The Hobbit Trilogy and The Death Of Originality
Since LOTR, Hollywood overlords have turned to just about anything to save the problem of hiring people to write a story.
The cinema industry has seen a sharp decline in original thought over the last decade. Though adaptations from novels were never unheard of before the turn of the millennium, The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter series began and we were told never to expect an original concept again. Since then the Hollywood overlords have turned to just about anything to save the problem of hiring people to write a story. Toys, comics, TV shows and even giving M Night Shyamalan money to bastardise something loved by its original fan base. It can be pointed out that The Lord Of The Rings, the trilogy that The Hobbit is a prequel too, is the major culprit of this. The billion dollars of gross told film producers that you dont need people to write you scripts anymore; merely edit semi-exciting books with readymade fan bases. The slow gargling death of cinemas originality isnt all bad; without it I would never have started reading graphic novels and expanding an interest in to comic books. But for the most part it is a crushing grip on cinemas one time vibrant imagination. A book only has to sell 17 copies before the film adaptation is pencilled in and, more often than not, the fans are disappointed by the results as the issue of expectation and preconceived ideas does nothing but underwhelm audiences. First came adaptations of well known series; then reboots of well known series; then prequels to well known series and the desire to watch films you already knew the story too started to die as cinema gave up trying to generate its own stories. This summer blockbuster season for example features no original stories; its littered with comic book adaptations, book adaptations and prequels whilst Septembers Looper looks to be the only major original film this year and you need to cast your mind back to 2010s Inception to see the best major release which had the advantage of original thought behind it. And now there is The Hobbit. A book prequel to a book trilogy that, despite featuring Ian McKellen in a beard again, was little to be excited about when you learned that the short book would be split in to two indulgently long films. 
This has now taken its own lack of originality up a notch by the news that this two part adaptation of one book, will now be a three part adaptation of one book. Can it be said that this is needed to give the best possible adaptation of this 310 page book? Something that is less than half the length of the final Harry Potter book which was aptly done in two films needs a third film to tell the complete story? Its needless, unwanted and an imposing nail in the coffin of cinemas desire to bring originality to audiences; there simply isnt one anymore. Long gone is the era of story tellers and individualism, long live the era of editors splitting films in to more pieces. Creative licence? No. Its money grabbing and a destruction of all the things that used to make cinema great. With this as a precedent; how long is it until The Godfather is rebooted and told in 12 different parts? How long until they remake the Harry Potter series by splitting every book in to three? The original Lord of the Rings trilogy was a brilliant example of how books can be turned lovingly in to films without acting like an out and out cash in and, get this, it's three books turned in to three films. When Peter Jackson first pitched the films he was going to do it as two films. However that creative integrity, that love has been undermined by this unnecessary and unwanted milking of a cow that had little to give to begin with. Money always talks, its started to talk louder than anything else in Hollywood but if The Hobbit trilogy achieves one thing its that money doesnt talk, it shouts and it screams and it has beaten originality in to a coffin. Thank you The Hobbit for confirming this for us once and for all.