The Hobbit

[CaptSolo]

Tolkien was already working on the whole history of Middle Earth (which became The Silmarillion) ...

Not only Middle Earth - a whole universe called (damn, my memory fails me)?

Eä

[DaddyHoggy]

Well remembered, according to my original 1977 (but 5th imprint), Eä means in Elvish "It is" and is their vague description of the Universe they found themselves existing in when Eru created them.

[Wolfwood]

Well, we just got home from the theatre (not really, had time to pop into the sauna first...) and I must say that the movie was not as hooking as the LotR trilogy. I loved the HFR, but it was a pity that they could not include even a little bit of more story into the 3 hour movie. And how they treated Radagast was... disappointing. Super-bunnies, indeed...

Towards the end, I was thinking at least three times that "this is the end", but no... they had more action sequences that they had to show... and then some more...

[CommRLock78]

Well, we just got home from the theatre (not really, had time to pop into the sauna first...) and I must say that the movie was not as hooking as the LotR trilogy. I loved the HFR, but it was a pity that they could not include even a little bit of more story into the 3 hour movie. And how they treated Radagast was... disappointing. Super-bunnies, indeed...

Towards the end, I was thinking at least three times that "this is the end", but no... they had more action sequences that they had to show... and then some more...

Well that's disappointing. I hate that feeling when you think the movie is going to end and it doesn't - usually a sure-fire sign that a movie is no good.

[Wolfwood]

I'm not ready to say that the movie was no good. I suspect that it might have been a little bit better if I had been able to watch it in two reasonably long parts. But three hours of it was much too much. It made me wonder why they had added all that extraneous stuff in there (stuff "interpolated" from Tolkien's text - which actually means that it was made up by the screenwriters). Without it, it would have been a more compact and probably more enjoyable movie.

[CommRLock78]

I'm not ready to say that the movie was no good. I suspect that it might have been a little bit better if I had been able to watch it in two reasonably long parts. But three hours of it was much too much. It made me wonder why they had added all that extraneous stuff in there (stuff "interpolated" from Tolkien's text - which actually means that it was made up by the screenwriters). Without it, it would have been a more compact and probably more enjoyable movie.

For work as detailed as Tolkien's, the screenwriters would have been best to consult Tolkien scholars if they really wanted to extend the story, rather than make things up (seems that they didn't). I'm skeptical, but of course, I will still see it, eventually .

[Disembodied]

It made me wonder why they had added all that extraneous stuff in there

Money, basically. It's all about franchises: the studios have been living on them for years, with (especially) the Harry Potter films, the LOTR trilogy, the damp-vamp Twiglet saga, etc. They want bankable blockbuster generators, and they think they've got one with The Hobbit. Why waste a whole book with an all-but-guaranteed mass audience by turning it into just one film, when you can turn it into three? What I'm struggling to understand is why they've turned it into three incredibly long films ... although given that in the final LOTR film it took ages for the increasingly annoying hobbits just to say goodbye, I don't think brevity is Jackson's strong suit. That could be a too-much-money problem: with a vast budget, maybe he gets self-indulgent.

Just for comparison, the LOTR is around 500,000 words long, and The Hobbit is around 95,000. Even if the film-makers do want to "join up" The Hobbit and LOTR, giving them equal screen times shows that there must be a huge amount of padding in there.

[DaddyHoggy]

It made me wonder why they had added all that extraneous stuff in there

Money, basically. It's all about franchises: the studios have been living on them for years, with (especially) the Harry Potter films, the LOTR trilogy, the damp-vamp Twiglet saga, etc. They want bankable blockbuster generators, and they think they've got one with The Hobbit. Why waste a whole book with an all-but-guaranteed mass audience by turning it into just one film, when you can turn it into three? What I'm struggling to understand is why they've turned it into three incredibly long films ... although given that in the final LOTR film it took ages for the increasingly annoying hobbits just to say goodbye, I don't think brevity is Jackson's strong suit. That could be a too-much-money problem: with a vast budget, maybe he gets self-indulgent.

Just for comparison, the LOTR is around 500,000 words long, and The Hobbit is around 95,000. Even if the film-makers do want to "join up" The Hobbit and LOTR, giving them equal screen times shows that there must be a huge amount of padding in there.

I've almost dreaded the release of The Hobbit (dreading what Jackson would do to it).

From what I understand - You take The Hobbit, then you take the bit where Gandalf disappears for several chapters and you do almost a whole other film based on that (but spilt that between the two core The Hobbit films) then, in the third film, you do a backtrack from The Lord of the Rings (using stuff from The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales and the Appendices of LotR) to the end of The Hobbit sucking in the life stories of the major players and their motivations for supporting either the cause to destroy The Ring or capture it for their own use.

[Cody]

... the damp-vamp Twiglet saga, etc.

<chuckles> You are about to enter the Twiglet Zone! <cue eerie music>

Vampires and zombies - ever popular, for some strange reason.

[Commander McLane]

... the damp-vamp Twiglet saga, etc.

<chuckles> You are about to enter the Twiglet Zone! <cue eerie music>

Vampires and zombies - ever popular, for some strange reason.

Don't forget the werewolves! In this day and age you can't have vampires without werewolves, for some even stranger reason.

[DaddyHoggy]

... the damp-vamp Twiglet saga, etc.

<chuckles> You are about to enter the Twiglet Zone! <cue eerie music>

Vampires and zombies - ever popular, for some strange reason.

Don't forget the werewolves! In this day and age you can't have vampires without werewolves, for some even stranger reason.

If one cliche works well then two will work twice as well!

[Cody]

Don't forget the werewolves!

Ah yes... the werewolves! Heh... I should follow that with something by The Silver Bullet Band.

[Disembodied]

One of my favourite jokes from Futurama:

Leela: What else can we slay? Is that a hobbit over there?
Bender: No, that's a hobo and a rabbit ... but they're making a hobbit.

[CaptSolo]

One of my favourite jokes from Futurama:

Leela: What else can we slay? Is that a hobbit over there?
Bender: No, that's a hobo and a rabbit ... but they're making a hobbit.

I love Futurama, much to the consternation of my wife who prefers daytime drama's and reality programs. Yuck! To tell the truth, I watch very little TV anymore. I do enjoy having a beer and watching footy matches at my local bar. It's owned and operated by this very interesting Iranian fellow. His place is an attraction to all true football fans in the area. Oops, sorry for the thread derailment.

[Wolfwood]

From what I understand - You take The Hobbit, then you take the bit where Gandalf disappears for several chapters and you do almost a whole other film based on that (but spilt that between the two core The Hobbit films) then, in the third film, you do a backtrack from The Lord of the Rings (using stuff from The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales and the Appendices of LotR) to the end of The Hobbit sucking in the life stories of the major players and their motivations for supporting either the cause to destroy The Ring or capture it for their own use.

They cannot use stuff from The Silmarillion or Unfinished Tales. They have filming rights only to The Hobbit and to The Lord of the Rings, so those two books are where all the material has to come from - and the screenwriters' imaginations, of course.

But, yes, the first part was at least filled with unnecessary action sequences. I wonder what the Extended Blu-Ray version will have in addition to this. It is supposed to be 20 or so minutes longer... Knowing Jackson, he's left all the good stuff into that 20 minutes and all the action into the theatrical release, because that's what the theatre goers like...