Official 'The Hobbit' Thread - - Part 16

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[Marvolo]

Peter Jackson says the final battle in The Hobbit will be 20-25 minutes.

Spoiler tagged for length.

Spoiler

WELLINGTON, NZ. On many films, directors build in a certain amount of time to do pick-ups after production is completed, a few weeks to return come back and lock down a few shots or even a few scenes that either didn't go perfectly originally or that they realized were integral to telling the story.

Peter Jackson doesn't do things the way normal directors do. Since he has generated billions of dollars for his studio partners and basically constructed a production empire of his own down in New Zealand, he gets to create his own definition for "pick-ups," which most filmmakers would probably call "basically making the darned movie."

It's early June 2013 on the set of what will come to be known as "The Battle of the Five Armies," the third film in Jackson's adaptation of "The Hobbit." A group of reporters is on-set for what everybody is calling "pick-ups," but that's a term Jackson needs to clarify.

Also Read: Ian McKellen spends his last day as Gandalf on the 'Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies' set

"Well, this particular block of shooting, these 10 weeks we're doing now is a little different," Jackson explains. "Because what we normally do is we shoot everything and we then edit the movie. And we always make sure we have three, four, six weeks of pick-ups allowed for. And we do that at the very beginning before we even, because I don't want to get into a position where I have to shoot the movie, edit, and then go to the studio and then say, 'Can you please give us money to do another six weeks of filming,' because that is never a good thing to do. So we know we're going to want to do it. We've done this for the last twenty-odd years, so we've never had a situation where we haven't really improved the movie by having those pick-ups. So when we do a deal for a film at the very beginning, we always budget the film, and you schedule the movie, you're budgeting with principal photography and then you're budgeting your post, and then we budget for a period of however much time we think we need for pick-ups, which usually are slam-bang in the middle of the cut. So we give ourselves time to edit. And obviously, then you have to actually write the pick-ups. So we had to just budget and guess what the cost is going to be. We keep all the sets and costumes, but we haven't written them yet. So you're literally budgeting a period of shooting without actually having any idea of what the content is. But you give it your best guess. And that's how the pick-ups normally is. We come up with ideas while we're cutting and thinking of things and ways we can tighten the story or develop it or enhance it, and we use that period of time."

Even that sounds unique, but Jackson hasn't gotten to the different part yet.

He continues, "But this time, we have that process for the second and third movie, but we also put aside the Battle of the Five Armies largely from our principal photography. So half of these five weeks is really shooting the battle that we didn't shoot first time around. Which I didn't want to shoot because I wasn't prepared for it. I went into this movie very unprepared, in a way, to tackle a film of this size. So the plan was always we'll give ourselves time to get the first chunk down and get the first film out, and then we'll come back and shoot the battle in 2013. But then also, we've added five weeks, which is how I describe the normal pick-ups for films two and three."

Also Read: Tech Support: Visual effects Oscar race features apes, raccoons and 'Interstellar'

Yes. You're getting that right. We're talking about pick-ups on the third "Hobbit" film, but what's actually being shot when we arrive is nothing less that The Battle of the Five Armies itself, or at least a goodly portion of it. Jackson didn't just leave himself some coverage of missing camera angles or expositional dialogue. He left himself with the climax to the entire trilogy.

Part of why Jackson has saved this hefty piece of action for the end is that he knows he's filling his own hobbit-sized shoes when it comes to this set piece, having raised the bar and won himself an Oscar in part on the scope and scale of the "Lord of the Rings" movies.

Having already defined and redefined the epic reach of Middle Earth combat, how will The Battle of the Five Armies be different? How will he excite audiences who have been somewhat desensitized to orc-on-dwarf-on-human-on-elf combat?

Also Read: Tech Support: 'Godzilla,' 'Fury,' 'Interstellar' and more square off for Best Sound Editing

"Well, the thing that I've come to do with battles, it was largely a process of discovery back in the 'Lord of the Rings' days, was that, in itself... People are jaded now with digital shots. Entire cities get destroyed and you can do anything else, and ultimately, it's lost its fascination really, the CG, massive, big battle shots."

Wait. Is Peter Jackson saying that The Battle of the Five Armies won't be built around CG, massive, big battle shots?

"Obviously, we're having some of those," Jackson tells us reassuringly. "[W]e discovered a rule, basically, on 'Two Towers' on Helm's Deep... You kind of lost interest in it if you went more than three, four shots at the maximum without picking up on where one of your principal characters was in the battle. You're literally seeing extras fighting, seeing digital wide shots. It's all part of it, obviously. It's all part of the texture of battle, but you have too much of that and you're literally just, 'Oh, okay, fine. I get it.' So one of the things we did with the Battle of the Five Armies in particular, and in designing the script and the narrative, is that we made sure that the story that we're telling in this third movie, that the story is continuing through the battle. So in other words, you don't get the story to a point where everyone's suddenly, 'Oh, stop, we're going to launch into a huge battle now,' and then the battle's over and you do a denouement in the end. We actually have a lot of conflict happening between characters, we have people in different places that are needing to get to each other... And some of it's not all battle-related, some of it is personal stuff that's there. And so we kind of pushed the story where the battle kind of interrupts the story, it gets in the way of the story, but the story kind of punches its way through the battle, and that's what we've deliberately tried to do with this. So you're literally seeing it through the eyes of multiple characters as they are still doing what they need to do to fulfill their journey on the movie."

So should we be expecting that The Battle of the Five Armies will take up some huge chunk of "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies"?

Jackson says no, suggesting that the battle will only be between 20 and 25 minutes.

Of course, Jackson also said that "The Hobbit" would only be two movies, so if the third movie ends up being all-battle-all-the-time, don't hold that against us or even against Jackson. Actually, before he thought "The Hobbit" was going to be two movies, Jackson thought "The Hobbit" was going to be a pair of movies that he wouldn't be directing, a project he'd be watching over, but still leaving in Guillermo del Toro's capable hands to direct.

That didn't happen and now, with the end of this new trilogy in sight, is Jackson pleased that he ended up being the person behind the camera for all six Tolkien films?

"Ultimately, it's been a joy," Jackson says. "I'm very, very proud of these films. I'm very, very proud of these films. I'm very excited about the second and third films, just the stuff we've been shooting in the last few weeks, having done a cut of the second movie, and we've edited a lot of the third movie. So I've got a feeling of those. And then coming back in and doing what we've been doing, I'm excited. I think they're going to be really cool. This is ultimately what you do it for, is because you feel like you're making a movie that you really want to see finished and you want other people to see it. And I'm glad that I've done it."

He reflects, "The Guillermo version of these movies would have been his films, and that would have been interesting, too. But ultimately, when that didn't happen, it was like, 'Do we really want to bring in somebody else? Or should I do it?' And I'm pleased that I've done it now. It's been a joy, actually. I've had a lot more fun on these movies than I did on 'Rings,' just in terms of waking up in the morning and having a good time on set. Yeah."

More from Peter Jackson on Page 2...

Watching Jackson at work, you never doubt his enjoyment for a second. We spend two days on the set and Jackson is constantly standing off to the side of the camera serving as a mixture between a cheerleader and the on-set narrator.

This isn't some "300"-style stage where nearly everything is green screen and the actors are being forced to imagine the environment from soup to nuts. We're in a small tent on Stage K at the "Hobbit"-centric studio and two days of events are taking place on the watchtower at the Ravenhill Fortress. There's a full stone courtyard with parapets and balconies. There's stony rubble that speaks to the age of the fortress, but also to the violent chaos of the battle taking place. Outside, it's winter in New Zealand and inside it's winter in Middle Earth, as a good amount of time between shots is spent shoveling new dustings snow from plastic buckets and then applying gouts of dark "blood" from a squirt-bottle. Is it dwarf blood? Hobbit blood? Orc blood? It depends on the moment.

Naturally, we're not shooting in sequence, so sometimes Bilbo Baggins and the dwarves are fending off various invading hordes -- They look like ninjas in green body suits, but they'll presumably be orcs when all is said and done -- and sometimes they're watching the battle below with growing concern and, in one shot, they're experiencing a wave of hope.

So sometimes the actors have plenty to work with on the set, but sometimes they're seeing things that either aren't happening live or perhaps haven't been shot yet. Jackson tailors his direction accordingly. When Bilbo and Dwalin and Thorin Oakenshield and company are in the middle of action, Jackson is shouting small modifications constantly, asking for variations that range from minor body adjustments to more crucial emotional shifts that could cause the scene to be read very differently depending on which take eventually gets used. But when our heroes are witnessing something horrifying, Jackson is spinning a colorful yarn so they know exactly what they're seeing, punctuating certain beats with urgent shouts and embellishing the details when he thinks that a more graphic recounting might earn him a more visceral response.

When Jackson talks about the amount of fun he's having, you believe him. And a lot of what he's most enjoying are the expansions from the book that allowed or forced, depending on your view of such things, him to turn a 300+ page book into a trio of movies which, it could be reasonably argued, will ultimately take as long to watch as the tome might take to read.

"Being able to do a lot of things that we loved the idea of doing while we were shooting the movie but never could squeeze in. It's being able just to develop the characters a bit more and to delve into areas that obviously aren't in the book. This movie has sequences with Gandalf and the Necromancer, Dol Guldur. It sort of continues that storyline that happens through the second movie, it sort of carries on into this film. We obviously have Legolas and Tauriel who are essentially new characters. Legolas not being in the book and Tauriel being new, we have a storyline that we were able to-- And Thranduil we're bringing into that and creating a storyline between the three of them that we otherwise wouldn't have been able to do. We are developing Bard more, too. We were able to actually give his character a little more depth and complexity. So yeah, it's just being able to push those to their maximum rather than Short-chang[ing] the characters a bit."

The extra screen-time also lets Jackson and company build in bridges between the "Hobbit" trilogy and the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, which includes an evolution of tone. When it's suggested to Jackson that the first "Hobbit" movie had more levity than the "Lord of the Rings" movies, but that dark material is coming up, he agrees.

"Yeah. Everyone always talks about the films being dark, it's kind of like a badge of honor..." he says. "It's deliberate, but it's also kind of organic with the book. In this movie in particular, principal key characters die in the film. There's not a hell of a lot of ways to make that humorous... But the way that we are building this story up is the reality that within a couple of years when the theatrical releases are done and behind us, all that will exist from that point forward is going to be ultimately six DVDs or downloads or whatever the hell they're going to be. That is what we're going to leave in our wake, is six movies, not three. And that we do want a consistency that people, kids in twenty years, that aren't even born yet, can start at the beginning and work their way through. And so it's been very important to me to have a progression through those six films. And so, yes, it does. The second movie certainly, and into the third, the whole tone is becoming much more 'Lord of the Rings'-like than our first movie was."

Though there's a big Battle still to come -- Heck, as we're on set, the second movie, "The Desolation of Smaug" is still in post-production -- it's possible to see the light at the end of the Tolkien tunnel for all involved. The day before, we'd found Ian McKellan in a contemplative mood on the eve of his final scenes. We asked Jackson if he's feeling emotional about the looming end, or if he views it as more like passing a kidney stone.

"'Passing a kidney stone,'" he laughs. "It's a bit of both, to be totally truthful. It's a bit of both. Like, we're arriving today, and it's like I suddenly realize that this is a reality. It's Ian McKellen's last day. He's doing a little bit with us at the end of the day. We won't get to him till the very end of the day today. Couple of shots that we need for finishing off the thing we're doing here. And then he's done. It's him walking out of Gandalf, hanging up his hat and putting his beard on the shelf and walking away from Gandalf forever I would imagine. So that's going to be a bit hard tonight. I'm not really looking forward to that because Ian's a joy to work with. So those hit you a bit hard. It's Orlando's last day tomorrow. We're doing a bit with him tomorrow, and then he's finished. Yeah, those are the things that are emotional simply because of their friends really, and you love working with these guys and suddenly they are... You realize, 'We're never going to be doing this again.' Not this particular film. But the other side of it is that, yeah, I will be very, very proud of these movies and very happy to have done them. But... I felt exactly like this at the end of 'Lord of the Rings.' When you go into a project for-- That was seven years, this is probably going to be five years by the end of next year I imagine. Maybe even longer, maybe six years. You are ready to move on for sure, yeah."

https://tv.yahoo.com/news/hobbit-set-visiti-peter-jackson-180000279.html

 

[TyrionLannister]

Hmmm. So this interview took place in June 2013. Yet the interview where he said it would be 45 took place (presumably) more recently (even though it was released first.) I hope this doesn't mean he's added an additional 20 minutes of Barrel escape-esqe action to the film while in post...

 

[ThePhantasm]

Probably the battle of five armies is 20-25 minutes but when combined with the battle of Dol Goldur it comes out to 45 minutes

 

[Marvolo]

Probably the battle of five armies is 20-25 minutes but when combined with the battle of Dol Goldur it comes out to 45 minutes

And think about it:

The final battle of LOTR (Battle of the Black Gate) was what...20 minutes... but there was around an hour of other battles in the film. So the final battle of the Hobbit films may in fact be 20-25 minutes, but for all we know there are 3 or 4 battles and skirmishes before that. Im willing to lay down money that that 20-25 minutes doesnt include the first stage of the conflict when the Elves and Dwarves fight over the mountain. Nor does it include the fighting in Dale.

 

[Doc Ock]

I was hoping the battle would be happening after the Dol Goldur stuff, the second film had a problem with it interrupting the Smaug stuff I thought. Although the extended edition feels better.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

Dol Guldur will not be 20 mins. It might be 10, but all indications is that it is no real battle.

 

[ThePhantasm]

What indications?

 

[Marvolo]

And the Dol Guldor battle does happen before the final battle. Elrond and Galadrial rescue Gandalf fairly quickly after the battle of Laketown. Then he rides for Erebor to try to defuse the situation with Thorin.

And as far as I know, Galadrial and Elrond dont bring an army with them. The white council go alone and they battle the ring wraiths and Saruman "battles" Sauron and they grab Gandalf and high tale it out a there. Its a fight more than a battle. There are no armies clashing at Dol Guldor.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

What indications?

Every shot of Dol Guldur is from inside, and a small confrontation between the White Council, Sauron and potentially the 9. Whatever army was there is marching to the Five Armies clash. Plus it all has to happen in a timely fashion, as Gandalf needs to get his butt back the Lonely Mountain.

 

[Boom]

So do you guys think we will ever see concept art from GDT's Hobbit?

It'd make a hell of a documentary. Del Toro had about two years of pre-production opposed to Jackson's six months.

To this day, I'd love to see what his Smaug would have looked like.

 

[ThePhantasm]

I remember Del Toro saying something about Smaug's scales being highly reflective, almost mirror-like, taking on the hue of the gold around him or the fire of lake town, etc. Sounded like a cool idea.

 

[Marvolo]

So do you guys think we will ever see concept art from GDT's Hobbit?

It'd make a hell of a documentary. Del Toro had about two years of pre-production opposed to Jackson's six months.

To this day, I'd love to see what his Smaug would have looked like.

Rumor was that he had a head similar to a hammerhead shark. One of the concept pieces shown in the smaug doc had a hammerhead design. Whether it was the same as Del Toro's design I dont know but that concept art gives us some idea of what Del Toro was going for.

I doubt we will ever see much of any of Del Toro's Hobbit work. The films we have is what we have and WB and Jackson likely arent interested in showing us what was planned, and Del Toro may not want it shown because he feels it will overshadow what we have now. Whatever the reason may be I think its safe to assume that we won't see the stuff. Jackson has always wanted to make it clear that these films are his and Del Toro's films were separate beasts and that he didnt want to make Del Toro's film without Del Toro. Releasing the stuff might muddy those waters.

 

[Boom]

Rumor was that he had a head similar to a hammerhead shark. One of the concept pieces shown in the smaug doc had a hammerhead design. Whether it was the same as Del Toro's design I dont know but that concept art gives us some idea of what Del Toro was going for.

I doubt we will ever see much of any of Del Toro's Hobbit work. The films we have is what we have and WB and Jackson likely arent interested in showing us what was planned, and Del Toro may not want it shown because he feels it will overshadow what we have now. Whatever the reason may be I think its safe to assume that we won't see the stuff. Jackson has always wanted to make it clear that these films are his and Del Toro's films were separate beasts and that he didnt want to make Del Toro's film without Del Toro. Releasing the stuff might muddy those waters.

I'll just hope for a leak someday, I suppose.

Still waiting for those Justice League: Mortal costume to rear their heads.

 

[Marvolo]

I'll just hope for a leak someday, I suppose.

Still waiting for those Justice League: Mortal costume to rear their heads.

Yeah thats all we can do. I assume WB owns the material but who knows maybe in ten years or when enough time's gone by Del Toro will release another one of his sketchbook things and WB will let him release the stuff. Or some brave person will just leak the stuff.

Another film that died in production that I wish we'd have gotten to see is Ridley Scotts Tripoli. Russell Crowe was set to star and it had to do with the Barbary pirates in the 18th century. They had one of the largest sets ever built constructed in the Middle East. It was a port or fort cant remember which. Other sets and work was done. It got up and going 2 or 3 times and then just before principal photography was set to go it was finally put down for good due to just bad luck. However, during the pre-production of Tripoli Scott had the screenwriter do a draft on a crusade movie. When Tripoli got the final axe Kingdom of Heaven was born and Scott has never returned to Tripoli. Ive never found the script or much of anything besides whats shown of it in the production documentaries on the Kingdom of Heaven Director's Cut blu-ray and dvd.

 

[Drizzle]

Rumor was that he had a head similar to a hammerhead shark. One of the concept pieces shown in the smaug doc had a hammerhead design. Whether it was the same as Del Toro's design I dont know but that concept art gives us some idea of what Del Toro was going for.

It's stuff like that that makes me wonder if Del Toro's version would have been better received. I don't know about the rest of you, but a hammerhead Smaug that looked like a Pacific Rim Kaiju would have taken me right out of the movie.

 

[Marvolo]

It's stuff like that that makes me wonder if Del Toro's version would have been better received. I don't know about the rest of you, but a hammerhead Smaug that looked like a Pacific Rim Kaiju would have taken me right out of the movie.

Sometimes I do believe its a "grass is always greener on the other side" situation. For all we know there could have been awful strange and just plain weird stuff in the Del Toro films that rival or exceed the awful or bad stuff in Jackson's trilogy. Its why Im hesitant to let myself get to dreamy about what might have been.

About smaug, Jackson and the designers tried an insane amount of outlandish and bizarre Smaug designs. Some of them were amazing creature designs. Jackson said he wanted to do something that'd never been done and they kept going farther and farther into bizarre and thats when they realized Smaug wasn't a dragon anymore. He'd become an alien monster creature. So they went back to the traditional dragon designs and just made the best damn dragon ever put to screen. I honestly dont think Del Toro would have reached that conclusion and today we'd have a hammerhead bizarro alien kaiju smaug instead of dragon smaug. I never wanted Smaug to go where dragons had never been before. (I know I was curious and still am curious about Del Toro's design.) But what I really wanted was just an awesome dragon. Give me the classic dragon done the best its ever been done and Im happy. And I feel that Tolkien would have chosen Jackson's more traditional dragon over del Toro's new "dragon" any day of the week.

 

[Roose Bolton]

Wasn't there rumors of Del Toro's original idea having steampunk elements?

 

[Marvolo]

Wasn't there rumors of Del Toro's original idea having steampunk elements?

For the dwarves yeah. One of 13 had a mechanical helmet with gears and stuff on it and it had apparatuses.

 

[Roose Bolton]

Hmmm. Thats....odd.

 

[Boom]

It's stuff like that that makes me wonder if Del Toro's version would have been better received. I don't know about the rest of you, but a hammerhead Smaug that looked like a Pacific Rim Kaiju would have taken me right out of the movie.

The "hammerhead" Smaug was never confirmed as being anything from the movie. It remains an unsubstantiated rumor.

 

[Boom]

Sometimes I do believe its a "grass is always greener on the other side" situation. For all we know there could have been awful strange and just plain weird stuff in the Del Toro films that rival or exceed the awful or bad stuff in Jackson's trilogy. Its why Im hesitant to let myself get to dreamy about what might have been.

About smaug, Jackson and the designers tried an insane amount of outlandish and bizarre Smaug designs. Some of them were amazing creature designs. Jackson said he wanted to do something that'd never been done and they kept going farther and farther into bizarre and thats when they realized Smaug wasn't a dragon anymore. He'd become an alien monster creature. So they went back to the traditional dragon designs and just made the best damn dragon ever put to screen. I honestly dont think Del Toro would have reached that conclusion and today we'd have a hammerhead bizarro alien kaiju smaug instead of dragon smaug. I never wanted Smaug to go where dragons had never been before. (I know I was curious and still am curious about Del Toro's design.) But what I really wanted was just an awesome dragon. Give me the classic dragon done the best its ever been done and Im happy. And I feel that Tolkien would have chosen Jackson's more traditional dragon over del Toro's new "dragon" any day of the week.

Having had a year to digest it, I have to say I don't really care for PJ's Smaug. It's not an awful design, and it's certainly one of the best-rendered Dragons ever put on screen, but it's just too... modern for me. It's a very contemporary depiction of a dragon, in the same vein as Dragonslayer, Reign of Fire, and the Harry Potter films. You place a modernized dragon in a film that's supposed to take place in a world based heavily on ancient mythologies and iconographies, and something jars with me. Frankly, there is a lot about the visuals in these Hobbit films that I simply could not see existing in the Middle-earth laid out in Lord of the Rings.

He really looked like a weird sort of mix between the dragons from Reign of Fire and the raptor and T-Rex from Jurassic Park. What you're left with is something very reptilian and dinosaur-esque. Then you've got Jackson's penchant to stick spikes every-goddamn-where on anything evil in Middle-earth. And to round it off, they removed his forelimbs, neglected to give Smaug his signature "reddish glow," and the gold and jewel-encrusted belly was practical no-existent (the few coins they did stick on there were an afterthought, and added late in production). Basically, the defining physical traits that Smaug had in the book are either minimalized or flat-out omitted. I'm glad they reconsidered and decided to go with something that was instantly recognizable as a dragon, but I found it to be a safe and rather uninspiring piece of design. Take away Benedict Cumberbatch's voice, and it's just another cinematic dragon. If you had shown me a picture of Smaug without having seen the film, I'd be hard-pressed to say, "Yep. That's Smaug the Golden."

What we really haven't seen on screen yet (or at least not in a major mainstream film) is a depiction of a classic, European dragon. Long snake-like bodies, four limbs, ears, and faces that skew more towards the canine and feline than they do reptilian. THAT would have been cool to see, in my opinion.

 

[Marvolo]

The "hammerhead" Smaug was never confirmed as being anything from the movie. It remains an unsubstantiated rumor.

Well considering that there is in fact a hammerhead design created by the weta team you can see where the rumor came from. I heard that the rumor originated from a set visit during pre-production when Del Toro was working on the film. And that concept art never saw the light of day until the DOS EE so that means someone must have seen it at weta years ago. Id say the rumor is pretty substantiated now. Del Toro must have shown interest in that design.

 

[Marvolo]

Having had a year to digest it, I have to say I don't really care for PJ's Smaug. It's not an awful design, and it's certainly one of the best-rendered Dragons ever put on screen, but it's just too... modern for me. It's a very contemporary depiction of a dragon, in the same vein as Dragonslayer, Reign of Fire, and the Harry Potter films. You place a modernized dragon in a film that's supposed to take place in a world based heavily on ancient mythologies and iconographies, and something jars with me. Frankly, there is a lot about the visuals in these Hobbit films that I simply could not see existing in the Middle-earth laid out in Lord of the Rings.

He really looked like a weird sort of mix of the dragons from Reign of Fire and the raptor and T-Rex from Jurassic Park. What you're left with is something very reptilian and dinosaur-esque. Then you've got Jackson's penchant to stick spikes every-goddamn-where on anything evil in Middle-earth. I'm glad they reconsidered and decided to go with something that was instantly recognizable as a dragon, but I found it to be a safe and rather uninspiring piece of design.

Have you watched the smaug doc? I only ask because the weta team put the spikes on, but it was Jackson's idea to have them flair up and emote when smaug was getting riled up so they became more pronounced.

If you haven't watched the doc, its funny you mention the harry potter and reign of fire dragons...they show those dragons in the doc.

About him being reptilian. Smaug is a reptile. Tolkien used the old english word Wyrm and Smaug is serpent like. Im not sure there's anyway to avoid that look with a dragon without losing the scales. I wonder if it might have been better to go for the worm/snake look? One of the WETA guys or girls drew a snake-like design very reminiscent of the dragon on the original 1937 cover of the hobbit book, but they decided against using it in the film. I thought it looked fantastic and it was so very Tolkien...which is probably why they didnt go with it.