The Hobbit: Can someone point me at some REAL info?

Piratecat · Nov 4, 2003

We read a print interview with Jackson where he said that he'd very much like to go to the theater and see a wonderful version of The Hobbit that someone else directed. Can't say I blame him.

Storminator · Nov 4, 2003

Tom Cashel said:
That's a great song!

But it was from Return of the King, which was a Rankin/Bass production (just like the animated Hobbit). Bakshi's Lord of the Rings (which also had its memorable moments, and was my first ever exposure to anything remotely Tolkien--accent on remote) included Fellowship and most of The Two Towers.

http://pudge.net/tmp/Where%20There's%20A%20Whip,%20There's%20A%20Way.mp3

Look what I found...

PS

diaglo · Nov 4, 2003

Storminator said:
http://pudge.net/tmp/Where%20There's%20A%20Whip,%20There's%20A%20Way.mp3

Look what I found...

PS

you will find it paraphrased several times in the Story Hour in my sig.

kengar i'm a purist. i would've preferred the movies to be more like the books. 6 books in the LotR = 6 movies.

overall i give the movies a C- . my wife, who is a nongamer, gave the movies an A- . she read the books and like the rest of the people i have met, thinks PJ did the best he could. i still disagree. i didn't like the extras that were added. and i didn't like the stuff he cut out.

kingpaul · Nov 4, 2003

Storminator said:
http://pudge.net/tmp/Where%20There's%20A%20Whip,%20There's%20A%20Way.mp3

I tried going there, but was told that I couldn't d/l it.

Dimwhit · Nov 4, 2003

Too bad they had had to tear down the Shire & Rivendell sets to restore the land to how they'd found it. It would of saved production time if those sets were intact.

Really? I thought I'd heard they were going to preserve the shire as an attraction of sorts. Maybe that was just temporary.

Too bad. It's not like they destroyed the nature around there. They shouldn't kept it. (By 'they' I mean whoever owns the land--probably the gov't.)

Desdichado · Nov 4, 2003

Dimwhit said:
Really? I thought I'd heard they were going to preserve the shire as an attraction of sorts. Maybe that was just temporary.

Too bad. It's not like they destroyed the nature around there. They shouldn't kept it. (By 'they' I mean whoever owns the land--probably the gov't.)

Nope, the DVD extras were pretty clear that this had been torn down. Although Peter Jackson himself bought back the set for Bag End. He keeps it in his garage or something like that.

kengar · Nov 4, 2003

diaglo said:
you will find it paraphrased several times in the Story Hour in my sig.

kengar i'm a purist. i would've preferred the movies to be more like the books. 6 books in the LotR = 6 movies.

overall i give the movies a C- . my wife, who is a nongamer, gave the movies an A- . she read the books and like the rest of the people i have met, thinks PJ did the best he could. i still disagree. i didn't like the extras that were added. and i didn't like the stuff he cut out.

People will like what they like, but books aren't movies and movies aren't books. What works on the page often doesn't translate to the screen. I think PJ did an amazing job of capturing the spirit of the books on screen. FOTR was arguably the best book-to-movie adaptation I have ever seen. Other close contenders include The Godfather (Part I) & The Princess Bride. Neither of those stuck 100% to the book, either. Both of those had the advantage of the books' authors working on the screenplay as well. Something that LOTR didn't have the luxury of.

I love the books and re-read them about once a year (Hobbit-ROTK), but -except in 1 or 2 (usually minor) places- I think PJ made the right calls on what he changed for the movies.

WizarDru · Nov 4, 2003

Tom Cashel said:
But it was from Return of the King, which was a Rankin/Bass production (just like the animated Hobbit). Bakshi's Lord of the Rings (which also had its memorable moments, and was my first ever exposure to anything remotely Tolkien--accent on remote) included Fellowship and most of The Two Towers.

Yup.

The actual chronology was:
Tolkien's Death: 1973
Rankin&Bass's The Hobbit: 1977, TV (CBS, iirc)
Bakshi's LotR (condensing Fellowship and Two Towers): 1978
Rankin & Bass's Return of the King, 1980, TV (ABC)

Tolkien had been in negotiation over the film rights to the movies for a long time, but had never felt that they could possibly portray them, particularly given the limitations of film-making at that time, iirc. That was why animation was such a natural choice. Bakshi seemed like a good choice, too: he'd made several 'cutting edge' animated adult films...and even if some of them were controversial, he had a reputation for getting attention for animated fare aimed at Adults. He'd even tackled adapting other folks work, such as Fritz the Cat, and had done some fantasy work with Wizards (another flawed but visually interesting film, also adapted from a comic). Unfortunately, he also had a well deserved reputation for pitching his projects as needed a lower budget than they actually needed. Witness the travesty that is Helm's Deep in Bakshi's work, and you'll get my meaning. The first half-hour is pretty enjoyable, but the rotoscoping process starts to become tedious after a while, and the limitations of it are glaring. The condensing that takes place throughout the movie is somewhat odd at points, but it has redeeming qualities, even if I consider it horribly flawed.

I consider the animated version of "The Hobbit" to be great, and my kids love it, too. It's pretty faithful, all things considered, and suffers more from poor foley work and some odd editing than anything else. As I remember it said (legend or no), Return of the King was made to complete the trilogy, after the massive disappointment of the first movie, and was placed back in R&B's hands. While R&B's love of adding songs is a little irritating at points, you can't help but admit they're somewhat infectious...particularly the 'whip' song, which I know many gamers can still recite from memory to this day.