In reply to truemane (msg # 24):

- I'm saying there is a difference between making an adaptation and recycling the plot. There is a broad, fuzzy line in between that I find is usually awkward, thus I think one should stick to trying to remain on one side or the other. Either stick as close as you can to the source, or stop pretending to make an adaptation and go all out recycling of the plot using new characters and setting to set the new story apart.

-Now consider the above, Disney films are often recycling a story. They do not pretend to be adaptations of stories, or merely converting a story to a new medium (except perhaps their names), instead they use original characters and settings and details.

The Hobbit falls on that previously mentioned "fuzzy line." It doesn't seem to know whether it is trying to be original or if it is trying to copy a story to a new medium.

-Figured it came from somewhere, but that is beside the point.

-I simply can't agree with this. Why have the new character? Why the romance? Why have the dwarves split up at lake town? Why have Kili get injured? Why have the dwarves fight the dragon? These do not clarify anything from the book. They do not show the viewers anything the book said that was difficult to portray in film. They are so far beyond necessary that it is not funny. They have nothing to do with the original source, as such they are extraneous alterations. If they were merely recycling the plot, these changes wouldn't matter at all. But instead they said they were turning a book into a film and then proceeded to completely disregard the book.

-edit. I could say that "fuzzy line" is like the uncanny valley of computer graphics. Too similar to be taken alone, too different to ignore the alterations. As you go to one side or the other, (fewer alterations, or fewer similarities) and the show is less likely to be irritating.
This message was last edited by the user at 20:08, Thu 11 Dec 2014.

because the goal is to make an entertaining movie, not just read the book on screen.  I agree they are changes, I agree some of them are much more extreme than others, but unneeded?  they can't make the movie word for word the hobbit, so they HAVE to add content, or not make the movie.  And I don't really think any of the added content ruins the movie.  You may feel otherwise, which is fine.  But a movie will always change/add stuff, or it wouldn't be a movie.  (unless the story is already a play/screenplay, such as shakespeare's works, or anything written by Michael crichton.)

and saying they disregarded the bok is really overstating it.  Jackson is a Tolkien fan too, and I think he's done a great job of adapting them to film.  You may disagree with some of his choices, but he is sticking fairly well to the plot and the themes and the feel of the books.  He made 3 movies out of a children's book (and we don't need to gripe about that fact, it's been done to death).  There's definitely going to be more to it than what is written on those pages.

Rankin/Bass did an amazing job in an hour and a half. No, its not a line for line remake, but almost every line of dialogue is straight from the book. The one thing they did actually change as opposed to just omit was Thorin and Bilbo's final quarrel. The whole Arkenstone mess would've necessitated way too much extra exposition, so Bilbo and Thorin quarrel about the nature of courage instead just as Bilbo is deciding not to fight in The Battle of Five Armies.

To anyone looking for a good Hobbit movie that sticks to the script, that's my recommendation. The late 70's Rankin/Bass animated version.

I understand you have to change certain things, but Jackson makes sweeping, tone-affecting, world-altering changes for, to my mind, no seeming reason. Adding in new mainish characters, or worse, drastically altering an important character until they are almost unrecognizable.

His mistreatmant of Faramir still gets my goat. Also, unless I'm sorely mistaken (it has been a few years since I read Rings) weren't there only two elves left in Middle-Earth at the time of the Siege on Helm's Deep? Doesn't the book actually make kind of an enormous deal about that whole exodus thing? I can't imagine why that situation needed to be so fundamentally changed apart from someone, likely Jackson, sitting down and going, "Y'know, elves are really cool. I'd like more of them in my movie, and I need to find an easier way to make them seem less like a bunch a____les than actually going a litle bit into their history and nature to explain why they are acting this way." Sorry, got a little Ranty. I harbor some grievances.
This message was lightly edited by the user at 20:56, Wed 17 Dec 2014.

Afraid not.  While there was an exodus in progress, Lothlorien and Rivendell still had sizeable populations.

There were still a few Elven refuges left in Middle Earth during the War of the Ring, though many Elves had departed in the dark years after Gil-galad fell fighting Sauron at the foot of Orodruin and the Last Alliance of Elves and Men disbanded:  Cirdan's folk in the Grey Havens, Thranduil's Wood Elves in Mirkwood, Galadriel and the Elves of Lothlorien and Elrond's Last Homely House in Imladris.
This message was last edited by the user at 21:57, Wed 17 Dec 2014.

the elves of lorien acti ally seige and conquer dol goldur right around the same time as the battle of the pelennor fields.  and wood elves aren't leaving middle earth, they stay for centuries under lego las and then fade away.

Fair enough. Thanks for setting me straight, guys. I said it had been some time. Even with the corrections, it seems my impressiom of the scenario was close enough to regard the army of elves that ride up and save the day at Helm's Deep in the flick a mite silly.

Still, there was almost 0 reason for turning Faramir from one of the most admirable men in the land (as the only actual human to show any significant resistance to the temptations of The One Ring) to more or less a villain.
This message was last edited by the user at 23:28, Wed 17 Dec 2014.

There's a really good website for looking up any Middle Earth-related info (whether it comes up in the Hobbit, LotR, the Silmarillion, or any other book) called the Encyclopaedia of Arda if anyone is interested :).
I saw the new Hobbit film the other day - my partner had a couple of free cinema tickets he'd got from work (we don't bother with cinemas otherwise) so we went as a birthday thing for me and saw it. It wasn't bad. Naturally loads of stuff was changed and stuff but I won't put specifics here because spoilers ;).

I understand what you mean, but I thought they made him a very realistic and sympathetic character.  not the same guy as the book, but I thought he fit the story the movie was telling very well.

I'm not sure I'd agree that was portrayed as a villain. He was more a hindrance then a help in the film yes, but it always seemed to me that he felt that the hobbit was merely wanting to get away, rather than truly believing that the ring was a danger to use, until Frodo almost gave it to the wraith, then he truly understood that the ring could exert a measure of control over whoever holds it. That was my impression of the character from the film. He was a decent fellow who had no reason to regard Frodo as anything other then a simpleton farmer with mighty weapon that Frodo couldn't understand or was falsely superstitious about. He had no reason to believe that the ring had to be destroyed rather than used when he captured Frodo. Not in the film anyway.

I got the same read on Faramir (didn't realize the true power of the Ring)...which works for the way Jackson chose to tell the story...but doesn't jive at all with the notion (in the books) that Faramir actually had a better, more educated understanding of what the Ring was and could do than pretty much anyone else in Gondor.

I mean, how many generations of men...and specifically the Stewards of Gondor...retold the story of how Isildur failed to destroy the Ring and instead wandered off to be ambushed and killed in the wilds?  Faramir would have known that story...he should have had a pretty clear idea of just how dangerous the Ring was.  But Jackson was more interested in portraying the characters (at least the Men) as something that would fit in contemporary society...so Faramir was an obedient son whose education didn't teach him to look beyond the orders his father had given with regards to the ring, in the same way that Aragorn was not the King waiting for the right moment to return, but was instead a man in fear of his Fate and trying to avoid power and the temptations that come with it.  And Legolas was an X-Games all-star in a world that had never even heard of snowboarding, much less had time to perfect it.

heh.  Yeah, Legolas always hit me as a surfer in need of a board.  I love the movies, but he always stood out a a bit over the top.  Which makes me interested to see if the final hobbit movie will shed light on why he is portrayed so differently in these three.  He's much more like his father.

I didn't see the second Hobbit film, yet...but it strikes me as curious that Legolas was apparently more even-tempered and somber when he was a hundred years younger...*grin*

Isildur didn't wander off and get ambushed in the wilds. He was traveling overland to Arnor, the Gladden Fields are beside the Great River, near what became Rohan.

But yes, he failed to resist the ring and it killed him.

Nobody can resist the ring in the presence of the Cracks of Doom. That's why Frodo's mission was doomed to fail, and part of the reason Sauron never considered the ring could be destroyed.

Near the Cracks of Doom:

"Then suddenly, as before under the eaves of the Emyn Muil, Sam saw these tow rivals with other vision. A crouching shape, scarcely more than the shadow of a living thing, a creature now wholly ruined and defeated, yet still filled with a hideous lust and rage; and before it stood stern, untouchable now by pity, a figure robed in white, but at its breast it held a wheel of fire. Out of the fire there spoke a commanding  voice.

"'Begone, and trouble me no more! If you touch me ever agian, you shall be cast yourself into the Fire of Doom.'"

I believe the ring carried out Frodo's order.

In reply to darknash (msg # 41):

Yeah, I know...I was simplifying the details...*grin*

And OceanLake--I'd never thought about it in that light before.  Next time I read through LOTR, I may be watching for situations where Frodo's declarations end up foreshadowing results in similar fashion (I don't expect to see a lot of them, because for most of the tale, Frodo avoided using the Ring...but now I'm intrigued at the prospect.  Tolkien wove a lot of depth into his tales, and it actually wouldn't surprise me to find that happening at various points.)

all I have to say in regard to the final movie is

A). Really the battle with Smaug could just as easily been left in the last movie

B). they did an amazing job portraying the Dragon sickness

C). I think though well done and epic the final battle would have been better served following the ending in the book... Mano a Mano with Azog + Bolg is very well done... but watching Thorin fall riddles with spears from dozens of foes while making a valiant charge to break the bodyguard of {either Azog or Bolg } and having his death { along with the timely arrival of Beorn } Rally the other armies in an epic butt kicking of vengeance just seems more fitting to me

I'm still holding out for a movie based upon the book "The Silmarillion."

I spent most of the battle waiting for Beorn to show up, and it was kind of disappointing when he finally did - two seconds of "dropped onto orcs, om nom nom" and that was it - he didn't even get to have a go at anyone significant :(.
Also, they "reassigned" the five armies, unless I'm remembering it wrongly - it's supposed to be Men, Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, and Wargs, isn't it? Not Men, Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, and more Orcs. There was definitely only one Orc army in the book, I'm sure, because only Bolg was around to lead them. I suppose it's because the films have treated Wargs as non-sentient creatures serving as mounts to Orcs rather than an organised race with their own leader and stuff that they changed that.

the five armies in the book are men, dwarves, elves, orcs, and eagles.

I think that would have to be about 15 movies. Beren and Luthien would be a trilogy all on its own.

The eagles count as an army? I just thought they showed up at the end to clear up. I've always thought the Wargs were the fifth army, because their leader meets up with the orcs after he get humiliated and genrally annoyed after having a burning pine cone chucked at him during the "Fifteen birds in five fir trees" scene, and gathers together all the other Wargs in the area like Bolg does with the Orcs, then they unite and head for Erebor to nom anyone who happens to be there ;).

Decided to fact-check this one, actually, and Arda gives us this quote...

"So began a battle that none had expected; and it was called the Battle of Five Armies, and it was very terrible. Upon one side were the Goblins and the wild Wolves, and upon the other were Elves and Men and Dwarves."

...from this page...

http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/b/battleoffivearmies.html

...if you're interested :). It mentions Beorn and the eagles as showing up to help out, basically :).

My partner is a massive Tolkien-nut; and she does like the movies and follows news about them, and apparently there have been some quite major issues with the Tolkien Estate in regards to that. To the extent that Jackson has stated he's finished with the world of Middle-Earth.
This message was last edited by the user at 21:43, Sun 28 Dec 2014.

In reply to Misty Reynolds (msg # 45):

Absolutely my favorite. But the Silmarillion covers thousands of years, not a single "lifetime" . . . and the events in Lord of the Rings covers less than a year "real time."

They'd need more than one movie to encompass the Silmarillion.