The Hobbit

[Rhen]

I'm sorry but Peter Jackson destroyed The Lord of the Rings and everything I read indicates he plans to ruin The Hobbit as well.

Peter Jackson is not qualified to change Prof. Tolkien's story, no one is.

[Geekyfanboy]

I'm sorry but Peter Jackson destroyed The Lord of the Rings and everything I read indicates he plans to ruin The Hobbit as well.

Peter Jackson is not qualified to change Prof. Tolkien's story, no one is.

Well you have every right to your opinion but luckily the majority of fans feel otherwise.. LOVED Jackson's LOTR, loved the Tolkien books, two different slants on the same world.. loved both.

[Geekyfanboy]

Andy Serkis Will Direct Second Unit on The Hobbit
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
April 6, 2011

The Hollywood Reporter says that, in addition to again playing Gollum, Andy Serkis will serve as Second Unit Director on Peter Jackson's The Hobbit films.

"I think I understand Peter's sensibility and we have a common history of understanding Middle Earth," Serkis said, "A lot of the crew from 'The Lord of the Rings' was returning to work on 'The Hobbit.' There is really a sense of Peter wanting people around him who totally understand the material and the work ethic."

He added the learning curve is The Hobbit is being shot in 3D. He said the 3D would be used "dramatically, to give a point of view... In the same way Lord of the Rings was an interpretation of the book, The Hobbit is being treated the same way. It will be faithfully represented with a fresh interpretation."

About his character, Serkis said "He is very much a Gollum that people will recognize" and that he will be seen in his "truest form."

The two "Hobbit" films are scheduled to hit theaters in December of 2012 and December of 2013.

Read more: Andy Serkis Will Direct Second Unit on The Hobbit - ComingSoon.net http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=76037#ixzz1In8pvEms

[Bromptonboy]

Orlando Bloom confirms he's been in talks to return as Legolas in The Hobbit:
Question: You were a part of the hugely successful franchises for The Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean, and now those franchises are continuing on. What's it going to be like to see those movies, as an audience member?
ORLANDO BLOOM: Great! I've had such a great run with them.
Are you going to appear in The Hobbit?
BLOOM: Yeah, it's looking like that. I'm really excited about going to see Pete [Jackson] again. It's still a little up in the air, but the idea of working with Pete is fantastic. I can't actually really talk too much about it, at this point. I just was given the script to piece through, so it's quite exciting.
The whole script?
BLOOM: Yeah!
Will you have to do anything to physically prepare for that role again?
BLOOM: Are you telling me that I've put on weight, in the last 10 years? I just have to grow my hair really long and blonde again.
Isn't he a younger version?
BLOOM: Yeah.
Source: collider.com
Orlando Bloom (Legolas) confirms rumours is a post from: The Hobbit Movie

[Rhen]

I'm sorry but Peter Jackson destroyed The Lord of the Rings and everything I read indicates he plans to ruin The Hobbit as well.

Peter Jackson is not qualified to change Prof. Tolkien's story, no one is.

Well you have every right to your opinion but luckily the majority of fans feel otherwise.. LOVED Jackson's LOTR, loved the Tolkien books, two different slants on the same world.. loved both.

I cannot imagine why anyone would want a "slant" on John's work. Mainly when there was no reason to make a "slant" on his work.

None of the changes that Peter Jackson made to the story improved it in the slightest. His changes for the most part ruined major chars and the reasons and history for their motivations.

[KingIsaacLinksr]

I'm sorry but Peter Jackson destroyed The Lord of the Rings and everything I read indicates he plans to ruin The Hobbit as well.

Peter Jackson is not qualified to change Prof. Tolkien's story, no one is.

Well you have every right to your opinion but luckily the majority of fans feel otherwise.. LOVED Jackson's LOTR, loved the Tolkien books, two different slants on the same world.. loved both.

I cannot imagine why anyone would want a "slant" on John's work. Mainly when there was no reason to make a "slant" on his work.

None of the changes that Peter Jackson made to the story improved it in the slightest. His changes for the most part ruined major chars and the reasons and history for their motivations.

I must have misread the books then, seemed that the characters mostly stuck to their true intentions.  Realize also, there is no way, no way at all for anyone to put Tolkien's Book directly onto the big screen and make it work.  The Fellowship of the Ring book starts and goes way too slowly for the big screen.  I mean, it takes years (according to the book) for Frodo to even start his adventure.  Do you really think the audience in the theater wants to wait that long in terms of minutes?  No.  I sure wouldn't and I loved the trilogy of books.  The changes in 2nd movie are debatable, (the Elves coming, the trees not so much, Eomer coming to save the day, etc) but its still a solid movie and the 3rd one was close as well.  

It has been said many times.  The translation from the book to the screen always makes the book more desirable.  See Harry Potter, Eragon and any other book-to-movie translation.  To put all that information in a book onto the screen in 2-3 hours, just can't happen.  You have to cut things, you have to change a few things here and there.  You have to make it work for the media that it is being played on.  

I think what Jackson did with the LOTR trilogy is awesome.  He did what so few film makers have done and probably ever will.  Translated one of the most beloved fantasy books of our times into an epic masterpiece on the big screen.  Do I really need to mention the "films" of LOTR that have come out before?  They are...not that great.  

I sincerely doubt anyone will put out a LOTR movie better than Jackson's in our lifetime.  Simply because what he did was on such a level that is almost impossible to beat.  The next film(s) are more likely to be animated if anything else.  Just because the costs of this trilogy was so very high.  And they barely made their $$ back from what I've heard. 

King

[Meds]

Personaly I think Peter Jackson is the only director qualified to bring the Hobbit to the screen. You can never (NEVER) adapt a book 100% to screen, its imposible. And as for Jackson 'destroying the work' thats ridiculous, the people where i come from (which as I have said before is where Tolkien lived and came up with the shire) loved the films and are devoted to the point of obsession to the books.

[Bryancd]

I'm sorry but Peter Jackson destroyed The Lord of the Rings and everything I read indicates he plans to ruin The Hobbit as well.

Peter Jackson is not qualified to change Prof. Tolkien's story, no one is.

Yep, not with you in the least on that one. I thought it was an inspired job by all involved.

[Feathers]

Absolutely. This was the first time (for me) that a film ver came close enough to a book to be worth watching. So many others have been disappointments but these just worked.

Of course they were different and the original in my head is hopefully untarnished, bur that in no way made them. I'm really looking forward to The Hobbit.

[Rico]

I think both the Potter films and the LOTR films did justice to the books they came from.  As others have said, they are two different mediums and tweaks & changes have to happen.  I still enjoy the books, but I like the movies a lot too.

[Bromptonboy]

Veteran actor John Rhys-Davies believes his offer to make an appearance in The Hobbit may have caused Peter Jackson's stomach ulcer.
The 66-year-old Lord of the Rings star said he initially told Jackson he wouldn't be returning to Middle Earth as the dwarf Gimli, but later had a change of heart.
"The other day when I realised it was about to start a little shiver of regret went through me," he said.
"So I called Peter Jackson's assistant and said, 'If there was anything or even just an excuse to come down do let me know...'
"PJ promptly collapsed and was admitted to hospital, I never heard back.
"I didn't think I was that bad!"
The Welsh-born star, who has appeared in dozens of films, plays and TV shows is in Wellington this weekend for the Armageddon expo.
During a live chat with readers, he told Stuff.co.nz despite his love of his work and long film history, he had a life outside showbiz too.
"I'm a little bit more than a career. I enjoy flying. Strike that, chasing pretty girls," he said.
"I love projects. I love a good safari. Films are fun but life is much richer," he said.
Source: stuff.co.nz
Did Gimli cause Jackson's ulcer? is a post from: The Hobbit Movie

[Rhen]

Ok I just I am just going to have to prove my point on Jackson's changes. Those that have really read and studied the works do not see the movies and the books as the same. The basic story is the same but all the characters are by  no means the same. If you can stand there and look me in the eye and  say Aragorn, Gimli, Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin, Elrond, and Arwen are the same in the movie as in the books then you never read the books or read them once long ago and never revisited them.

Now I was one of the biggest potential fans of the movies before they ever came out. All the promises of keeping faithful to the books, all the work they did to maintain the languages, it all sounded great. And some of it is. I gave Peter Jackson every freedom in the world to compress time. I know you cannot fit all of LoTR into even three, three hour movies. It is not important to the movie goers to know that nearly twenty years passed between Bilbo leaving the Shire and Frodo leaving the Shire. It is not important to the movie goers to take a week to get from Bag End to Chrickhollow. So, Peter Jackson, feel free to compress time.

I think I knew it was all going to go sour at the beginning of Fellowship when Frodo rushed to Gandalf's wagon, jumped up in it and hugged him like a 10 year old would. Frodo was 33 years old (to us that's in his 20's). Frodo and Gandalf were never familiar enough at that point in time that they would hug (or ever for that matter). Small point but again, it's not something the book Frodo would have done.

One of the main things book fans have to roll their eyes at, is the disembodied Sauron eye. In interviews Peter Jackson describes Sauron as "a floating eyeball" and Gandalf in the movie says "he is not yet able to take physical form" . Tolkien was clear in the book as well as letters that Sauron had physical form. Gollum says "he has only four (fingers) on the black hand, but they are enough". Clearly Sauron is not a floating, laser beam shooting, fiery disembodied eye. It's really a shame too that he used the fiery floating eyeball on a tower at Barad-dur because the fiery eye was a nice effect for what Sauron might project into someone's mind and/or through the Palantiri.

To stress my point on character changes, however, I will focus mainly on Aragorn.

At the beginning of Fellowship, Aragorn was in his late 70's early 80's (I would need to look it up to get his exact age). This was middle age for his people at that time (Aragorn actually lived to be 210). The Aragorn of the movies was not the wise, worn, well traveled, "Kingly" older man of the books.

The book Aragorn lived his entire life knowing that someday he may be called to fulfill his destiny as the King of Gondor. Never for one second did he ever have doubts about this. Aragorn was the Chieftain of the Northern Dunedain (descendents of Elendil) and this tale was nearly a thousand years of destiny waiting for him. I am not exactly sure what the mammy-pamby Aragorn of the movies was waiting on. Maybe someone to kick him in his bottom and tell him to act like the heir of Isildur?

I will not go into the stupid and meaningless exchange between Aragorn and Elrond about Arwen. Aragorn and Arwen were betrothed many years before and Arwen was not intending to leave Middle-Earth nor was she dieing because of the evil of the ring.

One of the symbols of Aragorn's family and proof of his right to the Kingship of Gondor were the broken shards of Narsil. Narsil was the sword of Elendil, forged for him in the First Age over three thousand years before Fellowship. This was not a toy left about for ignorant passer bys to pick up, play with then drop on the floor. Aragorn would have slain Boromir (or anyone) for even touching the shards of Narsil. Proof of this is his statement when forced to leave it outside Theoden's hall. "Here I set it but I command you not to touch it, nor to permit any other to lay hand on it... Death shall come to any man that draws Elendil's sword save Elendil's heir." Does that sound like a man that would allow Boromir to play with it then drop it on the floor? Hell no.

The movie Aragorn is not the same man as in the books, period. So don't tell me they are.

I could write even more on just Aragorn or I could skip to the comic relief of Gimli and how stupid that was. Or maybe discuss how and why in the movie Glorfindel, a mighty Elf Lord, was replaced by Arwen who had no role in Lord of the Rings except to be named Aragorn's wife.

The movie has some wonderful visuals and under any other name would have been a good movie. Tolkien's work is always about story telling and Lord of the Rings was his story, not Peter Jackson's.

I will close with a quote from Mark Fisher that sums up the movies:

"Like The Fellowship of the Ring, Peter Jackson's The Two Towers is a tremendous movie - visually stunning and rightfully hailed as a true epic. What it very definitely is not, though, is any kind of direct translation of Tolkien's original book to the medium of film".

Don't ask me to be happy about Peter Jackson getting his hands on The Hobbit. I have already read about what kind of abortion that is going to be. He is even going so far as to add his own made up plot characters not in the book.

I give you back your thread and will be done with this subject.

[Feathers]

As previously stated in the thread, everyone's entitled to their opinion but, around here at least, we're not always so...forceful...in opposing the views of others ;)

Anyway, thanks for the detail, it makes for an interesting comparison.

[Bryancd]

Don't ask me to be happy about Peter Jackson getting his hands on The Hobbit. I have already read about what kind of abortion that is going to be. He is even going so far as to add his own made up plot characters not in the book.

I give you back your thread and will be done with this subject.

I don't recall anyone asking you to be happy with anything and thank you....for our thread back.

[Jobydrone]

I agree with the majority that loved the films, and I'm also in the minority that reads the novels on a very regular basis.  It used to be once a year since I was in high school, but has dwindled in recent years, mostly due to the decline in my reading anything at all in general.

Rhen, I appreciate the lengthy comparison you made in your recent post, and as one who shares your love of the original material can understand your feelings on the matter.  It's unfortunate that you seemed to feel attacked for your opinion as that very rarely happens around here.  I'd like to assure you that even though there are people everywhere that are quick to post snark or sarcasm, there are many more people, especially on these forums, that appreciate reasoned arguments, even on controversial subjects, when they are presented in a non hostile and non confrontational manner.