posted
As a film major and a Tolkien lover, I'm genuinely interested in how a collection of stories like The Silmarillion could be brought to life on screen.
Last November I had the opportunity to go to a live concert of the Lord of the Rings Symphony. While the music was playing, a giant screen displayed a storybook-like animation using the maps and various artworks of John Howe and Alan Lee. It was very effective when timed with the music and now I'm thinking if the Silmarillion were brought to the screen, that's how I'd like it portrayed.
A narrator, some original music, and Ted Nasmith's art animated like a painting in motion. We might get actual actors and actresses in costume for some major events, and then pull back from the event into a painting and move forward in time with the narrator.
How do you guys think the Silmarillion could be made into a movie?
Posts: 1236 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
I don't know, but as much of a LotR lover as I am and have been since I was 12, I've never read the Silmarillion. Well, I've started it a few times. Maybe now that I'm older and wiser (ha!) I should try again.
Then again, I think I'm a lot more likely to get to know the Silmarillion as a movie than by reading it, sad to say!
Posts: 3149 | Registered: Jul 2005
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I find it more profound than Lord of the Rings and cried many times reading it. The way we start off with the ultimate, with God and the Gods and Angels and how it shows over time the divine slipping away from the mortal world (or visa versa). So awesome. It is the TRUTH behind all the actions in the later years that the Hobbit and LOTR cover.
You could only do it in a three parter as a movie.
Posts: 4953 | Registered: Jan 2004
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posted
It needs to be done as a series of series, I think. First, the coming of the Elves to Valinor - it ends with the Doom of Mandos. It starts with the awakening of the Elves, some bits about the evil things Morgoth had unleashed, rumors of war reaching them (the overthrowing of Utunmo and chaining of Morgoth), and finally the appearance of Orome as emissary of the Valor to invite them to Valinor. Here we get all the history that came before as told to the Elves.
Then the journey, the loss of Thngol, and the arival in Valinor. End series one.
Next we go through the flight of the Noldor - Morgoth's release, the Silmarils, the rivalry between Feanor and Fingolfin, all the way through the loss of the trees and the kinslaying. This arc ends with the doom of Mandos, the initial battles, the death of Feanor, and finally the rising of the moon and sun. (On a side note, we see Doriath being set up, the dwarves being introduced, the reaction to Morgoth's return and the Girdle of Melian).
Then we have the Elves in Middle Earth section - pretty much everything up to and including the battle of sudden fire and the loss of the northern strongholds. There's great political stuff here - the in-fighting, the rivalry, the distrust of the Sindar for the sons of Feanor. We get the founding of Gondolin and Nargothrond, too. We will have been introduced to Men at this point and see Barahir save Fealgund. It ends with the battle and we see the men of Beren's tribe get scattered.
Which brings us to Beren and Luthien, straight through.
Then the Battle of Tears and the scattering of Huor/Hurin's kin.
Then Turin's story, also straight through, ending with Thingol's death, Beren and Luthien's death, and finally the ruin of Doriath.
Then Tuor and the sack of Gondolin and Earendil's voyage and the war of wrath.
Then we get to start over with the story of Numenor. Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
Dag, that is very interesting way of telling the story...instead of seeing the events before the birth of the Elves first hand you would have that info released slowly over the series. What a cool idea. But I would dearly love to see the story from the very begining first hand: Iluvatar creating the Gods and Angels, the Music of the Ainur, the many battles between the Valar and Melkor over Earth, the formation of Valinor and the birth of the Two Trees.
Posts: 4953 | Registered: Jan 2004
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posted
I agree with Dagonee. The Silmarillion could really work in serial form. For the most part, I agree with his pacing, although there are some parts that I don't think really deserve their own part.(especially elven journey to Valinor)
Posts: 2437 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
I think Dag's version is the closest way to make it both feasible and still do it justice. A lot of that you just can't leave out, not if you want to appreciate the depth. But at the same time, there's just so much there, that there's the compulsion to shorten it into something more manageable.
Telp -
Of course YOU want to see the Trees
I'd be hard pressed to choose a single most important thing to be seen, though for anyone who'd just read the LOTR and nothing else, the Second Age would probably have the most relevence, from the creation of the rings, and TOR, and the drowning of numenor, to the fall of Eregion, the hiding of the Three, and the Dagor-Lad. To say nothing of the foundation of the great kingdoms of men.
I think it'd be cool to see Minas Morgul back when it was Minas Ithil, (Tower of the Moon?), and to see Annuminas, and Amon Sul in its glory.
Dag -
How do you see it working? A series of "Specials?" like mini made for tv movies? Or more of an episodic content, like a series of television?
I said over in the Eragon thread, that the best way I could imagine doing it was to do it in a series, having the episodes of the season lead up to the major events, like the first kinslaying, the Dagor Bragollach, the Nirnaeth, etc, and then show those events in a major film, with some sort of partnership between the tv studio and a film studio.
Or a combination of these. Do a mini-series to cover everything leading up to the Doom of Mandos and the coming back to Middle Earth, at which point I think a regular tv series with episodes would work quite well.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:But I would dearly love to see the story from the very begining first hand: Iluvatar creating the Gods and Angels, the Music of the Ainur, the many battles between the Valar and Melkor over Earth, the formation of Valinor and the birth of the Two Trees.
I would have those done in a very stylized anime format. I don't know enough of the terms to describe it - there would be some attributes of what they did in Samurai Jack and Clone Wars as far as composition, motion, and cinemotagraphy of it, but with a much more realistic and "mythic" style as far as the actual drawing goes. Maybe have the flashbacks as appropriate
The reason I want this done as stories to the Elves is that I think it's important that they feel like myths to our P.O.V. characters. The whole Simirillion is myth, but within it are the myths the main characters hold. Of course, to them, the myths are actually real, and conveying the feeling of true-myth within myth, more than anything else, will suffer outside of Tolkien's use of language and narrative exposition.
If done correctly, the anime flashbacks could be made so that they can also be viewed back to back without the intervening story.
quote:A lot of that you just can't leave out, not if you want to appreciate the depth.
This is why I think it's necessary. Everything builds. It's wonderfully connected, and the downfall of everyone who tries for the Silmirils (except one) can only be seen as Doom when it's part of everything.
quote:How do you see it working? A series of "Specials?" like mini made for tv movies? Or more of an episodic content, like a series of television?
I think two-hour episodes as a weekly series on HBO or showtime (highdef and letterbox, of course) would be the way to do it, with three-hour episodes for the particularly pivotal events.
It could be filmed along two or three different critical paths so that they could show it as 52 two-hour episodes with no breaks. For example, there's no reason not to film Beren and Luthien right from the start, if Fealgund's, Melian's, and Thingol's shooting schedules are coordinated.
Basically shoot 3 or four series on a group of shared sets.
At least, that's how it would be in my dreams. It would remake television. And, they wouldn't know the ratings before making it all, so we wouldn't be left in the lurch.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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I can't wait to see the Seven Gates of Gondolin , and the halls of Menegroth, and the Nauglamir, as worn by Luthien Tinuviel. Ahh it's all too exciting!
I wonder if they'd do a little expansion when they got to the Second Age, and could show the gardens of the Ent Wives in Rhovanion before the Dagor-lad. I really want to see Khazad-Dum before the orcs took it over.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
I love Tolkien as much as the next fan, but if the Silmarillion is ever turned into a half-successful mainstream film or serial, I'll buy everyone who's posted here a round of drinks.
Posts: 1762 | Registered: Apr 2006
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posted
I don't know how much this matters, but in Nightfall in Middle Earth Blind Guardian pronounced Silmarils the same way you do.
Posts: 2437 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
I think there was a relevant pronunciation guide in one of the RotK appendices.
Not that my friends are Tolkienesque language experts, but everyone I've met has pronounced Silmarillion the way Lyrhawn does.
Posts: 1762 | Registered: Apr 2006
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posted
The ONLY way for the Silmarillion to be turned into a movie is to have Peter Jackson shoot a bunch of scenes and then die so that Billy Jackson can cobble it all together with the help of some obscure film-maker, say...Thor, and have it be totally incomprehensible.
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
If it was done Anime style I would want Miyazaki to do it. The way he brings western stories into the medium is just awesome. The possibilities today are nothing short of astounding to be honest.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Bob_Scopatz: The ONLY way for the Silmarillion to be turned into a movie is to have Peter Jackson shoot a bunch of scenes and then die so that Billy Jackson can cobble it all together with the help of some obscure film-maker, say...Thor, and have it be totally incomprehensible.
LOL....but Guy Kay isn't a hack at all.
I don't know if I should feel geeky because I knew what you were talking about, or not geeky enough to post in this thread because I haven't worked out a shooting schedule for Dag's concept yet. Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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