Hobbit concerns....

[TheLostPilgrim]

I have some big time concerns about The Hobbit:

1) I worry a lot of the central story of Bilbo's adventure will be lost in the shuffle of PJ's additions. That he's spreading the original, core story too thin by spreading it over three films.

2) That the tone will be all over place--That it will jump between too dark and too light and childish. That it will come off really inconsistent.

3) The second trailer REALLY worries me...The CGI looks HORRIBLE, as compared to PJ's LOTR films (which had GREAT effects). A lot of the film looks very fake and overly bright and shiny...As compared to his "Rings" adaptations which at least look like a fantasy world grounded in reality...The lighting and general look of this film reminds me of Tangled by Disney or a Narnia film.

4) He took the scene with Gollum, it seems, and has turned it into a comedic moment. Bringing back the cutesy, sympathetic Gollum from The Two Towers. I always pictured the Riddle Game as being intense and very eerie and creepy the whole way through...Bilbo alone in a dank, dark cavern near a turgid underground lake with a strange, mad creature that talks to itself, which wants to eat him. The '77 animated version got the "feel" of the Riddle Game at least partially correct.

5) Too much juvenile humor. Too many goofy jokes, whether it be about Goblins falling on the party or the Dwarves' weight. Tolkien is humorous to be sure, but it's a very dignified, old fashioned sense of humor. This seems like typical road movie, juvenile modern day humor. Like humor you'd see in a typical comedy film. The Hobbit--Tolkien's Hobbit--has comedic moments, but it's more an enchanting adventure. Which is what I was hoping for here--an adventure film with the grandness of a classic Disney film (but not the tone), with the visuals and whatnot of PJ's Rings. A faithful adaptation which could enchant as much as the books did.

6) The Dwarves don't look very...Dwarf-ish. I can't explain it. Perhaps I'm too used to the typical depiction in Fantasy of Dwarves (IE, like Gimli--short fellows who seem older than they are, with a bit of a temper or a humorous sort of personality). But these guys just seem like Game of Thrones characters miniaturized. Some of them don't even have full beards, just light scruff. Kind of sacrificing the characters for the sake of attractive leading characters.

7) Too many call backs to the LOTR films. I think shoehorning Frodo, Legolas, Saruman and Galadrial into The Hobbit is just fan service but it doesn't work. Frodo would be fine to frame the story and is justifiable but the other three have no place in The Hobbit, they were never in the book. I worry it'll be overdone fan service--the way Lucas connected every character in the Prequel trilogy to every character in the original trilogy. Gandalf and Elrond's presence alone should be enough of a reminder that this film is in the same "series" as Lord of the Rings.

8) The Three Trolls don't look anything like how I pictured them, to be honest. They just look like dumb monsters out of an RPG game, to be fought.

9) The Bunny Sled? REALLY?

I just worry that with all these various elements, the film is going to be really crappy, that a lot of the subplots are going to seem crammed in there and detract from the core story, that with the story being split in two, the first movie will end in an utter anticlimax which will alienate the audience. I just think a Hobbit film had potential to be even BETTER than the Rings because The Hobbit story is a thinner, quicker, pure fantasy adventure.

To be honest, I'm worried about a flop (in terms of reception) on the scale of Phantom Menace. I'm worried about this being considered just a bad movie overall.

It's the last period of time where there is a spark of innocence, magic and light in Middle Earth, without the fate of the world hanging in the balance. Really in some ways it's last magical adventure of Middle Earth before the world is mired in darkness and history goes into the Fourth Age, when magic beginz to fade.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

I wouldn't say I'm precisely "concerned" that PJ won't make a good adaptation. That's sort of like being "concerned" that the Cleveland Indians won't win the World Series this year.

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by TheLostPilgrim

To be honest, I'm worried about a flop (in terms of reception) on the scale of Phantom Menace. I'm worried about this being considered just a bad movie overall.

It's the last period of .

I am not concerned per se. The films have always been peripheral to my involvement in Middle Earth - though I can understand that others feel differently and may feel the affection I do for the Radio Series and the Jackanory reading of the Hobbit - so it is no skin off my nose if it is a flop. I am not planning on going. I think there are enough people who are convinced that PJ is the only person who can "bring ME to life" that they won't admit it is bad even if it is. I do think you are right about the hobbit being lost. The fact that Galion doesn't seem to feature and that this Tauriel character does in combination with the released footage of the dwarves travelling in open barrels suggest that she will play a part in liberating the dwarves rather than their escape being down to the ingenuity of Mr Baggins.. rather as Arwen replacing Glorfindel made Frodo rather more helpless than in the book.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Originally Posted by TheLostPilgrim

To be honest, I'm worried about a flop (in terms of reception) on the scale of Phantom Menace. I'm worried about this being considered just a bad movie overall.

Oh, one can only hope!

[Morthoron]

Whether it is successful or a flop matters little to me - although, I might enjoy an irritable "I told ya so" if Tauriel and Legolas surf Smaug. In any case, people will still be reading the books a century from now, while movies will be an extinct pastime, like listening to a wax cylinder on a Victrola. In a hundred years one may well be able to put on some cyber-helmet space-age thingy and actually walk through a Middle-earth hologram. Then again, no one may be able to read in a hundred years. Bah!

[Draugohtar]

I'm confident of one thing, and reasonably sure of a second.

1) If I base my enjoyment of the film 'adaptation' of The Hobbit on its faithfulness to the book, then I will hate it and begin making my list of complaints to beat P.J. over the head with should I ever have the misfortune to meet him.

2) If I enjoy 'The Hobbit' as a film on its own rights, I will probably think the films are highly entertaining and better than a great deal of what graces the cinema screen in the coming years.

I think there is absolutely no room to hope for P.J. to be faithful to either the specifics of character/plot or more broadly to the spirit of Tolkien's middle earth. For all his self-proclaimed fandom, he subverts anything written at the hand of the maestro to his least 'artistic' whim.

The man who couldn't understand how vital it was that Elessar, Imrahil and Eomer win the battle of the Pelennor fields by force of will and arms and not via 'magic green dead people,' certainly won't understand the magic of the Hobbit as written work.

However I'm sure he'll make something quite fun out of Hobbits, Dwarves, some PMS elves and a dragon. It just won't be the Hobbit, it will be Peter Jackson's Hobbit.

[Glorthelion]

I have a feeling the hobbit trilogy will be great but not along the lines of LOTR trilogy. The introduction of old and new characters was not necessary, like others said.

[Galendor]

Originally Posted by TheLostPilgrim

I have some big time concerns about The Hobbit:

2) That the tone will be all over place--That it will jump between too dark and too light and childish. That it will come off really inconsistent.

5) Too much juvenile humor. Too many goofy jokes, whether it be about Goblins falling on the party or the Dwarves' weight. Tolkien is humorous to be sure, but it's a very dignified, old fashioned sense of humor. This seems like typical road movie, juvenile modern day humor. Like humor you'd see in a typical comedy film. The Hobbit--Tolkien's Hobbit--has comedic moments, but it's more an enchanting adventure. Which is what I was hoping for here--an adventure film with the grandness of a classic Disney film (but not the tone), with the visuals and whatnot of PJ's Rings. A faithful adaptation which could enchant as much as the books did.

It's the last period of time where there is a spark of innocence, magic and light in Middle Earth, without the fate of the world hanging in the balance. Really in some ways it's last magical adventure of Middle Earth before the world is mired in darkness and history goes into the Fourth Age, when magic beginz to fade.

You should be concerned; what you are concerned about is exactly what Jackson will do to the Hobbit story. Peter Jackson is a dullard. The beauty and magic we see in Tolkien's writing is invisible to Jackson. When he reads Tolkien he might as well be flipping through a cheap comic book. The movie will be chock full of cringe-inducing "juvenile modern day humor", and will jump back and forth between childishness and seriousness with accompanying musical score inserted to inform the core audience precisely how they should feel about what they are observing at that moment. Anachronisms will abound. All one can do is take comfort in the fact that Jackson and the modern movie industry cannot undo the beauty of Tolkien's books, despite their efforts.

[Galendor]

In retrospect, I was a bit to harsh in my above criticism of PJ. Parts of the LOTR movies were well done, as I'm sure will be the case with the Hobbit movies. But I do share your concerns.

[Rune Son of Bjarne]

Do we know what it is PJ is adding to the original story?

Will it be stuff from other parts of Tolkiens work, or just pure fanfiction?

[Mithalwen]

The Evangeline Lily charater is fan fic (all hail Mary Sue!), the rest is Tolkienif on the level that events such as the White Council are known to have happened but fan fic because we don't have much detail of what happened at White Council meetings or when Gandalf entered Dol Guldur. There is a little in UT I think but I don't think PJ is allowed to use UT.

[Morthoron]

Evangeline Lilly
As an elf is quite silly,
But given PJ's predilection
For scripting fan-fiction,
It's all we can expect till he
Writes with conviction,
Or gets convicted -
Whichever the case may be.

[MCRmyGirl4eva]

Legolas, I can understand having. But oly as a member of the parties ir part of the group that captures the dwarves. And I thought Gimli was born 10 years AFTER The Hobbit? Is he really going to be in the movie? What. The. Fire truck.

[TheMisfortuneTeller]

I simply cannot wait for that magic moment in the darkened theater when I can leap ecstatically from my seat, exclaiming: "Look Everybody! It's Evangeline Lilly from the TV series Lost together with Orlando Bloom from Pirates of the Caribbean!"

Take care what you wish for, Peter Jackson. You just might get it.

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by MCRmyGirl4eva

Legolas, I can understand having. But oly as a member of the parties ir part of the group that captures the dwarves. And I thought Gimli was born 10 years AFTER The Hobbit? Is he really going to be in the movie? What. The. Fire truck.

Gimli was alive at the time of the Hobbit but was considered too young to go on the expedition.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

And I thought Gimli was born 10 years AFTER The Hobbit? Is he really going to be in the movie?

Gimli was 62, considered still a callow youth in Dwarf terms "although I thought myself ready for anything.". Kili, the youngest of the party, was 77. Thorin was 195 and Gloin 158; interestingly, "old" Balin was years younger than Thorin.

Using a 3.5 multiplier as a very rough guide to human age equivalents, Thorin was 56, Balin 51, Gloin 45, Kili 22 and Gimli a kid of 17.

[Tuor in Gondolin]

Originally posted by Draugothar

The man who couldn't understand how vital it was that Elessar, Imrahil and Eomer win the battle of the Pelennor fields by force of will and arms and not via 'magic green dead people,' certainly won't understand the magic of the Hobbit as written work.

100 % correct. Even worse then his trashing my favorite character, Faramir. The whole involvement of the Rohirrim was trivialized. And the charge of the Rohirrim should have begun in dark...then with light coming first on Theoden's banner, then more as they began to sing. And the confrontation of Eowyn with the Witch king was totally botched...and...

It's why I can only watch FotR movie, He just botched things too badly with the other two.

My deciding view that TH will probably be botched came with the stretching of TH to 3 films (plud De Torro laving, not that he's perfect but I thought it could have been some check on PJ's excesses.

But then again: on ne peut jamais savoir

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[Galadriel55]

The caption says: "I think this is the best way to put a book on screen!"

[alatar]

Me and the Tribe did some Hobbit research at a local Denny's. The restaurant chain has some hobbit-themed dishes.

One item that was not immediately obvious is the "Lone-Lands Campfire Cookie Milk Shake." Could not recall the word "Lone-Lands" for the life of me. Having researched it a bit, found that it's actually in the Hobbit.

Learned something from a restaurant place mat.

[Morsul the Dark]

I think some of these concerns are unfair.

The biggest one being the trolls don't look like what You imagined. The film maker has to decide what a creature will look like what his interpretation is.

The same point with the dwarves not looking dwarvesh. In the book they're barely described just having different cloaks only bombour is pretty well described and his description is heavy.

Someone mentioned the score telling people how to feel... Music has been a part of movies even before dialogue and "talkies" You can't tell me this doesn't give you a little shiver.

I think some folks hold PJ to far too high a standard Movie and Book are not the same thing at all. Story telling is different exposition and dialogue are different. Granted I think the riddle game should be eerie. We however see literally maybe 10 seconds of it. I may take on a dark tone rather quickly especially if Gollum become more pronounced throughout the scene. Is PJ being over ambitious, maybe. Tauriel for instance sounds bad the way everyone is talking yet, We need some characters to in the elven guard to capture the dwarves and Gollum, as Lilly says ""I believ e she is authentic, because Tolkien refers to The Woodland Elves, he just doesn’t talk about who they are specifically…"Which does make sense to me.

Tolkien is the maestro of course but certain parts of his works don't translate to film well without some sort of tweaking.

I do hope humor is used rarely and only to release tention.

The one scene I need them to do perfectly is when Bilbo climbs the tree in the middle of Mirkwood the Cartoon made that moment Very powerful.

But as someone else said, and I agree, I will enjoy the movies as movies and not try to compare them to the book too much.

Someone else mentioned yelling out Lilly and Bloom, I'd find that quite rude are we not supposed to be better than those who Didn't read the book?

[Morsul the Dark]

Ok I do have one concern.

after reading each Isatari had their own mission in Book

What if PJ tries to force the answer of what happened to the blue wizards?

It's the sort of plot hole a movie audience would hate...

He does after all plan on having the council in