Official 'The Hobbit' Thread - - Part 18

[regwec]

I had to google Miles Morales, which probably indicates that Marvel would be unwise to base a movie franchise around him just yet.

 

[sueb1863]

I think a new version of LotR is probably about 15-20 years away, and it'll probably be a miniseries on TV rather than a movie. The budget won't be as big but they can take their time and tell the whole story in a way much closer to the book.

 

[Venomfan]

I think it would be bizarre to see a new version of some of the things that were done perfectly, assuming a new director would want to do something different so as not to make more of the same. This isn't (or shouldn't) like a comic book movie where you can do your own take on the material where you can just have it be inspired by but do your own thing. I mean tons of the artist renditions look very similar even.

on the topic of Gollum though, I haven't heard a single rendition of the Gollum, Gollum sound that is anything like I thought Tolkien tried to get across. I'm positive I read that he described it as a swallowing sound, which if you take a big enough gulp, sounds quite a bit like 'gollum.' the films had it as a cough, and the radio play had it as something he just said. I'd love to hear other people's thoughts

 

[regwec]

PJ's interpretations of key characters and scenes were by no means literal or seminal. There are too many creative choices that depart from the text to count, but I'm sure countless lists are available throughout the internet.

 

[Boom]

I'd rather see Lord of the Rings retackled as an HBO series.

If anything should get a cinematic remake, it's The Hobbit. A proper adaptation next go-around, please. Something more akin to an Anglo Saxon fairy tale and less like... whatever the hell it was Peter Jackson gave us.

 

[sueb1863]

PJ had all the right ingredients, including an awesome cast who could have really rocked a proper adaptation. Instead they got stuck in a noisy, flashy, bloated mess that was only about 50% the actual original story.

Hard to believe the Rankin/ Bass 1977 cartoon ended up being much closer to the book.

 

[ThePhantasm]

PJ had all the right ingredients, including an awesome cast

That's what's the worst for me. Martin Freeman was a perfect Bilbo. If I had the technology and know-how to edit the Hobbit trilogy down into one film where he's the main character, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

 

[regwec]

Yeah, Freeman was great. I was the first person on the internet to suggest him for the role. Fact.

 

[Boom]

Freeman deserved a better adaptation. Truly, he did. He was perfect. The trilogy's best moments are when he has chances to shine (and he does). But once his "arc" in AUJ is completed, Bilbo just sort of floats along for the remainder of the narrative, effectively sidelined in his own story. By the time we get to the third film, nothing frustrated me more than the fact that it felt like we saw more of that vapid, creatively-bankrupt Alfrid character than the titular hobbit. When that character showed up for what felt like the sixtieth time in the movie, I damn near walked out. Insufferable in how ****ing pointless he was. But Jackson and company kept giving him screentime out of love for the actor and not much else. Shame Freeman didn't get the same courtesy.

I have to say, I am impressed with Bilbo's journalistic skills. Odd that he was able to record so many events and moments that he himself was not present for (right down to specific dialogue exchanges!), especially considering that he went straight home after Thorin was laid to rest.

Did he set up interviews with Gandalf, Thranduil, Legolas, Tauriel, Bard, and Alfrid after-the-fact? Or was it more of letter correspondences?

**** these movies.

 

[sueb1863]

I'm sure someone out there is doing a fan edit. The problem is they can't fix everything, like some of the deaths. But they'll do their best, and it's not hard to decide what to take out. I imagine they could get it down to three hours or so.

 

[regwec]

He just checked Wizardpedia, asked a few questions on Facescroll, then made up a lot of fan fiction ****.

 

[Drizzle]

We'll probably see a definitive (or at least as definitive as it can get) not long after the BOTFA extended edition is released.

 

[Boom]

There are nineteen chapters in The Hobbit. If you make one three-hour film, you've got roughly ten minutes of screentime per chapter, and obviously some scenes wouldn't need to play out that long while others could be lengthened a bit with that difference. A single film adaptation is perfectly doable. If Fellowship of the Ring, a modern-day classic, could be made to work as a single three-hour movie, there's no reason this novel couldn't. And hey, any cuts that needed to be made for the sake of pacing and narrative flow (I suspect Beorn would be a victim), you've always got the extended edition.

But Jackson and company weren't so much interested in adapting The Hobbit as they were in further building the world of Middle-earth - and that meant treating this story as more of an ensemble piece. It can't just be about Bilbo. Thorin has to be a main character, probably moreso than Bilbo. And everybody loves Gandalf. Let's give him more to do. Ooh! If we adapt some material from the Appendices we can work in some tie-ins to Sauron and Lord of the Rings! And we definitely have to have elves in there in a more prominent capacity. Let's bring Legolas back, and give him a fan-fic love interest. OH MY GOD, we could have a sort of love triangle between her, Legolas, and one of the dwarves. Every Middle-earth story needs a love plot, not to mention more physics-defying, reality-bending stunts from Leggy! And politics! NEEDS MORE POLITICS. Bard isn't just an archetypal hero in the mythic sense. He could be the voice of reason against the corruption of Lake-town! Lets hammer this home by making the Master and our made-up stooge character walking cliches on the subject. Let's **** with canon by bringing an Orc back from the dead, even though he has a LIVING son in the actual Hobbit narrative. One CG super orc isn't enough. Let's have two! Let's have them spend two films chasing after the company like ****ing Scooby Doo villains without achieving anything! And let's throw Radagast in there! Cover him in bird****! That's hilarious! What does he offer the narrative? Nothing really, but I want to work with Sylvester McCoy and this gives me an excuse. What else? Let's keep going. What else can we cram in here? Ah, Viggo won't come back for a cameo? That's okay, let's just throw a pointless line in there. Fans'll love it!

Meanwhile you have Freeman standing in the background with that bewildered look on his face that all but screams, "What the **** is happening?"

 

[slumcat]

The lingering impression is what a cash grab. A slim children's volume adapted for 9 hours of footage. Just shameless.

This just had to be a fun rollicking 3 hour adventure film. The Hobbit trilogy is one of the most overproduced things I have ever seen.

 

[Boom]

The only worthwhile thing to come out of this trilogy, apart from select moments from the movies themselves, are the extended edition appendices. My utter disdain for many of Jackson's creative choices aside, it is fun watching cast interviews and the process of creating costumes, makeup, and sets (the five that there were).

 

[regwec]

A few weeks ago, I heard someone say that Tauriel was there favourite JRR Tolkien character. I **** ye not.

 

[Boom]

A few weeks ago, I heard someone say that Tauriel was there favourite JRR Tolkien character. I **** ye not.

 

[regwec]

*Their

 

[Boom]

Funny enough, the only reason the thirteen dwarves were problematic was because the filmmakers tried (and failed) to give them each their times to shine. They were, for all intents and purposes, the focus of the films. But because certain dwarves require more time and development that others, when the others get their "moments," they're often random and confusing. What was meant to be a character moment for Oin when he stays behind in Lake-town because "his place is with the wounded," simply leaves the audience confused like, "Um... Really? When was that previously established?"

The dwarves just aren't that interesting as a collective group, and when you go out of your way to give all of these characters distinct personalities and their own times to shine, it only aggravates the issue of just how cumbersome thirteen characters are.

Now, if you tell the story strictly from Bilbo's POV, and we see the group of dwarves from his POV, then it's a non-issue. Because they are never made the focus.

 

[ThePhantasm]

Seriously. Some of those dwarves got more focus that Eomer in the LOTR films and were still less well developed.

 

[regwec]

Think of Boromir's arc in FOTR, reflect on the screen time expended on it, then compare every character in PJ's Hobbit-Prequels.

Yep.

 

[Boom]

And because Bilbo was pretty much sidelined throughout the trilogy, because we rarely see him interact with dwarves not named Thorin or Balin, and because the dwarves are mostly uninteresting, when the time comes for him to say goodbye to them in the third movie, you feel nothing.

 

[Avenger]

I still think the original two film idea was perfect. Not because the book by itself needed it (although the book does gloss over a lot of details that would need to be expanded on in a movie if it wants to make sense), but because they were incorporating the material from the Appendices regarding Gandalf's disappearances and the events surrounded Dol Guldur. Those made perfect sense as an addition to the story given that this was meant to be a prequel to the previous LOTR trilogy.

But two films is where it should have stayed. Warner Bros. got greedy by stretching it out to three films, and it was clear that they didn't have enough story material to make that work, given the obvious padding in The Desolation of Smaug and the fact that The Battle of the Five Armies was pretty much just two hours of fighting followed by a way-too-short ending (an overreaction by PJ to the criticism of ROTK's ending, IMO).

 

[CGHulk]

The lingering impression is what a cash grab. A slim children's volume adapted for 9 hours of footage. Just shameless.

This just had to be a fun rollicking 3 hour adventure film. The Hobbit trilogy is one of the most overproduced things I have ever seen.

I know I'm going to get a lot of crap for this, but in the Lord of The Rings books there wasn't a lot of time spent on story, for hundreds of pages we got scenery. There was no love story in the books, the epic battles were a paragraph, like The Battle of Pelanor Fields. Easily all three LOTR's books could easily have been cut down to one or two books. Legolas and Gimli hardly had anything to say, Saruman was only mentioned throughout the story; we didn't see him till the end. Seriously the books were so light on actually telling a story. So much was left out of the movies that was in the books. At least in The Hobbit movies we got most of the story that was in the book, and then some, some that was from the appendices, which was actually Tolkien! Unlike the the LOTR's movies where so much was either taken out or completely new!

In no way does this mean I think The Hobbit films are better than the LOTR's films, which they are not!

 

[Marvolo]

I know I'm going to get a lot of crap for this, but in the Lord of The Rings books there wasn't a lot of time spent on story, for hundreds of pages we got scenery. There was no love story in the books, the epic battles were a paragraph, like The Battle of Pelanor Fields. Easily all three LOTR's books could easily have been cut down to one or two books. Legolas and Gimli hardly had anything to say, Saruman was only mentioned throughout the story; we didn't see him till the end. Seriously the books were so light on actually telling a story. So much was left out of the movies that was in the books. At least in The Hobbit movies we got most of the story that was in the book, and then some, some that was from the appendices, which was actually Tolkien! Unlike the the LOTR's movies where so much was either taken out or completely new!

In no way does this mean I think The Hobbit films are better than the LOTR's films, which they are not!

The only thing I would happily see gone from LOTR the book is Tom Bombadill. I despise that pace killing bastard. Every other one of those 1000 pages is great imo.