My Problem with Trilogy Movies

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug & The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.

Two great movies I've recently watched on big screen. Both showcased a major improvement to their respective mother in An Unexpected Journey & The Hunger Games. But it is so annoying that the good experience of watching these movies was 'killed' at the very last minute or second of each film; to be continued in the next installment... Anti-climax. In your face!

I knew and understood perfectly that both franchises are book-adaptations. And I understood perfectly that it is difficult to translate what's all within the book onto the big screen, especially if it is a 600-page kinda novel. (Might work as a TV series like Game of Thrones, though.) But here is the problem. There is no balance between what and how to tell a story by some movie-makers.


(Some SPOILERS below.)

1. The Desolation of Smaug

It was a consistently fun movie until Benedict Cumberbatch's Smaug dragon was introduced. It felt like that first dwarves meeting at Bilbo's house in the first Hobbit movie all over again. Yawned. This indirectly resulted in a hanged and 'huh?' ending which made me 'want' to see the third and final Hobbit movie. COME ON! If only Peter Jackson could cut short the dragon's scenes a bit OR just made the dragon went unscripted, which means no Benedict Cumberbatch at all in this sequel, it would give extra rooms and times for a more appropriate ending. Or they could just come up with a better idea for the ending, like...

Make the audience think the dragon is absolutely dead after drowning in the golden liquid only to bring it back in the third Hobbit.

But then, there's one other problem: there's a scene showing Bard taking an arrow off a secret compartment in his house. This might be told in the novel but can they just cut that scene completely from the movie as not to obviously give away what WILL happen next to the arrow and the dragon.

Not all details in a source material make sense as it may serve big loopholes to some. And film-makers shouldn't be 100% devoted to an original source.

As a whole, it is still an entertaining fantasy-flick but it's a shame that The Desolation of Smaug would have been one of the best blockbuster movies this year if not for the over-long scene besides the lazy and, as I suspected it, greedy ending.

2. Catching Fire

It's a near-perfect movie and don't have much complaints. But a small yet annoying thing has ruined it which is the hanged ending. Same case as The Desolation of Smaug here.

My idea?

Erm... passed. I'm kinda okay with this because of Coldplay's Atlas was played during the end-credit. Compensated. Haha.

C'mon Hollywood!