Pj To Produce The Hobbit!

[Thenamir]

My vote for the voice of Smaug: Michael Dorn -- give him a proper British accent and rough up the edges of that voice (Lt. Worf on Star Trek, for those not in-the-know), and it could be smooth and mysterious riddling with Bilbo, and wild and dangerous attacking Lake-Town. James Earl Jones is already too many great voices, Sean Connery has already voiced a dragon (Dragonheart), John Rhys-Davies is both Gimli and Treebeard, and Christopher Lee has already been marked in my mind as Saruman.

But please, please, don't get someone like the voice artist, whoever he was, who did Smaug in the Rankin-Bass version. (Aptly named -- "rank" means stinking, and "bass" is a fish.) That was simply dreadful.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Are you suggesting that lawyers for Tolkien Estate might claim anything which is treated in both The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion violates the copyright on the latter? I don't think they'd get very far.

Of course not. If it's in the Appendices, they've got it (presumably- there might be an exemption clause in the contract, but we can't know that). The issue is the rather astonishing claim that all the First and Second age material Tolkien ever wrote is somehow 'incorporated by reference' into the Appendices.

[Sauron the White]

from WCH

The issue is the rather astonishing claim that all the First and Second age material Tolkien ever wrote is somehow 'incorporated by reference' into the Appendices.

Could be please cite the quote where anyone made that "rather astonishing claim"? And I would like the exact quote not some rehash, a retelling , a paraphrasing, a translation, an "its the same thing as...", or "it sounded like to me that ...".

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Then, to avoid any futher accusations of 'strawman' or 'twisting', will you please, Sauron, make a succinct statement of why you think New Line has a right or a claim of a right to Silmarillion material?

[Sauron the White]

Mr. Hicklin - could you please answer my previous request to you first and then we can move on? First things first.

Again, you stated

The issue is the rather astonishing claim that all the First and Second age material Tolkien ever wrote is somehow 'incorporated by reference' into the Appendices.

And I asked you.....Could be please cite the quote where anyone made that "rather astonishing claim"? And I would like the exact quote not some rehash, a retelling , a paraphrasing, a translation, an "its the same thing as...", or "it sounded like to me that ...".

Please be good enough to cover that ground before we move on. Thank you.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

OK, quotes ensue:

Is it not possible, that a sharp legal staff with some innovative thinking, could well claim that they own the films rights to that material and anything published later and made known to the public can be used by them as well since it only details material which they already owned and had use of?

is it not possible for a legal department to advocate that since the legally own that information in the Appendicies for the purposes of film, that they have the right to other more detailed information that JRRT had also written up until that time and referred to by name or character or event in LOTR?

I would remind you that the word Silmarallion was used by JRRT in the Appendicies to LOTR where he described many events of the First and Second Ages. That material from LOTR is owned as film rights by Saul Zaentz and New Line Cinema.

Could not a case be made that it was Christopher Tolkien who - in your words - "used some sneaky way" of attempting to take back what his father had already sold?

Now, how have I misinterpreted your argument?

[Sauron the White]

Again good sir, I ask you to please produce the quote where I made - in your words the astonishing claim that

all the First and Second age material Tolkien ever wrote is somehow 'incorporated by reference' into the Appendices.

The quotes taken from my posts indicate that some material would be covered but I see nothing there going to the extreme position that you take in your quoted claim.

I stand ready to be corrected.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Thenamir

My vote for the voice of Smaug: Michael Dorn -- give him a proper British accent and rough up the edges of that voice (Lt. Worf on Star Trek, for those not in-the-know), and it could be smooth and mysterious riddling with Bilbo, and wild and dangerous attacking Lake-Town. James Earl Jones is already too many great voices, Sean Connery has already voiced a dragon (Dragonheart), John Rhys-Davies is both Gimli and Treebeard, and Christopher Lee has already been marked in my mind as Saruman.

But please, please, don't get someone like the voice artist, whoever he was, who did Smaug in the Rankin-Bass version. (Aptly named -- "rank" means stinking, and "bass" is a fish.) That was simply dreadful.

It has to be someone who is known for pulling off sarcasm. Now there's a whole lot of people good at that around right now, unfortunately most of them presenters, which rules out say Charlie Brooker or the Top Gear team (as highly amusing and inappropriate as it would be to have Jeremy Clarkson voice Smaug... ), but one or two actors remain. Maybe Richard Wilson or Bill Nighy? David Tennant?

[Thenamir]

I, as you, would love to see David Tennant in almost anything (was rather surprised, in re-watching HP & The Goblet of Fire, to see Tennant there as Barty Crouch Jr.), but you'd have to do some digital magic to his voice in order for his high-tenor to sound serious and resonant enough for a lumbering giant of a man-bear.

[Lalwendë]

He could voice Smaug though (sorry - wasn't clear there!) as there's nothing to say that a Dragon has to have a deep, manly voice. He can 'do serious and scary' very well though as shown in the past series of Doctor Who. Speaking of which, John Barrowman would make a fabulous Elf!

[Thenamir]

My mistake entirely, for some reason I had Beorn on the brain. Smaug is indeed the context.

[Thenamir]

Let me eat a bit more crow, here, and make something a bit clearer. The two films, noted on a news story posted in another thread, will be "The Hobbit" proper, and the "sequel" film will cover what might be called Middle-Earth's "intertestamental" period, the 60 years from the end of the Hobbit to the beginning of FOTR.

[Bêthberry]

Well, if we are looking for a traditional 'deep, manly' voice full of power and authority without being too Darthish, there's the actor who voices Optimus Prime in Transformers. Peter Cullen? It's a good-guy resonating voice.


I just cannot see them doing The Hobbit proper in the first film and then making it all up for the second. I think it would work much better the other way around, so they could explain how TH is merely a slight deviance from the Legendarium in the first, and then to TH proper in the second. Better box office that way, leaving the solid Tolkien stuff to the last. I bet they could get davem to do a good job of it, too, stringing TH into The Silm.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Well, if we are looking for a traditional 'deep, manly' voice full of power and authority without being too Darthish, there's the actor who voices Optimus Prime in Transformers. Peter Cullen? It's a good-guy resonating voice.


I just cannot see them doing The Hobbit proper in the first film and then making it all up for the second. I think it would work much better the other way around, so they could explain how TH is merely a slight deviance from the Legendarium in the first, and then to TH proper in the second. Better box office that way, leaving the solid Tolkien stuff to the last. I bet they could get davem to do a good job of it, too, stringing TH into The Silm.

davem could be a good Smaug actually, as he's good at being sardonic And they're both Northern too*




*I'm having visions of Smaug in a flat cap...

All this talk of them making up extra stuff has me in fits. It could be a rare thing and be quite decent but the odds are that it risks turning the whole business into being something like a cruddy Middle-earth soap opera, such as so many sci-fi series turned into in the end with all their spin-offs.

I'm also not looking forwards to spending the rest of my whole life explaining to people "No! It's NOT in the books!"

Still, the machine rolls on in so many ways. More money to pay for Hollywood execs' supplies of disco dust and more grist for Tolkien fans to argue about.