The Hobbit - sans Peter Jackson

[gabi]

Why don't they create a virtual director using cgi technology? It'd have more talent and originality than Jackson.

If you don't think LOTR was any good, how about some of his earlier stuff? Meet the feebles etc? I think you'll find those were somewhat more original.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Yeah, cos LOTR showed he has absolutely no talent doesn't it.

I thought it was a load of old cack, actually. Lacking in everything except scenery.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Help, help, the Nazgul are catching us up! Oh, we've got away at the last moment. Help, help, the Orcs are catching us up! Oh, we've got away at the last moment. Help, help....

Strictly for Tolkein nerds.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

Well perhaps it isn't the sort of thing you like in the first place, then? But it was, undoubtedly, well done. I can see why people might complain either on the basis that it changed some stuff from the book, or that they just didn't like that 'kind of thing', but as that kind of thing goes its about the best ever, surely.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

That's not a high bar to get over.

 

[fudgefactorfive]

Peter Jackson will not be invited to direct The Hobbit due to a legal dispute with New Line about money.

Good - I don't like the idea that Jackson might be thinking he "owns" Tolkien - let someone else have a go. No! to production-line Yank industrial cinema. There was some good stuff in his LOTR - for example, I loved the Weathertop scene, and Galadriel's "Dark Queen" freakout - but on the whole, it was pretty sickly IMO. I walked out of the cinema in disgust at some of speeches towards the end of part 2 that were thrust into the script to give the film the requisite quasi-nationalistic "feel good factor".

Maybe - and I realise this is a bit of a silly idea and not at all popular these days - Jackson could have a go at creating something brand new.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

I didn't really think it was typical Yank cinema though. The colours are all different.

 

[jæd]

Well perhaps it isn't the sort of thing you like in the first place, then? But it was, undoubtedly, well done. I can see why people might complain either on the basis that it changed some stuff from the book, or that they just didn't like that 'kind of thing', but as that kind of thing goes its about the best ever, surely.

Probably isn't high-brow enough for Donna... Stuff actually happens...!

 

[Reno]

Jackson is doing a film of The Lovely Bones next which looks closer to something like Heavenly Creatures and like that film it will be more of Fran Walshes baby as he and his wife have a writer/director/producer partnership as close as the Coen Brothers.

Jackson certainly has flaws as a director, but he is tremendously talented and there is real passion in anything he does. His work in no way resembles the anonymus blockbusters falling off the Hollywood production line. Personally I have no time for Tolkien and I only got through a hundred pages of the first book when I was 15 and decided it was not for me, so its to his credit that I found his LOTR films tremendously entertaining and spectacular.

 

[jæd]

...but on the whole, it was pretty sickly IMO. I walked out of the cinema in disgust at some of speeches towards the end of part 2 that were thrust into the script to give the film the requisite quasi-nationalistic "feel good factor".

As long as you didn't read the books, the films were quite good...

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Jackson is doing a film of The Lovely Bones next which looks closer to something like Heavenly Creatures and like that film it will be more of Fran Walshes baby as he and his wife have a writer/director/producer partnership as close as the Coen Brothers.

Jackson certainly has flaws as a director, but he is tremendously talented and there is real passion in anything he does. His work in no way resembles the anonymus blockbusters falling off the Hollywood production line. Personally I have no time for Tolkien and I only got through a hundred pages of the first book when I was 15 and decided it was not for me, so its to his credit that I found his LOTR films tremendously entertaining and spectacular.

I sat through the first one, for no better reason than it was Xmas in Newcastle and I had nothing to do. I was bored from the off. What "happens", in it, I wonder? Certainly nobody says anything or any interest and there's no acting of any note, so all we have is a faithful rendition of a plot I was familiar with twenty-five years ago. And some effects.

But, as I say, the scenery was nice.

Not a spark of originality in the whole movie. Which is, to be sure, a problem with adaptations, but not one likely to be got around by doing it straight up for the Tolkien fans.

 

[gabi]

I sat through the first one, for no better reason than it was Xmas in Newcastle and I had nothing to do. I was bored from the off. What "happens", in it, I wonder? Certainly nobody says anything or any interest and there's no acting of any note, so all we have is a faithful rendition of a plot I was familiar with twenty-five years ago. And some effects.

But, as I say, the scenery was nice.

Not a spark of originality in the whole movie. Which is, to be sure, a problem with adaptations, but not one likely to be got around by doing in straight up for the Tolkien fans.

Are u going to justify your claim that peter jackson is a) talentless and b) unoriginal?

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

I sat through the first one, for no better reason than it was Xmas in Newcastle and I had nothing to do. I was bored from the off. What "happens", in it, I wonder? Certainly nobody says anything or any interest and there's no acting of any note, so all we have is a faithful rendition of a plot I was familiar with twenty-five years ago. And some effects.

But, as I say, the scenery was nice.

Not a spark of originality in the whole movie. Which is, to be sure, a problem with adaptations, but not one likely to be got around by doing it straight up for the Tolkien fans.

I get the impression with this that you went into the film wanting to dislike it, which means it was never going to please you in the first place.

 

[jæd]

I sat through the first one, for no better reason than it was Xmas in Newcastle and I had nothing to do. I was bored from the off. What "happens", in it, I wonder?

(Via Gabi)

So... You don't have anything to say other then you don't like Tolkein. But then again, Donna in nothing to say about the thread topic, shocker...!

 

[Donna Ferentes]

I get the impression with this that you went into the film wanting to dislike it, which means it was never going to please you in the first place.

Well, not really. I mean i didn't go with great enthusiasm, but you don't always, when you go to the cinema. I would agree that I expected pretty much what I got: but I was perfectly willing to be impressed. I wasn't.

It's always pòssible to attack a dissenting view on the grounds that "well, you wouldn't like it anyway" but that's not the same as a
a defence of the film itself, is it? I'm sorry, but I like cinema very much indeed and for that reason I'm not prepared to praise a film which seems to me to possess so little of what cinema is capable of producing.

 

[Leon]

Dunno what all you lot are saying about The Hobbit needing a "lighter touch".

It is a kids book BUT I think for film it needs to be darkened up to fit with LOTR. The Hobbit could be really dark and would make a really scary film if done right.

The important thing is to have some consistency with the films that have been made already.

You see the bit about New Line saying they have "limited time" to make The Hobbit...

Do you reckon that's basically them saying Sir Ian McKellen is going to die some day and we've gotta make it before he kops it or starts looking too old?

 

[The Boy]

Do you reckon that's basically them saying Sir Ian McKellen is going to die some day and we've gotta make it before he kops it or starts looking too old?

Nah, they'll be looking to strike while the iron is hot as it were. New box set edition coming out and the films getting broadcast on tv - they'll be looking to capitalise on the publicity

 

[muser]

You could probably compress the creation of the world and the Music of the Ainur and the initial battles with Melkor into the first 30-40 mins and the rest would be the narrative. Jackson could do great things with characters like Turin Turambar, and Thingol and Melian. The thing is who would you get to play Beren and Luthien?

unknowns, hopefully. jackson should try and get the rights to this film.
Do you think some parts of unfinished tales would work well in a movie\television series. no central plot, but snipets of each character's life at various stages.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

Dunno what all you lot are saying about The Hobbit needing a "lighter touch".

The important thing is to have some consistency with the films that have been made already.

But that misses the fact that the Hobbit is an innately lighter, less serious book than LOTR, and part of the beauty of the two is the contrast.

 

[RaverDrew]

Two words

George Lucas

 

[fudgefactorfive]

Two words

George Lucas

Yeah, I can see it now, especially since LOTR has already been released, so we can all see how the Hobbit has to end ... Gandalf will be played by a 21-year-old guy with only two face muscles who looks like a reject from the first round of Take That auditions. Thorin turns out to be Bilbo's dad. Smaug has a comedy Japanese accent.

 

[muser]

Two words

George Lucas

They wouldn't be stupid enough to offer it to him.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

Two words

George Lucas

Maybe if today's lucas was the same one who gave us "A New Hope", it could actually be a good suggestion.

But that lucas is long dead... He's more Major Studio Hack now than man...

 

[RaverDrew]

I was partly joking tbh, he'd want complete and utter control of all of it and too large a cut of the money. That and the fact that we'd be waiting decades for it's release.

 

[jugularvein]

tolkien wouldn't have wanted it this way!

 

[dash]

Kurosawa would have made a better job of LoTR!

I found all three films a bit boring tbh.

But they're perfectly serviceable children's bank holiday fare, like the old Ray Harryhausen films, and that's the level on which they should be judged IMO.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

See, I thought they were more than that, but it's all about opinions, innit?

Personally I think they are a good example of something 'sneaking past' and somehow breaking massive even though it was a damn sight better than the sort of thing that usually does. When I watched them I had this constant feeling that this is how I always expect the 'big films' to be, but usually aren't. With the first film, watching it for the first time, it felt like this was the film I had been waiting for for 20 years or more...

 

[dash]

Credit where it's due, Jackson and his team did a very good job in bringing Middle Earth to the screen. A lot of the appeal of LoTR seems to be the detail with which Tolkein creates his alternate world and its internal consistency, so if you're an LoTR fan then presumably you very much want to see that realised in front of you. Maybe this is why the films did little for me. If successful visualisation is the main aim, then the plot just becomes a vehicle to take you on a guided tour of the sights.

But I was ambivalent about the book even as a kid . . . the main characters didn't appeal much, there was a sort of worshipful radiance in parts of it, which reminded me of the way lots of people used to regard the Royal Family. The 'bad' characters always seemed more interesting and real, but you didn't get to find out much about them.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

How much you want to bet the Hobbit will be total shit?

Well the LOTR books were shit and so was the film, I thought the Hobbit was a much better book but I still think just by rule of 'book was better than the film' It will be utter shit.

On a stick.

 

[muser]

See, I thought they were more than that, but it's all about opinions, innit?

Personally I think they are a good example of something 'sneaking past' and somehow breaking massive even though it was a damn sight better than the sort of thing that usually does. When I watched them I had this constant feeling that this is how I always expect the 'big films' to be, but usually aren't. With the first film, watching it for the first time, it felt like this was the film I had been waiting for for 20 years or more...

felt the same way. I'm sure we're not alone.