Official 'The Hobbit' Thread - Part 17

[DKDetective]

Aragorn became Elessar, not Arathorn, unless I am missing something.

Brainfart typo, I meant Aragorn becoming Elessar.

 

[InCali]

I'm not quite sure about the lifespan of the Dunadain before the bloodline was renewed with Aragorn becoming Elessar. A lot of the chieftains died young due to the perils of their life. Aragorn's father, Arathorn, died at about age 60, when Aragorn was a mere infant. He was killed hunting orcs with the sons of Elrond. Aragorn's maternal grandfather did not want his daughter to marry Arathorn because he foresaw that he would die young. After Arathorn's death, his mother brought him to Rivendell to be fostered.

I'm not sure either and no one really is. You'll note that I threw in a lot of probablies, maybes, etc.

What I DO think we know is that the Rangers of the North were the longest lived of the Dunedain and that their lifespan tended to lessen over generations. I think Aragorn was an exception and that his father probably wouldn't have lived as long as he did, but excess of 150 doesn't seem out of the realm of reason. Faramir lived to be 120 years old (probably very old for his house) and his bloodline was certainly lesser (can't think of quite the right word) than that of Arathorn.

 

[DawnOfJustice16]

Peter Jackson wrapped up this trilogy brilliantly .

 

[InCali]

Peter Jackson wrapped up this trilogy brilliantly .

I'm sure the writer and editor who spent decades developing these stories would agree with you. I suppose it made for a good movie experience if you weren't really interested in the portrayal the books.

I was able to enjoy the films (neither The Lord of the Rings nor The Hobbit books, by the way, were trilogies) because I managed to convince myself that the films were only "really" about the books in the loosest sense of the word.

I considered, and consider, the makings of these films an opportunity missed. Had they been handled differently, we might have The Silmarillion on screen. Maybe not, but that's something none of us will never know. Perhaps it's not so bad if the latter never makes it to the silver screen. Perhaps Christopher is right.

 

[CGHulk]

Perhaps Christopher is right.

Umm.. He cut his son off and he never wants to meet his grandchildren because he supported The Lord of the Rings movies, I'm pretty sure no matter what films got made he would of objected to them too. Honestly the guy sounds like a bit of a jerk.

 

[Roose Bolton]

It does need to be stressed that Christopher was against the films before Peter Jackson, and we can't lay the blame of his disliking the film medium at Jackson's feet.

 

[regwec]

Faramir lived to be 120 years old (probably very old for his house) and his bloodline was certainly lesser (can't think of quite the right word) than that of Arathorn.

The Stewards' Numenorean blood was less pure than the Northern Dunedain. I don't think Tolkien really went in for eugenics (had he done so, the greatest hero of the War of the Ring would probably not be a 3' tall furry-toed gardener), but the mythos he created appears to attach a lot of importance to legitimacy. Elessar's marriage to Arwen, and the resulting fresh infusion of the Dunedain royal line with the blood of Earendil, probably acted to give Eldarion more "legitimacy" than most of the Numenorian kings after Isildur.

I wonder whether Faramir's spiritual purity was in some way "rewarded" with long life. He is an almost saintly figure in the book (something the movie crapped all over), and Frodo says that there is something about him which is reminiscent of Gandalf. In that respect, it is possible that the virtue of Numenorean blood could skip generations, and manifest itself more strongly in some siblings. So, Aragorn and Faramir could just be special, and it might have been more than coincidence that they both lived during the climax of the War of the Ring.

On a related note, I often wonder how old Boromir was supposed to appear. He was in his early 40s at the time of his death, which would make Aragorn "appear" just a little older (Tolkien said that the latter would appear as a man in his mid 40s who had had a hard life), if Boromir's lifespan was the same as ours. Boromir frequently gave the impression of being young, proud, and headstrong, however, and I wonder whether he might have been younger in Gondor-years.

It does need to be stressed that Christopher was against the films before Peter Jackson, and we can't lay the blame of his disliking the film medium at Jackson's feet.

No, but PJ has driven every nail into the coffin. I accept that these movies are just intended to be huge tent-pole action fests, aimed at the same teenage demographic as everything else these days, but it is rather sad to read Tolkien's letters and to know just how much they would have depressed him.

 

[Roose Bolton]

He would have been depressed either way, because they're not the books, they're adaptations. And at the time he wrote those letters Peter Jackson would have been a small child, so again, unfair to lay all that blame at Jackson's feet.

 

[regwec]

...I didn't. I was making a quite separate point. The only thing I blame PJ for is making rubbish adaptations.

 

[Roose Bolton]

Well, really it might be sad to imagine how much Tolkien would have disliked the films, but at the end of the day in whatever hypothetical situation he saw any film adaptations of his work, he would never have been anything other than depressed. So that kind of thinking is...well pointless, at least in my opinion.

 

[Octoberist]

I blame PJ for making CGI Billy Connolly's mouth look creepy.

 

[regwec]

Well, really it might be sad to imagine how much Tolkien would have disliked the films, but at the end of the day in whatever hypothetical situation he saw any film adaptations of his work, he would never have been anything other than depressed. So that kind of thinking is...well pointless, at least in my opinion.

We don't really know that. He was certainly irritated by adaptive material that misrepresented his work, but he also wrote approvingly of some concept art for animated adaptations that would never come to be. I think that there are elements of the LOTR adaptations that he would have liked (most notably the use of spoken Sindarin, which was a brave thing for PJ to have included). We all know that The Hobbit movies would have caused him break PJ's staff, however.

 

[InCali]

I wonder whether Faramir's spiritual purity was in some way "rewarded" with long life. He is an almost saintly figure in the book (something the movie crapped all over), and Frodo says that there is something about him which is reminiscent of Gandalf. In that respect, it is possible that the virtue of Numenorean blood could skip generations, and manifest itself more strongly in some siblings. So, Aragorn and Faramir could just be special, and it might have been more than coincidence that they both lived during the climax of the War of the Ring.

I don't think you have to wonder about it. In the Akallabêth, I think it's explicitly stated that the desire of the Númenorean Kings for the life of the Eldar resulted in their diminished lifespan

(Edit....I should probably have said was a factor in the diminishment of their lifespan. None would have lived as long as Elros Tar-Minyatur, but the Kings of Númenor after him did have a lifespan of about 400 years. It lessened sometime after the Kings began speaking out against The Ban of the Valar.).

I agree that Faramir was a throwback to the Kings of Númenor. "A little less high" I believe was the the comment in the book. Still, some scenes of Éowyn and Faramir in the Houses of the Healing could have been a terrific part of the movie......alas.....

 

[matrix_ghost]

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=4010&p=.htm

The final installment in Peter Jackson's Middle Earth prequel trilogy opened to an estimated $49.5 million in China, which is its final major market. That's the biggest opening ever for Warner Bros. International, and is nearly on par with what the first Hobbit movie made in its entire run.

So far, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies has earned $616.9 million overseas and over $866 million worldwide.

Seems there a good chance of Hobbit hitting 1 billion WW thanks to China

 

[InCali]

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=4010&p=.htm



Seems there a good chance of Hobbit hitting 1 billion WW thanks to China

It won't happen, but I would like to see TBoFA pass CrapFormers 4 (AoE) as #1 on the WW list. I hope this IS the Age of Extinction for that franchise unless they can find some way of putting something interesting on the screen. 18% on the Tomatometer and that sounds rather generous to me.

 

[Quasimod0]

It may have been panned by critics, but it was the #1 movie of 2014. There will be another one.

 

[InCali]

It may have been panned by critics, but it was the #1 movie of 2014. There will be another one.

It wasn't JUST the critics who panned it I was ESPECIALLY impressed with the sophisticated and clever dialogue (unlike the weak writing for Guardians of the Galaxy ). I think my all time favorite line in Xformers was "I'll kill you". Complex, descriptive, and just the right level of humor....and guess what? It also translates well to other languages which helps bring in overseas $$$.

When I compare, it makes me realize that The Hobbit could be considered one of the all time classics and an unbelievably good screenplay to boot......

 

[Lord]

Guardians of the Galaxy was a much better movie than TF 4, but let's not pretend it had complex writing, it had a fairly simplistic writing and the comic bits at the right time, but to be honest, i wasn't very impressed at all.

 

[InCali]

Guardians of the Galaxy was a much better movie than TF 4, but let's not pretend it had complex writing, it had a fairly simplistic writing and the comic bits at the right time, but to be honest, i wasn't very impressed at all.

I thought the writing was fine in GotG. It was funny, used double entendres, and was honestly lighthearted. I can't even "think" about what to compare the dialogue of T4 to except to something my son might have written about 12 years ago.

The one thing I will say about the screenplay in the hobbit movies is that it was written more in the style of LotR rather than The Hobbit. I thought that part was okay.


Yondu: When I picked you up, my guys wanted to eat you.

Peter: Oh will you shut up about that? God, 20 years you've been throwing that in my face. Like it's some great thing, "not eating me". Normal people don't even think about eating someone else, much less, that person having to be grateful for it.

Sophisticated? Complex? Perhaps not, but full of really funny, clever dialogue and even some comments that make you stop and say "yeah, that's true" (like the above). It had me and others laughing during most of the scenes.

 

[vinsanity]

Billy Connoly as Dain in make-up/prosthetic

and Martin Freeman as Old Bilbo

source: http://www.katyfray.com/

 

[Quasimod0]

Connoly looks great! But I'm glad they didn't go with Martin in old-man makeup.

 

[CGHulk]

Connoly looks great! But I'm glad they didn't go with Martin in old-man makeup.

Martin makeup was used in the scene when Bilbo said goodbye to Frodo as a body double for Holm on location at Bag End, because Holm couldn't travel due to health issues. This makeup wasn't from a discarded or deleted sequence, it was used in the scene I described above.

It is understood that Connoly was later changed to CG due to his Alzheimer's, and off topic he now has cancer and he had decided to no longer take the chemo.

 

[Marvolo]

Martin makeup was used in the scene when Bilbo said goodbye to Frodo as a body double for Holm on location at Bag End, because Holm couldn't travel due to health issues. This makeup wasn't from a discarded or deleted sequence, it was used in the scene I described above.

It is understood that Connoly was later changed to CG due to his Alzheimer's, and off topic he now has cancer and he had decided to no longer take the chemo.

 

[Octoberist]

wait..Billy has Alzheimer's and Cancer?

 

[Octoberist]

Actually he has Parkinsons. And he found he had that and cancer on the same beeping day.

http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2014/apr/29/billy-connolly-cancer-parkinsons-diagnosis-same-day