Why the The Hobbit 3 might not be worth watching for

Everyone's talking about The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies and how it will be the epic conclusion to Peter Jackson's film adaptation of J.R.R Tolkien's The Hobbit. It also marks as his sixth and last Middle Earth film but a lot are now wondering if it is worth watching. According to Nicholas Barber of BBC it might not be if you are looking for a loyal book-to-film adaptation.

One of the things observed in the final Hobbit film is that it is the shortest of all films, running 144 minutes (about 2 and a half hours) only in comparison to the previous five which lasted more than that. However, fans can expect a lengthier movie when the DVD will be released.

Another thing observed is that in comparison to the Lord of the Rings, which comprises of three books, The Hobbit is a shorter read comprising only one book. In fact, the book was published 17 years before Lord of the Rings and was written in a child-friendly tone. Jackson managed to consume the whole book (save for the last 65 pages) in the first two films. To be politically correct, the only remaining scenes is that of Smaug lighting up a town built on a lake, a bicker between humans, elves and dwarves over dragon gold, a fight and an orc army. Looking over those details it does not seem much and so many are wondering how Jackson will fill in the whole two and a half hour time.

The answer is filling it with whatever he can regardless if it was in the book or not. From characters that were not in the Hobbit but were present in Lord of the Rings such as Legolas, played by Orlando Bloom, to characters who were barely mentioned like Dain or those who did not even exist in book such as Tauriel. Nonetheless, with the exciting choreography of the fight scenes paired with CGI effects included and the highly detailed production pieces from the armor and weapons to the tiny toggles on the dwarves' whiskers, Jackson knows how to make a film worth shelling out money.

Unfortunately, if you are looking for something that has a plot, The Battle of the Five Armies cannot guarantee to satisfy that craving. With the last 65-pages of the book as the central focus, there's not much plot left to begin with nor any character development to look forward to, as each character is being wrapped up, making the decision to split the film into three looks like a big mistake - a third act of a film rather than a film that can stand alone for itself.

Though one can say it can be a successful film as it bridged the prequel to the main series, it can be said in the same way as a book-to-film adaptation.