The Hobbit has a director and a sequel [Archive]

Alex

04-25-2008, 11:23 AM

It improves my baseless perception of it to know that Peter Jackson won't be involved. King Kong was mostly horrible. Return of the King was almost completely horrible. The Two Towers showed the slide from the greatness of the first to the horribleness of the second.

Good riddance, says I. Before tackling anything so large again, Jackson needs to go serve a 5-10 year penance doing small movies that force him to reign things in a bit and relearn control.

I too will withhold comment on the sequel except to note that writing new original content for the Tolkein universe seems a very difficult idea to pull off.

LSPoorEeyorick

04-25-2008, 11:37 AM

Gemini Cricket

04-25-2008, 11:51 AM

I like Del Toro as well.
I don't mind the choice.
I do mind them sucking money out of their audiences for a Hobbit sequel, though.
I hope it doesn't stink.
I hear Ian MacKellen is going to be in it. Are they going to dust off Ian Holm to be in it, too? lol. Too old, methinks.

mousepod

04-25-2008, 11:54 AM

I couldn't be happier with the choice. Del Toro keeps growing in my esteem, both as a director and as a producer.

(cough, cough... The Orphanage is on DVD now. We should all watch it together, possibly at Casa de Mousepod...)

To continue the derail for a moment - the Blu-Ray is on its way to me right now - but the PS3 is being repaired by Sony (blah) - so it'll be a couple of weeks.

Maybe we'll have a small and impromptu movie afternoon on Sunday... see the usual thread for details.

...now back to the original topic...

innerSpaceman

04-25-2008, 12:02 PM

I'd be happy if Jackson's plumber directed The Hobbit. His last two LotR movies SUCKED.

But a Hobbit sequel to bridge the time gap between the two Tolkien masterworks??? OMfrellingG. That's craptacular fu<ksterism maximatainially!!!

Chernabog

04-25-2008, 12:30 PM

To continue the derail for a moment - the Blu-Ray is on its way to me right now - but the PS3 is being repaired by Sony (blah) - so it'll be a couple of weeks.

WhaaaA? What happened to the Ps3? :(

And WOW I can't believe how harsh you guys are on PJ and Company. Or those that thought that the first LotR was great and the last two sucked (sorry, but there were two moments in TTT that brought me to tears -- when the ents attacked Isengard, and when Gandalf showed up on his horse in Helms Deep.... and I thought the battle sequences and Shelob were spectacular in Return of the King). I loved the movies. The only movies I've seen more than once in the theatre are: Rocky Horror, Amelie, Triplets of Belleville, and the LotR trilogy (in extended edition, no less). I'm of the opinion that PJ is fvcking brilliant.

FYI -- I'm re-reading the novel and PJ changed WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY more than I remembered (I read LotR once, a few years before the movies came out). Besides the very general storyline, many of the characterizations, locations, etc. were completely changed to make the story more cinematic. For some reason I thought it was just "little changes" here and there (with the exception of the Scouring of the Shire ending) but that is not the case.

So if you're such a "purist" that if it didn't come from Tolkien's pen, it's crap, then I'm sorry. A filmed version of exactly what I'm reading in LotR would be boring as sh*t. It is interesting to me because of the backstory that I'm WAY more familiar with than the first time I read it, where I skimmed over all the "history" stuff and had no appreciation for what had happened prior to the story upon my first reading.

I've been involved over the last year in Lord of the Rings Online, which has lots of the locations from "Fellowship of the Ring" but also entire locations that are just mentioned in the "history" books -- Angmar, Evendim, Forochel, Helegrod, Carn Dum -- and compelling locations and stories have been made for these areas -- many of them just made from scratch by the game company.

I have no doubt that if video game programmers could come up with this stuff, someone like Guillermo Del Toro, who I also think is a fvcking brilliant director, would come up with ways to a) make The Hobbit more cinematic and b) make a sequel set in the same world which isn't crap. What I mean is I don't think the idea is a crap idea from the outset.

What I had thought originally was that they were SPLITTING The Hobbit into 2 parts (which would be way too long for a simple story). But I don't think that creating The Hobbit 2 is a creatively bankrupt proposition, or that good things cannot be done with it because it isn't expressly a "Tolkien" story, or whatnot, as long as it doesn't conflict with what happens in LotR.

The title though, has to go. Hobbit 2: Electric Boogaloo! That's not hot.

Gemini Cricket

04-25-2008, 12:42 PM

I loved all three LOTR movies.
I watch them over and over.
I saw all three multiple times in the theater.
The only thing I despise of all three is the Mouth of Sauron in the extended Return of the King film. What the heck was that?! lol.

I didn't like PJ's King Kong.

LSPoorEeyorick

04-25-2008, 01:13 PM

Oh, I like LOTR. Some films more than others, but I like it. And King Kong, even, though it's far from perfect; I'm in the minority here, but there was a lot I enjoyed about it.

But I'm also a big fan of Del Toro, and am interested to see what exactly he does with it.

innerSpaceman

04-25-2008, 01:18 PM

There are definitely elements of all three that I love. I just think the second two were put together craptastically. I've planned a fan re-edit, but haven't got the resources (much less the time.)

There were also so many elements that SUCKED my balls.

Most of all, however, were the structural changes that were only "cinematic" if you think chronologically linear storytelling is all modern audiences can comprehend, and that constant cross-cutting between locales/characters is the only way to sustain audience interest.

I disagree with both contentions.

I have no trouble with adapting books to film and making them more cinematic. I love some of Jackson's adaptations.

But a story is not simply the plot elements arranged in chronological order. It's HOW it's told. And if the story is specifically told out of chronology to build suspense or to portray greater interest in one element over another at particular points in the story ... that THAT is the story, and changing everying to chronological does great harm.

Yet that's what Jackson did. And also used the lazy starwarsian tactic of constant cross-cutting because he was too lame to figure out a way to keep the film interesting while staying with one set of characters for longer than 6 minutes.

He also did not have enough love for too many of the story elements, most of which piled up in the third film. One of the parts I teared up at during that movie was the Ride of the Rohirrim to break the seige of Minas Tirith. It was so stirring.

So many other elements were not. Ahem, listen to Jackson's commentary on the DVD. He describes how he was always fascinated with that part of the story, and so devoted tons of time and energy to its realization. Then he goes on to admit the many parts of the story that simply didn't interest him .. and lo and behold, those nonetheless important story points are handled craptacularly.

As an aside ... another part I teared up at during the third movie was the lighting of the beacons atop the mountain peaks of Gondor. Though that situation was a feature of the book, it did not "happen" in the novel, and it's one of Jackson's more brilliant adaptations.

I will give him props for the things he did well. Great elements in all three films, and the first movie was a masterwork.

The second two Sucked.

I'm glad he's not directing The Hobbit.

The Hobbit 2 must DIE.

SzczerbiakManiac

04-25-2008, 01:19 PM

So if you're such a "purist" that if it didn't come from Tolkien's pen, it's crap, then I'm sorry.I'm well aware of the alterations made by Jackson, Walsh, & Boyens. Other than a few trifling quibbles, I'm totally fine with their changes. My "from the pen" comment was meant to convey issue with a whole new story being created. If Tolkien had written a book that detailed the goings on in Middle Earth during the period between Hobbit and Fellowship and a well written script adapted that for the screen, I wouldn't be kvetching. Admittedly, I am not a Tolkien scholar, but other than perhaps a passing mention in The Silmarillion, I'm not aware of any story he wrote about that period.

innerSpaceman

04-25-2008, 01:21 PM

There's no mention in the Silmarillion of that period.

The preface to The Lord of the Rings deals with that period in a glancing fashion. There's no "story" told of events or characters during that period.

flippyshark

04-25-2008, 01:25 PM

As much as I admired The Orphanage (and I did), does it really count as a Del Toro film? He didn't write or direct it. He's one of three producers, but I presume his name was used in the US mostly for marketing reasons. (Unless this is one of those Tobe Hooper-Steven Spielberg controversies a la Poltergeist.)

On the other hand, I saw Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth for the first time a few months ago, and I'm still recovering. I thought it was better than anything in Jackson's ouvre, including Heavenly Creatures. So, I'm psyched for that reason, but I really hope they change their minds and just make one incredible movie, not two. (Would they be drawing story material for this sequel from The Silmarillon? Like many others I know, I was unable to slog through that book.)

Pans' Labyrinth and The Orphanage would be a great double feature, though an exhausting one.

Alex

04-25-2008, 01:25 PM

So if you're such a "purist" that if it didn't come from Tolkien's pen, it's crap, then I'm sorry. A filmed version of exactly what I'm reading in LotR would be boring as sh*t.

I'm not a purist. My complaint with the last two movies is that they weren't far enough removed from the books for purposes of cinema. As standalone movies they were crap unless you were filling in the holes with knowledge available from reading the books.

With Lord of the Rings this worked because the story is more focused. Plus, they weren't sure how it would go so they were more firm with editing decisions. With the later movies I felt they were just saying "well, we have to keep it under three hours, so put a lot in that just hints at what they'll eventually be able to see in the 9 hour extended DVD and damn coherence for the theater experience."

The same complaint I have about most of the Harry Potter movies, really.

It is a movie, not a video book on tape. And definitely not a severely abridged video book on tape.

As for the sequel. I have no doubt that many writers could produce reasonable extensions of the novels but the reason I see it as "difficult" is that I just don't really have any curiosity about that world beyond what was already covered so it'll have to work hard to catch my interest and if they fail (at the general audience level) it will be viewed as a blow to the whole franchise (which is not something I agree with but is the general result of failed sequels).

Gemini Cricket

04-25-2008, 01:26 PM

Well, I'm looking forward to The Hobbit. I hope it will be good. If it isn't, I still have the three movies Jackson already made to enjoy.

And I was thinking about the beacons. What if it was a false alarm? How much would it suck to have to reset all of those beacons...
:D

LSPoorEeyorick

04-25-2008, 01:32 PM

As much as I admired The Orphanage (and I did), does it really count as a Del Toro film?

Not in the sense that he directed it. I had said "Del Toro keeps growing in my esteem, both as a director and as a producer," with a nudge to others about a potential viewing of a film of the latter.

Chernabog

04-25-2008, 01:37 PM

My "from the pen" comment was meant to convey issue with a whole new story being created.

I understand your point, I just wanted to point out that good stories about things not mentioned in the books have been written by people other than Tolkien, so I'm curious what Del Toro will do. That doesn't mean that The Hobbit 2 has to be/will become "canon". I just think an entertaining and/or compelling story has the potential to be told.

I mean sure, it may be crap in the end, but I don't think the idea is DOA.

I'm not sure why The Simarillion is being brought up though, since I'm pretty sure the only events brought up in that were pre-Hobbit to begin with.

And iSm, doing the books by "cross-cutting" through the stories was not "lazy". (if anything is lazy, doing it exactly the book's way would have been lazy) I don't think that doing it the book's way in a movie would be inherently better or worse than the way PJ did it. This is Peter Jackson's vision of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, after all. There was plenty that was changed or altered to make a better cinematic experience in PJ's estimation anyway... the only thing that was "mucked up" by doing that was the Mouth of Sauron sequence, which was a reason it was cut from the original film.

Eliza Hodgkins 1812

04-25-2008, 01:45 PM

I say give awesome Del Toro a shot, and I love Peter Jackson. If King Kong had been an hour shorter, I may have even liked that film quite a lot.

But I am in the minority, I think, when I say I'm not the biggest fan of The Hobbit. There are parts of that book I love, and parts I cared for less. I think this may be the rare exception where I walk away preferring the film.

I love The Lord of the Rings books. And I love the movies. I think he, for the most part, didn't include the parts which would have been lost on film, and I think what he added benefited the telling of this particular tale for the screen. He nailed the parts that were almost identical to the book.

One thing that had a die-hard LotR's book fan FUMING to the point of disgust were the elves showing up at the Helms Deep battle in the Twin Towers. I disagreed. I think Jackson corrected one of Tolkien's mistakes; those friggin' elves should have been there, dammit.

Alex

04-25-2008, 01:54 PM

I haven't read The Hobbit since I last successfully read The Lord of the Rings series (sometime around 1988) so I can't comment on value of the book. My general recollection is I preferred the series. But I don't know how much my memory of the book is being skewed by my memory of the animated movie we had to watch in some English class in high school.

But based on Pan's Labyrinth and the trailer for Hellboy 2 I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that there will be at least one creature with misplaced (creepily) eyeballs. Can't remember if there is already one in the book or if he'll have to add it himself.

If King Kong had been an hour shorter it would have been a fantastic movie (assuming it were edited well of course). There was much to love about it, but the very excesses destroyed the whole. And like Stephen King an no longer facing any real editing of his novels, I don't think that after the success of LotR there is anybody out there that can force Jackson to reign in his worst tendencies so that his very good aspects can shine.

So, he needs to experience a downfall so that he can rediscover those things for himself and come out the other side a better filmmaker for it.

Disneyphile

04-25-2008, 02:20 PM

mousepod

04-25-2008, 02:35 PM

To address a couple of comments here: there are a couple of pretty cool King Kong & LOTR fanedits floating around...

Chernabog

04-25-2008, 02:39 PM

I'm quite happy with Del Toro, since this means we won't have a 40-minute ending featuring softcore Hobbit porn. ;)

HEYYYYY I'm still annoyed that Frodo and Sam didn't frack on the boat at the end of Fellowship. ;)

About the sequel though.... Ken's going to have a coronary. Wait until he reads about this. Oh dear... :eek:

Really, having experienced good stories in Tolkien's world that were not written by Tolkien, I'm not about go to into anaphylactic shock. ;)

innerSpaceman

04-25-2008, 02:51 PM

One thing that had a die-hard LotR's book fan FUMING to the point of disgust were the elves showing up at the Helms Deep battle in the Twin Towers. I disagreed. I think Jackson corrected one of Tolkien's mistakes; those friggin' elves should have been there, dammit.
Not unless they could fly. Did they use their broomsticks to get there? Or else how did they arrive a few hours after our heroes? Were they tailing them the whole time?

Point in fact, elves did show up at the Battle of Helm's Deep in The Two Towers, but they were from Rivendell. Among them were some of Elrond's sons, buddies of Aragorn.

Oh, I understand switching it to a character the audience knew from Lorien, but the logical gaffe of them having to have decided to set off for Helm's Deep from Lothlorien about four minutes behind Aragorn just bugs me no end. Sloppy.

ETA: Cherny - just what stories in Tolkien's world were not written by Tolkien???

Eliza Hodgkins 1812

04-25-2008, 03:01 PM

Not unless they could fly. Did they use their broomsticks to get there? Or else arrive a few hours after our heroes? Were they tailing them the whole time.

Point in fact, elves did show up at the Battle of Helm's Deep in The Two Towers, but they were from Rivendell. Among them were some of Elrond's sons, buddies of Aragorn.

Oh, I understand switching it to a character the audience knew from Lorien, but the logical gaffe of them having to have decided to set off for Helm's Deep from Lothlorien about four minutes behind Aragorn just bugs me no end. Sloppy.

Let me clarify, unless I'm mistaken, elves showed up to make a delivery in the books, yes? But I don't believe that fought in the battle. It was their inclusion in the battle that pissed off my friends. Whereas I think they belong in the fight.

innerSpaceman

04-25-2008, 03:03 PM

They were there to deliver the L.A. Times, yes.

Huh? Deliver the books? WTF? Um, no, they were there to aid Aragorn in his kingship quest, knowing full well that might mean warlording it for a while.

What books??? I'm so confused?

What Tolkien stories not written by Tolkien??

Can Ken and I go out for a drink and sob for a while??

Alex

04-25-2008, 03:12 PM

iSm: I believe it was a reference to these paragraphs in Chernabog's post above:

I've been involved over the last year in Lord of the Rings Online, which has lots of the locations from "Fellowship of the Ring" but also entire locations that are just mentioned in the "history" books -- Angmar, Evendim, Forochel, Helegrod, Carn Dum -- and compelling locations and stories have been made for these areas -- many of them just made from scratch by the game company.

I have no doubt that if video game programmers could come up with this stuff, someone like Guillermo Del Toro, who I also think is a fvcking brilliant director, would come up with ways to a) make The Hobbit more cinematic and b) make a sequel set in the same world which isn't crap. What I mean is I don't think the idea is a crap idea from the outset.

Kevy Baby

04-25-2008, 03:42 PM

No, I believe it was a reference to this:

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

innerSpaceman

04-25-2008, 04:12 PM

LSPoorEeyorick

04-25-2008, 04:29 PM

fanfu<kingtastic.

I do believe that's the technical term for quality fanfic pr0n.

Not that I know anything about this.

Chernabog

04-25-2008, 04:43 PM

Well, if that's the case, Alex, I'm very glad Cherny enjoys the video game stories made up by nerds in Palo Alto. I'm sure he'd also enjoy the fan fic where Frodo and Sam frack on the boat trip out of the Grey Havens.

Whatever. Games or fan fiction, it's all bullsh!t written by people who are amateurs dabbling with other people's creations. I'm sure some of it is good. Hundred monkeys with typewriters.

But, hahaha, the chance of a concocted sequel being good are miniscule compared to the chances of geekazoid video games being good or even some hot frack fan fic being fanfu<kingtastic.

Hate to break it to you (again), but even the movies were created by people (massively) dabbling with Tolkien's creations. Hell, even all the stuff put out by Christopher Tolkien (i.e. Children of Hurin) is "dabbling". That doesn't mean it's bullsh!t, that doesn't mean it's bad, that doesn't even mean it goes "against" what Tolkien wrote or the world he created. You're just being blanket dismissive (but of course I wouldn't expect anything less out of you ;) ) I just find the dabbling to be less of a sacrilege than you do, as some kind of Tolkien purist. (?)

As far as your last paragraph is concerned, my argument was the other way around -- that if the geekazoids (in Massachusetts, in this case) can make interesting stories in Tolkien's world while being VERY respectful to Tolkien, certainly an awesome director/writer like Guillermo Del Toro can come up with something interesting.

And while I would totally enjoy a "Frodo does Sam up the chuff in the boat" scene, that doesn't mean it would be respectful to or consistent with Tolkien; that isn't what I'm talking about.

innerSpaceman

04-25-2008, 05:10 PM

Christopher Tolkien did not make up any stories. He published his father's unfinished and/or unpublished works and, yeah, probably had to fill in a few gaps in the stories J.R.R. Tolkien created. Likewise, neither Fran Walsh, P. Boyens, Peter Jackson or even Ralph Bakshi made up any of the Tolkien stories they adapted.

Heck, Jackson barely invented a single scene that wasn't in Tolkien's works, perhaps in a slightly different form.

That's quite different than having Legolas get it on with Aragorn during some dark moonless night in the shadow of the Misty Mountains. I'm not dismissing the video game or fan fiction stuff out of hand. I don't know any of it, and I'll admit some of it might be good. I'll take you at your word, Cherny, that some of the game stories are quite good.

But they're no more legitimate than anything you or I would write about Frodo the nine-fingered hand-job.

Since I have inborn doubts about any film sequel, I feel free to doubt aforehand the misguided effort to film some illegitimately imagined story of Baby Samwise goes to Hobbit School.

Chernabog

04-25-2008, 05:41 PM

Heck, Jackson barely invented a single scene that wasn't in Tolkien's works, perhaps in a slightly different form.

See, that's what I thought too -- till I started re-reading LotR. There are full on scenes in the movie that either never took place in the book or were presented in a MASSIVELY different form (ie. at the beginning, the chase scene to the Brandywine Bridge, Sam talking about being far out from the Shire, the characters of Merry and Pippin are massively different, Aragorn being reluctant to rule Gondor was not in the book, etc... there's a site with a MASSIVE list of things that were different... and I need to leave for DL in a minute lol). I guess in your estimation, they went from the Shire to Breeland, and even though everything that happened to them along the way was different, they still went from the Shire to Breeland so it's still "Tolkien". Remember, one of the things legal arguing teaches us is that the more you generalize, the more you can find similarities between two concepts ;)

But they're no more legitimate than anything you or I would write about Frodo the nine-fingered hand-job.

Of course they aren't "canon", never said they were, or should be considered as such. To me, this is like August Derlerth and his fellows writing Cthulhu Mythos stories (even some of which didn't exactly jibe with HP Lovecraft's original vision): Some of them are good fun in their own right, but they aren't "really" part of the mythos. So what. It isn't reason to nuke the idea from birth. Lord of the Rings Online, for example, sort of goes along with the idea of what the rest of everyone else in Middle-Earth was doing while the fellowship (in the current game world) was over in Rivendell. It isn't canon, but it adds both an interesting interpretation of middle-earth and lets us visualize places that Tolkien only really mentioned in passing.

Since I have inborn doubts about any film sequel, I feel free to doubt aforehand the misguided effort to film some illegitimately imagined story of Baby Samwise goes to Hobbit School.

Frodo and Sam: The Experimentation Years? .... oops we're back to that again. ;)

Gemini Cricket

04-25-2008, 06:06 PM

Rosie is Sam's beard.

innerSpaceman

04-25-2008, 06:37 PM

Heheh. Sam was the straight one.

Frodo is teh gAy.

Prudence

04-25-2008, 07:02 PM

...To me, this is like August Derlerth and his fellows writing Cthulhu Mythos stories (even some of which didn't exactly jibe with HP Lovecraft's original vision)...

Now that's not the example I would choose to support this particular issue. (August Derleth?! *shudder*)

wendybeth

04-25-2008, 09:50 PM

I'm quite happy with Del Toro, since this means we won't have a 40-minute ending featuring softcore Hobbit porn. ;)

About the sequel though.... Ken's going to have a coronary. Wait until he reads about this. Oh dear... :eek:

What, you don't like watching little men roll around in a big bed while being drooled over by a lecherous old wizard?:D

(I also wondered what Ken would think of this- I'm pretty sure Eric will be disgusted).

wendybeth

04-25-2008, 09:54 PM

Heh heh....Just told Eric, and after looking puzzled at the switch in directors, he wondered just what the hell they think happened in the years between The Hobbit and the LOTR. Lots of eating and drinking, to be sure, but not a hell of a lot else.

Chernabog

04-26-2008, 01:52 AM

Now that's not the example I would choose to support this particular issue. (August Derleth?! *shudder*)

Hahah well maybe not him SPECIFICALLY but I do have a lovely book or two of "Cthulhu Mythos" stuff written by authors other than Lovecraft (and Derleth was the one who sort of helped make the push for that even though his own stuff on the topic wasn't the best).

Lots of eating and drinking, to be sure, but not a hell of a lot else.

Well actually stuff did happen (see Appendix B of Lord of the Rings -- having to do with Sauron going back to Mordor from Mirkwood and gaining power, Bard rebuilding Dale, Gollum leaving his lair, Aragorn and Arwen meeting, more stuff between Gandalf and Saruman, Saruman's corruption, etc. leading up to LotR). It doesn't say much though about the Hobbits though, other than of course certain key ones being born (and of course Frodo's parents dying, etc.) Who knows, maybe it won't be CALLED "The Hobbit 2" since there was more interesting stuff happening outside the Shire.

Also, an interesting little discussion here: http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2008/04/25/28747-guillermo-del-toro-chats-with-torn-about-the-hobbit-films/#more-28747

I wonder what he means by "There will be certain things that we will see from the first movie but from a different point of view, but it will feel like a volume, in the 5 volumes of the entire story. It will not feel like a bridge, I’ve been hearing it called ‘a bridge film’, it’s not, it’s an integral chapter of the story, and I think we’re all on the same page."

So it sounds like some things will overlap but change perspective-wise.

Also Sir Ian is coming back, apparently. YAY!

wendybeth

04-26-2008, 08:51 AM

Then it would probably be considered a prequel to the LOTR, rather than a Hobbit sequel. That I could see, but lets face it- those hobbits weren't up to a whole lot during that time. The few things that did happen might be worth a scene or two, but no more. It would actually be interesting to see Sauron's return to power, etc, provided it was done well and they were able to get most of the principle actors to return.

Chernabog

04-26-2008, 10:52 AM

Then it would probably be considered a prequel to the LOTR, rather than a Hobbit sequel.

Tru dat.

Three hours of the hobbits drilling holes?

....

....

....

For their houses, of course, what did you think I meant? :evil:

Boss Radio

04-26-2008, 11:42 AM

Gollum: The Missing Years

The Orc Who Saved Christmas

Merry and Pippin Go to White Castle

Aragorn vs Predator

Galadriel Takes it Off

Treebeard's Iconvenient Truth

The Eye of Laura Mars, starring Sauron

Trading Places with Gandalf and Dumbledore

Chernabog

04-26-2008, 12:54 PM

^^ LMAO visible Boss Radio Mojo :)

Deebs

04-26-2008, 02:41 PM

Outstanding! Excellent, all, but my favorite:

The Eye of Laura Mars, starring Sauron

Boss Radio

04-26-2008, 10:47 PM

Thank you - you really shouldn't encourage me, because now you got me started:

Mordor, She Wrote
Frodo the 13th
Aragorn With the Wind

And...Sauron sings in:
The King and Eye

I'll stop now.

Deebs

04-26-2008, 11:34 PM

No! Please don't stop.

wendybeth

04-27-2008, 12:16 AM

Visible Boss mojo!!!:snap:

(And by all means, please keep on going!:D)

Gemini Cricket

04-27-2008, 12:43 AM

Mordor, She Wrote
Frodo the 13th
Aragorn With the Wind

And...Sauron sings in:
The King and Eye

I'll stop now.
Wonderful.
:D

Boss Radio

04-27-2008, 02:29 AM

He was a Hobbit who would one day break away from the pack only to find himself on a higher plane of existence:

Jonathan Livingston Sméagol

Chernabog

04-27-2008, 08:33 AM

Heh there's a guild in LOTRO called "Law and Mordor" that I thought was cute :)

I just rewatched The Two Towers (extended edition) last nite and got all misty-eyed at the same parts. And it's also seriously funny spotting Jackson and his little children in the movie (who are listed in the credits are "Cute Rohan Refugee Children"). I like the storyline cross-cutting because the movie this way actually builds to a climax, instead of having a spider-climax (sent to RotK in the movies), an Ent climax, and a Battle climax. You kind of keep tabs on everyone instead of it building to a climax in the first hour, then saying "two days/weeks/months earlier" and then building to another one, and then AGAIN saying "two months earlier" and then doing it again.

No, the way PJ did it chronologically was superior in a film to how it was done in the novel, where you have hundreds of pages in between these things. What was "lost" suspense-wise in not doing it the novel's way was minimal (and I still think is limited to the Mouth of Sauron sequence, which was cut from the original).

And PJ did make up entire scenes and dialogue from scratch. Hell, he did in FotR, and that was the one that was the MOST faithful to the underlying work. I'm just not into the "anywhere it ain't Tolkien it is teh suck" mentality. The essence of the story is there. Some characters (Aragorn, Faramir) grow as characters MORE than they do in the book. It makes for good watching on its own merits. There's a big big difference between an adaptation like LotR, keeping the point of the novel intact, and something craptastic like "I Am Legend", which took a brilliant premise/underlying work, kept the main character's name and a small part of the premise, and made a work with an entirely meaningless/different point.

Boss Radio

04-27-2008, 12:46 PM

One last shot before I quit it...

Battlefield Middle Earth by Elrond Hubbard

Thank you very much for allowing me the derail.
Now, back to the actual conversation...

innerSpaceman

04-27-2008, 12:58 PM

No, please, the Boss Radio Title Show is much more entertaining. Some of those had me rolling. I'm still in tears.

But titles are more to the point than debating the merits or lack thereof in the Peter Jackson version of LotR. I hope they come up with something better than The Hobbit 2 for a film that would be much better as a LotR prequel that has really zilch to do with hobbits.

I don't suppose I can hope for anything approaching the brilliance of some of the Boss Radio titles above, but surely there can be something better than the misleading working title.

wendybeth

04-27-2008, 02:02 PM

One last shot before I quit it...

Battlefield Middle Earth by Elrond Hubbard

Thank you very much for allowing me the derail.
Now, back to the actual conversation...

You rock.:D

wendybeth

04-27-2008, 02:08 PM

Honestly, I thought PJ did a wonderful job and have no complaints with his films, particularly the Directors' Cuts. I think he took a very complex story that Tolkein himself thought would be impossible to make a play or film of and made it work. He had to cut things, add things and otherwise do what he could to make it within the many constraints he had (time, money, maintaining story integrity and not pissing off the hardcores too badly) and I admire him tremendously for the final product. Because of that, I forgive him the hugely disappointing 'Kong'.

Now, lets get back to the Boss Radio derail- we wants more, Boss!:snap:

Boss Radio

04-27-2008, 03:20 PM

Orc and Mindy
There's Something About Merry
Bowling for Gollum-bine (I know, I know)
Frodo Night Lights

innerSpaceman

04-27-2008, 07:06 PM

Ok, yeah, Gollum-bine was terrible.

But I'm surprised you had a few good ones left in you.

I won't see which of the batch really sent me into fits. They are SO SILLY.

* * * * *

Wendy, I disagree about the Director's Cuts when it comes to Fellowship of the Ring. Though I like a couple of the added scenes, the editing is atrocious. Never watch it. Comparing the two versions is practically a film class on judicious editing, pacing, suspense building, character establishment and what - good footage notwithstanding - to leave on the cutting room floor for the sake of the referenced qualities.

(The other two films were such a mess, that the relative bloatedness of the director's cuts destroys no such qualities that were never present.)

Gemini Cricket

04-27-2008, 07:13 PM

I like the extended cut of Fellowship. I say watch it often. There are wonderful bits added to it.
:)

Chernabog

04-28-2008, 12:41 AM

Wendy, I disagree about the Director's Cuts when it comes to Fellowship of the Ring.

Actually my understanding was that the director's cuts WERE the theatrical cuts. The extended editions were done for the fans -- and to add scenes that gave additional explanations. The pacing is slower than the theatrical cuts, sure, but having just watched it again I can't say that it was particularly slow paced, not at all.

(The other two films were such a mess, that the relative bloatedness of the director's cuts destroys no such qualities that were never present.)

Actually I think that the extended editions of the last two films added a LOT to things like PJ's version of Faramir and the rationale behind his actions. Plus I liked the Saruman death sequence. I'm not usually emotionally drawn into films, and PJ's LotR has moved me so emotionally every time I've seen it that I am surprised when people say they didn't like it (either because it didn't follow some ideas/characterizations in the book, or they just don't like this genre in general). But to each his own -- I think that the work is a masterpiece and if someone else cannot appreciate it, it's no skin off my arse ;)

Kevy Baby

04-28-2008, 09:35 AM

Some day, somebody should make a Best Boy Grip cut of a movie.

innerSpaceman

04-28-2008, 11:37 AM

Cherny, I don't mean the extended Fellowship is slowly paced, I mean it's badly paced.

Exhibit A is when suspense is building about the Black Riders arriving in the Shire: Moody scary scene cuts to moody scary scene in the theatrical, and the suspense-building pace is achieved through smart editing. Happy singing scenes with jokes are inserted between the moody scary scenes in the extended edition, and suspense-building is destroyed.

There are other tidbits which, while good individually, wreck the pacing of certain scenes. Stuff with Bilbo, Merry and Pippin at the birthday party; expositionary stuff about mithril in the Mines of Moria. The inserts are good stuff ... but compare them to how the scenes were masterfully paced and edited without them, and it will be apparent what flows more nicely.

Similarly, the entire reworking of Gandalf's arrival in Hobbiton is awful in the extended version. Changing the tone entirely from delightful to dangerous (a misguided introduction to Bilbo Baggins if ever there was one) was a terrible revision. And just compare the re-ordering and insertion of additional shots in this sequence for a lesson in how little but vital a difference there is between a well-constructed sequence and a poor one.

Pfft, the extended version of Fellowship is a textbook case.