You think 3 movies will be too long, just wait until the 3D extended addition boxset comes out.
But hell, I’ll take eleventy-one more PJ Middle Earth films; it’s just a place I like to soak in for as long as I can.
I’m delighted by this news. Given an unembellished filming of the book, and leaving out a LOT of the action, it could possibly have been done in one movie. Unembellished and leaving everything IN, it could probably be done in two. But adding in a lot of the behind the scenes stuff (the Necromancer, the White Council, etc.), it can easily be expanded to three films. This would make it more of an “equal” to the LOTR trilogy, rather than a charming but rather simplistic and childish prequel.
My SWAG: Movie 1, everything before Smaug. Movie 2, Smaug. Movie 3: Battle of Five Armies. There’s three solid movies right there, each with a B-story of the behind-the-scenes machinations of the White Council that are happening at the same time. Also, remember that Frodo and Legolas are involved in some sort of framing structure, not to mention Galadriel; that’s going to add some footage right there.
Also remember: A movie is not a novel; a movie is a short story. By definition, a short story can be read in one sitting. If you want to film an ENTIRE novel, and not leave out any of the action/themes/nuances, you can’t do it in two hours of screen time.
Bring it on, PJ! You’ve earned my trust.
Frodo, this ring was on your Uncle’s finger when he was captured in Mirkwood. He knew if the wood elves ever saw the ring that it’d be confiscated; taken away. The way your Uncle looked at it, this ring was your birthright. He’d be damned if any slant ears was gonna put their greasy hands on his nephew’s birthright. So he hid it in the one place he knew he could hide something. His ass. Five long years, Bilbo wore this ring up his ass. And then he died of dysentery, he gave me the ring. I hid this uncomfortable hunk of metal up my ass for two years. And now, little man, I give the ring to you.
Elvish, motherfucker. Do you speak it?
Bravo!!! :D:D
Man, National Lampoon **must **now make the ***Bored of the Rings ***movie!
No. I’m not upset with the 3 movie deal, I think it is a good idea, but I want to see a big parody to make fun of the producer’s, and I would like to see Mel Brooks as Goodgulf.
It’s a totally unique approach: you take a massive epic tale, break it in half, tell the second half first in 3 parts and then … oh.
Nice job, Monkey. I’ll be giggling at “Elvish, motherfucker. Do you speak it?” all day.
If there are three movies, all the more likely we’ll see a young Estel and his mother Gilraen at Rivendell. Woohoo!
I liked but did not love the LoTR movies, and am not that excited about The Hobbit movie(s), but Inigo is right; there are no more money-making titles in the “franchise.” If they want to keep making big-budget Tolkien-based movies, it makes sense to extend The Hobbit, whether or not the movies bearing the name adhere to the subject matter of the book by the same name.
But it isn’t The Hobbit - it’s Peter Jackson’s Middle Earth extravaganza.
Look I love Tolkien’s world but this suddenly has “feature creep” all over it. A simple cherished book brought to life on film has become an exploration of 2 and 3rd age Middle Earth with a hobbit somewhere in the middle of it all. I was coming around to the idea of the White Council’s move against Sauron being filmed but this expansion…this expansion worries me.
I agree with this. I would love something good that could replace that horrible musical cartoon. But given the obsessive approach PJ took with LOTR, he was not the guy for that job. The trouble now will be: after PJ unleashes his hobbit, nobody will even want to try to do just The Hobbit. And as much as I would love The Hobbit in context, which it sounds like is the plan, after watching that I will someday want to just see “There and Back Again” and it won’t be there.
Wonder if PJ could make an edit that was a single movie and ‘Just the Hobbit’ - wouldn’t surprise me if they did.
yes, this is going to be CGI overload most likely. Too much story and action for the simple Hobbit tale, although i’m sure it will have it’s good parts. I just can’t understand how they can have the filming done and tack on a third film in a logical way???
That seems straighforward enough - you shoot loads, anticipating cutting it down severely - justifying the extra work by considering that you’ll benefit from “extended editions” for the home market.
Then you get down to the editing process and are surprised to find that it’s harder than you expected to distinguish the wheat from the chaff, and are loathe to cut much of anything. So you end up with a Pt. 1 that ends earlier in the narrative than planned, expect Pt. 2 to similarly end earlier in the narrative, and resolve to leave the final part for a third film, going back to shoot more of the bridge material between the Hobbit and LotR.
That seems logical enough. Isn’t it what happened, according to the man?
Yeah, I wonder how it would work if they simply cut every scene that didn’t have Bilbo in it.
This makes me happy.
Considering the current state of the internet, and how fans co-opt their favorite or love-to-hate projects, I can very easily imagine that such a thing will be available at some point, simply because some fan somewhere will have the time and talent to get it done. Look at all of the fan-edits and altered versions of Star Wars that are out there.
I can easily see someone producing the “simple cut” Hobbit with only the main plot points left in.
I personally would love to see something like that. However, that doesn’t diminish my hope that the 3-films version will be quality work, that enhances and broadens the story (and connects it to history and future) in the way that the Appendices made it clear that Tolkien was thinking about when he worked on LoTR.
Yes, if a fan can edit The Phantom Menace to remove all Jar Jar appearances, trimming PJ’s three-part Hobbit to something close to what the Professor wrote should be relatively easy.
Trim? Even with three parts, stuff will have to be cut out. And, PJ isnt adding anything, just (from what I have heard) adding details to stories already in the appendices, etc.
Threadwinner.
Next you’ll tell me General Mills doesn’t make cornflakes.