quote:The first would be a direct adaptation of The Hobbit, and the second would be drawn from "footnotes and source material connecting 'The Hobbit' with 'Lord of the Rings,'" he explained.
I'm curious about what they'll use for the second movie.
Posts: 2149 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Yippee! Even though I didn't like all that Jackson did with Lord of the Rings, I'm excited at the prospect of seeing more of Tolkien's world brought to life visually. The books will always be the books, separate from anyone's vision of them in movie form. I have my own ideas about how visualisations of LotR should look, but that doesn't stop me from enjoying Peter Jackson's or anyone else's. What I'd REALLY like to see is Tolkien's estate authorise other authors to go into Middle Earth and flesh out the wonderful stories contained in the Annals, for instance, in the appendices. I read a letter from Tolkien a couple of years ago in the foreword to a book about him, where he said that he hoped that others would eventually find it a fruitful thing to do. Can't remember the name of the book unfortunately. There's so much tantalising stuff there.
Posts: 867 | Registered: Dec 2003
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It might be neat to see the battle where Thorin Oakenshield got his name, also the white circle in battle with the Necromancer of Dul Guldor. Some Radaghast the Brown, Gandalf getting the map from Thorin's father in the dungeon of Dul Guldor, perhaps a young Smaug laying waste to Dale and the Lonely mountain. There is indeed material enough for two movies. Of course it is ironic, originally they wanted the The Lord of the Rings to be two movies but managed to get the studio to take a chance and do three, now with that success in the bag they want to expand the Hobbit to two... for 'artistic reasons' I am sure.
Posts: 475 | Registered: Aug 2006
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I'm sure The Hobbit will have to have some sort of visual explanation of what happened with Smaug and the Lonely Mountain, either in the same way that Galadriel did the review of the history of the Last Alliance and the One Ring.
Well, even I'm not really sure what they will do that takes place between the end of Smaug and the beginning of LOTR. I was always under the impression that the movies would be a really drawn out versions of the Hobbit itself.
I'm sure they'll both include a lot more information on the White Council, but Radagast played a relatively minor role in the story. He was the only one that we know of, of the Istari, who turned away from his task entirely to focus on the world rather than protecting it. Blame Yavanna.
I await more information on what the second movie might entail.
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To be honest, I'm not all that excited about the Hobbit. On the other hand, the second movie sounds like it could be interesting, depending on what they choose for the subject.
Posts: 2437 | Registered: Apr 2005
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the second movie could very well follow Aragorn when he was younger, when he fought for Ecthelion, Denethor's father. It could also follow the story of the Dwarves in Moria. But in all honesty the best material is all before Lord of the rings.
PJ should just go ahead and do one about the rise of angmar, the first war, the collapse of numenor, eh.... we should do 3 movies from the Silmarillion.....
Posts: 467 | Registered: Nov 2005
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I could see a set up movie for something about the Silmarillion...
But really, there's a LOT of information out there to cover between Hobbit and LOTR. Aragorn when he fought with Gondor, when he fought with Rohan, his time in Lothlorien, when he first came to Imladris, his time as a Captain of the Rangers, how he stalked and captured Gollum and Gollum was taken to Thranduil.
I suppose they could cover the Dwarves in Moria, how they came back, but really, much of that would serve better as a precursor to The Hobbit too. They could do the Battle in front of the Gates of Moria, where I think it was Azog (or Bolg?) that was slain by..argh, Dwarf names...Thrain? And who was subsequently killed and branded. That's a good battle to do, sets up some of the history of the Dwarves.
But the Dwarves in Moria is one long battle. They had to fight their way in, they got it, they did a little digging while NEVER really reclaiming all of the kingdom, then got pushed back, Balin is killed, and then they all get killed.
There's so much to cover, I think we'd best wait to see what they have in mind, so far as material and chronology. Then I'll pounce Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Between the two, Moria seems a bit better. The only problem is that we already know that they all end up dead, so I'm not sure how great of a movie it would make. Aragorn's travels, on the other hand, might be ok. It really depends on what they choose to focus on. If I were doing it, I would probably focus on Gondor's conflict with Umbar, since it would provide a nice theme to build a movie around. I would love to see Aragorn's assault on Umbar. I think that it would be a nice prologue, while still having a great structure and conflict in and of itself.
Posts: 2437 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Now we're just talking about snippets. The problem with most of the stuff that came between the Hobbit and the actual War of the Ring is that it's all so jumbled and half written. Aragorn as Thorongil's assault on Umbar isn't good for a whole movie and it's really just one small piece of what would be the goal to convey.
Better than that would be to show some of the White Council stuff, where you see Saruman's true nature, and more on the relationship between the councilmembers, why Saruman hates Gandalf, and when he really started to go bad.
I think Jackson intends to focus on the White Council stuff, based on what he has said in the past. Most likely we'd see the formation of the Council, running the Necromancer out of Dol Guldur, possibly Gandalf asking Aragorn to get Gollum and his imprisonment in Thranduil's dungeons. But I don't know how far they can go without making the storyline very disconnected.
What I'd love to see, is them skip over a bunch of that, and FOLLOW the storyline of the Lonely Mountain (and the other great regions of ME? Lorien?) to the War of the Ring. Show the assaults of the Orcs on the Lonely Mountain and Bard and Dain's defense of the cities. And the assaults on Mirkwood, as defended by Thranduil.
Now there's some fun stuff.
With ANY of this, Jackson is going to have to take a LOT of license. The second movie is going to be cobbling together a lot of half written messes from Tolkien, with VERY little dialogue to base it off of, and only a loose chronolgy with some scattered short stories, and that's even going into Chris Tolkien's histories (which I need to read the last three of still, grr!).
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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I guess I'm the only one who thinks this would be an awful idea. I think anything he does can't help but be anticlimactic and cheapen the accomplishments of the LOTR movies. (Watch them slap the name LOTR on whatever they make as well, to make the tie-in easier for non-fanatics.)
Frankly, I think this is a far worse idea than filming the prequels was for Lucas.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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Oh, I think anything more than The Hobbit likely WILL be a horrible idea, I'm just waiting for them to say what it is before I pounce on it.
I think The Hobbit will be wonderful though. I've wanted it made since before they even announced the LOTR was being made.
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The Hobbit needs to run very close to the book. It should have a quite different feel from LotR - it's a there-and-back story told mostly from the PoV of the title character.
If it's done in that manner, it should be awesome.
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You don't think, with smooth transitions, that a good steward of the book could work in a little bit of the surrounding story?
Just curious. I remain skeptical on how it'll end up being. I tend to agree with you that it should run VERY close to the book. But that doesn't mean I won't accept them showing a single meeting of the White Council, or Gandalf entering Dol Guldur. But, what I'd (and most people) would probably find much more palatable, is a movie that runs just as the book does, and a DVD that includes all those little extras.
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I think The Hobbit would make a pretty good big budget TV movie--like Merlin or the BSG miniseries.
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The Jackson they are talking about as director and producer is Micheal Jackson. Quote Micheal, "Imagine Thriller, only with goblins instead of zombies."
Micheal Jackson will also play his beloved Bilbo, as he prefers to take long trips surrounded by short people.
Peter Jackson will play Beorn. He says its a hair thing.
Jermaine Jackson will play Oin & Gloin without the use of special digital effects. I mean, come on, could you ever tell them apart.
Janet Jackson will play Smaug. Talk about a scary she-dragon.
Samuel Jackson will play Bard. However instead of using his trusty arrow to slay Smaug, he'll just walk up to it and whoop its @#$@#$@#.
Jesse Jackson will play Gandalph in an attempt to erase the whole "White" council image. Unfortunately, Gandalph will now speak in ryhming couplets.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Peter Jackson showed good story-telling talent in LOTR, even changing a few things in Tolkien's text that in my opinion improved the story (such as having Frodo's leaving the Shire come only a short time after Bilbo left, not fifty years later as in the book). I also believe that deleting the anticlimactic scouring of the Shire made for a better story. And while it might have been nice to have Tom Bombadil, I cannot fault Jackson for leaving it out, since the whole Bombadil episode did nothing to advance the story line.
Because of this, I think Jackson will be especially effective in extracting a story/stories from the Simarillion. There is great potential there for more stories of the same calibre as LOTR, if done by someone with the artistic talent--and Jackson looks like that someone.
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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I don't think the Hobbit is a bad idea. I just see one movie, it’s pretty much a stand alone story.
I don't get doing a footnote/history movie. It screams of the SW prequels to me. We all knew there was a background to the story, and it sounded interesting, but didn't turn out that way. If was such a good story then the author would have finished it. I guess it all depends on how it done, but if you're going to start doing this kind of thing we should go ahead and open up Middle earth to new authors to do more books, it's pretty much the same thing.
Posts: 555 | Registered: Jun 2005
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quote:If was such a good story then the author would have finished it.
Well THAT isn't really fair. The man spent what, 60 years writing LOTR material? And I wouldn't argue that a word of it isn't part of a good story. He didn't not finish it for lack of effort, or lack of material, just lack of time.
The SW prequels were written as an afterthough. This is one rather continuous story, having been constantly molded to fit together.
If you want to compare making LOTR prequels to SW prequels from a money grubbing studio POV, all power to you. But don't compare the quality of the stories and come up with an equal judgement. It's far from equal.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Call me melancholic, but I would have loved to see the story of Beren and Luthien on the screen. Remember Aragorn singing a song about them by a bonfire in "The Fellowship?" Ahhh...
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Mr. T has already been cast as the voice of Reepicheep in Prince Caspian. Scheduling conflict!
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quote:Originally posted by SC Carver: I don't think the Hobbit is a bad idea. I just see one movie, it’s pretty much a stand alone story.
I don't get doing a footnote/history movie. It screams of the SW prequels to me. We all knew there was a background to the story, and it sounded interesting, but didn't turn out that way. If was such a good story then the author would have finished it. I guess it all depends on how it done, but if you're going to start doing this kind of thing we should go ahead and open up Middle earth to new authors to do more books, it's pretty much the same thing.
The Star Wars prequels were not a bad idea, just a good idea badly executed. I actually loved the story, except that the acting, dialogue, and excessive CGI distracted me. And, of course, the first two movies should have been made into 1 and the 3rd one should have been split into two.
But let's not turn this into a bash Lucas thread. Just don't use the SW prequels' failures as evidence that a LOTR prequel won't do well.
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Make sure you're around when the Star Wars tv shows and Episode VII come out. You're my backup.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Marlo You are totally right about 1&2 merging and 3 splitting
It was marketed Lucas knew the back story from the begining, even if he didn't write them till later. He said he chose to start with IV because it was the most interesting story and he wasn't sure he'd ever get to do another one when he started.
I don't think prequels to LOTR would necessarily be bad, I just think the most interesting ones have been done. If they get some very talented writers I am sure they could come up with lots of very good story lines to work in Middle earth.
For that matter there have been a few really good Star Wars books written I would in hind sight would much rather see than the prequels. Maybe some day Lucus will open it up for others make those movies.
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I don't believe for a second that he had the prequels figured out when he made IV-VI.
And he's already more or less said that if any more movies are made, he won't be making them. I think if any of the EU is made into a movies, he'll let others take the helm.
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