News from GDT on The Hobbit...

[Morthoron]

News from Guillermo del Tor regarding The Hobbit films found at the TORn site...

http://newboards.theonering.net/foru...=unread#unread

I won't reiterate what is already a reiteration, but there are some interesting tid-bits, such as:

“The reality is that we stopped talking the first movie and second movie, and we just started taking about the movie - the two episodes, or two parts, as if they were a single piece of narrative,” he said of scriptwriting meetings between “Lord of the Rings” director Peter Jackson, his filmmaking team of Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, and del Toro himself.

“We don’t even call it the bridge movie, we just call it ‘The Movie.’ And this is great. When we found what reverberated, and we found it in one of our virtual meetings - we understood. It’s a movie.”

This is unnerving to me, as I despise the idea of altering The Hobbit, or splitting it into two movies, as this will allow the type of idiotic plot divergences and asinine character assasinations riddling the LotR films. There is no reason that The Hobbit should be elongated (sort of thin and stretched). Gven the length of each LotR film, allowing The Hobbit the same treatment would, in my estimation, fit every important sequence easily into one three hour film.

And then there is this ambiguous bomb shell:

As for the end of the first episode, the movie everyone assumed will follow the events of the novel fairly accurately? Where in the text will it finish?

“We are finding out,” GDT quipped. “I think Smaug dies in the first movie. So draw your own conclusions.”

Okay, does this mean that Smaug's death will end the first movie, and the rump-end of The Hobbit will be plopped awkwardly into the second movie? If this be so, then we are talking about one very cynical marketing manuever. I hope he was being slyly coy and will encapsulate the whole tale in one movie. Let Phillipa Boyens and Peter Jackson stroke their enormous egos and fudge up the second film with addled inventions and superciliously skewed scripting. That way I will not feel badly ignoring it altogether and buy only The Hobbit film when it comes out on DVD.

Keep it simple, keep it safe. Please.

*whimpers and assumes a fetal position in the corner*

[Lindale]

Goodness me if Smaug dies in the first what shall be left in the second?... oh capitalists! Maybe it shall be an hour when Bard and Thranduil would be plotting, another Thorin's hot-head, and thirty minutes battle scene, (like they did at Helm's Deep), and the rest devoted to crying Dwarves or Lake Towners or dying Legolas-clones.

Oh well. Whatever can we all do about it...

[Nerwen]

Hmmn. That interview is giving me a funny vibe. You know what? I think our filmmakers are really, really stuck. I bet they wish no one had ever suggested a second film.

I mean, look at this:

“We don’t even call it the bridge movie, we just call it ‘The Movie.’ And this is great. When we found what reverberated, and we found it in one of our virtual meetings - we understood. It’s a movie.”

So... they've reached a plane of perfect understanding on which they've agreed to call the movie a movie.

I see.

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by Lindale

Oh well. Whatever can we all do about it...

One thing.
Vote with your feet and don't put any more of your hard earned pounds (other currencies are available) into Mr Jackson's pocketses.

[Tuor in Gondolin]

Frankly, while I agree that the "additions" in the
LOTR movie were virtually all disastrous, I think
stopping at Smaug's death in H1 and then having
an H2 merge the end of the Hobbit with 'bridge"
material is an excellent concept--- always with the
(rather dubious) priviso that PJ and friends don't
botch the job as they frequently did in LOTR,
perhaps del Toro can be a positive influence.