If you could change ONE thing in The Hobbit triology

[Marwhini]

Originally Posted by Nerwen

Hmmn. I don't see how this could be done without drawing out each section interminably. And wouldn't that require adding things anyway? "The Hobbit" (the book, I mean) generally goes into much less detail than "The Lord of the Rings"- compare the first part of "Fellowship", where Frodo et al are essentially retracing Bilbo's journey from the Shire to the Misty Mountains. This is partly due to the books being written for different audiences, and partly because more *happens* to Frodo's party over the same period.

20 minutes a chapter (on Average) is a terribly short amount of time for each Chapter, given that some Chapters can be easily produced as nearly an hour each.

By the rules of Screenplay writing, and alteration to a script, The Hobbit should technically be a 9 to 12-hour set of movies (That is: Using the usual formulae for turning a Novel into a Screenplay, and then a Screenplay to a Script, and then the translation of the Script -> Movie, and how much time is generally given per-page of script).

Jackson did turn The Hobbit into a disastrous set of movies.

But that doesn't mean that The Hobbit as a set of movies is necessarily a disaster.

It just means that Jackson had no clue how to properly translate the Novel to the screen, as he turned it into a travesty whose inclusion of all manner of idiocy obscured the greater sum of material that he cut out, which should have been left in.

MB

[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by Marwhini

20 minutes a chapter (on Average) is a terribly short amount of time for each Chapter, given that some Chapters can be easily produced as nearly an hour each.

By the rules of Screenplay writing, and alteration to a script, The Hobbit should technically be a 9 to 12-hour set of movies (That is: Using the usual formulae for turning a Novel into a Screenplay, and then a Screenplay to a Script, and then the translation of the Script -> Movie, and how much time is generally given per-page of script).

Okay... I have a media background myself, and this is the first I've heard of there being any "usual formulae" that can *predictably* turn a novel into a script based simply on the number of pages. Novels are all over the place in the amount of time they cover per page, plus of course the pages themselves vary wildly in their formatting according to the whim of the publisher. Different editions of a book will have a different number of pages.

Now, there *is* a formula for predicting film length from the number of pages in the script- but that's because scripts do have standard formatting. In fact that's *why* they have it. Are you sure that's not what you were thinking of?

This is not to say that you're wrong and I'm right about whether a faithful "Hobbit" Trilogy would be viable, just that I don't believe that an appeal to abstract "rules" and "formulae" is particularly useful here. Understand that I am not dismissing your idea out of hand, either- I'm actually curious. How would you go about this? Where do you think each installment should start and end?

EDIT: But this should probably have its own thread, so we don't hijack Aaron's.

[Marwhini]

You're not familiar with the 1 Page = 1 Minute rule?

That is for Screenplay/Script -> Screen-time.

http://johnaugust.com/2006/how-accur...er-minute-rule

And the heuristic can be googled, where you will see that there is a LOT of discussion on the issue, but that it remains a Heuristic (general rule-of-thumb).

And for working from Novel -> Screenplay/Script, usually you translate roughly 3 - 5 pages to 1 page of Screenplay/Script.

This is because most Novels run between 300 - 500 pages, and you want to wind up with a Screenplay that is roughly 100 - 120 Pages, to get a roughly two hour movie.

But some Novels, or especially Comic, are shorter, and you can go on a 1:1 basis. One of my friends wrote the Screenplay for the movie The Crow, and that is the formula is basically described in creating the Screenplay, and the alterations he made from the basic Comic, since they had to provide an additional 60 pages of material. I have other friends who work in Production and Direction (most in video games - I went to High School with the owner and Founders of Ensemble Studios). And I've worked on the Talent side of Movie making for some time - I am in every Robocop movie, usually doing Stunt or Firearms work, but in two normal scenes as either extra (my first appearance in the first movie) or as Bit-Part work... And I've been in more TV than I can keep track of.

One of these friends and I have a project planned for his Graduate School work on a documentary on the depiction of Tolkien's work in Popular Media (the various movies, influence in comics and games, etc.), as well as how these seem to relate to Tolkien's own conceptions of his work.

In the course of doing that... We looked at what it would take to get The Hobbit Produced, and what a Screenplay would likely look like.*

As a Single movie, cutting down about ⅓ of the content of the book (which is roughly 300 pages - the annotated version is 305 pages for the body of the story. The Non-Annotated version is significantly longer being on smaller page sizes than the A4 on which the annotated version is printed), you can get a normal 2 hour movie, but it is going to greatly abridge a lot of stuff.

But... Looking at it as a Trilogy, you can go with a 1:1 transcription of the Book -> Screenplay to get a product that gives you 5 - 6 hours of Screen-time.

Which breaks down into 20 minutes a chapter, on average.

Which is really all that needs to be addressed, regardless of any heuristics used in the Film Industry regarding page count.

20 minutes a chapter isn't a lot of time to cover the events of a chapter, which tends to run between 15 and 40 pages each in The Hobbit.

MB

* in the course of doing this we decided that "Movies" was a bad way to go about producing Tolkien's works, and that it would be better produced as a Cable-TV series, where each episode is 55 minutes long. We found that we can squeeze just the main Canon into four - five "seasons," with each "Season" containing 13 - 18 episodes. Or we could do a greatly expanded mythology that includes everything we can make fit into ten seasons of roughly the same length each. The one thing we wanted to add, which Tolkien never wrote anything explicitly about was the First War between the Elves and Sauron in the Second Age. Considering that all we would have to do would be to avoid including anything or anyone that would contradict the established Canon, we thought it was do-able, even if fraught.

[Marwhini]

Oh, and where each Installment should begin and End.

1st Movie:

An Unexpected Party
Roast Mutton
A Short Rest
Over Hill And Under Hill
Riddles In The Dark
Out Of The Frying-Pan Into The Fire

2nd Movie:

Queer Lodgings
Flies And Spiders
Barrels Out Of Bond
A Warm Welcome
On The Doorstep
Inside Information
Not At Home

3rd Movie:

Fire And Water
The Gathering Of The Clouds
A Thief In The Night
The Clouds Burst
The Return Journey
The Last Stage

Broken down, this is:

1st Movie:

From Hobbiton to the rescue by the Eagles, and the stay in their Eyries.

2nd Movie:

From the Party's delivery to the lands beside the Anduin to The Dwarves ransacking Erebor after Smaug flies off to attack Laketown.

3rd Movie:

The attack of Smaug upon Laketown to the return of Bilbo to Hobbiton.


And the songs can remain in the movies. They are a part-and-parcel of the story, and help give it much of its character, as well as the character of Dwarves and Hobbits.

That Jackson left the many Songs out of the movies was one of the greatest crimes, since they nearly all carried with them an exposition of the Elder Days during the First Age.

This is nearly identical to the breakdown we saw in the Jackson Movies. And this is because the book presents significant narrative shifts in scene, or point-of-view at each point.

Also because that is a nearly symmetrical breakdown of the book into three equally sized portions.

MB

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Marwhini

I went to High School with the owner and Founders of Ensemble Studios

Oh really? I am/was a pretty huge Age of Empires fan. Wish they were still around.

Originally Posted by Marwhini

I am in every Robocop movie, usually doing Stunt or Firearms work, but in two normal scenes as either extra (my first appearance in the first movie) or as Bit-Part work... And I've been in more TV than I can keep track of.

I rewatched the first Robocop the other day (I've never seen any of the sequels or the remake, I admit); it's an absolutely terrific film, the kind of action film that simply isn't made anymore.

I must admit you make a good point about adapting The Hobbit, and I think this comes down to their efforts also to make it "more like The Lord of the Rings" by trying to turn it into an ensemble piece. Even though it's a trilogy of films which all go for well over two hours each, parts still feel rushed - usually the more sombre parts they gloss over so that they can get to more action...

[Marwhini]

Originally Posted by Zigûr

Oh really? I am/was a pretty huge Age of Empires fan. Wish they were still around.

Rick, the older brother of the Founders left, and when Microsoft bought them out, they shut down the studio (killing competition).

Tony (who produced most of the later AoE games) is now producing Mobile Content and Games.

They are now working on a Strategic Mobile Game App. I am hoping to eventually get him to do some vanity projects.

I rewatched the first Robocop the other day (I've never seen any of the sequels or the remake, I admit); it's an absolutely terrific film, the kind of action film that simply isn't made anymore.

I have HUGE issues with Verhoeven. But Robocop is a very decent production, which appropriately mocked the Privatization of the world which we now see as so destructive in much of it.

My main issue with him is in his treatment of Starship Troopers, which he destroyed in the exact same way that Jackson destroyed Tolkien's work (imposing their own biases, rather than depicting what the Author of the work intended - I am very much an originalist when it comes to literature and fictional works).

But Verhoeven is very talented.

And the team he assembled for the movie is largely responsible for its success (although Paul Weller is not a nice person - he.... well...)

I must admit you make a good point about adapting The Hobbit, and I think this comes down to their efforts also to make it "more like The Lord of the Rings" by trying to turn it into an ensemble piece. Even though it's a trilogy of films which all go for well over two hours each, parts still feel rushed - usually the more sombre parts they gloss over so that they can get to more action...

Funny.... It wouldn't have had to feel rushed if he had not crammed irrelevant scenes and characters into it.

We didn't need to know about the Battle of Azanulbizar. We didn't need to have Radagast. We didn't need the assault on Dol Guldur. We especially didn't need Tauriel, or any of the Barrel-riders Theme-park ride.

If those were to be included in anything, it should have been a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT MOVIE, made specifically to tie The Hobbit into The Lord of the Rings.

And from the short conversation that I had with Tolkien's Estate... It's likely that if Jackson had just freaking stuck to the danged book, that the Estate would have trusted either him, or others to make other works of Tolkien's.

But between Saul Zaentz, Ralph Bakshi, Peter Jackson, and the lies of New Line Cinema and Warner Bros..... They had just become too suspicious of anyone connected with Hollywood to be trusted with Tolkien's remaining works.

Some day, maybe that will happen, with someone who is capable of being trusted to remain more faithful to Tolkien's intent.

MB

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Marwhini

Funny.... It wouldn't have had to feel rushed if he had not crammed irrelevant scenes and characters into it.

We didn't need to know about the Battle of Azanulbizar. We didn't need to have Radagast. We didn't need the assault on Dol Guldur. We especially didn't need Tauriel, or any of the Barrel-riders Theme-park ride.

That's what I mean.

That being said, I didn't mind the inclusion of Azanulbizar per se, but I greatly disliked the way they altered its storyline, especially by making it more Thorin-centric; if anything I feel like if they wanted to go down their cliché drama/personal angst storytelling route they should have stuck to what actually happened and used that to suggest that Dáin, not Thorin, was the hero of Durin's folk, which could be another source of Thorin's anxieties and/or insecurities. Thorin might admire his younger cousin, but envy him.

Ultimately, though, I think I just wanted to see Dáin treated as the wise and honourable character he appears to be from what we see of him in the books, not Billy Connolly cussing from the back of a pig.

[Encaitare]

If I could change one thing in the Hobbit movies, I would get rid of all the over-the-top, grotesque bad guy designs. Orcs with blades for limbs, and metal plates and spikes stuck into their bodies, that sort of thing. They took me out of the story because they were so improbable. In the LotR movies, a great deal of care was put into the Orc designs. In the Hobbit movies, it was as if they just said, "Great, how can we make this one even more disgusting than the last."

[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by Marwhini

You're not familiar with the 1 Page = 1 Minute rule?

That is for Screenplay/Script -> Screen-time.

http://johnaugust.com/2006/how-accur...er-minute-rule

And the heuristic can be googled, where you will see that there is a LOT of discussion on the issue, but that it remains a Heuristic (general rule-of-thumb).

Marwhini, I clearly indicated that I am *quite* familiar with this, and that it's a separate issue.

And for working from Novel -> Screenplay/Script, usually you translate roughly 3 - 5 pages to 1 page of Screenplay/Script.

This is because most Novels run between 300 - 500 pages, and you want to wind up with a Screenplay that is roughly 100 - 120 Pages, to get a roughly two hour movie.

"Usually". There's no very strict rule about this, for reasons which I have already explained. More importantly, this is not the process you're applying to "The Hobbit"- you are, as you indicate, advocating 1:1. Note that initially you were- apparently- considering *that* as the standard.

Here's the post I was quibbling about:

Originally Posted by Marwhini #17

By the rules of Screenplay writing, and alteration to a script, The Hobbit should technically be a 9 to 12-hour set of movies (That is: Using the usual formulae for turning a Novel into a Screenplay, and then a Screenplay to a Script, and then the translation of the Script -> Movie, and how much time is generally given per-page of script).

At least, that's how it appears to me... Maybe I'm misinterpreting you, but then where do "technically" and "usual formulae" come into it?

But some Novels, or especially Comic, are shorter, and you can go on a 1:1 basis. One of my friends wrote the Screenplay for the movie The Crow, and that is the formula is basically described in creating the Screenplay, and the alterations he made from the basic Comic, since they had to provide an additional 60 pages of material.

A graphic novel/comic is a very different beast from a regular novel, however. It's less about length than it is about the fact they're already a visual medium.

I have other friends who work in Production and Direction (most in video games - I went to High School with the owner and Founders of Ensemble Studios). And I've worked on the Talent side of Movie making for some time - I am in every Robocop movie, usually doing Stunt or Firearms work, but in two normal scenes as either extra (my first appearance in the first movie) or as Bit-Part work... And I've been in more TV than I can keep track of.

Uh... I can list my own credentials if you really think it's relevant. Do you?

One of these friends and I have a project planned for his Graduate School work on a documentary on the depiction of Tolkien's work in Popular Media (the various movies, influence in comics and games, etc.), as well as how these seem to relate to Tolkien's own conceptions of his work.

In the course of doing that... We looked at what it would take to get The Hobbit Produced, and what a Screenplay would likely look like.*

As a Single movie, cutting down about ⅓ of the content of the book (which is roughly 300 pages - the annotated version is 305 pages for the body of the story. The Non-Annotated version is significantly longer being on smaller page sizes than the A4 on which the annotated version is printed), you can get a normal 2 hour movie, but it is going to greatly abridge a lot of stuff.

But... Looking at it as a Trilogy, you can go with a 1:1 transcription of the Book -> Screenplay to get a product that gives you 5 - 6 hours of Screen-time.

Which breaks down into 20 minutes a chapter, on average.

Which is really all that needs to be addressed, regardless of any heuristics used in the Film Industry regarding page count.

But why is it "all that needs to be addressed"? I've already pointed out some obvious issues.

20 minutes a chapter isn't a lot of time to cover the events of a chapter, which tends to run between 15 and 40 pages each in The Hobbit.

Depends entirely on what happens in the chapter. All they do in the first one is have dinner- and in fact that *was* treated at length in AUJ and is perhaps the single thing in that film to have drawn the most criticism.

That's the basic point I'm trying to get across. *Pacing* is very important in a film. Why do you think "The Hobbit"- a fairly typical novel- is suitable for a 1:1 adaptation?

Edit: I've been echoing "1:1" throughout, but actually you're really advocating something more like 1:2 or 1:3- at least you are some of the time, with your assertion that the "usual formula" would yield 9-12 screen hours. Seriously, where are you getting that from?

[Marwhini]

Originally Posted by Nerwen

Marwhini
At least, that's how it appears to me... Maybe I'm misinterpreting you, but then where do "technically" and "usual formulae" come into it?

Technically, as in according the rules they teach at UCLA on Screenwriting.

But that would be applying a roughly 30 minute per chapter formula (using the 9 - 12 hour estimate), given more attention to some details, and visuals. It isn't that hard to squeeze 10 more minutes into each chapter (on average) by simply adding a few seconds into each shot/scene.

That would add up quickly, and would not slow things down significantly.

But why is it "all that needs to be addressed"? I've already pointed out some obvious issues.

The 20 minutes, average, per chapter is all that needs to be considered in getting a six-hour long production (technically six-hours and twenty-minutes).

You don't need to worry about breaking down the page-count, because you can just work to try to make it so that the length each Chapter covers averages out to 20-minutes per chapter.

So you might have some chapters that are dealt with in 15 minutes (or maybe even 10-minutes or less), and some chapters that are dealt with in 25-minutes to 30-minutes (or longer).

As you keep pointing out, pacing for the chapters will be different, allowing some things to be dealt with rather quickly, and other things that might need greater exposition, visualization, or narrative.

With 19 chapters, times 20-minutes per chapter, that is 380-minutes, or 6.33 Hours.

Leaving each "Episode" at roughly 2.11 hours, on average (or roughly 127 minutes each, minus credits, and any Intro).

Depends entirely on what happens in the chapter. All they do in the first one is have dinner- and in fact that *was* treated at length in AUJ and is perhaps the single thing in that film to have drawn the most criticism.

That's the basic point I'm trying to get across. *Pacing* is very important in a film. Why do you think "The Hobbit"- a fairly typical novel- is suitable for a 1:1 adaptation?

The 1:1 is an AVERAGE, meaning that not every page is going to result in a full-minute.

But that is averages out for such.

That is why it is called a "heuristic" (meaning "Rule of Thumb" or "best guess" or "approximation" - technically it is Greek for "That which is found by accident/unusual").

Some pages of the Novel might not warrant more than a few seconds of screen-time.

While others might warrant five minutes of screen-time.

The point being that when all is said-and-done, they average out to about 1-minute per page.

That is pretty much the rule (Heuristic) that they work toward, or use when dealing with estimating how much screen-time is going to be created for a given script.

The estimation might not work out to be 100% accurate, but when you take a long at all movies produced, and compare their length to the script that produced them, you get that relative 1:1 rule (page of script per minute of scene/screen-time).

When estimating a budget for a production, that is how Film is bought, and how to estimate production budgets. I have only taken a few Film Classes, mostly dealing with VFX and Writing. But it is a subject that I have had to go over when looking at how much it is going to cost us to shoot the documentary we hope to do in the next couple of years.

The budget might go over, or under that estimate, but that is what they use to get a "bust guess" when looking at financing a production. And it seems to be pretty reliable, assuming that you have records of the average number of takes for a scene that your director usually uses; with a new director, you have to just make a best guess there, but they have a heuristic for that too (never having wanted to Direct, I never looked into it).

MB

[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by Marwhini

Technically, as in according the rules they teach at UCLA on Screenwriting.

The "rules" as applied to script-to-film or novel-to-script? Can we have a reality check here? According to you, it would seem the "rules" state that an average-length novel must be adapted as a trilogy, or even a quadrology. Ever notice how that generally fails to happen?

The 20 minutes, average, per chapter is all that needs to be considered in getting a six-hour long production (technically six-hours and twenty-minutes).

You don't need to worry about breaking down the page-count, because you can just work to try to make it so that the length each Chapter covers averages out to 20-minutes per chapter.

So you might have some chapters that are dealt with in 15 minutes (or maybe even 10-minutes or less), and some chapters that are dealt with in 25-minutes to 30-minutes (or longer).

As you keep pointing out, pacing for the chapters will be different, allowing some things to be dealt with rather quickly, and other things that might need greater exposition, visualization, or narrative.

With 19 chapters, times 20-minutes per chapter, that is 380-minutes, or 6.33 Hours.

Leaving each "Episode" at roughly 2.11 hours, on average (or roughly 127 minutes each, minus credits, and any Intro).

The 1:1 is an AVERAGE, meaning that not every page is going to result in a full-minute.

But that is averages out for such.

That is why it is called a "heuristic" (meaning "Rule of Thumb" or "best guess" or "approximation" - technically it is Greek for "That which is found by accident/unusual").

Some pages of the Novel might not warrant more than a few seconds of screen-time.

While others might warrant five minutes of screen-time.

The point being that when all is said-and-done, they average out to about 1-minute per page.

That is pretty much the rule (Heuristic) that they work toward, or use when dealing with estimating how much screen-time is going to be created for a given script.

The estimation might not work out to be 100% accurate, but when you take a long at all movies produced, and compare their length to the script that produced them, you get that relative 1:1 rule (page of script per minute of scene/screen-time).

When estimating a budget for a production, that is how Film is bought, and how to estimate production budgets. I have only taken a few Film Classes, mostly dealing with VFX and Writing. But it is a subject that I have had to go over when looking at how much it is going to cost us to shoot the documentary we hope to do in the next couple of years.

The budget might go over, or under that estimate, but that is what they use to get a "bust guess" when looking at financing a production. And it seems to be pretty reliable, assuming that you have records of the average number of takes for a scene that your director usually uses; with a new director, you have to just make a best guess there, but they have a heuristic for that too (never having wanted to Direct, I never looked into it).

MB

Yes, but the question is why you would want to do this? Why adapt a fairly short novel into six hours when two or three would be more usual? Why- and this is where you came in, remember?- increase those six hours to nine or twelve? How is this "technically" mandated "by the rules of screenplay writing, and alteration to a script"?

(And look, while it is certainly very kind and helpful of you to repeatedly explain the basic script-to-film rule-of-thumb to me, I'd really appreciate it if you'd note the parts where I point out that a.) I know that and b.)it's not actually a rule for adapting a novel into a screenplay in the first place. I'm getting the impression that you think the two are the same, else why bring it up?)

Again, I am genuinely interested in this topic- what I'm looking for is more in the nature of actual ideas of how it could be done without resulting in an extremely turgid and padded film.

Now, you *have* made a concrete suggestion here:

But that would be applying a roughly 30 minute per chapter formula (using the 9 - 12 hour estimate), given more attention to some details, and visuals. It isn't that hard to squeeze 10 more minutes into each chapter (on average) by simply adding a few seconds into each shot/scene.

That would add up quickly, and would not slow things down significantly.

All right. The problem I have with this is, why wouldn't it? Remember, you're talking about increasing the length and number of shots enough to turn a book of circa 300 pages into nine to twelve hours of cinema. That's, you know, quite a lot...

Now Marhwini, I'm really trying not to sound testy, but sorry if I come across that way regardless. It's just I feel you're tending to deliver lectures rather than actually replying, and I'm finding it a bit frustrating.

EDIT: Looking back through this thread, I realise I may have been seeming to miss the point at times, but that's because you've been switching between your "9-12 hour rule" and your "6-hour rule" such that I've honestly found it hard to keep track of which one you're talking about. I asked why the "usual formulae" demanded a 9-12 hour film and you replied by telling me why they demanded a 6 hour one. I think. And again, I apologise for the probable hectoring tone. I'm not suggesting you're doing this on purpose or anything like that.

[Morthoron]

^ Gone With The Wind, often accorded as one of the top ten or twenty movies of all time, is 221 minutes long (3 hours, 41 minutes without intermissions and incidental music). The book is 63 chapters. According to your logic, the movie would be 21 hours long. The Grapes of Wrath had 27 chapters, but the movie run time is only 2 hours and 9 minutes (but should be 9 hours long, according to you). I could list several other great movies based on great books where your algorithm simply does not apply and borders on fantasy.

In any case, chapters are not regularly spaced and vastly different per author, some running a couple thousand words and others ten or more thousand words.

Simply put, The Hobbit does not need to be three movies long (and I have seen ample evidence as to why it should not). It's absurd for how short the book is. Lord of the Rings made more sense as a trilogy, given its length.