CT participate in HOBBIT films?

[Sauron the White]

davem - in this recent post and in other past posts you write that nobody has to make a movie. Any future problems can be dispatched with the ease of a magic wand simply by not making the movie. I certainly cannot argue with that. If I never drive in New York City I certainly do not have to worry about the traffic there. If I do not build a house on the side of a steep hill in California I certainly do not concern myself with fires and mudslides in that part of the world. Very very true.

However, allow me the temerity to say that your approach is extremely simplistic. Effective yes. But simplistic just the same.

We both live in a very real world. In that world, the imperatives that drive business may well drive an important part of the world. Here are the facts regardless of how you or I or anyone else may feel about them.

New Line Cinema owns the film rights to JRRT's LOTR and THE HOBBIT.
Peter Jackson helmed three of the most financially successful films of all time using these rights.
New Line Cinema is in the business of making films to make money for its owners and stockholders. In business, nothing succeeds like success.
Jackson is the odds on favorite, perhaps the prohibitive favorite, to helm future Middle-earth films based on properties that New Line owns.
There is far more in LOTR and HOBBIT about Middle-earth than the simple narrative tales of a brief time span. They have numerous references to events going back to the First and Second Ages as well as highly detailed material about the Third Age in which both LOTR and HOBBIT are placed. As such, those references are owned by New Line and are fair game for any director they may hire to lead such a project.
Some of these historical references are sketchy and not fully fleshed out to the point where you can make a sustained film about them.
There are other JRRT works, not owned by New Line, which provide a fuller, more descriptive narrative of these events which could be employed to bridge a gap between a HOBBIT film and the LOTR films which hundreds of people are already well acquainted with.

I think those facts are reality. To say that New Line or others simply do not have to make the films is to ignore that reality.

I am not advocating that the Tolkien Estate sign over the rights to SIL or HOME or any other property. I am suggesting that common sense prevail and the Estate allow the filmmakers to properly use more fully developed narratives, dialogue and descriptions in events in those books IF THEY APPLY TO MATERIAL COVERED IN EITHER THE HOBBIT OR LOTR.

I am not talking about a movie about Goldolin simply because Elrond mentions it in THE HOBBIT. I am not talking about a movie about Beren and Luthien and the silmarils simply because Aragorn sings about it in LOTR. But the White Councils dealings with the rise of the Necromancer, the assault on Dol guldur, the Erebor events and other material would be relevant and subject for inclusion.

But after what they did to LotR I don't see why the Estate should care what happens to New Line....)

I do not think they should be too angry about all the extra millions of copies of LOTR that were generated because of renewed interest in that subject generated by the success of those three films. If that amounts to harsh or shabby treatment, please, where do I get in that line for some of that harshness

[davem]

On the specific point:

Originally Posted by Sauron the White

I am not talking about a movie about Goldolin simply because Elrond mentions it in THE HOBBIT. I am not talking about a movie about Beren and Luthien and the silmarils simply because Aragorn sings about it in LOTR. But the White Councils dealings with the rise of the Necromancer, the assault on Dol guldur, the Erebor events and other material would be relevant and subject for inclusion.

I don't see any of that as being part of TH as such, but rather part of the later development of the Legendarium which came about as a result of the writing of LotR & its integration into the Legendarium. TH was not written as part of the Legendarium (as CT has stated, & he intentionally left out analysis of it in HoM-e) & is best seen & treated as a stand alone work. To introduce these 'darker', more complex themes into a move of TH would make the more 'fairy story' aspects of TH (Beorn's animals, talking birds etc) too difficult to integrate convincingly. Hence, for a movie of TH none of the material you mention is necessary.

On your more general point, I honestly don't care what kind of a pig's ear Jackson/New Line make of their 'Hobbit' movies, & I'm fairly sure that if they had access to every single thing Tolkien wrote they'd still fill them with the kind of inanities they filled LotR with.

And the real point, as Mr Hicklin as pointed out, is that it ain't gonna happen.

[Sauron the White]

Ah yes. So we just buy our tickets, take our favorite seats around the well worn track track while, as advertised, the familiar cars scream towards each other at high speeds. They crash, burn and we walk away talking about the recklesness of it all and why did this have to happen yet again?

[davem]

Originally Posted by Sauron the White

Ah yes. So we just buy our tickets, take our favorite seats around the well worn track track while, as advertised, the familiar cars scream towards each other at high speeds. They crash, burn and we walk away talking about the recklesness of it all and why did this have to happen yet again?

At the risk of stating the obvious, JRR Tolkien was a writer of books, not screenplays. He wrote stories for people to read, not for them to be made into films for the hard of thinking. Anyone who wishes to can pick up his books & experience the stories as they were meant to be experienced.

Movie adaptations of great literature are in most cases essentially trivialisations, & LotR proved this. The one thing that is lost in any adaptation is language, & Tolkien's language is some of the most beautiful & evocative in modern literature - this is why the radio adaptation of LotR works so well in capturing the spirit & mood of the book: at least 90% of the language (including narration) is taken straight from the book. Its also why the movie fails to capture that mood & spirit: almost none of the dialogue in the movie is Tolkien's & there is no narration. Hence, any movie adaptation is bound to fail, & your thesis that if the movie makers had access to Tolkien's other M-e writings they would be able to create a faithful adaptation is simply incorrect.

[Sauron the White]

At the risk of stating the obvious JRR Tolkien sold two of his books to be made as films. Tolkien did this of his own free will, as a thinking adult weighing the various options in front of him. He also signed a contract giving up any control of the content of these films, the use of characters or anything else contained in THE HOBBIT and LOTR. He made a very clear choice - money or art and he selected money which he was paid in full. To then offer arguments which appear to claim that movies of his books are less than honest is a complete fraud.

You want to get angry about somebody you think ruined the books of JRR Tolkien? The first person in line is JRRT himself.

I have said it before and will say it again here. I find it simply amazing that the world embraced the three LOTR films as they never embraced any other such films before. Professional film critics loved them and the film industry showered them with awards of excellence. They were wildly successful beyond what anyone had a right to expect of them considering that LOTR adaptions had a pretty lousy track record. But is that good enough for the hardcore purist word community? Nope. Nothing less than a word for word, page for page translation would have pleased some folks and even then we would have heard how they got the first 26 hours pretty spot on but them mixed up the speech on page 1046.

I say that in all seriousness.

[Aiwendil]

Sauron the White: I wish I could understand why you are (apparently) so irked or offended by the fact that some people have a different opinion concerning the films than you do. Obviously, no one can dispute that they are popular. But, to speak plainly, what's it to you if Davem or I or anyone else think a poor job was done in certain ways? Surely it's not surprising that the people who are the most avid fans of LotR in its literary form may be among those least enthralled with its cinematic adaptation. Surely the fact that something is popular does not mean it ought not be criticized. And surely the fact that something is inevitable (e.g. the production of a film) does not mean that everybody has to be happy about that fact.

I don't mean to add more kindling to the fire - I'd just like to understand what it is that you're arguing for. Surely not that dissenters are forbidden to have an opinion or are wrong to express it.

[Galin]

Sauron the White wrote: '... Nope. Nothing less than a word for word, page for page translation would have pleased some folks and even then we would have heard how they got the first 26 hours pretty spot on but them mixed up the speech on page 1046.'

Well, no one I have ever read has ever argued for such a thing. I would think David Bratman speaks for many when he writes...

'I can cite you three Austen scholars who hold that "Clueless" is more faithful to the spirit of Austen than any of the actual Austen adaptations. In fact I did cite them: see p. 32-33 of my essay in Tolkien on Film'.

The point, of course, being that faithfulness to the spirit is not the same as strict adherence to the text. So when we criticize Jackson for lacking the spirit, it doesn't mean we're demanding that he make a literalist adaptation. (...) A film of a book that is _too_ faithful to the text is likely to be stultified and boring. The adaptation process does require a creative imagination. I ask only that this creative imagination be faithful to the spirit of the text.'

[Sauron the White]

Galin - I have never read Jane Austen or seen any of the films made of here works. I understand and appreciate that her work is beloved by many women who feel her characters speak to them. My comment about the page to page adaption is made after several frustrating years of discussing these matters with others. I have only joined this site within the last year but participated in these debates elsewhere too many times to count. The anti-film crowd almost always concedes in theory that you have to make some changes from a book to a film but when it comes to real instances, they find few that suit them preferring to state over and over and over again how much better it was done in the book. Davem has said many times here how his favorite adaption is the BBC radio series which was extremely faithful to the books in its almost lifting of the pages to the airwaves.

Perhaps my statement was made in slight exaggeration to make a point - but only slightly.

Robert Deniro in THE DEERHUNTER said "this is this... this isn't something else ... this is this." A book is a book and a film is a film and they are two very different things. This fact of life apparently does not sit well with some here who insist on confusing the two repeatedly.

Aiwendil - I have no problem with anyone criticizing the films because what was in them did not work well as a film. Its when people cannot understand or accept that a book and a film are two different things and they keep comparing the two that I get irked. Allow me to give an example.

In ROTK, we see the Battle of the Pelennor Fields in some length. At its conclusion, the Army of the Dead is seen in green scrubbing bubble form quickly overpowering Saurons forces and washing away his soldiers like so much comet cleanser on a filthy sink. It happens so fast and is done with such ease that it completely negates the previous scenes of heroism and sacrifice by the Gondorians, Rohirrim and other forces of good. What was the point of the masive calvary charge if the Army of the Dead was going to so easily save the day anyways? Jackson could have still used the Dead if only he had edited that few seconds of scene in which the green bubbling army washes over the battlefield and the city. It was far too easy.

That it a criticism of the Jackson films based on what happened in the films. It requires no knowledge of the books and stands alone apart from the books regardless if a viewer has read them or not read them.

But over and over again, we read here and on other sites how such and such a scene was not done as well as it was in the book. Boromirs death scene was too dramatic and dragged out too much in the scene and was far more subtle and sublime in the book. Arwens weakness was not right because it was not done that way in the book. Boromir never should have picked up the ring on the slopes of the mountain because it was not done that way in the book. And on and on and on.

If you want to criticize the films - and they certainly are not perfect and are fair game for criticism - do so in judging them as films.

In the excellent film THE COLOR PURPLE, based on the equally excellent book, the character of Celie is questioned by Shug Avery. Shug has been sleeping with Albert the husband of Celie and cannot understand why he is so kind and doting with her while with Celie he is a crude brute. Shug asks how does Albert treat her when she is away and only Celie and Albert are together.

and Celie gives a heartbreaking answer that describes the motivations of many anti-film people here -
"He beats me when you aint here. He beat me for not being you."