Peter Jackson Hospitalized w/ Stomach Ulcer

An anonymous reader writes "The Hobbit author JRR Tolkien suffered from a perforated ulcer before dying in 1973. Now today, New Zealander Sir Peter Jackson, director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and soon-to-be-director of the two Hobbit movies, was hospitalized with a perforated stomach ulcer, and underwent surgery. This is only expected to slightly delay the filming of The Hobbit, and he's expected to make a full recovery."

Comments

LOTR & Jackson Critique

[lymond01]

The Lord of the Rings movies, of course, were amazing. Perhaps even awesome in the non-valley-girl sense of the word. But there were a couple parts that niggled at me that he could have done differently.

1) "Let's hunt some orc!" ended the first movie (or nearly so) as Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas race off to find the lost hobbits. In the book: "We will make such a chase as shall be accounted a marvel among the Three Kindreds: Elves, Dwarves, and Men." I would have liked to have heard the latter, perhaps spoken a bit more sincerely, less shouting. Give it an intense moment.

2) Sam deciding to carry Frodo up the mountain. Again with the shouting. Why not make it, again, a more intense moment, a zoom on Sam and Frodo's faces together and him delivering the line "Then I will carry you" in a hoarse whisper.

Kind of hearkens back to the difference between British and American film making. LOTR, despite being made by a Kiwi, comes across as rather over the top American. To explain, there's a brief scene in the theater production Wicked where the witch and her lover are alone, kneeling together on the ground. She says, "You know. For the first time, I truly feel....wicked." The London version she whispers "wicked" with a devilish grin. The San Francisco version, she hollers it and tackles the guy. Both work, it just depends on what you prefer. I'm a non-laugh-track kind of person. Pirates of the Caribbean 1 did well because of it subtleties, wry looks, and sarcastic humor. 2 & 3 did less well because they went for slapstick comedy and dumped the intelligence.

Re:LOTR & Jackson Critique

[Anonymous Coward]

What about Gimli's asinine quote about nervous systems? (Think that might've only been in the extended version, though.)

The fact that Faramir's character was so brutally bastardized it isn't funny? (Protip, Aragorn had nothing on Faramir in terms of 'good guy incarnate'.)

Speaking of which, Aragorn being made emo-whiny? Tolkien's Aragorn was whipping out Narsil and declaring himself at every opportunity, and even at times when there was no opportunity, FFS. Jackson's? "But.. But I don't want to be King. I want to.. I want to sing!"

Pah. My only consolation in all this, is that at least Jackon's butchery of the Hobbit will probably be slightly better than the horrid animated version of the Hobbit that's out there. :p