The Hobbit: The More the Merrier - The NEW Movie Gallery

Peter Jackson is a man who knows what Lord of the Rings fans want. They want more Lord of the Rings movies.

More to the point, they want more of HIS Lord of the Rings movies. Now that The Hobbit is being made into a trilogy, devotees of J.R.R. Tolkien’s mythology-scale fantasy books can rejoice: Three straight Decembers of Dwarfs, Gollum, Bilbo Baggins and Gandalf.

Who could ask for anything more?

Oh you. You always know just what to get us.

Peter Jackson was already king among geeks for the excellent and duly respectful treatment he gave J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy between 2001-2003, but with The Hobbit, the visionary New Zealand director has gone even further.

While The Hobbit was in production, Jackson launched his own YouTube channel of behind-the-scenes Hobbit featurettes, giving his fans the most intimate look possible at the movies being made without actually inviting everyone down on the set. A series of eight videos totaling enough for a full-length feature on their own was the result — Jackson playing the host as if he wasn’t busy enough making what’s already one of 2012’s most anticipated films.

Imagine how ingrained into pop culture a single book has to be before they turn it into not one, not two, but THREE movies. Even Lord of the Rings was one book per movie!

But times have changed, the way books are written has changed, and think of the way young adult fiction has come to prominence over the last decade-plus. Anyone remember a certain boy wizard named Harry Potter? Or maybe a Hunger Games “Most Improved Athlete” award winner named Katniss Everdeen?

Please note, Katniss does not actually win “Most Improved” in The Hunger Games, so that doesn’t count as a spoiler.

The point is, a book like The Hobbit is a part of what makes us who we are as a people, and where the technology has never been there before to bring it to life, both the whole world of Middle Earth and the whole world of effort that goes into making that world are available just a click away.

And that, in case you were wondering, is about as good as it gets.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is in theaters December 14!