Hiyruu, Ian Holm is the same as the BBC radio drama.
FriendRob and xanakis, regarding Entwives:
It looks to me that the author intended that the Entwives be forever lost. I don’t think that the treeman was intended to be anything more than the standard tavern gossip.
As far as short actors are concerned. Jackson is not using digital manipulation in every scene. In quite a few he uses forced perspective and other camera tricks. In fact I believe it is used in the second preview trailer. According to some film major friends of mine, it is visible in the scene where all the characters are shown hiking over a ridge. So using actors who are relatively shorter would help.
On the subject of the quality of the films, I am going to reserve judgement until I see them. I have heard a tremendous number of rumors. Some of them sound like they pander to the worst inclinations of Hollywood. However given Jackson’s proclivities I am inclined to think that quite a few rumors have been started by him to keep intrest in the film.
New Zealander checking in. Don’t worry about the terrain. Jackson’s chosen to film in places which are really astoundingly beautiful and which look like Middle-Earth. NZ’s not tropical and the closest we come to palm trees is a cabbage tree.
Sir Ian McKellan kept a running diary during the filming of the trilogy as well as fielded dozens of questions from die hard LoTR fans, all of which make interesting reading, particularly regarding Jackson’s commitment to staying true to Tolkien’s intentions. Here’s the link.
Personally, I imagine the movie will go over quite well. Certainly it won’t mesh perfectly with the books, but that doesn’t mean it can’t stand up on its own right.
I think someone’s already posted a link to theonering.net. Let me just add that last time I was there, they had about a dozen video clips of the director answering fans’ questions. As far as I’m concerned, he answered every single one in the best possible way. I have yet to hear a single thing negative about these movies.
I can’t remember where I read this (isn’t that always the way), but I think New Zealand was chosen as a shooting location because (among other reasons) relatively few people from the rest of the world have been there. Jackson wanted a landscape that would look Earthlike, and yet unfamiliar. You can imagine if they had shot Misty Mountain scenes in the American West. People would be sitting in the theater saying “Oh look, the Rockies”. Likewise for the Alps, etc. As someone else has already pointed out, N.Z. is temperate in climate, and the pictures I have seen of it are indeed quite beautiful.
As far as ways the story could be screwed up, I too am quite hopeful that the finished products will not deviate too much from Tolkien’s description. There were dark mutterings about “Rosie Cotton: Warrior Hobbitess” on one of the fan boards a few months back, but I am sure that was only a joke. I think. I hope.
RE: the question about the “three books / one book” LOTR. I’ve seen the red-bound one-volume edition for decades, since the '70s at least, when I bought the green-bound Hobbit.
Thanks to ArchiveGuy for the link to Ian’s site. I never knew he had one. I saw his “Acting Shakespeare” on PBS, and was knocked out by how well he helped me understand (a little) of Shakespeare’s plays.
The LOTR trailer I saw (the second one that strung together scenes from the movies) supported my belief that Jackson’s on the right track. No miscues that made me wince.
Of course, after Bakshi and Rankin/Bass’ glurges, just about anything – including a cast featuring the Singer Midgets and the Three Stooges – would have been a step up. But this looks like the real deal.
Best of all, we’re discovering it before the major media leaps all over it (like they did with “Pearl Harbor”). I hate being told that something is the greatest thing since, well, the last greatest thing. Jackson and the people around him are obviously comfortable about advance publicity.
Not a perfect post, but it is my 500th. And about one of my favorite authors.