Over the holidays, I re-watched Peter Jackson's excellent The Lord of the Rings films, which I've seen countless times. That sparked a bit of a Tolkien kick, so I reluctantly tried to revisit the The Hobbit trilogy. It wasn't long, however, before the shortcomings of those films started to shine through. By all accounts, the production was a difficult one, laden with legal hurdles, lofty studio expectations, impossible deadlines, and emerging technologies that transformed a simple story into a bloated, overly designed mess—far removed from the magic of the original trilogy.
Still, over the past week I found myself imagining what might have been. What if Peter Jackson had made The Hobbit only a few years after completing The Lord of the Rings? What would the cast look like? What design changes might we have seen?
Over the next several days, I'll share my take. Enjoy!