The Great Hobbit Two Movie Debate

OK. Let's have this discussion here. My take:

In the appendices he outright said that the whole Smaug excursion was designed by Gandalf to remove both Smaug and the Goblin armies from the north of Middle Earth. Then during the War Of The Ring the alliance that The Battle Of Five Armies created, acted as the northern part of the defense and stopped another army sent by Sauron to invade Rohan and Gondor.

I wouldn't mind if The Hobbit wasn't linked with LOTR. You wouldn't mind. Financially it would have been terrible. LOTR has reached beyond the domain of Tolkien geeks. We may know that the linking (and there was one) of these two stories was an afterthought and can logically attribute the differences to that. The general public is not as familiar. They'll just see a bunch of the same people, in a bunch of the same places, fighting a bunch of the same enemies and will want to know what one has to do with another.

What should Jackson do? Will the marketing campaign have to explain that The Hobbit was originally a one off and Tolkien didn't get the idea of writing this extensive contiguous mythology for Middle Earth until later? The slogans write themselves: "From the creators of LOTR comes an unrelated story with a few recurring characters."

While I'm inclined to agree with you Dickson, at the end of the day the studio is happy to have two more films providing a one-two combo of prestige and cash. For general audiences not familiar with the books, they're going to want to see films that closely resemble the Ring trilogy in both design and familiar characters (Gandalf and Golum the biggest of crowdpleasers).

For Jackson? He presented a digestable, streamlined version of the Ring novels. Some fat was trimmed (some wasn't trimmed enough IMO) and some revisions were made for the medium. For example, we discussed in the other thread how several years had passed between Gandalf going to Minas Tirith to research the Ring, while the film presents it as over the course of possibly a few months. (Specifically, Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippen weren't aged at all. I chalked Bilbo's rapid aging when we see him again in Rivendale as due to the loss of the Ring, and old age catching up with him). Changes like this don't effect the overall story, and adds more of a sense of urgency to the story than "Wizard wanders for a few decades, then comes back."

Jackson could preserve more of the 'Storybook' aspects, presenting "There and Back Again," aka "The Hobbit" as Bilbo's perception of events through his Hobbit persepective, while the overall film fits in with the harder fantasy the Trilogy presents.

I don't like the idea of inserting Gandalf's side adventures into the films either, unless it's just a simple flashback type thing when Gandalf is explaining to Bilbo what happened upon their return trip to Hobbiton (I think it happens in Rivendell, but it's been years since I've read the book). If it's shown after the fact and briefly, the way Isildur's actions were shown in the Extended Edition of Fellowship, it wouldn't bug me too much apart from the whole too-many-endings argument. But I agree to insert them chronologically into the film would really pull the narrative away.

No one will make the connection. And what charming little story? Does the last third of the book not exist?

I have to agree with Richard here in that The novels have always been Middle Earth as seen through the eyes of a Hobbit. After FOTR the films seemed to lose that focus. The Hobbit is especially about Bilbo's view of his adventure. We are always following him and getting his perspective of the world outside of The Shire. BUT, as a film, I seriously doubt that they'd finally get to the great epic Battle of the Five Armies and then because Bilbo is knocked unconscious we as an audience miss the entire fight.

THE HOBBIT is whimsical, light, and charming. It's not LOTR. I'm not saying it's better, I'm just saying that it doesn't have the same tone. PJ's got to get that right. If the Gandalf stuff is well done and handled as an aside to the main story, I don't see it affecting the tone of the story. This is a prologue and the real heavy stuff doesn't really come into play until LOTR.

No one will make the connection? I know it's easy to kick around the idea of how stupid Joe Schmoo is when it comes to films, but saying no one will make the connection is like saying no one got it when the Imperial March played during Attack of the Clones.

And compared to Lord of the Rings, yeah, The Hobbit is a whimsical fantasy novel. It's a children's fable, and was written as such. It's also about 320 pages, so two 2.5 hour epics really is the definition of stretching things a little thin.

I will say "The Road Goes Ever On" theme should remain, for sure. Indeed, I think it should be the main theme of the film.

Amen!

My nostalgic attachment to the Rankin-Bass songs probably borders on the unhealthy. I am willing to accept that maybe they're not actually any good, and I could probably come to terms with a live-action Hobbit without them.

But damn it if I don't want every single song included in this version.



Edit: (Maybe you were referring to the Howard Shore version of "The Road Goes Ever On"; my sentiment stands).

I was referring to the Shore music, yeah.

It is interesting to point out that there are two versions of that song, and the Rankin Bass song covers the version presented in The Hobbit:

Roads go ever ever on,
Over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shone,
By streams that never find the sea;
Over snow by winter sown,
And through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
And under mountains in the moon.

Here's the version from Lord of the Rings, which has quite a different rhythm to it:

The Road goes ever on and on
Out from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
Let others follow it who can!
Let them a journey new begin,
But I at last with weary feet
Will turn towards the lighted inn,
My evening-rest and sleep to meet.

As far as music goes, my own personal hope is the small theme that plays when Gandalf looks at Thorin's map in Fellowship becomes the Hobbit's theme. You never here that particular passage again in the entire LotR score, and I think it'd be awesome for that kind of follow through to happen.

In the 60's Tolkien did, in fact, rewrite the first few chapters of the Hobbit in the style of LOTR. But he ultimately dropped the idea.

To your larger point, the addition of Gandalf's scenes will not work unless (1) the Bilbo story is made less whimsical, or (2) the additional scenes are rather more silly than what we saw in the LOTR movies.

I suspect that we will not be hearing the Elves of Rivendell singing tra-la-la-lally.

Here's something to talk about. Would it be appropriate to have these two films have the same opening narration from Galadrial, in that somber, serious tone of hers? Another timeless elf to put things into perspective?

Also, consider the Trolls. Jackson himself was vehemently opposed to having overt displays of magical powers by the wizards and elves, and made it a much more internal power, while most of the rest of Middle Earth is presented with a consistent internal logic. However, how reasonable is it to have biological creatures turn into giant granite statues at the appearance of the sun? Yet there they are, easter eggs for the theatrical, and directly referenced in the extended versions. When I first saw Fellowship and heard Bilbo tell the story to the young Hobbit children, I thought "well, fantastical things like this are his embellishment to the story," however an hour later, there they are.

Perhaps the loss of fairy tale whimsy itself is a reflection or result of Sauron's reemergence, and these films can be somewhat tonally different while still being part of the overall world. Sort of how the Star Wars Prequels (dodges rotten produce) present an almost Victorian era that degrades into the grime and grease covered classic SW trilogy.

Absolutely not.

All we need for backstory is to hear Thorin and Gandalf's recounting of Smaug's coming around the dinner table in Bag End, in its naturally occurring place in the story.

The first thing we should hear is obvious: "In a hole in the ground, there lived a Hobbit..."

I think the Imperial March is a much larger pop culture commodity than any music in the LotR.

This has serious shades of the Tom Bombadil excision discussion. Like it or not, a drastically different tone between The Hobbit and LOTR is out of the question. LOTR is too big now. Especially after the movies, The Hobbit's only worth to the mainstream audience is that it's more LOTR, mistaken though as it is.

I'm not saying they should turn it into Saving Private Gloin but The Hobbit will be going through some major changes.

King Kong was a classic example of a director taking a simple little story and choking the life out of it with pointless tangents and self indulgent bloat, and when Jackson and co steered LOTR away from the books it wasn't always for the best. The Hobbit obviously doesn't *need* to be two movies. But the book threw in a bunch of hints towards the larger story going on in the background, and I can't blame them for wanting to explore it. And I also can't say the idea of another fantasy epic with McKellen's Gandalf on another adventure doesn't have its appeal.

It's hard to have a strong opinion about it without knowing what they're actually planning to do or what kind of tone they're shooting for. Just because they're adding more content doesn't automatically mean they're going to turn the whole thing into a brooding epic. And even if they do make a brooding epic, it might not be very Hobbitish but it could still be a good movie.

The thing i would change about this post in the other thread would be 'bloat'. I actually wouldn't mind seeing Jackson's vision of the other happenings. But I'd like to see the Hobbit in a single film...and then maybe a bridge film?!? OMG, I can't believe I just wrote that.

The Hobbitt in no way needs to be made darker to fit in with LOTR. Why the hell can't it just be another story set in the same universe?

If each of the films end up a tight 1:45 instead of some bloated 3 hour monstrosity for each film, this could work. I'm sure the studio would be happy (more showings a day) and the audience's bladders would be too.

I think there are good points in the difficulty of matching the investigation of the necromancer to the main story of the Hobbit, especially in real time. One of the major plot devices and sources of tension is that Bilbo (the audience) doesnt know where or why Gandalf disappears to for extended periods of time and most of the major difficulties come while he is gone. Showing him going back and forth on side adventures would likely distract form the tension of Bilbo having to act alone.

I would lean toward a lighter first film, with a reveal of what Gandalf has been doing sometime after Mirkwood. Probably somewhere around the Smaug sequence. The problem is the payoff, in LOTR the Gandalf/Saruman fight was not revealed until Saruman was important (the white council I think)... Sauron isnt a player in the Hobbit at all so unless his influence is emphasized in the Battle of Five Armies (or maybe the Hall of the Goblin King) it doesnt have a place. Some modification will have to take place to make it seem relevant to The Hobbit somehow.

But the audience, knowing LOTR, will anticipate Sauron/evil when they see the ring more than any first timer to the Hobbit should. The anticipation is already there for a darker theme or at least one that leads to darker themes.

Other difficulties:
1) Gandalf having severely diminished powers (retreating to treetops when the Wargs show up at mirkwood), being a nonfactor (besides manipulating the party) in leadership

2) Developing/Showing the elf/man/dwarf rivalries that LOTR spent a lot of time resolving

3) The whole prequel issue, we know more than the characters, who survives, what the ring is, what happens to the ring, that a huge war is brewing... etc. The major question, is Bilbo up to the task asked of him, is he capable of adventure... is blown, he's already been shown as the aching adventurer who longs for another.

4) The effect of the ring is entirely different between the books, and the film LOTR exaggerates it somewhat. The dread simply isnt there in the Hobbit and could confuse the audience.

5) The repetitive nature of the encounters.. something strange happens, Gandalf is gone, the dwarves stupidly get themselves caught, Bilbo or Gandalf or (recently met character) get them out. This stuff is going to be difficult to keep necessary as none of it is meat to the backbone of the story, Bilbo getting the ring, killing smaug, the battle of five armies. (there is a connection to make them necessary, in most of the encounters Bilbo meets the leaders of the five armies)

6) There's an awful lot of borderline deus-ex-machina, though it comes across as magical and charming with the lighter tone, it would be harder to take with a more grounded, serious tone. Hell, in some ways the stories dont jibe at all. Bard killing Smaug with a magic arrow doesnt match up with 10000 soldiers bouncing arrows off the Nazgul creatures.

7) How do you theatrically keep the main hero out of the major battle of the story? Basically everything in the battle of the five armies will be a rewrite by Jackson and by the standards he set in LOTR, its going to be huge.

I dont see the stone trolls turning to stone being an issue as they were simply tricked into staying awake till dawn and the change isnt much more of a magical issue than the witchking compressing into himself.

Im inclusionist when it comes to the Hobbit and LOTR. I want the backstory told and dont consider LOTR finished until the taming of the Shire and the extended histories in the appendecis.

Jackson made major changes to the structure of LOTR as written. Enough that it is arguable whether it's Jacksons LOTR. I have no doubt that the changes made to the Hobbit will be in the same vein. The hard part will be for Jackson to keep it an adventure.

agreed... read by John Huston (RIP)

I'd bet you anything that the music which plays when Gandalf illuminates Moria in Fellowship ("there's an eye opener") was composed with The Hobbit in mind.

As for Jackson's expansion plan, here's the hard truth: Jackson needs to do this if the films are to stand up against LOTR. The book by itself just isn't enough. Also, when it comes to the movie universe, we threw out source material fealty long ago. Jackson (justifiably) rewrote and "expanded" stuff like goody two-shoes Faramir for the good of the films, and he should do the same going forward.

The thing with The Hobbit is, it's already such a well-told, concise, charming little story that seems tailor made for a great movie. I really hope Jackson knows what he's doing if he wants to supplement things.

I'm holding out hope that the bits of connective tissue he adds are small and unobtrusive. I do think this is possible, but my faith in PJ's restraint has been shaken by his last two films.

Oh, I completely agree about being strict with the source material - Jackson proved that fealty doesn't make a damn bit of difference. The key here is that PJ got the tone and the feeling of the story absolutely right. He may not be strictly loyal to Tolkien's plot, but the movie FELT like LOTR in so many ways that in some places Jackson's imagery has completely replaced the imagery in my head when I read those books for the first time.

So it's important that PJ get the feel of THE HOBBIT right. Flat out, THE HOBBIT doesn't read like LOTR and it doesn't have the same tone. It's an introduction to the world of Middle-Earth. Lucas has stated before that he wants people to watch his STAR WARS movies in order, which is bullshit, because the Prequels are nothing like the Original Trilogy. Well, Jackson here can make a movie that to future generations really can be seen in order and not overwhelm THE HOBBIT with that LOTR "feeling" for lack of a better word, just dip the audience's toe into it gradually, until at the end of THE HOBBIT films we're ready for LOTR. That's really difficult to pull off, no question, because tone and the audience's perception of it isn't something you can just make happen. Audiences respond differently no matter the intention of the filmmaker.

Very interesting thoughts.

Here's my question: Will Jackson pull a Lucas and swap out Holm for Freeman in the flashback scenes in Lord of the Rings on all future releases?

Please let's not bring Star Wars into this. Please, please, please.

I think you're forgetting how much Jackson radically altered Faramir. I mean, if THAT wasn't an "entirely separate narrative thread", I don't know what is. Jackson obliterated Tolkien's Faramir, and good for him -- the change provided much needed drama. Where Tolkien's character is wise and forgiving, Jackson's is confused and vindictive. The book's Faramir knows immediately that he should help Frodo but in the movie, he almost lets his daddy issues destroy the world. It's a complete 180.

Well, the thing is, that was true for the books. The Hobbit came out before LOTR, of course. But it's not true for the movies. Regardless of how people may view the films in the future, right now, Jackson's Hobbit grows in the shadow of LOTR. And the new films have to address that. It doesn't necessarily mean making The Hobbit more like LOTR, but it must be a concern.

And we have no idea how Peter will deal with it, so we can't condemn the concept outright. My approach would be to make film 2 most of the "bridge" -- that is, complete The Hobbit in film one, with film 2 expanding the world to include Sauron and what not. When Del Toro was on board and the series was still a trilogy, he described Films 1 and 2 as being The Hobbit and Film 3 as being the bridge. That could still be the plan, just condensed a bit.

I never once heard the Hobbit referred to as a trilogy anywhere. Reference?

The point is he has to link it with LOTR somehow. It has to fit. In the books, The Hobbit was indeed an introduction. In the films, the audience is already 9 to 12 hours deep into Middle Earth. Spending the opening of the movie going all Concerning Hobbits will be a waste of time. The Hobbit must be a decidedly lighter affair than LOTR but it must not appear inconsequential next to the trilogy. The audience has already seen Minas Tirith, they have seen Barad Dur get destroyed, they have seen the great halls of Moria. And like it or not marching songs, poems and a Ganadalf that shows up, hangs around for a bit and then fucks off without no one knowing where to, will not do.

You people are really overblowing the importance of 'thematic cohesion.' Dwarven adventures and a big-ass dragon can easily work on their own terms. The more Jackson & Co. try to force the story, as it already exists, into something it's not, the more the story will ultimately suffer.

The Hobbit is not an introduction. It is its own thing. It's a far-flung adventure, specifically about adventure. Its not an epic story about total war. But the adventure that is written in there is more than enough to satisfy an audience.

Exactly.

We are not talking about writing something new to fit in with LOTR we are talking about a different Story set in the same Universe with some of the same charaters.

A better analogy would be trying to rewrite the first issue of Batman to fit in better with a long running JLA story.

No he didn't. It's always been two films. Which has always been one film too many.

A new Tolkien movie is getting made. Overblowing things is all everyone is going to do until the release. Just go with the flow, have disproportionately passionate conversations and ashame yourself with your geekiness. It's half the fun.

Personally, I'm already brushing up on my Quenya. Dwarvish would be a better fit but I hate them.

Even after all these years I still think this was the wrong decision, especially in the theatrical version which left out the crucial Boromir/Denathor flashback. They destroyed the character just to add extra drama to a film that was already in danger of getting bogged down by the weight of so many bombastic climaxes. Given how they shifted the Shelob cliffhanger to the third film they surely needed to add at least something to the Frodo plotline, but the solution they came up with marked the low point for the series for me.


Surely by retelling the Batman origin story in different ways to suit different takes on the character, many people have more or less done exactly this, and with some success?

Yeah it's still not a perfect example but the point I was trying to make is that the Hobbit and LOTR are two stories in the same universe, which does not mean they have to share the same tone. Kind of like two comics set in the same Universe.

In the end, I'm just hoping that Smaug bears absolutely no resemblance to DragonHeart.

Dragonslayer on the other hand, would be sweet.