What's that about "The Hobbit and its sequel"? It's two "Hobbit" movies, not "The Hobbit" and a "sequel".

I was hoping for one movie being "The Hobbit", and a second movie to bridge the gap between "Hobbit" and "LotR", but Jackson and del Toro already made clear that this won't be the case. Unfortunately.

To Lenin and Jonas.

Originally, the idea of making two films based in the tolkien universe, they were only making 1 film on the hobbit and a second film that was "undecided" on what it was going to be. The full Hobbit story was to be the 1st film. So, the end of the first film was to be the end of the "hobbit" storyline. The second film was to either be a bridge in the 60 year gap between the hobbit and LOTR or something else completely.

When Del Toro was announced to be the director the plans changed dramatically and Del Toro along with Jackson agreed to make Two films based on the Hobbit. In other words the end of the first film would be around the middle of the book with the second film starting in the middle going all the way to the end of the books storyline.

They altered the idea further by agreeing to actually show where Gandalf ventures off to each time he "disappears". Several times in the hobbit Book, Gandalf mysteriously vanishes and you don't see him again for either a few pages later or even a few chapters. The book never tells where he goes and what he does and why he "Mysteriously" returns. There are other stories from other Tokien books that cover where he went and what he did in these disappearances. Jackson and Del Toro's idea was to incorporate his disappearances as well as where he goes into the films...instead of just leaving it as a "disappearance". They have stuck to that idea so far, as there aren't any reports on this changing so far. When Gandalf "disappears" in the book you don't know what happened to him...in the film version however you will...which is a great way to bring back Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) or even Legolas (Orlando Bloom) back.

A second film is not a sequel unless it is directly related to the previous storyline furthering into the future. If the second film were to be about events that happened before the 1st it would be considered a "prequel"...like LOTR and now the hobbit films. Even though the books were written in order beginning with the Hobbit.

Exactly like the Lord of the Rings actually.. That was one movie.. not a movie and two sequels..

How about, this whole argument is pointless? There will be two movies. Eventually. Someday. We understand that. The end.

Besides, you can't have Gandalf sneaking off to visit Aragorn during the events of The Hobbit, because Gandalf didn't meet Aragorn for the first time until roughly fifteen years later. There is no way to bring Viggo in while remaining even remotely faithful to Tolkien (apart from some potential bookend nonsense).