Hobbit – The Red Pen of Doom

So I posted about the Old Spock vs. New Spock ad by Audi, one of the funniest things in forever, and the one thing that surprisingly cracked everybody up is Leonard Nimoy singing some song about hobbits in his car.

Even funnier: that little throwaway bit is a crazy inside joke referring to an actual song Nimoy sang. How deep does the rabbit hole go? There’s an insane music video, with backup dancers wearing Spock ears, or hobbit ears. IT IS EPIC.

Lyrics to The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins

In the middle of the earth in the land of the Shire
lives a brave little hobbit whom we all admire.
With his long wooden pipe,
fuzzy, woolly toes,
he lives in a hobbit-hole and everybody knows him

Bilbo (Bilbo)
Bilbo Baggins
He’s only three feet tall
Bilbo (Bilbo)
Bilbo Baggins
The bravest little hobbit of them all

Now hobbits are peace-lovin’ folks you know
They don’t like to hurry and they take things slow
They don’t like to travel away from home
They just want to eat and be left alone
But one day Bilbo was asked to go
on a big adventure to the caves below,
to help some dwarves get back their gold
that was stolen by a dragon in the days of old.

Bilbo (Bilbo)
Bilbo Baggins
He’s only three feet tall
Bilbo (Bilbo)
Bilbo Baggins
The bravest little hobbit of them all

Well, he fought with the goblins
He battled a troll!!
He riddled with Gollum!!!
A magic ring he stole!!!
He was chased by wolves,
Lost in the forest,
Escaped in a barrel from the elf-king’s halls!!!!!!!

Bilbo (Bilbo)
Bilbo Baggins
The bravest little hobbit of them all

Now he’s back in his home in the land of the Shire,
that brave little hobbit whom we all admire,
just sittin’ on a treasure of silver and gold
puffin’ on his pipe in his hobbit-hole.

Bilbo (Bilbo)
Bilbo Baggins
He’s only three feet tall
Bilbo (Bilbo)
Bilbo Baggins
The bravest little hobbit of them all

So I’m minding my own business, wandering around the Series of Tubes after finishing all kinds of physical labors, and what strikes my eyeballs?

Only the worst movie poster known to man.

Here it is:

the hobbit, the worst movie poster OF ALL TIME — THE HOBBIT movie poster is seven separate kinds of awful.

This isn’t bad in the usual way. The production values are high. The photograph looks nice. There’s nothing low-budget about this.

HOWEVER: From looking at this poster, and reading the tagline “An unexpected journey,” what do you think this movie is about?

Here are my theories:

Theory Number 1: Gandalf makes an unexpected journey back to the store after he forgets to buy sour cream AGAIN.

Theory Number 2: “Oh, it’s only partly cloudy today, when my weather prediction potion said it would definitely rain. How unexpected! I’ll go for a stroll.”

Theory Number 3: Gandalf, being older than the oldest hobbit’s great-grandfather’s grandfather, is getting rather senile. Every journey he takes is unexpected.

See, here’s the thing: a movie poster needs to express one thing, and one thing alone: conflict.

No conflict, no story.

No story, no movie.

No movie, no audience.

This is why the JAWS movie poster is so powerful and iconic.

Do you have any doubts, whatsoever, about what this movie is about? (Hint: It’s about a killer shark.)

THE HOBBIT poster gives us nothing to work with, no reason to plop down $12 for tickets with funky 3D glasses and $9 for popcorn that costs 26 cents to make and $6 for Diet Coke.

Memo to Hollywood executives: Put the conflict — the villain — on the poster. If you make the poster calm, beautiful and boring, there’s no reason to see a film that cost $230 million to make.