DanJW

Jackson to direct Hobbit movie. Also sequal. Wait, what?

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I recall him being middle aged. In any case, I agree with brkl, Ian Holm looks way too old for the role.

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He's 50 in the book, but for Hobbits that's the point where they're considered adults as far as I remember.

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He's supposed to be the age that Ian Holm played him in the original film, hence Gandalf's suspicious, "Why, Bilbo you haven't changed a bit". Bloody New Line got in the way of letting one of our finest actors play a great role. Holm would have captured Bilbo's proudness and pettiness perfectly, and his change by the end and... Ah, well :'(

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That's a good point. What about Gandalf? I recall him being quite intimately involved in the book. Is that going to be another actor too or what?

Man, complicated business.

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Actually, he's supposed to - in the world of the film at least - be the age he appears in Gollum's cave in the opening prologue to Fellowship. For that scene they actually younged Ian Holm up a bit, with a different wig, some makeup, and actually sort of pulling his face back a bit with some tape or something. It sounded kind of sad and awkward when Ian Holm talked about it in the commentary, but in that one shot of Hobbit-era Bilbo in Gollum's cave, they definitely made him look a bit younger.

Ian Holm now looks older even these days he did in Fellowship of the Ring (footage which is nearing a decade old!), so for that to match, they'd have to spend a sad amount of time on him every morning (and it surely wouldn't be comfortable), or do the creepy de-aging-through-computer-effects thing that they did on Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan for the opening of X-Men 3. I imagine that would take a zillion years and also dollars. I'd love to see Ian Holm in the role, since he was a great Bilbo in the films, and the scenes with Bilbo and Gandalf were some of the hilights of Fellowship of the Ring, but there's no way it's going to happen.

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Oh yeah, good call Jake. I'd totally forgotten about that scene.

The more I think about how well put together LotR was (IMO!), the more The Hobbit seems unnecessary and the more I kind of don't want to see it. It'll be especially weird if characters like Gandalf have new actors, and the consistencies established during the LotR films such as the cave example above become inconsistent.

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Think about this: there's a whole bunch of dwarves in important roles in the Hobbit. Consider how dwarves turned out in the LotR movies :frusty:

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There's a way I can see it working... and that is if they tap into the meta fiction of The Hobbit. You see to square it with the larger mythology (especially the pre-revised edition) Tolkien considered The Hobbit to be not a "factual" account, but the story as told by Bilbo. So we could have Ian Holmes as an old Bilbo at the beginning, telling his tale to some young hobbit children (much as we saw during his leaving/birthday party). Then it could skip into his tale and any unavoidable inconsistencies would at least have a get-out clause.

Of course, most screen-play writers aren't as clever as me.

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I'd like to see Dan's movie.By the way, why are book's adaptations so shy to really adapt the original material except when it means turning into something completely mundane ?

Edit :

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By the way, why are book's adaptations so shy to really adapt the original material except when it means turning into something completely mundane ?

Huh?

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You know, the more I think about this, and some of the comments made in this thread, the more I don't think I want The Hobbit to be made.

At first I thought it would be a brilliant idea, but now I'm not so sure. In my mind it was going to be directed by Jackson and star Holm and McKellen. But now it's something else, and nearly ten years later. LotR was of a time... it feels like that time has passed.

Look what happened to Star Wars.... Maybe it's just better they leave it (I can't believe I'm saying that), let people enjoy The Hobbit as a book and not risk sullying their great work on LotR for the sake of extra cash...

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You know, the more I think about this, and some of the comments made in this thread, the more I don't think I want The Hobbit to be made.

At first I thought it would be a brilliant idea, but now I'm not so sure. In my mind it was going to be directed by Jackson and star Holm and McKellen. But now it's something else, and nearly ten years later. LotR was of a time... it feels like that time has passed.

Look what happened to Star Wars.... Maybe it's just better they leave it (I can't believe I'm saying that), let people enjoy The Hobbit as a book and not risk sullying their great work on LotR for the sake of extra cash...

Quoted for truth. Echoing my thoughts on reading this thread a second time also.

In fact I didn't know Holms was suffering from cancer, which would explain this comment I made; "it's a different kind of story that's well worth telling before the borrower posing as a hobbit pops his clogs"... :tdown:

Oh well, what might have been then.

I liked the Hobbit more than the Lord of the Rings as it was far easier to digest and whilst it's not an epic tale with huge armies clashing (and what not) I could easily imagine it being a fun, traditional fantasy/adventure yarn - particularly with the right actors, screenplay (etc), but that's the beauty of our imagination isn't it!

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They captured the books PERFECTLY (which a few minor quibbles - Gimli... sigh). If you didn't like them then you surely couldn't have like the books...
The first movie, at least, was quite bland. Didn't watch the others because of that.
and if you DID like the books, how could the films have possibly been improved?!
By not making them at all. Or with less Hollywood.

I thus end my almost worthless contribution to the thread.

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I think they were successful because they weren't Hollywood. They were made by New Line and Weta, in New Zealand. Very little American input went into them.

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Yeah, indeed. I'd hardly call the LOTR films a typical Hollywood action affair.

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Well, they certainly managed to imitate Hollywood movies well enough. I guess that's some sort of an accomplishment.

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I think they were successful because they weren't Hollywood. They were made by New Line and Weta, in New Zealand. Very little American input went into them.
Hollywood is a state of mind. I should have used a lower-case letter there. ;)

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