Classic reimagining

“Reports that Cate Blanchett and Orlando Bloom will reprise their Lord of the Rings roles in The Hobbit suggest [Peter] Jackson’s two-part production may be more epic than its source material,” the Guardian’s Ben Childs predicts. “Jackson is able to take full control of The Hobbit’s pitch and timbre to ensure it maintains consanguinity with its predecessor films. And according to recent reports, it seems that he’s intending to do that by bringing back characters from The Lord of the Rings who might feasibly appear in the new film, even though they were not in the book. By feasible… well, let’s just say the New Zealand director seems to have a fairly loose understanding of the word.”