Three Times The Hobbit?

[Rumil]

Hmm, well, initial reviews and clips don't really seem like The Hobbit I remember reading, I hope they've managed to keep some of the charm of the tale. Fingers crossed!

As in LoTR the scenery looks great, and if all else fails perhaps someone can edit it all down into a decent film in a few years time - there should certainly be enough footage.

Giant rabbits are a bit of a stretch for me I must say, though not absolutely unthinkable in a book with Beorn's serving-sheep, I have no issue with comedy hedgehogs,

But SEBASTIAN!!!!!!

Nonononononononononono NO! Is there anything resembling such a name in all the tongues of elves, men, dwarves or orcs, or even hobbits, ents and chatty ravens???

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Rumil

As in LoTR the scenery looks great, and if all else fails perhaps someone can edit it all down into a decent film in a few years time - there should certainly be enough footage.

Right. The only 2 things I am hoping for at the moment regarding TH are scenery and music. My motto about the film: expect the worst and never be disappointed. However, I do believe the music and scenery will be better than the worst.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Rumil

Giant rabbits are a bit of a stretch for me I must say, though not absolutely unthinkable in a book with Beorn's serving-sheep, I have no issue with comedy hedgehogs,

But SEBASTIAN!!!!!!

Possibly a reference to St Sebastian????:

On being informed of (Sebastian's) pro-Christian advocacy, Diocletian reproached the saint for his supposed betrayal. The furious emperor then "commanded him to be led to the field and there to be bounden to a stake for to be shot at. And the archers shot at him till he was as full of arrows as an urchin [hedgehog] is full of pricks."Their appointed task (apparently) completed, the guardsmen left him there for dead. http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/...aint_Sebastian

I've read a few references to Boromir as a St Sebastian figure given the similarity of their deaths. Can't think of any specific references to St Sebastian in Tolkien's letters or other writings though.

EDIT I know Sebastian sounds a bit out of place - just so long as they don't give the Trolls silly names :P

[Pomegranate]

I am looking forward to this. I'm pretty excited about seeing a continuation of the Peter Jackson Middle-Earth - for me different from the Tolkien Middle-Earth, but still well-beloved. I was perhaps more excited about seeing a Guillermo del Toro Middle Earth, for it would've been fun to have several different 'canon to the movie-goers' worlds; Now it's just Pete's view, which is sad, but which is still such a big part of my childhood and my Tolkien experience that I'm excited.

However, what I will miss, what I think PJ could've never produced due to his image of Middle-Earth leaning to such an opposite direction, but what for me is a very intrinsic part of The Hobbit, is the lack of too much destiny and doom. This is represented in a quote by Frodo in LOTR.

"Of course, I have sometimes thought of going away, but I imagined that as a kind of holiday, a series of adventures like Bilbo's or better, ending in peace."

The forthcoming movie with "Why the hobbit, Gandalf"'s and "You didn't promise that I would come back"s and "Nor will I be responsible for his fate"s feels way too grand and massive. I was fine with the idea that they'd put some of the Necromancer-stuff in, but including the silly adventure of the dvarves in this greater scheme of things, in this talk of dooms and fates and you will never be the sames, just feels a bit wrong. I guess this is the situation of it being a children's book but definitely not a children's film. I guess it has to be accepted, given how this was clearly made as a prequel to the LOTR movies, and how it thus needs to have a similar mood in order to attract the same group of fans. But I'll miss it, and I hope that one day the filming rights will be released and someone makes a good, and a not too doomy children's film out of The Hobbit. The book deserves it.

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by Pomegranate

I hope that one day the filming rights will be released and someone makes a good, and a not too doomy children's film out of The Hobbit. The book deserves it.

It was done years ago, but not as live action. Google "Rankin Bass Hobbit".

[Mithalwen]

http://www.economist.com/blogs/prosp...disappointment

[Inziladun]

Sounds like a familiar refrain.

The trouble starts when Mr Jackson starts to shoehorn in the back story. Many wondered how the director would get three films out of a 272-page book. Now they know. It makes some sense to put the dwarves’ quest into the larger context of the gathering storm in Middle Earth—the parallel activities of elves and wizards are sprinkled throughout the book and Tolkien indulged his imagination further in a lengthy appendix to “The Lord of the Rings”. But Mr Jackson has avidly seized on this material and dropped it in rather clunkily.

You know, why couldn't they have started the tale by taking a cue from UT's The Quest of Erebor? Just have Frodo, Sam, and Gimli talking together in Minas Tirith after Sauron's fall, and have someone ask why Bilbo was chosen by Gandalf. Gimli and Gandalf could have quickly set the stage, and then cut to Bilbo at Bag End.
Too simple for the likes of PJ?

[radagastly]

Originally posted by Inziladun:

You know, why couldn't they have started the tale by taking a cue from UT's The Quest of Erebor? Just have Frodo, Sam, and Gimli talking together in Minas Tirith after Sauron's fall, and have someone ask why Bilbo was chosen by Gandalf. Gimli and Gandalf could have quickly set the stage, and then cut to Bilbo at Bag End.

Since the Tolkien estate still owns the film rights to all of the books published after Tolkien's death, any scene like that, or even remotely similar, might well open up P.J. and New Line to law suits for copyright infringment, quite different from the "creative accounting" lawsuits previously imposed on them, especially considering the contentious relationship they already enjoy with the Tolkien estate.

[Kuruharan]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

You know, why couldn't they have started the tale by taking a cue from UT's The Quest of Erebor? Just have Frodo, Sam, and Gimli talking together in Minas Tirith after Sauron's fall, and have someone ask why Bilbo was chosen by Gandalf. Gimli and Gandalf could have quickly set the stage, and then cut to Bilbo at Bag End.
Too simple for the likes of PJ?

Aside from the (rather more serious and important reasons already listed) you could never have gotten John Rhys-Davies back into his Gimli makeup.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

http://www.economist.com/blogs/prosp...disappointment

"The LotR trilogy was close to perfect"

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

"The LotR trilogy was close to perfect"

"fiasco."

[TheMisfortuneTeller]

Someone else may have already done this. If so, I apologize for any redundancy. Otherwise, a much younger Mr Spock (who had his own pointy-ears issues) sings all one needs to know about The Hobbit. Someone in the comments section of the Economist review posted the link. Economical in the extreme, and absolutely horrible as music, it nonetheless succinctly summarizes the essential narrative.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2HQ1K7YyQM

Somehow, I suspect that when I get around to seeing Peter Jackson's impression of George Lucas doing Middle Earth: Episode I (with Chinese subtitles here in Kaohsiung, Taiwan), I'll wish I had seen a movie version of the song instead.

Three years of insufferable marketing and celebrity/fan-fiction hype to endure, only to spend nine hours having to figure out just what happened to Tolkien's coherent little two-and-a-half hour story about the hobbit Bilbo Baggins. On the positive side, I understand that Andy Serkis as the schizoid Smeagol/Gollum comes in about two hours into the movie and somewhat rescues the floundering enterprise. So I guess I'll have to content myself with that. What Middle Earth: Episode II and Middle Earth: Episode III will do without the tortured little freak, I have no idea. Something awful keeps suggesting to me that Prince Legolas and the elf chick security guard Itaril/Tauriel may try to fill the void. The action-figure elvish Ken and Barbie dolls now on sale only seem to corroborate this dreadful prospect.

Oh, well ...

[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

"The LotR trilogy was close to perfect"

It seems pretty much *all* critics who have reviewed The Hobbit are major fans of the Lord of the Rings movies– which has already led many an aggrieved fanboy to accuse them of bias on account of "unrealistic expectations". (Can't win, really.)

[alatar]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

"The LotR trilogy was close to perfect"

Hoot! Maybe this is PJ's plan to make us all much fonder of LotR.