The Hobbit (2012/2013)

[Evildrider]

[01101010]

Is this the part where we clap yet?

[Ingmar]

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

[Khaldun]

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.

[Lakov_Sanite]

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

[Hutch]

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.

[MuffinMan]

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

[Samwise]

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.

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:

According to a magazine article, Peter Jackson hated the Dead Men; he thought it was too unbelievable. He kept it in the script because he did not wish to disappoint diehard fans of the books. Nevertheless, he expanded their use as a deus ex machina...

It reads almost like he did it out of spite.   

[Khaldun]

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.)

[Samwise]

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"

[MahrinSkel]

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.

[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

[01101010]

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

[Ingmar]

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

[Sir T]

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.

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

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.)

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.

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.

CNN.com put the battle on a list of best and worst battle scenes in film, where it appeared twice: one of the best before the Army of the Dead arrives, and one of the worst after that, dubbing the battle's climax an "oversimplified cop out" as a result of their involvement.

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.

[Ironwood]

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.)

No.

[Ratman_tf]

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.

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."

[Sir T]

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.

[Ironwood]

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

Win.

[palmer_eldritch]

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.

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.

[Sir T]

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

Win.

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.

[Tannhauser]

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!"

[Sheepherder]

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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...

Right here: this is you being wrong.

[Khaldun]

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.

[Ironwood]

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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...

Right here: this is you being wrong.

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

[Sheepherder]

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.

It's the Harrowing of Hell.

[Mrbloodworth]

You guys are bored huh?

[Samwise]

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.

[Mrbloodworth]

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,   to those of us looking in :)

[Samwise]

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.

[Mrbloodworth]

I didn't say it wasn't OK!

[Ghambit]

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

[Evildrider]

Stop being a jerk Bloodworth!

[Samwise]

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

What are you, some kind of hoity-toity pinky-extending book-reading nerd?  That was a masterpiece of modern filmmaking.

[Ingmar]

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

:not sure if serious:

[Ghambit]

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

: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.