"And Now For the Conclusion..." -- My Thoughts on Two-Part Films

Out of all the recent trends that has taken the film industry by storm or at the very least buzzing - be it 3D, high-def digital projection, same-time-as-in-theaters cable movie streaming, midnight premieres, etc. - there is one lately that has struck me as down right cheap and annoying as hell. These are being the new two-parter films. Not to be confused with sequels, which continue in its predecessor's story but in a different arc, but films that take a single story arc, but release them in episodic content. For those who are gamers, think of it as game developers who are releasing games like Half-Life 2 and Sonic 4 in little snippets. Much in the same spirit, these films are released within months of each other, rather than the typical one to two year recesses between sequels that film franchises usually follow. Some of the most fan-anticipated film adaptations, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, and (one I am excited about solely on the fact it finally got greenlit by Warner Bros.) Peter Jackson's The Hobbit are said to be following this.

So begs the question: why the hell are filmmakers doing this? Why can't any of these films just be shortened to a single film? The Harry Potter film series have lasted six movies and garnered enough critical and commercial success with the one-book/one-film ratio. Same with The Lord of the Rings. As much as I hate to agree, even Twilight has done fine with the traditional routine. So why? Money, most likely. As if we should be surprised that Hollywood is more than willing to try marketing gimmicks to attract zealous fanboys/fangirls everywhere for their wallet-money, right? While fans won't mind, do we really need to prolong the Twilight films, and the evil it spawns in it's wake, any longer with more sequels? The Hobbit, as I recall, wasn't any bigger than any of the single entries of the main Lord of the Rings books. So is it really necessary for two films to cover the events of one book?

Now some can argue that this allows the films to dive further into the universe that the books established that films only scratch the surface of. True. But let's be frank here. Books, and movies, are two totally separate beasts each with their own limitations and triumphs. While trying to stay true to the source material is great and should be always encouraged whenever an adaptation is done, people tend to forget that, at times, less is sometimes  better than more. Films may never dive so much into the characters as the books do, but let's not delude ourselves thinking we should devote more screen time to character or universe development means the film would be any better. And trying to match every event that was written in the book to appear the same way in the film is just ridiculous, not too mention, redundant in a filmmaking standpoint. In order for some things to work in a film adaptation, some things are going to have to be omitted. What are omitted and how can make/break a adaptation, but as long as all the important pieces are in place, it's safe to say that any other changes are easier to forgive and glance over.

It is my opinion that each film, game, book, comic, whatever should be able to be it's own stand-alone story. If part of an ongoing saga or epic, each entry should tackle a certain partition, wrap enough loose ends so that there is closure, but leave enough for us to want to what happens next. Have you ever read/played/watched something that suddenly left you hanging abruptly in the middle of the action? Right in the middle of the action? I have. And while it will definitely spark an interest to see what happens next, more often than naught I find myself getting annoyed because it took such a cheap way out. You could say it's like you were given a piece of a cake, you took some bites, then suddenly, an all-powerful force pulls that same piece away and forces you to wait until it decides to give you more of that same small piece. It's tactics like this that piss a member of the audience like myself.