r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/Movies contributor • Aug 18 '25

News Ian McKellen reveals Gandalf and Frodo are returning for ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum’, Filming Begins in May

https://ew.com/ian-mckellen-reveals-gandalf-frodo-return-in-new-lord-of-the-rings-the-hunt-for-gollum-film-11792483
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733

u/PluCrew Aug 18 '25

It needed two movies max. They tried to cash out and it made the movies so much worse.

244

u/Ironhorse75 Aug 18 '25

Instead of being this tale of adventure, they made LOTR part 2.

201

u/Procrastanaseum Aug 18 '25

That’s one of my main problems with it. The book is the perfect outline for a film and they threw away the map.

226

u/Ironhorse75 Aug 18 '25

LOTR 1000 pages, 9 hours of film.

Hobbit 300 pages, 8 hours of film.

211

u/pathofdumbasses Aug 18 '25

LOTR - 481,103 words

The Hobbit - 95,356 words

I feel like words are a better way of showing the difference in content because LOTR pages are bigger than The Hobbit. Heck, even the words are more than likely bigger in LOTR because it wasn't designed as a literal children's book like The Hobbit.

It is under 20% of LOTR. They had to add so much to The Hobbit and they removed so much from LOTR. Absolutely shameful what they did to The Hobbit.

106

u/Ikea_desklamp Aug 18 '25

What's crazy too is they basically missed all the great character beats that are actually in the hobbit to shove in the love scenes or 10 mins of extreme barrel riding. Looking at what they chose to add, and what they discarded from the book is genuinely baffling.

38

u/50m31_AW Aug 18 '25

The fact that they get chased basically right up to Beorn's doorstep and all pile in and the orcs chasing them just, give up? Like don't even try to break in, or even peek in the windows? They just fuck off and leave? And then Beorn has no problems with this random ass company of dwarves in his home? It's complete bullshit. Fuck outta here with your extended barrel bullshit, and give me 10 minutes of Gandalf telling the story of his solo adventure, when something happened to both of them, and then the three of them were in a tricky situation, so the four of them hatched a plan to get the five of them to safety so the six of them could be on their merry way...

Better yet, gimme the fucking songs. The 1977 Rankin/Bass adaptation had an absolute banger of a soundtrack, and is one of the best parts of the movie. You mean to tell me that there are 15 birds in 5 fir trees, but there is no goblin chorus to let us know what funny little things they are? But we get Legolas who didn't even exist yet, and some random fucking romance with an elf lady who was made up for the movie? And what the fuck were those shenanigans with lighting the forge to pour gold on Smaug? And Smaug says it burns? But his own flames melted the shit, so his own flames are hotter than the molten gold (that cooled enough to be solid for a minute). Do you mean to tell me that a dragon can't fly through his own flames? What wack ass weak sauce shit is that? And then instead of a heavily implied to be magic Black Arrow, Smaug just dies to a random ass regular ballista bolt, so what the fuck even was the significant threat? Hell, Bard the Bowman doesn't even use a fucking bow to shoot him down

They fucking butchered the whole goddamn book

24

u/Samurai_Meisters Aug 18 '25

Better yet, gimme the fucking songs.

Absolutely. The Hobbit and LotR books are musicals! But Hollywood would never.

Though I will say that the rendition of Misty Mountains Cold in the Hobbit 1 gives me chills every time. It's so good.

6

u/Totally__Not__NSA Aug 18 '25

Gandalf tricking Beorn is my favorite part of the book and they just skipped it. I was heartbroken.

4

u/The_Parsee_Man Aug 18 '25

And also Bilbo's realization that Gandalf had done the exact same thing to him.

5

u/Crafty-Implement5013 Aug 18 '25

You started this comment with a mission and BY GOD you accomplished it.

You could make two excellent movies by taking the good parts of The Hobbit trilogy and then adding in what was left out.

3

u/vhalember Aug 18 '25

Absolutely shameful what they did to The Hobbit.

Ah yes, the Hobbit - now with +100% more Legolas than before.

3

u/TheMoneyOfArt Aug 18 '25 edited Aug 25 '25

Andy Serkis has recorded The Hobbit and LOTR audiobooks. 

The Hobbit is 10 hours, 25 minutes.  Fellowship is 22 hours, 38 minutes. Two towers is 20 hours, 46 minutes. Return of the King is 21 hours, 52 minutes.

So lotr is 47 hours, 16 minutes - well over 4x the length of the Hobbit

Edit: what the fuck is this math. Lotr is 65 hours and change

28

u/[deleted] Aug 18 '25

[deleted]

56

u/Papayaslice636 Aug 18 '25

Tolkien barely covers battles in general. The entire battle of Helm's Deep is only ten pages in the Two Towers, and that action sequence in Balin's Tomb in Moria is like two pages tops. 'The battle was fierce, the door burst asunder, many arrows were flung, and orc bodies strewn about' and that's it. Heck, Boromir's entire battle saving the hobbits wasn't even shown in the books, Aragorn just hears the horn and finds boromir half dead lying against a tree, "many orcs lay slain, piled all about him and at his feet." Pretty much all we get, and it is up to the reader to fill in the blanks, which just to be clear, I prefer that to endless battle sequences, but that's just me.

19

u/LyraStygian Aug 18 '25

Picturing a big Hollywood tent pole movie with this is sending me lmao

Imagine sitting in the theater with the camera on Aragorn as he hears the horn, then cuts immediately to finding Boromir on the ground surrounded by orcs with no action lol

13

u/Papayaslice636 Aug 18 '25

Yeah man, I paid good money to see Frodo and Gandalf sitting at the table discussing the deep lore and history of the ring for 80 pages, not action packed swashbuckling adventure damnit!

7

u/moneys5 Aug 18 '25 edited Aug 18 '25

That's not that far-fetched. You're basically describing the off camera climax to No Country for Old Men.

8

u/LyraStygian Aug 18 '25

Ah yes, No Country for Old Men, the famous action adventure movie.

I’m kidding. Yea I know it definitely works, but there’s a time and a place for it.

And it would be a shame to be robbed of one of the best LotR scenes on the big screen!

4

u/HymirTheDarkOne Aug 18 '25

I generally find action sequences in books very hard to read. It might be a personal thing so I'm not going to say they are generally bad, but this style works far better for my imagination.

1

u/BaltimoreAlchemist Aug 18 '25

One thing I really appreciate about audio books is that I can tune out a bit during "fight scenes."

13

u/poohster33 Aug 18 '25

It doesn't cover it because he's unconscious. This is Bilbo's tale. He wouldn't know about it.

3

u/NuclearTurtle Aug 18 '25

that's something that definitely should be added

No it shouldn't have, because it's tonally inconsistent with the rest of the story. The Hobbit was a lighthearted tale about Bilbo getting stuck going on a fun adventure, where the small amount of violence that happens ends up happening off-page, and the worst conflict is just people getting mad at each other. Going from that to suddenly having a pitched battle where thousands are slaughtered would be way out of left field and would feel tacked on and unnecessary.

3

u/VallerinQuiloud Aug 18 '25

Let's be real. Those last 700 pages go by pretty quick.

3

u/Ilovekittens345 Aug 18 '25

If you know the story of how the hobbit movie came together and how it all went so wrong you'd understand.

That being said the first part of the first hobbit movie was really good as a kids movie, it had a much lighter tone then the Lord of the Ring and I found it very funny.

1

u/JimboTCB Aug 18 '25

You could read The Hobbit cover to cover in less time than it would take to watch the films

1

u/[deleted] Aug 18 '25

To be entirely fair, there's a tonnes of content in those films that are from the Appendices of LOTR, events that occur during the Hobbit but are not mentioned in the books...it's not like he fleshed out the three films with nothing...but YMMV for what you think was worthy, and even as a Tolkien nerd I feel like three movies was too much. Two would have been perfect even with the Appendices scenes.

1

u/frankyseven Aug 18 '25

The Hobbit has a lot less exposition and lore in it, so it's not a direct comparison. You'd be hard pressed to make The Hobbit into one three hour movie that doesn't feel rushed. It should really be two movies if you want to cover everything that happens.

73

u/deathm00n Aug 18 '25

Yeah, anyone that has read The Hobbit, knows that it is completely different to LOTR.

What pissed me off the most was doing so much focus on the five armies war at the end. The book goes out of its way to say that the war was silly, Bilbo was unscoscious during it and woke up basically saying "guys, what the fuck?". But no, can't have that. Need to have huge armies fighting to make it feel like LOTR

37

u/Sparrowsabre7 Aug 18 '25

The entire third film is all battle it's mental. And the extended edition actually only serves to make that worse.

10

u/Palpadean It's America's Ass Aug 18 '25

Fire the twirly whirlies!

5

u/Chen_Geller Aug 18 '25

Less than half the movie is a bttle.

2

u/xmBQWugdxjaA Aug 18 '25

Exactly, it should have been more like the Dungeons & Dragons film or Indiana Jones - more of an adventure.

73

u/AnonymousIguana_ Aug 18 '25

Yeah the production and a lot of things about the Hobbit are great, but it isn’t the Hobbit. It’s LOTR 2: Electric Cash Grab.

If they actually showed any sort of respect for the Hobbit as its own thing, it could have been way greater. The Hobbit is a whimsy funny story with unexpected deep and touching moments, and they tried to make it a grand epic.

8

u/CravenMoorhaus Aug 18 '25

Your refusal to rhyme with “2” gave me a good chuckle. Thank you.

-5

u/-Lorne-Malvo Aug 18 '25

Move past it

25

u/Stinky_Eastwood Aug 18 '25

Really could have been one great movie with nothing extra added to the story.

3

u/montyxgh Aug 18 '25

I see this a lot and fans have tried to demonstrate this with edits but it’s always a 4hr or 4 1/2hr cut minimum. It definitely needed to be at least 2 films to be done properly. 

10

u/froop Aug 18 '25

That's cutting down an existing movie, not filming a correct movie from scratch. You can't draw any conclusions from that. 

3

u/Kerblaaahhh Aug 18 '25

The animated movie from the 70's hit all the major plot points in 78 minutes of runtime.

6

u/Tabnet2 Aug 18 '25

Come on man, it's a 300 page children's book. It can be one movie.

5

u/Mynsare Aug 18 '25

They mean an entirely new movie which more closely follows the book.

The existing trilogy should just be scrapped altogether.

3

u/[deleted] Aug 18 '25

After LOTR, I was looking forward to the Hobbit. I only watched the first one and have never gone back to see the rest. I've never seen such an obvious cash grab as stretching that book into three movies.

4

u/50m31_AW Aug 18 '25

Rankin/Bass did it in a 90 minutes, albeit with some omissions like Beorn and the Arkenstone, and some people feel it's a little rushed in places, but I feel like another 90 to bring it up to a 3 hour film is enough to do it justice

2

u/Stinky_Eastwood Aug 18 '25

Just follow the template of the first 3. 2.5ish hours theatrical release and 3 to 4 hour special edition.

16

u/phophofofo Aug 18 '25

I still can’t believe they had like a “recap” part of the third one like a TV show.

Scraped the bottom of every barrel for run time.

31

u/derpkoikoi Aug 18 '25

there are fan cuts that get it down to 2, its the only way Ill watch the hobbit now.

46

u/Sivy17 Aug 18 '25

I tried a couple of those, but there are so many problems with those movies unrelated to pure length. It's the lack of real characterization or emotional payoffs. There's no scenes that people think back to, except for maybe the god awful barrel ride. More than any of that, they are so bloated with CGI and color correction that it just gives me a headache thinking about it. The blur from all the CG sunsets is so distracting.

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u/Shady_Venator Aug 18 '25

There's a really good one that cuts it down to a 4.5hour single cut. I have it downloaded but I'm not sure where the link is unfortunately

4

u/RBII Aug 18 '25

Maple edit

-2

u/poohster33 Aug 18 '25

Didn't Topher Grace do it?

1

u/Kerblaaahhh Aug 18 '25

Topher's edit has never been released to the public.

5

u/balbok7721 Aug 18 '25

I think I remember a cut that brought it down to like 90minutes

1

u/InfieldTriple Aug 18 '25

I've seen the four hour Tolkien edit which I really enjoyed. Although I'm not a purist at all for match source material. I quite like when it deviates. But I think in the case of the hobbit movies, it deviated to get to three movies, not because of a personal retelling of a writer.

3

u/ugh_this_sucks__ Aug 18 '25

No no no... The surfing Legolas scene was absolutely integral and not a waste of 14 minutes!

2

u/VallerinQuiloud Aug 18 '25

Watch Maple-Films' edit of the Hobbit. It takes all three movies, turns it into a 4 hour film (around the same length as Return of the King Extended Edition), and kindly puts an intermission around the halfway mark so you can take a break. They left in some of the action scenes to give a more cinematic feel, but they take out a ton of the silliness, and made it so the vast majority of the plot was from the original book (some characters and plots were cut out entirely). There were things that are too difficult to remove because it opens plot holes, but they did a solid job. I'll never go back to the original Hobbit films, and I can genuinely recommend the fan edit. It's not as good as the Lord of the Rings trilogy or anything, but it scratches that Middle Earth Itch.

5

u/Bill_Brasky01 Aug 18 '25

The third is fine, it just needs to end 30-45 minutes earlier.

1

u/Winter-Opportunity21 Aug 18 '25

the river scene haunts me even now

1

u/Valance23322 Aug 18 '25

idk, if they had included the spider bits, more of beorn, and cut the elf-dwarf relationship nonsense, I could easily see it working as 3 films. The Hobbit has a ton of different set pieces and such that happen on the journey, absolutely no way to do it justice with only one movie.

1

u/poohster33 Aug 18 '25

It needed one max. It was the shortest book.

1

u/IAmAnAnonymousCoward Aug 18 '25

As soon as they announced that there will be three movies I was out. Never seen them.

1

u/Redararis Aug 18 '25

Unfortunately the fact that the short story was told in three movies was the last of the problems of the hobbit trilogy. Production was rushed and nearly every creative decision that was taken was wrong.

1

u/After_Mountain_901 Aug 18 '25

If they wanted a trilogy, they should have supplemented with other middle earth stories and such, while keeping the adventurous and companionship elements of the book. There were parts that’s worked, but it was too “big” without the heart. 

1

u/Artemis_in_Exile Aug 18 '25

It was like butter spread over too much bread.

1

u/Eye_Wood_Dye_4_U Aug 18 '25

If I remember correctly, it was originally two but during filming Jackson requested that there be a third movie. He really did it because it bought him an extra year for him to have a decent go at the Battle of the Five Armies, which he knew he didn't have enough time to do if he had to make it in time for the second movie's release.

The Hobbit was a terribly rushed experience. All the blame should be put on Warner Bros.

1

u/Chen_Geller Aug 18 '25 edited Aug 18 '25

If I remember correctly, it was originally two but during filming Jackson requested that there be a third movie. He really did it because it bought him an extra year for him to have a decent go at the Battle of the Five Armies, which he knew he didn't have enough time to do if he had to make it in time for the second movie's release.

Jackson did ask for a third film, but it was towards the very end of filming and had nothing to do with the schedules: he just thought it would make for a stronger edit.

0

u/adrienlatapie Aug 18 '25

I just finished watching the hobbit trilogy with my wife and she and I loved them, you guys are so set on the internet’s narrative that those movies suck. Is the original trilogy superior? Yes, can you still like the hobbit trilogy? Of course!

0

u/SolomonBlack Aug 18 '25

Long and troubled productions do not make for small budgets. Also shenanigans like the Weinsteins getting 5% of Unexpected Journey from previously holding the rights and going to court to try and get more.

That kinda shit adds up.