Official 'The Hobbit' Thread - Part 4

[Marvolo]

Weird beards and even shorter beards are fine, but beardless is just unnecessary. Let me guess is he the one with the romantic subplot?

None of them are beardless. They all have either long goatees or mustaches or some type of facial hair. Heck maybe one of them has a patchy beard and prefers a goatee. Maybe one of them prefers to look handsome instead of wooly. They are individuals and can have whatever they want. Jackson went for a logical individual approach instead of a carbon copy approach.

 

[ThePowerCosmic]

None of them are beardless. They all have either long goatees or mustaches or some type of facial hair. Heck maybe one of them has a patchy beard and prefers a goatee. Maybe one of them prefers to look handsome instead of wooly. They are individuals and can have whatever they want. Jackson went for a logical individual approach instead of a carbon copy approach.

I agree, and don't see a problem with the beardless approach. However, I always thought that the Dwarves in Tolkien's universe thought that beards were their idea of handsome/beautiful because they all had them. The men have them, the women have them. Heck, aren't they born with them? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

 

[Boom]

In Tolkien's mythology, dwarves are born with beards (the men and the women), and they only cut them off if they've been shamed. Long beards are a point of pride with dwarves. It's a cultural thing.

 

[ThePowerCosmic]

I see, that's pretty interesting.

 

[Marvolo]

In Tolkien's mythology, dwarves are born with beards (the men and the women), and they only cut them off if they've been shamed. Long beards are a point of pride with dwarves. It's a cultural thing.

Not to sound like an contrarian ass, but this is an adaption, and no where in the films has the above been established. Its one thing about adaptions I see split the fans. Some won't the book universe to be the same as the film universe. I take the approach if it wasnn't established in the film universe then it doesn't exist or doesn't matter in the film universe. If it was something major I'd be concerned, but I just don't care all that much whether they have goatees instead of beards. Nor do I think the majority will either. I just think we have more to be concerned with than this beard thing.

 

[regwec]

To be fair, I think Boom's note of displeasure was caused by the very fact that he doesn't consider the books to be adapted sufficiently closely on this issue.

 

[Boom]

Not to sound like an contrarian ass, but this is an adaption, and no where in the films has the above been established. Its one thing about adaptions I see split the fans. Some won't the book universe to be the same as the film universe. I take the approach if it wasnn't established in the film universe then it doesn't exist or doesn't matter in the film universe. If it was something major I'd be concerned, but I just don't care all that much whether they have goatees instead of beards. Nor do I think the majority will either. I just think we have more to be concerned with than this beard thing.

Gimli: "It's true you don't see many dwarf women. And in fact, they are so alike in voice and appearance that they're often mistaken for dwarf men."
Aragorn: "It's the beards."

*Legolas grabs his beard to stop him from falling to his death*
Gimli: "Not the beard!"

The first example establishes that both the dwarf men and dwarf women have beards. And despite Legolas not having anything else to grab onto, Gimli seemed very protective of his beard even as he were about to fall to his death. Now, I'm sure you'll consider this reaching, but the precedent is there in the films (however minor).

Then there's the fact that every dwarf you see in LoTR has a larger-than-life beard, which consequently leads people to just assume that all dwarves have long, thick beards. It's not just the book purist in me. Some of the dwarves in The Hobbit look so far removed from the archetype established in the film universe, that it was (and still is) incredibly jarring to look at them.

 

[redhawk23]

None of them are beardless. They all have either long goatees or mustaches or some type of facial hair. Heck maybe one of them has a patchy beard and prefers a goatee. Maybe one of them prefers to look handsome instead of wooly. They are individuals and can have whatever they want. Jackson went for a logical individual approach instead of a carbon copy approach.

Did anyone say they wanted carbon copies?

Its no mistake that the dwarf with the forced in romantic subplot is the very same with little to no facial hair.

Its not even so much just the beard, just in general he looks rather undwarf like. It will be better in the actual film seeing him to scale in comparison with other characters more but just in general I dislike the specific choices that were made.

 

[redhawk23]

There are some more of these.

 

[marcvader]

They can all have beards and not be carbon copies of each other or am I missing something. Most of the dwarves in this movie have beards and those are not carbon copies of each other so the fact that some of us question the choice of having a handsome beardless one is not that we want them all to be carbon copies.

 

[Venomfan]

beards don't matter to women as long as the guy is attractive. look at jack sparrow, they uglied johnny depp up with that and the chicks still loved him, oh and he had a beard

 

[superkong 500]

Credit: Aint it cool.

 

[ThePowerCosmic]

 

[Marvolo]

Gimli: "It's true you don't see many dwarf women. And in fact, they are so alike in voice and appearance that they're often mistaken for dwarf men."
Aragorn: "It's the beards."

*Legolas grabs his beard to stop him from falling to his death*
Gimli: "Not the beard!"

The first example establishes that both the dwarf men and dwarf women have beards. And despite Legolas not having anything else to grab onto, Gimli seemed very protective of his beard even as he were about to fall to his death. Now, I'm sure you'll consider this reaching, but the precedent is there in the films (however minor).

Then there's the fact that every dwarf you see in LoTR has a larger-than-life beard, which consequently leads people to just assume that all dwarves have long, thick beards. It's not just the book purist in me. Some of the dwarves in The Hobbit look so far removed from the archetype established in the film universe, that it was (and still is) incredibly jarring to look at them.

Ok you got me there and i get where you're coming from. And il admit at first i was thrown off but 7 months later and the character design has grown on me a lot. I like the way they look. As long as they have facial hair i really dont care because a dwarf that grooms isnt something that bothers me. Now if one of them was slick clean shaven i would be questioning it. It looks like the dwarves that Jackson has created look fairly human while young but develop more traditional dwarvish looks as they get older. Least thats what im gathering by examing those posters.

Ive got a much bigger issue than the facial hair. One of the dwarves has a chunk of an axe head embedded in his skull...permanently. The OCD in me wants to yank it out before it causes infection. I mean how did something like that get passed off as logical.

 

[marcvader]

I want to see a rebellious elf with a beard now.

 

[Boom]

Ok you got me there and i get where you're coming from. And il admit at first i was thrown off but 7 months later and the character design has grown on me a lot. I like the way they look. As long as they have facial hair i really dont care because a dwarf that grooms isnt something that bothers me. Now if one of them was slick clean shaven i would be questioning it. It looks like the dwarves that Jackson has created look fairly human while young but develop more traditional dwarvish looks as they get older. Least thats what im gathering by examing those posters.

I understand. It's just different strokes for different people .

Ive got a much bigger issue than the facial hair. One of the dwarves has a chunk of an axe head embedded in his skull...permanently. The OCD wants to yank it out before it causes infection. I mean how did something like that get past off as logical.

I honestly don't know. It's something that belongs in a cartoon.

 

[regwec]

Maybe that race of Dwarves grows a metallic, axe-like crest on its head once it reaches sexual maturity? It could be used for display in Dwarven mating rituals.

...

 

[Marvolo]

Maybe that race of Dwarves grows a metallic, axe-like crest on its head once it reaches sexual maturity? It could be used for display in Dwarven mating rituals.

...

LMAO!

Id really like to know how much of an influence Guillermo had on the dwarves looks. I know he wanted some steampunk elements and gave one of the dwarfs a mechanical hat. Peter changed it when he took control.

 

[Boom]

Bifur = bifurcate?

Sounds like a GDT pun to me.

 

[superkong 500]

I remember reading somewhere an interview with del toro in which he described his original design for smaug which had its head shaped like a giant axe. He said that was one of the things where he and PJ disagreed, PJ didn't like that design at all. I tend to like most of del toro's designs but I admit that sometimes they don't follow logic or function. He sometimes goes for something that looks pretty or cool over something that looks good but also functional. I think that even in fantasy there should be some rules established.

However that axe in Bifur's head....

 

[Mr_GoldenAge]

Credit: Aint it cool.

Well, at least we have a good look of Bill, Bert & Tom. Though this isn't the 1st time Jackson has shown them.

 

[regwec]

It isn't too far away, though. And I love the butcher's apron. It references the foremost fear in fairytales- that the baddie wants to eat you- as seen in the book itself.

A wargaming friend pointed out that this is a popular motif-

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/c...670005a&prodId=prod1320014a&rootCatGameStyle=

 

[superkong 500]

From PJ's FB

Looking forward to giving fans a glimpse of the Hobbit, answer questions and share a few stories about our return to Middle-earth.

For those of you who won't be attending Comic Con, we have several things in the pipeline to share with you over the next few weeks. Our new video will be ready very soon - in fact our video blog crew has already left for Comic Con, and we'll be capturing a behind the scenes look at our experiences there. We're talking about possibly including a few clips from our Hobbit reel in the blog

We are also working on our next trailer, which you should expect to see sometime in September.

 

[ThePowerCosmic]

So there won't be a new trailer with TDKR? Well, ****...

 

[redhawk23]

Io9 for some reason found it necessary to take a troll upskirt shot and comment on its package.