Unlike actual Hobbits, film series about them are not short

[Evie]

...as in, the Hobbit duology is now a Hobbit trilogy.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/30/showbiz/movies/jackson-hobbit-film-ew/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

(EW.com) -- Apparently, when it comes to Middle-earth, director Peter Jackson thinks three is the magic number. Last month at Comic-Con, Jackson teased fans with the idea that he was interested in pushing beyond his planned two-film adaptation of "The Hobbit." Today, after weeks of intensive talks with Warner Bros. over how exactly that might be achieved, Jackson announced on his Facebook page that he is, in fact, going to turn "The Hobbit" into a trilogy.
"It is only at the end of a shoot that you finally get the chance to sit down and have a look at the film you have made," Jackson wrote. "Recently Fran [Walsh], Phil[lippa Boyens] and I did just this when we watched for the first time an early cut of the first movie — and a large chunk of the second. We were really pleased with the way the story was coming together, in particular, the strength of the characters and the cast who have brought them to life. All of which gave rise to a simple question: do we take this chance to tell more of the tale? And the answer from our perspective as the filmmakers, and as fans, was an unreserved 'yes.'"
How exactly The Hobbit will be turned into a three-film series is still somewhat unclear, though.
As Jackson has acknowledged, "The Hobbit" is a slender story compared with the far more sprawling and complex "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. But the director is drawing not only on the original book, but also on more than a hundred pages of appendices Tolkien later wrote that expanded on the world of "The Hobbit." Jackson is obviously confident that all of this material taken together can sustain three films and hinted in his announcement at what narrative elements will be incorporated to fill out the trilogy.
"We know how much of the story of Bilbo Baggins, the Wizard Gandalf, the Dwarves of Erebor, the rise of the Necromancer, and the Battle of Dol Guldur will remain untold if we do not take this chance," he wrote. "The richness of the story of The Hobbit, as well as some of the related material in the appendices of The Lord of the Rings, allows us to tell the full story of the adventures of Bilbo Baggins and the part he played in the sometimes dangerous, but at all times exciting, history of Middle-earth."
The first installment in the trilogy, subtitled "An Unexpected Journey," hits theaters Dec. 14, 2012. The second film is slated for Dec. 13, 2013. The last installment will hit theaters in the summer of 2014.

Still nto sure how I feel about it. There's the obvious reaction "What the hell is this, moneymaking?", there's the "How can you turn one book into a trilogy?" one.

And then there's the thinking it through, and realizing just how much happen off-screen in the Hobbit, and just how condensed the Hobbit is compared to the Lord. If you stop and think about it, had Tolkien written the Lord like he did the Hobbit, we would probably have a story not much longer than the Hobbit itself: no War of the Ring subplot, many of the chapters in book II-IV-VI being ditched or merged and shortened, etc.

If in turn Jackson is expanding the Hobbit (via using the appendices) to tell that story more in Lord of the Rings style, it would make sense to have something that can fit into a trilogy (and keep in mind that a lot had to be cut from the Lord for it to be a trilogy).

 

[Dachs]

Yeah, if he's trying to get the whole war for Mirkwood in there, there's no way he could've done that in two movies. I'm completely okay with this.

 

[Chukchi Husky]

I never read The Hobbit, but from what I heard from people who read the book, it's going to be bad if it's more than a single two hour long film, and even for two long films there will be a lot of padding and essentially trying to make the audience feel nostalgic for The Lord of the Rings.

 

[Yoda Power]

I'm hoping this is a good thing. It could work I believe.

 

[J-man]

The hobbit is a short story and easy to read. I wonder how well it fits in three films.

 

[Evie]

I amused myself after posting this trying to imagine what the Lord would be like if it had been written like the Hobbit (strictly follow a single character, have one major obstacle or plot twist for each chapter, etc, summarize a lot of "uninteresting" events in one or two sentences, etc). I expected something a little longer than Hob

I. A Long Expected Party (cutting all the Hobbit daily life but including Shadow of the Past)
II. The Black Riders (merging together the three leaving-the-Shire chapters)
III. The Old Forest
IV. Tom Bombadil and the Barrow-Downs
V. A Knife in the Dark
VI. Flight to the Ford
VII. The Council of Elrond
VIII. The Bridge of Khazad-Dum
IX. Lothlorien
X. The Breaking of the Fellowship
XI. The Taming of Sméagol
XII. The Black Gate Is Closed
XIII. Faramir
XIV. Shelob's Lair
XV. Cirith Ungol
XVI. Mount Doom
XVII. The Field of Cormallen
XVIII. The Scouring of the Shire.

...which actually adds up to one chapter less than The hobbit. So presumably, with all the suplemental material in Lord (especially if you bring in some of the other briefly mentioned stories in there), you have more than enough material to do the reverse exercise, eg expand Hobbit to a full trilogy. (Especially if you remember they had to cut lots of bits of Lord to fit it as a trilogy).

 

[Murky]

I don't see a problem with them expanding it to a trilogy so long as it's not just a bunch fluff to make more money off of the franchise.

 

[Leoreth]

Was skeptical until I heard he was going to include the Mirkwood stuff.

 

[TheLastOne36]

If he includes the Mirkwood stuff, I am completely ok with this.

 

[Evie]

I'm also getting the feeling we might get a (very) expanded backstory of the line of Durin integrated into the story. There's a LOT of material on that in the Appendices (Appendix A, Part III). Some of it is vaguely alluded to in Hobbit proper, but to do the movie proper justice you practically need to integrate them in full.

(That's the history of Thror and Thrain; Thror's death and the resulting War of the Dwarves and Orcs set the stage for the Battle of Five Armies, and Thrain's last journey, capture by Sauron, loss of the Ring, his dying words to Gandalf, and Gandalf's mission to Dol Guldur that allow him to hear the dying words in the first place are all major background event set up the stage for the entire novels. We'll almost certainly hear a lot of these two sets of events.)

I get the feeling that *some* form of the battle of Azanulbizar will be shown at some point. First because it's a character-significant moment for one of the most important characters (it's how Thorin became Thorin Oakenshield), and it serves to introduce Dain before he becomes important to the story, instead of just having him be mentioned out of nowhere when Thorin needs him.

(And that's another thing. The Battle of the Five Armies is very short in the novel, and we miss half of it because Bilbo gets knocked out upon sighting the eagles. The last stand of Thorin - just that! - happens off-screen and only warrant a few small mentions). Think of how much screen time the Field of Pelennor or Helm's Deep took up in Lord. That's a lot of movie right there).

EDIT: having checked the casting, it looks like we ARE getting Azanulbizar, since someone was cast as Azog.

 

[Ozbenno]

I get the feeling that *some* form of the battle of Azanulbizar will be shown at some point. First because it's a character-significant moment for one of the most important characters (it's how Thorin became Thorin Oakenshield), and it serves to introduce Dain before he becomes important to the story, instead of just having him be mentioned out of nowhere when Thorin needs him.

I was thinking this as well. Adding the backstory to Thorin and Gandalf's visit to Dol Guldur would help explain the backstory well (especially as it was already announced that the sack of Dol Guldur was in the movies) but it would have to be in the first movie to make sense (to explain Gandalf's possession of the map) and surely it is too late now to include this...

 

[Verarde]

If he will be including some extra stuff as well, it's totally worth it to me.

 

[Leoreth]

I was thinking this as well. Adding the backstory to Thorin and Gandalf's visit to Dol Guldur would help explain the backstory well (especially as it was already announced that the sack of Dol Guldur was in the movies) but it would have to be in the first movie to make sense (to explain Gandalf's possession of the map) and surely it is too late now to include this...

It could easily be explained by flashback as well.

I don't remember how it was done in the LotR movies but wasn't Gandalf's escape from Isengard explained in a later movie too?

 

[Quackers]

I'm also getting the feeling we might get a (very) expanded backstory of the line of Durin integrated into the story. There's a LOT of material on that in the Appendices (Appendix A, Part III). Some of it is vaguely alluded to in Hobbit proper, but to do the movie proper justice you practically need to integrate them in full.

(That's the history of Thror and Thrain; Thror's death and the resulting War of the Dwarves and Orcs set the stage for the Battle of Five Armies, and Thrain's last journey, capture by Sauron, loss of the Ring, his dying words to Gandalf, and Gandalf's mission to Dol Guldur that allow him to hear the dying words in the first place are all major background event set up the stage for the entire novels. We'll almost certainly hear a lot of these two sets of events.)

I get the feeling that *some* form of the battle of Azanulbizar will be shown at some point. First because it's a character-significant moment for one of the most important characters (it's how Thorin became Thorin Oakenshield), and it serves to introduce Dain before he becomes important to the story, instead of just having him be mentioned out of nowhere when Thorin needs him.

(And that's another thing. The Battle of the Five Armies is very short in the novel, and we miss half of it because Bilbo gets knocked out upon sighting the eagles. The last stand of Thorin - just that! - happens off-screen and only warrant a few small mentions). Think of how much screen time the Field of Pelennor or Helm's Deep took up in Lord. That's a lot of movie right there).

EDIT: having checked the casting, it looks like we ARE getting Azanulbizar, since someone was cast as Azog.

The problem with the first part is that we know a broad outline of what happened and we even have a bit of dialogue with that bit outside of Moria with Azog - but the rest of it we will need a lot of creative license to write a script out which may go against the spirit of Tolkein. That would be my only hang-up about it, either way i have trust in PJ to deliver.

---

I think splitting it up into a trilogy is an awesome idea. Sooo much more material and film for tolkein geek like me

 

[Traitorfish]

Was skeptical until I heard he was going to include the Mirkwood stuff.

Same here. I was put off by the idea that they'd just be padding it for the sake of the money, but it sounds like the extra stuff could actually be really interesting.

 

[Dachs]

It could easily be explained by flashback as well.

I don't remember how it was done in the LotR movies but wasn't Gandalf's escape from Isengard explained in a later movie too?

Nope, that was in Fellowship. Flashback when Gandalf was at Rivendell with Frodo.

 

[Glassfan]

In LotR, Peter Jackson certainly took liberties with plot and characters, and yet it turned out alright. For instance, he eliminated the lion's-share of Tolkein's (every-other-page-epic) poetry - which honestly would not have sat well with modern movie-going audiences anyway (fine poetry is dead) - but replaced it with a splendid Howard Shore musical soundtrack. He eliminated characters like Bombadil, Goldberry and Imrahil, or changed them entirely (Aragorn: modern anti-hero - "I don't want to be King!") and hardly anyone but hard-core fans even noticed. He even eliminated places like the Old Forest (Old Man Willow is magically transported to Fanghorn) and the Barrow Downs. My special favorite thing is where he switches dialog around, as when Galadrial recites Treebeard in the opening credits.

So just enjoy the movie(s) and don't expect a faithful interpretation. And look forward to the years of argumentative threads Jackson will give us.

 

[Dachs]

And it's been my consistent opinion that Tolkien can be very easily improved on anyway, everywhere except the language. Jackson's changes are usually for the better.

 

[Evie]

Tolkien was a storyteller through and through. Rambling asides, getting sidetracked on a fancy: that's the storyteller speaking to (and interacting with) his (imaginary) audience. Same with the commentary in the Hobbit.

It's a very different craft from actual novel writing, or movie-making (the two beign themselves different from each other, obviously).

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As for faithful interpretation, "faithful" and "adaptation" are a contradiction in terms anyway. A proper adaptation is not faithful; it change and alter the story to account for the change in media and for changes in public perception.

(And that's one thing to note under "change of circumstances" - the original hobbit was published two decade before the Lord. The Hobbit film is released a decade after. Very different circumstances: one exicted in a vacuum, the other has to properly link up with what came after, and fall into a proper evolution of style and genre. )

 

[Leoreth]

Agreed. That's why I think all these "the new Tolkien" blurbs you find on literally every first novel by a Fantasy author are actually kind of faint praise. Tolkien laid the groundwork in shaping the genre, but I wouldn't want to read a novel that's written like his.

I think they overdid it in the movies at some points, though. For example, I still don't see the point of the "Aragorn falls down a cliff and everyone thinks he's dead and then he hallucinates Arwen but then arrives in Helm's Deep in time anyway" storyline in Two Towers.

I'm by no means a canon purist when it comes to adaptation in different media, but Fellowship is still my favorite movie of the trilogy because it best captures the magical feel of LotR in my opinion. The sequels contained too many "epic" Hollywood action elements that could have been handled with a little more subtlety.