Am i the only one who is super excited for the new Lord of the Rings movie: The Hobbit?

I PM'ed you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOGsB9dORBg

Yes, I'm looking forward to it. Going to see it with the daughters.

Why? And shouldn't he notice it without you posting a PSA about it?

Because it annoys me when we get new users who immediately start making a hundred threads who's purpose are already served by existing threads. But I suppose that could be construed as mini-modding.

Be cool.

I made 2 threads. Calm yourself.

It bothers me a little too, but it's all good, he'll learn the ways of this forum eventually. Especially with the mods we have. Those bitches... (jk jk)

I hope so....Anyway, this thread will remain open even if the OP is meh, this could be discussed a lot, if not, I'll lock it and we'll discuss it in the Movie Thread.

I saw the trailer. After the trainwreak of the LOTR films I have no faith whatsoever in this, I'm certain it'll be shackled to the same soap opera/action mentality and will not attempt at all to capture the fairy tale serendipity of the plot convenient twists that form the crux of the story. That's what makes it good.

From what I've seen and heard, the dwarves look like porn stars, the cartoon gollum is back, still cartoony as can be, they are keeping the modern hollywood soap opera/action mentality and they wrote in a bunch of new plot points to involve Legolas in the narrative to a greater degree that could be justified by saying that he lives in the Woodland Kingdom and part of the story takes place there. I'm certain they did so so they could give him more stupid "awesome" action moments like they did in the LOTR films.

awe I loved the LOTR films

I'm actually really looking forward to seeing the movie, seeing as I read the book and saw the ridiculous cartoon when I was younger. The one thing that I don't understand is why there's an extra 2 movies just to explain what happened between The Hobbit and LOTR when Tolkien more or less inferred what happened between books.

The LOTR films were (in my opinion) fantastic.

On some strange level, I'd like to know the reasoning behind this, but after a bit of thought, I really don't.

I'm just eager to hear the soundtrack(I'm assuming Howard Shore is composing the music again), but the movie itself doesn't interest me at all. I can't watch movies based on books I've read. I'm too nitpicky.

The movies may suck as adaptions but as movies they are great. I've not read the LotR books yet though (I'm not a fast reader and I want to finish the Dune trilogy first) but I've read The Hobbit and this will ruin the film experience for sure.

I prefer The Hobbit to LOTR's, not sure a movie can do it justice, though the trilogy wasn't a bad attempt. I have a mental picture of Beorn, not sure I want to see someone play him on screen.
Hope they never attempt The Silmarillion.

Anyone seen this?
http://www.bornofhope.com/Watch.html

I really enjoyed the movies actually. The books were great and the movies were great. Why hate on the movies?

I think the movies are bad, but I don't really care for the books either. The Hobbit on the other hand is my fav novel.

god I hope Howard Shore is doing the score for this movie. he is perfect.

Looking forward to the movies. I read the book (and LOTR) back in the early 90s and that was one of the major factors that led to me becoming a sometime bookworm. I remember when the trilogy was coming out, back in the days when only geeks like me frequented the interwebs, and we were hearing dire predictions (no Tom Bombadil? Is outrage!), but in the end I really came to love the LOTR movies. I expect to also love the Hobbit ones.

The only reason I hear as to why people have disdain towards the movies is simply because they are different. What they forget is that books and movies are separate mediums that shouldn't mimic each other.

Fell in love with the lord of the rings movies over the past two years, found an extended collectors edition of each one for about $10 a piece. Im looking forward to the hobbit movie's, I've read a bit of the book, and have heard a great deal of it from my father.

Guess you didn't read my post where I complained about the soap opera/hollywood action mentality pervasive in the script. You could call that an issue of mediums, but that's a weak argument. A perfectly good movie could be made and be made highly divergent from the source material, but diverging in a way that makes the story and characters more like the standard dreck pumped out regularly by hollywood is not good or worthwhile by my estimation.

I also didn't like the pervasive special effects and cartoonish look of everything. The over emphasis of comedy relief and sfx action shots, poses, gearing up scenes, video-game battles; it's all so cheap and corny. The really melodramatic music doesn't help either. Apart from that, some of the main actors really phoned it in. Did Aragorn not look stoned the entire series?

Also, most of the music is just variations on the shire theme and that one traveling theme.

The trailer looked way too much like the LOTR movies. Maybe that was inevitable being filmed in NZ again but The Hobbit had quite a different feel as a novel for me so I'd be disappointed if we got the same presentation of middle earth that, personally, I'm rather tired of after three long movies.

I hear the same argument towards book-reading critics of Game of Thrones, and guess what? It's pure bullshit. Bad writing is the issue people have, not differences.

(For what it's worth I enjoyed the LotR movies. Except the ending to RotK's extended edition, that was dreadful.)

Since this is basically turning into a "LOTR books-vs-movies" discussion I guess I'll weigh in by saying that, as a big fan of the books, I feel the movies were the best Hollywood could've reasonably been expected to make. Yes, they're going to change some shit, because surprise, you're not going to get the millions of dollars you need to make them without doing your best to ensure they'll make money. There are only a few key points I wish they'd done differently: for one, make the nature of the temptations of the ring much clearer - a lot of people, after watching the movie, didn't seem at all sure just what the ring could do. The book (and even the cartoon version of the Return of the King) actually goes into a bit of detail regarding the power fantasies the ring conjures in its bearers' minds, commanding armies and conquering enemies and such. It makes the temptations of the ring seem way more, y'know, tempting, and also explains why hobbits aren't very susceptible to them while someone who is already a leader like Boromir or Gandalf is. Another thing I'd change, and one of the few plot-related things, is the way the ghosts are used at the end of Return of the King - it's just fucking stupid. The army of the dead isn't really a force to contend with on the battlefield, they're more useful for just scaring the bejeezus out of regular people - that power probably wouldn't have worked on Sauron's forces under the direct control of the Witch King. Also, I wouldn't have made them fucking neon green, it's not a Tim Burton movie. Other than that there are certain nitpicks, but if I could change two things, those would probably be the two. Third would be to put in an explanation as to why the eagles couldn't just fly them all there in the first place, just to shut all the annoying people up who cite that as a "plot hole". (Hint: even if they'd agreed to take the ring to Mordor, Sauron would've spotted them quickly and guessed their intent, ruining the whole thing)

Now, for the Hobbit - making it into three movies seems like a blatant cashgrab. They will have to bloat it with a lot of filler, probably showing us what most of the Fellowship is up to at the time. Gimli and Legolas aren't too farfetched, considering both of their fathers actually play important parts (Gloin being one of the dwarves, and Legolas's dad being the king who locks them up for a while), but that's not the point of the story. Galadriel is apparently going to be featured, which is just dumb; her appearance is supposed to be a surprise in the Lord of the Rings, and if you already know who she is it'll ruin that. Yes, most people today will see LOTR first, but what of kids? I imagine they'll watch the Hobbit first, and that surprise will be ruined, considering they already know Galadriel is a good guy. I think the script will try way too hard to tie the Hobbit in to the movies in general, when really aside from Gandalf's mostly off-screen machinations (his aim in the whole affair is to get rid of Smaug and return dwarf allies to the Lonely Mountain in preparation for the inevitable war with Sauron) it's a very personal story about Bilbo and his adventure. I'll watch the three movies, but my nerdrage is all prepped for deployment.

Also, I don't think they'll ever top the Rankin/Bass version of Smaug:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Or8G_jDcLNo

So, what major character are they omitting completely this time?

Either way, I'm really, really excited for this. I hope the can do The Silmarillion eventually too.

Well, it's not like the book didn't provide enough material for three excellent movies (remember how, like, every single movie made from a beloved book leaves out way too much) but yeah, they'll probably do that instead.

This is the main reason I lost interest in the movies, also (especially with the cave troll in Moria) they turned an often suspenseful and desperate story into purely an action packed one.

The films were not bad though, I don't expect they could've been made much better, it's just reading the book(s) your imagination makes the story more personal I guess, you feel like your the one tripping over rocks and shale, listening for untoward noises in the night.
Saruman's Uruk Hai were just awesome - best bit of the film.
Yes shame when they leave charcters out, Bombadil was a very mysterious person, I'm still not sure what the extent of his powers are, I think he is an ancient and could've been a deus ex machina (like the Eagles) if he'd wanted to become involved.

failsy's point of the ring's temptation is the first worthwhile negative criticism of the trilogy I've read so far. Nappy nods and golfclaps like a real gentleman he isn't.

Most of the stuff people complain about are details that simply wouldn't have flown in movie form, or purist views, centered mostly on Fellowship, that would have made little sense to include. Personally, I was kinda hoping that the tomb part, without Tom Bombadil of course, could have been included in some form, but it might have turned into an unnecessary and disjointed episode, I guess, and getting the daggers from Galadriel was an OK solution. The army of the dead does have a taste of a plot device in the books just as much as in the movies, and that was one of the things I honestly didn't expect to turn out even as well as it did. The neon green was a bad choice, though, I would have chosen something between blue moulded cheese and rotting flesh, personally. And what the hell enabled them to outrun Usain Bolt on the vertical city wall and stuff? They could well have been turned into a more traditional undead horde instead.

In any case, nobody should expect strict adherence to the book in Hobbit's case. There isn't enough material, and the story will be bloated with enormous tumorous extra parts. Which is all right, provided they are well written and made with passion.

He is... Unless Peter Jackson pulls off another King Kong on him.

Jackson's already stated the expansion into three movie is going to feature stuff like the White Council's attack on Dol Guldur and things like that. Basically greater scope sort of stuff leading into LotR. Which I think is personally reasonable. When The Hobbit was written, LotR didn't exist. We already have LotR in film and book and the connections between them have been laid out by the Tolkiens so it makes sense to bring a greater sense of attachment and continuation between the two.

I can't see a Silmarillion movie ever happening.

i'm excited, in a reserved kind of way, watched the trailers yesterday too.
i wanted to be an extra but i don't look weird enough ha ha ha

I really don't think it did. In terms of raw material, maybe, but not in terms of plot structures - not enough character development, not enough climaxes, not enough resolution. Hell, Rankin/Bass made a quite good movie adaptation that's only about an hour and a half long. Sure, they leave quite a lot of detail out, but they get across basically all the major points of the story. Honestly I don't think film adaptations of movies really *need* to include all the detail that's in the books, because they're able to translate a lot of it into visuals - say, a few pages elucidating the bad state Gondor is in could be covered just by *seeing* the place.

Oh, that reminds me of another change that really bugged me in the Return of the King - the way Denethor was turned from a tragic figure into a crazy idiot. I was genuinely angry when people in the theater cheered when Gandalf knocked him out with his staff. It's not made appropriately clear in the movie that he's been waging a slow war of attrition with Sauron for essentially his entire life, forced to watch as his city slowly crumbles and things get worse and worse with no real hope of improvement, and then Boromir dies, and then Faramir dies too (so he thinks), and when he looks to the Palantir for some hope, through Sauron's machinations it shows him only the black fleet coming to end the battle. Really his sins are pride (thinking he can use the Palantir with impunity, and contend with Sauron) and despair (thinking all hope is lost at the end, when really Faramir is just in a coma and Sauron was deceiving him about the extent of his power). But aside from that he was a strong, just leader for like 99% of his life.

So essentially there might be stuff from Silmarillion and the other lesser tales included in the movie? Sounds like a very good idea to me.

Well, the White Council's attack on Dol Guldur is mentioned in The Hobbit book but is more implied rather than explained, so I think the movies will flesh out these kinds of things. Maybe giving an instance like this thirty minutes of screen time and actually showing how Gandalf and Radagast dealt with the Necromancer. I don't know if we should expect references to tales from the Silmarillion. I think three movies is do-able. It probably came to them sitting down with all their footage ready to edit into two movies and realizing they could easily make three with all the material they had. Who knows, that's just my speculation, but it wouldn't surprise me.

Actually they more likely realized that considering Peter Jackson + Tolkien is pretty much a license to print money, three movies will make three times as much money as one movie.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excalibur_(film)


3 movies for The Hobbit? = overkill. and I'm lo$ing intere$t already

This might count as derailing, but Excalibur is definitely worth watching.

Nah man, they're doing it for the love. For the passion.