Serving animals in HOBBIT film

[Sauron the White]

Should there be the serving animals from the chapter Queer Lodgings in an eventual HOBBIT film? And I mean exactly as JRRT wrote that scene.

It is my strong feeling that the serving animals are the Tom Bombadil of THE HOBBIT. They would be the kiss of death in a movie reagardless of who directed it but especially if it is in any way serious. Plus, the recent memory of the talking animals in NARNIA, it would just be too much for the audience.

Feelings and opinions?

[Mithalwen]

If I were filming the Hobbit, as a single film especially (and I appreciate this isn't what is going to happen since it will be same old same old with PJ ). I would ditch Beorn.

It doesn't really advance the plot, doesn't really fit into the wider story and has no major consequences. In a story designed to be read in installments to children it works as a reprise of the arrival of the dwarves at bag end, and if the Hobbit was to be done as a Sunday teatime serial (as theBBC did the Narnia stories when I was a child) I might well keep it- though t I am little fonder of Beorn than Bombadil whom I loathe.

However even if the Hobbit is done as a childrens film, I would lose it ... I think it would be visually rather dull and while it is necessary to have light interrupting the shade to stop it getting too scary for tinies, in this case the Eagle rescue serves the purpose. I would have the Eagles dump them (though maybe not Gandalf) at the edge of Mirkwood.

Beorn's role at the battle of five armies was hardly significant and I never understood why, having been an Elffriend by the Elvenking, and Gandalf as companion going through Mirkwood was avoided.... it is inconceivable that the Woodelves would not have given them hospitality and ensured their safe passage.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Mith, I can't agree that Beorn's presence was insignificant- he turned the tide at the Bo5A, crushing Bolg and his bodyguard just as Thorin's charge had prtered out.

More to the point, Beorn is a tremendous addition to the 'uncanniness' of Middle-earth, and the weight of its history (not that PJ will ever pick up on that). In any event, if this thing actually does come out in 2 movies there's no need as there was with LR to cut original material- instead a lot of padding will be added, which is what I chiefly dread. I envision McKellen, Lee, Weaving and Blanchett engaging in gang-wizard-fu against Sauron (perhaps they'll psychically kick the eyeball around like a soccer ball.....)

[Meriadoc1961]

The animals themselves did not talk in Beorn's house, HE talked to them in their language. Yes, they were intelligent, but I see nothing in having them in the movie in Beorn's house that would be a distraction.

The Eagles talk, and so do the old raven and the spiders in the book. (The thrush speaks, but only Bard can understand him, being of the line of Girion, and the wolves speak in their language that is understood by both Gandalf and the goblins.) Are we not going to have them talk in this movie as well?

Merry

[Folwren]

Why would the recent memory of Narnia ruin it for the audience? It wasn't the animals that made the movie not as good as it could have been - it was that director's deviation from the book - just like the LotR wasn't as good as it could have been, not because of Elijah Wood's acting of Frodo, but because Jackson strayed from the book.

I think Beorn belongs in the story and movie. And if you have Beorn, you can't very well not have his animals, can you? I think the serving animals would be wonderful. They shouldn't necessarily be the center of attention for thirty seconds or whatever, but I think it'd be cool to have Gandalf and Beorn or someone talking and in the background see the animals trotting in and out with the platters and tables.

Was it murder to the book? No. And if properly done, it won't be murder to the movie, either.

-- Folwren

[Sauron the White]

from Folwren

Why would the recent memory of Narnia ruin it for the audience? It wasn't the animals that made the movie not as good as it could have been - it was that director's deviation from the book - just like the LotR wasn't as good as it could have been, not because of Elijah Wood's acting of Frodo, but because Jackson strayed from the book.

So the LOTR films were "not as good as it could have been" if they only stayed strictly to the books? So if we had Tom Bombadil singing his cheery doggerel dressed like a bad hippie dream, then the film would have
- made more money than the $4 billion US dollars that it did ????
- won more than the 17 Academy Awards that it did ?????
- been more critically praised than the high level that it did ????

I find that extremely hard to believe since by all three areas of industry measurement they were immensely successful. There were things in the book that would have simply killed the films right in their tracks - Bombadil at the top of that list. Try to imagine a 25 minute Council of Elrond with all the various talking heads laying out the expository material for the audience as they figdeted in their chairs.

Please, lets get it through our collective heads --- a book is one thing while a film is quite another. What works in one medium does not always work in the other.