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New Hope for Jackson Hobbit Film?
DrJimbo writes "Just in time for the 70th Anniversary of the Hobbit (published September 21, 1937) Entertainment Weekly has a 5-page article on a possible reconciliation between Peter Jackson and New Line Cinema that may pave the way for the director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy to return and helm the filming of The Hobbit. It was previously reported here that Jackson would not be making the Hobbit film. The EW article says that Jackson wants to make two films: first the Hobbit in its entirety and then another film that bridges the roughly 60 years between the end of the Hobbit and the start of the Lord of the Rings. Unfortunately Jackson already has a lot on his plate with filming of The Lovely Bones scheduled to start this month and a live action Tintin film in the works."
70 years on and The Hobbit isn't in the public domain. It truly is a shame to see our constitution thwarted in this manner.
Using openSUSE instead of Windows since 9th of October, 2007 and liking it.
I'm interested to know if Peter Jackson will elect to star in the lead role of Bilbo.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Please, don't film Tintin. Thanks.
What exactly happens, of any interest, in that period? Bilbo uses the Ring a few times to avoid the Sackville-Bagginses. Writes memoirs. Lends mithril armour to the Michel Delving Mathom-house. Wow, riveting stuff.
In the wider world, Sauron has returned to Mordor and is rebuilding Barad-dur. Three hours on an Orcish construction site, then?
The only excitement you might get is following Aragorn incognito in the guard of Minas Tirith. But to what end?
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Am I the only one who felt the LOTR movies were not especially good and that Jackson's eccentric style may not have been the best fit for the book?
Do we honestly care if he directs them? I mean, we care that a bad director doesn't get to, but as long as it's a decent director, does it really matter who it is?
On the other hand, if he manages to get a script written for the 60 year time difference, and it's not 60 years of Gandolf riding around in grey and the hobbits having teaparties (since that's basically what happened), then I'm all for the new film and Jackson. I'm not real hopeful, though, since all the really interesting stuff happened in the books and the other years weren't covered because they simply weren't that interesting.
Or maybe someone can name some of the interesting things that supposedly happened in those 60 years? Gandolf was obviously out doing some sort of research, but I don't think anything specific was ever mentioned. And the hobbits were pretty clearly doing hobbit-like things in their little boring houses. They don't really even have politics, just a few that don't particulary care for each other from feuds that happened generations ago over silly things.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
So you're one of the four people in the world that think that books should be adapted to movies exactly word for word.
Or...you could just not go. You obviously didn't like the LOTR movies, and that would be apparent that you didn't like them right from the first movie...so I have to ask, did you also go and watch the second and third movie also? If so, why?
If you think that Peter Jackson ruined the movies for you, why did you watch all 3? Or did you? Or are you just a troll?
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
Whoops, I forgot that the GP may be a Tom Bombadil fan. Yes, tack on an extra half hour to an already very long movie just so you can add... not very much to the overall story line. Brilliant.
But I'm looking forward more to the Tintin movies than to the Hobbit-one.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
While I think the movies are good I don't think they are exactly Tolkien. Its more like Peter Jackson's LOTR instead of Tolkien. A few liberties were taken but for the most part they didn't damage the story. Sure you will find a few Tolkien fanatics who can recite a dozen if not hundred changes/errors/omissions but these are the same types that would not be please unless even the dialog matched word for word... and still they would find something amiss!
As for the whole part of "between the hobbit and LOTR" - uh... whats he working for? Turbine's LOTRO?
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Let's see, Jackson only made them what, $3 billion dollars? I think each movie was directly good for around a billion, plus or minus $100 million, and this is talking straight box office, not even considering DVD's, TV rights, moichandizin', etc. I would be no way surprised in hearing the total take is up to $5 billion at this point, and a project like this is going to be like Star Wars or the goddamn Beatles catalog, a fat stream of recurring revenue for decades to come. And this is off an initial investment of $300 million for the whole trilogy? Do they think they could have pulled it together without someone like Peter Jackson at the helm? By all rights, the trilogy should have flopped -- Hollywood can't do quality. LOTR being brilliant is about as long of odds as Babylon 5 finishing its entire five year run and only sucking in the last season.
So New Line realizes they could stop buggering the goose that laid the golden egg and make another fat pile of shiny if they treat it nice? DUUUH, but still a bit of cluefulness not expected from Hollywood. Now go make the movie!
Kwisatz Haderach
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Oh, and the scouring of the shire also...so after a HUGE battle...then another HUGE battle, you get the destruction of Sauron and the aftermath...then ANOTHER half an hour to 45 minutes of resolving stuff in the shire...THEN the Grey Havens, THEN Sam coming back.
Yep, the general public already complained that there were 3 endeds to Return of the King, why not throw a 4th one in there also....just so those 4 people in the world that complained that the LOTR wasn't word for word like the books will be happy. Happy with really long, boringly edited movies.
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
Saw the first in the cinema, said I wasn't going to pay to sit throught that sort of crap again. Fiancee talked me into going to the second shit-fest. That was that. I've never seen the third and I still want my money back for the first two. Jackson couldn't direct traffic in a ghost town.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Well, I applaud you for putting your money where your mouth is but I respectfully disagree with your opinion about Jackson's directing ability.
Such people are never happy with any adaptation no matter how close to the original material. It's simply not possible to adapt such a story to the cinema and not change things. At the very minimum it's impossible to match what such pedants imagined in their heads so something will always bother them.
On the other hand, Jackson's version was just plain bad.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
I really enjoyed LOTR, really, but there is a project that Weta has in the pocket that I would like much more to see realized: a live-action Evangelion movie. They have being studying it for quite some time but it's "on hold" for quite some time already.
Scientia est Potentia
an in-quel?
Peter Jackson is not in charge of Gundam(the live-action movie).
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
Cool...though you don't bring up specifics. "shit-fest" and "crap" don't really explain much on what you thought was wrong with the movies in relation to the books or what your criticism is at all. Don't take this the wrong way, but it seems rather juvenile...which would lead one to believe it's more troll than actual criticism.
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
I'm one of those 4 people. It should have been 6 movies and every single nuance should have been added, and eight million other nuances (which were 100% faithful to the "canon") could have been worked in to keep people interesting.
The interesting thing about LOTR was the internal cohesion of the world. It was never "great literature."
Nevermind, you kind of explained it in another post. Opinions differ. I happened to think he did a great job of adaptation. But will my opinion change your opinion? Nope...same as yours won't change mine.
I may not like your opinion...but I will fight to the death for my right to fight to the death with you!
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
No, you weren't. I was going to ask why everyone is so excited about the possibility of Jackson filming The Hobbit. Personally I think his rendition of the stories missed an awful lot of what I thought was important, not the least of which was real character development. I slept through the second and third installments. The first was an excellent start, but he failed miserably by focusing on the battles and not the characters, in my opinion.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
They could always pad it out with a few musical numbers. Heck, what better way is there to make up for the omission of Tom Bombadil?
At the bottom of the
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is the new "Episode IV - A New Hope"?
Well I am another of those four people. So the other two of us must be here somewhere.
"Doctor, it's not the voices I hear in MY head, but the voices I hear in YOUR head that really frighten me."
This is the only Hobbit movie I need.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Actually I watched all 3. The first one was pretty good, the second also - despite the fact that it deviated somewhat from the books it included enough original Tolkien to make it worthwhile. The third - where to begin? Perhaps the only thing it has in common with the book is that Sauron is defeated. Why base a story on a book if you're going to write your own script? Instead of a beautiful, subtle story and build-up of tension and suspense, it was turned into standard Hollywood crap, filled with cliché after cliché.
I actually paid to watch the first one 6 times, and ditto with the second. I also bought the DVDs. The third I saw once. Frankly I hope PJ is prevented from ruining "The Hobbit".
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
"If you think that Peter Jackson ruined the movies for you, why did you watch all 3? Or did you? Or are you just a troll?"
The same reason folks slow down to look at car crashes. Yeah its kind of morbid, but we just wanted to see how big the pile of bodies is. Not only was it a very tall pile, it was wide too.
Some folks figure that if they didnt like the first one and complained, then maybe they should see the rest if they were going to speak from actual experience, instead of talking about a movie they didnt see.
All Tolkien fans wanted to like the movies, those of us who loved all three of the books, just didnt like PJ's production very much.
You liked it I assume. Did you bother to go see all three of the movies, or are you basing your idea of the last two movies from the first one? I wasnt sure PJ was really going to screw it up until the last one. I wanted to like them so much I ignored the changes in the first two because he was supposed to be fixing it all for the DVD special editions.
Isnt it terrible when the thing you like so much is hated by others who seem more invested in the thing than you are? Like they think they are so much better than you are. Well we dont, so you can start getting over it now.
"Doctor, it's not the voices I hear in MY head, but the voices I hear in YOUR head that really frighten me."
We could always get him to direct it. I hear he is quite good.
I have excellent Karma and I am not afraid to Troll it.
I want to see The Silmarillion made as a mini-series!
No, of course you're entitled to your opinion. I was railing more on the "it sucks, nuff said" type of criticism. When I see or read something that I don't like and take the time to write about not liking it, I usually explain why I didn't like it.
I happen to love the books...read them back in the 70's when I was a teen and re-read them every few years. I knew from the beginning that the movies were NOT going to be verbatim like the books and some things in the movies really bugged me, but overall the movies turned into 3 of my favorites of all time. I can enjoy the books AND the movies...separating the two as two different things.
I also enjoy reading criticism of the movies in relation to the books...that is if the criticism offers something to me that's worth reading. When I just see "it sucks" from people, it means about as much as "it's great" from others. I want the "here's why I think it sucked". It's a very rare thing to actually see someone explain why instead of "he can't direct, he can't write, he ruined it". That's not an explanation, sorry. This goes for any movie or book.
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
speaking on behalf of the millions of take-no-chances geeks in fact.
if a movie is done well, no problem. but fool s/he be anyone who would go and take chances on a new director, whereas there is already a director that has done the exact same thing spectacularly well.
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What makes Jackson the right choice? My experience of The Hobbit was that it was a sillier/ more irreverent book than any of LotR. Its tone was different. I'm not saying he's necessarily the wrong choice, but why would we need the same director?
[Thorin, with afro, Gandalf, with long greasy hair, in dark suits on their way to 'question' a burglar in the Shire]
Thorin: OK, so tell me about Rings of Power.
Gandalf: OK, what do you want to know?
Thorin: Rings of Power are legal there, right?
Gandalf: Yeah, they're legal, but not 100% legal. I mean, you can't just walk into a party, slip one on and blink away. They want you to use them in your home or certain designated mountains.
Thorin: And this is the shire?
Gandalf: Yeah. It breaks down like this, OK, it's legal to try it, it's legal to have it and, if you're gonna destroy it it's legal to use it, it's legal to conceal it, but wait -- it doesn't matter because, get a load of this -- if you get stopped by the the Nazgul, it's illegal for them to search you... now that's a right the Nazgul don't have.
Thorin: I'm going, that's all there is to it, I'm fuckin' going.
Pal, there are millions exactly waiting to see that.
I remember, when we watched two towers with one of my friends who has never been into anything lotr, heck even fantasy and sci-fi, (he is an academics lawyer) his jaw ACTUALLY dropped in the scene where gandalf throws out his cloak and makes saruman leave theoden's body, and he wasnt able speak for a 3-4 seconds.
boy, if some director can direct films like that, you dont let him/her go. and take no chances.
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While not entirely successful, changes were necessary to make it possible to make a poetic work function dramatically.
Dramatic storytelling is fundamentally unrealistic, because it overemphasizes the power of an individual's ability to control situations through their decisions. LotR doesn't believe the fundamental model. In LotR, no individual is capable of achieving success. While individuals may fail through their own actions, they cannot succeed. This is a profoundly un-dramatic viewpoint; the rules of drama say that the protagonist must overcome adversity through his own virtues. In LotR, characters may attain their ends, but they do not achieve them. It is not accidental that Frodo fails in his quest, it is a deliberate philosophical statement about the action of grace in the lives of people who at least try to be virtuous.
In Tolkien's world view, the agency of individuals even in their own decisions is limited. People roll along in the grooves that their habitual actions have worn in their character. We are carefully presented with pairs of characters in which the practice or non practice of the Christian virtues of faith, hope and love play out in their destinies: Frodo/Gollum, Theoden/Denethor, Faramir/Boromir. The idea that a character's destiny is part of a larger process than the events of the story is also anti-dramatic.
It is inevitable that changes are made to make the movie work dramatically -- at the very least the elaborate parallelism of Tolkien would have doubled the length of the movies. This is not heresy, Tolkien himself was the kind of author who never stopped changing a manuscript until it was torn from his hands. Some of the movie changes work, some of them don't.
The changes that don't work fail because the story is simply too complex already for them to be developed adequately. As it is, considerable familiarity with the story is needed to follow the movies. The story changes work to the degree their ends are consistent with time available. The changes in Faramir, for example, simply don't ring true, because there isn't enough time to show him making a believable "change of heart" decision. Rewriting Theoden's death scene to be played with Eowyn was not only time efficient, it heightened the emotional impact of the scene. It also brings the somewhat brash screen Theoden back to Tolkien's Theoden, whose saving grace was humility.
Many changes were done to preserve pieces of poetry in the original; Eomer's words are put in Theoden's mouth; the words of the unnamed narrator are put in Gandalf's mouth. By in large these are to the benefit of the movies in that they preserve some of the beauty of the original.
I was watching the DVD of Return of the King recently, and I was particularly struck by the Rohirrim in the Battle of Pelennor Fields. This was of course altered to fit the needs of dramatization, but I believe Tolkien would have been thrilled. It shows how Jackson understands the heroic values of Lord of the Rings, even if he is not 100% successful in translating those values to the screen: heroism is not conferred by victory, but by acting courageously when reason tells you victory is impossible.
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I mean really. He did a good job overall, quibbling over storyline changes from the books notwithstanding. That being said, there are a lot of very competent directors out there who would jump at the chance at doing an adaptation of _The Hobbit_. The real genius was Tolkien, not Jackson. Let him have Tintin, hire another director and give us a good movie.
Lotr was one of the most successful book to screen adaptations. And mind that, there are only 4-5 of such successful adaptations.
if, someone can effectively translate the spirit of a book that well to screen, s/he can as well make any irrelevant episode in a lore relevant and in-line.
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they did.
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No, you're not.
Jackson leaving out the The Scouring of the Shire ruined the movies for me. Also he totally botched Frodo by choosing girly-boy
Elijah Wood for the part. Frodo was a middle-aged Hobbit. Ian Holm would have been perfect.
Why is all the good stuff already modded 5, when I have mod points?
Mind you, I really liked the films and I'd already read the books too many times too count, so it's not all fans who were disappointed. There were some aspects I didn't like, but I can see why PJ felt they were required. I like his attitude of considering it as if it were an actual event, and he was simply retelling the story.
Igor Presnyakov stole my hat
- My name is Hobbit Skywalker - I've come to rescue you!
- Are you sure you're not an Ewok in disguise?
I think you have to look at the other Tolkien movies (all animated - The Hobbit, The Return of the King, and The Lord of the Rings.) Jackson did not do any worse, and in some cases much, much better.
The main problem I had with Jackson's version is that he left out or didn't do justice to what I thought were some of the most memorable "scenes" from the book. In particular, he made the battle for Minas Tirith pretty spectacular, but things like Gandalf's standoff with the witchking, Aragon's banner coming up the river, etc... could have been done much better.
I think overall he did a pretty good job though, and I could easily see it being much worse. As another example, I haven't seen the Dark is Rising movie, but it sounds like they completely changed it up.
He sings quite a good little tune to Bilbo.
... A New Hope
This is the one they should have made first! I can't wait to see Episodes V and VI.
More music, fewer hits
where some studio bigwig has "the intellectual capacity of an artichoke", as Harlan Ellison so famously put it.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Though I'm sure you'll get modded down for this, it is a viewpoint other authors share.
Which was pretty much inevitable. No two people would make the same choices, therefore any specific changes are bound to cause dissatisfaction in some people. Fan satisfaction/dissatisfaction is not a viable criterion for judging whether a change works.
My opinion is that in order for changes to work, they have to have screen time to play out. This means that reasonable changes that condense the story nearly always work, although we might be disappointed to lose some of our personal favorite bits. Changes that demand explanation tend to fail to make their point and make the movie somewhat more confusing. Very few of the changes made were "silly", although more than a few were too ambitious. I could give examples of seemingly arbitrary changes that actually make sense withing the overall plan of the movie; the fact that the plan is not 100% successful doesn't make them "arbitrary".
You might not agree, but I think that's a substantive opinion.
I have over the years made a point of studying literary criticism of Tolkien. Right or wrong, serious literary criticism is at least subject to refutation, which means it takes some courage and integrity to do. I wonder who in your opinion, is not self-absorbed, fallacious, or dumb when it comes to Tolkien, other than (obviously) yourself?
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Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
HOLLYHELL, Monday — In an admirable display of synergy between hard-headed business sense and sensitivity to artistic rightness, New Line Cinemas has hired Adam Sandler to direct The Hobbit, the prequel to The Lord Of The Rings.
"Peter Jackson may have made us three billion dollars and paved our goddamn driveways with Oscars," said a spokesdroid, "but when he dared question the three nickels and a gum wrapper payment, well. We knew we just couldn't work with someone so risibly unprofessional."
Sandler is likely to be working under renowned producer Uwe Boll. "Okay, here is what I am thinking, ja? Your Bilbo Baggins will be a WOMAN in Nazi Germany. A naked woman. And the One Ring will not show up. And she gets raped by Hitler! Gandalf will be played by Keanu Reeves. I AM THE DIRECTOR! I mean programmer. PRODUCER."
Jackson has lost weight, shaved his feet and gone back to his roots to make a warmhearted New Zealand-based family film in the style of his earliest works, under the working title Zombie Cancer Bukkake Pus-Nodules, with a budget in the range of over forty New Zealand dollars.
Work at New Line continues. "We at New Line are convinced that Professor Tolkien would have agreed with us that Adam Sandler will realise her artistic vision eleventy-one percent. We've bought three years' worth of shark futures."
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Frodo was 33 (coming of age for a hobbit) at the start, and 50 at the end (barely mid-life). Ian Holm doesn't look 30 even if I squint.
I don't think Wood was a particularly bad choice visually, I just don't think he did a great acting job (or perhaps he wasn't directed well).
70 years on and The Hobbit isn't in the public domain. It truly is a shame to see our constitution thwarted in this manner.
According to this chart, "The Hobbit", has been in the public domain since 21st September 2007.
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
Very similar thoughts were running trough my head when I finished "Return of the King". Well, yes, movies departs from books for exact reason you mentioned - they are very antidramatic. In fact, if shot row by row, it would be deadly boring movie. Not so much inner conflicts, no big disagreements and tragedies rised from that, etc. Peter with a team did very good and huge job in adding drama to material, yet keeping tone of legendarium intact. By adding some dramatical signatures, finally you can understand reasoning of various heroes. For example, Aragon in movie has straits which don't replace, but complement character found in books. He is more unsure, his inner fight makes much more sense and it fits in whole message of books and movies much better - about flawed men/hobitts/elves/etc. which, in the end, survive themselves and evil who wants to destroy them.
And then I thought - why Tolkien would want to make books so "boring" for shooting straight from them?
In my opinion, books are specially written to be in "non-subjective", chronicles style, therefore keeping emotional overburn from various characters (and you have to admit that, with so big list of them would be hard not to lose focus of storytelling) at low levels. In same time, in various places books become more "personal" and in those places I see very striking similarity between books and movies. So book has to be very unpersonal, otherwise it won't be so easy and relaxing to read, it lets you get those images in your head and play with them. As we know, cinema is totally different media and plays by different rules. I want to salute Jackson about keeping it all "down to the Middle Earth" - there are few unrealistic special effect shots (and I can understand why he hated Undead, because it was, well, very out of place in whole style of movies), everything is about Nature vs. Tech and fits in well (even magic feels natural). Comparing it with Potter movies - yeah, they have good special effects, but they feel out of place and very "magic".
So, in nutshell, I love transformation of Middle Earth by Jackson for movies - and this is reason why I want to make him more LOTR movies, even maybe some DVD only serial about ancient times. He digs and understands this world very well.
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Actually, my claims are not sweeping at all. You have the burden of proof here: what changes were actually arbitrary? Propose some examples, and we will see.
I've also read original sources on the history of Christian thought (e.g. Augustine and Boethius), as well as a number of works that may have influenced Tolkien (e.g. Tolkien's own translations of Old and Middle English, The Kalevala, The Mabignogion etc). However it is not this that makes my opinions worth being taken seriously. It is the fact that they are substantive (i.e., refutable).
Criticism is not tearing down a piece of work. It is analyzing it. What makes a fanboy deplorable is that he is impervious to evidence; however uncritical criticality is precisely the same thing.
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I will confess to believing I have one advantage over Tolkien in this matter: I have actually seen the movie.
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Maybe the parent poster thinks he's a better judge of what should work than the author himself, but personally, I doubt it.
No, I doubt it too. Because everyone knows that a truly gifted author such as Tolkein must by virtue of being a skilled author of novels and short stories also be a master of film as well. They are basically the same medium, after all. So a defense of Peter Jackson's decisions is clearly unfounded, as Jackson, being a mere director, could not possibly have any idea what makes a good film adaptation since only the novel's author knows what makes good film. In fact I doubt you could find any case where a movie suffered for following the original author's wishe-*HHGTTG* Oops, sorry there, coughed up some phlegm.
The enemies of Democracy are
I'm not sure I understand how your remark applies. (You may have misread "irreverent" as "irrelevant"?)
Look at Peter Jackson's previous work; I don't doubt that he can do dark. There was a good fit between Peter Jackson's capabilities and the requirements of the work re: LotR. I'm not sure Jackson has proved some general competence in translating the spirit of a book; that hinges on how much we generalize from his success with LotR. Since The Hobbit is a lighter work, I'm not sure he's the right choice to bring The Hobbit to the screen. If he brought the same dark feel to The Hobbit that served him in LotR, that would be specifically contrary to the spirit of the book as I read it.
Also, in a nutshell, there are a total of three outright changes to the story that I unequivocally liked: (1) giving Theoden most of the alliterative poetry lines, (2) Replacing Merry with Eowyn at Theoden's death scene, (3) giving Gandalf the lines of the unnamed narrator from the end of the book.
Other than that, I believe most of the changes are defensible, although not unambiguously successful. The idea of a reluctant Aragorn is the biggest change in the story. It leads to many of the unpopular changes in the story, particularly the amplification of the Arwen character. I agree that this angle is more satisfying after you watch the movies several times and come to terms with the way it fundamentally shifts the focus of the story. You'd have to talk with somebody who was unfamiliar with the books to determine whether it was a necessary change. I found it distracting initially, and didn't like it. After having seen the movie on DVD and thought about it, I have neither positive nor negative feelings about it. It is an interesting change, and certainly a costly one.
Your point about emotional "over burn" is interesting, but I'm not convinced. The books are unconventional, and aren't very much like the old hero epics in their construction. The characters aren't represented as having complex interior lives, excepting perhaps Gollum. However that doesn't mean the books are psychologically unsophisticated, they're just built to work differently.
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i dont see lotr as 'dark'. there were dark elements well placed where they due, but there were very well done lighter elements as well. remember the shire before the journey started.
i look at lotr, and i see a 'grand' scale. and persons, places, events described as they were in the book. this matters.
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Is it too much to ask to have a date of publication listed at the start of the article? I thought this was old news the instant I read the first paragraph. The description of Homo floresiensis was first published in October 2004. (Yes, I realize that EW.com was referring to the Science article which was published last month, but they make it sound like Science broke the story.)
The EW.com article was published October 4, 2007.
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Irony aside, so far as I know Tolkien published only one dramatic piece: a short play based on events related in The Battle of Maldon.
It is an interesting piece, although I'm not entirely sure it is skillfully done, in the sense of being something that you could succefully stage. It's a bit like Michael Jordan trying out baseball a few years ago, in that it suggests intriguing possibilities for how things might have gone differently if Tolkien had applied himself in that direction early on. He was a gifted writer, but profoundly out of step with modern tastes and sensibilites.
From LotR, it is clear that Tolkien had a beef with Shakespeare, particularly over the depiction of the supernatural in MacBeth. I expect he didn't particularly like drama at all. But Tolkien also famously despised allegory, yet he could use it very effectively when it suited him. In any The Battle of Maldon is light years away from the complexity of LotR, so I believe your point is correct. A moviemaker is better qualified to determine how to translate it to the screen than the author himself.
What is important is that Jackson gets the big things right: the theme of human frailty a divine grace, and Tolkien's ideal of heroism.
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"All Tolkien fans wanted to like the movies, those of us who loved all three of the books, just didnt like PJ's production very much."
Bullshit. Where do you get off saying that if you loved the books, you didn't like the films? If that's the extent of your ability to think, can't say it gives much validity to your opinion.
"Isnt it terrible when the thing you like so much is hated by others who seem more invested in the thing than you are?"
Terrible? Of course not. Your "investment" does come across as kind of pathetic, though.
The GP (or whatever depth of ancestry he's at now) was essentially a defense of Jackson's decisions to make the story more dramatic for the screen, with only a couple very obvious opinions such as that not every change worked, and that changes requiring additional explanations in an already dense story were less likely to work. You attempt to discredit the post by comparing the post's author to Tolkien in an appeal to authority. Yet the real match up is Jackson vs Tolkien, and while Tolkien would be an authority on the books themselves, he's not an authority on film adaptation compared to Jackson, and hence your appeal falls flat.
The enemies of Democracy are
Personally, I don't believe who you are or what your credentials are matter as much as having demonstrable reasons for your opinions. That's probably a fundamental disconnect here. It seems to me entirely possible that Peter Jackson would be right and Tolkien wrong on some particular matter, or vice versa.
It's not meaningful to discuss these matters as generalizations.
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"Personally I think his rendition of the stories missed an awful lot of what I thought was important"
Until you get past the stumbling block of this attitude, you'll never understand any answer given to your question.
Why is seeing the actual result not relevant?
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You are entirely correct. However you haven't been specific about what the matter under debate is, or indeed which of Tolkien's opinions you are defending. Therefore your appeal to authority is invalid. In any case an appeal to authority is not necessarily decisive.
You still need to be specific about which of Tolkien's opinions are at stake before you can appeal to him as an authority.
You are introducing a irrelevant distraction here, and in any case arguments of this form don't hold watter. I didn't like the first Star Trek movie, but I think The Day the Earth Stood Still was a masterpiece. It happens that Robert Wise directed them both. So is Robert Wise disqualified from having opinions about sci fi movies?
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For me too, the real news is that the Tintin movies are really going to be made.
Certainly I did, although I am surprised that they are controversial. To recap:
(1) Changes were necessary to make the book work dramatically -- to make it filmable if you will.
(2) Most of the changes made were defensible, although many did not work. Here I will welcome contradictory examples, although offhand the only egregiously commercial change I can think of was the amplification of Legolas' derring do.
(3) The changes that worked best were those that condensed the story.
(4) The changes that worked least well were those that required expanding the story.
(5) Jackson gets the most important themes of the book correct, particularly the subtle religious themes about fallibility and grace.
Well, I'm not sure how you can characterize my opinions that way. From my point of view, Jackson's decisions are mixed bag, and you have to take them on a point by point basis. By in large they are thoughtful ones, which is not the same as being right. However on balance I think he got it right.
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Would you care to be specific?
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Technically, MGM owns the production rights to The Hobbit. New Line and MGM currently have a partnership agreement to produce The Hobbit, but the rights revert back to Saul Zaentz sometime next year if principal production hasn't begun. Since Michael Shaye (president of New Line) has been such a dick to Jackson in recent months, it makes total sense for MGM to stall the process until the rights revert, then MGM and Jackson can repurchase the rights and make the film(s) Jackson wants, which will please the fans and cut New Line out of any revenue from it.
The fans, MGM, and Zaentz all want Jackson to direct.
Zaentz bought the film rights for all of Tolkien's works in 1971 so the Professor could pay back taxes. Tolkien didn't believe any part of Middle Earth could be done justice on the big screen.
I take it my invitation to be specific is declined then.
I am inviting you to take a step up from name calling and have an honest discussion. I realize that's not the game you're playing, but aren't you even curious to see whether you can hold your own in a more interesting discussion?
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Indeed. Appeals to authority are only fallacious when the authority is not an expert on the matter under debate. Thank you.
You're welcome, since you clearly don't understand the concept, as proven by:
You're a myope who in ignorance -- having not read The Letters of JRR Tolkien either, along with Tweedledee -- has failed to realize that Tolkien himself took the difference in medium well into consideration, and did not claim expertise in filmmaking when making his protests.
Of course Tolkein took the difference in medium into consideration. He's not an idiot, but even an idiot can tell that they are different mediums. That doesn't make him a film director, either. The fact that he did not claim film making expertise makes me wonder all the more why you're trying to prop him up as an authority on the subject.
In other words, according to your own authority, your appeal to authority is fallacious.
And really, the claim that the director of Meet the Feebles and The Frighteners is any sort of expert filmmaker is laughable. If it were Spielberg making these absurd and extreme decisions, that would be one thing, but Peter Jackson? The fact that he won an Oscar was an affront to all truly-competent directors.
So you don't like Peter Jackson or the LotR movies. That's nice. Doesn't make your appeal to authority any more valid. Doesn't make it any more likely that Tolkien-become-film-director would have done a better job. The fact that merely having Spielberg making the same decisions would somehow appease you just shows how authority-oriented you are. Talk about myopic: Try seeing past your hero-worship of Tolkien for a second to realize that the LotR *books* are amazing and are also *not movies*.
The enemies of Democracy are
You're just mad because you got called on your fallacious appeal to authority. What does the content of the letters matter, when according to you Tolkien therein does not claim to be an authority on film? According to you, your own argument is fallacious. Your appeal to authority is stupid and wrong as most such appeals are. Now you're just upset that even your secret knowledge not only doesn't support your theory, it actually contradicts it. You might think I care about being ignorant of Tolkiens opinion's on film, but I don't consider him a film authority (and neither does he), so no I don't. You care about your terrible self-goal. Appeal to invalid authority is invalid. Get over it.
The enemies of Democracy are
I'm glad you're aware enough to know that you're been completely defeated, and must resort to picking on a spelling error that I spelled correctly most of the time.
I'm sorry someone implied that Tolkien was merely a great author and not the god of all things. I know it must hurt you. Please turn down your emotions and learn some logic next time. Just to be sure, let me repeat the lesson: An appeal to authority is invalid when the authority is not an authority on the subject in question. The subject is film, the authority is Tolkien, and according to his own words he's not a film authority. QED, HAND.
The enemies of Democracy are
No, seriously, how could you hate that movie? It was easily the best movie of the summer, I loved it. Of course, your lack of Transformers-nerdishness probably hurt your experience a great deal, as my favorite part of the movie was how well it scratched that particular itch. Still, though, even without that, it doesn't come close to being "cinematic diarrhea".
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
My only complaints are the lack of the Scouring of the Shire and associated theme involving the changes in the fellowship hobbits, the addition of Frodo's excursion to Osgiliath, and perhaps Galladrial not being quite creepy and unsettling enough although I am at a loss for how she could have been improved.
Jackson did an outstanding job considering the typical Hollywood treatment.
Hell, how about Frodo and Sam? Another great theme, which got completely raped by Jackson, was how Frodo and Sam were indivisble. Their bond of friendship was so strong, nothing whatsoever could tear them apart! Not in Jackson's mind, though. Instead, he figured that we should alter this so that we could have Frodo tell Sam to GTFO of his quest.
The scouring of the Shire is another one which really irritates me, because it shows how the hobbits change, and become more self-sufficient. That should never have been left out.
Don't assume that everyone who has major issues with Peter Jackson's mucking around with LOTR is a Tom Bombadil fan. I'm a fan, but I was able to get past the fact that he was left out, that is NOT my issue with those movies. In fact, Fellowship of the Ring is my favorite part of the trilogy. You do yourself a disservice by assuming that your opponents can only have one possible complaint, and dismissing it as invalid.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Interesting that you disliked one of my favorite changes. I thought Arwen's amplified role works very well. Jackson simply conflated several unimportant elven characters and made one relatively important one. Arwen the concept is important in the books, Arwen the character is essentially a cardboard cutout. Better the one (conceptually essential) better developed character than seven or eight one offs from a dramatic point of view.
The two changes that really bothered me were the Entmoot and Faramir, otherwise I thought Jackson did fairly well.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
The other poster points out that Frodo was the functional equivalent of ~30 for the quest, so not really middle aged, more prime of life. I'll add the ring stopped him aging at the equivalent of 20 or so. The books even comment that people were already talking about how Frodo had inherited Bilbo's apparent agelessness.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
I frowned at several things, but the one thing that stands out for me is the battle at Minas Tirith where Aragorn arrives because I think the book depiction could have been filmed very well. Instead of a dramatic widescreen of the king returning at the helm of a fleet of ships, he just pops up and basically says "surprise" at the docks. Then the oathbreakers annihilate everything in two seconds. I think it would have been better to save some of battle scenery to show the king leading an army that smashes through the enemy and finally meets up with Eomer. Aragorn would be a better hero that way, not the ghosts.
Actually, I have given you the benefit of the doubt with respect to whether you are honest, which looking at the track of this conversation looks doubtful. However, it is possible that you are a sincere person who thinks your opinions are not being given a respectful hearing. On balance I think it is worthwhile to risk feeding a troll as far as I have (but no farther).
So once again, if you have opinions on specific changes Peter Jackson made, I invite you to express them and I will try to give a thoughtful response. There is no reason to discuss the issue of name calling because there is no productive purpose in pursuing that issue.
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But part of what makes the good literature special is seeing the characters grow and change and relate to their world then (perhaps even subconsciously) reflecting on how those situations might inform your reactions in yours.
One of the "lessons" of LOTRs is that you cannot go home again. Jackson completely eliminated the raising of the Shire, eliminating this element from the story.
There are points of difference that are minor, and I'm not an advocate of movies that hold to a slavish conformity to the books they're based off. Indeed, the elimination of some of the interminable passages regarding Sam and Frodo's journey to Mordor was welcome.
But these changes that eliminate important points seem to me to be the greatest disconnect between the books and Jackson's movie.
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Either this AC is a troll, or is having difficulty making his point. In this particular case it is tricky because there are fans who have a strong emotional attachment to Tolkien as an author. Not wanting to risk unkindness, I have assumed the AC feels strongly and is having difficulty marshaling his point. If that is the case, however, it is evident he's not getting there.
Given that, its probably best not to continue responding, unless AC steps up and says something worth responding to. But before I do that I just wanted to thank you, Chris, for your reasonable contributions to the discussion.
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1. The narrative was split between too many viewpoints so the actors did not have much material to work with. Army guys, high school geek and improbable girlfriend, improbably hot NSA geek girl and her painfully black hacker friend, plus transofmers -- too muddled.
2. The script obviously suffered from multiple revisions with plot points left behind that are now lacking the underpinnings that made them important in the first place. Ok, they discover Adam --er, Megatron, at the pole and he burns a map into glasses -- a map no longer needed since the allspark was already moved. Decide to evacuate the allspark using helicopters that fly at a fraction of the speed of the Decepticon jets. Decide to do so in the middle of a city so as many fleshbags as possible will be exposed to carnage. Let's not even begin the plot hole of Megatron surviving the icy reaches of space but becoming incapacitated when landing at the north pole. What, Earth cold is colder than space cold?
3. Painfully awful humor in general such as masturbation jokes from the mother, robots peeing, that whole stupid hiding outside the house bit, etc.
4. The special effects were gawdawful messes of spinning parts that were hard to keep up with.
I can enjoy smart comedy and I can enjoy dumb comedy. I can enjoy serious drama and I can enjoy s'plosions. Transformers was sorely lacking by every measure of cinema and storytelling. It is a steaming turd that should be encased in lucite, preserved as a warning to future generations of what happens when market interests trump art, drama, and having a good time, when greed gets the better of art and a meritless exercise in banality is loosed upon the world for no better reason than Hollywood machine politics and a desire to pick up a fast buck.
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I actually thought the use of Arwen was both clever and economical. But what made it necessary was the idea of Aragorn as reluctant to become king. In order to overcome that reluctance, he must face Arwen's becoming mortal. In order for that to be meaningful to the audience, she has to become a lot more important to the story.
What is ironic is that while the amplification of Arwen works pretty well, the complication of Aragorn that makes it necessary doesn't. It's just too much on top of all the other stuff going on. It is as if Aragorn becomes the cenral figure in the story. Then what about Frodo? Can the movies support two central characters?
Then of course, the new focus on Aragorn means they need a big speech for him at the gates of Mordor. Except they don't have Tolkien (or somebody who writes like him) to make one up for them, and they end up with a pale ghost of Henry V. The problems go on. If Aragorn is coequal with Frodo as the main character, then his marriage to Arwen should be the final triumphant resolution of the movie. But the Dark Lord has already been overthrown. It feels crammed in between that and the Grey Havens.
The same problem goes for Faramir. There just isn't time to work that out, and its sloppily patched over with sentimental music (ugh).
The Entmoot change feels like a workable abridgement to me. It also gives Pippin something useful to do.
The speechifying by Aragorn would have been better left off and the relationship between Faramir and Eowyn restored in its place. It conveys the sense of what is going on better, and it also resolves the relationship between Eowyn and Aragorn, which is given a great deal of emphasis in the movie, but then just magically evaporates, which is unsatisfying. Again, this is where the changes to Aragorn, although plausible in themselves, weight the movie down with more plot than it can handle.
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Yes, that was a comedown, after the great cavalry charge of the Rohirrim, which had both grandeur and drama.
The speeding up of the battle is defensible in order to keep the movie going, but the gimmicky way they reintroduce Aragorn trivializes what just happened.
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It's one thing to slightly change a plot or have one character use another's dialog, but adding plot changes is a whole other matter. The Two Towers had the worst of this problem.
1. Faramir takes Frodo and Sam to Osgiliath. This was utter and complete bullshit. Beyond the fucking pale as far as I'm concerned.
2. Aragorn falling off the cliff while fighting the Warg's. Yes, I'm afraid this is more utter bullshit. What is this, a Saturday morning kids show?
3. Last but certainly not least was when Frodo tells Sam to leave and go home while they are on the Stairs of Cirith Ungol.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
In regard to the difference between the Tolkien and Jackson version of the Entmoot and their decision to go to war (or lack thereof), read this:
http://bourgeoisburglars.blogspot.com/2007/05/another-difference-between-tolkiens-and.html
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
(2) Replacing Merry with Eowyn at Theoden's death scene
Which is one of my greatest disappointments with the film. Eowyn's duel with the Witch King is one of the best moments in the Return of the King, and Jackson botched it royally. It had no gravity whatsoever, and the death of the Lord of the Nazgul was sort of a "so what?" moment instead of a major turn in the book. Eowyn's tragic heroism is cheapened into a "ooh, another Mortal Kombat moment!"
"Speeding up" of the battle? In the books it took ~15 pages. In the movies it was something like 45 minutes. I thought the battle scenes in the movies were generally way too long. Sure, it all looks really cool, but at some point it's just too much.
Yes, I was waiting for the confrontation between Gandalf and Saruman in the film and was sorely disappointed. Whats worse are the Jackson apologists who rationalize all these plot changes and additions... You sum it up perfectly with the phrase arbitrary changes.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
I see this comment a lot, and it is a fair point, but it also kind of misses the point.
You could level the same accusation against most literary works pre 1800, and as Tolkien was attempting to create a mythology - more like Beowulf, less like Dickens - i'm sure he wouldn't have cared one bit. i for one prefer a good story with shallow characters than a poor story with 'deep' characters. most readers seem to share my view. which is why critics rave about Ulysses (to take the most extreme example) and hate LotR, whereas most of the book-reading public thinks LotR is great but would never even try to read Ulysses even if they knew what it was.
for most people, story is more important than characterization.
Christ on a bike, how long is this going on?
What it comes down to is this - is Jackson a driver telling the mechanic how to change the oil filter, or is Tolkein a greasemonkey telling Schumacher how to double declutch?
If that doesn't settle it, nothing will.
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Well, I think it's both: Mr. AC is a troll who chose to troll here because of their deep personal attachment to Tolkien that goes well beyond respect for a great author.
I never assumed a substantive response from the outset, I'm just engaging in a little troll-bashing for fun.
The enemies of Democracy are
That's a lot of text, but it seems interesting. I shall be reading it tomorrow at work.
hemi
The story isn't that good either. They just go and go and go and do stuff. Not interesting to the least bit. Having a more interesting characters could have solved it.
hemi
The point is the folks who wanted to see what the books, all of all three books, looked like on film were less than thrilled. The folks who say "Bombadil was gay anyway" didnt care for some of the first book. The same goes for folks who didnt mind the changes and parts left out of the others, they didnt care for ALL of the books.
I meant to put "all of all three books" in the original post, but hit post instead of preview.
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I found the films, beautiful, well written, well acted (Agent Smith aside), and thoroughly satisfying.
I cannot imagine any other director doing better. As a matter of fact I couldn't even believe he pulled it off.
Immediately after watching the first, I was a fan of Jacksons, and even the massively long ending of the third one wasn't enough to change it.
Kudos to Mr. Jackson, I wouldn't even consider watching the Hobbit done by anyone else. Jackson owns the Tolkien franchise in my eyes.
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I hear he'll make Gollum shoot first.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
PJ did a terrible job with LoTR without gracing us with a single reason why it was terrible.
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Yes.
Space cannot conduct or convect heat. If the heat from your internal generator is at or less than the radiative loss, you will never get cold in space until your power runs out.
The same amount of heat output would be immediately overwhelmed if surrounded with water ice (radiation + conduction losses) Point taken, but I still think it sounds ridiculous to say that a super robot that can travel space and fight in terrestrial environments will be taken out by a case of the shivers.
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The spelling is entirely forgivable, but the 'of'? He was Túrin Turambar, meaning Túrin, Master of Doom. He wasn't 'of' Turambar, he came from Dor-lómin.
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The Silmarillion (sp?) is a MUST read for TRUE fans. It covers the time of the world creation, the creation of the individual races (elf, man, etc), it covers the reasons why people like Aragorn live longer, etc. It covers the creation of Sauron (sp?) and the rings.
Maybe I'm the only one asking the question WHY but to me, I'd rather see that than what happened between the Hobbit and Fellowship.
The Silmarillion was a great read and it was well written and filled in so many holes. I'm sure Jackson will go back to the archives to find out what Tolkien wrote about the time between Hobbit and Fellowship so it should be pretty interesting.
Either way, the Silmarillion is a movie that really needs creating!
Wow, what a small world. My wife studied Finno-Ugric Studies at the University of Munich, and had some courses on the Samoyed people. I know, they aren't actually Finno-Ugric (right?), but as you say, that's a pretty specialized area so it got picked up by the Finno-Ugric department here. I think she even still has some books on the subject... I'll have to ask her.
:-) since that is indeed a very small community of scholars.
Ah, I just checked your web-page and see you are currently at University of Helsinki, where my wife did an exchange semester; *and* also studying Finno-Ugrian Linguistics! I bet you know a lot of the same people
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