The Hobbit 2: The Hobbitses?

Mixed feelings on the recent announcement that Guillermo Del Toro is to head up two new Hobbit movies. On the one hand, awesome. He is clearly an excellent choice, a standout talent in the tricky fantastical genre, a proven and worthy facilitator of both small, intimate emotion and huge, ball busting action. Who better to lead us through Mirkwood and Gollum's cave, and up to Smaug's lair and that battle no-one remembers? I think we've all missed Middle Earth, just a little bit. What a happy series of Christmases those were, as we saw our favourite midgets play out their merry English tales of bravery and rambling. So what's the problem, win all round no? Well, the only bone to stick in my gullet, and it's potentially a biggie, is why the two films?


The narrative of the Hobbit is plenty sufficient for one movie alone and much as I love that fair land, and want to visit it as much as I can, is there really any need to "deal with the 60-year period between “The Hobbit” and “The Fellowship of the Ring"? Surely any new addition to the mythology is destined to inferiority and embarrassment? I haven't read the Children of Huatever, in much the same way as I didn't read books from the Star Wars "universe"; they ain't canon buddy, take 'em outside. No, to me this in fact whiffs of corporate greed, and is pretty much up there with the whole Harry Potter split film saga which I thankfully don't care enough about to link to. Damn.

Well I just hope this is not allowed to damage a so far unparallelled cinematic series, and that Del Toro and Jackson can keep the suits in check. At least it's two of cinema's greatest innovators adding their chapter to literature's most celebrated fantasy, and not Michael Bay. And I suppose the broad doings of that period of Middle Earth must be documented somewhere in Tolkien's sprawling writings, and we know that Jackson is nothing if not respectful. For my part, I'll try to keep my mind on the important things to be concerned about, like who they'll get to play Bilbo, and whether they'll resist the urge to have the dragon voiced by Sean Connery.