1. Am I the only one who thinks this ight not end well? I mean, the main characters of the Lord of the Rings have some backstory that could be told, but a prequel? And the fact that what Guillermo del Toro is saying is so confusing doesn't give me much confidence. Just do one movie, do "The Hobbit", didn't they say that if they didn't have story for a second movie there wouldn't be a second movie? Well they better be true to their word.

Posted at 9:38AM on Oct 8th 2008 by Claudia Lomelí

2. It's not as bad as you might think--the Tolkien mythologies are expansive, and while lots of "things" happen between The Hobbit and LOTR, there's not a lot of narrative there--but The Hobbit is quite dense, especially when you consider what all goes on peripherally that is incidental to the story of Bilbo but quite central to LOTR.

If the battle against Smaug at Laketown is the end of the first movie, then the Battle of the Five Armies will certainly be the main narrative of the second. When you realize that at the same time as all of this is going on, Gandalf is dealing with the White Council and confronts the Necromancer in Dol Goldur, there's a lot of story there to tell--certainly enough to fill out a second film.

Nerd out.

Posted at 10:37AM on Oct 8th 2008 by Kurt

3. Kurt, I'm familiar with Tolkien work, and I agree with you, there's an extensive backstory for all the main characters to be explored, but not enough material for an interquel. However, I think that "The Hobbit" can be perfectly done in a standalone film, look at the original trilogy, they made, and "The Hobbit" is not nearly as long as those books.

Posted at 9:57PM on Oct 8th 2008 by Claudia Lomelí

4. This sounds exactly like the cartoon version except they stretch it out into 2 movies... which sounds perfect. The Battle of the Five Armies seemed pretty quick in the movie. But if you stick to the book, it's def going to be 2 movies worth.

Posted at 11:06AM on Oct 8th 2008 by SCIENCE!

5. I thought this would be a no-brainer.

Part 1: There

Part 2: Back again

Posted at 11:11AM on Oct 8th 2008 by Brant

6. I think the main thing we should take away from all this is that they are looking at executing it in a similar fashion to LOTR. When I first heard that it was going to be two parts I was a little worried the studios were trying to milk it, but this is obviously the work of the creative minds pushing the story. Let them figure the whole thing out and film it all at once and I'm sure it will work beautifully. My main concern is that they cast Bilbo correctly. I didn't hate Elijah Wood as Frodo, but I feel like he was the weakest part of the cast. I just really hope they stay true to Bilbo's character.

Posted at 12:37PM on Oct 8th 2008 by Herff

7. Tolkien fanatics need to calm down and wise up, it is only a book after all and after the outstanding job peter & co done on LOTR, you really do have feck all to worry about, this is totally in safe hands.

Posted at 5:17AM on Oct 9th 2008 by bongo123

8. Does this mean no White Council, no Dol Goldur, sounds like it's going to be just Hobbit with nothing linking it to the FOTR, this sucks. Don't get me wrong the Hobbit story itself is great, but without the White Council, the fight at Dol Goldur, alot of Middle Earth fans will feel somewhat cheated, it's one thing that PJ couldn't be the director, now we get a Hobbit film without some of the side stories that link it to LOTR. No Aragorn, no Arwen, what gives. Are they afraid to spend to spend some extra money to do these stories justice. I said it before and I'll say it again, they should have made this a trilogy like LOTR, that way all the extra stories/appendices or whatever they are calling it this week could have been included.

Posted at 10:22AM on Nov 13th 2008 by Larry King