New Line has decided they don’t want Peter Jackson making The Hobbit after all. Bad move? Or near miss?
Good. Get someone who won’t mess with the story for lame reasons to do it.
Bad. Whether you like it or not (personally, I do), the Peter Jackson movies are now and will be for the foreseeable future, the default versions of the Lord of the Rings saga. Having The Hobbit made in the same style by the same people would have been excellent.
Despite the fact that his version of “The Return of the King” was gouge-your-eyes-out lousy, Jackson should have been kept on for “The Hobbit.” No, I am not being sarcastic.
Count me in as someone who didn’t like Jackson’s work on LOTR. I’d be glad to see someone else make the Hobbit.
It was on tv here in the UK last night, I thought it strange that the quality should drop noticeably (but not by a great deal IMHO) if all three films were shot in one long continous shoot.
The following is pure speculation on my part:
I worked for a major film studio for many years and this is all politics.
Peter Jackson still wants desperately to do The Hobbit.
New Line is trying to settle the lawsuit by using this as leverage.
New Line knows they screwed Jackson with money (every studio does the same with very creative, and dubious accounting…did you know Titanic “lost” money on the books?!)
Jackson knows that every studio does this, but is pissed off anyway.
New Line knows that if they don’t let Jackson do the film, there will be an uproar and good luck finding a cast and director.
Jackson is playing hardball.
MGM will suddenly become the middleman/peacemaker.
This story is by no means over yet. However, they had better hurry up before the cast is too old.
My guess is that by the end of next year, everyone will make nice, do kissy face, and filming will start in 2008 or 2009.
I can’t imagine having anyone else do it. There has to be some kind of continuity between LOTR and the Hobbit, or it’ll come off as “not quite right”.
I suspect that if you compare the Jackson LotR vs. the original, and most any other adaptation to its original, you’ll cringe at the thought of anyone else but him touching The Hobbit. It may have needless changes, but at the same time that’s still a lot better than you’re going to ever get with any other director. So it’s pretty much either him, or no movie at all.
Horrible news and I hope it changes. Jackson did masterful work with all three of the LOTR movies, better than anyone else could have hoped to, and it would be a travesty if he didn’t direct The Hobbit.
Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather).
David Fincher (Fight Club)
Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption)
Jackson is a good visual artist, but he should know his limits, and leave the script alone.
The worst thing is, not only is he a bad scriptwriter, he shows blatant disregard for the congruity of the world. Remember the scene where Denethor falls burning from the ledge? No way that could happen, he would have to run burning for a long time to reach it. And in the commentary Jackson says that he was well aware of that, but he just thought it would look cool.
A mate of mine, a LOTR nut, thought Jackson had done quite well given the constraints of time that the movie put on him.
Most people think he did a great job.
I agree that the film is well made. I’m complaining about the changes to the story, pretty much all of which are unecessary or stupid.
Some examples:
The undead army is an invincible force. Wtf? What’s the need for all the rest of the people to fight then?
Aragorn kills the diplomat from Mordor. That’s pretty unethical, isn’t it?
Treebeard doesn’t know that his forest is being destroyed until Merry and Pippin tell him. He is possibly the oldest living thing on middle earth, and the forests keeper, and yet he is supposed to be so uninformed.
Add to that:
Elrond keeping Anduril and taking it to Aragorn just before the battle. What?
I agree that in general that the movies were good - but the thing is, they could have been spectacular. I speak as a Tolkien fanatic, so perhaps I’m biased. I think, however, that the Hobbit should be made in the same style as the LotR movies, and hopefully Jackson will learn from public opinion.
Can you hear me, Mr. Jackson?
I think this is bad news, for reasons Priceguy mentioned.
Let me add that I agree that PJ could’ve been a lot more faithful to the book, but at least with him we know what we’re going to get. The new Hobbit director could be Michael Bay or, god forbid, Uwe Boll.
I hear that they’ve optioned Renny Harlin, although other rumors indicate Quentin Tarantino and John Wu.
And there was an earlier reference to “before the cast gets too old”, but who would play Bilbo?
Ian Holm. Bilbo isn’t supposed to have aged much between getting the Ring and the start of Fellowship of the Ring, so he should look just like he did in the brief flashback.
Is this all a bit of tom-whooshery?
The army of the undead turned up late, then were released (honourably) from their oath, having fufilled it.
Rather less honourable I guess, but he was dead in the book and the film simply had Aragorn take him out instead of an unknown soldier. He was hardly a diplomat in our sense of the word.
Probably because the Ents live so slowly.
“Before the cast gets too old”. Is this a woosh? We only need agent Smith and Magneto, right?