TDKR or The Hobbit: Which has a bigger standard to live up to?

[AniNate]

George Lucas made a lot of crap movies between ROTJ and TPM. Yet, everyone ignored said crap films.Kong and Lovely Bones will play zero role in people's expectations for The Hobbit. Zero. Almost everyone will feel as if this is Jackson's baby and that he knows what he is doing because he did such a great job with the LOTR trilogy. Anyway, most moviegoers forgot Jackson did Kong, and especially Lovely Bones. Just like movie-goers forgot about Howard the Duck.

Lucas didn't actually direct Howard the Duck, or any movie for that matter between A New Hope and The Phantom Menace. So it's easy to overlook those other movies on his resume. The Lovely Bones however was a Peter Jackson movie and there is no way around it.While expectations are certainly still high for The Hobbit, I don't think they're so high now that only getting a 70-80% on RT would come as an absolute shock, which I think would be the case for The Dark Knight Rises. Edited December 25, 2011 by tribefan695

[darthdevidem01]

The Dark Knight RisesDue to Inception and TDK the expectation of top notch quality from Nolan is soooo high. Not many directors have ever delivered such consistently good movies, can he do it again? Who knows.Same with the box office....it's hard to live up to TDK as it had so much going for it with Ledger's story and everything.Why not Hobbit? It's well known the book is a less ambitious than LOTR...automatically expectations in terms of how epic the movie will be is grounded.

[Bluebomb]

But then there was King Kong, which I think made everyone's expectations a bit lower. Not that it was a bad movie, but I think people are ready for a good to masterpiece, where The Dark Knight Rises fans are only looking for a masterpiece.

Like CloneWars said, people are not going to factor in King Kong as a reason not to see The Hobbit when he created a great trilogy in the LOTR...the one that The Hobbit is tied into. (of course, it's not a sequel but the setting/atmosphere is tied in)It might make them pause and think a bit harder but they'll most likely gloss over it and return to thinking of that great LOTR trilogy masterpiece that he envisioned.

[AniNate]

But that's the thing, there won't be any pausing or thinking harder with TDKR. Nolan has not done anything yet that could possibly temper expectations there.

[glassfairy]

The Hobbit of course. It's based on one of the best selling, most beloved, classic children's books of all time and comes after the most well received movie trilogy of all time. The Lord of the Rings in both movie and book form was nothing less than magic. The Hobbit book is nothing less than magic and I expect both movies will live up to the standard of the book and trilogy movies. When you have consistently received perfection you come to expect it. And fans of Tolkien have come to expect it. Anything less will be failure.

[Bluebomb]

But that's the thing, there won't be any pausing or thinking harder with TDKR. Nolan has not done anything yet that could possibly temper expectations there.

Except that the Joker is no longer here. It doesn't matter if Nolan has a stunning record and Jackson has a few recent flops...all that matters is that:1. LOTR trilogy = masterpiece2. Heath Ledger gone = lower expectations for TDKRHeath Ledger's brilliant acting had a lot to do with the rave reviews that it got in the first place AND the box office that it took home with. What will heighten expectations this time around? Nolan? Inception made people more aware of him (if they weren't with TDK) but it missed out on the most important awards of all. No Best Picture. Not even a Best Director nomination. ROTK won 11 awards that includes those 2 categories. How is the Hobbit even going to match up to ROTK's success?Despite Nolan's track record and Peter Jackson's stumbles, The Hobbit has more going for it in terms of real high expectations than The Dark Knight Rises.

[Ozymandias]

Probably The Hobbit. Its coming off the back of a 3 billion dollar trilogy that together won enough Oscars to sink the Titanic.

[Hatebox]

TDKR, simply because Nolan is, following Inception, considered a bigger deal than Jackson at this point in time and TDKR will be an original story so there's more room to screw it up. The impression I get is that most Hobbit fans are just happy Jackson has returned at all, and the trailer makes it plain that the story isn't as big as LOTR was.

Edited January 2, 2012 by Hatebox

[75Live]

Tough one here, but I think I am going to go with TDKR. I think people are prepared that the Hobbit will be "less" than the trilogy just due to knowing the book. Whereas, people are thinking TDKR needs to somehow be better than TDK or somehow it is a "failure".My guess is both will be great, but as said earlier in the thread, if TDKR goes south financially, the industry will be sweating.

[fmpro]

Hobbit by a lanslide

[cookie]

IMO Hobbit isn't exactly setting itself up as LOTR 2.0. As Hatebox said, the scope judging by the synopsis and the trailer feels a lot smaller than any of those three films, not to mention that the Hobbit book came out decades before LOTR and was more of a children's book than it's successor. I just don't think Jackson is trying to top the trilogy with this one.TDKR however is definitely trying to top TDK or at least live up to it.

Edited January 6, 2012 by C00k13

[The Dark Alfred]

The Hobbit is not challenging. We know what we're going to get after three LOTR films. The standard will be the same, I doubt that many will be disappointed. But when it comes to TDKR, there are so many uncertain factors, which make it more interesting and riskier project, also a chance for a letdown is higher, same as the glorification, not many expect it to top TDK. I think the LOTR fans expect to get exactly the same quality, you can't really ask for more after the trilogy, can you?

Edited January 6, 2012 by The Dark Alfred

[Bluebomb]

If LOTR fans expect to get the same quality, wouldn't that make them have high expectations based on how good the quality was for the first 3 films? People expect great things for the Hobbit due to how well the previous films were received and its critical success.I think the loss of Heath Ledger will moderate expectations for a lot of people. He was a catalyst for bringing people in to see it and his unfortunate demise at that time accelerated things. What he did on The Dark Knight was nothing short of incredible but him not coming back this time around leaves a lot of question marks especially surrounding the new villain(s) and such. That doesn't mean The Dark Knight Rises is not highly anticipated though. It will be but expectations might have tempered just a bit because of the change in villains.

[Warhorse]

The Hobbit, without a doubt. LOTR movies are masterpieces. Nolan's Batman movies I don't think are. He got good performances out of Ledger, Eckhart and Oldman, but then again, they are excellent actors and you'd have to be a really shitty director to get bad performances out of them, but I don't care for Bale as Batman, however, I do love him in his other movies!