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Peter Jackson Will Not Be Making The Hobbit
An anonymous reader writes "Due to legal wranglings with New Line Cinema over accounting issues for Lord Of The Rings, Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh will not be involved in the making of either The Hobbit or the planned Lord of the Rings prequel." I suppose there is still a chance that Jackson & Co. could end up involved, but at this point that looks unlikely.
I am confused - The Hobbit is the LOTR prequel - Are they doing two prequels?
"The Hobbit or the planned Lord of the Rings prequel"
Sorry?? The Hobbit *IS* the prequel to LOTR. Please tell they're not going
to get some Hollywood paint-by-numbers screenwriters commitee to butcher Tolkeins
ideas and come up with some Phantom Menace debarcle? Will they have Gollum with
dreadlocks and speaking in some fau-jamaican patois and Gandalf as some all-american
apple pie and freckles kid who Has Yet To Discover His Powers blah blah etc etc.
Gah!
So filming The Hobbit might be a good idea, as the book has a lightness of touch that most of LotR sadly needs. But getting Peter Jackson to do it would remove any chance of said lightness of touch anyway.
.... WTF? What do you mean "The Hobbit or the planned Lord of the Rings prequel"? Aren't the two the same thing? Or is this an allusion to The Silmarillion? Alas, the article is slashed, so I can't find out!!!
"Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised."
-Marilyn Manson
Next up: Jim Henson's Hobbit Babies.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
He got off to a good start, but the third installment was painful to watch. I guess it might not be all of Jackson's fault. I just hope that the same actors are not involved. Way too much homo-eroticism going on between Sean Astin and Elijah Wood.
Lack of Jackson in hobbit will cost more than the gain you will make wrangling over the accounting issues.
Read radical news here
After I RTFA, it looks like they're trying to spank Jackson for calling them on their accounting practices. He wouldn't settle on their terms, so "his services will not be needed".
The guy made them a bleepin' 10^9 bucks with the trilogy, and they assume they can slot in any schmoe that can aim a camera? And I suppose they're too damn cheap to go back to WETA Digital for the FX too, they'll get some folks from over at Sci-Fi Channel and it'll be just fine.
At this point we can only hope the project collapses from being nickle-and-dimed to extinction.
Given the size of the book it was inveitable he'd have to emit large chunks of it to fit it into any reasonble time. As it was its , what , 9 hours for all 3 films? Personally I think it was a mistake to miss out the Tom Bombadil section in Fellowship but I guess if he'd left that in he'd have had to have cut out something else perhaps more crucial to the story. Who knows.
Oh, come now, the movies weren't that bad. In fact I quite enjoyed them. Yes, they weren't true to the books (I especially disliked the way Aragorn was a 'reluctant hero' rather than 'wants-to-be-king-so-he-can-marry-his-woman', and pretty much the whole Aragorn/Arwen relationship), but overall the movies -- as movies -- were damn good.
"Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised."
-Marilyn Manson
For all the negative comments towards Jackson's work on the trilogy, the fact that they somehow have the idea that a prequel and "the Hobbit" are two seperate things bodes very ill for the "It absolutely must be exactly like the book" nerds.
On the plus side, maybe some of us will appreciate Jackson more when we see how Hollywood botches these films. That or I'll eat my words.
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!
In other news:
The tides turn due to ... the tidal effect!
I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
I was just re-reading bits of William Goldman's "Which Lie Did I Tell?", and there's a particularly interesting section, dealing with adaptations. And one of the first things he talks about is that, when adapting, you can't keep everything, sometimes, you barely keep anything, the trick being to, as he says, keep the "spine" of the story and reject anything that won't work on the screen, because books and movies ARE TWO DIFFERENT FUCKING MEDIUMS.
I, too have loved the LOTR books since I was a kid, and I too would have loved to have seen Bombadil in the movies, etc., but, let's be honest: Jackson & Co. made an absolutely amazing film trilogy, by ANY standard you care to measure, so can we fucking end shit like "hideous mess" already? It's not true, you know it's not true, so please just fucking leave it, alright? It makes you sound like you live in your mom's basement, and just annoys the rest of us.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Peter Jackson has amply demonstrated that his skills match up to Tolkien's complexity. There were others who tried LOTR and the Hobbit before, and made a mess of it. So if Peter Jackson is not involved with the Hobbit or a LOTR prequel, then Newline should save its money because I'm just not interested.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Gandalf the brown (named because of his cloak) will guide young Baggins in the way of the Foot in his quest against the evil dragon master. Along the way Bilbo becomes an expert at fighting with light staffs. Gollum is going to become very ashmatic and have a penchant for black outfits with funny helmets. The 13 dwarves, or dwarf army as they will be referred to dont really feature.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Totally agree, however:
I am, however, horrified at the thought of a "prequel" to LOTR, no matter who ends up directing/producing it.
If they mean to give the Silmarillion to someone with a talent for something other than eating, then I'd be interested.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
And given the even more hideous mess he made of King Kong, it is obvious that the success of LotR went to Jackson's head and Ghod alone knows what abomination he would have produced if he did make the Hobbit. It would probably have been a seven hour long movie crammed to the gills with unnecessary whiz-bang CGI effects and 20 extra sub-plots that lead absolutely nowhere... But it sure would look pretty, and that's what counts these days, right?
Given the hideous mess he made of LOTR, I'm relatively pleased that he won't be butchering The Hobbit in the same way.
:)
I hear it's Uwe Boll doing The Hobbit, so it definitely won't be butchered in the same way.
Man I hope they don't try to tackle that one... Its not a novel, but a book of history. To cover it properly one needs a three week mini-series run on the history channel. (Please? With sugar on top? I put up with a week of fictional bible history, give me my Tolkein...)
3 degrees of separation from Vladimir Putin
"A literary, dramatic, or cinematic work whose narrative takes place before that of a preexisting work or a sequel."
The Hobbit is and never was considered a prequel.. It was simply a book written prior to the triology.. But I will agree that a prequel written at this day and age, would be absolutely horrible..
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
It's not really slashdotted. The source was unavailable when the news was posted on the http://hsx.com/ movie forum http://talk.hsx.com/films/post.htm?1119234232.kcpe lot before midnight EST.
To be fair, tom bombadil adds nothing to the main lord of the rings plot; even the bbc radio version that comes on 13/14 cds (I think it's about 20 hours long) still misses out bombadil.
Now nothing stands in the way of the ideal Hollywood version, with Paris Hilton as Galadriel, Ben Affleck as Gandalf, Jack Black as Sam Gamgee, and Keanu Reeve as Frodo ("The ring... Whoa!")
Where were you when the voynix came?
I was actually going to post my thoughts, but since this article is slashdotted, and I still have the window open, i'll post my thoughts + the article text below them, for anyone who missed the article due to /.ing
...Obviously there are two sides to every story, but he really digs into some of the gritty details (naming names, etc), and the story he tells sounds like typical hollywood modus operandi to me. He is rather scant on details regarding the "accounting" irregularities, but nontheless he still vents pretty heavily in other regards.
WOW. Let me say, respect to Peter Jackson for telling it as he sees it.
I am a filmmaker myself, and have to deal with a variety of industry business annoyances on a daily basis, and I can sympathize with his frustration. This is an industry predicated upon many absurd practices. My assumption is that Peter Jackson must be pretty ticked off to be willing to vent in public like this.
Unfortunately for him, last we heard, he's hit a snag with HALO as well. Although general slashdot community concensus seemed to be "oh gawd, not another video game movie," so perhaps that snag is a bit less depressing than The Hobbit troubles.
11-19-06 Latest News
Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh Talk THE HOBBIT
Xoanon @ 10:32 pm EST
Moments ago we received this email from Peter Jackson and his crew down in New Zealand, take a look...
Dear One Ringers,
As you know, there's been a lot of speculation about The Hobbit. We are often asked about when or if this film will ever be made. We have always responded that we would be very interested in making the film - if it were offered to us to make.
You may also be aware that Wingnut Films has bought a lawsuit against New Line, which resulted from an audit we undertook on part of the income of The Fellowship of the Ring. Our attitude with the lawsuit has always been that since it's largely based on differences of opinion about certain accounting practices, we would like an independent body - whether it be a judge, a jury, or a mediator, to look at the issues and make an unbiased ruling. We are happy to accept whatever that ruling is. In our minds, it's not much more complex than that and that's exactly why film contracts include right-to-audit clauses.
However, we have always said that we do not want to discuss The Hobbit with New Line until the lawsuit over New Line's accounting practices is resolved. This is simple common sense - you cannot be in a relationship with a film studio, making a complex, expensive movie and dealing with all the pressures and responsibilities that come with the job, while an unresolved lawsuit exists.
We have also said that we do not want to tie settlement of the lawsuit to making a film of The Hobbit. In other words, we would have to agree to make The Hobbit as a condition of New Line settling our lawsuit. In our minds this is not the right reason to make a film and if a film of The Hobbit went ahead on this basis, it would be doomed. Deciding to make a movie should come from the heart - it's not a matter of business convenience. When you agree to make a film, you're taking on a massive commitment and you need to be driven by an absolute passion to want to get the story on screen. It's that passion, and passion alone, that gives the movie its imagination and heart. To us it is not a cold-blooded business decision.
A couple of months ago there was a flurry of Hobbit news in the media. MGM, who own a portion of the film rights in The Hobbit, publicly stated they wanted to make the film with us. It was a little weird at the time because nobody from New Line had ever spoken to us about making a film of The Hobbit and the media had some fun with that. Within a week or two of those stories, our Manager Ken Kamins got a call from the co-president of New Line Cinema, Michael Lynne, who in essence told Ken that the way to se
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
Ahem.
b cf65578fe57/index.html
http://mirrordot.org/stories/110120dd1cb460ef4010
Especially useful seeing the article is all on the one page.
...as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror, bla, bla bla.
v.m
I have a "Zero Policy" tolerance.
*/
Tolkien specifically revised "The Hobbit" after he wrote much of "The Lord of the Rings" in order to make it fit better.
Where were you when the voynix came?
IIRC, they drank something at Tom's (or maybe it was with the Ents) that made them grow taller, which factored in to the Scouring of the Shire. Of course, without the Scouring, there really was no need for Tom. I, for one, didn't really care for all of Tom's singing, anyway.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Get back to RST, Randal.
Oh yeah great
this is going to be a musical if they really follow the book's storyline. By cutting him off they sealed their own fate, the movie will suck if it's another than Peter jackson. We will see actors that dont fit the profile.
maybe they'll get Michael bay on the project, now that would be a serious challenge for him to get a US flag in there somewhere.
Hideous mess is your meaning, not a fact. I was very very pleased with the LOTR.. so while for you the article might be good news, for me it is bad. I'd have loved Peter Jackson to make the hobbit. I wonder if with 'accounting issue' they mean http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting Whenever someone brings up the argument that we're stealing from artists when we dload a movie or music, and we kill all music, I hum a little hollywood-accouting tune in my head.
If you really understood the book, you'd know how Tom Bombadil's song explains everything.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
How about not making the Hobbit at all? I loved the Lord Of The Rings movies, but for all the good in them, they ruined the books forever for me. When I read them now, I can't help but imagine Frodo being Elijah Wood and Gandalf being Ian McKellen. Every picture that had been formed in my mind by reading the books has been wiped over and replaced with Peter Jackson's vision, and that sucks.
The perfect sig is a lot like silence, only louder
I'm shocked! Shocked I tell you. I mean who ever heard of a movie studio cheating someone out of their money? Really, it goes to show you, it doesn't matter who you are, the movie studio will try anything to keep their money.
Like the RIAA's accounting, movie studio accounting is even more devious. Whenever someone tries to get paid a "part of the profits" for which they deserve, the studios always pull the "but according to our estimates, we didn't make money on that film." That's why there will never be a Forrest Gump sequel. The author, Winston Groom, was supposed to get a part of the profits. But according to Paramount, Forrest Gump didn't make any profits despite its $600+ million in sales. So he refuses to let the sequel become a movie.
Another example is the dispute between Art Buchwald and Paramount. Buchwald pitched a script to Paramount about a movie in which Eddie Murphy playing an African king comes to America to look for a bride. After some development with director John Landis, it was abandoned. Paramount later produced a movie called Coming to America about an African prince played by Eddie Murphy that comes to America to find a bride. John Landis directed the movie. But according to Paramount, they were different movies completely. When Buchwald won his lawsuit, Paramount then argued the movie that though it had $350 million in sales, it made no profit according to their accounting. The court found their accounting "unconscionable". Rather than have the court delve into their accounting practices in detail, Paramount settled.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
No, put "The Silmarillion" on Animal Planet, with Nigel Marven traveling back in time to capture and tangle with dragons and trolls.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Cue sound of orcs cackling wildly.
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
Woah, a little less of the f**king and maybe people will pay attention to the point you are making.
-Jar.
Together, We Can Make Slashdot Better. I Do NOT Mod ACs. - Check Me Out
Looks like he'll have loads of time to continue working on the Halo movie instead!
Summation 2
The only thing worse would be the news of George Lucas being announced as the new writer/director of the films. ...Mesa wants my precious.
Given the size of the book it was inveitable he'd have to emit large chunks of it
Sorry, I don't mean to be a spelling nazi, but I just can't get over the mental image of Peter Jackson emitting large chunks of books. My day is ruined.
sudo ergo sum
Sorry, Mom!
come on...from a stylistic point of view, the books are barely even acceptable. The only thing that redeems the books is the fact that Tolkein manages to construct a rather remarkable (faux) history, which he then invites his readers to inhabit. The books are not gospel. They have no particular aesthetic value in and of themselves. Their value is derrived entirely from their content. As such, I would say that any movie adaptation of the Lord of the Rings has about the same responsibility to the original as would any historical fiction. The task, which I think Peter Jackson did admirably, is to construct a compelling narrative from the mounds of useless facts filling the books.
Is George Lucas directing?
So, after reading the novel, which "closure point" would that be?
The proper plural of medium is media. Duh.
Great, you have an opinion. I'm glad. Unfortunately, it's only that, so quit trying to force an objective standard on a subjective medium. If you enjoyed the LOTR movies, we're all happy for you. Some of us didn't. Some of us are of the opinion that Jackson changed the spine of the story when he changed characters, i.e. Faramir (shows his quality by taking the ring to Osgiliath, yeah right), Theoden (let's make him a pansy so Aragorn looks better), and even Frodo (in Return of the King he never distrusts Sam).
Some of us are of the opinion that the first movie was actually great and Tom Bombadil did need to be cut out. Some of us enjoyed parts of the movies, but overall were upset by the changes we thought were unneccessary.
But in any case, it's our opinion, you have yours, and there's no need to use uncivilized language.
Yes, you can dance to Radiohead.
And King Kong was unwatchably, laughably bad.
Is a Director judged on their latter movies? Because if they are, I wouldn't want Jackson to do The Hobbit.[% slash_sig_val.text %]
Nasty Hobbitses, nowsa yousa gonna die.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
How do we protest against this?
I for one cannot bear to watch this happen to Tolkien's work without at least attempting to do something.. This is the hour of the sane-folk, when they arise from their quiet fields, to shake the towers and counsels of the Great.
What? I like dragons
In all honesty, though, I'd rather the movie not be made at all then to see it made poorly. But, sadly, the quality of the storytelling doesn't enter into it when the moguls see dollar signs
psmylie's dictionary: Godzillion (noun) Any number large enough to destroy Tokyo
Sorry, my friend. But you are 100% wrong here.
The story is the story. And that's that. JRR wrote it in a particular way to tell a particular story. If you make changes, you change the story. It is no longer JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. It becomes Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings - a different story.
Omissions, like Bombadil, I can excuse. It's not a change per se, it's an omission. In your mind's eye you can still imagine that they met Tom, they just didn't have enough time to show you the meeting. But the changes. Inexcusable.
If you'd like an example of why people get so torqued over this, consider Frodo. His relationship with Sam and with Gollum as they traveled. In the books it was Frodo, his trusted servant Sam, and Gollum whom he never really trusted. "His promise will hold him for a bit, Sam". That kind of a thing.
But making Frodo take the word of Gollum over that of Sam when they were at Minas Morgul? Exactly *how* does that help convey JRR's ideas better because it's on film???
Short answer is - it does not. It is a change that Peter Jackson thought would be better than the original story, or make for more exciting film, or whatever. And no offense PJ if you're reading this - but I seriously doubt you're a better story teller than the Old Professor.
Omit things due to time, fine. Add a few cute scenes that don't change the story (like the wagon ride with Frodo and Gandalf at the beginning of Fellowship) - fine.
Make a change because you think you're a better storyteller than JRR - no way. If you think you're a better storyteller then write your own damn stories and make movies of those.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
No, the book was not a musical. The animated version that was made was a musical, complete with the gayest sounding singer you have ever heard. Peter Jackson's take on LOTR had some nice visuals and some good action scenes - but I don't really think he is the "end all be all" Tolkein expert by any means...
"But this one goes to 11!"
Winston Groom, the author of the "Forrest Gump" novel, ran into a similar situation, handled similarly. Since the studio, as is standard, showed that the movie made no profit, Groom has refused to sell the rights to the sequel novel, Gump & Co. He says that he couldn't in good conscience sell the rights to the sequel to a commercial failure.
If MGM uses the same special effects house WETA, then there could be some continuity. WETA was essentially a child of LOTR, though they do lots of other movies now.
Given the choice, I'll take Jackson's "butchering" over that animated crap we had before. I agree with the guy that talked about "Which Lie Did I Tell?" (several posts ^^^ by now). Jackson's movies are visually appealing, entertaining, and true enough to the story that I didn't take a lot of issue with them. The main fault in my mind was the Arwen love story part. The rest of it was acceptable/tolerable deviations.
Layne
>>but overall were upset by the changes we thought were unneccessary Is that the royal "we" since you're being a Tolkein queen? :D
The box said I needed Windows XP or better so I bought a Mac.
I guess lawyers really are the foul mouthpieces of Sauron.
Only his tendency toward a dazed stupor prevented him from screaming aloud.
"Jackson & Co. made an absolutely amazing film trilogy, by ANY standard you care to measure, so can we fucking end shit like "hideous mess" already? It's not true, you know it's not true,"
See, the thing about art is that it is objective by nature. So the film you thoughT was brilliant by YOUR standards may be viewed is a "hideous mess" by someone ELSE'S standards. And you know what? You are both right. Other's opinions are of no less or more value than yours. If you have the right to call it great, he has the right to call it shit. If you are "annoyed" by someone else's opinions of art, you should not discuss art with others.
"But this one goes to 11!"
But just like PJ and The Hobbit, keep the hope alive buddy, keep the hope alive.
"Unheard of means only it's undreamed of yet,
Impossible means not yet done." ~~ Julia Ecklar
The level of myopia that some people can present is just staggering. You take a guy who does for you what for years everyone in Hollywood thought was impossible: Make a LOTR movie that is not only successful, but well received by the fans. And those two statements are of course generous; LOTR literally made everyone involved hundreds of millions of dollars, and is now considered one of the greatest achievements in film history. Not only that, the man has given you a cash cow that is already being milked for millions more, and will be continue to be milked for years to come. And you're taking him to task because of accounting issues?
What kind of accounting sin could they have possibly committed that would cause you to not want this man to give you The Hobbit? I get this probably cost someone a lot of money, but come on, unless it was a straight $50 million embezzlement, let the man work.
You're joking, right? Tolkien is the master of wasting pages. The entire fucking flight from the Shire took roughly 150 pages and consisted of hobbits walking, cowering in the bushes because the Nazgul came by, and pissing themselves in fear. 150 pages and there was no plot development, no character development, no action, or anything else of substance!
Someone needed to take a red pen to that bloated manuscript. Jackson at least did a good job of it. He may have irritated obsessive purists, but he took what was a decent story mired in excessive ink struggling along at a wretched pace, and turned it into a well-paced story accessible even to those who don't have the patience to read page after page of nothing.
He means that in a few years Steve Balmer is saying goodbye, Hoffa style
Redundancy is good And also good.
LOTR will remain popular as a rental with future generations, will remain at the head of Peter Jackson's CV, and will be the movie that inspires many big-screen TV purchses for years to come.
The Hobbit and The Sillymarilly--Silamarilia--The Three Rocks will go straight to DVD, will not make a name for the director, possibly the same one responsible for such cinematic triumphs as "Rob Schneider Doo-pa Doo-pa Doo", and will be responsible for many Blockbuster membership cancellations because "they just don't make anything worth watching anymore."
New Line will write off the loss, and make the excuse that the movies were doomed from the start because those "lesser stories" didn't compare to LOTR anyway.
Find environmentally and socially responsible products on http://buy-right.net
I'm not annoyed at somebody else's opinion of art, I'm just tired of the whiny LOTR fanboys going on about how Jackson raped their childhood. If the movies were mostly shit, ala SW prequels, I wouldn't really care all that much, but considering how decent they are, all this hyperbole about "hideous mess" and the like just finally got to me. Hey, if you don't want an earful, qualify your statements, don't just throw useless pejorative terms.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Errr.... the standard against which I measure is my own opinion. In my opinion, he made a hideous mess. So you disagreed. Good for you. Your welcome to your opinion, just as I have mine. There's no universal law that says we should all have the same opinion. Hell, I even liked the first film. But "The two towers" was a disaster that threw away any good will he might have earned and yes, earned the description "hideous mess".
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
WTF? THe Hobbit is kids' book. JRRT's kids, in fact. There's no 'primarily' about it. For a bunch of geeks and nerds, I'm surprised so many of you fail to grok what Tolkien was doing with these books.
1. The Hobbit is a fairy tale. It grew out of bedtime stories Tolkien told his kids. It's supposed to be easy to digest--you know, for kids!
2. To the rocket scientist above who complained the LoTR books have too much geographic description, do you also complain when cook books spend too much time describing food? LoTR is a travelogue. The various travels in the plot are just devices on which to hang exposition on the geography, history, cultures of Middle Earth.
3. The Silmarillion is a text book. Do you think it's insightful or interesting to post about how boring you found your high school history books? I don't. And I don't fancy folks who feel the need to post the same about The Silmarillion. You're not adding anything to the conversation. The only difference between The Silmarillion and your high school history books is, one is completely fiction and the other is just mostly fiction.
Really?
Knowing Hollywood they will probably get someone who has never even read the books.
And they will use Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie to draw in the crowds.
Yeah, profanity is nothing but a crutch for inarticulate motherfuckers!
Interesting letter, especially with names being named, phonecalls being mentioned etc.
Good (??) way of putting a gun against the head of New Line?
Proven director, who made 3 sell out episodes in the franchise is unable to make what is likely to become another hit because New Line is too shitty to fess up that they hid serious amounts of sales under the table. Will go down great with investors in the new project looking for a bit of ROI.
On the other hand, cheap no-name director, makes lousy low budget Hobbit movie, which will still more than break even as fans will queue up anyway. Profits might even be better that way.
Peter Jackson is a little bit expensive... (he could have made the King Kong movie for a LOT less by cutting the cheap Jurrasic Park rubbish, and done me a favor by changing the ending to keep me interested during that long haul flight during which I was forced to watch it)
Ok, mod this as flamebait... its getting late.
He could have at least cut out a hour of discussion over the 3 movies about reforging a sword that Aragorn had at the start of the first book. And don't even get me started about the Paths of the Dead.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
It is also an interesting commentary on our society today. At the time, nobody saw this as homo-eroticism, guys were allowed to be friends and be close without being considered gay.
Interesting indeed.
In the "bad" old days, the taboo against male-male sexual relations made a safe space for male-male close friendship.
It was precisely because it was unthinkable that there be a sexual dimension to it that it was OK to show affection to a male friend.
So it's actually the newfangled "enlightened" attitudes that have led to "homophobia", by introducing so much ambiguity.
I think this is the email address for the noob that made the call at New Line Mark.Ordesky@newline.com
books and movies ARE TWO DIFFERENT FUCKING MEDIUMS.
We have a word now for more than one medium. We decided to go with "media".
I'm not sure either of those elements would fit in very well. The sacking of Hobbiton kind of works as a smaller "unwinding story" at the end of the book, but it would probably feel even more like dragging on the ending if they put it in the movie. It's also too much of a cliché already for heroes to return from a successful quest to a wrecked home village (though perhaps that could have left room for a sequel).
As for Bombadil, the first book makes it quite clear that Tolkien really liked Hobbiton and its surroundings. If the movie dragged the beginning as far as the book does, some of the audience might've fallen asleep by the time the hobbits finally reached Rivendell. Bombadil is a part of the background lore, but essentially just a distraction concerning the main storyline.
The Hobbit ought to be a much more straightforward adaptation - the story flows on quite nicely without too many sidetracks and there's less facets to cover. It's the other prequel that worries me more, although Silmarillion does have some very nice material.
I don't know of anyone who didn't say "but what was the story with the ending". The main problem of course is that they dropped the complete setup to the ending (the death of Saruman and then the end of his works in the Shire) from the very start of the films. I honestly think that given that decision the end of the trilogy should have been the fellowship spliting up to "go home".
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
Well considering that the books were written at a time before everyone could go to the theater to see a movie, I think it's good that Tolkien described everything the way he did. Books aren't written like movies. All good authors took care in describing everything in great detail. They couldn't cheat by using a big screen. They had to use words. I know it's unbelievable. Try to imagine it. BTW, the books pwnd the movies, and I liked the movies. Also, wtf is the other prequel? The Hobbit is the prequel? Dear God they aren't going to try to make a movie out of the Silmarillion are they? I don't think I'd let Jackson around that one either. That would take some serious hacking to make into a friggin movie.
Beer! It's what's for breakfast!
And if they'd cut out some of the ending of RotK, they could have put in more content at the beginning of Fellowship of the Ring, a completely different movie released 2 years earlier?
Yeah, that makes perfect sense.
resist the ring perhaps, but at the counsel in rivendell, it is said that "after all else falls, bombadil will fall" or something to that effect. don't have my book handy, but it still in the book points to the all-encompassing power of the one ring.
IMO, tom bombadil was a prime example of something that could be safely chopped for a movie version. it is in no way vital to the storyline, though i really wish they would have included the retaking of the shire, as that is an important thing in tying up loose ends.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Once you start swearing, you're vocabulary goes to shit.
(It's not mine, I forgot where I heard it)
To each his own, but don't you think you're being a LITTLE harsh? "hideous mess"? "butchery"?
When I first heard about this project, I hung my head in despair with visions of how Hollywood would inevitably scew things up. "Relief" was my primary emotion when I saw the films.
This was a daunting (impossible?) task to begin with. Based on your typical book adaptations, or your typical film for that matter, can you just imagine how bad they COULD have been? I thought it was an admirable job. You think Steven Spielberg and Jerry Bruckheimer(cringe) could have done better?
btw, I'm glad that they got rid of Tom Bombadil and the barrow wights, and just wish that there was a way to eliminate Treebeard from the plot.
You said: "I have yet to see anyone say that they wanted or expected a film religious to the original writings."
When one paragraph earlier, you had said: "He could have used the same time and resources and made the Ents come out just as Tolkien had written them."
What you're saying, is that you wanted and/or expected a film religious to the original writings.
I know that not many people listen to you. You're a Tolkien bore, and you have to expect that. But I'm a little amazed that not even YOU listen to you... poor you.
Woah, a little less of the f**king and maybe people will pay attention to the point you are making.
You're new on this planet, aren't you ?
The Hobbit *movie* will be filmed after LotR, so it will be kind of a prequel even if the book isn't.
Slashdot is news for nerds. Nerds generally like LOTR.
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
why does Michael Bay get to keep on making movies...
I respect your opinion, but as a fellow fan, I just don't quite understand it.
Are these the ONLY Hollywood productions you've seen in the last 10 years? If so, then I understand. Perhaps you think a "good" film adaptation of the books is impossible? I can appreciate that sentiment as well. From your first statement however, you seem to imply that the movies could have been orders of magnitude better. I don't see how. I think that any fan would have had their own particular preferences regarding what to remove, gloss over, or adapt to make into 7-8 hours of film. I certainly did, but the choices HAD to be made.
If you use the garbage that Hollywood spews out year after year as a basis for comparison, the LOTR films were very well done, and ohhhhh, they could have been so much worse. Breathe a sigh of relief.
Are you new here? What part of "news for nerds" don't you understand?
I'm just sayin'.
"I'm not annoyed at somebody else's opinion of art, I'm just tired of the whiny LOTR fanboys going on about how Jackson raped their childhood.
That is being annoyed at someone else's opinion. Your opinion is not any less or more valid. Just because you do not agree with something doesn't make it "wrong" or "irrelevant".
"If the movies were mostly shit, ala SW prequels"
Again, those are your opinions - there can be no definitve "fact" that the movies are good or not, because good or bad are all subjective opinions.
"Hey, if you don't want an earful, qualify your statements,"
Well, I was pretty sure that was what I was doing when I stated "All art is objective" - if you think that is a false or uselesss statement, then why are you arguing about it, thus proving my point? And I DO want an earful, that is what discussing differences of opinions is about.
I'm not saying you are right or wrong about the movies being good - because there is no "right" or "wrong" answers - only opinions. Scream yours as loud as you want, but don't tell me or others that we can't do the same.
"But this one goes to 11!"
What about early works? Meet the Feebles was EPIC!
-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+ *** http://www.mountainfort.com *** +-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-
Oddly enough the problem was that it wasn't long enough. You should try sitting through the extended edition of ROTK sometime. The additional scenes make it flow much better. It's longer - but it feels a lot shorter.
+1 Funny
It was just amazing that they could do all three LoTR movies so that even a big fan of the books, like myself, could be pretty happy with the movies. (My only real complaint being that there were no hobbit wars in the movie.) If they do the Hobbit or other middle earth movies and mess them up it'll just be such a loss for fans and nobody involved will make as much money as they will if they do it right. Somehow I doubt anybody involved is going broke after making the LoTR movies so why not say the hell with accounting practices and just make some more movies?
I don't want to see LoTR follow the path of Harry Potter where the first two movies were perfect adaptions of the books and the rest of the movies are pale knockoffs or even like Star Wars where the prequels feel like they don't quite work.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Actually, isn't that exactly the opposite of what a book is suppose to do?
I agree, for important characters, scenes and actions, the more details in books the better. But isn't the basic idea of a book to let the READER'S imagination decide what the character looks like? Or how a sword fight unfolds, or what a valley looks like? In those situations, I'd much rather have a general description from the author and let my mind fill in the gaps.
Unless it is intricate to the story, don't waste 10 pages on something that should only take 2 to say. You don't need to write 3 pages of a song that is boring and has nothing to do with the story. I get it, the Hobbits like to sing with that Bombadil (sp?) guy! Once short song is enough.
I'll get jumped on by a bunch of people, but IMHO the wheel of time series is far superior to Tolken's for this exact reason... ignoring a couple of the latest books where Rand walked across a room, Elayne took a batch, and Nynaeve was surly as usual.
-Mark
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain.
With New Line in charge, Tolkien's masterpiece will finally get the car chase sequence it's needed for years. I mean "horses", nobody rides "horses" anymore. Come on, let's punch it up and give the hairy, sweaty, fanboys the film they deserve rather than the one they want.
What would Richard Feynman do, if he were here right now? He'd do some math and he'd follow through!
If PJ is going to do another LOTR movies - let it be this one
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
Apparently it doesn't depend on profanity, so much as the mind behind the profanity... otherwise, whoever came up with the saying wouldn't have fallen prey to the very common mistake of substituting "you're" where "your" should be.
I'm not sure I follow you. The story has Frodo being overcome by the power of the ring - indeed at the end he refuses to cast it into Mount Doom. Equally the story requires that the ring demonstrably corrupt even the most noble of bearers - or else there would be no reason to destroy it rather than wield it against Sauron. So the question is, how do you demonstrate the rings ability to corrupt? Certainly Boromir provides a beginning to that, but you need to demonstrate even noble people with the best of intentions can be corrupted. In a book you can do that easily by simply stating that such is happening which you simply can't do on film. The film will not work unless you make that corruption clear however. Hence in the film the corruption of noble individuals who we respect must be made explicit. Jackson chose to do this by having Faramir initially overcome but eventually struggling and making the right choice, and by having Frodo sufficently corrupted that he betrays Sam - this makes the rings ability to corrupt almost anyone quite clear. Whether this was the right way to make the rings true power clear is a subjective point that is open to debate. Whether the changes were there to make such a point clear is rather more apparent however - it was to make things clearer rather than just for the sake of changing the story.
As to whether it is being true to the story - that's a matter of which level you wish to be true to the story. At a high level it is working to preserve a key aspect of the story: that the ring will corrupt anyone - no one can resist it forever, and is thus truly evil and must be destroyed. The changes were an effort to be true to this more important and deeper aspect of ther story, at the expense of not being true to some details of the story. You can debate the means of execution (I suggest you provide an example of a different way in which the rings power could be demonstrated on screen to an audience that potentially has no knowledge of the books), but I think it is rather presumptuous to debate the intent; the intent seems pretty clear: to preserve deeper aspects of the story on screen at the expense of more shallow details. Yes it is a trade off, but it is a matter of "being true to the story" as best they could.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
How about A Very Brady Hobbit. Instead of dwarves, the Brady Bunch shows up at cousin Oliver's. Alice as Gandalf. Sam the butcher as Beorn.
Hollywood accounting is a unique form of the art where actual Generally Accepted Accounting Practices are thrown to four winds and the profits of a movie are consumed by undocumented and unsupported ''studio charges'' against the film. Calling for an audit--even if that right is in the contract, as it is in the case of Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh--calls for sunlight to be thrown on the dark underside of the Hollywood system, and as long as the studios have lawyers who are breathing they will resist this with every ounce of their being. The real-life orcs under the mountain are the green-eyeshade Hollywood accountant crowd, who can make movie profits magically disappear. It's a shame, but that's Hollywood. Remember, always, always insist on a percentage of the gross.
he is free to do another Firefly sequel?
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
The sacking of Hobbiton kind of works as a smaller "unwinding story" at the end of the book, but it would probably feel even more like dragging on the ending if they put it in the movie. It's also too much of a cliché already for heroes to return from a successful quest to a wrecked home village (though perhaps that could have left room for a sequel).
It is not so much the sacking of Hobbiton but the changes in Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin that were displayed in The Scouring of the Shire. As it is they return, Frodo leaves in pain with the elves, and the rest live happily ever after drinking beer at the Green Dragon with little to show for participating in the war of the ring. In the book, Merry and Pippin return having the stature if not the height, although Treebeard's gift foreshadows their new character, of the warriors of Gondor and Rohan ready to be led into battle by Frodo and Sam who themselves are fierce in the way of hobbits of legend. They all retain only an echo of their timid former selves.
To be fair, I would never claim to be unbiased. The Scouring of the Shire reminds me of the battle that took place in Athens, Tennessee after World War Two and I have often wondered if despite Tolkien's dislike for allegory he was thinking of some similar event in England after World War One.
Three words. Elf Bitch Romance.
Seriously, what the hell was that about, what did it have to do with the ring, and who's ass was it pulled from?
Say bad words about my book, in cold oatmeal, or I shall sue!
and then get PJ to go it alone instead. I mean there must be at least 10 million people out there with $10 to spare to help make a movie? Then it could be released at reduced cost on the big screen.
Obviously I have no real clue of the intricacies involved in the processes and licensing but it seems like a good way to fund something.
When shit hits the fan get some of these https://youtu.be/pY-GncsZ-UE
The Hobbit is a prequel because it "takes place before that of a preexisting work or a sequel" (the sequel being LOTR).
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
"a preexisting work or a sequel"
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
Tolkein wrote a prequel of sorts called the Silmarillion. It's not very literary, more like a summary of events. The prequel will likely focus on events from that book.
This explains why the terminology in The Hobbit is different (The orcs are referred to as Goblins, etc) and the other inconsistencies.
He has characters who have five different names, depending on who's talking about them. Why shouldn't one race being refered to by two names? Come to that, the Goblins wouldn't be the only one; the race that Men call the Elves called themselves the Quendi (not to mention various tribe-like differences within the race).
Irrelevantly, George R.R. Martin has mentioned how much he envies Tolkien, who routinely gave multiple names to everything; GRRM oft has trouble just coming up with one in his Song of Ice and Fire.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
I know that JacksonLOTR fans will hate me, but why should anyone think that Jackson won't make a complete hash of The Hobbit, just as he did with LOTR? Jackson's useful role in LOTR was in getting the monster to be done at all. There's no issue like that now.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
PJ set out to create a good MOVIE.
Unfortunately he did not achieve this. I love the books and the BBC radio adaption as well as the first of the PJ films. TTT was ok but ROTK was frankly boring. PJ went into King Kong mode when it came to the battle of the Pelennor fields - it went on FAR too long and contained ridiculously unphysical stunts. It was boring and I hoenstly NEVER expected to go to a LOTR film and ever be bored.
What makes this unforgiveble though is that he had to cut out serious parts of the story to accomodate it - no return to the shire and final battle with Saruman - which arguably contained one of the major messages of the trilogy. Compare the BBC radio adaption (which was 13 one hours episode) to PJs films which in total are almost as long and you'll see the difference, especially since narration had to be added to explain the things which you could not see.
maybe they should do their own movie then.
Just because I am not a film director does not mean that I cannot spot a bad one. It is a matter of taste. Clearly lots of people really liked the films (even I liked the first one) but that it no way makes my opinion that the last one was awful invalid.
It was a typo, get over it. I noticed it as I was hitting submit. I'm not sure why you decided to attack me for it, but I won't deny you the pleasure of such a silly attack.
It says "a preexisting work or a sequel". If you want to claim that "preexisting" also applies to "sequel" then you'd have to argue that dictionary.com made a grammatical error by including the second "a".
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
Who gets to play the role of Dildo?
Oooh! If the case with New Line turns really nasty, perhaps the Harvard Lampoon will dredge up the Bored of the Rings parody, and hire Jackson to turn that gobbler about Dildo and Frito Bugger into a movie. And if New Line screws over everybody as badly as they did Jackson, perhaps the rest of the cast will reunite to help.
And, after all, parody is well established as constitutionally protected here in the US. International distribution may be a bit of a challenge, but that's what lawyers are for....//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Yea, that is a good point. Those women sniff so much, you'd think they were perpetually sick.
Ahh well, I hope that guy doesn't die. Stupid cancer.
-Mark
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain.
I would have liked the ending from the book - where Saruman goes and fucks up the shire. Great evil twist, and quite frightening in the book.
Consciousness is a myth. Trust me.
...that I'm the only person anywhere ever who preferred Ralph Bakshi's version of Lord of the Rings (the first book and a half of the trilogy anyway) to the Peter Jackson version.
Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to conviction
Yeah, but it's not really Tolkien's version of The Hobbit- Uwe is adapting the video game version, because it has more action and less singing and dancing.
Austin is more fun than Dallas.
They already made that one, except it was called The Dark Crystal.
The book, that is.
Don't confuse it with the sucky movie trilogy (directed by PJ) just because it shares some character names and parts of the plot.
"Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh will not be involved in the making of either The Hobbit or the planned Lord of the Rings prequel."
;)
Probably means the movie will be one hour less than it should be then
Not according to the latest edition of the Chicago Manual of Style. Hearsay, but according to the hearsay, the latest CMoS says that latin and greek loanwords should merely have an s or an es tacked on the end, rather than the original latin or greek plural. Thus medium becomes mediums. Bacterium becomes bacteriums instead of bacteria. Instead of algae, we have algas. No more data, just datums.
Personally, I think it is a load of hooey.
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
The extended versions of all three movies came out to around 13 hours, if I'm not mistaken.
That is the length of the 1981 BBC Lord of the Rings radio drama. Between narration, dialogue, and action, Jackson could have fit in just as much as the radio drama (which only excluded a few things, including Bombadil).
"There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)
The "we" represents people of like opinion, obviously.
I, for one, wholeheartedly agree with GP's points and qualms with the changes.......and welcome our new Dark overlords....sigh
Yes - it's braindead and feeble to expect the heavenly creatures here to be interested in the frighteners being put on and stopping the return of the king due to some forgotten silver. Bad taste really.
The Silmarillion is a huge, sprawling history of Middle Earth spanning from creation myth right up until the end of the Third Age (so effectively LOTR is just the final blink of the eye). From reading the article, it seems Peter Jackson was under the impression they'd be making two prequel films (of which one would be The Hobbit) back-to-back, but this wouldn't make sense unless they covered adjacent chronologies. I'd fear studio-led creation here, were it not for the existence of a very well-thought-out treatment for a film based on The Akallabeth; the most relevant portion of The Silmarillion for those who were interested in the mythology behind The Lord of the Rings.
You didn't mean omitting, did you?
I always felt that the Akallabeth might work well, perhaps as a TV miniseries: begin with the Elves under Gil-galad on the run from Sauron's armies, and then cut to the fleet of Numenor arriving in Middle-earth, and the capture and imprisonment of Sauron. Then the decline of their civilisation accelerates, Sauron rises to high power like a malignant Joseph in Egypt, the Elendili become marginalised and persecuted. At midpoint the assault on the West and the Downfall. Then the refugees establish the Kingdoms in Exile. We might see the construction of the Argonath, of Minas Anor, of Isengard... and then close on the return of Sauron to power and the formation of the Last Alliance, which brings us to where the movie trilogy began.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Trollin' Trollin' Trollin'
Keep them doggies Trollin'
Man your ass is spewin'
Rawhide!
Anon Coward says
And no this isnt trolling. I am not doing this for the sole purpose of pissing people off. I am saying this because its my opinion. Tolkien is boring. He was a linguist not an author. It was an experiment. Get over it.
Congrats. You are a successful troll and I have taken the bait. You have pissed me off.
Tolkien was also a reader and researcher of epic poems and tales. The Lord of the Rings was meant to have a little of that in it. Just because you are a wanking Phillistine doesn't mean the rest of us don't have any taste or respect for the classics.
I plan on boycotting any Hobbit film without Wingnut films being involved. Lest we go back to well meaning, but skanky adaptations http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077869/.
So, maybe we can hope that the movie actually FOLLOWS THE BOOK!
"Auteurs" should not make movies of books.
mark
That's not what they're considering. The rights to the Silmarillion are still controlled by Christopher Tolkien, and he's not giving them up. The prequel they're contemplating would be the time between The Hobbit and FotR... which is potentially a huge amount of ground to cover, depending on where they decide to focus -- you have Aragorn growing up, Aragorn and Arwen, Aragorn's travels (which could cover Gondor, Rohan, etc.), the deepening shadow in Mirkwood, Gollum, maybe showing the situation at Dol Guldur instead of telling it. Theoretically it could incorporate quite a few of the main characters from LotR. (There would be no way to cover the Silmarillion in one movie, anyway, even if the will were there.)
I'd rather rely on the dictionary definition you supplied.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
The first hour of Bakshi's animated crap is a far better telling of the first volume than Jackson managed. At that point (which is where Bakshi was told there was no more money) it falls apart completely. Jackson liked it enough to lift material from it, I notice. Pity he went on to add some of his own "ideas".
Jackson is a bad director and his LotR is a set of badly directed, bad films. That they are also bad adaptations is beside the point.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"