The Hobbit Film Trilogy Thread

[Jacob 1]

Don't we all?

I love it when CGI is used as verb.

BTW, you forgot on article.

[Morlock 11]

http://www.wetanz.com/holics/index.php?ite...mp;catid=2#more

Transcript of Jackson/Del-Toro chat.

[indy4 160]

aust: Will Howard Shore be returning to do the score?

Guillermo del Toro: Yes- absolutely, Shore is teh VOICE of these films and we will absolutely be invited back. Peter and Fran have talked to him a couple of times already and Ive exchanged emails about the subject. He will return.

Yes!

[Maglorfin 218]

Great news!

[Maglorfin 218]

I read an article at some point during the three-year Rings blitz that claimed the rights to film The Silmarillion were owned by the Tolkien family, which had/has no intention of selling them. Apparently, J.R.R.'s son Christopher is extremely protective of his father's work, and isn't overly thrilled with the inevitable dilution of it that happens in filmmaking. The rights to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were sold by Tolkien himself, but The Silmarillion and the other Middle Earth writings were only published posthumously, and Christopher -- who edited all of those posthumous books -- has held an iron grip on any further film rights.

Check this out.

[Luke Skywalker 2,322]

I hope Tolkien Jr. get his share (if he really deserves any) and lets the film get made without more law-courts

[John Crichton 4]

The Silmarlillion does not, as that article claims, tell the story between The Hobbit and LotR. It has a short comprehensive summary at the very end called "Of The Rings of Power and The Third Age" that covers that whole period and that's it.

If Jackson and Co. want to tell a cohesive story in between the two novels, they're going to have to make the vast majority of it up themselves.

[Marian Schedenig 11,335]

If Jackson and Co. want to tell a cohesive story in between the two novels, they're going to have to make the vast majority of it up themselves.

I wouldn't be so sure of that. I've yet to read the History of Middle-Earth series, but there's tons of sketches and previously unreleased/incomplete stories and letters and stuff which might just provide much of the "content" of the movie. It'd still be a hell of a task to merge them into a coherent story though.

[John Crichton 4]

Yeah, that's true, but I was always under the impression Tolkien didn't care for much about that time period and never wrote much of anything about it. I've never read the History series either. I'm most interested in any sketches or outlines that he wrote about a post-LotR time period, I know there's some in there.

Now if you wanted to go earlier in the Third Age there's a great story in the Unfinished Tales about the creation of Rohan that could work as a movie, if stretched out a bit. But that's hundreds of years before The Hobbit.

[Ollie 1,364]

It will probably be a bridge with some new material filmed.

[Luke Skywalker 2,322]

i hope it is not a 2-3 hour 'ROTK ending'

[Marian Schedenig 11,335]

I still don't see those "multiple endings". KOTCS had more endings than ROTK.

(Unless of course you see it in the global context, where the entire LOTR story is just one big ending for dozens of lengthier stories)

[Red 75]

The multiple endings thing comes from Jackson's poor editing, e.i. the fade-outs. The problem isn't what's actually on screen because that all comes from Tolkien.

[Bryant Burnette 782]

I still don't see those "multiple endings". KOTCS had more endings than ROTK.

(Unless of course you see it in the global context, where the entire LOTR story is just one big ending for dozens of lengthier stories)

Crystal Skull had no false endings. Zero. Did you see a different cut than the one I saw?

Return of the King, however, faded to black something like three or four times. You could feel audiences' interest draining out of the theatre. Luckily, it didn't kill the movie. Terrible editing from Jackson and company there.

[Marian Schedenig 11,335]

I don't see what's wrong with fades. Especially when in one chase, the lead character becomes unconscious.

With KOTCS, I half expected the movie to end after the scene on the saucer hill. Not from the content, but it had a pacing that made it feel like the final scene (and I wonder if it might have been a better ending than the wedding).

[John Crichton 4]

We've got dates:

"At this point in time the plan is to write [the screenplays] for the rest of this year and start early conceptual designs. 2009 will be dedicated to pre-production on both movies and 2010 will be the year we shoot both films back to back," Jackson told fans. "Post production follows one film at a time with The Hobbit being released December 2011, and (Film Two) release Dec 2012. That is the schedule in about as much detail as we have ourselves at the moment." Del Toro said the ratings for the two Hobbit movies would be the same as the Lord of the Rings trilogy, "an intense PG-13."

http://movies.ign.com/articles/876/876536p1.html

[Henry B 51]

Aw. The Hobbit really doesn't need to be higher than PG.

[FattyMcButterpants 1]

An intense PG-13? WTF?

[Marian Schedenig 11,335]

December 2011 is quite a while yet. And The Hobbit has some rather brutal bits.

[Red 75]

And The Hobbit has some rather brutal bits.

But certainly not at the level of LOTR what with the warfare and all.

[FattyMcButterpants 1]

What brutal bits? It was still intended as a children's story, non? Tolkien gave it to Lewis' son to proofread it (if I remember correctly).

[Morlock 11]

I don't see what's wrong with fades. Especially when in one chase, the lead character becomes unconscious.

With KOTCS, I half expected the movie to end after the scene on the saucer hill. Not from the content, but it had a pacing that made it feel like the final scene (and I wonder if it might have been a better ending than the wedding).

I also half-expected the movie to end. But there was obviously going to be one last scene. RoTK felt like it was going to end half a dozen times. And each successive time, what followed felt less and less relevant. Every fade out took me out of the movie emotionally. The last couple of scenes have zero impact for me, because of this distructive editing. I felt robbed of the closure I needed. With KoTC, I knew that there was going to be another scene. And, frankly, after the dissapointing story wrap-up of the film, I was anxious for the characters to have a good goodbye scene.

[FattyMcButterpants 1]

LOTR is Frodo's story, which doesn't end until he leaves at the Grey Havens. Anything else would have been wrong as a literary adaption, and someone who doesn't see that simply doesn't get it.

[Morlock 11]

Did you read my post? My problem wasn't that they didn't wrap it up sooner. But the way they wrapped it up made The Gray Havens scenes have zero impact. That's why it pisses me off. I needed that scene to mean something. And because of the way it was presented, it didn't.

[FattyMcButterpants 1]

Well, how would you have done it?

[Morlock 11]

I've tried, but I couldn't think of a good way of doing it. Practically anything would be better than the fade-outs. Truth be told, I don't know if there would be a good way of trying up all those elements. But I do know that they entirely failed to end the experience. I suspect that a good amount of shortening would have been appropriate. Maybe narrating the end, instead of letting it play out. It felt like the filmmakers and cast put on their Tolkein-fan hats for that one, and forgot about the filmmaker hats. For those who were unabashadly in love with everything up to that point, I totally understand the acceptance of more of the films. But for those, like me, who had great admiration for the films, and liked them a hell of a lot, the ending was far too sloppy on a storytelling level.

[Bryant Burnette 782]

Ending Return of the King would have actually been a fairly simple matter.

What the story needed was the sense of a journey being repeated, but in reverse: in other words, we needed to follow Frodo and company on their trip home. Begin with some sort of transitional scene that links us from the end of the battle to the wedding, then have Aragorn say his goodbyes to the hobbits as they are setting out for home. Legolas, Gimli, and Gandalf accompany them; Legolas and Gimli say their goodbyes at some point, and depart for their own lands, and then Gandalf goes off on his own, but tells them that he will see them again, and that it won't be long. He says this with a tone in his voice that Frodo obviously understands, that Sam is suspicious of, and the others miss enitrely.

Then, a sequence of the hobbits riding past various of the locations that they've visited on their way: Rohan, Rivendell, Bree, etc. This could have been a fairly short montage in which the music is allowed to dominate the proceedings. Then, transition into their return home, and the rest can basically stay as-is.

What the movie needed was some sort of sense of a journey being completed. Obviously, you wouldn't want to drag it out, but it could have been accomplished in 10-15 minutes, and the catharsis of those scenes would have been very emotional to audiences, I think. With the fade-outs (fake-outs?) into other scenes, people were unable to immediately see where things were going, and literally thought the movie was ending several times, but that was only part of the problem. The real problem was a failure on Jackson's part to allow the audience a cathartic sense of closure to the journey these characters had been on.

It was, and is, a major flaw in that series, and it's a testament to how good everything else is that it didn't ruin the entire thing.

Endings are very important things, you know.

[Morlock 11]

Excellent post, that.

[FattyMcButterpants 1]

You think that would have made any difference? I can imagine the same people complaining "Why did they have to send off each character individually? That was unnecessary! We don't need to see each location again. That was cheesy ..."

You would satisfy some people more, but annoy others.

[Marian Schedenig 11,335]

I still think the fadeouts are fine for the way it is now. Yes, it could have been better if it played out in more detail, like in the book (and preferrably with the Scouring in - a very important point in the story, in fact). But I've accepted that they needed to shorten it (people complain about it ending *too late* as it is - and I don't think all of them could have been convinced by a more fleshed-out and coherent finale).

In the end, I'm still glad that at least a short Shire bit is in (with Frodo being rather absent and the other Hobbits going back to their old ways), very glad that they didn't cut the Grey Havens (as apparently they did in the BBC radio play with Holm) and immensely grateful that they actually ended it with the "Well, I'm back" scene.

As for the Hobbit, we have at least a beheaded Orc leader and a rather huge battle in the end. Tolkien conveniently knocks out Bilbo before all the deaths start happening, but I do expect and hope we get to see some of the action.

[Bryant Burnette 782]

You think that would have made any difference? I can imagine the same people complaining "Why did they have to send off each character individually? That was unnecessary! We don't need to see each location again. That was cheesy ..."

You would satisfy some people more, but annoy others.

Yes, I do think it would have made a difference; a big one.

Bear in mind that the vast majority of moviegoers do not watch films with much scrutiny. If the movie has been playing for three hours and all of a sudden fades to black, they start grabbing their purses and jackets and umbrellas and whatnot, and they start getting up to leave. It's hard to get pulled out of the experience of the movie much harder than to find yourself standing up about to walk out, only to find that the movie keeps going. (Or to have somebody sitting in front of you do it while you're still watching.)

And then, the same thing happens a few minutes later. And then again.

By this point, vast portions of the audience are actively distracted, and they are counting every second of screen time. If the story continues to flow and the strength of the characters is allowed to carry people over the last 10-15 minutes, they won't notice the time; it'll just sail right on through. People liked those characters; I don't think anybody would have begrudged the opportunity to say a real goodbye to these characters whom they'd spent close to ten hours worth of movie with. Audiences enjoy catharsis when it feels earned; as is, it didn't feel earned, to the extent that it was even present.

But the fadeouts/fadeins just absolutely tore people out of the movie. I walked into the back of the theatre and watched several times, and you could literally feel people losing interest. Some people would just keep on walking, presumably too disinterested (or embarrassed, perhaps) to sit back down.

Either way, it'd would have been a better, more natural way to end the movie.

[ChrisAfonso 232]

But the problem there is rather the (typical) audience, not the movie. All those people who immediately leave the theater when the credits begin to roll (or even a moment before that), just showing that the movie has little impact on them other than 2 (or 3) hours worth of entertainment, .... a "it's over, now back to real life" attitude. What's wrong with keeping seated for some minutes, letting the experience sink, or recapitulating it for a moment? *

Especially the first fade (to black, with Frodo and Sam lying on the slopes of Mt. Doom surrounded by lava) does make a lot of sense, as (for a moment) we can share the accepting sense of "that's the end for us, there's no escaping here" the hobbits feel. When it fades back in, and then suddenly the shapes of the eagles appear in the sun, that's a very emotional and breathtaking moment, precisely because we thought "it's over for them" just a moment before. Also it helps the sense of "some time later"... imagine the eagles appearing just moments after Sam and Frodo's last dialogue if there was no fade... it would feel too soon (they have to fly there, Mordor is a little bigger than your backyard) and would have less emotional impact, as it would just continue the action.

Isn't that the problem of a lot of today's movies (most recently KotCS --disclaimer: I really enjoy it!--)? Not allowing time to let things settle emotionally by following one bit of action immediately with the next?

Perhaps it would be different with a different kind of movie, but with LotR the audience should be more accustomed to a somewhat broader frame of presentation, pacing-wise.

PS: And I don't agree that we have no sense of "journeying home". Sure a fleshed out filmed sequence like you proposed would be cool, but it wouldn't help those in the audience who considered it too drawn out the way it is. The voice-over and camera sweep over the map entirely fulfill this purpose, and I really like this presentation, recapitulating the places and distances the characters have traveled all in one shot.

*The worst incarnation I experienced of this was when I saw Star Trek: Insurrection in the theater... the moment the first letters of credits appeared (the Enterprise was still in view, no fade yet) and the music started triumphantly with the fanfare- the film was turned off. THAT took me out of the movie, abruptly and cruelly. I guess the guy in the booth didn't think anybody could possibly be interested in staying for the credits.

[fommes 164]

The fade-out is fine, it lets the film breathe, plus it's a very functional fade out, as Marian suggested.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 11,842]

Indeed!

[Morlock 11]

There's no arguing with Hobbit fetishists.

[Bryant Burnette 782]

But the problem there is rather the (typical) audience, not the movie.

In some ways, an audience is only as good as the movie it's watching.

The fade-outs don't work. Even people who love the movie -- like myself -- pretty much acknowledge this. Defend it if you must, though; it's still a great movie, so it amounts to nothing more than nitpicking on my part, anyways.

[ChrisAfonso 232]

Well, I also love the movie, and I think they do work and serve a specific purpose in the portrayal of the story, and I'm not alone there... so it really is nitpicking, but I still think you can't just state "they don't work." as a fact, and "Even people like me who love the movie acknowledge this" is a very plain generic argument to prove anything. Let's agree to disagree.

Just curious, do you also think the fadouts in PoA don't work?

[Morlock 11]

The fade outs (or dissolves) in PoA were present throughout the movie, and were set up as an esthetic choice early on in the film.

Well, I also love the movie, and I think they do work and serve a specific purpose in the portrayal of the story, and I'm not alone there... so it really is nitpicking, but I still think you can't just state "they don't work." as a fact, and "Even people like me who love the movie acknowledge this" is a very plain generic argument to prove anything. Let's agree to disagree.

There is a reason people talk and joke about how many endings the LoTR movies had. This is more than just one man's opinion. A significant slice of the audience feels like the film ended several times. Each one can make of that what he will, but the fact that you are not alone does not mean that we are alone.

[ChrisAfonso 232]

I never said that But a significant slice of the audience also doesn't feel the movie ends several times. Like I said - agree to disagree. If you like the fadeouts or not, they serve a dramatic purpose, to give closure to certain scenes at the end of the movie. They're not there to trick the audience into thinking it's over.

[Ollie 1,364]

Apparently another lawsuit has been filed by Tolkien's family to halt production on the Hobbit. There's a thread over at FSM about it.

[FattyMcButterpants 1]

There is a reason people talk and joke about how many endings the LoTR movies had.

Yeah. And it's called the magic of belonging to the pack.

There are exactly two fade-outs in the proper meaning of the word, the first after the eagles pick up Frodo and Sam, the second after the ship leaves the Havens. Everything else is a normally shot movie with scenes that may have a closing feel for some people.

The only complaint I have about the epilogue is that Sam's wedding had a very "small studio" feel to it - I expected something more along the lines of Bilbo's party in FOTR - and that the Grey Havens should have had another colour palette.

[Luke Skywalker 2,322]

There is a reason people talk and joke about how many endings the LoTR movies had.

Yeah. And it's called the magic of belonging to the pack.

There are exactly two fade-outs in the proper meaning of the word, the first after the eagles pick up Frodo and Sam, the second after the ship leaves the Havens. Everything else is a normally shot movie with scenes that may have a closing feel for some people.

The only complaint I have about the epilogue is that Sam's wedding had a very "small studio" feel to it - I expected something more along the lines of Bilbo's party in FOTR - and that the Grey Havens should have had another colour palette.

the eagles is not a real fade out... it fades into white, not black, i think. And one knows the movie cannot end like that. something after is expected.

for me the movie seemed to end with the fly-out from Minas tirith. And its a classic finale (coronation, hail to the heroes)

the rest is filler scenes for people that did not know about LOTR before hand.

Only people who had read the books would miss something if the movie ended at minas tirith.

[Marian Schedenig 11,335]

the rest is filler scenes for people that did not know about LOTR before hand.

Only people who had read the books would miss something if the movie ended at minas tirith.

I strongly disagree here, as before. The Grey Havens are essential to the core themes of the story. You should cut pretty much everything else before you cut them.

And as for the fadeouts - I don't even remember how many there really are. Some may debatable, some not. But the Mount Doom fadeout I'll defend to the end. As I said, it has a purpose, and for me is pretty close to what the book conveys at that point.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 11,842]

I agree with Marian untill death do us part!

[Morlock 11]

On everything? Since I'm pretty sure he's backing Austria in the 2010 world-cup.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 11,842]

Right now I am more interested about Euro 2008!

[FattyMcButterpants 1]

Austria in the World Cup 2010????

You know, there's a thing called "qualification".

Speaking of Holland and Austria, seeing Holland suffering three goals from Austria, and still beating them with 4:3, that was quite an entertaining show.

Only people who had read the books would miss something if the movie ended at minas tirith.

You should realise that it was those people the films were made for.

[Marian Schedenig 11,335]

On everything? Since I'm pretty sure he's backing Austria in the 2010 world-cup.

Well you're wrong there. I care too little about football to back anyone. The less I have to deal with it, the better.

[FattyMcButterpants 1]

No wonder you folks suck at it

[Charlie Brigden 7]

Only people who had read the books would miss something if the movie ended at minas tirith.

Ludicrous. There's no way the movie could ever have ended there.