gavin said:
furie said:
It IS meant to be a kids film though
Is it though? It's based on a kids' book, sure, but I'd say it's aimed towards fans of the original LotR films. It may be more "kid-friendly", but I definitely wouldn't say it's sold and marketed towards kids.
I think this may be the issue the film has :lol:
I think of it as a kids' film because most of MMF's friends have seen it and the toy and book aisles were full of The Hobbit leading up to Christmas. Colouring books, albums, sticker collections, "the film in photos" - all that kind of kiddie bollocks you get with a film aimed at kids. I think LOTR also had toys, but none of the other gumph. Very few of friends seem to have seen any LOTR films either.
However, I think you're right that it was marketed at LOTR fans, but I think that Jackson (and the distributors) also kept in mind the fact it was meant to be for kids and it's ended up messed up.
I had a read yesterday to find out what extra bits were cut and found out a fair amount about the film. Apparently what Jackson is doing is using all the work Tolkien wrote (both published and unpublished) that surrounds this "period"in Middle Earth history. He then shoe-horning it into the story of The Hobbit to add extra background to the entire of
his LOTR film world. He's also expanding some characters (like the white Orc) to help give the film pacing and an antagonist.
Essentially he's pandering to his own inner fanboy, as well as to all the other LOTR geeks out there. So what you have is the very child friendly original story, mixed in with a load of the hard-core appendices and expanded history and the film ends up completely mixed.
What is essentially a tight, standard kids' action/adventure story has been stuffed full of a load of extraneous background fanboy gubbins that ruins the flow and feel of the film. Obviously if you have a great interest in all that extraneous stuff then you'll get more from the film.
As it stands though, it's a really odd film in where it's appeal is meant to lie and I think you're right Gavin, it's not a kids' film, but it's also not a grown up film either - it's a fan film.