Hobbit Movie in Four Years?

Antarctic Lemur writes "At the Powerhouse Museum LOTR Exhibition in Sydney, Peter Jackson has said a film version of The Hobbit is three years away at least. Reasons for the delay include the sale of MGM, which part-owns the movie rights to The Hobbit, and Jackson's recently filed suit against New Line Cinema, the other part-owner. Jackson is currently filming King Kong at his new facility in Wellington, NZ. Slashdot readers will also be interested in the high security planned for King Kong's pre-release screenings."

Comments

Why so much security?

[tomjen]

I cannot understand why he wants so much security- those who want it for free, will get i sooner or later, and it is not like the storyline is new in any, according to TFA it is a 193* classic.

What about the Silmirilion?

[Bucaro]

Why would he focus on the Hobbit when the Silmirilion would make a much better movie. He could make a whole group of short films out of those stories, and then film the Hobbit as takes place after the Silmirilion. So if it is in chronological order, then I don't see his reasoning. The Hobbit may be more popular, but if he is going for quality of the films, the Silmirilion would beat it easily.

Re:What about the Silmirilion?

[beamdriver]

You could make a movie about Beren and Luthien, putting in just enough back story to make it comprehensible.

Does this remind anyone else of

[mschaffer]

Oliver Stone's JFK and Nixon movies?

Oliver Stone had so much conspiracy crap in the JFK movie that he needed to corroborate it with another movie a few years later with more of the same conspiracy crap.

I feel Jackson's bludgeoning of the LOTR series needs to be followed by an equally twisted version of the Hobbit stories to corroborate his misdeeds with the LOTR.

Mabye it's just me....

Hopefully done in an appropriate style

[quantax]

While this is not un-expected, I really do hope that Jackson adopts a style that suits The Hobbit as the atmosphere in 'Lord of the Ringss' is much more serious than that in The Hobbit. What is enjoyable about The Hobbit as a book is that it has a much more fairy tale, easy-going quality than the epic that is LOTR; it is well suited for children, (for whom Tolkien originally wrote for anyway, his own children specifically). It's only at the end of The Hobbit that you really begin to see the type of writing that is present in LOTR, and the final battle of The Hobbit is the most action-filled scene in the book. I just hope Jackson does not merely use the same exact atmosphere from LOTR 'because it works', and instead considers that The Hobbit is not merely a prelude to LOTR, but its own seperate story & unique tone.

Re:Hopefully done in an appropriate style

[Pop69]

He'll probably cut out the last few chapters and skip the last battle.

Worked for Lord of the Rings so why the hell not ?

Re:Hopefully done in an appropriate style

[j1m 5n0w]

I really do hope that Jackson adopts a style that suits The Hobbit as the atmosphere in 'Lord of the Ringss' is much more serious than that in The Hobbit.

To some degree I agree with you, the Hobbit was not as serious a book as the LOTR, and had less serious themes, so it need not be as serious in tone as the LOTR. However, I don't think it need have as light a tone as the book, either. Remeber that within the tale, the Hobbit was written by Bilbo (in the 3rd person, but not an omniscient 3rd person), who wrote in a lighter tone than Frodo, who wrote most of the LOTR. The actual events were not necessarily as light in tone as Bilbo would have recorded them. The unreliability of Bilbo as a narrator can be seen to some extent in "The Quest for Erebor" from unfinished tales:

But you know how things went, at any rate as Bilbo saw them. The story would sound rather different, if I (gandalf) had written it. For one thing he ded not realize at all how fatuous the dwarves thought him, nor how angry they were with me. Thorin was much more indignant and contemptuous than he perceived. He was indeed contemptuous from the beginning, and thought then that I had planned the whole affair simply so as to make a mock of him. It was only the map and the key that saved the situation.

Also, later in life, Tolkien did not entirely approve of the way in which he had written the Hobbit:

When I published The Hobbit - hurriedly and without due consideration - I was still influenced by the convention that 'fairy-stories' are naturally directed to children (with or without the silly added waggery 'from seven to seventy'). And I had children of my own. But the desire to address children, as such, had nothing to do with the story as such in itself or the urge to write it. But it had some unfortunate effects on the mode of expression and narrative method, which if I had not been rushed, I should have corrected. Intelligent children of good taste (of which there seem quite a number) have always, I am glad to say, singled out the points in manner where the address is to children as blemishes. (draft of a letter to Walter Allen, April 1959, from _The_Letters_of_JRR_Tolkien)

I think it would be possible to make the movie in a more serious tone than the book without ruining the atmosphere or the story. I would be more concerned with any modifications that change the nature of Tolkien's characters (like they did to Faramir) or incompatibilities introduced between the events that occurred in the book and the events that occurred in the movie. Being given two irreconcilable accounts of a particular story is a quick way to destroy the imagined world a story tries so hard to create.

They do have an opportunity to introduce additional scenes, for instance from "the quest for Erebor" from Unfinished_Tales, or a brief encounter with a young Aragorn (if he was alive and in Rivendell at the time, I haven't checked) without doing any harm to the tale.

You laugh

[jfengel]

A friend of mine really did put off suicide until she knew how Star Wars turned out (we're talking about the original three movies.)

Boy, did Jedi piss her off.

Re:Why must it be Peter Jackson?

[snuf23]

"those were bad movies in my opinion"

The key phrase here is "in my opinion". Jackson had to make a lot of compromises to make this series successful. You may think that "it would take an active effort to make it bad to not make money" but the fantasy genre has always been a notably poor performer at the box office. In order to succeed financially Jackson had to create a movie which would appeal not to geeks, D&D players, fans of the LOTR books, but a movie with universal appeal.

The result is a series of movies that purists are always going to have problems with. Personally I was amazed by how people who usually were more interested in seeing the latest Vin Diesal action flick were drawn in to the story. The LOTR movies achieved a huge level of mainstream popularity.
I also think that it's worth noting that it would have been hard to find a director willing to commit to such a harsh production schedule and willing to immerse himself in the source material. Jackson's dedication was impressive and I loved being able to anticipate each movie one year after another rather than waiting two or three years between them.

I also applaud the creation of the extended versions which are really a first in the DVD business, seeing as so much additional footage was taking through full production and added in.
No he's not the best director ever, but he succeeded in a difficult task and the result however you may wish to discredit it is a hell of a lot better than those cartoons with the toad faced hobbits.

Hobbit Movie in Four Years?

[kenchie]

Personally I'd rather see Terry Gilliam make it - that would make for a far more interesting film!