At Long Last, 'The Hobbit' Has a Director (Officially)

Well of course Guillermo Del Toro is directing The Hobbit. That's old news. But apparently the people involved had to, you know, make it "official."

I, for one, don't like the idea (and that's not just because I've had a long-standing [but fleeting] hope that Peter Jackson and New Line would come to their senses and put the Tolkien-maestro himself behind the camera). I simply think Guillermo's and J.R.R.'s styles are too dichotomous. While they both are drawn to fantastic--but ultimately human--characters, Del Toro's visuals are a bit too metaphoric for my taste, his characters a bit too allegorical. The Hobbit needs to function as a parable, for sure, but above all Tolkien writes about characters. Characters that need the assured hand of a born humanist like Jackson.

I admit that Del Toro's Hobbit may very well be visually stunning (though, perhaps, a bit too dark or dank), because Del Toro certainly has a capable imagination. But to think of the decisiveness and unbridled spirit Jackson could have brought--or the intelligence and reverie someone like Alfonso Cuarón would provide--I feel a bit too disappointed to revel in the thought of a future that holds not one but two new films from Middle Earth.