The Hobbit begins filming in July

[zenshiite]

I can easily deal with the Elves in Helm's Deep, what bothers me every time I watch that is Legolas surfing down a staircase on a shield. Same with him sliding down that Oliphant's trunk on the Pelenor Fields.

[qiphlow]

considering that if jackson had gotten all the important events into the LOTR films they probably would have gone 6 hours each, i thought they were quite entertaining, if not downright great. I wish he had put tom bombadil in there, though. but i can forgive that omission since gollum was so well done.

[Michael]

Bombadil is the great anomaly in the original books and the 80's movie version also left it out, wisely I think. I don't mind new or omitted events as much as the overall tone, such as what zen said about the surfing. Also, I know it made perfect sense to increase the role of Arwen to appeal to a wider audience, but the way her scenes were filmed and scored was so melodramatic and dreamy that I just wish they'd had a consistent, serious tone throughout the movies, with bits of laughter and frivolity where appropriate.

I thought Jackson did a great job with the scene where Denethor is gorging himself and he seems to be good with such sequences from previous films, but Shelob's lair was maddening. There are lots of examples of subterranean action in cinema, one of the best was the Polish WW2 film Kanal (1957), so why did Jackson decide to film it like a sequel to Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)*? The tone of the directing and filming, as well as music and editing, is so inconsistent. If only Melkor could have reincarnated Peckinpah and Kubrick to do the editing.

*an actual movie

[klonk]

An objection I had to the original books is Aragorn should have thrown over that Elvish bitch and taken up housekeeping instead with Eore.

Hey. An elf isn't the same species, and that's wrong.


Edit: Eowyn, not Eore. Wrong book.

[klonk]

Don't mind me. Lord of the Rings is the best novel of the last century, and I wanted a better movie.

Other best was Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago. The movie was saved from disaster by Julie Christie, but barely.

[Michael]

An objection I had to the original books is Aragorn should have thrown over that Elvish bitch and taken up housekeeping instead with Eore.

Hast thou never beeen smitten with yonder love at first sight? Didst he not espy young Arwen among the lovely trees of Galadriel's forest? Anyway, sanctioned by the gods only three times. I could just never figure out why they couldn't wait a hundred years for her in the Grey Havens. I mean, they're immortal, what's the hurry? Can't wait a century for Elrond's daughter? Was this ever answered in the later books, like Manwe said no or sompin'?

[zenshiite]

I was under the impression that the Numenorean kings were like half-elf anyways.

[Michael]

They had some elf blood from the founder of Numenor being Elrond's brother who chose manhood, although I've forgotten most of the names. Been a while since I read that stuff, maybe 20 years.

[zenshiite]

I never finished the Silmarillion. It's heavy stuff, but probably my favorite Tolkien work just for his Middle-Earth genesis stuff.

[Michael]

He crystalized everything into the six books of LOTR, and you could really feel the depth. Been forever since I read it, but I always thought the dialog was great, especially the hobbits and other oddball characters like the Ents.

[zenshiite]

Treebeard is one of my favorite characters.

[Bao]

Tom Bombadill was written when LOTR was still just a continuation of The Hobbit. Maybe Tolkien should have thrown him out it when he decided to change the book into a more mature peace of work... Without Bombadill, and a few hundrad pages less of travelling, would have made LOTR the almost most awesome book ever written.

[Michael]

It was funny when I first read Fellowship of the Ring and how the hobbitses were getting stuck in the Old Forest as they led their horses. Having lived in Boulder, I couldn't comprehend how a forest could be impossible to negotiate, horses or no. It wasn't until I moved to Portland many, many years later and did some hiking in that jungle that I realized with the right undergrowth, you can not just go as you please. In spite of that, if they could cut Bombadil and keep the Barrow Dwights, and reducify the page count, it would have been tighter, but I think if I knew more about history I'd probably realize that Tolkien was incorporating so many things from European history, especially the Barrow Dwights. Lots of mounds in ye olde Cetic lands, aye.

Hmm, hom, hummm-buddle. Don't be hasty!