# The Hobbit film trilogy

5 Hacker News commenters recommended The Hobbit film trilogy and 15 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 3 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Recommended for clearer battle scenes in the fan edit and high frame rate versions. Critics say splitting the book into three films padded it out.

## What people warn about

- Split one book into padded films (4 comments): "Someone got greedy and decided to split it up into three movies, and it was such a drag watching all of them" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49080429)) "stretch it out so long that you have to add material, and that doing so can make it worse" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49089515)) "If they managed to make 3 full movies out of The Hobbit" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47513471))
- Departs from the book (3 comments): "The book isn't the epic that the movie makes it out to be." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47218236)) "The Hobbit movies had nothing to do with the books." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46586702)) "both bad adaptations and bad movies" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46592317))
- Weak soundtrack and filmmaking (4 comments): "Hobbit was soso, just because old crew was filming it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47524218)) "the soundtrack to The Hobbit sounds completely generic and boring, and the result is unwatchable." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48162608)) "can still make a really awful movie" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48798140))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [The Odyssey by Christopher Nolan](https://hackerapproved.com/p/odyssey.md): 50 recommend
- [Perfect Days (2023 film)](https://hackerapproved.com/p/perfect-days.md): 19 recommend
- [The Secret Agent (2025 film)](https://hackerapproved.com/p/secret-agent.md): 18 recommend
- [One Battle After Another](https://hackerapproved.com/p/one-battle-after-another.md): 17 recommend
- [The Rocky Horror Picture Show](https://hackerapproved.com/p/rocky-horror-picture-show.md): 15 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "The Hobbit film trilogy", https://hackerapproved.com/p/hobbit-film-trilogy/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).