Suggestions for the Hobbit script?

[zxcvbn]

People have complained that Jackson, Walsh and Boyens took far too many liberties with the LOTR script. So here they can make suggestions for what the Hobbit script should be like. What omissions/changes would you make to turn the Hobbit into a good 3 hour film?

My personal suggestions:
1.Remove Beorn. The Beorn chapter with the serving animals is a bit Bombaldil-ish and may spoil the seroius tone of the film. Make it so that the Eagles take Bilbo and Co directly to the Mirkwood entrance. Instead of Beorn, the arrival of the Eagles will be the turning point in the Battle of Five Armies.

2.Incorporate the White Council/Dol Guldur parts. It would be nice to see the two storylines running parallel, like the dual storylines of Frodo/Sam's journey through Mordor and the rest of the Fellowship participating in wars.

Your suggestions?

[Sauron the White]

Regarding your two suggestions: Beorn is not the problem as much as his serving animals. Beorn could be included with a bit of rewriting of certain aspects of the charcter and his lodgings. He is an interesting character who, if handled correctly, could be a real valuable addition to the story. And I would like to see as much of the book in the film as possible - where possible and feasible if it works as a film.

I concur with you on the inclusion of other material such as the White Council and Dol Guldur.

The best new suggestion I have heard came from another site. It was suggested that the film open in the Shire with Sam Gamgee reading from the Red Book to his children and then we would see the story of THE HOBBIT. This would provide a nice link between the two series. If you wanted, you could go even further and take a page from films like THE PRINCESS BRIDE, allowing Sam to come back into the tale from time to time to explain segues or transitions to his listening children much like the Peter Falk grandfather did. I thought that was a very enchanting trick they utilized in PB.

[Aganzir]

I can already imagine a scene with Gandalf and Sauron fighting a duel.. After Sauron has first beaten Saruman, of course (just to show the audience who's the great good wizard here. And Saruman eyes Gandalf darkly so that everybody knows who's the evil wizard). And a shield-surfing Legolas in the Battle of Five Armies... Etc, etc.

I'm not a big fan of the movies, and it's possible I don't even want to see the Hobbit when it comes out. But I see it as a chance to bring the book up to date, ie. have it correspond to the image the Lotr & the Sil give about Middle-earth. A chance to make it more serious, not only a children's book.

I think Beorn's serving animals are no problem in a book like the Hobbit, but if they're going to make it a serious movie, they will be a problem. However, I'd rather they remove only them than also Beorn. I'm not very eager to see Beorn in his bear form though. I've never found CGI bears as appealing as real ones. (Ha! And surely a bear-Beorn will be there, just to show off, greeting them angrily when they arrive to his place. And after he's almost killed someone they all realise it's a misunderstanding.)

Something I'd make appear more serious are the elves. But no such distant, eerie elves like in the Lotr movies, no. Really, it's not that serious to be one. They don't need to float half a meter above the ground for the people to realise they're elves.

What I'm most afraid of is how PJ will handle the dwarves. We've seen enough dwarf jokes in the Lotr movies, but I'm not really sure he has quite grasped it yet... And how many dwarves will there be anyway? Somehow I have a feeling that only the most stupid (someone might call them the funniest) ones appear in the movie with Thorin and Balin (which I doubt they'd dare to exclude).

It'd be also nice to have a little more songs there, although I'm not sure I want to risk hearing bad versions of them.

[Oddwen]

It was suggested that the film open in the Shire with Sam Gamgee reading from the Red Book to his children and then we would see the story of THE HOBBIT.

I've been hoping for an Ian Holm as Bilbo reading his own book, maybe to a very young Frodo. Or even to Merry, Sam Pippin and Frodo. That'd be one way to get them all in the movie.

Or as for a wizard/Sauron duel, I'd love to see Saruman and Gandalf go against him together. It'd be cool to see Saruman and Gandalf as friends.

[Gothbogg the Ripper]

Beorn MUST be in this movie. PLEASE! He's my favourite character from The Hobbit and I want to see his transformation into a huge bear. Imagine him rampaging through the battle...man, that has the chance to be pure brilliance!
Other stuff? Smaug must be as arrogant and sarcastic as he was in the book. He was a funny dragon and I don't want them to make him a dumb beast. This is very important.

[mormegil]

Nothing quite sets the tone for the Hobbit as Tra-la-la-lally! That line is simply a must!

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by zxcvbn

1.Remove Beorn. The Beorn chapter with the serving animals is a bit Bombaldil-ish and may spoil the seroius tone of the film. Make it so that the Eagles take Bilbo and Co directly to the Mirkwood entrance. Instead of Beorn, the arrival of the Eagles will be the turning point in the Battle of Five Armies.

I'm afraid that the whole tone of The Hobbit is Bombadil-ish, so if they want to avoid that then they'd better not make the films at all!

[Sauron the White]

Lalwende - I think you have a point in that the tone of HOBBIT is different than LOTR being that it was written as a childs book. I am not so sure I would compare that to Bombadil or describe the books as Bombadilish in tone. For myself, and I imagine others, Bombadil is one of the least favorite creations of JRRT and we were happy to see him excised from the films. For myself, I always loved HOBBIT and never felt the uneasieness or just plain being weirded out the way that Bombadil hits me.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

It's perhaps relevant that, when Tolkien rewrote the first chapters of The Hobbit to match the LR, a person to whom he showed it commented, 'it's not bad, but it's not The Hobbit!' Precisely. An effort to 'darken' it or whatever would be a betrayal of the spirit of the book.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hickli

It's perhaps relevant that, when Tolkien rewrote the first chapters of The Hobbit to match the LR, a person to whom he showed it commented, 'it's not bad, but it's not The Hobbit!' Precisely. An effort to 'darken' it or whatever would be a betrayal of the spirit of the book.

Very, very good point!

Now davem read me some of this stuff from History of the Hobbit and it really was dreadful - and it's not often something Tolkien wrote was that bad, is it

[William Cloud Hicklin]

And if Tolkien himself couldn't pull it off, how could anyone else?

[Aganzir]

Good points, William Cloud Hickli & Lalwendë.

I like the Hobbit the way it is, but I've always felt some kind of distance to it- how it portrays the elves, for example. As I don't wait much from the movie anyway, I'm curious to see what they could do to the elves. I find this actually a bit strange, as in the Lotr films I practically hated everything they had changed / tried to make better.

Though it will surely be interesting to see how all those movie elf fans, many of whom haven't read the books, react if the elves suddenly change from something like Bloom-Legolas & Tyler-Arwen to those funny, cheerful creatures as in the Hobbit.

[Sauron the White]

I would agree that JRRT knew his work better than anyone else. His work was writing about Middle-earth. But then I read this from Mr. Hicklin

And if Tolkien himself couldn't pull it off, how could anyone else?

Are we saying that JRRT was beyond the powers of every other individual who lived in that regard? In the past I have criticized some here who seem to take an almost reverential attitutde or religious fervor regarding JRRT - and now this seems to partially support that suspicion.

Is it possible that someone could improve upon JRRT works? Yes. He was a man - a human being. He was not one of his gods.

Originally Posted by Sauron the White

It was suggested that the film open in the Shire with Sam Gamgee reading from the Red Book to his children and then we would see the story of THE HOBBIT.

I've held that idea for a while as well... mostly because I worry that Ian Holm will not return as Bilbo. But if the movie began this way, we would be seeing the story through the children's imagination and, since they did not know Mr. Bilbo in his younger years, it would not be problematic that he appear different then he did in LotR.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Are we saying that JRRT was beyond the powers of every other individual who lived in that regard?

With regard to his own creation, yes.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Sauron the White

Are we saying that JRRT was beyond the powers of every other individual who lived in that regard? In the past I have criticized some here who seem to take an almost reverential attitutde or religious fervor regarding JRRT - and now this seems to partially support that suspicion.

Is it possible that someone could improve upon JRRT works? Yes. He was a man - a human being. He was not one of his gods.

Well no, he was not 'one of his gods', he was The God of all of his creation because it wouldn't have existed without him

Anything at all, whatsoever, to do with Middle-earth cannot exist without him having dreamt it up and written it down. It is logically impossible that anything to do with it could be done better by anyone else.

Originally Posted by Aganzir

I like the Hobbit the way it is, but I've always felt some kind of distance to it- how it portrays the elves, for example. As I don't wait much from the movie anyway, I'm curious to see what they could do to the elves. I find this actually a bit strange, as in the Lotr films I practically hated everything they had changed / tried to make better.

Though it will surely be interesting to see how all those movie elf fans, many of whom haven't read the books, react if the elves suddenly change from something like Bloom-Legolas & Tyler-Arwen to those funny, cheerful creatures as in the Hobbit.

I'd feel disappointed if they tried to do po-faced Rings/Sil style Elves instead of the lovely yet quite dangerous creatures we see in The Hobbit. These, of all Tolkien's portrayals of Elves, come closest to Faerie...mysterious creatures who live amongst the trees in the dark forest and singing, joyful mountain Elves. Much more fun, more scary, and more interesting, than the Noldorin types to my mind

[Elladan and Elrohir]

Think carefully before saying something is "logically impossible"; that's a rather large phrase...

I think with film, most of the rules that worked in books go out the window. Tolkien couldn't have done a darker Hobbit and made it halfway good; to me it doesn't impugn the great JRRT's legacy one bit to say that perhaps a filmmaker can.

[Aiwendil]

It ought to be noted that Tolkien's abortive 1960 revision was not intended to produce a 'darker' Hobbit. It was intended to make the book as consistent as possible with all that is said in LotR. The issue that Tolkien spilt the most ink on in connection with this revision was - not the tra-la-laling Elves, not the White Council and the Necromancer - but the phases of the moon. I doubt that this will be the foremost issue in the screenwriters' minds. In any case, Tolkien didn't know, and wouldn't have cared, that so-called 'dark' things would become cool.