Why The Hobbit felt inferior from The Lord of the Rings

Although there are lots of stuff from The Lord of the Rings Trilogy that Peter Jackson managed to incorporate in his latest Hobbit Trilogy, there are still some that were failed to be included to improve the films. The Hobbit Trilogy successfully mirrored (and most of the time improved) the technicalities of LOTR. The fight scenes are impressive and the visual effects are a lot better. What Jackson failed to integrate in the prequel series is the emotional connection of every character to the audience.

There's a reason why we didn't feel any impact when Thorin or Kili died. It is because we haven't invested our feelings for them. We saw them fighting and altogether venturing their journey of a lifetime, yet we didn't see them interact as much as Sam and Frodo in LOTR. That's why the end result felt cheap and powerless. The little things like Gimli and Legolas's funny moments, Merry and Pippin's filling around, and Sam's monologues about bravery and friendship, let us cultivate the feelings that they implanted in our hearts. Things like these made the movies unforgettable. Neglecting them made the Hobbit series as generic as all of the fantasy films that stemmed out of the The Lord of the Ring's legacy.

Probability and Sherlock Holmes

I was always concerned on how Sir Arthur Conan Doyle uses probability to justify Sherlock Holmes's evidence in indicting a certain suspect. He always assumes that the more the events there are to imply, the higher the probability for the whole scenario to happen. The truth is actually the opposite. The more uncertain events you're presenting to prove a point, the lower the probability that we get the right conclusion.

For example, if you saw a man with a dirt on his shoe. You could imply from this that the man didn't cleaned his shoe last night. You can imply from this that the man is probably tired last night and doesn't have the time to clean it up. You can imply from this again that he probably have gone to party last night, that's why he didn't get time to clean his shoes. It can go on and on until you land to a conclusion that the man has a dog in his house.

The problem arises when you put implication over another implications. Because you are never sure in every implication, the probability of the whole scenario that the man has a dog will be diminished. To address this problem you need to put another evidence to improve every level of implication. For example you know that it didn't rain morning of that day, then the event of him cleaning his shoe last night will be more probable to happen. Doyle uses this most the time. He puts more evidences in every level of Sherlock's implication. Still, we are uncertain in every conjecture that we devise, no matter what happen, the conclusion that we get that the man has a dog in his house will be more uncertain to happen. It is not the other way around that if we deal with more implications, the higher the certainty for the conclusion to be true, even if you could see that the whole story fits.

The Lord of the Rings re-release

Since The Hobbit film series already ended, are there any plans in re-releasing The Lord of the Rings film series? Kind of what they did with Titanic wherein they re-edit it to be released in 3D. I still remember watching The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey in 3D and although the film is not as good as any of the LOTR films, the experience I had watching it is still great, mainly because of how good the 3D-ness was done. Imagine watching the original trilogy in breathtakingly good quality.  It could also gave them opportunity to repolish those effects they did on the original series that are not that good since the technology nowadays is better. I kind of hoping they will thought of releasing it on 2021, the 20 years after they released The Fellowship of the Ring.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child review

Albus Severus is having a hard time being overshadowed by his overly famous father, Harry Potter. In order to create his own name in the wizarding world, he and his friend, Scorpius Malfoy, will embark upon a task to change the past and save a life. Meanwhile, secrets from the past are being unravelled and new dark forces are coming about. The new generation of the wizarding world is again in deep trouble.

The first part of The Cursed Child was really nostalgic. It brings us again to the epilogue of The Deathly Hollows where Albus is first time to ride the Hogwarts Express and is discussing to his father the possibilities of him being sorted to Slytherin. Hogwarts had changed, yet certain customs like sorting students in their respective houses using The Sorting Hat is still present. The entire premise is intelligent and imaginative. Using the time turner to save a life of a deceased character is a great fun to read. It tickles the mind of the readers on some possibilities on what might have happened if Dumbledore's army lost the Battle of Hogwarts. It also lets us meet some of the characters that had passed away in the battle. The new generation of characters are colorful and they didn't drag the whole story down. Scorpius and Albus forms a great tandem that is reminiscent of the book series' trio: Harry, Ron and Hermione.

There some instances that they included plots in the book that is not on par with their universe. Things like the escape from the Hogwarts Express (seriously, that thing is dumb), the quickly made polyjuice potion just to fit the story, and somehow out of the blue conversation about fears of pigeons. I imagine lots of the diehard Harry Potter fans cringing on those scenes. Also, other key characters are not present in the story. Neville Longbottom (my favorite character in the book series) didn't join the old gang. Neville is actually a faculty member of Hogwarts now and most of the plot is in the school, that is why it is hard to understand why they didn't give him any parts of the story.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a  satisfying yet flawed continuation of the beloved franchise. It brings back all the memories we have from the original book series and gives us one last taste of the magic it brought to us, although it doesn't offer more than nostalgia.