An unexpected disappointment

I had a sad realization today while walking through a Target. Actually, I had the realization earlier, and then I had it again--can you have a realization twice... I mean, I could say "I had a hamburger yesterday, and I had a hamburger today," but I guess if it were the same hamburger both times that would be gross.

Well. Anyway. Today in Target I passed a display of DVDs and Blu-Rays of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. My realization was not that, hey, The Hobbit is out on video now. My realization is that I had no desire to buy it.

This came as a bit of a shock for me. Understand that there was no question in my mind about getting any of the Lord of the Rings trilogy special edition DVDs. (Not that I bought it--but I made dern sure I got it for Christmas.) So did basically everyone I knew. Remember that when these DVDs came out I lived with three other people. Through most of college we had four copies of the trilogy between us. It wasn't a matter of having access to the movies--there were lots of things I never owned in college because one of my roommates had one.

I don't want to wax too exuberant about the connection my friends and I had with that movie--I really think a lot of people felt the same way--but it was something more than you can get from a really good movie, or from fully leveraging really popular IP. I speak now in the language of the enemy, because I think the enemy really needs to hear that. The reason the Lord of the Rings movies made so much money, and lasted so long as a cultural force, is because people loved them--in a sense that is not just a more intense version of "like."

What possibly makes me sadder than my disappointment in The Hobbit 1/3 itself is the sense that the people in charge of it made too much money to register that they screwed up. But I saw Return of the King three or four times in theaters. I saw The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey once in the theater and, three months later, don't want so much to see it again as I would like to un-see about a third of it.

In the language of the enemy, take $10 for a movie ticket, multiply by two repeat viewings. Add the cost of a special-edition Blu-Ray. Multiply all that by the number of people who think more or less like me.

There's more missed opportunity than actual profit.

Back when it was almost timely I made my opinions on The Hobbit known. Specifically, I said:

I am more optimistic about the second movie than I might be. It will probably consist mostly of fanfic about the White Council and the Necromancer, but I will give that a go if Necky is a more compelling villain than Azog.

It's actually a little frightening how effective TH:tUJ's artistic triage was. Fred and Satan both knew what notes would have to play true in order for fans to come back for part 2/3. What absolutely had to work really worked, but there was lot of slack in between.

 That's what I thought just after seeing it. Three months later, if The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug came out next week, I think I'd read a few reviews. I'd wait and see.