Oh, lovely, Snarkberry. Now that you’ve reminded me, I have that @!#$%* minstrel in my head.
“Froooodo, of the noine fingersss . . . and the rrringg of dooom!”
Eeesh.
Definitely NOT a sequel.
-andros-
There’s always a bigger fish.
No, I’d say that Rankin-Bass never intended it to be a sequel to Bakshi’s work. And that awful music…it’s in my head now too! In fact, I’m sorry I brought it up, LOL.
Well, I’m neutral on a film version of LOTR. But at least, I think it would have to be 3 films. Ain’t no way, no how it could be done in one. Even with three, it would be very hard indeed to do justice to the thing. And films are pretty much never as good as the books they’re made from, so that just sort of goes with the territory, but it might still be worth doing.
Sacrilege! Blasphemy! 2001 tops my list of the best films made in the last 50 years, and perhaps the only book->movie adaptation where the movie was as good as the book. And yes, I did read the book. Kubrick made pure magic with that film. A better sci-fi film has not been made.
Granted, it’s not a good match for today’s 30 second attention spans and hand-held, spoon-fed plots.
peas on earth
Bantmof wrote:
Let me know if I’m completely out-to-lunch here, but the way I heard it, the “2001” book and movie were created either simultaneously, or the movie was created first and then the book was written slightly later. But I could be wrong.
i’ve been following it a little. sean bean will play boromir, john rhys-davies (shrunk) as gimli, and unknown eurotrash prettyboy orlando whatsis-name as legolas.
i love those books and have read them many times in my life. i was the most wary that peter jackson was going to make a movie that rapes the text and leaves it for dead like that mental patient david lynch did to dune. but the more i hear and read makes me think that this will not be the case.
for one thing, he is making three movies instead of cramming it into one. this means that lord of the rings could be as long as nine hours overall!! that could well be sufficient. next, he is releasing them six months apart. this means that he is filming it all around the same time, so it will not end up being like the first 3 star wars movies where all the movies look different (different special effects techniques, artistic directors etc.). also he is filming it in new zealand which outside of xena: warrior princess is not a landscape especially familiar to the viewing public. lastly he is in deep with george lucas’ industrial light and magic and we all saw this summer what they can do these days. so i am going to give him the benefit of the doubt … but he better not fuck it up, that’s all i have to say.
as far as the bombadil question goes, if you have to cut any one thing that would have to be it. i guess they go from brandy hall straight to bree.
sorry about no caps etc., my keyboard’s on its deathbed.
RTA, just so no one misunderstands you:
I don’t know how close Peter Jackson is to Lucas or Industrial Light & Magic, but ILM is NOT doing F/X for the LotR movies.
I was very disappointed by that.
-andros-
There’s always a bigger fish.
I’m not a serious science fiction buff, so I may be wrong about this, but I THOUGHT the genesis for “2001” was a short story by Arthur C. Clarke called “The Sentinel.” In “The Sentinel,” all that happened was that astronauts found a beacon on the moon, sending signals far off into deep space. Apparently, aliens had visited our solar system long, long ago, before human beings were recognizable as human. These aliens saw potential aong the apes, and placed a becon on the moon- reasoning that, in a few millions years, if these apes evolved into beings intelligent enough to reach the moon, THEN it would be time for contact. The story (which I haven’t read in ages) ends with the narrator wondering how long it will be until the aliens receive the signal and drop by for a second visit.
Stanley Kubrick’s “2001” was supposed to be a film version of “The Sentinel,” but together, he and CLarke came up with a much longer, more elaborate, more complicated story. So, the novel and the film really resulted from a Kubrick/Clarke collaboration.
Personally, of course, I thought “2001” was a crashing bore, an overrated mess, like most of Kubrick’s work (and anyone who disagrees is invited to sit through “Eyes Wide Shut” or “Barry Lyndon” again).
Exceptions: “Paths of Glory” was a very conventional film, by Kubrick’s standards, but an immensely moving one. And “A Clockwork Orange” was brilliant.
A couple of thoughts:
First, there isn’t as much travelling in the LotR as it seems when reading it. It’s just that one isn’t used to reading descriptions of characters travelling through the world they live in, especially in the detail that Professor Tolkein provided. But, page for page, there is way more action than ‘travel.’
Second, the biggest challenge to a movie is handling the sequencing. Now, on the one hand, it is EASIER in a movie to switch from one scene of events to another than in a book. So cuts from the siege at Helm’s Deep to Sam and Frodo struggling through the Dead Marshes and across Dagorlad (I think that is the right juxtaposition of events, without actually getting out Appendix B) could be done easily. But that can result in a really choppy movie (remember how hard it was to watch Return of the Jedi at the end?).
Finally, there is the issue of dialogue. Now, when they adapt plays to movies, they usually keep the dialogue as written, with some cuts and occaisional filler as needed (e.g. Cyrano (the recent French version), Henry V, etc.). But movie adaptations of books tend to throw the book dialogue out the window and start from scratch. THIS no Tolkein lover can stand. Yet the trouble with book dialogue is that it makes VERY poor movie dialogue. It is filled with all sorts of stuff that a movie doesn’t need, cause book dialogue is often artifice for explaning things, etc. So get ready to hear things Tolkein never wrote…
Astorian’s first two paragraphs are on target re 2001. Clarke wrote the book and Kubrick the movie script simultaneously, with regular interchanges to assure they kept to the same line. It was derived from Kubrick having read “The Sentinel.” Mucho more data in Clarke’s The Making of 2001.
Astorian’s third paragraph is dysosmic, IMHO. But de gustibus…. 
I know that Rankin Bass’s version of The Hobbit and The Return of the King were perhaps more kid-oriented, but one thing left a lasting impression on me from watching those cartoons when I was a kid: John Huston as (the voice of) Gandalf. I didn’t know who Huston was at the time, but I thought his voice was amazingly appropriate. I only have a vague impression of Ian McKellan, but he’d better have a rich, deep, powerful voice as well–otherwise, this new film might not work for me at all.
Also, I liked Smaug’s voice in the Rankin Bass version as well–can’t recall who did it, though, and I know that doesn’t apply to LoTR anyway.
DHR
This would definitely be disappointing. (But wasn’t he actually the Witch-king of Angmar?)
The movie could be a commercial success if:
- Danny DeVito plays Frodo;
- Bruce Willis plays Aragorn;
- Michael “Kramer” Richards plays Gandalf;
- Everyone is armed with an Uzi; and
- Sauron turns out to be a drug lord.
quote:
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But wasn’t [Tom Bombadil] actually the Witch-king of Angmar?
Actually, I think it was the chief of the Nazgul. I’ve read some speculations that Tom Bombadil might have represented Iluvitar (sp?), the “One” (creator of ME). For all that, though, I know you were being facetious.
=========================================
The movie could be a commercial success if:
- Danny DeVito plays Frodo;
- Bruce Willis plays Aragorn;
- Michael “Kramer” Richards plays Gandalf;
- Everyone is armed with an Uzi; and
- Sauron turns out to be a drug lord.
=========================================
Actually, I think this remark brings up a very good point: does LoTR need to be dressed up in more “modern” terms for a brainless movie audiences to understand it? Should it conform to a stupid plot like, “Arnold Schwarzenegger takes an Uzi to blast the cartoonish drug lord”? Or can it stay true to the stark, dualistic underpinning philosophy that still makes the books so fascinating for thoughtful readers?
Back when J.R.R. wrote the trilogy, one could read about real “Dark Lords” in the newspapers or see them on the newsreels, and the heroes that opposed them were real heroes (at least in the public’s view): Hitler, Tojo and Stalin against Roosevelt, Churchill, and good old Harry “S”. (Though “Uncle Joe” might bring in a little confusion on this point–a former hero turned into dark lord?)
Now whaddawegot? Petty thugs like Milosevic that are opposed by cynical political shucksters like Clinton and Blair (sorry, any of you Brits, but that’s at least my superficial impression). I think that’s why a rather conventional war flick like Saving Private Ryan generated such fascination: how many people under the age of 45 can watch the depiction of the troops fighting and dying on Omaha Beach without thinking, “I probably wouldn’t do that. Probably nobody I know would do that, either.”
Sorry for getting off topic, but I’d point out that it took all of Steven Spielburg’s goriest special effects to get people to suspend disbelief long enough to appreciate the existence of real heroes, and really evil enemies. That’s why I don’t think LoTR can succeed on film in any recognizable form (except possibly as a dumbed-down kid’s flick). Elves, dwarves, hobbits, OK, we can get into that, but a real struggle between good and evil? Simply put, nobody would believe it.
DHR
I should clarify: The chief Nazgul was the former Witch-King of Angmar (assuming that I recall correctly). Tom Bombadil wasn’t a Nazgul either, though you might have got that impression from my post.
Who can name all of the nine “walkers” in the Company of the Ring?
DHR
DHR, you’re saying that Dzugashvili Skywalker turned into Darth Stalin? 
In the one intelligent lyric ever to come from their collective mouths, the Monkees sang “Today there is no dark or light, today there is no wrong or right, today there is no black or white, only shades of gray.” You may have a real point, that we may reject a LotR movie not because it was not well done but because we’ve rejected the concepts of good/evil and heroism that form the underpinnings of the plot. I hope not.
Tom Bombadil was not the Witch-King of Angmar. That was the head Nazgul (ring-man), the head of the former kings of men who wore the ‘Nine for mortal men doomed to die’ (rings). His purpose in founding Angmar was to destroy the northern realm of Arnor, which he did, in fact accomplish (the last king was Arvedui), before vanishing when defeated by the combined might of Gondor, the Havens, and Rivendell and being confronted by the elf-lord Glorfindel.
The names of the nine walkers are easy, almost all have already been mentioned, except, of course, for Bromosel, who cashes in his chips 'round page 88.
Weren’t two of the biggest movies of the year “Star Wars” and “The Matrix,” two movies that deal with nothing more than good vs. evil and messianic hero figures?
======================================
DHR, you’re saying that Dzugashvili Skywalker turned into Darth Stalin?
Good one, Polycarp, but no. I just meant that Uncle Joe was portrayed as a hero during WWII (ATIRC, assuming that I recall correctly), but shortly after the war he suddently became a villain in the popular mind. Instead of Sauron, a closer analogy for Stalin might be Saruman. (Funny how they all begin with “S” . . . COIIIIINCIDENCE?) Of course, the analogy still isn’t all that close.
pldennison,
I haven’t seen the Matrix, and I REALLY wish I could say the same for “Episode I”. All the same, I wonder how the dualistic philosophies of Star Wars and LoTR might compare–both seem to suggest that evil (the Dark Side, if you will) definitely exists, but nothing is evil at its inception–not even Sauron, nor Darth Vader. However, the morals of Star Wars always seemed more relativistic to me, somehow.
More analogy fun–could parallels be drawn between Palpatine and Melkor?
DHR
Peter Jackson is a New Zealander and not an Australian. I wish people could get that straight in their heads (not that any Staright Dopers got that wrong, it was in a quoted article).
Cast:
Elijah Wood as Frodo
Sean Astin as Sam
Ian McKellen as Gandalf
Ian Holm as Bilbo
Billy Boyd as Pippin
Dominic Monaghan as Merry
Stuart Townshend as Strider/Aragorn
Christopher Lee as Saruman
Liv Tyler as Arwen (eep!)
John Rhys Davies as Gimli
Sean Bean as Boromir
Ethan Hawke as Faramir
Uma Thurman as Galadriel
Orlando Bloom as Legolas
All three movies will be filmed, roughly separating as the book trilogy does, and probably titled as ‘Fellowship of the Ring’, ‘The Two Towers’, and ‘Return of the King’.
The budget of 240 million is, in New Zealand terms, especially regarding costs of NZ equipment, locations, and crew, and taking into account the exchange rate, roughly the equivalent of twice what George Lucas is spending on his new Star Wars trilogy.
The effects will be done almost exclusively in-house by WETA FX, which is Jackson’s own effects company. They are using new effects programs to create the battles, and to make the full sized actors look Hobbit- and Elf-sized etc.
There will be Nazgul, Ents, Orcs, a Balrog, and of course Gollum (he will be CGI) and almost every significant scene will endeavour to be included.
The Elves will speak genuine Tolkien Elvish where appropriate, with subtitles.
Famed Tolkien artists John Howe and Alan Lee are contributing to most of the Production Design.
All in all, the work going into making this as close to the book’s vision as possible is meticulous and detailed. Peter knows he has a tough job ahead, appeasing the diehard fans as well as drawing in a new audience. But he has been given every resource, every faith, and every bit of support that New Line Cinema can for it to be, for the time being, as definitive a production as can be expected.
And to give you an idea of how it will be, he’s approaching it not as a Fantasy movie, not as an Adventure movie, and not as a Spielberg clone, but as an accurate historical recreation of what happened to the Fellowship, and the story behind the Ring’s journey.
These movies will rock. Believe me.
Guano–thanks for the skinny. I think that it is a credit to the complexity and “realism” of the LOTR that Jackson would think of filming it “historically”–only a book with so much detail could be approached so.
BTW, I’m especially jazzed about two casting choices–Ian McKellan as Gandalf, and Christopher Lee as Saruman…
“You must not mind me madam; I say strange things, but I mean no harm.”
–Samuel Johnson
Are you sure? Maybe you should check out:
http://www.speakeasy.org/~ohh/bombadil.htm