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Filming For The Hobbit Begins In July
krou writes "Sir Ian McKellen has revealed that filming for The Hobbit and its sequel is scheduled to begin in July, and will take approximately a year to complete. Casting is now 'taking place in LA, London and New York,' and [director Guillermo] Del Toro is already 'living in Wellington, close to the Jacksons and the studio in Miramar.' Apparently the script is still being worked on, and 'the first draft is crammed with old and new friends, again on a quest in Middle-earth.' The planned sequel to The Hobbit is to be an original story not written by Tolkien, covering the 60 years between The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings."
I have visions of furries lined up for the audition.
I'm all for the creation and filming of The Hobbit, but I really don't know about the idea for that "sequel".
"The planned sequel to The Hobbit is to be an *original story not written by Tolkien*, covering the 60 years between The Hobbit, and the Lord of the Rings."
Thanks but no thanks.
There is a war going on for your mind.
Oh god, that's going to suck. Can they get Uwe Boll to direct so as to remove all temptation to see it?
Oh jeez, MORE walking?!?!?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I'm very much looking forward to The Hobbit (very skeptical about the "original" sequel).
When I read the Lord of the Rings as a youngster, I was able to picture all the major scenes, and the characters, the locations... then to see Peter Jackson's films as an adult was just astonishing; they obviously had the same ideas as I had.
Yes, I know there were some differences between book and film (the Ring going to Osgiliath, and the omission of the Scouring of the Shire, in particular), but I still loved the films, and felt they were a lot more faithful to the original story than some other big budget Hollywood productions have been.
I hope the same is true for the Hobbit. Any word on who will play Bilbo?
He's Jesus, for Christ's sake.
I commented on the post in the Firehose after I submitted it, but the summary should've said "... is scheduled to begin in July ..." instead of June.
'If Christ had tweeted the sermon on the mount, it might have lasted until nightfall.' - John Perry Barlow
Gandalf, Elrond, Galadrial (she is not in book). And Gollum too.
The sequel will feature a new dragon, named Aesydrayne, and a battle involving six armies, and a ring that makes you completely odorless.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Oh joy, another visually stunning film with a disjointed script, mixing Tolkien's brilliant timeless dialog with flat modern drivel penned by Fran Walsh. And the sequel... that's just going to be visually stunning with drivel for plot and dialog.
It wouldn't be so bad if they didn't screw up the plot and dialog so badly. Ugh.
... like Jar Jar Binksarrim of the water people. And Elrond will have an affair with Galadriel. That's right, as soon as we fully Americanize this story, we will have a real winner here, folks.
The planned sequel to The Hobbit is to be an original story not written by Tolkien, covering the 60 years between The Hobbit, and the Lord of the Rings."
I know that there is a lot going on during those 60 years, but none of it involves any hobbits. In fact, all the stuff that's happening is centered around Aragorn growing up and going to war, Sauron regaining his power in Mordor, after having been tossed out of Mirkwood, and Elrond's sons searching for their mother. These are unrelated story lines that are too short to constitute a movie independently.
If there is going to be another movie based on Tolkien's Middle-Earth, it should be drawn from the Silmarillion. That's full of awesomeness, that is otherwise written very confusingly (and blandly). The Silmarillion would benefit greatly from a movie adaptation of even one story arc mentioned in there.
Imagine buying the White Album and finding Green Day tracks spliced in to 'fill in' what The Beatles meant to do.
I don't think I'll see either of them out of principle.
... like Jar Jar Binksarrim of the water people. And Elrond will have an affair with Galadriel. That's right, as soon as we fully Americanize this story, we will have a real winner here, folks.
Sorry, that was only the first draft. Now, Bilbo is a time-traveling immortal who joins with a hip new Gandalf to save Middle-Earth's ozone layer.
Then, they break dance!
The planned sequel to The Hobbit is to be an original story not written by Tolkien, covering the 60 years between The Hobbit, and the Lord of the Rings."
A sequel NOT written by Tolkien? Ew. How about instead another prequel taken from The Silmarillion? That would be full of awesome, almost guaranteed to win several internets.
How can you call something by a book name and not actually be referring to the book? That seems weird. *sigh*
The Hobbit was definitely written for a younger crowd. Of course once Hollywood gets through with it you won't know that- are they going for a younger crowd or what?
and Back Again.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I'm in favor of the sequel. In all due reverence to Tolkien, there are other authors on this planet who have done well with fantasy works. In fact every single work of modern fantasy is derivative from Tolkien's works, and if you've ever enjoyed any of them, there's a distinct risk you'll enjoy this, too.
What's more, since you haven't read this particular book, you're probably less likely to be underwhelmed by it. You can't compare the dialog to a book which doesn't exist.
Finally, I think it absolutely vital for fantasy, and all fiction everywhere, to move beyond reverence for certain works. Somehow humanity managed to move beyond Shakespeare, creating new-ish works which we prefer to his, and I believe we can move beyond Tolkien. I also feel that making a new work in that same setting can be a catalyst for that evolution.
I'm also a strong proponent of 'Lucas' Law' wherein we can democratically remove an author's control over a project if they cease to contribute to society. Introduce one too many Jar-Jar-Binks-types and the people put a referendum on the ballot to put your work into the public domain...
Tolkien's work should be eligible for this transition as well, because nothing new is coming out of it. Or nothing was, until this sequel.
This sound wrong to me. The last I read was that the two movies would just be the Hobbit, broken into two but with some segments of the book expanded upon. I know there was talk earlier about a non-Hobbit sequel for the 2nd movie, but I don't think that's the way things stand right now unless things have changed again for some bizarre reason. Okay, here's one link: http://www.aintitcool.com/node/41848 "Where as many months ago, writers Jackson, Guillermo del Toro, Philippa Boyens, and Fran Walsh were contemplating the first films as essentially being the Tolkien book, and the second film being a bridge movie between THE HOBBIT and THE LORD OF THE RINGS, Jackson told a select group of online journalists a couple nights ago that that clearly wasn't going to be the case. The two films will be the novel stretched out and supplemented by material from appendices, and other background source material written by Tolkien."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Silmarillion
duh
it will be hard to nail tolkien's tone in a made up "middle movie". even if it isn't "studio committee of frat boys"ed to death, lotr fundamentalist fanboys will eviscerate it. they can deal with no tom bombadil, since its a story line that's so out of touch with the rest of lotr that it can safely be surgically removed, but whatever they do with the rumored necromancer plotline for this "middle movie" they better be damn respectful to the world of lotr:
http://www.storyscape.net/hobbit_necromancer.html
as an aside, i always thought a good jumping off point for lotr fanfiction/ hollywood exploitation would be an examination of the blue wizards:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Wizards
so little is sketched by tolkien of them and the world to the east of mordor they went too, that it could make for some great lotr-type stories without stepping on any middle earth toes or the fanboys who guard the mythology's continuity
it could have an east asian or russian mythology theme, keeping in touch with all those maps that overlay mordor with either germany, transylvania, or the middle east
and maybe we would get more oliphants! ;-P
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
... Greatest Hobbit of them all!
I see what you're doing there. You're trying to Spock Roll us. Well, I've seen it before and whilst I can't un-see it I don't need to see it again.
Tolkien wrote dialogue? I thought his books were fantasy travelogues: descriptions of places, leaving places, walking through places, and arriving at other places. I don't remember much in the way of dialogue. I just remember lots of walking. Oh, and maybe a few spiders and a dragon or something.
You see, in order to have 'brilliant timeless dialogue' your characters have to have interesting motivations. The Hobbit was a classic adventure story, which quite simply does not lend itself to interesting motivations or dialogue. The only relevant motivation in an adventure story is "We've got to achieve The Thing!" and the dialogue boils down to"Have we achieved The Thing? No? How do we achieve The Thing? Ah, we need to (go somewhere/get something/kill someone/help someone/destroy something). Let's do that now!" repeated until the answer to the first question is "Yes! We have achieved The Thing!"
The Hobbit, and Tolkien's other works are nice stories, and amazing for their time, but don't try to make them into something they aren't. "Visually stunning" was exactly what Tolkien was going for, otherwise the books wouldn't read like a travelogue.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Gandalf tells Bilbo he hasn't aged a day. He's celebrating his 111th birthday in the first movie.
And in the flashback, where Bilbo finds the ring, obviously Ian Holm looked pretty much the same as he did in Fellowship.
They should have made The Hobbit with Ian Holm a few years ago. Or at least scanned him in so we could AVATAR his performance into the movie, if the need arose.
Now, we'll have a movie with a different Bilbo, an older Aragorn, an older Gandalf... even an older Elrond.
...and create something new, genius. Something that would require a little more effort, something that would have a little more risk because it lacked an installed fan base. Something without a fuckin' elf.
please no singing.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
"The planned sequel to The Hobbit is to be an *original story not written by Tolkien*, covering the 60 years between The Hobbit, and the Lord of the Rings." Thanks but no thanks.
Hey come on now, Tolkien's grand kids need Ferraris, hookers, and blow. Don't begrudge them the simple hobbit necessities of life....
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
"The planned sequel to The Hobbit is to be an original story not written by Tolkien, covering the 60 years between The Hobbit, and the Lord of the Rings." The planned sequel to The Hobbit is to be an original story, not written by Tolkien, covering the 60 years between The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. Sorry but misplaced punctuation is like J-walking... A very serious offense. ...
Saruman is a Decepticon!
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/5/28/
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
That whole plot/dialog thing is so much simpler than the visual graphics right? I mean heck, Shakespeare never had to deal with raycasting or aliasing, he had it EASY!
The screenplay writer, Mrs. Jackson, expanded the role of female characters in the Lord of Rings, I presume to add balance. It appears they are doing the same for the Hobbit. The Hobbit novel is even more all-male than LOTR.
From theonering.net
1.2. What will be included in the two movies? According to the Empire Online interview with PJ and GDT (link above), the two movies will include all of the iconic moments in the book, The Hobbit, as well as being expanded to follow other events that occur ‘offstage.’ This includes the White Council and Gandalf’s comings and goings to Dol Guldur. Pj: “We expanded out the universe a lot more so that we weren’t just staying with Bilbo and the Dwarves on their journey, as the book pretty much does. We started to expand some of what’s happening to Gandalf outside of that journey.” Things we know are included so far: - backstory of Thrain, Thorin’s father - Beorn - Spiders - The White Council - Gandalf’s journeys to Dol Guldur - The three trolls (Tom, Bert, William) - Sauron ( including some of his history)
I noticed a few wind-mills in the Trilogy so they could expand that and invent
steam-power and so on, and begin an industrial era.
And later on the hobbits invent cars. And computers and begins an
MiddleEarth Information Age. Then we get to follow thier progress when they invent
space-travel and begin exploring thier galaxy! Where they explore strange new worlds,
and civilizations. To boldly go, where no hobbit/human/wizard/elf/dwarf/ent/etc
have never gone before! And then, finally we get to see how they discover the science
behind all the fracking magic... No?
Speaking of Fantasy, LoTR/Starwars crossover would work. Both are Fantasy.
Can we get Tim Burton to direct, and make it a franchise reboot?
I can see it now: the hobbits living in an advanced society not unlike 21st century Europe undergo a genetic mutation as the result of exposure to radioactive volcanic ash. One of the hobbits becomes Lord Sauron, who proceeds to rise up and conquer the lands, forming an oppressive kingdom where he removes and monopolizes all modern technology. Society within that first generation regresses to a 10th-century-style existence. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Starbuck, an astronaut who crashed on some faraway planet, helped the hobbits form a rag tag resistance group comprised of wookies, psychlo, and griffins, stumble across a cache of F-35 Lightning fighters, and although they have never seen so much as a flashlight or even matches, over the course of two weeks, become expert fighter pilots. Did I mention these F-35 Lightnings were not what they appeared, but are actually transformers, and in the bunker-style hangar they came across, there was a large semi. Well, the transformers were remaining covert to try to learn what all these strange creatures were up to since the creatures showed a barely perceptible spark of conscious thought. Optimus Prime took pity and he and his brothers revealed their true nature to the rag tag team. They agree to help the hobbits, psychlo, wookies, and griffins wage war to overthrow Sauron. The battle was quick and decisive.
Now for the Tim Burton twist ending: Glinda, the good witch told Lieutenant Starbuck "sorry man, but you have to go home now. I'll service you first." She gives him a BJ and tells him all he needs to do is to play the hokey pokey then he will be swiftly transported home. He does the hokey pokey, except he put is left foot in when he should have put in his right foot, so he landed in a parallel universe where the Earth is now ruled by giant tarantulas.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
I've been holding off on getting LOTR set for bluray until this came out. I was wavering and even a week ago thought "maybe i should just buy it, there won't be a hobit movie"...glad to know my stubborness is paying off.
I do not support "The Man". I also do not support your irrational stupidity
Personally I think this should be done a lot more, A lot of writers/directors do not seem to be able to not rework a story when they make it into a movie and i would rather see a new story then a movie with a story that has been changed.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
How many people here truly enjoyed TLOTR? I, for one, cannot understand its appeal at all.
A: Tolkien was good, but not great. So the high and mightys worring about a sequel, rest: The Hobbit was a good book but it is hardly the greatest Fantasy Novel ever. In fact parts of Tolkien's writing is just plain boring. For all the people that bitch about copyright lasting too long and stifiling innovation and crap all bets are off if they think about expanding on Tolkien. I mean seriously could you imagine someone writing books about Star Wars besides Lucas? Madness they would all suck and drain the life out of his creative masterpiece!
I mean come on that Tim Zhanwhatever's sequel's to Star Wars were aweful and destroyed the franchise right? Mara Jade = Jar Jar err wait....
So It comes down to the Lost years between the two. No problem since there are plenty of unanswered questions between the two.
Relax. It is no more likely to suck then the movie the Hobbit itself.
Case Point: Star Wars -> Empire is to Matrix -> Whatever that shit they crap out was called. Nothing about a second movie implies it being worse then the original statistically speaking. Both the first and second Friday the 13ths were pretty good compared to the rest of the franchise.
On a more serious note let's not forget that the Hobbit is also considered on of the WORST books ever written since the perspective changes 1/2 through the book (actually isn't it like 1/3rd of the way in?) You can't really fuck up the movie more then that and we still call the Hobbit a great work... It's like Hobbits are Fuck-Up-Proof!
B: Butchering the story in making it a movie. Well they've tried what 4 times now and failed every time. They may not know what to do right but they'll have plenty of archive material to tell them what they did wrong. Yes they are going to rape your childhood, too bad it isn't yours anymore. Grab some lube if you are worried.
C: Flat acting concerns... Well... actually that might work better. The Hobbit was a pretty flat affair of classic folklore. The Elves should be flat (they are a rather dull people to begin with) and Dildo, I mean Bilbo wasn't much fun. Bard comes pretty much otta nowhere, the dwarves couldn't have been more of a Bavarian carcature if you tried, and the classical elements are all there almost page for page (Heroes' journey blah blah blah.)
I know I am old and cynical but seriously, Star War, B5, Star Trek, LOTR\Hobbit, Star Ship Troopers, Discworld are great and fun works but they are not "Mental\Spiritual\Philisophical\Humanistic Awakening" causing works. They good, they will be around in 100 years for sure, but few if any are going to pick up the Hobbit and say 40 years later, "They day I picked up the Hobbit was the day my life truely changed for the better."
Tolkien = Good, but so is Terry Brooks, Ann Mcaffery, Weis and Hickman, etc.
I would in all honesty be more excited about a Shanara movie then the Hobbit. I would also be more excited about winning $50 on a lottery scratch off.
That is the problem as you get older, the underlying plots are all the same and it is harder and harder to not notice that long enough to enjoy the movie. Like Avatar.... ZZzz.... Dances with Wolves in Space......
I am actually more interested in the proposed sequel to the Hobbit then the movie. I'd like to see something unexpected and new. No matter what a movie cannot compare with a book (even a comic book to a degree) because you can set the pace, you control to a greater degree what the world looks like, etc.
Just chill and try to enjoy the movie on it's own merits and if you can't, like me, rent and bitch about it at home and quit ruining the movie for those that can.
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
Will the perspective change 1/2 through the movie?
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
The Hobbit:
"Fa-la-la-lalley, welcome to the valley" dance
LoTR:
"We are all leaving and it's terrible sad" pout.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Can't have a discussion of the hobbit without the Bilbo Baggins song.
"If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill
A guy that can shape shift into a bear? Not likely.
I know it's a troll, but I have to ask:
What about LOTR and the Hobbit would attract homosexually oriented nerds more than straight nerds?
I really don't remember anything gay about the books. Ohhhh.. were you referring to the movies? You can thank Peter Jackson for that. I can assure you Tolkien had nothing to do with the perceived "gayness" of the films.
"If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill
I just got back from a trip to New Zealand where we visited Hobbiton (Matamata) and the "greens people" had just been there, adding hedges and such. But it was still very early going, and it looked to me like it would take another year of growing before it had the lived-in look of LOTR. The tour guide on site suggested something similar, so the stated July start seems odd to me...
"Things should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler" - Einstein
mod this guy +6 funny
thanks
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Del Toro stated last year that the two movies are going to be the book split into two. There is no filler between LOTR and the Hobbit anymore, that idea got scrapped.
"Originally, both parts would have served as separate films. The first would have adapted The Hobbit and the second would have bridged the gap between this and The Lord of the Rings. It is now the director's intention to split and expand the narrative of The Hobbit over two parts of a singular film."
Jeeze all the hate over something that isn't even gonna happen!!
...like Battlefield Earth.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'sm in a stew.
Damping absorbs vibrations. Dampening is caused by moisture.
I've read Lord Of The Rings a total of five times during my life (with a 6th read planned for soon), I've listen to the BBC audio adaptation several times and I played D&D and Advanced D&D for many years.
I saw the LOTR movies once at the cinema & own the Special Edition movies which I've watched a few times - I'll even confess to shedding a quick tear when Boromir died (despite knowing it would happen) in Fellowship, when the Ents started moving in Towers, and when Bilbo and Sam were up on Mount Doom in Return.
I don't care that the films were not completely accurate to the books, they were a great adaptation that I thoroughly enjoyed & that were hopefully easy enough on the general populace to hopefully have made them realise that fantasy tales don't all start & end with Harry Potter.
Therefore I've decided that at 48 years of age, it's possible to care deeply about something you enjoy but that it's time to stop being too nerdy about stuff - after all, it's *JUST* entertainment, enjoy it & feel a bit happier about things in general, or don't enjoy it & go find something you do enjoy.
As a Star Trek fan, I was appalled 10 years ago when they started talking about a prequel movie or series to the original series, but I actually quite enjoyed Enterprise (as good as DS9 and better than Voyager) and thoroughly enjoyed the complete reboot of the franchise in the latest movie... bugger timelines, bugger proper adaptations, all that matters is whether or not I enjoyed it.
Sorry, kiddies, but when you get to my age a whole lot of stuff that used to seem really important now just gets in the way of you enjoying stuff that little bit more - so don't worry, you'll grow out of it...
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
If there must be a sequel, can we at least get someone competent to write it? Is that Brandon Sanderson guy working on anything right now?
Then I can be bored for only a few hours while watching it instead of the days it takes to read it?
Great.
I think that this article is misinformed. I have read that this was the original intention to make the 2nd movie as a bridge between the Hobbit and LotR. But now I read that the 2 movies will be adapted both from the Hobbit and be one singular film but split into two.
Don't see the abysmal original. Honestly, does The Hobbit need new characters? If it did, I'm sure Tolkien would have put them in - it's not like the guy was hurting for original characters.
I am not an animal! I am something worse!
i despise intellectual property
in an ideal world, anyone could make any fan fiction they wanted on the world of lotr, star wars, star trek, etc, without fear that the freeloading useless children or grandchildren and their lawyers aren't able to shut the fanfic down, because, for some reason, the useless turds deserve to live off the proceeds of a STORY or a SONG or a MOVIE their ancestors wrote
how does that make sense?
no: fans should make all the fiction they want. let the cream float to the top, let the drek sink, and let these world be thus adequately and enjoyably explored by all
intellectual property as an idea is pure fucking bullshit, philosophical failure, and incompatible with western ideals of liberty. it impoverishes our culture
intellectual property law requires our outright hostility and must be destroyed
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I'll third that, it'll save me the agony of reading The Silmarillion
I wouldn't mind a companion Silmarillion website, with maps and historical sidenotes. It could work.
Reply to That ||
Sorry, but I just don't get all the pessimism.
It's been too long since we've had a widespread I-just-can't-wait-to-see-the-movie-and-its-sequel(s) phenomenon. Peter Jackson pulled it off with LOTR. And while he set the bar pretty darned high: His track record shows that he is up for the task.
I have high hopes. But, even if the end result is a disappointment: at least we have another Star Trek is coming around the corner.
I hope they don't name it "The Hobbit" if it's going to deal with the 60 years between The Hobbit and LOTR.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
Don't fully agree with that. The audience he wrote this for consisted of (young)children, who needed to be put at ease since Tolkien did not shield them from scary subjects. Even to the extend that one of the main characters dies in battle. To that effect he projects the fears of his audience on Bilbo, often in a very light-hearted manner. It is through the empathy for Bilbo that his young audience is guided through these very adult concepts. It shows how serious he takes children.
You never catch me alive
George Lucas has written the screen play to a sequel of a popular fantasy series. "Screw hobbits," says George in an interview, "ewoks is where it's at."
Be seeing you...
Actually, TFA says: "The second will be an original story focusing on the 60 years between the book and the beginning of the Rings trilogy. "