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.

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 He published his father's unfinished and/or unpublished works and, yeah, probably had to fill in a few gaps in the stories J.R.R. Tolkien created.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.

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 ;)

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.

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

Rosie is Sam's beard.

Heheh. Sam was the straight one.

Frodo is teh gAy.

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

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).

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.

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).

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...ms/#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!

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.