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Admiral Goodenough posted:But then the dwarves wouldn't amount to an unlucky number, meaning an extra expedition member wouldn't be needed That's an interesting question about the book. I don't believe that Gandalf necessarily does thoroughly explain why he chose Bilbo, but he has very good reasons. Gandalf was excellent friends with The Old Took, who was I believe one of the longest-lived hobbits ever before he got beaten by the magic-ring wielding Bilbo at the very end of LotR. The Old Took and his kin were known for going off on adventures with Gandalf, and so the wizard had a very high regard for that particular family of hobbits, feeling that they were considerably more brave and adventurous of spirit than much of their brethren. Of course, most in The Shire considered them to be "queer", in Tolkien's words. One of The Old Took's more notable children was named Belladonna, and Bilbo was her son, whom she had with Bungo Baggins (more of your average hobbit). So I suppose the short answer would be that Gandalf chose Bilbo because he had an extremely high regard for his mother and grandfather, and very likely saw a great deal of potential in him that Bilbo didn't even see in himself - Gandalf, of course, would be able to see such things in certain individuals. I like to think that the "hands of destiny" or some such poetic nonsense would be involved, as well, whether Gandalf or Bilbo or the dwarves were aware of it. And on a related note, looking at that picture of Martin Freeman makes me feel really excited. He is honestly the perfect choice for this role. He not only looks the part, but watching him in some of his other roles (most especially as Watson in Moffat's modern take on Sherlock Holmes) you can just see how he has the potential to truly embody the character, in the same sort of way that Ian McKellen embodied Gandalf. Everything about Freeman works as Bilbo - face, voice, comportment, attitude, style, etc. In many ways, LotR lacked that central, main protagonist for the audience to truly relate to and experience the journey with. I mean, you had Frodo, Aragorn, and Gandalf kind of sharing that role at various points. I think that worked against the LotR films in many ways. The Hobbit should be extremely well-served by having Freeman as a true, traditional protagonist who spends the entire time at the center of the action, more or less. kaworu fucked around with this message at 23:12 on Dec 17, 2011 |
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Dec 17, 2011 23:10
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sethsez posted:Soap operas also have remarkably lovely production values. News, sports and the like are broadcast at 30 FPS and look just fine. Yeah, I'm sort of thinking about how gorgeous a baseball game or something looks when you watch it in HD on a nice TV with that framerate. It has this sort of incredibly crisp, smooth, hyper-real quality where it feels like you're almost looking into a window at something that's actually going on. It doesn't seem cheap at all - quite the opposite. It's just going to be really bizarre to see a film that has a similar visual quality.
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Dec 18, 2011 01:56
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kanonvandekempen posted:If I had to guess it would be after the barrel scene (I'm keeping things vague here so I don't ruin it for people still reading the book). Hmm, interesting. I figured they would make the split well before the barrel sequence. To me, I always felt like the "midpoint" of the novel was basically the time they spend with Beorn, after they cross the Misty Mountains and before they enter Mirkwood. In the book, there's quite a bit of suspense prior to entering Mirkwood, and it's also the point at which Gandalf leaves them to go take care of some other poo poo (possible movie spoilers) that other poo poo being his leaving to meet up with the White Council and overthrow The Necromancer, AKA Sauron. Putting the dividing point here would also let them open the second film with a nice double-narrative. So I sort of figure that there's enough tension right there at the edge of Mirkwood to create a great cliffhanger, and it strikes me as a very natural dividing point in the text. I think going all the way to the end of Mirkwood would be awful, because it would mean that the second film would probably focus WAY too much on boring battle sequences. And that's my deepest fear about these films, because I felt that the parts 2 and 3 of the LotR films were almost ruined by excessive and overdone war sequences.
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Dec 21, 2011 10:22
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BetterLekNextTime posted:The thing with the Hobbit is you know it ends up OK in the end, even if you don't know how. This keeps it a little lighter. Even in the middle of scary stuff, the storytelling is such that the narrator is looking back on events. You did, of course, note that they framed it this way even in the trailer? Beginning with old Bilbo telling Frodo the complete story of his adventure? I thought it quite interesting that they started it that way, which obviously immediately gives away the fact that Bilbo will survive the adventure just fine, and then we had several quotes in the trailer both from Gandalf and Thorin discussing how dangerous the journey would be for Bilbo and how neither of them can guarantee his safety. Bit contradictory, no? Not that I minded it, because as you said, the book itself is written that way. Not to mention everybody who is familiar with LotR knows that Bilbo survives, so it's not much of a spoiler. Even so, I thought it interesting that they went so far as to establish that in the trailer in extremely clear terms.
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Dec 22, 2011 23:32
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Data Graham posted:Guys, in the context of Middle-Earth it's "dwarves". Yes this is an important thing. Yes, this is actually a very important distinction, if you ask me. Although I will admit that I prefer the sound of 'dwarves' to 'dwarrows', but I think that has more to do with what my ear is used to than what's truly correct. I vaguely remember reading a piece about this general issue. When LotR was first being released, the editors who worked for the publishers would try and go through and "correct" various linguistic mistakes that they felt Tolkien had made. And apparently this included changing 'elves' to elfs, 'elvish' to 'elfish', and most ridiculously of all 'elven' be 'elfin'. This would with the forms of dwarf: dwarfs, dwarfish, and dwarfen. As I recall Tolkien was outraged and beyond offended by this, and thankfully he wound up managing to get things printed correctly, although I wonder if any editions ever went out using those words.
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Dec 23, 2011 10:09
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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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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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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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Mr. Gibbycrumbles posted: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. Well, you know I both agree with you and I disagree with you. I think that the way that RotK was constructed, a lot of the post-coronation scenes are very difficult to watch, and I also felt that they seemed a little tacked-on and insufferable at times. I believe this has to do with the way the film itself was constructed, and the dramatic ebb and flow of it. RotK is built around all of these incredibly lengthy battle sequences, and by the time you get to the point at which the quest is over and the characters are going home, you're just exhausted and emotionally spent and the multiple "climaxes" you get, which feel like one repeated ending after another, is a product of this. I'm trying to say that in my ideal world, the film would have been constructed in a completely different way altogether. I think it was a mistake to build it around war sequences, and instead it should have been more about both the physical and emotional journeys of the characters. If the quest had ended halfway through, then the coronation and everything after it would not have felt like one ending after another, and one long extended post-script. It would have felt like a legitimate portion of the story, which is exactly what it is. I know I'm being hopelessly idealistic and a little bit spergy here, but I was just utterly nonplussed by the RotK film because my memory of the book had absolutely nothing to do with battle and war scenes. I absolutely agree with Zzulu - FotR was by far the best and strongest film, and I personally think it's both because it adhered more closely to the original narrative, and because the story was focused on the journey and not never-ending battles. Anyway, to bring this back on-topic, the point I'm trying to make is that I really hope that The Hobbit turns out to be a lot more like FotR. Like I said before, my huge fear is that the Battle of the Five Armies becomes the focal point of the two films, and takes up an hour and a half of running time, while some random orc with distinctive makeup becomes an important character and as much of a villain as Smaug. Either that, or PJ decides to create an enormous battle scene with Smaug that comprises a large amount of running time. I mean, the truth is that in the book, Smaug's big scene is a conversation that he has with an invisible Bilbo, and it's a fascinating battle of wits. I'm terrified that PJ is going to say, "Well, we can't have this big villain Smaug and have his main scene be a dialogue sequence! Audiences won't accept that! We need a half an hour of Smaug terrorizing Lake-Town and make Bard slaying him into a huge, long fight scene!" That really, really scares me, and it's a distinct possibility. Maybe I'm hopelessly naive, but I don't see why a dialogue scene can't be a climactic centerpiece. Tarantino does it all the time and it works out really well, as far as I'm concerned. kaworu fucked around with this message at 01:29 on Dec 27, 2011 |
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Dec 27, 2011 01:17
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Olibu posted:There's actually a retarded theory related to this. Some idiots think that Tom is actually the Witch King of Angmar. Huh? That's definitely a retarded theory, but just to clarify, I was trying to really make a different point altogether. I'm not saying Tom Bombadil is a bad guy at all, and I'm certainly not saying he's some other character in disguise. I just feel like there are some slightly sinister, mildly creepy undertones to his character, much of which derives from the air of general mystery that surrounds him, and the way in which he almost appears to hold the hobbits in a sort of dreamlike spell while they're staying with him. I'm thinking of a particular line where Frodo suddenly asks Tom, "Who are you, master?" And Tom replies "Eh, what? Don't you know my name yet? That's the only answer. Tell me, who are you, alone, yourself, and nameless? But you are young and I am old. Eldest, that's what I am..." And he goes on. It's not that Bombadil is evil, because he obviously isn't, it's that he seems to be utterly beyond the question of good or evil, and obviously wields a great deal of power and knowledge in his own, strange way. When I was a kid, and my father was reading the trilogy to me, I just found all of that to be a little bit scary. Something about the way he said that line that I quoted, and the fact that Frodo would ask Tom just who he is, in that situation. I mean, that's really one of the reasons why the character is so great - we don't quite know who or what he is. There are so many dozens of characters in LotR, and all of them are, generally speaking, manifestly themselves - there would be no need to ask the question of who they are. But the fact that Bombadil seems to be so much more than what he appears to be, and that he is somewhat impenetrable and unknowable in a way, is what causes to him have that slightly dangerous edge. Perhaps "sinister" is the incorrect word to use, I don't know.
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Dec 27, 2011 03:08
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Nuggan posted:The Grey Havens are just a port in Middle Earth. The Undying Lands, or Valinor, are different. They're the place where the Valar/Maiar live, along with elves. Its literally a heaven on earth, though it was eventually removed from being physically in Middle Earth. It is possible to travel there by ship, but elves go there when they die. They are actually physically reincarnated in new bodies there. Other people (humans, hobbits, dwarves, etc) could travel there by boat, but they don't go there when they die. Frodo and Bilbo go there on boats, but they eventually do die there. When Gandalf and the other wizard's arrived in Middle Earth they sailed from Valinor and arrived in the Grey Havens. This is one of those concepts from The Silmarillion that I just loved - the whole idea that at one point the world was actually flat, and the land of the gods (Valinor) was a physical location that could actually be reached on earth. And then after a major conflict (the fall of Numenor) Eru just removed the entire continent and made the earth such that when you sailed to the west, you eventually just arrived right back in the east instead of in Valinor - so that's how the world became spherical. I've always loved that as a creation myth of sorts. And as I understand it, it was really only the elves that could travel The Straight Road from earth to Valinor, and only by very special leave could certain individuals of other races (Frodo, Bilbo, Samwise, Gimli for instance) go there as well.
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Dec 31, 2011 19:52
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ToastyPotato posted:I wouldn't mind it simply being animated, more classically. Or maybe mix it so some stories are classically animated and others a CG. But let's keep the Animatrix/Gotham thing far away from this. I don't want to see some random anime's studios off the wall interpretation of Middle Earth. That being said, I would kill to see Hayao Miyazaki do any sort of Middle-Earth related film. I don't think that an epic LotR adaptation would have suited his style very well, though, and in truth his vision would probably clash with Tolkien's in many ways. But to be honest, I would vastly prefer to see Miyazaki adapting The Hobbit in animated form than the Peter Jackson films we're going to get. As excited as I am for these films and as much as I love PJ, that's still how I feel. What's really, truly sad is that we could have had a Miyazaki adaptation of my other favorite fantasy novel series at one point, A Wizard of Earthsea. He wanted to make a film based on the books back in the '80s, but Ursula K. Le Guin turned him down back then because she didn't know much about him, and at the time she was firmly against anyone adapting her work for the screen. Even more epicly sad is that Goro Miyazaki (Hayao's son) eventually did adapt Le Guin's work a few years ago and totally botched the job, making a thoroughly mediocre film that had none of the skill, beauty, and charm of his father's work. I don't think I'll ever get over how sad that made me, the fact that Studio Ghibli actually made a film based on Earthsea, but it totally sucked because the wrong Miyazaki was in charge  Don't even get me loving started on the atrocious and offensive SyFy Earthsea film.
kaworu fucked around with this message at 01:19 on Jan 1, 2012 |
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Jan 1, 2012 01:17
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Ohh boy. I don't even care, at this point. Whatever PJ does in the second film is bound to annoy the hell out of me, because he's going to cut a bunch of really awesome stuff in favor of unbelievably boring "climactic battle scenes" or whatever. It's not even about staying faithful to the book, for me - it's about being annoyed by his tendency to turn fantasy/adventure stories into war films.
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Jan 6, 2012 06:13
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Mr. Gibbycrumbles posted:
You could cut yourself on those cheekbones  Also, when I hear about a young Aragorn cameo, am I the only one who envisions an awful Phantom Menace-like scenario with this kid running around Rivendell and creepily treating an adult Arwen like his mommy?  edit: I just did a littke research and apparently Aragorn did not meet Arwen until he was 20. How nice that Tolkien chose not to make that romance loving creepy as hell. kaworu fucked around with this message at 18:13 on Jan 7, 2012 |
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Jan 7, 2012 18:04
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NEW HOBBIT PRODUCTION PIC LEAKED 
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Kemchimikemkem posted:The interior of Mirkwood should be great, what Fangorn in Two Towers should have been. Claustrophobic, dark and eerie. Don't gently caress it up Peter Jackson. One of my favorite moments in The Hobbit is when Bilbo climbs up the tree in Mirkwood and sticks his head above the canopy, and he goes from being trapped in this dim, dank, hot, stuffy, desolate hell of a never-ending forest to chilling out in the sunlight, a cool breeze ruffling his hair, with pretty butterflies flying all around him. It's just such a perfect transition, and I vividly recall reading that for the first time as a kid and really empathizing with how *amazingly* nice it must have been for Bilbo. I sincerely hope they keep that whole scene in there, exactly as it was in the book - but for it to work they really need to sell Mirkwood as a truly awful place. It should be a chance for PJ and WETA to really show off, so I'm looking forward to that.
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Jan 8, 2012 12:24
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Crappy Jack posted:I broke in my Kindle with this, and it was absolutely delightful. I always get all giggly at the moment while Bilbo fights the spiders and realizes that even some little hobbit can be courageous and bold and adventurous. Me and my friends in... either middle school or late elementary school, can't remember which, used to sing bits of Bilbo's spider-teasing songs because they were so hilariously absurd-sounding. "Lazy Lob and Crazy Cob are weaving webs to wind me! I am far more more sweet than other meat but still they cannot find me  " Although that wasn't quite as funny as the ATTERCOP! ATTERCOP! one, mainly because Attercop is such an awesome word. I still don't know what it means, but it's so much fun to say. ATTERCOP! 
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Jan 10, 2012 10:51
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Ville Valo posted:I thought it was pronounced the same as Björn: "Bee-YORn" Yeah, that's how I always pronounced it. Given Tolkien's predilection towards Scandinavian languages (Finnish in particular was a pretty big influence on his Elvish languages) combined with the fact that the Nordic name Björn (of which the Old English spelling is of course "Beorn") literally means "bear"... I think we can safely figure out how it's meant to be pronounced.
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Jan 13, 2012 22:28
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Kemchimikemkem posted:They might not emphasize the "e," making it "B'yorn." No matter how they pronounce it though I'll always say Bee-orn, just like the LOTRs didn't change my Soar on to Sow ron, or my leGOlas to LEgoLAS. It's so funny, because I remember reading the trilogy in like 5th grade the first time and talking about it with my teacher at the time. He swore that Moria was pronounced "Mor-I-uh" and I was always like "No way it's definitely Mor-ee-uh!" and it was actually a point of contention between us and he obviously thought he was right because I was some 10-year-old brat. But I was right
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Jan 16, 2012 12:00
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Jerusalem posted:If I remember right, isn't it down to Gandalf warning that Beorn doesn't like too many strangers about, so Gandalf starts telling Beorn the story of their adventure and keeps ramping up the numbers so Beorn will go,"Hang on but there's only four of yo.... oh here comes another one?" until finally they're ALL there? I always thought the funniest thing about this was that Gandalf used the exact same strategy on Bilbo at the beginning of the book, who of course would have felt the same as Beorn if he saw 13 freaking dwarves showing up at his doorstep all at once. Also with regard to people talking about how much they loved Theoden's big speech at the battle of Pelennor Fields in Return of the King - in the book, it was actually Eomer who gets the line "Ride to ruin and the world's ending!" and not Theoden. The line is actually partially in response to the fact that Theoden had just died at that point in the story.
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Jan 19, 2012 13:55
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kiimo posted:I am dumbfounded anybody is seriously considering this. It took years after 9-11 for it to leak into music, television and films in any way other than news. It really didn't take that long. In my opinion, the best film to date to deal with 9/11 either directly or indirectly was the first film to ever address it. I'm talking about Spike Lee's 25th Hour, which I would also put in my top-ten list of the best films of the '00s. At least I think it was the first film to address it - it came out a little over a year after 9/11. I thought it captured the vibe and feeling of New York City perfectly, and was unbelievably prescient in regard to the way that it looked at the issues that we as a country were facing, and were going to face. There is a loving incredible scene where a wealthy Wall Street broker making tons of money in 2002 (well before the poo poo would hit the fan) tells a convicted drug dealer that he deserves to be in prison for making money off the misery and suffering of others. And it's just amazing, because even though the crimes of Wall Street were years away from happening, the film was absolutely aware of the irony going on there. And similarly, I think it's OK to view the LotR films in terms of 9/11, even though those events had yet to happen while they were being made. But people are going to view art through the lens of personal experience, pop culture, and a number of other things. And the issues of 9/11 are universal issues that we've dealt with again and again, and the LotR films did touch on some of those universal issues. I also just think there's no real wrong way of looking at art, though I agree that it is best to never state what the filmmakers directly intended - best to talk about how you as a viewer felt. And I'm actually quite interested in this talk about the three eleven rings. One of the things that I always loved was how the rings sort of imbued a magical protection into the place where they resided. For instance, the two big safe-havens in LotR are Rivendell and Lorien, and the reason why they're safe is because the power of the elven rings protects them. I just thought that was really neat, that the magic worked in that way - like it created a bubble of safety in those places, and it's why Sauron was never able to touch them. But the other part of this, and why Elrond and Galadriel were so terrified of Sauron getting back the One Ring, was because if he did he'd the elven rings would no longer work for the purposes of good. All the good deeds and protection they had wrought with them would be laid bare to Sauron, and he'd be able to destroy Rivendell and Lorien, or twist them to his purposes - as I understood it. This is why directly after Sauron made the One Ring, the original bearers of the elven rings took them off and absolutely refused to ever use them again, which enraged Sauron. Because if they did use them, he would have "dominion" over them and everything they worked to accomplish. And I suppose this added to their fear of him getting it back, given that they had all used the elven rings to great effect by that point. And also, after the One Ring was destroyed, the elven rings stopped working. They basically ceased to be powerfully magical. It's partially why not even a shadow of the beauty of Lorien remained in the fourth age (with the singular exception of the mallorn tree that Same planted in the Shire). Am I mistaken on this point? I remember reading it in the appendices or somewhere else. kaworu fucked around with this message at 19:10 on Feb 6, 2012 |
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Feb 6, 2012 19:03
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feedmyleg posted:"Crap" ton is right. If he has to pad the first movie out by an additional hour, Jackson definitely won't be making the sort of necessary cuts he made to the original trilogy. There's going to be a whole lot of garbage in there that would have made the cutting room floor otherwise, if the rumor is true. I couldn't disagree more and I'm thrilled by the news. I thought stretching the first film ALL the way out to the barrel scene was a bad idea when they were doing two films, and would result in a tremendously awful second film where PJ wound up throwing in tons of boring and effects-laden battle/war scenes which would be utterly misplaced in what is essentially a fantasy/adventure story. Quite frankly, there's a ton of material to cover with the first film - it could easily be over three hours with no padding and no excess whatsoever. Think about it - you've got to set the stage in Hobbiton and have the unexpected party, where you set up the characterization and exposition for your fourteen lead characters and your three films. Then you've got the beginning of the adventure and the troll scene - all of that is at least 45 minutes if PJ is doing this properly, any shorter and it would feel absurdly rushed. Then you've got the Rivendell scenes, plus maybe a Bree cameo or something like that before you get there. This should take you almost to the halfway point, where you go to the Misty Mountains. All the scenes there - battles with goblins, Bilbo's separation, Riddles in the Dark, and more battles with goblins - should comprise the central conflict of the first film. The film should be at least two and a half hours at this point with no excess padding whatsoever. Then Misty Mountain aftermath and the eagles/wargs is a fine conclusion. This was the sort of reckoning I've been going by, which was why I was always so alarmed to hear that the first film would include the entirety of the Beorn/Mirkwood scenes, which seems like a perfect fit for the central conflict of the second film, to me. But whatever, I guess we won't really know for a while. I'll just say that I'm VERY relieved by this news.
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Sep 8, 2012 11:46
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Regarding Bilbo being upper-class and ultra-rich, that whole concept really becomes much funnier in LotR with the adoption of Frodo and the envy of the Sackville-Bagginses. Because the S-Bs had thought they had Bag End and all the Baggins wealth (pre-adventure) to themselves when Bilbo disappeared in the Hobbit, and were very unhappy when he came back and was no longer legally dead. Then they naturally become even more envious of Bilbo after he returns and the rumors of treasure abound, and they patiently wait for him to kick the bucket and inherit everything since Bilbo is an eccentric bachelor with no family or heirs. But unbeknownst to them, Bilbo is in possession of the mightiest ring of power in all Middle-Earth, and is essentially immortal. So he lives in perfect health for decade after decade, and then he has the nerve to adopt his nephew as his heir who is "more than half a Brandybuck" and has no right to the name of Baggins. I always found this whole sub-plot rather amusing, and I actually liked that the Lobelia wound up getting Bag-End to herself, for a little while there. I seem to recall Tolkien gave her a kindly ending in RotK, actually.
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Sep 9, 2012 12:44
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Jesto posted:I kind of hope they release an 'Original Edition' of the two films, before someone decided that there would be three instead. Just to see whether or not it was a bad decision, which one flowed better, where padding was inserted to meet the runtime and so on. Well, I'm sure someone will do a fan-edit of some sort after all is said and done, where they edit the running time of the three films down to just two 165 minute films, or something like that. As far as official stuff, it's a bit absurd to think about, but if anything I'd expect that we'll wind up with "Extended Special Edition" releases of all three films, just like with the LotR trilogy. I agree with you that in some ways it would be nicer to see a shorter version, maybe with just the mainstream Hobbit story and nothing else. But "Truncated Special Edition" doesn't really have the same ring to it, and you just don't sell more DVDs by releasing new versions with less overall content. Funny notion, though. Also, I've been wondering, are people still liking the film titles? I like the original two - that is, An Unexpected Journey and There and Back Again. I think both of those are pretty much perfect, but I still just do not like The Desolation of Smaug one little bit. The other two titles are so good in part because they not only sound nice, but they're pleasantly referential and obvious if you're familiar with Tolkien; Bilbo's own personal memoir of this particular adventure (which is sort of like how the story of The Hobbit exists within the books) of course being titled "There and Back Again: A Hobbit's Holiday" within The Red Book. And the opening chapter of The Hobbit being "An Unexpected Party", so I really like how titling the first film "An Unexpected Journey" is almost like a descriptive riff on that, while striking the tenor that the beginnings of the adventure will take from Bilbo's own point of view, vis a vis his eventual growth throughout the story. But "The Desolation of Smaug"? That's just out of left field. I'm drawing a blank on how that phrase relates to any sort of titling motif within the Tolkien mythos at all, and as such it just seems out of place. I'm going to get even more  here, and say that MY ideal title for the second film would have been this: The Hobbit: The Road Goes Ever On And On. It looks a bit wordy at first, but it's only one syllable shorter than "The Desolation of Smaug". And I think it's a hell of a lot cooler and more appropriate.
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Sep 13, 2012 13:38
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He looks a bit like... a human version of Yoda. And I absolutely stand corrected about the "Desolation of Smaug" title, guys. It absolutely was in The Hobbit in the maps, right there at the beginning. Feelin' pretty dumb about it. I'm still a little ambivalent about the title - I like the word Desolation just fine, the title itself just doesn't do much for me, maybe because that image isn't one I connect very strongly with this particular story.
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Sep 17, 2012 13:42
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I get the criticism for the LotR trilogy, and I actually agree with some of it - like that I feel they really should have been much more focused on being fantasy/adventure films, rather than epic war films. That said, I still think FotR achieved that aim remarkably well, which is why it stands as my favorite of the three films by far. And I find that trailer so exciting largely because I think these films (the first two at least) are going to be much closer to FotR in spirite than the latter two films of the trilogy, which is fine by me. And as to the more technical aspects, I won't get into too much detail here for fear of going overboard with  as I am wont to do, but I will say that I really loved the visual look of the films in many ways, not just because it was aesthetically gorgeous and utilized good, solid, believable CGI for the most part (with some exceptions) but because Peter Jackson pretty much based the entire visual look of Middle-Earth and its characters and locales on the paintings done by Alan Lee for an earlier edition of the trilogy before the films were made, which happened to be featured prominently in the copy of LotR that I owned as a child. So when the films came out everything looked right to me because they drew on the same few images that my imagination did.For example, here's Gollum and the hobbits at the beginning of The Two Towers:  Looks pretty familiar, doesn't it? Or how about his rendition of the battle at Helm's Deep?  To me, that almost sums up the entire battle we see in the film in a single image. I mean, this all makes sense since PJ hired Alan Lee to work on the films, but I always found it interesting, and I absolutely think it's the single biggest reason why I ended up liking the LotR movies so much despite its flaws - because in the end it just felt and looked right, and this is why.
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Sep 20, 2012 16:16
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Gianthogweed posted:He didn't look particularly much younger in the trailer. I thought he did. He had some actual black hair, noticeably more than in LotR. He also definitely looks a bit more well-fed, a bit more "muscular" which really just amounts to being slightly less scrawny. I thought maybe his eyes appeared a tiny bit larger too, which can give off a more youthful look in pretty much any animated character. Also, I just wanted to say something here - it seems like hardly anyone has barely even discussed Martin Freeman in this trailer, even though we definitely get a better sense of him as Bilbo. And I just think it's a remarkable credit to him, and how unbelievably natural he is in that role. It's honestly kind of amazing, he just IS Bilbo. I don't even give it a second thought, he's that perfect. I would go so far as to say he's the best casting decision that's been made in any of these Tolkien films next to Ian Mckellan as Gandalf, and I haven't seen the movie yet. I suppose I could be wrong, but I doubt it. I think having Freeman as such a capable Bilbo will go a long, long way in making these films work on some of the more basic levels. This entire Hobbit trilogy ultimately succeeds or fails based on that one role - which is a very different situation than the one we had in LotR. So again, I'm so glad it's worked out with Freeman, and it's honestly kind of stunning to see that nobody has a single bad thing to say about him. Not even Manifest Destiny!
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Sep 21, 2012 12:59
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It's funny though, because next to the sketchy CGI you get stuff like the Balrog which looked incredible. I still remember the first time I saw that in the theaters in FotR, it was one of those rare moments where your jaw just drops because you know you're looking at something the likes of which you've never, ever seen created on film. And not only did it look fantastic, but it was also perfectly true to the impossible-looking creature that Tolkien describes. Kind of amazing that it was in the same film as Freaky Galadriel.
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Sep 22, 2012 02:19
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peer posted:"Mountain giants are a metaphor" is the new "balrogs don't have wings". For the record, both are correct Heh 
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Sep 22, 2012 22:32
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edit: Blah whatever the poster is OK I guess
kaworu fucked around with this message at 23:45 on Sep 22, 2012 |
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Sep 22, 2012 23:38
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Octy posted:Eh, if they had to make the dwarves cartoony so we could distinguish between them, I really don't mind. These films would be an absolute mess if we got a rehash of the dwarves from the Council of Elrond who are all virtually identical. Yeah, this is definitely how I feel about it, too. They have thirteen dwarves with really silly names that rhyme and sound extremely similar by design. If you want people to actually be able to tell the difference between Dori, Nori and Ori or between Bifur, Bofur and Bombur then you really need to give each dwarf a VERY identifiable and memorable trait that sets them apart. In the book practically all you got about the dwarves (the ones other than Thorin) to differentiate them was "Bombur is fat, Fili and Kili are young, Balin is old and friendly with Bilbo." I'm sure there's more but that's what stuck in my head. So basically, I can see where they're going with it all, giving the dwarves such extremely memorable visual cues as part of the different "look" each one has. They need people to be able to say "Oh yeah, Bifur's the one with the axehead stuck in his forehead!" or "Right, Nori's got the crazy starfish hair!" or "Kili's the one that makes me rethink my heterosexuality!" Makes enough sense to me, I suppose. kaworu fucked around with this message at 07:17 on Sep 28, 2012 |
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Sep 28, 2012 07:15
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Mr. Gibbycrumbles posted:Are you saying the idea of a bit of greasy-permed caveman action doesn't flutter a filly's fetlocks? ... Why would they be going for the Pony-Tween demographic?
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Sep 29, 2012 00:02
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You know, I do like how they convincingly made Gloin look like Gimli's father. Giving him the same color hair and similar prosthetics and such. Also, was I the only one who used to pronounce Gloin and Oin monosyllabically as "Gloy-n" and "Oy-n" rather than the correct "Glo-in" and "Oh-in"? That's how my 12-year-old brain perceived it when I first read the books and it stuck. edit: Also, is Thorin supposed to be of relation to Gloin and Oin at all? Seeing the names next to each other on that scroll made me realize how they also end in the same letters like lots of the other related dwarves. Although I guess Balin and Dwalin also end in -in, so who knows? I'm confused now. kaworu fucked around with this message at 12:55 on Sep 29, 2012 |
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Sep 29, 2012 12:53
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eating only apples posted:How did Tolkien shorten Razanur as he did Peregrin? Presumably Merry = Kali, but Pippin is quite the departure and I don't have my books handy to check. I always wondered about this too, but the wikipedia entry on the common (Westron) tongue of Middle-Earth has an answer: quote:Peregrin Took's actual name was Razanur Tûc, short Razar (name of a small apple). 'Peregrin', short 'Pippin' contained both the actual meaning of the full name (traveller, stranger) and the reference to an apple. Kinda cool, to be honest, really. Apparently though Tolkien never really finished Westron as a complete language the same way he did for Quenya and Sindarin.
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Sep 29, 2012 22:04
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Data Graham posted:This is hilarious. Alan Lee is far, far too good an nuanced of a painter to produce a piece of marketing crap like that. That's the work of some random fella who has nothing to do with Lee and works for some company that soullessly produces prints like that for all kinds of geeky cult franchises, I imagine. It just has that sort of "feel" to it. Lee, on the other hand, has legitimate talent. For example, this is what it looks like when Alan Lee "straight up paints" a scene from Tolkien:  There's deep textures, great composition, lots of mood, good use of smoky and indistinct techniques on the characters in the mid-ground, and it looks gorgeous. That is, of course, Gandalf saying farewell to the dwarves and Bilbo at the edge of Mirkwood. And I'll bet money that whenever we get to this scene in the movies, there will be a shot composed JUST like that painting. Lee does not do a lot of facial closeups of the actors in his Tolkien and they only look like the actors for the conceptual sketches he's done specifically for Jackson/WETA. All his own work that he's been doing for years prior to Jackson's films (which Jackson still borrowed from EXTENSIVELY to create the visual look of Jackson's own Middle-Earth) is entirely Lee's own vision of Tolkien's world. I'd imagine that he's got mofd pride in his own work and talent than to let his name close to something as ugly as those earlier posters. kaworu fucked around with this message at 20:41 on Oct 2, 2012 |
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Oct 2, 2012 20:32
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Out of curiosity, has there been any publicity for this film at all that's interesting or cool? Talk show appearances and the like? I had this really weird fantasy the other day for a great way to promote the movie on a talk show with a geeky host like Craig Ferguson who appreciates geeky poo poo. Have, like, Martin Freeman, Ian Mckellan, and Richard Armitage all come out like normal to promote the film, and then have them slowly, two by two, bring all the rest of the dwarf-actors from the film. Basically, play out the Beorn scene except with Ferguson as the flustered host. That'd be so freakin' cool, I always loved that scene 
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Oct 21, 2012 02:21
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 16:14 |
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I have to say that what I am hearing about this film has me SO excited. So incredibly excited! Like that for instance the first hour is spent almost entirely in Bilbo's hobbit hole and is a long night of dialogue and drunken dwarf merriment complete with TWO musical numbers! Just based overall on what I've read in reviews (which admittedly is not much), and it's like the Middle-Earth movie I've always wanted that takes its sweet time soaking in atmosphere and characters and setting and doesn't give a poo poo about action or really getting anything done. So great, I really really REALLY hope that's what the film is like.
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Dec 8, 2012 01:47
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