hobbit will be treated the same, for better or worse, meaning any hope of a subsequent version is unlikely.
