From Entertainment Weekly.
So far so good, though I can’t say I’m surprised, given the precedent set by the wonderful scenery and set-pieces of The Lord of the Rings films. Martin Freeman couldn’t have been a better casting choice, visually, for the part of Bilbo (though I picture Mr. Baggins as slightly more rotund).
As I’m sure it was for many others The Hobbit was my gateway to fantasy and, largely, to reading in general. As such I have very high expectations for this film (or more accurately, films). I have little doubt The Hobbit is going to look great, but my hopes and fears are pinned to the faithfulness of the script. And the amount of screen time allotted to Beorn kicking ass at the Battle of Five Armies.
Cross-posted from Black Gate.
So far so good, though I can’t say I’m surprised, given the precedent set by the wonderful scenery and set-pieces of The Lord of the Rings films. Martin Freeman couldn’t have been a better casting choice, visually, for the part of Bilbo (though I picture Mr. Baggins as slightly more rotund).
As I’m sure it was for many others The Hobbit was my gateway to fantasy and, largely, to reading in general. As such I have very high expectations for this film (or more accurately, films). I have little doubt The Hobbit is going to look great, but my hopes and fears are pinned to the faithfulness of the script. And the amount of screen time allotted to Beorn kicking ass at the Battle of Five Armies.
Cross-posted from Black Gate.
I think its too much to ask for rotund hobbits. The studio obviously said no to that for the Ring's movies.. as Sam was the closest we had to a portly hole dweller.. apart from some background characters of course.
ReplyDeleteI hope we get a good bit of Beorn as well, since he's been unceremoniously left out of both the Animated and Radio adaptions..
*sigh* his feet look like he's wearing clown shoes in the third shot.
ReplyDeleteThey're shooting as much as the LOTR trilogy? Get ready for the 7 hour extended edition of The Hobbit on DVD, I guess. And whatever the 'other' movie is going to be.
There is no 'Other Movie'.
ReplyDeleteIt's The Hobbit, in 2 parts. The concept of the "Bridge" film was bandied about years ago and from everything that the filmmakers have stated recently is dead. Instead we are getting material from the Lord of the Rings Appendicies added to the Hobbit in order to increase its length and flesh out its connections with the other three films.
We will be getting things such as the White council, possibly some material from the tale of Aragorn and Arwen, along with other stuff.
Whats wrong with it being 7 hours anyway? For the most part, the extended editions of the Lord of the Rings are vastly superior to the theatrical versions. But not too many people would sit in a movie theatre for 4 hours. If anything, I feel that the Ring's movies aren't long enough, and could do with some of the other rumoured to be complete material being added in, not to mention the whole thing re-worked into a single multi disc film (rather than 3, multi disc films).
"The concept of the "Bridge" film was bandied about years ago and from everything that the filmmakers have stated recently is dead."
ReplyDeleteAh, I see. I haven't been able to keep up with the twists and turns, heck I didn't know Jackson had given up and taken over himself.
My problem, on the surface, with the 7 hour extended edition is that it's not the original release, I'd rather have that original material up front, in the theater, instead of waiting for it months later on DVD (of course this isn't practical, but I don't have to like it). However, specifically, I'm groaning at the thought of what he's going to 'add in' that's going to make this take as long to film as the LOTR trilogy that covered, what? 4-5 times as much material, page-wise?
well, I can understand that, but once you begin to factor in the Summerized material from the appendicies, it begins to severely bump up the page count.
ReplyDeleteThe Hobbit is about 400 pages in paperback, making it about 1/3rd the length of the Lord of the Rings, but if you consider the fact that if the assault on dol gulder were a novel it would probably be another 400 pages.. So they are actually adapting a hypothetical 6-800 page novel in about 6-8 hours. Where they adapted the 1200 page lord of the rings into a roughly 12 hour film. It's fairly close dynamics.
I certainly agree with you though, that I'd have preferred the Theatrical cuts didn't exist. They were made for the studios who don't think the general public's attention span is that long, and the movie theatres who don't want to only be able to run 3 shows a day, or have to monopolize multiple screens on one film. Hopefully they will dispense with that this time now that they know people will sit through a 3 and a half hour film in theaters.