Jackson, del Toro, Walsh and Boyens to write the script for The Hobbit

[Thinlómien]

I saw this on the news and thought it might be of interest to some people here...

Yahoo news: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080820/film_nm/hobbit_dc

In short, Jackson and del Toro got fed up with looking for suitable screenwriters and decided to do it themselves and quite natuarally, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens were also invited to join the fun.

There must be some people who are delighted by these news. I'm not one of them, though... I'd really have preferred the Hobbit movie without all the silly stuff like Aragorn falling off the cliff and Elves coming to Helm's Deep and Gimli being the comic relief etc... (Well, I guess I can't criticise the movie before it has even been made. )

What do you others think about this? Good news? Bad news? How do you expect the movie to be now that these guys are doing the screenplay?

[Lindale]

Well, at least now I can promise my little brother here that there'll be a Hobbit movie. But then, I'd have to think of something to say why it's gonna be, to be politically correct, movies.

"Hobbit and its sequel?" How will it manage that? I guess old Jackson will try to complicate the relatively simple plot of Hobbit. It's a forth going and return story, at its most basic. Whatever has Aragorn to do with it? If it's Legolas it can be forgivable--he is the Elvenking's son after all--but Aragorn.... no...

We can't really judge, however, not at this stage. We'll have to wait and see till 2011 or whenever they plan to release that.

A Hobbit movie, finally!!! This'll get my lazy bum from my couch and drag me into the movie houses. And considering it's gonna be movies, I better try to save up and not spend my little money elsewhere.

[Folwren]

Noooo! Awful, awful news! The LotR script was terrible! They need to get the chap who wrote the script for Master and Commander. That was a good script.

Oh, man. So ends my dream that The Hobbit may be any less mangled than the LotR.

[Lindale]

Originally Posted by Folwren

Noooo! Awful, awful news! The LotR script was terrible! They need to get the chap who wrote the script for Master and Commander. That was a good script.

Oh, man. So ends my dream that The Hobbit may be any less mangled than the LotR.

When you think about it, the book and the movie adaptation are two separate art forms. And personally, I generally liked what PJ did. Not the dramatic peasant bits in Rohan and Gondor, nor the Leggy stunts, but the economy of characters and such can be, erm, forgivable. All in all, LotR isn't too bad. Not too faithful to the book, but it didn't disappoint me the way HP4 did--faithful to the book yet... in our language, minadali in order that it be too faithful (I can't translate it properly! Must work on English skills now).

[Mithalwen]

There was an interesting feature on the radio the other week which I meant to "listen again" to but forgot. It was in response to the new film version of Brideshead Revisited which had upset a lot of Waugh fans because of changes they made which one of the speakers contested made it an appropriation of the book rather than an adaptation. It seems to me that while FOTR might just class as adaptation, TTT was an apropriation and the Hobbit film probably will be.

Appropriation may sometimes be appropriate - I enjoyed the films of Last of the Mohicans and La Reine Margot for example but failed to slog through the books. I love Edith Wharton and enjoyed greatly the films of "The Age of Innocence" and "The House of Mirth" . I liked the look of the Jackson films but they have no hold over me. The proposed Boorman version though definitely an appropriation I found intriguing.

[Morthoron]

I had hoped that Del Toro would have a hand in the scripting; unfortunately, that does not look likely. I will be quite irate if they diverge from the original Hobbit story in the manner they did in TTT. Totally unnecessary and disconcerting for the most part, and just plain idiotic in some spots.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Folwren

Noooo! Awful, awful news! The LotR script was terrible! They need to get the chap who wrote the script for Master and Commander. That was a good script.

Oh, man. So ends my dream that The Hobbit may be any less mangled than the LotR.

Peter Weir? Oh now that would be classy, much too classy for Jackson's intentions I fear...

Or they could have got in Steven Moffat. Though he will now be far too busy developing the best TV series ever...

[MatthewM]

I think that's great news! Listen, the trilogy has its problems, but I owe so much to those movies. I can't wait for the Hobbit written by PJ and co.!!!

[CSteefel]

I am hoping that The Hobbit includes the attack on Dol Goldur, since that is contemporaneous more or less with the Hobbit. Otherwise, the Hobbit will lack any kind of significant historical context (unless the goal is to do a children's story).

The sequel could and perhaps should focus on Aragorn and his "errantries" over 20 years, service in Rohan and Gondor, but also the intriguing mention of his exploration of the regions close to Mordor. And the two times that Gollum goes to Mordor, first visiting Shelob, the second time to be captured by Sauron and then released. Otherwise, the broader story line would be the development of Aragorn as the "most hardy of living men...", and the search for the secret of the One Ring, including Gandalf's and Aragorn's search for Gollum. I don't see much point in dwelling on the Shire for this part...