Amph "The Hobbit" Movie Thread: Fan's Photos from Hobbiton

On the Trailer

It looks fantastic, and surprisingly polished for so vast an undertaking a full year away from completion. Clearly the WETA guys have been hard at at work, massaging seconds-long fragments of wildly disparate effects shots to create the illusion of a completed, sprawling work.

Parts of it are breathtaking, and oddly nostalgic. Missed living in Middle Earth? Here it is again, re-created before your disbelieving eyes, now filmed in gorgeous, golden edge lighting! Here's Galadriel, still ageless but somehow more mature, touching Gandalf's stringy gray, 80-year-old hair! Here's an orchestral piece of music evocative of the composer's earlier Rings score, but somehow more playful and at once deeper, more mythic. Here's the Shire! Weathertop! Rivendell! The Shards of Narsil!(TM)

I have no doubt that PJ personally selected every second of the footage in this mesmerizing trailer. The whole thing has his epic (some say pompous) stamp, his operatic pacing, his "what th--?" weird/comical moments set against scenes of cobwebby gloom, and an earnest fiddling of the heart strings.

They're hitting all the right chords, I think.

On the Distinction between Films and Books

I walk a comfortable middle road between ardent Tolkien purist and unabashed Jackson aficionado.

On the one hand, I am a lifelong fantasist (reader and writer) who exalts Tolkien as the greatest of fantasy authors, and The Lord of the Rings as THE sublime masterpiece of fantasy literature by which all others must (or simply will) be judged. Far more subtle and nuanced than some critics give it credit for, and positively Shakespearean with its scenery-chewing characters and keen insight into human behavior (though Tolkien reportedly disliked Wm. S.), even as it recasts ancient motifs and Germanic iconography that resonates with people everywhere, TLotR is, in my estimation, one of the great works of literary art of this or any age. It rivals Homer and, I think, exceeds Dante.

And then... there are the movies. In many ways these are dumbed down interpolations of otherwise masterful writings, a series of ill-advised bowdlerizations, and something of a gigantic mess. Parts of them struggle to maintain standards of craftsmanship. Parts are dull and go on to long. Parts are based on Hollywood cliches that were corny in the 50s, are now recycled into fantasy imagery scored with sappy music.

But what is truly great in the Jackson trilogy is truly great. A good 88% of the sprawling 12-hour opus that is The Extended Editions is superlative. It's gorgeously filmed, painstakingly realized, unique and weird and eye-popping and, well, weird. Stirring vistas of eye-popping beauty compete with bleak, Wicked-Witch grayscapes and spired castles, while heart-swelling music is made with violins and oboes, and characters you just want to hug frolic and die and fight and die some more. Consider the sequence in which Gandalf arrives with the dawn at Helm's Deep, or the charge of the Rohirrim. For that matter, consider Bilbo's birthday party! The costuming, the casting, the artful bringing to life of places, objects and people we (as a culture) have been reading about and thinking about and painting and drawing for 50+ years (myself for 30 of that). At their best, these films are wonderful.

There are numerous glitches and fumbles. I dislike co-writer Philipa Boyens's manner of bastardizing Tolkien's rich language, his eloquent dialogue which I think should have been kept more fully intact. I also heartily loathe some of the inexplicable additions, like the scar-faced pig-orc commander in the final film, which looks more like a rubber mutant from a bad sci-fi film than anything Tolkien would have ever envisioned. And the use of slo-mo during various hobbit bed-hopping sequences, and the extended push-in-for-close-ups-on-every-face farewell scene at the Grey Havens -- that stuff is just maddening. I could go on. At length.

But ultimately, these are only fantasy movies in a long tradition of such films. In the e

 

Production diary

 

Why the Hobbit Trailer Creeps Me Out

 

Um... what? When did Arwen give her immortality to Frodo? First, that's impossible, and second, she didn't say those words. She said "What grace is given to me, let him pass, let him be spared." She's praying, for Eru's sake! And she certainly didn't "give Frodo her place on the boat to immortality". She stayed because of her love for Aragorn; Frodo went because he was the Ringbearer. End of.

Like what, exactly? Like a concerned friend? Because that's what it was, before people started giving it sexual contest. Galadriel and Gandalf are old friends, it's highly probably that they knew each other way back in Valinor - and in this gesture I only see Galadriel's concern and that she noticed how careworn Gandalf is.

I hate when people complain about things that aren't there.

 

Yeah, totally agree with Mar17. The linked blogger's complaints about LOTR are imaginary, and his fears about TH strike me as utterly baseless.

 

it's just nerd tears shed over a whole two seconds of footage. nothing to be concerned about.

 

Well, the impression that Frodo takes Arwen's place on the boat comes from the DVDs, I think. I wish I could remember in more detail, but I'm pretty sure somebody put forward that interpretation in one of the commentaries or the documentaries. I don't know why I can't remember; there was only about a hundred hours of people talking on those DVDs. But clearly she doesn't choose mortality because of Frodo, but because of Aragorn; I mean, yes, the guy is way off on that.

Well, and on everything else he says. I mean, is he implying that Aragorn in the movies considered marrying Eowyn? Because I think he did not do anything of the sort . . .

 

Dwarf picture

 

http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/1141083/elijah_wood_on_the_lord_of_the_rings_3d_conversion.html

Heres the news about the deleated scenes that never made it to the extended edtions of lord the rings and the films being released in 3D

 

I think you mean:

This.

 

It seems incredibly unlikely that they'd pass up the opportunity to do a 3D re-release of the LOTR. Particularly a year or two after the last Hobbit film. It's another goldmine, maybe $600 million worldwide or more for all three movies, plus 3D tv.

 

and deleted scenes as well for future released of a longer verison extended verison as well like a five hour movie of the fellowship and things like that. If not longer verison then just a collectors edition of deleted scenes. some scenes are better for deleted while others are better just to watch in the deleted scenes.. Longer version is going to happen but if not longer verison then we will see the scenes that never made it to the extended editions and watch them in a seperate format.

Either way, I would be satisfied.

 

Got a quibble for you about that. A quote from the ROTK novel, in the chapter Many Partings:

But the Queen Arwen said: 'A gift I will give you. For I am the daughter of Elrond. I shall not go with him now when he departs to the Havens, for mine is the choice of Luthien, and as she so have I chosen, both the sweet and the bitter. But in my stead you shall go, Ring-bearer, when the time comes, and if you so then desire it.'

So yeah, Frodo did take Arwen's place on the boat. But she didn't give him her immortality. She stayed immortal, but willingly chose to die after Aragorn had passed away.

 

Video Blog

 

The Hobbit is going to be the biggest movie since Avatar, not that I believe it will make that much, but $1.1 to $1.2 billion worldwide is not out of the question. ROTK is definitely the benchmark. Incredible goodwill for the original work, huge audience and goodwill coming out of the LOTR trilogy, I would say comparable to the original SW trilogy. Plus a decade of anticipation and longing.

I don't see how a movie could be more set up in advance for phenomenal success.

Avengers maybe is a more localized, U.S. only version of the Hobbit, which will be intensively worldwide. Avengers will be something like a 50-50 U.S. foreign box office split, but may make as much as The Hobbit in the U.S. But the Hobbit will be closer to a 66-34 foreign-U.S. split.

Spider-Man reboot could potentially make as much in the U.S. as the Hobbit, maybe even a bit more, but again I think its foreign percentage will be at most 62-63%.

So frankly I don't think the Hobbit has any real global box office competition for the year. It will make 15-20% more worldwide at least than its next closest contender.

 

A Fan's Photos From Hobbiton

 

Gorgeous pictures. And there's a section that Del Toro was planning to use (and left intact) that was 'darker' and more overgrown? Awesome.

 

I'm skeptical of the "grim-looking area must have been Del Toro's idea" idea: it sounds like a rumor built on tourist speculation. Everything I read on the pre-production while Del Toro was still nominal director asserted that he would be remaining true to the depiction of Middle Earth as seen in the trilogy.

I could be wrong of course, but I suspect it's just a dilapidated area of the location, grown over because the producers opted not to film in that particular place.

 

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_hobbit_an_unexpected_journey/ heres the review about the hobbit so far from rottentomatoes. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0903624/ So Far IMDB gave is a better Rating!!!!!!!

 

i might've seen this in theatres if del toro directed

 

Use the active thread, please: http://boards.theforce.net/threads/the-hobbit-an-unexpected-journey.25649536/unread