The Hobbit begins filming in July

[Andy_S]

I think the first of the LOTR films did capture that cosy, whimsical nature in The Shire scenes. The death of Boromir at the end of the that film, and the fight scenes underground, were also very well captured, I thought. I was less impressed with the second film, and particularly the third, which I thought was one long CG action scene.

Will be interesting to see what they do with Smaug. Recent movie dragons have been dinosaur-like beasts, but my impressions of Smaug from Tolkien was that he was old, clever, evil and elegant - more King Cobra than T Rex.

We shall see.

[Jeice]

So wait... viggo isn't aragorn anymore?

[Michael]

Viggo was the second Aragorn, hired at the last moment, I think after initial filming had already begun, because they canned the first Aragorn. I think the first Aragorn was tall.

[Muad'dib]

That was not why he was canned.

Stuart Townsend and Viggo are the same height. Viggo is 5'11"; Stuart is 5'10.5".

[Michael]

Just to clarify, I wasn't saying he got fired because he was tall. I think Viggo is too short to be Aragorn and I don't believe he's 5'11". I heard it was creative differences with Jackson, which is a rumor that appeals to my reaction to the filming style and editing of many of the scenes in LOTR. If I had $400 million dollars, I would have made LOTR my way. And later in the program winged riders will fly out of my butt-tawks.

[Muad'dib]

That is one of the reasons, in addition to his slacking on the training, but as I said, Stuart has been booted from I believe three films for creative differences. Which in my mind implies he's just a dick, not someone with better ideas than Peter Jackson.

Also, I don't think the height thing matters, since the guy who played Gimli was the tallest member of the cast.

[Andy_S]

Townsend on LOTR:

(from Wiki, so it must be accurate...):
SNIP
I was there rehearsing and training for two months, then was fired the day before filming began. After that I was told they wouldn't pay me because I was in breach of contract due to not having worked long enough. I had been having a rough time with them, so I was almost relieved to be leaving until they told me I wouldn't be paid. I have no good feelings for those people in charge, I really don't. The director wanted me and then apparently thought better of it because he really wanted someone 20 years older than me and completely different.
SNIP

I thought Viggo was an excellent Aragorn in "LOTR," (in the same way Tom Hanks was a low-key, but effective combat leader in "Ryan") Alas, he has not lived up to his promise in recent filmwork.

[Michael]

Nothing against Viggo, I thought he was good in LOTR, I was just prejudiced because of the tall ship king thing and also, the way the scenes showing Aragorn as lacking confidence and being internally conflicted did not work for me, but probably again due to prejudice from my image of him in the book. I mean, darn it, he's been hiding from and fighting against Sauron his whole life, he's the same age as Denethor and fought alongside him against the Southrons, then had the smarts to realize he couldn't stick around Gondor since he might appear as a rival, and now he's got confidence problems at the very moment he's been preparing for? It can make sense, but not the way they handled it, IMO. Ahhh, finally vented after nine years. Rant over.

I think Viggo does better the better the director. The films he did with Cronenberg are some of his best work.

[zenshiite]

^I think movie Aragorn is a tad different than book Aragorn, in that with the movie you have to establish this guy as a hero but you want him to be relatable to the majority of the audience. We get very little about his background in the movie, so how are we to know his long history? It makes sense, he's 85 but doesn't look it and he's been in hiding from Sauron's minions more of his life and less actively fighting them I think. It makes sense from the movie's internal logic.

[Michael]

Yeah, I can see how the movie Aragorn may have been intended to have found his strength during the road trip, that's fine for a movie plot, character arc, etc. If only Peckinpah had directed LOTR with Warren Oates as Boromir and Steve McQueen as Aragorn. Fantasy movie casts are better than fantasy sports teams

[Muad'dib]

Agreed with the last post.

[Bao]

I believe that The Hobbit has all the potential to become be better than LOTR. Why? Just because Guillermo del Toro is a much, much better director than Jackson. What really lowered the points for LOTR was not CGI, but theatrical over-acting and unnecessary over-use of melodramatical effects. Jackson understand film-making from effect-making. Guillermo del Toro understand film-making from directing and instructing actors.

[Michael]

What really lowered the points for LOTR was not CGI, but theatrical over-acting and unnecessary over-use of melodramatical effects.

Yes, that's exactly what I thought, but assumed it was directed this way because the producers & studio thought it was be more successful.

[klonk]

It was, I thought, the desire to make it look like the movie paradigm that caused Jackson to leave out essential backstory and simplify, rearrange and change what was left. The Helm's Deep scenes, for example, cannot be warranted by anything in Tolkien. Another example: Saruman's death was left out of the theatrical release and misrepresented in the extended.

Why does every movie have to look like every other in its genre? Safety consciousness? If it worked once we'll put it over again?

There is this continual tendency to force original fiction into the moviedom paradigm, hammer square peg into round hole. The only movie adaptation I ever much liked, of a book I liked, was The Maltese Falcon. And thereon hangs a tale. It's nearly scene-for-scene, word-for word. How did this slip past the rewrite boys?

[Michael]

The Elves coming to Helm's Deep was so difficult to watch. Totally unnecessary. I wish they'd done it the Maltese Falcon way.