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MGM to Produce "The Hobbit"
pawnder writes, "According to two sources, MGM and New Line are partnering to produce 'The Hobbit' as part of MGM's new plans to create blockbuster movies again. From theonering.net: 'Over the next few years, MGM is planning to release half a dozen films, some in the $150 million to $200 million-plus range. Studio is ready to unveil such high-profile projects as "Terminator 4"; one or two installments of "The Hobbit," which Sloan hopes will be directed by Peter Jackson; and a sequel to "The Thomas Crown Affair" with Pierce Brosnan.'" With or without Tom singing, is what I want to know.
NO MORE SEQUELS!!!
I think the invisible hand of the market has its middle finger extended
--A wise old fart named SC0RN
Few are those who will understand the reference to Tom singing without having read the Hobbit and Tolkien's related works. As is often the sad truth about interpretations of books, sections get omitted for brevity and plot considerations. Unfortunately, this has a tendency to remove some of the depth present in the original work. Such is the case with Tom; this is why his name is unfamiliar whereas Bilbo et al are near universal in recognition.
Here are two rather good sources of information about Tom:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Bombadil
http://www.cas.unt.edu/~hargrove/bombadil.html
I really think that the movie industry is out of touch with this one. The more spent on a movie, the bigger the risk is, since there is more up-front cost to recupe. So rather than going for new unproven ideas, they rehash the same ideas, and do sequils.
The problem is that the movie industry has grown so bloated that the idea of tightening budgest, and making movies on the cheap that don't need to grose as much to be profitable isn't even considered, instead they simply throw more money at the problem.
If it's dead, you killed it.
They've already done it.
Um, how is Pixar's stuff the same movie again? What exactly do Monster's Inc. and The Incredibles have in common? Or are you saying that all family friendly CGI cartoons where the good guys win are the same movie?
Holm would do fine as the Ring had caused the aging process to slow. Gandalf was suprised at the beginning of Fellowship when he told Bilbo that he hadn't aged a day, so the stage is already set.
Also Elrond of Rivendell could still be done by Hugo Weaving.
If you could get Ian Holm, Hugo Weaving, Ian Mckellen, and Peter Jackson all together again, The Hobbit would have to be excellent.
The battle of the 5 armies could be done just as well as Pellenor Fields or the Black Gate, maybe better as the CGI will have progressed through a few more years of technological enhancements.
I'm psyched.
"If they have both, tell them we use Linux. And if they have that, tell them the computers are down." -Dave Chapelle
Um, how is Pixar's stuff the same movie again?
He's just bashing $POPULAR_THING to define himself by rejecting what is popular.
It's much easier to define yourself by rejecting things other accomplished than by accomplishing things yourself, you know.
You can't take the sky from me...
I very much agree with scrameustache. Also, the idea of a "female, SEXY terminator" is LAME right off the bat. Terminator 2 was one of the best action films of all time, and one major reason for that was Linda Hamilton. She did all the heavy weight acting. 3 had simply no business being made. And the fact that they're THINKING of making a 4 is just outrageous and I hope that moviegoers simply give up on movies all together and strangle the industry, like what's happening in the music industry. you can fool some people sometimes, but you can't fool all the people all the time. -keith
Bilbo stopped aging due to the effects of the ring. So they only need to make him look as young as he did in the shire.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Compare: Peter Jackson is apparently producing a remake of The Dambusters. "With or without Tom singing, is what I want to know."
It's analogous to asking if King Kong falls off the Empire State Building in PJ's version or gets dragged off it by a Warg.
Informative? Yes, on Tom not being in the Hobbit. A resounding "No!" on Tom as lame (of course, I think I'm eating troll bait here).
... almost as an afterthought.
As I explained above, Tom was not necessary to the telling of LoTR & Jackson can be forgiven for not including him. He is irreplaceable to the cosmology -- that primary effort of Tolkien wherein is found LoTR, The Hobbit, et al.
Such statements as you make reveal that you assume LoTR was Tolkien's main effort. It was not. He wanted, and indeed first did, create a cosmology wherein he placed a history and languages and then, oh yes, he decided it needed some stories and thus you have LoTR, The Hobbit, etc.,
This is why Tolkien is so rich and so landmark and arguably the creator of an entire genre -- modern fantasy (yes, yes, my English prof & I argued on that point, but he was responsible, if nothing else, for publishing fantasy abroad and birthing the modern form of it).
The main reason LoTR has such staying power is the layers underneath, and these layers are language built on history built on cosmology (and mythos). Lucky you are if you read other fantasy writer's beforehand. I messed up and made Tolkien my 2nd journey into fantasy as a teenager (I'm now near 40). I cannot enjoy any other fantasy now. It all goes back to Tolkien & so do I (ok, ok, Jordan is good stuff too)....
As one friend told me, "I really messed up and read Tolkien first, now I can't stand those other books."
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
The greatest thing about Jackson's LOTR trilogy is the amount of respect he & everyone else involved had for Tolkien's original text.
No!
Not to be a stick in the mud about this but Jackson seems to have gone out of his way to take some of Tolkien's original work and warp it. Things that he could have easily have left as written were rewritten to suit his "needs" but not the needs of the story line.
I can understand why some material had to be cut, i'm not complaining about that. But what was up with the reaction of the treants? Was this a lame attempt at comedy? Why didn't Jackson let Gollum die in the end dancing with the ring as Tolkien had wrote it? It seemed so much more classic and it had the taste of a good moral. Instead Gollum has to be given a shove instead of us being able to take home the original spirit of Gollum and the ring essentially destroying each other... It just seems like such a classic ending.
This isn't to say that I think that Jackson did a bad job with the pictures but I don't see some of it as respectful. As I said, modifying a work because of limited resources is one thing, changing things for no obvious purpose is downright disrespectful.
As for The Hobbit... It'd be great to see Ian Holm as Bilbo. He did fantastic work in the original films and I think he's a fine actor. I'm just not sure about his overall health in taking on the part of such a young role.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
That film would have sucked a whole lot less if those involved had given a pair of fetid dingo's kidneys about Douglas' original writings.
Including, perhaps, Douglas Adams himself? He was quite pleased with how no two versions of his work were ever consistent; with the radio programs, books, and TV series all having unique quirks, making the movie match any of them just wouldn't quite ring true. He was fairly heavily involved in production, up until his untimely death. I'll agree it wasn't his best work, but I think his attitude on deadlines was a liability to the end result.
But yes, Jackson will be the best choice for the Hobbit. The fun question is, will the studios ever get daft enough to want to take the Silmarillion to the silver screen?
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
You're worried about Gollum, a CGI character? Why on earth is that? If you are trying to be funny then I'm sorry.
If you paid much attention Gollum looks significantly different in each of the three LOTR films anyhow. He'll probably look different yet again in the Hobbit movies.
Lasers Controlled Games!
It's interesting to note in this context that it wasn't the Valar that beat them. When the Númenóreans chose to make war on Valinor and claim it for their own the Valar set aside their delegated authority and called upon Eru (Ilúvatar), the Supreme Being. The result of their appeal was that the rebelleous Númenóreans were defeated at sea, Númenor itself was cast into the sea and thus destroyed, and the shape of the world itself was changed ("bent") such that mortal beings (non-Exiles) could no longer reach Valinor. Only the exiled High Elves were granted special dispensation to travel the "straight path" from the Havens back to the Undying Lands and thus leave Middle-Earth forever.
The full account can be found in The Silmarillion (specifically the Akallabêth) along with several other intriguing stories of the Elder Days.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
In the movie, Aragorn randomly hands the four hobbits four short swords right before the Nazgul attack at Amon Sul. He doesn't explain where they come from nor how he came to have them. Later, Merry uses his to stab the Witch King in the back of the knee, which despite the admonition "no man can slay me," seems to be pretty effective at hurting him and rendering him vulnerable to Eowyn's coup de grace. But nobody knows why.
I always enjoyed this type of thing in books. Not only does the Witch King unknowingly face a woman rendering the prophecy in doubt but Merry happens to have a weapon specifically spelled to hurt him that was only gained through chance. Mysterious as he is, perhaps that was Tom's way of indirectly aiding the war.
What really bothered me about this in the movie was that they could very well have had Aragorn give the swords to the hobbits and in passing give mention to their origin (or someone else could have noticed the odd weapons and told them later if time was an issue) replacing the similar book scene with Tom.
Of course, I think Frodo's movie addition in Osgiliath among other unneeded additions should have been left out in favor of the Scouring of the Shire. I have never found a satisfactory explanation for that. I was rather looking forward to fierce hobbits and in the case of Merry and Pippin contrastingly tall ones. As it was, the only lasting impressions were on Frodo and Sam.