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Re-watching the extended editions and really hope they use the Hobbit as a excuse to rerelease them in the theaters for a week or two. Just to get people hyped.
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Dec 24, 2011 04:03
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I don't really think Bombadil is a Maiar, or Eru - honestly, I like the idea that he is something else entirely that has no obvious explanation within the mythos. Like Tolkien says, it's important to have enigmatic and inexplicable beings. They give the world mystery and intrigue, and I love the concept of Bombadil as an entity that is utterly immortal and exists on his terms and for his own reasons. I've always loved the chapters that involve him in FotR, they're some of my favorites. It's funny, because even though I adore the character of Bombadil, I really was not bothered that they left him out of the film. In a way, I'm glad they did. Bombadil himself would absolutely want no part of being in a film, you know? Maybe that's a silly thing to say, but I honestly believe it. I don't think the character is well-suited to the medium, in some strange fashion. He just would make absolutely no sense within that context, and in an odd way I prefer that his existence remains a tiny bit more secretive.
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Dec 24, 2011 05:15
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Den of Lies posted:Production Video #5! http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10150554790416807 I just want to say that Peter Jackson seems like the chillest dude and really cool to work with. Is it possible to hate the man? I submit it is not.
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Dec 24, 2011 06:15
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TheBigBudgetSequel posted:Bingo. My dad read me The Hobbit when I was no bigger THAN a Hobbit. Then in the summer of 2001 he handed me Fellowship of the Ring. "This is a sequel to the Hobbit. A movie is coming out this Christmas. Read the book beforehand." When I was in the sixth grade, our English teacher, Mr. Compton (bless you Mr. C, wherever you are!) read to us after our lunch period. He first read to us "The Great Escape." (!) The next book he read to us was "The Hobbit." I'll never forget that, and I'll love that man till I die.
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Dec 24, 2011 06:43
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I don't know if anybody played Lord of the Rings Online like my huge nerd self but I loved their depiction of Tom Bombadil. In that I loved how this godlike figure was a drunken Kentucky hillbilly.
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Dec 24, 2011 09:50
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With his weird songs and silly dancing he basically is.
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Dec 24, 2011 10:24
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I always thought Tom Bombadil was just a hairsbreadth away from sitting back and saying, "whoa, DUUUuuuuuUUuude. That's some harsh stuff!" and letting out the most incredible breath of pipe-hemp smoke. I think the writers of "Bored of the Rings" pretty much nailed his character. It's not a far jump from "Hey dol! merry dol! ring a dong dillo! Ring a dong! hop along! fal lal the willow! Tom Bom, jolly Tom, Tom Bombadillo!" to "Toke-a-lid! Smoke a lid! Pop the mescalino! Stash the hash! Gonna crash! make mine methedrino! Hop a hill! Pop a pill! For old Tim Benzedrino!"
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Dec 24, 2011 18:09
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I always wondered just how much 60s counterculture appeal LotR would have attained if it hadn't been for ol' Tom.
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Dec 24, 2011 19:16
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Holy poo poo I had no idea Elijah Wood was only 19 when they filmed fellowship.. and now he's 30.. 
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Dec 24, 2011 19:48
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TheBigBudgetSequel posted:Bingo. My dad read me The Hobbit when I was no bigger THAN a Hobbit. Then in the summer of 2001 he handed me Fellowship of the Ring. "This is a sequel to the Hobbit. A movie is coming out this Christmas. Read the book beforehand." What's up, buddy  My dad read me the Hobbit when I was I think 5 or so, and I made my mom re-read me the chapter Spiders and Flies so many times, eventually she said she wouldn't do it anymore. So I worked extra hard in kindergarten to learn to read so I could read it myself. After that, my bedtime stories were a chapter of LotR a night, until they were finished. I was so excited when the first movie came out (I was ten), I could have burst. This trailer made me feel exactly like an overexcited ten year-old again 
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Dec 24, 2011 20:19
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Effingham posted:When I was in the sixth grade, our English teacher, Mr. Compton (bless you Mr. C, wherever you are!) read to us after our lunch period. He first read to us "The Great Escape." (!) Why were you being read to when you were in the sixth grade?
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Dec 24, 2011 21:07
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Relayer posted:Holy poo poo I had no idea Elijah Wood was only 19 when they filmed fellowship.. and now he's 30.. Yeah, when i heard him i tought he is old now... but then i remember i'm 30 too
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Dec 24, 2011 21:14
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Timby posted:Why were you being read to when you were in the sixth grade? In 6th grade my teacher had The Hobbit on tape and we followed along in our own books. Kind of the same :\
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Dec 24, 2011 21:31
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kaworu posted:I don't really think Bombadil is a Maiar, or Eru - honestly, I like the idea that he is something else entirely that has no obvious explanation within the mythos. Like Tolkien says, it's important to have enigmatic and inexplicable beings. They give the world mystery and intrigue, and I love the concept of Bombadil as an entity that is utterly immortal and exists on his terms and for his own reasons. I've always loved the chapters that involve him in FotR, they're some of my favorites. It's also a fair point that adding Bombadil would arguably hurt the building of the one ring as such a menacing object, if you see some random forest guy tossing it around and playing with it like it's a loaded die, and whose powers have absolutely no effect on him. Tolkien is lying though - I think Bombadil serial killed all the Entwives.
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Dec 25, 2011 01:38
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Supreme Allah posted:It's also a fair point that adding Bombadil would arguably hurt the building of the one ring as such a menacing object, if you see some random forest guy tossing it around and playing with it like it's a loaded die, and whose powers have absolutely no effect on him. Y'know, that's what Peter Jackson or someone said in the commentary, and it's sort of one of the commonly accepted reasons for leaving Bombadil out of the films, but I'm not sure. At first I pretty much agreed with the sentiment because it made sense, but in reality I just don't really think it's true. For one thing, in the books it absolutely did not make the ring any less menacing, at least not for me. In many ways, it made the ring (and the world of Middle-Earth in general) even scarier and bigger, in some ways. Hear me out - by that point in the story, we've read Shadow of the Past (which is the key chapter that makes The One Ring a terrifying object and outlines the quest) and we understand that it's perilous, evil, dangerous, and must be destroyed. We feel like we know exactly what the ring is, what it does, how it works, and why. Then Tom Bombadil comes along, and this rather jolly, mysterious fellow is wholly unaffected by the ring and plays with it like a silly trinket. This made the ring even scarier to me, in a way, and way more mysterious. It made me realize that we may we think we know what this thing is - how it works and how everybody is affected by it - but in truth, we really don't. Nor do we know who or what Bombadil is, even though he appears to be human - I thought it made him seem even a little bit sinister. And basically, I think that's the effect the scene has. Rather than downplaying the danger of the ring, it impresses upon the viewer that things may not be quite what they seem at first glance, which I find is both interesting and frightening in its own way. I mean, PJ might be right, and depending on how he filmed the scene it could have made the ring seem less important; but I think he could have easily framed it such that the viewer came away from it even more intrigued and curious about what the ring is, and why it has such an incredibly wide range of effects depending on who is wielding it. kaworu fucked around with this message at 04:04 on Dec 25, 2011 |
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Dec 25, 2011 04:00
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I can't imagine Tom Bombadil being in the film being anything other than a pace killer. The most they could possibly get away with without making the audience want to leave is to skip right to the barrows and then have Tom save them, introduce himself as a friend of Gandalf or something then let them be on their way. Even that would be pushing it in what was a 2 hours and 45 min. movie.
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Dec 25, 2011 04:24
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kaworu posted:Y'know, that's what Peter Jackson or someone said in the commentary, and it's sort of one of the commonly accepted reasons for leaving Bombadil out of the films, but I'm not sure. At first I pretty much agreed with the sentiment because it made sense, but in reality I just don't really think it's true. For one thing, in the books it absolutely did not make the ring any less menacing, at least not for me. In many ways, it made the ring (and the world of Middle-Earth in general) even scarier and bigger, in some ways. I agree with all of this, but Jackson and Co. made the right decision with leaving him out. For some, it may be like you said. For moviegoers who don't bother looking further into poo poo, they'll think he's an annoying, boring, bearded hippie gently caress.
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Dec 25, 2011 05:22
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Can't find the article now but still want to show it to a friend. Does any one remember the story/article where they talked about why the Battle of Bywater and burning of the shire was left out of the movies?
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Dec 25, 2011 06:07
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Darth Freddy posted:Can't find the article now but still want to show it to a friend. Does any one remember the story/article where they talked about why the Battle of Bywater and burning of the shire was left out of the movies? Don't know the article, but probably because it messes with the whole dramatic arc of destroying the Ring. Also, RotK didn't need another ending, it had five already.
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Dec 25, 2011 06:53
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Yeah, the special features indicate that the Scouring of the Shire works as a long denouement to the Ring arc in novel form, but in a film that is already going to have a very long denouement for a film it'd be a mess for the vast majority of viewers.
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Dec 25, 2011 07:14
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MortonTheCranium posted:I agree with all of this, but Jackson and Co. made the right decision with leaving him out. For some, it may be like you said. For moviegoers who don't bother looking further into poo poo, they'll think he's an annoying, boring, bearded hippie gently caress. I honestly do understand why he was cut, and I do think it was the correct decision to make. I just don't really think that having him screw around with the ring downplays the dramatic tension or makes it seem any less powerful, I think that the issue is more complex than that and the ring itself deserves a little more respect as a character in its own right. It's not some mindless evil power in object form that must always be portrayed as all-powerful and deeply feared by everyone in the book/film. Showing that someone like Bombadil could care less about it really adds dimension to the "character" of the ring, so to speak. I was way more upset that the Scouring of the Shire was left out in RotK than Bombadil. For one thing, I think that FotR was a far, far better film that RotK in a number of ways. I won't get into it all right now, but I have significant disagreements with what they changed in RotK and how they structured the film in terms of content and pacing. I was so incredibly disappointed with that film in so many ways, because to me it represented an absolute misunderstanding of what the books were truly about. PJ said over and over again that he made the changes he did for the sake of keeping the level of tension consistent throughout the film and giving all the characters various things to do, but I really think that's a total cop-out - he made the film he wanted to make, and that was a big-budget special effects-laden war film complete with multiple, lengthy battle scenes that (to me) just made my eyes glaze over eventually. He could have easily made a more challenging, thoughtful, quiet film that focused much more on the aftermath of the quest (like the book itself) and it could have worked out really well. I mean, I honestly think that PJ should have followed the structure of the book more closely, and ended the quest at the halfway point of the film. The entire second half should have been one long denouement, including the scouring, and the film should have dealt much more with the characters than with all the epic battles (which actually don't take up too much space in the books at all, really). I get why PJ did what he did, but I'll never fully agree with it. This is why I still have some fears about the Hobbit. I swear, if PJ makes an incredibly long Battle of the Five Armies sequence that comprises like fully one half of the second movie, I'm going to be pretty upset. And the sad thing is that I wouldn't even be surprised if that's what we wind up getting 
kaworu fucked around with this message at 11:12 on Dec 25, 2011 |
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Dec 25, 2011 11:09
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After watching that video diary, I'd give my left nut to live in "Hobbiton". drat that place looks gorgeous.
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Dec 25, 2011 15:22
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Regarding ROTK, I'm sorry but I don't think any film could work with the climax occurring halfway through the running time. I mean, people already complain about the movie taking forever to end, but having an hour long denouement just to fit in a favorite part of the book is just a big mistake in terms of pacing.
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Dec 25, 2011 16:19
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The Scouring wouldn't really show anything other than how Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pip have grown, and we know that anyway from intimately following them for the past 9 hours. They've all had their big and small moments. Plus they'd have to rework the entire sequence at Isengard at the onset of RotK so as to explain away Saruman and Wormtongue surviving and running amok in the Shire, and essentially just having Pippin randomly pick the Palantir out of the waters as they're leaving. There's just too many little problems to make it work.
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Dec 25, 2011 16:25
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kaworu posted:I was way more upset that the Scouring of the Shire was left out in RotK than Bombadil. For one thing, I think that FotR was a far, far better film that RotK in a number of ways. I won't get into it all right now, but I have significant disagreements with what they changed in RotK and how they structured the film in terms of content and pacing. I was so incredibly disappointed with that film in so many ways, because to me it represented an absolute misunderstanding of what the books were truly about. PJ said over and over again that he made the changes he did for the sake of keeping the level of tension consistent throughout the film and giving all the characters various things to do, but I really think that's a total cop-out - he made the film he wanted to make, and that was a big-budget special effects-laden war film complete with multiple, lengthy battle scenes that (to me) just made my eyes glaze over eventually. Scouring would have killed the film. I'm sorry, but it would have. For people like you and I, who know what its about and why its there, it would have been fine. For 90 percent of the movie-going audience the response would have been "Wait...the ring is gone, isn't that the point? What's going on NOW?" Like it or not, the trilogy was crafted to be pleasing to a very wide audience. The majority of people who saw the movies had never read Tolkien's books, and not making the changes they made would have hamstrung the film. They would not have been nearly as successful.
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Dec 25, 2011 17:53
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Also, the Scouring would have taken at the very least 30 minutes to tell, i have a hard time imagining putting an extra 30 minutes on any edition of the movie (and i can imagine much better things to include from the books than this), and there isnt anything that they could cut out to make room for it. And honestly, even in the books the Scouring feels out of place and like an additional ending.
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Dec 25, 2011 18:17
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Some things just work better in a movie setting than a book setting, and vice versa. The Natural is one of the most beloved baseball movies of all time, particularly for its iconic scoreboard-shattering triumphant end. The book it was based on, equally well loved, ended in defeat and disgrace. So hey.
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Dec 25, 2011 18:25
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ComposerGuy posted:Like it or not, the trilogy was crafted to be pleasing to a very wide audience. The majority of people who saw the movies had never read Tolkien's books, and not making the changes they made would have hamstrung the film. They would not have been nearly as successful. That is so true, I must confess I had never read the books before the movie. The books were only available in big cities, and the only people I knew that had the books were a small group of nerdy Dungeon & Dragons players. The reason I was so excited with LORT was because I am a die-hard fan of epic fantasy movies, and grew up watching things like Willow,The Beastmaster,etc,etc. I seriously missed the excitement of unknown worlds like this one, and that along made me see the Fellowship of the Ring like 6-7 times in theaters. So, I'm going to be as excited with The Hobbit, that's a movie that will deserve all money.
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Dec 25, 2011 18:30
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Desperado Bones posted:That is so true, I must confess I had never read the books before the movie. The books were only available in big cities, and the only people I knew that had the books were a small group of nerdy Dungeon & Dragons players. Then after I had just finished Moria the next place we stayed only had Towers and Return and I didn't actually read the end of Fellowship until years later
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Dec 25, 2011 18:39
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As a lifelong nerd LotR was unique for me as I could never find the inner hook to put up with Tolkien prose--though that has changed since I've seen the movies and found the appeal of the epic. Unlike almost every other nerd property I consumed, I was able to take the LotR movies pretty much exclusively on their own merits and in that respect they knocked the ball out of the park. When I found out about all the little things they changed I could empathize, but I also think the appeal of the movies would have been compromised a lot if it didn't have as many "conventional" structures as it did. As someone who really likes LotR, it's very hard to make it sexy and 'cool' in a "modern America" sense and things like Bombadil or the Scouring of the Shire would have definitely alienated audience members who already considered LotR "arthouse" by their common media habits.
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Dec 25, 2011 18:39
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Desperado Bones posted:That is so true, I must confess I had never read the books before the movie. The books were only available in big cities, and the only people I knew that had the books were a small group of nerdy Dungeon & Dragons players. Where are you from that books are only available in big cities?
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Dec 25, 2011 19:25
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Nihonniboku posted:Where are you from that books are only available in big cities? "Were". I used to live in the Southeast of Mexico, internet and other services as we know it took a while to get there. And the place is highly hardcore Christian, so everything that has no Jesus is EVIL. I remember these guys told me how one of them traveled to Mexico City and got it there, and how they had to borrow it around so everyone could read it. So yeah, I didn't get my hands on the majority of the nice books I like until big stores started to pop around, nowadays is easier to find them, besides there's certain book-store that sells online.
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Dec 25, 2011 23:08
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Darth Freddy posted:Re-watching the extended editions and really hope they use the Hobbit as a excuse to rerelease them in the theaters for a week or two. Just to get people hyped. They did this this past summer.
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Dec 26, 2011 02:21
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Desperado Bones posted:"Were". I know this is Something Awful, but you should go on Reddit and do a AMA
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Dec 26, 2011 04:47
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Timby posted:Why were you being read to when you were in the sixth grade? It was a reward for the class behaving, and it was just... entertaining. Not that many kids were readers in the large sense, and Mr. C. was trying to expose them to some good stuff.
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Dec 26, 2011 04:53
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My dad is a huge LOTR/Hobbit nut so I put the trailer on my laptop and showed it to him. First thing he said when it was over was that he wanted to watch it again right then.  I'm really glad it looks like they're leaving the songs in because they're just really fun in The Hobbit. Although it will be hard to not compare them to the old Rankin/Bass versions.
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Dec 26, 2011 06:18
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kaworu posted:He could have easily made a more challenging, thoughtful, quiet film that focused much more on the aftermath of the quest (like the book itself) and it could have worked out really well. I mean, I honestly think that PJ should have followed the structure of the book more closely, and ended the quest at the halfway point of the film. The entire second half should have been one long denouement, including the scouring, and the film should have dealt much more with the characters than with all the epic battles (which actually don't take up too much space in the books at all, really). I get why PJ did what he did, but I'll never fully agree with it. I would have loved seeing all of the post-Mount-Doom stuff on an Extended Edition in the comfort of my own home because I am a goony Tolkien sperglord. However, the majority of the cinema audience are not enormous sperges, and would not really respond favourably to a story that reaches its dramatic conclusion halfway through the running time. Out of all of the "casual" LotR fans that I have spoken to in real life (and by "casual" I'm including largely the people that loved the films but either hadn't read the book, or read the book afterwards - and yes they are the major part of the movie audience), pretty much all of them found the post-coronation scenes fairly boring or tedious and just an anticlimactic chore now that the ring had been destroyed and all dramatic story arcs had been resolved. I think the Theatrical version of RotK should have ended after the coronation scene. Even I struggle getting through the Grey Havens stuff if I watch the film in one sitting, and I'm a massive fan of the films and books. Jackson took a huge risk including just the stuff that we did see - to add anything more than that would have been cinematic suicide.
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Dec 26, 2011 18:12
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As someone who had never even read a lotr book before seeing the movies, I thought the battles were some of the weakest points in the movies. Especially the conclusion to each battle which seemed to always be "another army shows up and then the enemy dies in droves". Ghost army sucked and the ending to the battle at helms deep was pretty poor as well with the horsemen showing up and destroying the orcs like they were nothing The first movie was by far the best and didn't need an epic "army vs army" fight at all
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Dec 26, 2011 19:03
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Zzulu posted:As someone who had never even read a lotr book before seeing the movies, I thought the battles were some of the weakest points in the movies. Especially the conclusion to each battle which seemed to always be "another army shows up and then the enemy dies in droves". Ghost army sucked and the ending to the battle at helms deep was pretty poor as well with the horsemen showing up and destroying the orcs like they were nothing Ghost Army indeed was a cop out, but I'm amazed how someone could diss the TTT Rohirrim charge. Anyway, the resolution of the big battle in The Hobbit, if it plays out exactly as in the book, risks coming across as just a big parody of the battles in LotR - yes, again it features another big army swooping in at the last minute to save the day, although in this case, they are the Eagles and Beorn. What the Battle of Five Armies does have going for it though, is the build-up before the fighting actually starts; a stand-off utterly unlike anything seen in LotR.
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Dec 26, 2011 19:19
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Zzulu posted:Ghost army sucked and the ending to the battle at helms deep was pretty poor as well with the horsemen showing up and destroying the orcs like they were nothing Yeah it was kind of annoying how the ghost army just completely destroys everything in five seconds. But the ending of TT was amazing when Gandalf charges down the mountain and they pull back to that wide slow-mo shot with the music and gahhhh that scene is so cool. It was kind of necessary too, because the whole thing about Helm's Deep was that it was completely hopeless without them. But then yeah, when it basically just happens again on a larger scale in RoTK it was sorta lame.
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Dec 26, 2011 21:54
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