f13.net

filiming has started with Jackson in NZ.  First blog of pre-production and filming below.  And no, there was no separate thread yet.  Merge if so.  Otherwise, squee and squee and squee.

http://www.movieweb.com/movie/the-hobbit/start-of-production


Edit: Oh, and Sir Ian is in the clip.  Boasting a fine cap.

So I just had a look at the cast page.  Lots there to be excited about.  Except...

Were Frodo, Legolas, Saruman, and Galadriel in The Hobbit?  Shit, was Frodo even born yet when Bilbo was off having his adventures?

We're going to be telling the entire story as a series of flashbacks, aren't we.   :uhrr:

If I had to guess:

Frodo and old Bilbo will be used as a framing device for telling the story to get viewers up to speed on where and when the story takes place, and to convey some of how Bilbo was feeling.  It might even be necessary, because the narrative voice in The Hobbit was much different from LOTR....  it showed Bilbos transition from out of his depth and almost a burden to the defacto leader and most important character.


Legolas should have been at the Mirkwood palace scenes and the Battle of Five Armies, but he was a later canon addition.  Sticking him in doesn't really mess anything up.


A big part of the plot of The Hobbit is that Gandalf has to leave the party at the beginning of Mirkwood, to race back to Rivendell to make a meeting of the White Council where they decide to go knock on the gates of Dol Guldor.  In the book, this is downplayed.  In the movie, you'll have to illustrate why he can't hang around otherwise it looks like a major plot hole where Gandalf just takes off and abandons the rest.


Okay:

David Tennant as Thandruil and Leonard Nimoy as Smaug?  Yes.  Yes please!

Yes, Frodo will be framing it at the start. Not necessarily a flashback, but probably more of a storytime thing.

And they're going to show Gandalf and the White Council vs. The Necromancer. I think details are still being speculated, but I'm guessing there's probably going to be a Big Zombie Skeleton Fight. (Or maybe they'll show up at Dol Guldor and there'll be nobody there...oooooo.)

The original concept (I don't know if Jackson changed this) was that the two movies would span the story of the Hobbit and the years leading up to LOTR.  I'm not fond of this idea.  The Hobbit alone could comprise two full 3 hour movies, with the journey to Lonely Mountain being the first and the interation with Smaug/Battle of Five Armies comprising the second.  

I can't quite remember from lore, but I think that Legolas and Galadriel are in the same area during this time, though they should not be in Rivendell.  Frodo would not have been alive during the Hobbit, and I have no idea what Saruman was up to.  Ascending to White Wizard, maybe?

Maybe, just maybe, we can get him to sing Bilbo Baggins for us. 

Legolas is Thandruil's son, so he should be in Mirkwood/palace/Battle of Five Armies.

Galadriel was one of the big powers on the White Council, so she would have traveled to Rivendell for that and to bitchslap the Necromancer. 


If the movie was structured like Princess Bride, with old Bilbo narrating the story to Frodo...  I think that would work very, very well.

As long as we dispense with the Kissing Parts.

Are you saying you don't want to see the smoldering yet doomed passion between Gollum and Bilbo?

Especially Frodo and Sam.

For some reason I'm not really excited about this. I'll probably change my tune but well, it's a prequel. Sure, it has the advantage of not being written by George Lucas but it just doesn't do anything for me. Oddly if it'd been released before the LOTR movies I might be more excited. I know, I don't understand it either.

Has there been any info on what the shoved-in romance plot is going to be that every big-budget movie must have? I don't remember there being many women in the Hobbit.

Easy fix. Take a couple of the extraneous dwarves nobody really cares about, like Bofur or Oin, and give them vaginas. Insert hilariously implied dwarven three-way-in-a-barrel after the escape from the elves.

Dol Guldur (Hill of Sorcery) was the hideout of Sauron (minus his ring of course) in southern Mirkwood.  The Wise discovered an evil presence there but left it alone for a thousand years while it corrupted the forest.  See below.  Finally Gandalf went alone to scout the place and Sauron was like "LOL, I'm out bitches" and fled.  Four hundred years later Sauron returned and was like "Whuz up?"  Four hundred years after THAT Gandalf returned (it's implied he went alone) and discovered Sauron was the evil force. Then about one hundred years after THAT, the White Council (led by Saruman) drove Sauron out of Dol Guldur.

Saruman, hoping for Sauron to basically lead him to the ring, in his role as the head of the White Council, delayed and lied to the rest.  He vetoed one assault urged by Gandalf, but one can think that the pressure finally forced him to order the attack on Dol Guldur which drove Sauron to Mordor.  Only a few years later Saruman founded Isengard and started forming his orc army.  Noted for first Diversity Program in Middle Earth.

So Gandalf was central to this as was Galadriel and Celeborn.  The reason Gandalf was so happy during most of The Hobbit?  Saurman told the White Council that the Ring had fallen away to the sea. 

/nerd off

 

I think that's because, while we had only relatively crappy versions (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077869/) of the Lord of the Rings (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079802/), there's already an acceptable version of the Hobbit (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077687/).

Meh, all three of those were pretty much on par with each other. I think the animated Hobbit is just the most remembered.

I've never seen the Rankin-Bass ROTK, but the Rototscoped LOTR is in no way on the same level as The Hobbit.   It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't that great, either.  (Although it did have an awesome soundtrack (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdXQJS3Yv0Y))  

The Hobbit, on the other hand, was really good and only suffers in a few spots, like the removal of the Bear dude and the horrible Elf & goblin designs.  Those last two I blame more on the shitty fantasy art of the 70's than the movie itself.

I'm excited about the new Hobbit movie but I know I'm going to be annoyed with it. Simply because the Hobbit is not supposed to be a prequel but I'm sure they're going to cram in as many LotR movie references as possible so the viewers can connect the two. So pretty much what Samwise said.

My hope is, that those are very subtle hints at LotR. I get the feeling we are going to see Bilbo's book a lot if it's a story-tell movie.

Wow, thanks for the fond memories.

Do.  They did it as well as The Hobbit.  Plus the whip song is  :awesome_for_real:.

It seemed like the guys who did some of the Hobbit from 1977 did some of the stuff for the movie Heavy Metal, must be the rotoscope style.

Was that the same Hobbit that had the Smaug dragon who looked like some kind of mutant cat?

Yup.

(http://www.smaug.tk/albums/smaug/222_G.jpg)

Wow.

That's the most retarded Dragon I've ever seen.

I remember thinking just about the exact same thing.  As far as I can remeber, Gandalf and the Hobbits were the only characters in that movie who i thought were properly desinged.  The elves, dwarves and the dragon all looked nearly pants on head retarded.

The elves of Rivendell looked ok, but the forest elves looked ridiculous.  I thought the dwarves weren't too bad either, but I can see where you're coming from on that one.

As I said.. Fantasy art in the 70s: Total Shit.

Was this the version of LOTR where they decided that the name Saurman sounded too much like Sauron and changed it to Aruman? Then managed to call him Saruman half the time anyway?

Leonard Nimoy   ...    Smaug (rumored)

Yeah, I think Sam rumored it all the way up the top of the page.

I don't want him to be Smaug.  I dislike Galvatron in my Dragon.

Ah, the Rankin-Bass ROTK. Been a while. So very, very wrong to hear most of the voice work done by Saturday morning cartoon performers, and the sound effects too. The Eowyn-Witch King scene is completely  :uhrr:

I swear to God my avatar creates some kind of perception filter.

Better than starscream.

Ok, I called you Samwise, but in fairness Sam, In Real Life, is in fact a couple of cute wee dingo doggy things, so you can see how I got confused.

I thought Samwise looked like this:

(http://texaslynn.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/futurama-hippy.jpg)

Heh.

No.

Sam wears hats.

How do you know that half of the dwarves weren't females?  :awesome_for_real:

Because the ratio of female to male dwarves is 1:3.   :oh_i_see:

Bah. According to Netflix, The Hobbit is not on DVD.  Maybe I can find this on ebay.

edit: yup. $4.99 +$3 SH on VHS.  I actually still have a working VHS.

 :drill:  :drillf: :heart:

With the notable exception of things that were family outings, the last film I have seen in a theater was Return of the King, and it looks like the Hobbit part 1 will be the next.

Given everyone involved, I don't see how this can be anything but wonderful.

So it seems the second part of the movie will bridge direclty into the start of Jackson's Fellowship making this - what? - a Middle-Earth Penalogy?

What I'm really excited about - and rather nervous, tbh - is the apparent intent to treat the White Council material that is in the "sub books". I've always wondered just what the Gandalf, Galadriel, Saruman and the rest did to drive the Necromancer out of Dol Guldur when they "put forth their power".

And remember, the Necromancer is actually Sauron which is great and interesting but this may place Mr. Jackson in a pickle.

You see, in his movies he made the mistake of taking Tolkien literally and making Sauron a giant eyeball while choosing to ignore, for whatever reason, Tolkien's own letters in which the Professor states that Sauron at the end of the Third Age did indeed have a physical form that should be thought of as "exceedingly terrible". Jackson also ignored the fact that Gollum, who was brought before Sauron for questioning in the time between The Hobbit and The Fellowship, says that he (Sauron) has "only nine fingers". So I sincerely hope Jackson does not stick another eyeball in Dol Guldur as yet another of his poor interpretations, though how he would connect the incarnate Maia that Tolkien intended with "Eyeball Sauron" I cannot say.

Oh, and looks like that girl from "The Lovely Bones" will be playing an Elf so you’re looking at a crowbar-in love story right there which, as far as I can remember has no basis whatsoever in the books - even the latterly published gleanings from the great man's wastepaper basket...

I'm still optimistic.  Also, regarding a human form, he was there in full armor at the start of the trilogy, losing a finger.  Not impossible to put back in semi scarry armor or robes.

Wasn't Sauron supposed to come face Aragorn in the movie version of ROTK? I seem to remember Jackson (or some source) saying that The Eye was a manifestation of Sauron's power, not Sauron himself. (Not that I"m defending Jackson. I think the movies were a mixed bag.)

Yes, he was. He was digitally replaced with a troll at the last minute. It's mentioned in the extras from the extended DVD set.

As far as I know, there's nothing in the films that says Sauron is an eye and an eye only. The eye is just ONE manifestation of Sauron. In fact, I think Gandalf mentions that Sauron is yet not strong enough to take physical form so the eye form is suggested to be more of a phase.

Besides, you have to admit it makes for a much more iconic bad guy than a tall dude in a black suit of armour does.

Sauron's physical form appears in the original movie trilogy anyway, we watch Isildur chop his finger off during the HERE IS YOUR EXPOSITIONAL INFO DUMP at the start of the first movie. So yeah the 'he is just an eye' thing is categorically false even in the movies.

Not that they'll do it, but they could have the WC destroy Sauron's physical form and he flees to Mordor as a big flamin' eye

  Sauron assumed a fair form during his captivity in Numenor.  When that kingdom was destroyed, his body was caught in the catastrophe and he thereafter was unable to assume a fair form.  His body was described as black and burning hot.

He kept this form when he lost The Ring, but in the Third Age he most frequently appeared as a single fearsome eye.
I assume Sauron preferred to reveal himself as this to scare the crap out of folks even more.

Cool sidenote:  According to my source (Complete Guide to Middle Earth) Sauron wasn't destroyed when the Ring was destroyed but afterwards he was so weakened that he could never again assume physical form. 

And for thirty years now I thought Sauron was just a evil spirit, which is dumb, because he needs a physical body to put the Ring on eh?

To get technical, he probably is best described as an evil spirit. The Maiar are basically immortal spirits that can take various physical forms.

Spot on.  Sauron has also assumed the forms of a werewolf and a (non-sparkly) vampire. 

I'll probably catch hell for this, but I'm pretty much OK with whatever Jackson does with Dol Guldur and all that.  I just want to see two good Middle Earth films.  I know Jackson took liberties with the trilogy but fuck it, Michael Bay could be directing.

He removed the one scene in The Fellowship of the Ring where the Witch King necrobitchslaps a hobbit a 50 yards.  He removed Strider being a total dickhead to Sam in the inn.  He removed Gandalf and Elrond totally high-fiving each other over how much awesome shit they threw into the flood and the Ringwraiths getting their shit mauled with fire and thrown into the flood.  He removed the barrow wight and the blades of MONUMENTAL PLOT SIGNIFICANCE.

For some reason I can only envision this like Pacman getting a power pill boost, killing a ghost, and it going wuuwuwuwuwu back to Mordor.

Really ?

Really Sheepherder ?  You're gonna go there ?  Not even I went there.

Jackson did fine.

Fine being the operative word.

But he trimmed more than Tolkien neckbeard.

Not only that, his treatment of Gandalf during the siege of Minas Tirith - particularly the dire encounter with the Witchking - was nothing short of abuse.

 :oh_i_see:

I'm so glad I read the books AFTER I saw the movies.

 :dead_horse:

(http://i.imgur.com/CxVOw.jpg)
 :grin:

You win for missing my point harder than Sheepherder.

If I wanted, I could get laid into some of the changes and omissions too.

But you know what ?  It's really, really not worth it.

Enjoy your half a loaf.  You never know when you're gonna get another one.

So, Stephen Fry is going to play the Master of Lake-Town.

 :grin:

Here's the problem: the movies had less explosions and dismemberment than the books written by an old neckbeard in the depths of time (at the very least the first one was lacking in this manner).  By this metric alone I can prove Jackson's failure as a director.  The random fucking with plot threads that made a bunch of shit incoherent is just sauce.

The question has to be asked: did you buy the DVDs?

I was holding out on deciding for sure until now, but I guess you really just are fucking nuts.

No.


I can't help it that pretty much the only scene in the first movie that didn't bore the fuck out of me was Gandalf delivering a smackdown on the Balrog.  Seriously, the pacing is just fucking atrocious.  You get to be neckbeardy and stick to the source material, or you get to make massive changes to the source material and make up for it with Baysplosions, you don't get to be explosion-less and neckbeardy.

Everything between Weathertop and them sitting in front of the door to Moria was just fucking tedious.  You know what it really could have used?  Gandalf exploding some wolves.

"oh yes, by the way my friends, I got a side quest from one of those elves in Riven... I have to collect 15 wolf asses"  :why_so_serious:

No, I'm with the Sheepherded on this one, LOTR was a series of movies that didn't know if they wanted to be a summer action flick, or a :why_so_serious: adaptation of the books, and that waffling in the middle produced some pretty incoherent garbage. In between neat SFX like the Balrog, and cool moments from the books, there's terrible acting, directing, meandering moments, and comically bad use of CGI.

So, which one of you has the longer ponytail?

Hey hipster, can I get you another Pabst?

Me! Me me!

There ain't no shame in liking a bad movie. I liked the Star Wars prequels, but I know they're bad. Same for LOTR.

Yeah, I kinda agree here. Book-Gandalf had fireballs and crap like that, which surprised me when I read it.

You're certainly entitled to your opinion, but millions of moviegoers and the Academy Awards disagrees with your assessment it's a bad movie.

Millions of people liked Revenge of the Fallen.  :grin: And what awards did it win? Only ROTK got anything outside of effects/costumes/sound stuff. So I guess they're as good a movies as Phantom Menace.

Not seeing it, particularly the "bad acting" part.

Ratman_tf: Name me a good fantasy or scifi movie, in your terms.

Oh, I've stirred up the movie nerds now!  :why_so_serious:

Sorry, I didn't know you were the resident cool kid.  I'll go sit up front with the bus driver now.

Troll.

Considering where and what I'm posting about, I don't think I can claim cool kid status.

Ummm, they were released in the Christmas season, so they were never trying to be summer action flicks, but adaptations of the books. The only thing wrong with the Fellowship movie was the lack of the Barrows (but then we'd have had to explain Tom Bombadil, and we can do without that shit, too right) and the swords, everything else was pretty damn good. The series only started to go a little off the rails with overuse of Arwen and those fucking elves at Helm's Deep.

The Arwen shit is the worst offender.  When the most action-packed thing you can come up with for a chase scene is someone getting their face scratched by a branch and a dude in black spiked armour reaching menacingly towards a midget you should just fucking cut it.  Which would have given Jackson more time to have Gandalf blowing up a hilltop because nature better not start shit with him.  Or the Wight scene, sans Bombadil.

Exactly.


Arwen was a tragedy, but I partly blame bad casting for that. Liv Tyler wasn't worth two squirts of piss in the LOTR films.

Bombadil is a good cut. The Barrows cut was understandable.

I got the feeling that the movie started to go off the rails in Rivendell. "You are, The Fellowship Of The Ring!(TM)" especially the awfully goofy scene where Bilbo makes a monster face at Frodo over the Ring. Was that CGI really necessary? Can't Ian Holm act without having his face farced?

I was sure it was gone bad in Lothlorien with the terrible scene where Galadriel started glowing and speaking unintelligably. WTF was that all about? Again, they chose cheesy bad CGI over having the actor actually act.

The Tolkien purist in me hated the Gandalf vs. Saruman, FIGHT! Scene. Just terrible. But I can kinda understand that Joe Moviegoer doesn't understand any confilct that isn't physical. And it gave them a chance to have some more special effects. SFX are always good, right?

What really amuses me is how much it rips off Bakshi's LOTR. Most of their major shots and editing choices come straight from the animated movie. From little things like "Proudfeet!" to the interpretation of who attacked the party in Bree. Tolkien never says who broke into the room. Both Bakshi and Jackson interpret it as the Ringwraiths. But the book implies that it was merely human (or half orc) agents who did it. There's lots more.

And after Helm's Deep, the TT and ROTK seem to go completely shit. I think it's because there was nothing left for Jackson to crib from except the Rankin Bass version of ROTK.  :awesome_for_real: The movies go flat after Helm's Deep and never really recover until it's too late.

That's just a slice of the problems I had with the movies. I've gone over them many times, probably here too.

I didn't like the treatment of the Ents, but hey, isn't this the Hobbit thread?

(Also, the book was far more boring? How come the movie didn't have three hours of Frodo and Sam looking at dead face in water?)

I had my issues with the movies but the bakshi ripoffs were intentional homages, at least I remember hearing jackson say that somewhere.

This is F13.  We're supposed to shit on the director's previous work when discussing his new work.


Nine pages gave you that much grief?

Whenever I opened the book up I feel asleep within 5 mins from boredom. It took me 6 months to finish.

So yeah.

Christ, you're all mental.  Totally fucking hatstand.

My favourite bit of this "Hobbit" film is that we'll get to recreate all the LOTR arguments again, plus new ones about how Jackson totally left out something important / added in something superfluous. This thread is going places for at least the next 2 years.

Oh fuck NO.

Yes.  It's like you never stopped dating, but without the payout, isn't it?

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.

That pretty much described all my dates.

I remember reading somewhere that Jackson's first exposure to LOTR was the Bakshi animated movie. No cite handy, though.
(Oh, it's on the wiki for the Bakshi movie. Lotta "He said, she said" crap though.)

The first line or the second? :rimshot:

I may enjoy this one if he doesn't manage to beard it up by fucking with or removing the cool shit the entire length of the movie to make room for a romance story that he inserts into the movie at every possible juncture, nobody gives a shit about, and doesn't really fit in anyways.

At no point should any director ever look at his Tolkien compilation and say "This would be great shit, if only I removed some of the fighting."

Rather than get into another horrible LOTR argument, I'm just going to leave it at "Sheepherder, you are fucking bat shit crazy."

Bring on the Hobbits.

This is like listening to a bunch of evangelical cunts start arguing over how to interpret Scripture so that you can know for certain when the Rapture is going to happen.

I thought the battle scenes in ROTK from the Charge of the Rohirim (sp?) onward were spectacular.  I don't care how close they were to the books.  They were magnificent film.

Amen bothers! Hallelujah and pass the Silmarillion!

 :ye_gods:

Topical!  :awesome_for_real:

I am.  And you like boring movies.

Intense faithfulness to original texts with massive amounts of backstory, esoterica, and narrative digressions is well-known for generating excitingly cinematic films. 

Yes, that's what I said.  Exactly that.

Not "Hey, there's totally some explosions and gore and shit that Jackson totally skipped but would have been totally acceptable inclusions, but instead Jackson wanted more elf wank.  What the fuck dude?"

RotK was a poor film.

Nothing to do with whether or not it followed the books. Judged on it's own merits it just was not good. Overlong, bad acting, dull CGI battle scenes, complete lack of editing and restraint that has plagued Peter Jackson's recent movies. I get that nerds have some sort of duty to love the LOTR movies just because they are LOTR movies but the third one is not good in any way other than "oh hey they turned LOTR into a movie."

The stuff with Frodo and Sam looking longingly at each other every 2 feet while climbing the mountain is Mystery Science Theater grade material.

(http://assmints.com/blog/files/bad_taste.jpg)

(http://www.noahmallin.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/meet-the-feebles.jpeg)

Restraint has never been one of Peter Jackson's virtues.

I think as a book, it was one of the weaker books. It was very EPIC AND BIG THINGS HAPPENING, almost Biblical in style (intentionally so) and I think that made it suffer. The movie suffered from some of the same problems, the fact that the extended edition was over 4 hours was really not helpful other than as a sop to the fans. It was especially galling that it was that long and STILL didn't have room for the Scouring, which highlighted a central theme of the whole series but whatever. I enjoyed it on its own merits but don't tend to rewatch it because I'd rather have that 4 hours to do other things.

I've still never seen the extended RotK. Went to the release event of extended FotR, extended TT and theatrical RotK at midnight back to back to back in a theater. I haven't watched any of the movies since, it was just too much.

By restraint I don't mean gore and over-the-top stuff. I mean stuff like King Kong  taking an 80 minute concept and stretching it to 3 hours. NOW LET'S HAVE A PART WHERE CGI BUGS ATTACK THEM FOR FOR 15 MINUTES!

Jackson's recent movies are full of superfluous garbage and overlong shots. Apparently since he's become a golden goose nobody is willing to reign him in.

And people loved it. So, whats wrong?

King Kong was an hour too long and really really crappy. I watched it once, barely made it through and have no desire to ever see it again.

You're entirely wrong.


It was two hours too long.

I loved RotK even though it dragged a bit at the end, but King Kong put me to sleep.

Agree completely with the King Kong hate. The Jeff Bridges version is miles better. Plus Jessica Lange   :drill:

Legolas to be in the movies:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110527/film_nm/us_orlandobloom

Let the nerdrage begin! :awesome_for_real:

I can just hear the neckbeards growing! They may gain sentience after this.

Won't matter. The movie will be released on the 21st just when the Earth crumbles into dust and the chariots come to ferry the saints off into space.

It's not a terribly tremendous stretch for the son of the king of the wood elves to be hanging about their place in Mirkwood or be there when they're fighting in the Battle of the Five Armies, IMO.

Pretty much that.

I just reread the Hobbit and had forgotten that Bilbo spends quite a while skulking around the elf palace, feeding himself through burglary. So a scene where Bilbo steals Legolas's half-eaten midnight lembas snack from his nightstand is perfectly fine with me.

Hey, Orlando Bloom's gotta eat right?

Only if he split jumps up a narrow hallway, drops on Legolas' back when he walks underneath, and chokes him out first.

While riding a shield down stairs.

 :uhrr:

That's a great idea, you should be a director.

I don't really think many die-hard fans of the novels liked what Legolas did at Helms deep or with that damn Mumak.

Still, kids were cheering.  I guess that counts.

The little bastards.

 :oh_i_see:

Yeah, I rolled my eyes at both.  But I did enjoy Bloom's slight head tilt coming off the mumak, about as much showing off as we've ever seen him do.  And of course Gimli's reply.

Going back a bit, I dunno how anyone could come up with a different vision of how to stage Sam and Frodo in Mordor. There are one or two bits of narrative excitement once they're out of the fortress and on their way to Mount Doom but mostly it's just sparse descriptions of how much they are suffering, how lifeless and unpleasant (and monotonous) Mordor looks, and tons and tons of bromantic conversations. Unless you want to completely alter the plot, that's what you're stuck with. Whenever I re-read the trilogy, I generally just skip the Sam-and-Frodo parts from Emyn Muil onward. Jackson did a pretty good job of heightening the psychological tension between Gollum, Sam and Frodo, actually.

I agree there's stuff in his adaptation of RoK that takes what works in the book (the weakest of the three) and makes it work less well. Not just Legolas showboating but the sequencing in: Grond destroying the gate, the Witch-King riding in, Gandalf standing alone, the horns blowing, the Witch-King flying off, Pippin running up, Gandalf having to save Faramir, the Witch-King's attack on Theoden and his death at the hands of Eowyn and Merry. That's pretty much the best dramatic sequence that Tolkien ever wrote, and it's perfectly cinematic as is. Dunno why Jackson fucked around with it.

What I don't get is the hardcore Jackson hating, and the stupidity of insisting that anyone who thinks the films were pretty decent is somehow a ravening fanboy. They're flawed, RoK most so, but the source material's flawed too in other ways. They were at least fine throughout and occasionally way more than fine. He'll maybe do an ok job with "The Hobbit", and if he doesn't, well ok. Getting worked up about it pro or con seems weird to me.

The RotK film was pretty much all about Smeagol.  I loved what they did with Smeagol, so I liked it more than most.

They were pretty decent. But we get a lot of fans yarking about how they were simply amazing, awesome and piss your pants exceptional. It's fine to be enthusiastic about a movie they like, but goddamn. These movies weren't that great.

I am a Tolkien fan. I'd like to see an adaptation that doesn't make me wince too often. PJ's LOTR had too many wince moments for comfort, for me.

I can forgive Aragorn falling off a cliff and any number of extended endings for Gandalf stabbing the shit out of a balrog in mid-air.

Also, ents.

No movie can ever compete with the pictures in your head from reading a book. Especially a book you read as many times as the average Tolkien fan read LotR. Taking into account that changes have to made for a different medium as well (movies don't work like books) the Jackson version is as reasonable an adaption you will ever get. And the fact that people squabble over really minor shit proves that point in my opinion.

His move to mount the horse during the warg battle was pretty badass though.

Consider the possibility that quite a few of the fans you're railling against aren't (or weren't) Tolkien fans, but just liked the films as well done fantasy movies. It's like complaining about the Star Wars trilogy because they're not as good as the Buck Rogers/Flash Gorden comic strips they were inspired by - you might well be technically correct, but you're sort of missing the point.

 :roll:

I don't get the hate over Legolas's surfing stunts. Those are little minor things that had nothing to do with the story. They were just...stunts.

They were XTREME WANK.

And they totally didn't fit a scene where Fat-Elf was getting run through.

That's kinda my point. I don't think they were well done fantasy movies. The thing that saves them from being Dungeons and Dragons The Movie is the whole Tolkien angle, which was hit or miss in quality of adaptation.

Oh, Fuck Off.

I have problems with these films too, but comparing them to Dungeons and Dragons ?

FUCK OFF.

(http://involuntaryfury.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dungeons-and-dragons-wayans.jpg)

(http://img593.imageshack.us/img593/8181/dndumad.jpg)

Just wondering what a "well done fantasy movie" is in your universe.

I'm still wondering why Legolas surfing was out of place. NOBODY CAN ANSWER ME THOUGH, other than "It just didn't fit." Well, it did. When the first battle sequence is a wall of elves almost literally doing synchronized swimming with their mini-halberds, the heightened-reality of the elves' fighting style is firmly set. Unless, I guess, Orlando Bloom does it, then it's WRONG!

 :thumbs_up:
 :Love_Letters:

Did the forum eat my reply ?  Oh, no, there it is there.

"And they totally didn't fit a scene where Fat-Elf was getting run through."

Haldir looked like the only surfing he ever did was body surfing at the front row of the pie eating contest.  I'd hardly call a unified chop from elves 'synchronised swimming' either.  Those chaps could have been Romans, Spartans or Glaswegians and the effect would have been the same.

Obviously we're just hating.  The concept of shooting things while surfing down a flight of stairs isn't patently fucking ridiculous.

I totally own the D&D movie on DVD. For all the wrong reasons.  :why_so_serious:

I rolled my eyes at the shield-surfing because it was so obviously fan-wank for the skateboard doodz.

And I can't think of a single RIGHT reason to own the DND movie.  Hmm, may have to get that.

All you guys dissing Haldir, remember he died saving two kings and a elf prince and who knows how many civilians.  Every single elf that showed up at Helm's Deep died.  Every.  Single.  One.

Legolas doesn't count, he a wood elf fag who consorts with humans and *gasp* dwarves!  Been out of the woods too long.

They should rename Helm's Deep to Haldir's Fall.  He was the real hero of Two Towers.

I'm not sure the audiences for skateboarding and LotR intersect on a Venn diagram.

Large portions of my "letter to neckbeardy comic book fans" could apply to this discussion.  :ye_gods:

I hadn't really considered the heroic nature of Haldir.

...

Because he was fat.

Putting elves at Helm's Deep at all was really just an excuse for them to use all those elf armor props they made anyway.

Literally the only edit that bothered me in LotR was turning Faramir into an irrelevant pussy, who was even less capable of controlling himself around the ring than Boromir.

I really didn't give a crap about a few elves at Helms deep.

If I was being fussy I'd also say the battle of Gondor seemed a bit weak, but mainly because the dead guys resolved it in a matter of seconds, which kind of undercut the whole 'omg terrible threat' aspect of the thing. Oh, and everything involving Liv Tyler, obviously.

Skipping the ham-fisted allegory of Tom Bombadil is actually an improvement over the books. I really hate that section of the book. If we had to lose the barrow wight as a cost of also not having to put up with Tom fucking Bombadil I'll take that trade every time.

Really? The movie was full of overlong shots, wistful psuedo-romantic looks, no visible progress in their journey, etc. The problem wasn't that it was two guys undergoing generic suffering, the problem was specifically in the way it was staged and shot. It's like without a bunch of CGI trolls Jackson didn't know what to do to create anything interesting.

My main problem with Mordor was how damn sunny it was.

 :oh_i_see:

Whenever I see Haldir dying in the movie, I go "Man, just like the book." It's such a simple troll, but it pisses off anyone I'm watching it with.

Also, synchornized chopping is about as realistic as shield-surfing. OH WELL I WIN.

"The movie isn't shitty! You're just a neckbeard!"  :oh_i_see:

But could Sauron defeat the Emperor?

Get over yourself. I could give a rat's ass about the Hobbit book or movie(s). But the last several pages have been little but wankery over minutae.

I like to think they'd team up and spend time mocking Anakin Skywalker.

Sauron: "Would you like a drink, Palpatine?"

Emperor: "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Sauron: "How about a sandwich?"

Emperor: "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Vader: "You guys suck."

Emperor: "Suck it up, Annie."

It doesn't look like anyone ever replied to this.  FYI - The Hobbit cartoon does actually exist on DVD.  I know this because I own it.  

 http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=the+hobbit&hl=en&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=3921143886086333705&sa=X&ei=eVrkTc29N4rz0gG927i0Bw&ved=0CG4Q8wIwAw (http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=the+hobbit&hl=en&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=3921143886086333705&sa=X&ei=eVrkTc29N4rz0gG927i0Bw&ved=0CG4Q8wIwAw)

People try to nerdfight with Tolkien and it just doesn't work that well, because nobody ever does anything cool or powerful where we can see it. Gandalf is supposedly uber, for example, but we never really get a firsthand description of him really laying the Kal Vas Flam on anybody. We do get a description of him being chased up a tree by wolves.

So the whole thing degenerates to the level of an argument over who the strongest Dragonball Z character is, if DBZ edited out all the fights and just left in the grunting and dialogue. Gandalf and the Balrog both have about the same power level, but Sauron has a higher power level than that, but if Gandalf put on the One Ring his power level would go over 9000 and he could kill Sauron with a Spirit Bomb. Or whatever.

Having never read the books, it's very hard to understand what the one ring actually DOES, besides turn people invisible.

AFAIK the books don't really clarify, except in that it makes you more powerful, at a cost of addiction and eventual subservience to the dark lord. Also you sweat more and lose weight.

Pretty sure only hobbits become invisible? Which seems redundant when they also get given an elven invisibility cloak but hey.

It has control over the other rings, and wearers.

All three are nominally the same race of demigods of varying skillsets: the balrog is a praetorian guard, and Gandalf and Sauron are opposing generals with an emphasis on leadership and technology, respectively.  If you just threw all three into a cage match prior to the rings being forged the balrog wins.

This i where I start having doubts about ever actually reading the books. I mean some things just start sounding like fanfiction, ok so the one ring is pretty powerful what can it do?

*insert five year old voice* Well first off it as the power of ALL the other rings and if you wear it you can control all the other people who wear the rings and even some that don't! Plus it um, makes you more powerful and enhances any power you already had!

All I know is I'm betting on the Emperor. He isn't afraid to do his cool moves on camera.

Also, it made you Sauron.  All his power bitches.

Meaning you actually like watching it...?

Isildur also used it to turn invisible, as mentioned in Unfinished Tales. (Also depicted in the movie.)

Invisibility was sort of like a side effect, IIRC.  The wearer of the ring gets dumped into some kind of shadow realm, which renders him invisible to most normal beings, but creatures that are a part of that same realm (like Sauron and his wraiths) will only see him more clearly.

The one ring gives you +1. Duh.

I could watch Jeremy Irons shovel scenery into his gaping maw all day. The movie is terrible, which makes it fucking hilarious.

It doesn't have the power of all the rings, it controls the powers of other rings.  That's Sauron's thing: he enslaves, corrupts, and inspires terror in others.  The powers the ring has is a microcosm of that, since it's sort of imbued with a portion of his soul.

You know what the best way to piss off an elf is?  Get root access to their ring of power and turn all their magically sustained trees into shitting dick trees.

You are everything that is wrong with this franchise.

Because I can comprehend English?

It doesn't matter.  The One Ring is essentially Plato's Ring of Gyges.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_gyges#Influence

Plato was full of fucking shite, wasn't he ?

I was just thinking the same thing.  His friends must have had to count their silverware after having him over for dinner.

It's so patently obvious how we as a species we have evolved just by how simplistic the philosphies of our recorded past are.  Plato's argument that any man would devolve to unjust acts with access to unlimited power is not only false but also nearsighted as though any of us can truly say what is just or unjust.

TLDR: Plato was full of shite.

It's ironic you should choose to use the word nearsighted. Context is a wonderful thing, applied correctly.

Leading up to that quote:

You are an idiot.

TLDR: u dum.

This is hysterical.

I agree with Lamaros though.

Have any of you people even read any Plato, or did you just see some Bill Moyers documentary?

Nah - I'm waiting for the movie with Brad Pitt playing Socrates and Alan Rickman as Adeimantus. There should be an obligatory cameo by Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter too.

Keanu Reeves can be the shadow on the cave wall.

What sort of haircut would he need to pull that off, do you think?

(http://i.imgur.com/TVZcGs.jpg) (http://i.imgur.com/TVZcG.jpg)

It's funny because he's a pitcher, right?

All I can say is that if f13 ever wants to create a forum area that will be even more  :uhrr: than Politics can be on occasion, Philosophy seems to be a good bet.

Seriously, No-one ?

Ok then. (http://movies.uk.msn.com/future-movies/the-hobbit-an-unexpected-journey-movie-trailer)

My pants are full of Jizz.  Though given the silence, I'm wondering if I'm behind the times or summat ?

Nah man, I just saw it and came here to SQUEE as well.

Looks good.

Looks like The Hobbit done by the people who did Lord of the Rings, which it is. It'll be 95% awesome, 5% Jar Jar.

OH HELLS YES

Edit:  Hey Chris Nolan, THIS is how you do a trailer, not *mumble, mumble*, no Batman, Hines Ward.

You realize that directors aren't usually the ones that put together the trailers right?

Instant SQUEE + Orgasm. Thank you!

I may be in the minority, but I am sorta glad Jackson is at the helm again for this . . . I am fond of the LotR movie trilogy and having the same influence on the prequel should just add to the continuity. Not that Del Torro would have fucked it up, I could guess it would not have the same feel.

And if you get the chance, the behind the scenes youtube stuff on this movie(s) is fairly interesting.

Why would you be in the minority ?

Ask the riff raff who take issue with Peter Jackson.

I think the riff raff are so loud that it's making you feel like the minority.

Just saw it this morning, and yes, much awesome and pants-jizzing was experienced.

So much awesome in that trailer! 

This is really the case.

They're great adaptations and the sole thing I can point to as terrible is Jackson having dipped dwarves in the fountain of Derp.  Maybe I missed something having not read every damn piece of Tolkien lore out there and only The Hobbit and the trilogy, but the dwarf-tossing jokes and physical comedy (which can also be seen in the trailer) always seemed out of context with the character of Gimli.

Given the addition of MOAR ELVES at Helm's Deep I'm going to blame it on Jackson being an elf-lover.

Youtube version!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eM--4UklaL4&feature=youtu.be

I seriously got goosebumps. This looks incredible. The shot where he sees the ring for the first time is awesome.

Read this post, thought I somehow ended up in the T&A thread. Clicked link. Can't figure out why anyone gives a fuck about The Hobbit. Going back to T&A thread. Because boobs > hairy footed people walking.

Righto.

What about harry footed people with boobs?

Might as well just go straight for the hairy boobs.

Man, he's in a mood today.  The family must've called.

There is a small crazy contingent that thinks the LOTR movies were shit because "favorite scene X" was chopped or changed, and they are vocal.  There are alot of us who liked large portions of the films but REALLY disliked some parts.

I think Fellowship is top to bottom the best and most coherent of the films.  Two Towers overall was pretty good, with a few weaker portions.  I think Return of the King just wasn't that good, both as a film and as an adaption.  Return had pacing problems, and the manufactured sideplots and time fillers were poor.  The Minas Tirith section overall was weak, and Denethor was a poor character...  especially sad because from Fringe I know John Noble is AWESOME. 

Denethor is a guy that even Gandalf is supposed to have a huge amount of respect for and be a bit afraid of, and who's main failing is being a shitty father to Faramir and giving in to despair.

I really like the theory that Jackson used the Bakshi LOTR as a template on how to adapt the early portions of the novels, as I think there is a noticeable falloff in the films once they moved past that part.  It's actually pretty common for film-makers to remake an older film version of an adapted novel if the original versions solved some of the adaption issues....  Micheal Mann has said that his Last of the Mohicans is really a remake of the '30s film adaption rather than an adaption of the book.

I think the inevitable remake of the trilogy could go a long way in ironing out some of the problems with films two and three.


I'm much happier Jackson is doing it then del Toro.  Fuck that guy.  The only film of his I've liked is Cronos.

Motherfucker is dead to me because he didn't put Tom Bombadil in.  Movie will be stillborn. 

j/k, Actually Johny Cee pretty much summed up my feelings as well with the movies.  I appreciate the movies, but when all is said and done, I'd rather read the books.  Fellowship was good, Two Towers needed an extra 90 minutes and Return could have used six full hours to flesh out characters, imo.  And that puts the whole thing around what, 12+ hours?  Maybe my issue is that it would simply be too long for film regardless.

The directors cut of Return helps it out quite a bit.  But its over 4.5 hours long.

I agree Return was the weakest, but mainly due to editing issues (which is why the directors cut works much better).  I still largely enjoyed it, and thought the movie was merely good, not great, like the others.

This looks great, and I'm looking forward to it very much.

Also, there are two types of people in the world.  People who like Tom Bombandil, and people who aren't fucked in the head.

Hobbit was a book I enjoyed (LotR is really really boring - the kind of book it is more fun to talk about than read) so I'm probably going to enjoy this movie less as a result.

Trailer was ok, but it didn't seem to capture the special feeling of the book for me. I hope that makes its way in, rather than just being "more LotR".

Johny Cee has it spot on for me.  Fellowship was the best of the 3 and the changes that some people nerdrage over in it are actually changes that really helped with the pacing and preventing boredom from creeping in that I totally understand.  Two Towers was a bit too heavy on the battle vs. some editing changes that could have helped it out and Return has similar issues.  But even having read the books I appreciate them all and really enjoy them and those friends of mine who never read the books loved them all.  We're doing a LotR all-day-fest next week of director's cuts and drinking, so that's a good time ;-)

The Hobbit... I'm not sure it will capture the magic of the book for me and that's not really the director's fault.  It was just a book I truly loved and read like 10 times in a certain part of my life and even reading it years later still brings me back to a happier time.  It's got a lot to live up to, but I have to make sure I don't hate the movie because it doesn't live up to my imagination and memory.  It looks pretty well done, if it was the same quality as the LotR movies, I'll likely be satisfied and not feel like I wasted any time or money on them ;-)

About Bombadil: 

Google the Stephen Colbert interview with Neal Gaiman.  Bombadil comes up, and Gaiman thought the character was poor and out of place.  Colbert has an  :drill: response.

I miss the March of the Ents much more than Tom Bombadil (who was a jarring bit of comedy relief even in the book).  Is the March in the Directors Cut?

--Dave

Err, wasn't the March of the Ents in the Two Towers?

I liked Tom Bombadil a lot in fellowship, but can easily understand why they cut it from the movies.  It isn't actually a very important part of the story, in the grand scheme.  Would I have like to see it?  Sure.  But they have to make some choices to get these things down to even a remotely reasonable theater  length.

I was much more bothered by the inflated role of Arwen, to be honest.

I liked Bombadil. Those fucking Hobbits were pissing their britches without Gandalf and hadn't met the Strider yet. Hell, one of the Hobbits even made up an excuse to kick it at Frodo's new digs and they all apologized for him. Bombadil gave them the strength they needed not to turn tail before they even knew which way was east. Plus, his wife is a fox.

It was fucked with for no apparent reason.  In the movies Treebeard explains to the Hobbits at length how he doesn't give a fuck about the war and has no beef with Sauron or Saruman, until he just so happens to notice dozens of motherfucking acres of missing forest while escorting the Hobbits out of the woods.  Worst treeherder ever.


Fuck Bombadil and Elf dude who appears once.  WHERE IS THE MOTHERFUCKING WIGHT?  The only action for that stretch of the movie are Wraiths stumbling around like senseless dipshits and their stabbing of a motherfucking bed.  They even cut Frodo getting witchslapped at the ford.

A friend shared this and it seemed relevant.

http://g.co/maps/24u56

 :awesome_for_real:

Add one more vote for:  SQUEEEEE!!!!

Thank you.

I do not get it.

Holiday Season Saved!  :awesome_for_real:

Why does Thorin seem taller than the other dwarves?  Is that from the books?

I noticed that too. He really doesn't look like a dwarf at all. He's too tall and his features are too fine.

I LIKE the Dwarf variety.  A Lot.

And Thorin looks like just the kind of bad motherfucker that would cut down a tree once his shield was done in.

Though I agree he could be a little older.

A little.

More action figure sales.

Read the walking directions on the left.

Also, bear in mind that we did this same shit before LotR too :  Comments about sizes not being right, only to find that the finished product had put some serious fucking work in to make sure the scale of the Fellowship was bang on.

I'm quite sure we'll have dwarves that are short, hobbits that are shorter and Beornings that are fucking huge.

There's a shot in the trailer of Gandalf, Bilbo and a few dwarves.  Sizes seem right there.  I like the look of the dwarves but yeah, Thorin seems a little too 'fine', but not enough for me to nerdrage over.

The Hobbit overall is a tighter story than the LOTR trilogy so it should make an easier and smoother movie conversion.

Yeah I squeed in my pants.

Fawk ya.  Jackson tweaks things in ways I never anticipate. Great stuff.

Gimli was just 'stereotypical D&D dwarf', so I am glad to see that the giant crew of dwarves has enough variety that we'll be able to tell them apart.

The thing in the trailer that really made me squee, though, was Thorin singing.  In Tolkien, people sing.  I acknowledge that it's hard to do a bunch of musical numbers in a movie without just coming off as goofy, but it's really hard for it to feel like Middle Earth if there's no music.

I agree.  Thorin singing felt very Tolkien-like.  I mean I don't want a musical, but if they don't do at least a couple of bars of "Chip the glasses and crack the plates" I'll be disappointed.

Hrm may have start re-reading it.  My Precious.

Tolkien made the stereotypical dwarf.  So no, that's exactly what you're getting.  It's just we have some hope that Jackson won't make every one of them into comic relief.

Not sure.  You'll probably get Fatty Bombur being a laughing stock (hell, he was in the trailer) and I would imagine you can't really cast Nesbitt as a dwarf and expect him not to ham it up.

Beyond that, it should be ok.  Bear in mind that Hobbit actually had the Dwarves be much 'funnier' than Gimli was ever meant to be, so it might....not be for you.

As long as we get to see them drop a wall and come out slaughtering at the Battle of Five Armies, I'll be okay.  Thorin was a pompous ass, but that dude knew you come back with your shield or on it.  And if you lose your shield, you hack off a giant oak limb and use that.


From the trailer, it looks like we're going to get an extended "Gandalf in Dol Guldar" section, unless the shots of Gandalf were from the Goblin King's cave.

The simple fact of Galadriel and, you know, 2 films worth, suggests we're going in to the Sauron stuff in depth.

Which is nice.

Bombur was mainly the butt of jokes in the book as well, to be fair.  Nearly any time his name was mentioned 'haha Bombur is so fat!' came shortly after.

That will be the Thrain (Thorin's dad) and the dwarf ring stuff, which should be awesome.  Jackson really hit the Ring stuff out of the park, especially in Fellowship.  You KNEW that pretty little thing was pure concentrated evil.

Jackson is going to pad it out with stuff from the appendixes to make two films and link it more strongly with the ring trilogy.

Which is a shame, because when the films were following Tolkien (and Bakshi's version) they were sometimes very good, but when making up their own stuff, (Oh noes! Aragorn fell off a cliff!)  it got pretty retarted. And in order to flesh out the appendix material, they're gonna have to make up a lot of shit.

Nope, It was fucked with to make the Ents pacifists and pants on heads retarded, that were going tro wander off and go extinct because that was "Their way" till Merry tricked him with the weakest trick ever and Treebeard got shocked that the Orcs were *shock* cutting down trees. I literally facepalmed.

Look the Fellowship was a great movie, and for that I didn't care about the changes to the book. I enjoyed 2 scenes from the Two towers; Gandalf and the balrog kicking the shit out of one another and the Ents using the Orcs as footballs. As for the rest I felt I was literally staring at my watch I was so bored. There was no acting on screen or personality in the characters, everyone looked bored out of their minds. And frankly the more interesting parts of the movie were the least interesting of the book, Frodo, Sam and Gollum getting rained on for weeks. And ROTK was not much better, but at least I was expecting no character and pants on head retardedness from the movie this time so it was not such a kick to my stomach. And Gimli being turned into the comic relief was stupid as hell.

Frankly I would rather watch the cartoon version than the last 2 films. Like I said the first movie was great, I own the extended edition. The other 2 can go rot.

As for the Hobbit, I'm not holding my breath on this and probably wont bother going to see it. I'm sure Jackson will include Xena the Warrior Princess or someone similar.

It annoys me when Jackson fucks with things that don't need to be fucked with.  Like adding, rewriting, or embellishing a shitton of scenes to add a fourth comic relief in a movie with nine regular characters.

I bow to you, oh prophet.

It's also a safe bet that at some point in a LotR thread someone will show up to point out that Jackson and co refraining from scrawling a giant cock on Aragorn's cheek as evidence of his superb directorial skills (as it would have ruined the gravitas of the piece).

A more nuanced view is that LotR is a terrible interpretation of the books exceeded in ineptitude only by every other film version ever made.  I submit in furtherance of this argument that without question the worst part of the books is all of the motherfucking elf wankery, and Jackson DIALED THAT HORSESHIT UP.

Ah, there we are, now that you've reminded me of that I can feel the old bile returning.  Thank you for that; it really unsettles me to feel optimistic about things.

Also, the best part of the books?  Gandalf pwning bitches, either figuratively or literally.

Bakshi version was on today.

It was shit.  I had forgotten how shit it actually was.

That Bakshi included this was one of my favorite bits:

“His arm has grown long indeed,” said Gimli, “if he can draw snow down from the North to trouble us here three hundred leagues away.”

“His arm has grown long,” said Gandalf.

Fucking nerds...

His trouble was that he took wholesale quotes from the books entirely out of context, like Boromir screaming 'What is all this talk of destroying this ring' when no-one has actually mentioned destroying it at all.  It was a fucking carpet bag of a movie, stitched together with 'bits' of the books that actually make no sense unless you've read them.  You'd be amazed what your own nerd memory has stitched into the movie.  Try watching it again with the nerd filter off and you realise it's an utter fucking turkey.

Further, Sir Limps a Lot Gimp the Nazgul at the start was just fucking PAINFUL.

Actual conversation between me and my stepson:

"Dave, that sword you've got in the box in the basement, is that Frodo's sword from LOTR?"

"It's Sting, *Bilbo's* sword that he loaned to Frodo."

"Oh, come on Dave, he gave it to Frodo and didn't want it back.  You're such a nerd."

"I hate to break it to you, but you have an opinion about a Tolkien controversy.  Face it, you're just as much of a nerd as I am."

Anyway, to anyone who was introduced to Fantasy by reading The Hobbit as a young child (6 years old in my case), going to this movie is mandatory even if it sucks.  And Sting will always be Bilbo's sword.

--Dave

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c0/Eyeofsauron.jpg)

Umm.  I never said it worked as a complete film, or that it was particularly good.  Bakshi definitely had some great scenes mixed in, but you could tell he had to throw together a movie when his funding ran out.  And there were some terrible decisions... the rotoscoping thing for orcs/Nazgul, Sam was awful, etc.

I think Jackson really benefited from Bakshi's attempts to adapt the first 1.5 books to screen.  He got to see what might work, and what was clownshoes.  Skipping Bombadil, replacing Glorfindel with a recurring character, etc.

I live to serve.  :grin:

In an attempt to destroy any credibility I have here: I like The Hobbit a lot more than I like The Lord of the Rings as novels. The Hobbit is a story; The Lord of the Rings is a rambling travelogue.

Also: Jackson did a great job on the films.

Interested to see this take on The Hobbit as well, although I dread the return of the "My Precious!" meme.

Apart from "great job" you're spot on.

Fixed.

I guess its because I didn't read the hobbit till I was much older than most of you, but I enjoyed Lord of the Rings much more.  I still liked it, but when reading it, I felt like I was reading a childish kids novel with a bunch of bumbling Disney characters, all of whom (including Gandalf) were nothing but slapstick comic relief (until the very end where it suddenly got serious).  Still a fun little story, but it felt shallow when I read it at the time.  I moved right on to the LoTR trilogy right after, and they still to this day remain some of my favorite novels.

Then again, I'm the guy who also loves the Silmarillion, so there's that.   :awesome_for_real:

Books are books. Movies are movies. They are entirely different things. Making one into the other requires a lot of interpretation.

If you are very, very, very lucky the schmuck that wrote the book wrote in a particularly cinematic style that converts without a lot of smashing away at bits. But mostly you are not. Which is why conversions tend to be really awful unless massive liberties are taken.

I try to view book versions of movies and movie versions of books as alternate universe things where everything is just a bit different.

It means less nerd-rage and I can enjoy a good movie or a good book without being contaiminated by the other's existance. It also means I can drop-kick a flaming pile of shit away rather than convince myself it was the best thing ever just because I loved the book/movie it was based on.

That said, Jackson did a pretty good job of adaptation. Well enough to satisfy a massive audience that wasn't LoTR fans, only piss off the truly die hard fans who -- for the most part -- would only be happy with their own, personal movie versions -- and wone some Oscars. Oh, and it was a movie about orcs and swords and shit with a wizard who never cast fireball on anything.

Which makes most people wonder why the fuck he called himself a wizard.

Also, sometimes you graft in your own retarded bits because you're far too enamoured of your own skill, and because you're the director nobody can tell you to fuck off with that shit because it's terrible.  An extreme example of this is the latest Robin Hood movie.


 :heart:

They were succesful movies, but they still sucked. Go have a chat with with the transformers movies if you dont understand that. And its zip to do with nerd rage, its just that they were crap movies. Sorry and all for your theory, but the Fellowship rode roughshot over the book and I still loved it because it was a good movie. The other 2 movies bored the shit out of me and might as well have had cardbord cutouts on the screen.

Anyway, I was actually thinking today and I was shocked when I realized that I've only read The Hobbit once, and that was nigh on 20 years ago. I really should reread it or be in danger of handing in my nerd card.

Shit. the Star Wars prequels made bank and won awards.

The Hobbit is better, yes.


Overlong self-indulgent CGI wankfests with horrible acting, directing, editing and pacing. Other than that great job!

To make it clear my objection is exactly 0% that the movies did not match the books and 100% that they are just bad movies. It has nothing to do with nerd rage, as movies they are just terrible. ROTK is amazingly dull - an elf surfing down the CGI trunk of a goofy monster does not a compelling movie make.

The LOTR movies have all the same problems King Kong has. (But at least KK has Naomi Watts) People just give them a pass because it's LOTR I guess. In both cases things like acting, writing and character development are pushed aside in favor of extended boring CGI insect / dinosaur / Orc / ghost battles.

Either way, Mission Accomplished.  :awesome_for_real:

Now, now. Either you agree that the Jackson movies were orgasmic, or you're a neckbeard who thinks that Tom Bombadil should have taken up all of the first movie.

Further, by criticizing a movie at all you're just demonstrating that you have no understanding of the cinematic art form and how difficult it is to tell a story visually while retaining things like plot and characters.

 :facepalm:

To pretty much all of you.

Hey. In my generous moments, I marvel that the movies weren't dumbed down more. With the amount of money dumped into them, I imagine they were a hair's breadth from having Sauron drive a giant seam-powered mechanical spider out of Mordor.

That would have been amazing!!!

Jon Peters' Lord of the Rings.

No, amazing would be if Sauron transformed into a giant flying spider that shot laser webs at Gondor.

I love reading nerd rage and nerd hate on Jackson and the LOTR movies more than I love actually reading the books.

Kind of like EVE.

Yes, pointing out that a movie has bad acting, bad writing, bad pacing and relies way too much on dull CGI effects is "nerd rage."

In this particular context yes it pretty much is (especially since your are wrong).

No, you are. Nyah nyah!

Hey, if you can make categorical statements I can too dammit!

I think I would quite enjoy seeing Plinkett nitpit the LotR movies.

Part time.

I don't know how that typo happened, but I like it.

LotR is not a good action movie, I might be able to forgive it if it were.  But I dozed off the first time I saw Fellowship, and I tend to read 600 page novels cover to cover without sleep.

If only there was some kind of facepalm emoticon that could be used to express my exasperation.  There are three kinds of people in this world.  Those who really enjoyed the film adaptation of the LOTRO books done by Jackson, even if they recognize (or not!) that it doesn't always conform to the source material.  Then there are those Nerdragers who are so fucking obstuse about everything that they refuse to appreciate anything that doesn't exactly conform to their grand and ridiculous expectations.  These people hate everything.  They never create, they always destroy.  In the last group are your grandparents.  They don't like the movies because they are just too noisy, why does it have to be so loud for chrissakes!  And why does that Gandalf fellow hang around with all those little boys all the time!

Seriously, just go read your 600 page novel cover to cover.  You are nobody's target audience for anything, so stop having an opinion already.

 :oh_i_see:

Who are you even talking to?

It's really odd that people are discussing the movies in common movie discussion vernacular and the response is just repeated "omg rage more that they don't exactly match the books nerds!"

I read the books in like 7th grade, and while I enjoyed them enough I have no great affinity for them. Judging the movies just as movies (which seems fair) they just aren't very good IMO - conformity to source has nothing to do with it. I don't really care if Frodo looking longingly at Samwise as they climb the exact same 4 meter mountain set for 2 hours is faithful to the books or not, it's just not compelling in movie form.

Dude, allow me to repeat myself. Aside from a total of one scene I was looking forward to (which actually is in the third movie so I had already formed my opinion that the second movie was shit) I don't give 2 shits that they don't conform to the book. I'm sorry if you think Aragorn just tapping an Orc and the Orc falling over stone dead repeated 2 million times equals compelling action. I'm sorry that you think the Ents having a meeting because the Orcs were chopping down the woods and then deciding to do nothing, go home and die, only to change their minds when head Ent sees that the Orc are... uh... chopping down the woods is compelling tension filled drama. I cant even remember the bullshit that was in the third one as it was so fucking dull and I was facepalming througout, aside from someone reminding me up thread about the Elf surfing on a CGI elephant, woohoo. And I'm sorry that you think everyone having the same facial expression through the entire 2 movies and speaking in a serious monotone is fabulous acting.

Seriously get a new goddam argument willya?


Hell, that would have been an improvement and I would have been bloody well cheering Sauron on at that point.

At the end of the day, it is because you are out of touch with reality.  These movies were huge commercial AND critical successes.  People, by and large, loved all these movies.  You are trashing them the same way one might trash the Transformers movies.  Sorry, but I am calling bullshit.  At least be a little more self aware and admit that you are the outliers in this case.  It is all well and fine to say you didn't like the movies, but calling them outright terrible just makes you look stupid.

I didn't like the movies all that much (Don't think I saw the last one at the cinema, even). But I dislike the book more.

Does that make me a grandparent?


What the fuck do popular views have to do with anything? If you disagree with the comments people are making here how about you address those comments? Going "arguh, you're all losers and nerds" isn't really providing a compelling reason for why the movies are so wonderful.

I thought the books got better as they went along and the movies got worse.  There's not much I'd fault in the first movie, while I just don't like thinking about the third one.  The paths of the dead was such a key moment for me reading the books as a kid, it brought together the full weight of the history of the world and forced the lost heir onto a path that meant he had no choice but to reclaim the throne.  In the movie it went all "pirates of the caribbean".  

One of the worst examples of overuse of special effects since the Matrix 2/3 rubber pole fight.

The hobbit might be good though.  :why_so_serious:

I would bet a massive amount of money that in another 10 years or so critical opinion will have turned on the movies.

Ebert's review of ROTK is pretty good. He liked the movie but the main point of his review is that it elevates spectacle over substance. In 10 years nobody is going to be wowed by the spectacle.

That's fine, and a valid point.  What just gets under my skins is when the vast majority of the universe believes something to be good (or even great), including most critics, and then some of you come in here and claiming they were just absolutely terrible piles of garbage?  Sorry, that makes you the outliers.  It isn't wrong to have those opinions, not at all.  But acting like the terribleness of the movies is a given, and that everyone else are just stupid sheep...that's where you go wrong.  Very few people actually agree with you.  Just have some self awareness, is all.

Again, what does groupthink have to do with anything? Since when is "most people think X" in any way a meaningful point, unless you are talking about polling?

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: $836,303,693 BO.

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers: $925,282,504 BO.

I would say that people, by and large, loved Transformers 2 and TT equally.  :awesome_for_real:

Give it up Cyrrex, you're being trolled. We'll see these same trolls here in a year griping about the movie.  After plunking down $10 to see it.  :oh_i_see:

Our only hope is daybreak when they turn to stone. :)

No, they did not, and you know they did not.  This is the deliberately being obtuse thing I was talking about.

Look, I'm not saying there is anything wrong with not liking the movies.  There are many things I don't like at all that most people really like.  Happens all the time.  But standing in the face of overwhelming common opinion, I'm not a big enough tool to categorically state that those things are unquestionably bad.  That's just fuckstupid.  But by all means, keep arguing.

I am trying to talk about the movies in actual movie criticism terms, and your response is to alternate between the "lol nerd rage" non-sequitur and "well plenty of people like them!"

Sure, plenty of people do like them, and yes, some people are total nerds and rage about differences between the books and the movies. But that doesn't make the ridiculous climbing the volcano scenes in ROTK any better, or make dull CGI battles with no emotional weight behind them suddenly compelling.

For what it's worth, I think your comments have been generally fair.  I'm reacting (and possibly over-reacting) to those who give off the impression that movie one was at best a passable, facepalming snoozefest, and the last two were downright horrible in every way., and therefore the movies were categorically terrible and irredeemable, and those facts should just be accepted as truth.  And then the false equivalencies of "hey, Transformers made even more money!".  Utter bullshit, all of it.

They are better than Hall Pass.

Dude, I think the consensus here was that people liked the first movie to varing degrees, rather than considering it a "snoozefest." And people said that "Well I liked the Hobbit book better" and no-one jumped down their throat. That's a fair opinion, got no problem with that.  Its just that you started off with "ha ha, you nerds just don't like it cause its not like the book. And it made loadamoney so you're all wrong neener" and then you start saying "oh I meant that you are all going against the common wisdom is all. And I didn't mean it about the money really!"

Fact is people are giving reasons WHY they didn't like the movie, and your comment about being nerds was just an insult as it basically ignored those reasons.

I'm reminded of when the movie Philadelphia came out and critics gushed over how brilliant it was, and a year later when the DVD came out I read a review which began "Is it ok to say Philadelphia was a boring movie yet?" I have a feeling when when they release their inevitable 10th anniversary edition that's whats going to be the consensus of the critics.

Here's an idea :

Can those who didn't like the 3 hobbit-featuring movies directed by Jackson please FUCK OFF out the thread about the new Hobbit-featuring movie directed by Jackson ?

Because it's been clear for about a page and a half that what we have here is trolling and self-importance, rather than bringing anything to the table we haven't already been nauseated by in the LotR threads.  Hey, you can even go back in there to talk about them since, frankly, no-one will give a flying fuck about you nor your opinions.

Honestly, this is like me commenting on the Newest Twilight film in that thread*.  What's the fucking point apart from being an utter Fucking Arsehole ?

*we have one, right ?

Amazingly we don't have a Breaking Dawn thread. Care to start one?  :why_so_serious:

Don't.  My friend brought that bloody Red Riding Hood movie round, you know, the one that's got 'The Best Thing Since Twilight' or something on the cover.  She's the chapess that's been subjecting me to the other Twilight movies.

We watched Conan instead.

 :why_so_serious:

Red Riding Hood was no good because it took too many liberties with the source material.

For all Jackson's annoying tweaks and over-emphasis on Sam loves Frodo, the movies all had incredibly awesome scenes that I think we can all agree on if we ignore their book accuracy and just appreciate them as good movie making:

1) Moria fight and flight
2) Balrog scenes
3) Fight at the end of Fellowship
4) Rohan plains flght against mounted orcs
5) Helm's Deep defense
6) Ents at Saruman's tower
7) Shelob
8) The charge of the Rohirrim and the fighting against the oliphants.

My awe and enjoyment of those scenes has withstood the test of multiple viewings and makes the trilogy the great MOVIE experience that it is.

But the hood was still red. You can tell the director loved what he was doing with all he did in the film.

So why did you capitalize movie considering we have been discussing the trilogy as movies all thread?

Heh, funny.  You're acting just like the people you get frustrated with in politics. 

I might actually be able to enjoy The Hobbit.  It's a shorter and simpler piece, probably better suited for movies because if Jackson fleshes it out a little bit it wouldn't be a bad thing, and there's significantly less Tolkien derp to trim.

Nah, you're going to hate it.

Go see something else.

 :Love_Letters:

(http://media1.onsugar.com/files/ons1/306/3064574/20_2009/3Kings5.png)

Honest question: what's the worst he can do?  Cut bipedal dogs and Gandalf hobnobbing with eagles?  Excuse me if I don't cry over their absence.


 :why_so_serious:

"nae trainers"

Got me good. :rofl:

I don't know, but you've been worried about it since page 2.  It's not a good sign.

 :why_so_serious:

The worst thing he can do is what he did to LotR: make everything EPIC an lose all the quieter and more subtle moments.

Which he probably will, because that's what the fans of the other movies will expect, and what the trailer indicates. Never mind that they're very different kinds of stories.

Shit got pretty fucking epic at the end.

I never really felt like that reading the books. It was always Bilbo going "oh shit, there's a big world out there I know fuck all about", do it was a very removed epic.

I haven't read the book for a while though.

One of the last chapters ain't called "The Battle of Five Armies" for no reason.

That's pretty epic.


The problem, in truth, will be if it's 2 movies the first one will be a lot of walking and talking until the Goblin caves and end on a less-than-epic note with the wood elves (probably.)   Then the 2ond one will be way too much epic crap crammed in, with Smaug's attack on Laketown and the Bo5a getting less than an hour to do both.

But the tone of the book isn't 'epic', so the events aren't really played out in a "action overload" way, more an "oh, shit!" one. IIRC.

Given the Dol Guldur offscreen stuff will be in the flim there's plenty of room for him to space the action in a more movie-like manner.

Boy, I am eagerly anticipating and dreading the White Council showing up to drop a beat down on the Necromancer.  It could be clownshoes.  It could be epically badass.

Galadrial alone is basically some kind of cheat code unlock super-hero.  She's older then the sun and the moon, left heaven to go rule a kingdom, and was the only one that didn't take any of Feanor's shit.  After Sauron went down, she marched her boytoy and his troops over to Dol Guldor, and she personally "threw down it's walls". 

There is a reason even the good guys were scared of her.  I just have this fear that Jackson is going to have her throwing lightning bolts or something retarded. 

I've been living under a rock and only just saw the trailer today. Love it, can't wait.  :heart:


It gives me a good feeling, like I can come home again. You know how at the end of a book/movie you really enjoy, you want more, but know you can't have more because the story is over?


Well now I get more!

I'm sorry Fordel. In order to be taken seriously as a movie critic and artiste you'll need to repeat that while wearing this beret.

He'll also need clove cigarettes and a can of PBR.

And to hate fun.

Anyone concerned that the Hobbit might not be a faithful adaptation should not follow this link (http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=32799)....

Isn't it more likely that Sherlock is just a little confused ?

There is a difference between faithful in spirit and faithful in detail. 

Most people, and my personal issues with Jackson's adaption, are pissed with Jackson's failures in adapting the feeling/themes.  Denethor becomes a bad caricature that people laugh at when Gandalf and Pippin punk him, rather than a tragic figure who is wrong but is sympathetic.  I never had a problem with changes that didn't fuck the story or stayed within the spirit of the work.


The best example I can point to: Lynch's Dune.  Lynch changed SHITLOADS of things, and it didn't work that well as a movie, but you can taste the spirit of the books.  Scifi did a miniseries a few years ago, more rigourous in it's adaption, that was like watching paint dry and felt like bad paint by numbers.

I never sympathized with the book Denethor particularly. Honestly if you asked me which characters Jackson had gotten most right Denethor would probably be one of the first ones I thought of.

Apparently Ironwood was right, Jackson has the skill to fuck this up.

I also think Denethor isn't even particularly sympathetic in the books. The main thing in the books is that Tolkien is on again about nobility in the blood and that shit, so Denethor isn't just your garden-variety bad father or tyrant, but also has some store of genuine power derived from his bloodline. But Jackson quite wisely decided to drop that whole shit completely, because it's absolutely devastating to anything approaching a modern dramatic sense of character. If Aragorn is the real shit simply because his bloodline runs true, if Faramir never makes a mistake because he's somehow the real Numenorean deal, etc., then there's never any chance that they'll make the wrong choice or fail at the challenges in front of them. Jackson & his screenwriters made a strategic decision to create some sense of a dramatic arc in Aragorn and Faramir's stories (successfully imho in the former case, not so much in the latter) and that means that the collateral is that Denethor can't be much more than a bully, bad father and tyrant, because the "more" that he is in LOTR is all about that sense of grand heritage and inherent aristocratic worth.

I like the trailer a lot. My only anxiety with the whole project is what the narrative of the Dol Guldur stuff is. I see two primary dangers: one that it's just pointless spectacle, with no story at all; two that he overworks the narrative connections between Dol Guldur and the Battle of the Five Armies, which will draw away from the focus on Bilbo and the dwarves and probably lose some of the whimsy that's crucial to this story. That said, Tolkien invites a kind of connection himself in the appendices to LOTR, in which he makes clear that Gandalf's meeting with Thorin solved a problem that was much on his mind, that Smaug would become Sauron's mightiest force in the North in the event that the Necromancer did in fact turn out to be Sauron, which Gandalf clearly is certain about well before his journeys there. The Big G spells it out that killing Smaug was one of two crucial preparations for war against Sauron, the other being rooting him out of Dol Guldur (which in any event Sauron himself was preparing for).

Also, I recall that Gandalf makes two trips to Dol Guldur: the first is a secret spy mission where he finds Thrain and the map and the second is in the company of the White Council as part of a full-on attack against the Necromancer. In the books, the first trip actually takes place well before the events of The Hobbit. I think the little story in the appendices makes it clear that G. had to keep Thorin's attention on Smaug rather than rushing a bunch of dwarves off to Dol Guldur, where they'd all get wiped out, once he hears how his father died. (Maybe that's spelled out more in Unfinished Tales, I don't remember.) I'm guessing that Jackson will find some way to compress this all together and use it to give Thorin an even more dramatic character--a choice between different kinds of vengeance, etc. Though Thorin is already pretty well set up as a tragic character who outright fails to live up to the challenge of power, unlike Dain and Bard.

You're reading too much into it.  It's not midochlorian count (EDIT: Or maybe it is, given that in the end Vader kills fucking everything).

Denethor went bugfuck crazy despite his breeding.  Faramir (with the exact same sentence referring to father and son) didn't give a shit about the ring even though it was a arm span away from him.  Isildur, who was from Numenor and stabbed motherfucking Sauron to (corporeal) death couldn't toss the thing when everyone was telling him it was made of evil and trapped puppy souls.  Boromir (of low breeding) lost his shit at Frodo then hit his head on a rock, recalling to him his purpose in life: murdering the shit out a metric fuckton of Orcs; so, overall, good guy.

Also, I feel like I should not be the guy to be telling you this.

In order to prepare Gondor, Denethor stared into the abyss (the palantir) and the abyss (Sauron) stared back.  It filled him with despair.  I thought his movie version was fine. 

In my mind, the key difference between Faramir (who in the book is able to give up the ring more easily than anyone except maybe Sam) and Denethor and Boromir (who both coveted it) is that Faramir had studied history from Gandalf (whom Denethor disliked) and had actually learned something useful from Isildur's story.

I'm pretty sure there was even a line in the book where Sam said that Faramir reminded him of Gandalf.  Faramir said that it was the blood of Numenor that he was seeing, but my takeaway is that this was visible in Faramir moreso than in other men of his family because of his personal outlook and the choices he made, not so much his chromosomes.

Pride is a constantly recurring fatal flaw in a lot of Tokien's writing.

Yes, but there's also people who live up to their breeding and those who don't. It's kind of a binary switch--you are tested and you either fail of your promise or you don't. Once you prove true, you are pretty much all set.

Right, and it just so happens that both the dudes who live up to their breeding are not arrogant douchebags.

Whereas on the other hand you have the Witch King, Denethor, Boromir, Balin, Thorin, Smaug, Isildur, Sauron, and Saruman just to name a few notable examples of douchebags that got their comeuppance because they thought they were hot shit.  That's not even touching the reason the Numenoreans are damn near extinct.

It was the volcano, right ?

 :oh_i_see:

Well, they were the only Men who could stand toe to toe with Sauron.  Today yer average Rohirrim or Gondorian would piss their pants just seeing Sauron across the street buying a mocha.

To be honest with you, I would as well.

I wouldn't have picked him as a mocha drinker, myself.

Triple shot espresso, extra hot, no sugar, perhaps. That would help keep his eye open.

Would explain the whole fiery eyeball thing as well.

I'd figure plain coffee, black as his heart.

That'd be too easy on the barista. No, Sauron would ask for something a bit more fiddly.

I thought the thing with Tolkein's Denethor was that as a Stuart/Steward rather than an actual king, he could never be a decent ruler. it didn't matter who his ancestors were, and it didn't matter very much whether he was a good/strong man or not. As long as Gondor was ruled by a man sitting on a little stool in front of the throne rather than the actual throne then it was pretty much doomed.

No, not really.

The Stewards were highly regarded and came from a long line of 'decent' chaps.  Faramir was also a good 'un.

The problem was Denethor in particular thinking he was better than he was and striving with Sauron mano a mano.  Not a good idea.

Also, Boromir had ideas well above his station and asked as a kid if he could ever become king.  Denethor said 'don't be so fucking stupid' which really, really gave him an inferiority complex.  That showed in his dealings with Aragorn and explained how easily the Ring fucked his mind over.

Gondor was pretty much doomed because Sauron had a massive fuck off army, to be honest.  And a Ring out there somewhere that was a game-ender.

I don't really think you're disagreeing.

They are.  Contrary to Palmer's assertion, Denethor was a good ruler, as I recall, Gandalf even says as much.  He's just terribly mistaken about his ability to punch in Sauron's weight class.

Yeah.  The Denethor we see in the books is one who has already dipped into a contest of Will with Sauron and lost mightily.  The trouble is, he's so proud he doesn't even realise it.

He was a Good Steward from a line of Good Stewards, but it was the end of a long, long war that Sauron should have won.  He was tired and in despair.

Well then he's like the movie Denethor.  I wish I could remember book Boromir's reaction to meeting Aragorn. "Hi, I'm Aragorn, I've been chilling up here with hot elf ass while you fought and bled to protect my kingdom.  Thanks by the way, guess I'll head down there and claim my crown, LOL"

The movie put Denethor more in a 'broken mind' frame, rather than a 'broken spirit'.  It was only at the end when Faramir was poisoned that he totally lost it.

Frodo also gave a good accounting of the meeting of Boromir and Aragorn.  Boromir respected him mightily and would have followed him anywhere once his true claim was verified.  He was more honourable than the ring ever allowed him to show in the Fellowship.

Gandalf says pretty much that Denethor is kind of like a super-middleweight trying to do heavyweight--e.g., it's close but no cigar. He makes it clear to Pippin that Denethor is not just some asshole, but a real player who can very nearly match Gandalf in will and insight.

And let's face it, even Saruman, a non-mortal is corrupted by the influence of Sauron through the Orthanc. What chance did Denethor have?

Palantir.

Yeah, that thing.

This is now a trilogy! (https://www.facebook.com/notes/peter-jackson/an-unexpected-journey/10151114596546558) Can't wait.

How?

They're adding all kinds of extra material from the Appendices I believe.

That said I don't like the choice to go to 3 movies.

The second film will now have an extensive treatment of the conflict between a youthful Gaffer and the Sackville-Baggins over the gardens of Bag End.

Two movies wasn't enough to destroy my favorite childhood book... they had to make it three. 

I hate Hollywood.

There.   :awesome_for_real:

Going to blame Jackson on this, as the fucker doesn't know when to stop filming.  This worked great for LoTR, because it was a large amount of material ton condense into 3 movies, so I was happy to watch the 4.5 mega director cuts.  Then I watched what he did with King Kong, where it just kept fucking going and going with endless action scenes, and even then he was forced to cut a ton that he filmed.  And now he's decided that after finishing the filming of the two movies, he's really got enough to do some more and extend it out to 3 films.  Based off a book that was half the length of any of the 3 books from the LoTR.

I'm sure the money suits in Hollywood were happy to sign off on it, but this seems like all of Jackson's doing.

The Hobbit would've been a lot longer, though, if he wrote it in the same style as he did The Lord of the Rings.

I wonder if he's just trying to cram as much in as possible since he got a lot of grief for leaving stuff out like Tom Bombadil.

Good point.  I always thought many of the scenes in Hobbit were done a bit too abruptly.  Not that I think that means this should be played out over 3 films, as even two seems a bit silly.

If by 'abrupt' you mean 'less boring crap' then yes...

Nah, like with Smaug.  It was all cool up until the point that Smaug leaves the lair.  Instead of an epic scene of dragony goodness, he dies like 10 seconds later.  And the battle of the five armies, which seems to take two pages max.

I don't know if this is how either of the two actually played out, but I remember them both (and other scenes as well) as overly abrupt.  It was fine within the context of the book, because I always felt it was more intended for a much younger audience. 

That's just a different book then - it wouldn't make sense to prefigure such events with the inane efforts of a little hobbit, if that's what the end focus was going to be. The Hobbit is about Bilbo, not the world in which he resided, and is in my view a wonderfully crafted novel.

What is going to be interesting is seeing how quickly the Blu-ray release is followed by a fan-edit that cuts the three movies down to just what was in the book.

--Dave

I agree, I was merely expanding on Trippy's point that it wasn't written in the same style as the trilogy.  Not advocating that it should have been, only that it could have been.  At the end of the day, I find it farily ridiculous that this one ends up as more than a single 3 hour (or so) movie.  I imagine Jackson's version will be grittier too, but then, that might make for a better theater experience.

Apparently what he's said in several instances is that all of the expanded story will be either:

more fully fleshed-out treatments of events actually in the book
the LOTR appendices that are relevant to events happening in this rough time frame (e.g., before the formal beginning of LOTR)


In the first category, here's what occurred to me as things that could have long-ish action or narrative sequences that are relatively briefly treated in the book:

Giants throwing rocks at the group in the Misty Mountains (something that I think Tolkien almost meant as metaphor, since they totally do not fit into everything else he ever said about Middle-Earth)
Beorn going off and killing a fuckton of goblins while the hobbits are sleeping in his house
Whatever the elves are up to in Mirkwood when the dwarves burst in on them
Smaug vs. Laketown/Bard
Gathering Bard and the Elf-King's armies; Gandalf's journey to the Lonely Mountain after whatever he's being doing off-stage; mustering Dain's army
Battle of the Five Armies
Bilbo's journey home
Bilbo's life in the Shire after settling back into Bag End

In the second category:

Gandalf infiltrates Dol Guldur on the orders of the White Council and sneaks around to see what's going on inside; finds Thrain. (This actually has to happen before the start of The Hobbit--but if the movie begins with this, that's a super-dumb idea. My guess is a flashback when he hands the map to the group, perhaps later in the story than the map-handing actually happens). I think this is likely to be the segment where Radagast plays an important role.
The entire White Council attacks Dol Guldur. Like to be a huge, lengthy set-piece.

Ok, so that's two movies, I can actually see a story structure that works pretty well. But three? There's really only two ways to get to three: BLOAT of all these pieces or "yet more story".  And "yet more story" may feel like bloat by another route. The only major narratives I can see him pinning into this from the appendices would be, somewhere fairly early in the story, a flashback to the War of Dwarves and Orcs over Moria--which might be called back in the War of Five Armies to give the orcs and goblins some more personality or narrative particularity; and Aragorn tracking down Gollum after he leaves the Misty Mountains. But if Jackson really tries to give a blow-by-blow flashback to the War of Dwarves and Orcs it's going to destroy the film's narrative coherence, cause that's a long story of dudes with beards murdering goblins and getting murdered in turn. And Aragorn tracking Gollum can't really be anything but a travelogue and side-story. I suppose if you ended that with Gollum being taken inside the Black Gate, Aragorn realizing Sauron escaped his seeming destruction at Dol Guldur, and have that ominously happen before we go back to Bibo ironically saying, "I suppose now I just live happily ever after with my magic ring in the Shire" and close with Gandalf puffing on his pipe and looking worried, then it serves some kind of narrative function.

If he wants another movie, can't he make a stand alone of the scouring of the shire?

Lies! The song played for at least 8 minutes!

Am I the only one who didn't even know Hobbit was supposed to be 2 movies?

I thought it was only going to be one O.o

It's been planned to be two movies for as long as the current project has been alive.

As long as Smaug gets a couple of hours of screen time, I am ok with it. Providing they don't totally fuck it up.

Yeah, we need to see Sherlock with scales.

Three movies really is too much. I can't imagine the stuff they add will be worth a third movie.

It's fine.  Just no romance, plz.

Good news, everyone: Jackson's latest quote is "much of the new content involves a feminine character". So I'm thinking romance is indeed in the offing unless he means Galadriel and nothing else.

"feminine" is not necessarily female.

Smaug will be a crossdresser! :D

Larry Wachowski can play Smaug!

Lana Wachowski is not a crossdresser.

I don't know the latest trailer I've seen implies some hot Gandalf on Galadriel action* :awesome_for_real:

* not really, but she does brush away a lock of hair from his face

...

... I'd actually be okay with that.

I swore not to ever doubt Jackson with Middle Earth again, but here I am. 

Yer kidding, right?   There is no feminine character in the Hobbit, except via LotR, Galadriel.  Yea, I'm hoping there's no Aragorn/Arwen style thing.   

rofl.

Presumably about half the elves in Thranduil's hall, but yeah. Based on the trailers I'm assuming there's going to be a bunch of Galadriel doing stuff. Hopefully not just watching stuff in the Mirror.

I haven't read all the other stuff, that goes with the Hobbit, that he is pulling ideas from.  Are there any stories that involve a character that he may be using?

Pretty much it's the appendices plus Christopher Tolkien's necromancy in various volumes. My guess is that you'll at least see Thrain II (Thorin's dad) since he croaks in the Necromancer's dungeon and gives Gandalf the map of Lonely Mountain. How they'll visualize the Necromancer (Sauron) is also an interesting question. The appendices that deal with this stuff are actually like a narrative or mini-story and fairly readable compared to the more bookish or scholarly ones.

Dain also gets some time in the appendices and gets a heroic death along with Bard during the War of the Ring. It's actually a fairly awesome little scene buried deep in the appendices to LOTR and makes clear that Gandalf encouraged the dwarves to go to Lonely Mountain partly out of consideration for the damage that Smaug might do in any conflict with Sauron. That might also come up in The Hobbit films.

I know things turned out all right and stuff...but seriously, WTF was Gandalf thinking?  That he would send up a bunch of terrified dwarves and a hobbit that he did not know would have a ring to hide himself, and somehow that was supposed to take care of Smaug somehow?  Okay, so it totally did, but no way he could have predicted that.  It war far more likely that Smaug would have wiped them all out, including Bard and his little town.  How was this supposed to remove Smaug as a weapon Sauron could use?

You're meddling in the affairs of Wizards mate.  That's not bright.


All the books, films, cartoons, poems and ANYTHING makes it quite clear that Gandalf knew exactly what he was doing at all times.  Sometimes it was a gamble, but it was always an informed one.  The only interesting slip that Gandalf ever really made was not having a clue that the wee gold ring Bilbo filched was the Ring of Power and the Doom of Men.

Hah, I know, I totally am.

While you are quite right about it being made clear that Gandalf was always on top of his shit, in reality that's just a convenient excuse to hide the fact that some of what he does probably doesn't make a lot of sense.  Kind of like asking "why does God let babies die?" and getting the answer "God has a plan, and it is not ours to question".

I love me some Gandalf, don't get me wrong.  But if if that was his master plan to get rid of a scary fucking dragon, then he was probably more lucky than prescient.  I think I can whip up 5 better plans without too much effort.

In the appendices, Gandalf says that he met up with Thorin in Bree kind of by accident, on a night when he was pondering what to do about Smaug given the danger he posed if things really did heat up with the Necromancer/probably Sauron. And then I think his wizardly spider-sense went off--it's pretty clear that Gandalf occasionally gets intuitions that something is meant to be or that an improbable chance is going to work out. The only reason he hesitates about sending Frodo to Mordor in LOTR, for example, is not really that he thinks Frodo is going to screw up or get caught at the first chance but that Frodo will suffer enormous pain. He's really quite sure that Frodo was "meant to have the Ring". I think the appendix story suggests that Gandalf is equally sure that Thorin is meant to go confront Smaug and then sure again that Bilbo is meant to go along with them.

Yes.  It's quite clear that Olorin from the get-go is not happy about responsibility.  He didn't want to go to Middle Earth, he dislikes putting people in danger or jeopardy and he hates the idea that his choices cause pain.  He also really, really envies Tom Bombadil, who gives a fuck about nothing and does just as much.  He also spends as much of his time as possible stoned out of his head.

" Balrog.  What Evil Fate.  And I am already weary."

As in "Yeah, I can fuck this guy up no problem, but there goes my weekend."

In universe: The Valar and Maiar learned the whole history of Arda when they sung it into existence. When Olorin took mortal form as Gandalf, he took on mortal weaknesses, and the things he knew as a Maiar became like a dream. So while he gets hunches and insights his foresight is hardly perfect.

Real life: Tolkien was retconning the links between the Hobbit and the LOTR trilogy. The dude spent the rest of his life explaining the holes in this huge mythology he'd created, instead of actually writing anymore goddam books.

I've always thought Tom was Tolkien writing himself into the story.  The elves named him 'First' which is some name for that race to bestow.
-The One Ring didn't affect him at all.  Which implies he is at least Sauron's equal. 

He's a fascinating character with no easy explanation.

I feel like "no easy explanation" is the whole point behind Tom Bombadil.  He's there to show you that there are things older and more powerful than the chief players in the story, just so you don't get the idea that what you're seeing of Middle Earth is all there is.

Which reminds me of all the best bits of the movies: cut out all that unconventional shite and make it an action film! Yeah! Ent are stupid tools! Everything is done with dramatic timing! Can't explain it through a big shiny/grim dark helm staff or sword? Cut it!

Wait, what ?

I suspect that part was ironic...

I know most hate 3D, but I don't.. well, as long as it's done well, which admittedly a lot of it is not.

Anyway.. what the fuck is this abomination? Can't wait to wear this uncomfortable thing for 3 hours.

http://fashionablygeek.com/news/special-hobbit-3d-glasses-look-ridiculously-uncomfortable/

At one point in The Two Towers (book) Gimli says something like "Well, Gandalf's foresight failed him when he agreed to go into Moria, didn't it" and Aragorn says something like, "His foresight wasn't about avoiding danger to himself or others."

Also, it didn't really fail him, did it ?  Gimli thought he was dead and he was totally fine.

He even got a nice white robe out the deal.  Balrog drops are the best.

Yeah, though I have always had the impression that Gandalf did not have any foresight of his resurrection or even being certain of defeating the Balrog--that knowing it was waiting for him was his Garden of Gethesemane moment--would he fail in his appointed task, leave his friends helpless? Also he knows that physical life involves pain--he feels weariness, physical pain, etc., so I'm sure he's not looking forward to whatever happens to his body even if he's sure he'll be called home.

Late to the party, but it's not even that long of a shot.  Thirteen dwarves and a Hobbit for a start, when Gimli in LotR accounts for about fifty Uruk-hai in a single battle.  Then toss in three armies, one of which was at Thorin's disposal, and two of which would have stirred themselves for phat lewts if not the idea of having an awakened and enraged dragon as a neighbour.  Then toss in a legendary bowman who had sworn an oath of revenge against said dragon, who Gandalf was probably aware of, since it's his hobby to keep track of the dispossessed sons of kings and all.

See, a good deal of this story is about dwarves making things more difficult than is strictly necessary.

Certainly Bard has a backstory that could be profitably expanded--Tolkien only hints at what is somewhat obvious when you read it as an adult, which is that the Master of Laketown is some unworthy merchant asshole who has bemusedly taken in the heir of Dale and given him a job that lets him boss him around. I have a strong suspicion that Jackson will probably expand the Master's plotline, since he's a good minor villain that can pace out the story a bit while chewing some scenery, especially considering the bad end he eventually comes to.

Female storyline in the movies is now confirmed to be a female elf warrior played by Evangeline Lilly who will play some role in the Dol Guldur plot and then be involved in the Five Armies stuff, who is rumored to be in love with Kili (of "Fili and Kili" fame) or maybe vice-versa. Basically a heterosexual shipper's version of Gimli and Legolas.

Ok I really liked your first paragraph, but then your second drove me off a cliff.

Unfortunately I'm not joking. She's playing a character named Tauriel, who is the head of the "elven guard", presumably at the palace in Mirkwood. She's confirmed in interviews that she's in the first film just a bit but has a very significant role in the second. And there are persistent rumors that Kili will be infatuated with her and that they'll return to the romance subplot in the third film.

(http://www.mememaker.net/static/images/templates/15789.jpg)

(http://i.imgur.com/816uC.gif)

That's a horrible rumour.

(http://i33.tinypic.com/2e2duyt.jpg)

Wow.  So much  :ye_gods: and  :uhrr:  This is Kate of Lost for whom I wished would justgoaway sooo many times.  And now shoehorned into the Hobbit?   Awwwwwww fug   :heartbreak:

Edit:  I am naive

So they're tacking on an entire extraneous movie to a fairly short story so they can add content that was never part of the story.

:facepalm:

Yeah, I've moved from "I've got to see this" to "I'll wait for the fan edit that cuts it down to just the stuff that was in the book."  Padding it out to three movies and adding this completely irrelevant character *just* so they can have a love story going tripped my tolerance for having money siphoned out of my wallet.

--Dave

There's quite a bit of content that's not part of the story which would nevertheless be worth including.  Then there's shit made up out of whole cloth which makes you wonder whether you read the same source material.

But but but ... if we don't inject a romance into the story, one that was never written anywhere by anyone named Tolkein, how will we get the world's biggest built-in audience to watch this trilogy in a theater?

And then buy the DVD special editions?

And then again on Blu-ray?

And then again on Optic-Nerve-Shunt?

I can't believe how quickly my Awesome balloon has been popped.

It's, like, totally deflated and flaccid.

I am shocked by this given your personality and general outlook. You are better than this!

Heh.  Fuck off you sarky prick.

Tough to do when deflated and flaccid...

He'll probably have to remove/mangle one of the best scenes from the book to make it all work too.

I don't know which one yet; I'm just assuming history repeats itself.

Interesting;  what was your LotR mangler again ?

It's always the hardcore screaming about Bombadil.

There were a lot of choices in the movies I disagreed with, but that was the one that made me yell "FUCK YOU, PEEJAY!" at the screen.

Yeah.  That wasn't one I agreed with either.

I'm a jerkoff and didn't read most of this thread, but I squealed in the theater when I saw this trailer during Dark Knight Rises.  I'm 26 years old.

Also, did anyone else try and see how many dwarves they could name?

The only mangler that really annoyed me on initial viewing of the expanded edition was fucking around with the sequencing of Gandalf at the gates of Minas Tirith, Grond smashing the gate, Witch-King riding in, darkness breaking up, horns of Rohan sounding. In the book, that is about as perfectly composed a cinematic sequence as you could ask for--it's a rare case, in fact, of Tolkien writing a very tight, cinematic action sequence.  I couldn't even begin to guess why Jackson didn't do it that way himself--there's really no reason for it except that he wanted the trolls to break in, the city get stormed, all that shit, I guess. I can think of other ways to get those sequences in without fucking with the perfection of Gandalf staring down the Witch-King at the gate and being interrupted by the arrival of the Rohirrim.

Now in the case of "Tauriel", if all the stuff she's involved with turns out to be the attack on Dol Guldur, then nothing she's doing takes away from anything as written. My fear is, though, that she's going to get introduced as Bilbo is creeping around the Elf-King's citadel with the ring on, and that she and Bilbo are going to work together to get the dwarves in the barrels. Which will very much suck if anything of that sort happens.

Helms Deep.

They did such a weird thing to me with that location. When I first saw the fortress on the screen, I was like "they read my mind, this is exactly how I pictured it."

Then a column of fucking elves comes marching in to help defend it, and I turned into a lore nerd. I don't know why; it's not like I have the books memorized. I don't know any Elvish. I can't read runes. Why would that one scene bug me so much.

That's not the only thing that bugged me in the 2nd movie, either, but it's the most prominent.

It's because it's a classic example of just cramming as much shit onto the screen as possible in a desperate bid to keep the attention of the popcorn-scarfing masses.  Lots of things fighting lots of other things, that's how you make a successful movie.

(http://i.imgur.com/KxtOl.png) It's so dense, every single image has so many things going on...
(http://i.imgur.com/uRe2P.png) It's gonna be great.
(http://i.imgur.com/KxtOl.png) It's gonna be great.
(http://i.imgur.com/uRe2P.png) It's gonna be great.

Because it didn't happen, wasn't even remotely fucking hinted at in the books, and removed all the goddamn tension that made the Rohirrim's surviving the night so goddamn important? This is the coming of the Age of Men. The elves saving the men blew the air out of that sail.

My biggest bitch with the LotR was the ending, not having the Hobbits coming back to save the shire w/o any big people backup was a huge let down for me.

I think in the extra features Peter Jackson said they added the Elves because they felt too implausible to the Men to survive against the large Orc army.  I agree that it was a lame addition.

My recollection is that they said they did it because they wanted to keep the Elves more involved in the story, but in the end it all amounts to the same thing, iffy decision for sure.

Actually the elves did defend Helm's Deep but they all died and you know what they say about history written by the victor.  :drill:

Also,  'Tauriel' plays a key role in the attack on Dol Gulder=OK.  Tauriel coming up with a plan to put dwarves in barrels=NOT OK.

The entire fucking thing is dumb.

They already did the forbidden love angle, in a movie that plot-wise happens after this one, with a far less improbable pairing.  It's fucking bad when you're not only shitting on Tolkien's work, but your own as well.

I don't really like the books (broken record, right) but I hated what they did to the Ents. They cut out pretty much every subtly from the book, which didn't really have that many to begin with, and while the scouring of the shire and whatever made a lot of sense for a movie things like the Ents really grated.

Lore freaks get all cunty about the idea that the Ents aren't really tree-people, but I've read the books as fucking often as the lore-whores and I'd be willing to get into an exegesis knife-fight with them and argue that the visualization in the Jackson films is reasonable enough.

What's not reasonable is the retarded I-just-got-my-MFA screewriter paint-by-numbers rewriting of the Ent segments to make Pippin and Merry the prime dramatic movers of the attack on Isengard. I can completely see the dumbshit writers' meeting that led to that rewrite and it's simply WRONG.  :tantrum: I'd use the Luthor-wrong GIF from Superman Returns only fuck that movie in the earhole. It's not necessary for drama or cinema to make Treebeard and the rest of the Ents into ignorant shitwhistles who need to be conned by a pair of lead-paint-eating hobbits into going south in order to understand Saruman = bad. This isn't lore, it's storytelling. There's nothing wrong with Treebeard and the rest of the Ents saying, let's kick some tree-killer ass. Jackson had actually set that up with TWO lengthy scenes of Saruman raping the earth and doing INDUSTRIAL CAPITALIST SHIT and all that in movie 1 and 2. In many ways, having Pippin and Merry sit on their asses and be victims of circumstance right until they get to Rohan is absolutely perfect and then suddenly make two impulsive decisions (to pledge to Theoden and Denethor) is freaking perfect in terms of cinematic drama. It makes them the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern of LOTR, minor characters who suddenly vault into the dramatic center, which is pretty much what I think Tolkien had in mind. Turning them into con artists who can somehow sell band instruments to the oldest beings in Middle-Earth is a dumb and unnecessary shift.

Which sums up all the bad decisions of Jackson & Co. So so many smart decisions about how to translate the story--in the case of Eowyn and Aragorn, for example, I think there are massive enhancements. But the bad decisions are so ill-advised and hard to understand that you can't help but be nervous. Maybe I'll love Tauriel in two years' time. But I wonder.

Yeah, that's what I'm referring to.

The Ents looked great. What Jackson did with them was retarded.

One of my "WTF???" was the last fight with Elowyn and the Lich King. That was perfectly scripted as a great scene. The Bad guys laughs and said that no man can hurt him, she laughs and points out that she is a woman, Bad guy is shocked, feels vulnerable, loses his nerve and as a result dies. In the films they have a big fight and then when he is dead she whips off her helmet and says "I ain't no man!" which was utterly completely and totally stupid. Seriously, I was waiting for that scene all movie and Jackson fucked the whole thing up as he had watched too many episodes of Xena.

It's pretty much what she says in the book as well. "But no living man am I! You look upon a woman." And she whips off her helmet in the book before saying it.

And in both the book and movie, she says it before she (and Merry) kill the Witch-King and directly after he says no living man can kill him. The only difference is the book has mentioned the prophecy that the Witch-King is repeating once or twice before we get to that moment, so it's been foreshadowed.

If you don't like it, your problem is with JRR, not Jackson.

Actually, if you have a problem with it, you have a problem with Shakespeare.  From whom the whole fucking scene is ripped off.

Yup, and with an even lamer loophole.

Can't trust witches.

If ya got womb-ripped problems, I feel bad for you Son, I got 99 problems, but a witch ain't one.

Some problems with the movies:

1. Bombadil.  Yeah, a bunch of people think he's just retarded and fine to cut out.  I on the other hand consider him to be insanely creepy and an awesome part of the world.  You have a guy sitting in the woods with his girlfriend, just hopping around and molesting forest creatures and not giving a fuck, when in fact he's an enormously powerful avatar of the planet and could kill everybody.  A decent screenwrite could have driven that point nicely home.

2. Scouring of the Shire.  The third movie's plenty long without it, but it was hands-down one of the best parts of the story, showing that nobody was proof against the reach of the war.  It also illustrated the growth in Merry and Pippin from fairly useless bumblers to hardasses when a 'mere' two hobbits drove out Saruman and his men on their own.

3. Random elf appearances.  Especially when the elves just got chewed up by orcs.

4. Retarded ents.  The ents should not have been so clueless to what Saruman was doing when he was busy eating forests.

I don't think Bombadil is retarded at all - far from it. In a miniseries you probably leave him in. But that section would really derail the narrative in a movie of vaguely normal length.

Bombadil is a sad omission, but at least an understandable and defensible omission because he's "flavor" and doesn't have much to do with the larger plot.  And you couldn't do a short version of his scene, because first you have to set up the wights, and then have the scary business where the hobbits are in danger, and then have Bombadil come out and chase them off, and then do some exposition to explain who the fuck this weird guy is, and then get the story back on track, and all that takes time.  It'd work great as an episode of a miniseries, as Ingmar suggested.  Shit, I'd love to see more good fantasy books get the Game of Thrones treatment.  Fuck movies.

I'd have fewer problems with omitting the Scouring if so much time hadn't been wasted on slo-mo bed-jumping in its place.  The frustrating thing is that on the one hand there are cool things that were cut because there wasn't time for them, and on the other there are all these scenes that just drag on and on for no good reason.  

That's why I get increasingly twitchy when I hear hints of romance subplots and shit in the Hobbit.  You know that shit is going to stretch on and get padded until something actually GOOD has to get cut out to make room for it.

I heard* that was when Arwen was going to show up and join the battle, but then Liv Tyler kept sucking as an actress and they punted her, but had already filmed the big fight with lots of elves, so they had to keep it or reshoot.

*Read a message board post, probably wrong but rumors are fun!

I got lots of little nitpicks, but that one's a good one.
Also, Aragorn fucking falling off a cliff. So mechanically hollywood that it has no tension whatsovever.

In the version I saw, She said it after the witch king was dead. Which is also when she ripped off her helmet.


Like the 15 or so fade out and fade back entings. Well it felt like 15 anyway...

IIRC that's true. Also it is lame either way, but more lame if she says so afterwards.

Which version is that? The imaginary one you have in your head?

In the film (both theatrical and extended), they fight for a while with Eowyn keeping her helmet on. That's the difference between the book and the film: in the book, Eowyn takes her helm off and says her "no living man am I" speech right at the beginning of the fight, even before she kills the mount. In both book and film, Eowyn eventually has her shield shattered and is knocked down. In the book, she struggles to rise. In the film, the Witch-King picks her up, chokes her and monologues, including saying "no living man can kill me".  In the book, Merry stabs the Witch-king while Eowyn is down, which is what gives her the chance to rise for one last blow. In the film, Merry stabs the Witch-king while he's choking and monologuing, leading him to drop Eowyn and fall to his knees.

He is not dead at that point, in neither the book nor the film. That's the whole point of Eowyn needing to face-stab him. He's hurt (in the book it's made clear that this is because Merry has a sword from the Barrow-Downs that was forged for use in the wars against the Witch-King). He is not dead.  In the film, this is when Eowyn takes off her helm, gives her "I am no man" line and face-stabs the Witch-King, at which point he dies and crumples up like a tin can. In the book, this is when Eowyn face-stabs him, and he dies and everybody gets the heebie-geebies as he goes off to the Void.

This is pretty clear in the film if you're paying attention. It's doubly clear if you've actually read the books. You can complain about changing the sequence of Eowyn revealing herself and using Shakespeare's cast-off "no man" loophole. But she's not just tea-bagging on a PvP corpse.

How about the one that everyone else agreed that was the way it happened. Whether he had actually "died" at the point was irrelevant. He was a bloody corpse in every way that mattered. And yes I only saw it once and I was double facepalming at the time at the utter lameness of the line and the whole scene.

And no I'm not renting a copy just so I can win or lose an internet argument on a 2 second time frame. And by the way, whether the guy was alive or dead at the time makes no difference on the fact that the line was 20 times more lame than the book. Sorry to make your PJ nerd cry.

 :grin:

"Out of the wreck rose a Black Rider, tall and threatening, towering above her. With a cry of hatred that stung the very ears like venom he let fall his mace. Her shield was shivered in many pieces, and her arm was broken; she stumbled to her knees. He bent over her like a cloud, and his eyes glittered; he raised his mace to kill.

But suddenly he too stumbled foward with a cry of bitter pain, and his stroke went wide, driving into the ground. Merry's sword had stabbed him from behind, shearing through the black mantle, and passing up beneath the hauberk had pierced the sinew behind the mighty knee.

Eowyn! Eowyn! cried Merry. Then tottering, struggling up, with her last strength she drove her sword between crown and mantle, as great shoulders bowed before her. The sword broke sparkling into many shards. The crown rolled away with a clang. Eowyn fell forward upon her fallen foe. But lo! the mantle and hauberk were empty. Shapeless they lay now on the ground, torn and tumbled; and a cry went up into shuddering air, and faded to a shrill wailing, passing with the wind, a voice bodiless and thin that died, and was swallowed up, and was never heard again in that age of this world."

I never fail to be amused by people who hang out with nerds, get into nerd arguments, make a strong statement of fact about the content of a nerd-favored film or book, turn out to be unambiguously wrong, and then a: lack the grace to admit it and b: say, "You guys are a bunch of nerds, who cares anyway."

Just stick to saying, "I didn't like the scene" and you can't be wrong. At least factually.

Now if you want to get into the question of whether in fact Merry's the "no man" who is really responsible for nailing the bugger and Eowyn just took him to 0 hp from 2hp, you're deep into Tolkien geekery, because that's a debate that's been knocking around for years.

 :Love_Letters:

That passage incidentally does a good job of illustrating my utter "WTF?" reaction to people who say he wasn't a good writer.

Which isn't what I said and you know it


You're the guy that loaded up the film just to win an argument on the internet. Not to mention copying out the phrases from the book. Which basically said she had a broken arm and was on her last legs rather than having skin tougher than superman and bouncing around like Xena after the shield broke.

Like I said. the witch kind was defeated and in bits on the ground, and then she whipped offer her helmet to deliver her stupid line. The only thing you "won" is that the guy was on -9 HP rather than dead, and really it doesn't make a damn difference to the lameness of the whole sequence. She ran around and defeated the Witch king and then whipped off her helmet to give her stupid line. And the way it was done was far lamer than the book.


Or how about I don't give 2 shits about Merry and his masculinity. Anyway the prophecy didn't say anything about the number of non men that would bring the wraith down. Its a completely stupid argument. Like whether the Balrog had wings.


Its because Tolkien's focus was on the story. He wasn't concerned with his characters deep dark emotional wank history other than as it related to the greater history that the LOTR was the final chapter of. He wanted to describe great events, not spend chapters going into peoples motivation. So people look down on him and call his characters 2 dimensional when in fact they are anything but. Their character is relayed through their actions.

Its also why Sam is actually one of the best developed internally characters in the book. As there wasn't much else to describe while they were trudging through fields in the rain to get to Mordor.

 :oh_i_see:

We need a smiley for "digging the hole you're in even deeper".

(http://gifsoup.com/imager.php?id=19846&t=o)

Actually, I always kinda liked the idea that the witchking was tripled fucked by Merry - not a man - Eowyn, - not a man - and the blade of Westernesse, which was an epic loot drop from Molten Core back when Merry used to raid, before it became all about random retards sharing loot on the back of Deathwing.

I'm not sure wtf you're on about, but I was talking about his ability to craft awesome sentences.

"Not being sure WTF he's on about" is T's middle name at this point.

Cause I can't help myself, like any nerd, I suppose I ought to point out that Eowyn rips off her helm in the original text, the one that T claims he loves and knows and says has great action that proves character or whatever the phrase he got out of his Cliff Notes' guide.

"...stood she whom he had called Dernhelm. But the helm of her secrecy had fallen from her, and her bright hair, released from its bonds, gleamed with pale gold upon her shoulders. Her eyes grey as the sea were hard and fell, and yet tears were upon her cheek. A sword was in her hand, and she raised her shield against the horror of her enemy's eyes."

This directly follows her  "no living man am I" speech, and then there's considerable description of her determination, emotional bad-assery, etc., before she chops off the head of the Witch-King's mount, gets knocked down, and then gets a chance to face-stab him.

Again, the only complaint beyond "I didn't like it" that T can intelligently offer--but I wouldn't want him to start now--is that he doesn't like the change of the sequencing of Eowyn and the Witch-King's dialogue, he doesn't like the way it's acted, or he doesn't like the over-the-top orchestral score or staging. Complaining that she whips off her helm, that she makes a big deal about not being a man, that she is too "Xena-like" etc. just means he doesn't like either the source text OR the film, not that the book doesn't do all the things he doesn't like and is nice and pure. Because, pretty much, it does the same things, only in a different order, with slightly different phrasing, and not using an actress and a CGI effect on a movie screen.

Which reminds me of the bad CGI of the Undead army and them 'swarming' over Minas Tirith like a squad of fucking green bees.

That was pretty fucking lame.

I just want to say that this is the best LotR bitchfest we've ever had.

Totally. Not only diverges from the book but sucks whether or not it diverges. The Dead aren't a horde of Magical Scrubbing Bubbles who melt orcs like acid. In this case, that's a result of Jackson abandoning the idea that Aragorn goes on the Paths with his own small military force of elves and Dunedain, so the Dead have to be a full-service deus ex machina rather than just a tipping point. I didn't like it in the film visually or in narrative terms.

That said, I've never been very fond of the Paths of the Dead in the book, either. I think it's one of the dullest sections of the entire narrative, with a lot of telling over showing. (Partly because the key part has to be told retrospectively.)

Yeah that is the one part of the book that utterly confused me as a kid.

Thing is, he doesn't come back with Dead.  The dead help him liberate the lands to the west and south from which he conscripts an army.

So that whole scene is utter wank.

He was a good writer. But I think that part is really good at illustrating the significant weaknessess he has as well as his strengths. His pacing is abysmal, even in that moment it is 'mytholigical lense flare' rather than action. Epic and evocative, yeah, but it's not especially energetic.

Which is great - it's what the books are wonderful at. But it's not objectively 'well written' for people who like reading different stuff.

(Also I misremembered the movie and bow out from supporting Sir T on that point. I did have the sense that the dramatic tension of the movie centred on her statement far more than it did in the book, but that might just be my memory going - or Tolkien not being anywhere near as good at dramatic tension - cheesy or otherwise - as PJ)

Edit: I should say that LotR does have some good bits of dramatic tension, I am being a bit cheeky.

"Break out the movie?"  Nobody needs to do that, this is 2012 and we have Youtube.  That T couldn't even be arsed to do a simple google says he's just spoiling for a fight.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAFQdFQdN1s

Dude was stabbed in the knee (and the text says that as well.)  If that was fatal, then the hobbits are more badass than anyone.

Here, have the scene in proper order with dialogue courtesy of Rankin & Bass:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWjt6LGhHsI

Well that was technically a backstab and he probably rolled a crit on it as well - not to mention the fact Hobbits have +agi AND +dex racial bonuses.

It isn't that the blade "killed him", it was that it was an enchanted blade that broke Sauron's spell.  It didn't matter where he stabbed him.

Though, to be fair, being stabbed in the knee by a midget is a painful way to go on both a physical and metaphorical level.

He used to be a Witch Lord, but then he took a sword to the knee.

... I'll show myself out. Also, while I don't think The Hobbit should be three films, I'll give Jackson the benefit of the doubt since the "LOTR" movies are very enjoyable.

This thread.

Actually your big wank was "Well he wasn't actually dead, you know! Therefore I won 1000 internet points and I'm a Tolkien GOD and your bitching about Peter Jacksons brilliance is complete crap" Sadly, in every other respect other than the fact the Witch King wasn't actually dead, everything I wrote was 100% accurate. By your measure. Arnie didn't actually kill the Predator at the end of the movie either :grin:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Pelennor_Fields


Aside from all that, it was like totally the same, man. And of course a woman with her arm smashed would indulge in lameass smacktalk.  :why_so_serious:

But hey, you gotta cling to something when your own quotes of Tolkiien prove you are 100% wrong.   :oh_i_see:

The only fair arguement here is that the scene felt a little hamfisted compared to the book.  In my opinion, this is mostly because the scene in the book was fucking fabulous.  I welled up a little when I first read it, and it gives me the tingles ever time I re-read it.  The movie version was accurate enough, and otherwise serviceable...but it didn't give you the OMG THAT JUST HAPPENED feeling from the book.

The movie just isn't able to convey the significance of what happened.  Shit, they don't really even build up the witch king appropriately to begin with, so it is just another bad guy getting face-rolled. 

But then, that's how movies are.  Pretty much always.  Which is why I find all the nerdfighting to be ridiculous.  By the nature of what they are, the two mediums will always convey a different message. 

I am not sure I am entertained by this thread, astonished, perplexed, or just flat out horrified.

You're welcome  :awesome_for_real:

What freaks are you talking about ?  Because they're 100% wrong.  Ents are totally tree-people and, oh, I dunno, who's that guy, oh yeah, TOLKIEN said so, IN HIS BOOKS.

I wish you'd all stop talking to these MENTAL friends of yours because they're WRONG.

T, sweetheart, you're talking about the entire Pelennor Fields battle now. I know this may be confusing to you, but that's: a) lots more stuff in the book and b) lots more stuff in the movie. I know that's a technical concept, but I think you can probably get your head around it if you try.

 :popcorn:

I literally have a page from 'Return of the King' tattoo'd on my arm and you guys make me look reasonable.

K, Darling, I just cut in 2 paragraphs of an entire fucking article because those paragraphs dealt with all the changes to that particular scene. I actually just had one paragraph till I reread it that they also talked about Denethor. See the "edited" tab on the bottom for when I slotted it in? Sorry for being a completest and stuff. I'm glad I gave you an opportunity to hit me with your Mace Flail.

If was was being pedantic I would have said that the king talking to his daughter as he lay dying rather than some midget he had met a couple of weeks back is better. But then Eowyn was unconscious from pain in the book, but she was just so manly in the film that she was able to Rambo through it, ya know.


Glad to help!  :grin: What page, out of curiosity?

To be a pedant you actually have to know something.

*insert picture of Puss In Boots cat going 'ooooooh' here*


http://youtu.be/LKpnZ7cwWuY (http://youtu.be/LKpnZ7cwWuY)

(http://i.imgur.com/GkmRr.gif)

(http://cache.blippitt.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Popcorn-09-Psych.gif)

http://www.douglasadams.com/dna/pedants.html

If I were being pedantic I would point out that Eowyn is Theoden's niece, not his daughter.

M-M-M-m-m-m-m-monnnnnster Kill !!!

(http://www.jo.spacia.org/elrond/pics/elrond05.jpg)

(http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_laxkwhTaEh1qe4tx4o1_400.gif)

Is this the part where we clap yet?

Man I think I missed my window for the "SirT: almost as good at film criticism as he is at Blood Bowl" crack.

Let's move on the bonus round now, which might actually be relevant to an upcoming movie or three.

Let's try a few questions.

1) In the book Lord of the Rings, Shadowfax is grey. In the film Lord of the Rings, Shadowfax is white. This means:

a) Who's Shadowfax?
b) No, he's grey, and besides, the really dumb thing is when Aragorn talks to him later on.
c) White, grey, who cares?
d) I suppose that's ok if they couldn't find a grey horse who could act the part, but I would rather they did it as Tolkien wrote. The Mearas are sometimes white, sometimes grey, but Shadowfax's greyness is rather specific to Tolkien's aesthetic and is mentioned in a particularly poignant notation in The Unfinished Tales.
e) I have a gun, some ammunition, and I have been planning to kill Peter Jackson ever since I saw the false Shadowfax in the films.


2) If I heard there was deleted footage featuring Tom Bombadil that Peter Jackson was going to add to the Super Extended Edition of Lord of the Rings, I would:

a) Who's Tom Bombadil?
b) Tom Bombadil is the guy who saves Frodo with elf-medicine, right? I hated that they turned that guy into that elf-lady from Aerosmith. It would have been much better if he was in the film.
c) Eh, I never liked the character that much anyway and that whole section is hopelessly digressive and un-cinematic. I can't imagine this adding anything to the films but bloat. Still, what the hell, I'll take a look.
d) Given that Tom Bombadil was in fact one of the earliest parts of Tolkien's literary imagination, and was only later integrated into the mythography of Middle-Earth, I can see the complex difficulties that were involved in integrating him into the cinematic adaptation. And yet, it seems like an important theoretical challenge in diegetic terms to reconcile the two different moments of mythopoeisis. I am intrigued by this addition and it does much to relieve my earlier disappointment at the excision.
e) I have a gun, some ammunition, and I have been planning to kill Peter Jackson ever since I saw that Tom Bombadil was not in the films.

3) I wish Bill Ferny had been in the film.

a) Who's Bill Ferny?
b) Bill Ferny is that hobbit who hangs out at the Green Turtle Inn, the one who is kind of an asshole, so he's actually in the movie, you don't know what you're talking about.
c) Can't really have the character appear without "The Scouring of the Shire", otherwise he's just giving us way more detail about Bree and Bill the pony and all that stuff that just can't fit in the film's narrative line. The guy is pretty memorable in the books, though.
d) Actually Bill Ferny is in the film in a cameo role, as identified by later paratextual materials, though he has been misidentified as the gatekeeper who is crushed by the Black Riders in some discussions. While I agree that Ferny's narrative importance is only greatly accentuated by the closure available in "Scouring of the Shire", his omission is a usefully concentrated example of the narrative opportunities lost when the Scouring as a whole is lost. Ferny underscores the subversive malevolence of Sauron's rise and the corruption of otherwise good communities and people, which is an important thematic counterpoint to the overt evil and menace of the Riders and orcs. Plus I like Bill the Pony.
e) I have a gun, some ammunition, and I have been planning to kill Peter Jackson ever since I saw that Bill Ferny only had a brief cameo in the films.

4) The first film of The Hobbit is almost certainly going to feature an extended visualization of Beorn's attack on the goblins during the night that the dwarves and Bilbo are asleep in his home.

a) Who's Beorn?
b) I don't think Beorn should show up until he shoots Smaug with that arrow, so that sounds pretty dumb to me.
c) Of course it will: cinema is visual, and it wouldn't make sense for Jackson to shoot the film by constraining the action to Bilbo's point-of-view the way that the text does, even if he weren't trying to squeeze three films out of it. Beorn's battle is one of the most potentially exciting and least extraneous ways to expand the narrative of the book, particularly given that the book gives us some pretty good sense of what happened.
d) It depends. The genesis and origins of the Beornings is a somewhat ambivalent issue in the larger mythology, and it's not entirely clear from the text of the The Hobbit whether there are already Beorning clans or people, and whether the ursine beings whose footprints are spotted by Gandalf the next day are the Beornings or just bears who are obedient to Beorn's will. Given that the Beornings did exist by the time of The Two Towers and Frodo's visit to Lorien, however, it must be assumed that there were in fact Beorning communities clustered on the western edge of Mirkwood at the time of Bilbo's original visit. I can imagine that this sequence might be acceptably produced, though there are many reasons to prefer the sense of mystery and menace from Tolkien's original text.
e) I have a gun, some ammunition, and I will doubtless be planning to kill Peter Jackson after I see this film.


If you answered "a" to any of these questions, god bless you. Enjoy the show, buy some popcorn.
If you answered "b" to any of these questions, use Wikipedia more often and be careful not to get into any arguments on online forums about LOTR or The Hobbit. You know who you are.
If you answered "c" to any of these questions, congrats, you're a sane person in an insane world.
If you answered "d" to any of these questions, go get a Ph.D in comparative philology.
If you answered "e" to any of these questions, look into benzodiazepines.

If Gandalf were in a tank of qual technology to Sauron in a mech, who would win?

a) Who's Sauran?
b) Sauran's that guy in front of the Black Gate, right? Right before the orcs came out and the red searchlight fell over? The guy with no eyes and lots of teeth? Didn't Gandalf's henchman kill that guy?
c) Give me a break, not even Peter Jackson would try to make Gandalf fight Sauron one on one.
d) Gandalf would crack the earth, Sauron would pull him in, they'd fight from the deepest caverns to the highest mountain peaks, and then both return to their spawn points.
e) One does not simply walk into New Zealand. We're going to need a plane and a boat before we can exact our revenge on Peter Jackson for this affront.

Sauron? That's easy, he's the pterodactyl-guy in the Savage Land.

Popping back to this for a sec, I had to go look it up to refresh my memory on how that part of the book played out (fuck, it's been a while since I've read them, I need to buy a cheap paperback copy I can drag around with me), and found this unsourced blurb on Wikipedia:


It reads almost like he did it out of spite.   :why_so_serious:

That fucker. The e) people would no doubt feel all the more justified.

But I'm with him--the whole narrative would be a lot better if you got rid of the Dead Men. Find some other proof that Aragorn is meant to be the King, and some other way to split him off from the Rohirrim (which is the precondition of Theoden/Eowyn/Merry's heroics--that they're up to bat when Babe Ruth is off fucking around with a bunch of ghosts.)

Yeah, I wouldn't really have bitched too much if they cut that little detour out and he just showed up with reinforcements "because I'm fucking Isildur's heir, that's why".

It's just funny to me that his attitude may have been "oh, you want the stupid Dead Men in your stupid nerd movie?  CHOKE ON THEM, THEN!  wharrrgablksdjflkjsadf"

[pedantic]There is no such thing as a white horse in print.  A white horse would be an albino, something that JRRT was surely aware of.  Every white horse you've ever seen was actually a very light grey horse.  No actual case of an albino horse has ever been recorded.[/pedantic]

--Dave

This is precisely why I do not read the books before seeing the movie.  :awesome_for_real:

The gay bar by my college campus will be really disappointed to have to rename itself to the Light Grey Horse.

Ok. So your point is that Midgets > Your niece in your affections? Your family reunions must be a laugh riot. (And I always thought she was his daughter. Ah well, silly me, I'm so sorry for not having posters of the family trees of fictional characters on my wall.)


And you are the one that bitched when I used 2 paragraphs from wikipedia when it went against you. :) And tried to distract from that and gain internet points by trying to say I was trying to shift focus to talking about the entire battle because I used 2 paragraphs from an 8 paragraph section on differences between the book and film. :>  And by the way I couldn't give 2 craps about any of the questions you posted either.

Oh speaking of which, lets have a third paragraph.


Which I kind of agree with. While it made sense for Aragorn to use them that way, it really cheapened the whole "Men won that battle" angle. That's why Tolkien got rid of the dead before the big battle as it would have cheapened the achievement of victory against the hosts of Sauron.

No.

My complaint is that the fight scenes in the LOTR movies had little tension. Peter Jackson just doesn't know how to film a good fight scene, and any scenes extended to add action to the Hobbit are gonna be various levels of boring. So it's not so much "You changed the story! Whargarbl!" as much as "That's what you changed the story for? Meh."

I'd slightly disagree in terms of the first film. The fight at the end of the "fellowship of the ring" was great fun, and the Moria sequence was very very good. But you are right that the fights in the rest of the movies were pretty flat when it comes to any kind of tension. I suspect Jackson got Lucas disease and refused to listen to anyone else for the rest of the Films to be honest.

Second Film Intro; Gandalf riding the Balrog all the way down.

Win.

Yeah, it's a nice little twist that the two people who were told they couldn't join the fight because they were too puny or girly are the ones that actually kill the big boss, regardless of the specific mechanics.

Yeah, I'll grant you that one. That was fucking epic. That and the Ents kicking the Orcs around Orthanc were the only 2 bits I enjoyed out of that whole movie.

I think he did great action scenes.

1.  Gandalf vs. Balrog "Ok, now that no one can see me, time to grab my trusty ass-beater and go full Maiar on this fool."
2.  Theoden vs. the Horde  "Fuck this, I'm not dying like a bitch.  Who wants to go on a heavy metal death ride with me?
3.  Gandalf's Arrival "HAY GUISE I FOUND EOMER LOL. ALSO, THAT LIGHT IN YOUR EYES IS MY AWESOME!"

A forest showing up to ruin a tyrant's shit isn't a new invention, either.


As I recall the undead horde doesn't even fight, they just show up and the southerners abandon ship and run the fuck away.  Because hey, undead horde: fuck no, I'm outta here.


I'm still pissed they cut Frodo getting Witchslapped at the ford of Rivendell.


Right here: this is you being wrong.

Yeah, I know. I just never liked that section much in its own terms, or to read. It's always felt a bit plot-device-ish to me. Though I liked Gimli talking about how much it freaked him out.

I was going to say ALL this.  Honest.  But I figured, hey, you know, retarded slap fight.

It's the Harrowing of Hell.

You guys are bored huh?

If I felt the need to wander into every thread in the MMOG boards and post something in each for the sake of having something to post, I'm pretty sure all of my posts would say this.

Thankfully I'm not quite that big of a douchebag.

No one does that.

Also, I guess I should have just posted someone eating popcorn? I came in here thinking there was some new blog video or something, and found 3 pages of lore argument and some sort of multiple choice test. That is fine, but the cock fight of who is the bigger Tolkien fan is just, well,  :oh_i_see: to those of us looking in :)

I just have trouble understanding why it's okay to nerd out about comics or Star Wars or any of a hundred other topics, but if you talk about Tolkien's books and their most recent film adaptations in a thread about a Tolkien movie you're a terrible person worthy only of scorn and derision.

I didn't say it wasn't OK!

I still liked Dragonlance better.
edit: the books, not the movie  :oh_i_see:

Stop being a jerk Bloodworth! :why_so_serious:

What are you, some kind of hoity-toity pinky-extending book-reading nerd?  That was a masterpiece of modern filmmaking. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHrOfJ8_D0o)

:not sure if serious:

me either.
Had more fun reading D'lance as a kid though.  Not much has really touched it since.  I look at Tolkien now like saying The Prose Edda was better than reading a Thor comic.  One is more interesting, the other more fun.

I don't know how!  :cry2:

 :cry:

I'm right here, you know.

Helm's Deep is one of the parts I'm thinking of. After rolling my eyes at the magical elves and Legolas shield surfing, the rest was dull as dishwater.

I've heard that the taxation of trade routes to outlying regions of Mirkwood is in dispute, and Gandalf meets with the Mirkwood ambassador in a conference room to discuss.  Then, they fight over Mirkwood, and debate about it in a bigger conference room  later.

I think my attempt at 'humor' has failed.  I liked almost all of TT; the Legolas skateboarding was NOT one of them.  It may be my favorite of the three movies.  Great action.

I'm not really seeing the complaint against the action scenes, yeah. Particularly not in the first two films. There's a couple that go on too long in TT--the warg attack primarily. ROTK the film I can see some complaints--there are filler scenes that bore me a bit and as I've said, I think Jackson bungles the sequencing of the overall Pelennor Fields battle. But he gets the Moria sequences nearly pitch-perfect (I could do without the collapsing stonework bit), the battle at Amon Hen is very well done, most of the siege of Helm's Deep is at least good (skateboarding and other elvish shit aside) with the arrival of Gandalf being great, and the Ent attack is also great. I intensely dislike the scenes with Frodo, Sam, Gollum and Faramir in Osgiliath (if the Rider actually SAW Frodo WITH the Ring, it wouldn't go away under any circumstances and the rest of them would have been there within an hour...plus the whole misdirection of Sauron that's key to the plotline of TT and ROTK falls apart) but that's not really an action sequence in the same sense.

I never really thought about the rider seeing the ring. You're right, so why then does Sauron think Pippin have the ring in The Return of the King (movie)? I know it's because Pippin looks in the palantir but Sauron already knows Frodo has it. Does he think all hobbits look the same? Was the rider simply unable to get a message to Sauron somehow? Did he imagine that maybe Frodo used to have the ring but he'd handed it over to his buddy?  :headscratch:

(https://dl.dropbox.com/u/704172/F13%20Photos/Racist%20Sauron.jpg)

I don't think there's any way to no-prize that scene into making sense in terms of the overall narrative. So many other references survive in the films of the basic conceit that Gandalf and Aragorn are deliberately distracting Sauron from his own borders and making him hurry up his war out of fear that one of them is going to wield the Ring--but given what one of his Ringwraiths actually saw and felt (the Nazgul *knows* it's the Ring, he can feel it) that makes zero sense. In the books, Frodo, Sam and Gollum are almost done in simply because the Witch-King at Morgul Vale can vaguely sense the Ring's presence from a long ways away.

I think this speaks to the real problem with Jackson: he doesn't know when to go minimalist in creating tension or drama. Everything has to be dialed up to 11. That's what leads him to wretched excess like Super-Legolas or the Melty-Acid Dead Men. It's not like LOTR is short on bombast but there are a few places where a more subtle hand might be called for. The Hobbit is WAY more that way--some of its pleasures are really quieter, more subtle scenes.

I never really focused on how the ring scene with the Nazgul is all kinds of off the rails.  Wow.  Jackson clearly made a movie more filled with striking moments than textual accuracy or consistency.  Still a great trilogy of movies, though.  I still really enjoy re-watching all the major fight scenes, even the wargs.

I just came across this on Facebook:


and it reminded me all over again how much I hated the portrayal of the Ents in the movies as being essentially stupid.  I had to go and dig up this passage from the Two Towers:


I really do need to pick up a cheap copy of the books and reread them.  I'd forgotten how enjoyable Tolkien's dialogue is.

Pretty much that. Particularly considering that Tolkien had to do some awkward dancing in his own mythology to explain hobbits, but about the clearest thing you get from him is that Treebeard's not wrong: hobbits are *really* recent by his reckoning, despite Merry and Pippin saying they've been around for a "long time". Basically hobbits are mutant Men. They're not listed separately in the old lists that Treebeard is thinking of because they didn't exist in those old lists, and by the kind of reckoning involved in them they still don't "exist".

I googled around and found this site (http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Hobbits#Origin) compiled by greater nerds than I.

That's probably one of the better way I've seen of summing up what's wrong with the LOTR films. Also why The Fellowship is my favourite of the three.

Interesting site. It still amazes me that one man created such a detailed imaginary world.

New trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=yYz0JWJioOM

As with the previous trailer, I really liked the bit in the Shire with Bilbo meeting the dwarves.

What we saw of the Gollum scene made me miss the Bakshi version, which is never a good sign.

Was that Tom Bombadil with the rat speaking about dark powers and shit?

 :heart:

I believe it was Radagast.

Yeah, I think so too.  The appendices say that he warned Gandalf about 'The Necromancer' being Sauron.

It fits.

http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Radagast 

Radagast is the Dr.  :awesome_for_real:

Anything fits if you hit it hard enough.

You know, given that the lore says almost nothing about Radagast in the time frame of LOTR other than being a dupe of Saruman and then equally accidentally freeing up Gandalf--neither of which is part of Jackson's LOTR films--they could probably have him die (and not get a Scroll of Resurrection like Gandalf) in the Dol Guldur battle. I like the way McCoy looks in the role, at any rate.

My initial reaction to how they made him look is  :ye_gods: but I won't rule out growing accustomed to it.

I think it would have been a mistake to make him look like just another tall chap with white hair.  So I'm ok with it.

Yeah I'm just not sure Monty Python pepperpot driving a rabbit sleigh would have been my first choice of alternative. It does have a certain Russian-mythology charm I guess.

Nice trailer.  Showed some scenes I'm REALLY looking forward to.  Looks like they will get to Goblintown in this movie at least.

Radagast in his very limited mentions comes off like he's not your conventional wizard so I think being a Gandalf-Saruman type is wrong both in lore terms and in visual terms for a film. My impression is always that he's a hippy-wizard, more like Tom Bombadil than Gandalf only without the hot elf chick for a wife.

I did not like the trailer, and I most likely won't like the movie. 

It's one of those books that I have an image already in my head that crosses between the Bakshi version and my mental imagery.  This is so far away from the way I imagined it.  Plus, there's added silly shit in it. 

I'm being a curmudgeon, but I'm just tired of seeing the greats being bastardized. 

He has always come across as a bit druidy (in dungeons and dragons terms).  So yeah, hippy wizard.

The version in my head is a much fitter, wildernessy sort of fellow than where they're going with it. More Grizzly Adams, less The Day The Earth Froze.

Yeah, but The Wizards all looked like frail old men who couldn't even stand without a staff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2k_EiYh4IU

I don't know, that looks pretty awesome even if it does deviate a bit from canon.

Well I'm definitely seeing it now. That's exactly how I've always pictured it in my head.

That's some seamless CGI work.  Lucas should hire that guy to do his next Special Edition release.

Okay, so I decided to reread The Hobbit in anticipation of the movie and because their FB page has been doing features of each dwarf.  I honestly couldn't remember how each was described and wanted to see how close the movie would match the book.  Right now I'm only on page 111 and they've made it from the Shire (getting past the trolls) to Rivendell to the Misty Mountains, into the goblin tunnels, Bilbo's discovered the Ring and outsmarted Gollum, they've all escaped into Mirkwood and have been surrounded by wargs.  Just now the Eagle King has plucked Gandalf from a tree to rescue him.

All that in 111 pages or so.  Most of these are rather significant in light of what's been seen in the LoTR movies, and yet they haven't taken up much literary description at all.  Granted, I don't want the movies to be drug out just to add extra crap, but it seems to me that the stuff I've described should get a bit more attention that it has to date. 

GEEZ SPOILERS

:oh_i_see:

:why_so_serious:

There's plenty of material for multiple movies. I really don't see it being a problem and I think the cast and crew they've got assembled will do Tolkien proud.

Yea, I don't think the LoTR movies are a good guide. It was only the end of the third movie that felt way the hell too stretched out (and worse in the Director's cut). But they nixed entire storylines from the novels in order to make it fit into 14 or so hours of movie. They'd need a few full seasons of television to really tell the whole thing.

So I can almost imagine Peter Jackson struggling to keep The Hobbit just to two movies, once there was the assumed studio pressure to stretch it out  :oh_i_see:

Just a reminder for you fanpeople to get your tix early.  I'm grabbin my IMAX midnite showing tix today.

The soundtrack is now available to DL in certain places.

I can't seem to muster interest for this one.  I only just saw the trailer for the first time yesterday, and the prevailing thought I had was "huh....I don't remember the book being nearly this...epic looking?"  Honestly, The Hobbit is a whimsical little tale about a silly little miniature dude who goes on a silly little adventure with some slightly taller and hairier dudes.  Yes, the orcs and the trolls and the spiders and the dragon are all a little creepy and dangerous, but our bumbling hero will make it through!  Happy Times twiddley diddlely dee!

I mean, the tone between Hobbit and LOTR shift dramatically.  And yet, if feels like they are making LOTR Episodes One and Two with this, and it feels off to me.

That's because that's exactly what they are doing.

LotR the prequels, episode 1, 2 and 3.

And you know what ?  I'm fucking stoked about it.

Until they are released, anyway...  :why_so_serious:

I've nitpicked the LotR, but I enjoyed them enormously and understood the limitations.  Sure, I agreed with some fucking stupid decisions and HATED Blanchett, but nothing's perfect.

Infidel!  NOBODY hates on Blanchett!  NOBODY!   :mob:

Seriously ?

In this film she was either horribly miscast, or more likely, horribly directed.  The whole Mirror scene sucked balls.

Nobody bags on 'our' Cate!

</Australian homerism>

She still made the best Elf out of them all, regardless of how miscast/misdirected she was.  We'll see how she does in the Hobbit but I'm sure her age is starting to catch up with her.

... until she says something that makes it appear that she's risen above her station, then we will all join in on the verbal mudslinging!

Are you conflating the memories of that animated movie with the actual book? The Hobbit to me was a lighter easier to read version of LoTR, but it was by no means the whimsical romp through Oz you're describing. Bad things happened. Bad. Things.

I don't like these Trailers though. There's something off about them. I doubt it's the frame rate thing. The Dwarves are obviously a requirement as front and center cast, but I don't get the sense the masses knows who any two of them are, whereas even before LoTR they had at least a sense of who Gimli, Aragorn and Frodo were.

Its only srs bsns because you are layering your adult perceptions onto it. When read by a seven year old, its a magical adventure.

Arent you doing the same with the movie?

Actually, I do the same thing every time I wipe my arse.

The masses had no idea who Gimli, Frodo and Aragorn were before the LotR movies and I would guess most of them still don't.

is a magical adventure?  :uhrr:

The biggest problem this movie is going to have is not turning the dwarves into the 12 bumbling idiots.   The trailers already smell of it and the last thing I want to see is 9 hours of Gimli x12.  There's bluster with a gruff exterior and then there's buffoon.  After watching LOTR almost every weekend for the last 2 months  (it's been in rotation on all the movie channels) it's pretty obvious Jackson dislikes dwarves for some odd reason.

In The Hobbit, all the dwarves were pretty much idiots.

This.

I have no idea how they are going to do the 3 Trolls scene without making the dwarves look like complete buffoons. Or where the Goblins capture them. Or. Or. Or...

(http://s9.postimage.org/dehg6hkej/durr.jpg) (http://postimage.org/image/dehg6hkej/)

Hmm, I'm not remembering the same Hobbit. Queue up the rereading!

This is also not just "The Hobbit."  It seems they are weaving in lots of the other backstory/concurrent story which was not explicitly in The Hobbit.  The Necromancer probably being a big part which is I believe only hinted at briefly in The Hobbit. 

Or. Or. Or. I think they're going to completely change the tone of the book, and turn those parts into big action movie fights. They pretty much have to, to be able to 'sell' the movies.

This is the odd thing. Gimli in LOTR is occasionally funny but never a joke. The dwarves in The Hobbit are mostly the comic relief, though Thorin is generally portrayed as badass and Balin is generally competent and skilled at what he does. I mean, you get the sense that you wouldn't want to be in an axe duel with any of them except Bombur but otherwise they're pretty amateur-hour. The Goblins at least you can set them up as being genuinely captured when they unavoidably take shelter from a storm (or giants) but the trolls, yeah, there's no way around it, they're silly.

Mordor just erupted: http://tvnz.co.nz/news

Mount Ruapehu (Mount Doom) is also predicted to erupt.

The next Survivor apparently will have some more Hobbit footage. The clip they showed tonight to advertise that included a number of things I hadn't see yet, including a Troll picking up one of the Dwarves and moving to a cauldron. The 10s spot actually had some great sequences in it.

Certainly won't be watching Survivor to see the rest. Will just see how quickly I can get it off YouTube before it's pulled  :grin:

I actually don't agree.  Until the Battle of the Five Armies, every single one of the dwarves comes across as useless to the point of self harm.  The stubborn nature is overplayed to the point that they actually make things worse in almost every situation and the greed on display is really silly.

The trolls fuck them up.  The goblins fuck them up.  The elves fuck them up and the Spiders fuck them up.  Then they spend ages hiding from a dragon and building a wall.

I think it NEEDS a massive rewrite to make them reasonable again for the movies and, frankly, giving them the different identities that they have in the trailer is a damn good first step.  I think anyone going in expecting The Hobbit that they read as a child can fuck off because it would be as stupid as Tom Bombadils Forest of Faggotry.

Bilbo ends up doing almost EVERYTHING himself and ALWAYS saving their useless arses.

Gandalf also comes off as a bit of a twit for a good portion of the book that I remember as well, though.   After reading LOTR later, I always took a lot of the discrepancies between that Gandalf and that Dwarf (Gimli) to be because the Hobbit is the book written by Bilbo. 

Interesting.

If it had been done more in that style (I am Bilbo and I am telling you this story, rather than Tolkien doing it) it would have made more sense.  It would have just been a boastful wee hobbit.

I dunno about Gandalf though - He seems pretty hardcore in The Hobbit.  Trolls fucked.  Goblins escaped and then fucked.  Beorning dealt with.  Armies routed.

Heads.  Spikes.  Walls.

His actions are hardcore, yes.  His language and mannerisms seem at-odds with the LOTR Gandalf.  At one point he's also accused of nearly hacking-off a dwarf's head in the middle of the goblin battle.  That doesn't mesh with the always-in-control guy who takes-down a Balrog seen in Mordor.

Bilbo's not a braggart, so he's not going to change a lot of the actions, but I don't see him above making folks he didn't generally get along with more buffons and the guy he  really liked more hobbit-like and approachable.

Can't we get to the core problem of the Hobbit? They cowardly murder the hero of the story half-way in, then the rest of the book is all about the angry and fractious division of his loot. I mean, Smaug had killed that annoying mountain full of dwarfs almost free of charge, pretty much just was hanging out not being a menace to anyone. Then some thief steals his stuff, wakes him up, taunts him, and arranges a hit by a known malcontent.

It's a tragedy. Now in far too many parts.

I agree completely - I'm rereading "The Hobbit" right now since I really haven't read it in many a year and the movie will have to change the dwarves a LOT or else they will be total clownshoes and worse than anything that Gimli said or did in LotR.

... which became known as such due to all the bundles of sticks lying around.

The POINT of the Hobbit is "Tom Bombadil's Forest of Faggotry". More specifically, the fairy tale tone that Tolkien was shooting for. I'm sure the book will get changed, not just adapted but outright altered to appeal to the modern Transformers, Tits and Explosions audience. And it will probably make a ton of money for it. Hell, I think the only thing holding the Hobbit back from making even more money  is that they're not going to have any sexy supermodels in lingerie.

No, you're missing my point and misrepresenting me wildly.

This isn't so much a film version of The Hobbit (though it is) as it is LotR prequels.  That's been made clear.  Hell, that's been made clear by the mere fact that it's more than 1 Movie about 45 minutes long.

So the fairy tale trippy happy story has to go and be changed into 'Yeah, sure Bilbo had a marvellous adventure, but here's the real fucking story.'   Again, I'm ok with that.  I'm NOT going to be taking Elena to see it.  I expect some brutality and goblin head slicing.  Beorn ripping off heads.  Spikes.  Walls.

To take that to some kind of logical Hollywood conclusion where you're comparing any of the Transformers movies to this, well, it seems you're already getting your venom in first.  And that's fine too.  But don't expect me to listen to it, nor be terribly interested in your rabid shit storm of a whine thread later on.  It's goint to miss the mark on a number of things, I suspect, (see: LotR) but it's probably also going to be a rather grand adventure where Dwarves sing and, you know, fight.

I'm still ok with that.

Also, strangely, ok with Supermodels in lingerie.  I'm just not happy when they also appear to be fuck stupid and not terribly attractive, like in Transformers.

Yes, culture changes and the language with it.

In unguarded moments, statements in Lord of the Rings like Gandalf asking each member of the company to "carry a faggot", and Gandalf also "picking up a faggot" and "tossing another faggot on the fire" make me titter and then sigh.

All I know is that this has gone from my "Gotta see it opening weekend" list to the "Ehh, I'll wait for cable" list.  Like a lot of geeks, The Hobbit was the first Fantasy book I ever read (I think I was 7 or 8), and I'm just not that anxious to see it mixed with a bunch of Tolkien apocrypha, and certainly not willing to let it pull money out of my wallet three separate times.

--Dave

Fair enough.

That's an interesting way of looking at it, I suppose.  Hadn't thought of it that way.

The "money out of my wallet" three separate times" is the only part really making me apprehensive at seeing it.  Then again I've never seen eye-to-eye with a lot of you on some of this stuff and never held it as some sacrosanct cherished untouchable thing.

I agree with you. I'm just not interested in Peter Jackson elaborating on a few notes Tolkien tossed into the appendixes of his books, because quite frankly the stuff that the films added out of whole cloth, like Aragon falling off his horse, and a fair bit of the dialogue and padding of the action scenes, I found to be pretty dull and unimaginative. YMMV.


Man. Now I feel all obliged to watch the films and post a rabid Tolkien-fan tirade so you can not care. I don't need that kind of pressure!  :ye_gods:

I've already bought my tickets for opening day.

Heh.  There's no pressure;  it's going to happen anyway.

 :grin:

In IMAX.

I'm sure as soon as the credits roll, the cinema hipsters will heave their Shelob-like bulks out of their befouled seats and tweet their bitter disappointment about Jackson raping their childhood.

aww but that was what I was gonna do... oh shi..

As long as they don't fucking talk through the film I don't care.  Seriously.   People spend so much time at home watching movies now, and on PC's and phones and while on the can, they have no idea of how loud or just how to behave in the cinema.  Srsly STFU with your theories and cross cultural references till you get home or at least to the lobby.

No, Bilbo only saves them about a third of the time.  Gandalf does the other two-thirds.

They've said in interviews that a lot of it comes from the Lord of the Rings appendices. Supposedly, Tolkien went back and revised and added to the story of The Hobbit in those appendices. I haven't read them so no idea if that's true, but that's their explanation.

He did.  But he didn't exactly go into a load of details or explanations, more general outlining of the situation and included some listing of the major players involved.  Which is why part of me is worried that it's going to be embellished with dwarf tossing and shield surfing.  I also tend to feel it distracts from the story of the Hobbit, such that we're essentially getting 2 different story lines being told at the same time under the guise of one.  Time will tell, it may actually be well done for my tastes so I'll reserve judgment until it's out and in theaters.

I can't ever remember if it was Merry or Pippin in Lost.

Yeah, they're both English, right ?

 :oh_i_see:

It's all the tweed. You guys all look alike.

Missed opening day tickets, Real3d on Saturday.

We are seeing the midnight show on the 13th and keeping the 12-year old out of school the next day. Responsible parenting FTW.

It'd be irresponsible to send the kid to school after letting them not get a full night of sleep.  Good on you.

I shall wait 2 weeks and change till froth subsides and then try a daily show or late night show to avoid the kids.   :geezer:

Doesn't look like any showings are sold out here. Now to decide between 48fps 3D, standard 3D, standard 2D, IMAX 3D or IMAX 2D. Going to see a movie sure is difficult these days.

Which is why I don't go very often.  I can't see 3D movies easily and the sheer volume of the experience puts me off of the giant IMAX setups, so waiting for it to come out on regular DVD is my easiest option.

I don't get the attraction of IMAX.  Unless you get one of less than a dozen seats in the sweet spot, you can replicate the experience by going to any stadium-seating theater and sitting in the first three rows.  There are more fun ways to get a sore neck.

--Dave

An early reviewer calls Radagast the Jar Jar Binks of this movie.  Forgot the link.  I think I've blocked it out of my memory.

NOW I'm worried.   :ye_gods:

Depends on the imax, most are fake reduced size digital bullshit imax these days. But assuming you get a real one, image I find image contrast and quality is far better, needs a film shot for IMAX though.

And I have no issue booking ahead a couple of weeks for a good seat, which helps.

For hobbit I'm not sure whether I'll bother. Even the London southbank imax has succumbed to the abomination that is 3d.

Also, a real IMAX screen and not a licensed projection system.

They cast Sylvester McCoy for that role, right? It's to be expected.

Radagast? Radagast the Brown?

That sounds about right. I mean, Gandalf ranged from kooky old man to terrifying, depending on who he was talking to and what he wanted. Radagast basically came across as less hippy than Bombadil, but still basically the hermit-archtype living with the animals and stuff.

I don't think he actually has any dialogue of his own in LOTR or the Hobbit--just reported speech in the recountings of other characters. Nor do I think we get any really detailed description of him except that he is friends with animals and lives in Southern Mirkwood. I don't remember for sure if it's actually said in LOTR that he was summoned to the Council of Elrond but had disappeared, or if that's in the Silmarillion.  Most of the lore on him, what little there is, comes from Tolkien's later notes and reflections on the Wizards in letters and so on.

If I recall correctly (debateable...) he appears most described in Simarillion, whereas he's only referenced by others in Hobbit and LoTR. There was a trailer at some point this year which featured him. He was sitting at a desk, talking, surrounded by plants and rats or mice. Kinda reminded me of a sedate Robin Williams in his physical actions and way of speaking. Which from what I remember, was about right.

Or maybe I made the link because there was a rumor Williams would play Bombadil in the LoTR movies or something.