[double post - please delete. technology hates me (sorry)]

Ended my lengthy status as a lurker to post this.

I was prepared to absolutely love this movie, and I really REALLY wanted to walk out by the 3/4ths mark. I'm not a psycho-insane LOTR fan and I grasp the concept of adaptation. That said, The Hobbit is my favorite book, mostly because of the story...which is lost. Lost in favor of...greenbacks. Sawbucks. Clams. Moola. Bread. Dough. The whole thing is one blatant cash-grab, and that's why it sucked.

Simply put, they took a concept that honestly is a one-movie affair and gussied it up in a pathetically transparent attempt to cash in and make Joe Q. Moviegoer think that this is LOTR: The Next Generation. Which it ain't. Like a turn of the century busker with his poor rhesus monkey...the animal, cute and cuddly on its own, is made by its cruel master to put on a frilly dress and pancake makeup, stand on the sidewalk with a pair of cymbals tied to its wrists, and forced to perform in a feeble ploy to get passerby to drop a nickle in the dented tin cup. THAT is why The Hobbit sucked, my lovelies.

I won't give any specifics away, but by the end of the film, Bilbo's original dramatic arc is absolutely complete. I think the last time I was THAT dismayed in a theater was when my mom took me to see "Powder" in 1996 because Jeff Goldblum was in it and I loved Jurassic Park. I'm not being an idiot purist here: I seriously don't understand what narrative purpose Bilbo will serve in the upcoming second/third installment. Storywise, he's been rendered completely obsolete, and I couldn't tell if the thudding sound I kept hearing was from my jaw repeatedly hitting the floor in disgusted surprise, or the dusty skeleton of Tolkien rolling over in his grave like a blender on "puree".

And to what end? Why the Lucasian revisionist false ending? So that Peter Jackson and company can afford, I don't know, to put golden toilet seats in the fleet of lear jets they'll be purchasing after the next TWO films come out. And I'll STILL pay to see them, dammit. Not in 3D, though...and sure as shit not in any 60 FPS mumbo jumbo. Like An Unexpected Journey, I'll be watching the BS-free versions of the next two.

The best cinematic adaptation of this fine ol' yarn remains the Rankin / Bass made-for-TV cartoon of the '70s. Watch THAT, then come back and tell me Jackson's was a worthy attempt.

Hi, by the way.