The Hobbit: The 10 Most Important Films That Led To It Being Made

1. The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring

The Lord of the Rings novels lend themselves more to a cinematic retelling, with a wider, more adult story and more opportunity for action sequences than its predecessor and thus was the more obvious choice back in the late nineties. Had The Hobbit been chosen to get the cinematic treatment, it would have been a very different story. The state of fantasy, in a pre-Harry Potter and pre-Rings landscape, was pretty poor, viewed as a past time of Dungeons and Dragons€™ geeks and few else; had The Hobbit come first it would have been treated with less excitement than the latest Narnia film. The epic scale and incredible quality of the Rings€™ trilogy rejuvenated the genre and proved there was a market for grand fantasy. The Hobbit is far from an epic tale. Given the nature of being a children€™s book, it€™s a rather light affair, which means elements had to be added or altered to match the scale of what came before. Fellowship of the Ring had a similar, if not harder job that this; not only did it need to get the audience involved with the story, but it had to do it with several major shifts in tone. We start off with a dark prologue, followed by a jovial and light excursion in the Shire and from there on the film oscillates between light and dark. This was something the new trilogy was going to have to do, because no matter how many darker changes are made to make The Hobbit feel like more a part of Middle Earth, there is still going to be vast sections of light due simply to the plot. The success of Fellowship€™s execution of this put greater hope in it working again and once two became three, it was an absolute necessity €“ an epic story was now expected, so a deftness of touch was required. Fellowship, more than any other film is the source of why it is assumed The Hobbit can be treated as a majestic adventure, rather than the jovial tale it could have been (and was in the seventies cartoon). Whether this is a good thing or not, will be decided come its completion in 2014, but given the patchy first instalment, things aren€™t looking bright. Are there any other key films in The Hobbit€™s genesis we€™ve missed out? Have your say in the comments below.