The Hobbit in July 2007?

[Sir Kohran]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hickli

Um, you do realize that many, many readers believe that putting another Tolkien work into Jackson's hammy fists would be a bad thing?

Not that anyone else I could think of would be any better. Come to think of it, the ideal situation is that the lawyers keep it tangled up forever and it never gets made.

No, actually, I think you'll find most people would rather continue with PJ, regardless of what they think of him, rather than bringing in someone completely new.

Perhaps there could be a poll on this.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Sir Kohran

No, actually, I think you'll find most people would rather continue with PJ, regardless of what they think of him, rather than bringing in someone completely new.

Perhaps there could be a poll on this.

From what I've seen 'most' of those demanding a PJ helmed Hobbit (outside sites like this one)haven't read the book, know little about it, other than that its 'another' Middle-earth tale - & believe is similar to LotR in style. What they don't get is TH is a children's story, & if a movie is made that is true to the book it will not be at all what they expect. And if its done in the 'adult' style of the LotR movies it won't bear anything other than a vague resemblance to the book.

It seems to me that those demanding a Hobbit movie don't actually want a movie of the book - they want another Middle-earth movie like LotR.

TH is a children's book. Anyone who doesn't want a children's movie made of it doesn't really want a movie of The Hobbit at all, & , I would say, doesn't actually care about Tolkien's work. Tolkien wrote the book for his children & children generally were the intended audience. If its made in the style of the LotR movies children would be excluded from seeing it, & personally I think that would be wrong - just as wrong as making a PG13 movie of Wind in the Willows with enough added sex & violence to appeal to the 17 year old boys who apparently make up the majority of the movie going audience.

Or, in short, a movie of The Hobbit that your five year old couldn't see & enjoy would be the greatest insult to Tolkien I can imagine.

[Sauron the White]

JRRT himself opened the door very wide for anyone who wants to make the HOBBIT film more in line with the LOTR films when he attempted to do the same with his books. If JRRT thought it was a necessary and good thing to do why not is it not good for a filmmaker to make the same attempt?

Anyone who can argue that a HOBBIT film should be aimed at five year olds simply has blinders on to the realities of film making, film marketing and the potential audience for such a film.

A film is one thing. A book is another. There are some people here who seem like they would not be happy with anything other than a very strict line by line slavish adaption of the book to film regardless of its effects on dramatic pacing and other important film considerations. A very small number Tolkien purists may be pleased (but I doubt even that as they would nitpick at the tiniest of deviations or changes) but the public would not respond to it the way they did with LOTR films.

[Elladan and Elrohir]

I don't know that I would call it an insult to Tolkien. He appears to have deeply regretted (in later life) the "childish" tone, and, of course, as StW has pointed out and as we're currently discussing on the "darker Hobbit" thread, he did indeed try to rewrite TH to fit the Legendarium.

But the point I was trying to make there, davem, is not that PJ and Co. could achieve Tolkienian magic by converting TH into a PG-13; as you pointed out, JRRT himself couldn't do that. It's merely that to make a PG-13 Hobbit, whether successfully or not, is not an insult to the author; it's a legitimate means of interpretation, and one that he himself considered.

I think you're likely right about the number of fans outside boards like these who want a Hobbit film: as you say, they generally know nothing of the book and want another LOTR. There are, however, plenty of people on this board and others like it who have read TH just as many as times as LOTR, love it deeply, and still want PJ to make the movie. I am of that number.

Does that mean I don't care about Tolkien's work? I don't think it does. And at any rate I would disagree with your comment about five-year-olds. I think movies require a higher maturity level than books. I read LOTR aloud to my nine-year-old brother (after reading him TH), but he won't be watching the movies for another three years. Obviously that does not eliminate the issue, but it does raise the projected target age, in my opinion. Honestly, all things considered, I'm not sure TH should be, or even would be, PG-13-worthy. Could not PJ make it with the level of violence of, say, Narnia? I see Lion Witch and Wardrobe and TH as being fairly comparable in terms of tone.

So really, I suppose that I'm closer to your point of view than I first thought, davem, even if I am a bit naive to think that PJ would give us a PG Hobbit. I agree that we don't need Bard smooching his made-up girlfriend or Thorin Oakenshield bloodily knocking off goblin heads.

It would seem that the trolls, at any rate, would have to be included in some form near to that of the book, since PJ has already had Bilbo telling the story of their argument and then later showing 'Gorn and the four hobbits beneath the stone figures.

OK, I've said enough for one post.

[davem]

Well, Tolkien regretted the worst excesses of the childish tone. but I don't think he ever regretted the fact that TH is a children's story, & his attempt at revision was not to make TH more 'adult' as such, merely to try & make it fit more closely with the developed mythology. That's what he couldn't do, because TH was written before the Mythology was developed (at least as far as the Third Age went).

What Tolkien would have done, had he finished his revision, would have been to turn TH from a wonderful children's fairy story, a tale that can stand on its own, into a mere prequel to LotR. TH would have been diminished into nothing but a 'set up', & put in the service of something else.

TH is in many ways the best introduction to Tolkien's mythological world - even though it doesn't 'fit' properly, & its certainly the best introduction for children. The idea of taking that introduction away from them in order to please the Leggy-boppers & the teenage boys who want to see Orc blood splattering the screen is a sad one to me. In the book the 'horror' & violence is distanced, only referred to, & the last battle is not described. In any movie it would all be there, graphically depicted. Bilbo stabbing the spiders in Mirkwood would be there on screen, Beorn rending apart Goblins would be there, Fili & Kili would fall (like Haldir) in slo-mo before Thorin recieived his mortal wounding, etc.

Now, any reader who saw that kind of movie would never be able to read TH in the same way again. You'd have to avoid the movie altogether if you wanted to retain the simple charm of 'In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit.....in the morning of the world, when there was less noise & more green'.

Can you make the Hobbit movie that movie fans & producers want without trashing the innocent, light-hearted, 'high adventure' mood of the book? No. Adding in to TH the kind of violence & brutality that fans of the LotR movies expect & removing the silliness, the innocence, is effectively pornographising (yes, its a real word apparently!) the story. Its taking something which belongs by right to children & making it harsher & darker purely in order to sate the jaded palates of 'adults' who have fed to long & too deeply on the Hostels & Die Hards, & require darkness & brutality & ugliness in their movies. Remove the songs & the silly jokes that child readers love purely in order that the teenagers don't feel 'embarrassed' & start throwing their popcorn at the screen.

[Sauron the White]

davem ... since popping up here a bit ago I have read many of your posts. You certainly have a great deal of knowledge about JRRT and his writings and I respect that. You have probably forgotten more about JRRT than I could ever hope to learn. But - in my humble opinion as an outsider - I do think you weaken your own positions by throwing in heavy handed judgments and value laden terms that attempt to strengthen your own position while they denigrate others. In your post above you talk about "TRASHING" the HOBBIT if certain changes are made. You then compare this to PORNOGRAPHY which is utter nonsense and ridiculous.

How do these flights of bloated verbage further this discussion?

[davem]

Originally Posted by Sauron the White

You then compare this to PORNOGRAPHY which is utter nonsense and ridiculous.

How do these flights of bloated verbage further this discussion?

American Heritage Dictionary
por·nog·ra·phy (pôr-nŏg'rə-fē) Pronunciation Key
n.

1. Sexually explicit pictures, writing, or other material whose primary purpose is to cause sexual arousal.
2. The presentation or production of this material.
3. Lurid or sensational material: "Recent novels about the Holocaust have kept Hitler well offstage [so as] to avoid the ... pornography of the era" (Morris Dickstein).

.

[Sir Kohran]

Originally Posted by Sauron the White

davem ... since popping up here a bit ago I have read many of your posts. You certainly have a great deal of knowledge about JRRT and his writings and I respect that. You have probably forgotten more about JRRT than I could ever hope to learn. But - in my humble opinion as an outsider - I do think you weaken your own positions by throwing in heavy handed judgments and value laden terms that attempt to strengthen your own position while they denigrate others. In your post above you talk about "TRASHING" the HOBBIT if certain changes are made. You then compare this to PORNOGRAPHY which is utter nonsense and ridiculous.

How do these flights of bloated verbage further this discussion?

I have to agree here. Criticising PJ's vision of Middle-Earth is one thing. Comparing it to pornography is quite another, and is stupid, inappropriate and downright offensive.