The Hobbit: An Unexpected Extended Edition

     My worst Middle-Earth fears are coming true.  The Dark Lord Sauron has deemed turning a 300 page book into 3 movies not enough!  Now he has used his evil arts to add more footage to a bloated movie.  I can't wait until he decree's that Peter Jackson is to pull a George Lucas in 20 years and add entire new CG characters and splice in Tom Bombadil's story.

     I CANNOT be the only person to feel like this when hearing about the extended edition:

     I love the Lord of the Rings films, but The Hobbit is stretching things out too much.  Jackson was right to axe a ton of material, so what happened?  I've said it in plenty of other blog posts- there needs to be an edit to crop all the extra fat off the film. 

     Anyways- we'll be getting more dickish Dwarves in Rivendell, more Goblin Town, Hobbiton, and a Goblin King song.  As well as...

"We are putting things in the extended cut that are going to play straight into the second film," explains Jackson, "like this character Girion, who is defending [the city of] Dale using black arrows against Smaug. And the black arrows play a part in an ongoing story, for they are the one thing that can pierce the dragon's hide." 

"There are also issues with [king of the elves] Thranduil (Lee Pace)," Jackson adds. "We get some of the reason why he and the dwarves had a falling out - to do with these white gems..."

     It sounds like some Silmarillion material to me...

     The extended edition of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey will be released about a month before The Desolation of Smaug's December 13th release date.

Source [Empire Online]