Beatles-Tolkien Connection?

Cafe Society
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Dear Straight Dope,
After posting the “Disney-Tolkien Connection?” here (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=279013), I did a little more surfing to find connections between LOTR and Hollywood.

I hit the jackpot at TolkienOnline. According to a thread at that site, in Outre Magazine #26, there is an article (by Ross Plesset) about LOTR film projects which fizzled out. How convenient! Some of its revelations:

The Beatles were interested in doing a live-action version of LOTR.

*Yellow Submarine * art director Heinz Edelmann wanted to do an animated version of LOTR.

Stanley Kubrick took a look at LOTR and gave up.

John Boorman actually spent a year (1970) in preproduction on LOTR before the thing fell through.

Disney then took a second look at LOTR and gave it a pass (according to a separate thread at TolkienOnline and another thread at faz.com, Disney initially bought the film rights to LOTR immediately after it was published in 1955).

But the most interesting thing about the Outre article is the interview with Boorman’s co-writer, Rospo Pallenberg, in which he discusses the changes they wrought on Prof. Tolkien’s beloved story. Did I say “interesting”? “Jaw-dropping” would be a better word.

Some of the changes and ideas:

Frodo is unable to look into Galadriel’s mirror until he has sex with her first.

When the Fellowship reaches Moria, they cannot come up with the password to the gate. So they put Gimli into a sack (or something) and then they beat him into a “mystic coma” so that he can recall the password from his “ancestral memory.”

The Beatles were seriously considered for the parts of the four Hobbits.

At this point we should get down on our knees and offer a fervent prayer of thanks to Peter Jackson. And Mr. Boorman should be thankful that his project fell through, else he would have spent the last 30+ years hiding from the wrath of Tolkien fans everywhere.

But the whole idea of the Fab Four playing Frodo, Sam, Merry & Pippin is just deliciously, irresistably weird. I think it deserves a thread of its own! So here is my proposition:

The year is 1970. You have been given the green light to direct a live-action version of The Lord of the Rings. But the producer has stipulated that the Beatles must be cast as the four Hobbits.

***Which Beatle gets to play which Hobbit? * **

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John Boormen went on to direct Zardoz. I read in a Science Fiction magazine in the late-1970s that the “flying head” ship in Zardoz was originally intended as one of the heads on The Argonath, but that the project fell through. The head had been built, so it was used in Zardoz. Was the LotR film that the head was made for, Boorman’s project? Or did Boorman get the head from another LotR project that was never made? The magazine did not say.

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The markedly less famous (but quite good; you may know their version of “Glendora”) British beat group Downliners Sect did in fact record a LOTR song with a very heavy Cream-type sound at the end of the 1960s.

There was also a light American pop-psych band called The Hobbits who released a couple of albums, one of them with a very collectable stereotypically psychedelic cover. It fetches better than $20 on eBay. If this weren’t enough, a reformation of the band in about 1970 as The New Hobbits produced some even lighter, poppier sounds. You can hear a track of this band on the Soft Sounds for Gentle People CD collection that came out within the last 2 years, and I believe is still in print. No idea if the band referred to LOTR in their lyrics, the one New Hobbits song I have does not.

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Roseworm.

If you’ll notice, your last thread got moved to Cafe Society. That’s where you should posts queries about books, movies, etc.

You should have started this one over there also.

Moved.

samclem GQ moderator

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I did not know of any Beatles-Boorman connection, but had heard that the Beatles wanted to do a LOTR movie back in the 60’s. The casting for that was supposed to be:

Frodo - Paul
Sam - Ringo
Gandalf - George
Gollum - John

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I do not know if the “flying head ship” from Zardoz was originally intended to grace the Argonath, but Boorman has stated that he used his preproduction work on LOTR for other films, like Zardoz (1974) and Excalibur (1981). Boorman fans can therefore point to Excalibur and say, This is what a Boorman LOTR would have looked like. But if the Boorman-Pallenberg script is as whacky as it sounds (Frodo gets jiggy with Galadriel!), then I think it is fair to say that a Boorman LOTR would have looked a lot more like Zardoz.

The casting plan of Frodo/Paul, Sam/Ringo, Gandalf/George, Gollum/John at least makes some sense. But Boorman apparently intended to cast the Beatles straight-up as the four Hobbits. Frankly, I am beginning to suspect that recreational drugs were a major motivating factor behind his script.

So I reiterate:

Which Beatle gets to play which Hobbit?

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John - the clever funny hobbit
Ringo - the funny, laidback hobbit
George - the cool, mysterious hobbit
Paul - the untalentented hobbit

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That was the same casting I read in one of those many BEATLES books from the 70s. I always wondered how valid the info was but it was also the only book which ever discussed Lennon’s interest in THE PASSOVER PLOT theory of Jesus’s resurrection (the subject of a UK magazine article, but never publicized in the US-
if it had been the anti-Beatles Fundy backlash would have lasted much longer.)

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Say, Galadriel, mind if I take a look in your mirror?

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Yeah and I heard that those silly Beatles were going to have a scene outside the gate of Moria where the Watcher picks up Frodo and waves him around before dropping him (conveniently) right back on shore, like some silly cartoon.

Just as well Jackson made the movies, huh?

Oh, wait…