With this being Award Season, movie theaters are packed with high-quality movies that are sure to culture up even the most savage human.
It’s a nice change of pace, honestly. It comes after months of having close to nothing to watch in theaters during the fall, and precedes another lull in the box office until the summer blockbuster season.
I’d probably go see just about every movie out right now, if it weren’t for the fact that I don’t have that kind of money, but there is one movie that I’ve avoided at all costs.
Peter Jackson’s first installment of “The Hobbit” came out on Dec. 14, and although I loved his take on J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, I made the decision that I was going to go on strike against all Peter Jackson films.
I didn’t always feel this way; originally, I was all about the idea of seeing “The Hobbit” on the big screen. Yet, when opening night came, I sat at home, perfectly content that I wasn’t watching Bilbo Baggins' epic journey.
The deal breaker was the fact that the Hobbit is being broken into three films.
You see, despite the book only being 275 to 350 pages (depending upon whether you get it hardback or paperback), Jackson has broken “The Hobbit” into three separate movies — something that no one can justify.
By making it a trilogy, Jackson has essentially said that there is as much action in “The Hobbit” as the entire LOTR series, which is roughly four times as long.
It’s now so long that you could come close to reading the entire book in a shorter amount of time than it would take to watch the movies.
I know I sound like one of those nerds that says that “the book is so much better than the movie,” but such is the case this time.
Jackson can get away with this only because people have started to think that he is as great as he truly thinks he is. His ego is so large that he believes he is immune to the editing process.
I’m sorry Peter, but you aren’t on the same level as James Cameron; you’re famous because LOTR was too good to not be turned into a quality trilogy and you picked a beautiful place to film it.
That’s really all Jackson is good at: picking sets that look pretty.
The Hobbit isn’t the only great idea he’s ruined either. Remember King Kong? It was another movie that I couldn’t have been more excited to see was ruined by Jackson’s lack of an editing process.
I mean, for God’s sake, did we really need an hour before getting to the island? Granted, once the characters got to the island, the movie took a turn for the better, but there’s no reason to delay that for one-third of the movie.
I will never forgive him for that.
And it is because of these past indiscretions that I have gone on a Peter Jackson strike. I will not be seeing anything he does, and I certainly won’t be forking over $45 to see three movies that should have just been one.
Maybe if I get enough people to join me, he’ll begin to understand.