The Hobbit Film Trilogy Thread

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Jonesy 55]

For some reason, I like this poster.

[Quintus 5,399]

Yes. It looks far less over produced than the others. It's the best one yet and makes the film look a lot less vanilla.

[alicebrallice 134]

it looks a bit old school.

I absolutely love it!

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Quintus 5,399]

it looks a bit old school.

I absolutely love it!

Aye. It's almost eighties inspired.

[crocodile 8,010]

Yeah, but I don't like the fact The Ring is the central element on it.

Karol

[Quintus 5,399]

It's true that the purists have every right to be irked by Jackson's clear intention to make this every bit the expanded LotR prequel instead of its own merry little self contained adventure, but at the same time I can fully understand the decision and I'm in fact glad of it.

The Hobbit could quite easily have been Narnia reskinned, for good or ill.

[crocodile 8,010]

You don't know that yet...

Karol

[Quintus 5,399]

Don't know what?

[crocodile 8,010]

Whether that's a good decision or not.

Karol

[Quintus 5,399]

Oh very true. And I've said before I've got a bad feeling about this.

But at the very least I think the decision to make changes and expand is justified. It's the execution this time around which worries me. Jackson's bloat worries me.

[Brónach 1,302]

Double Thorin and weird Gollum apart (oh, and what looks like twice the same troll as well), yeah, it's a cool poster.

Blue and orange! Blue and orange! Thorin looks weird, absurdly tanned (which I've seen more than once and it annoys me), Galadriel might be a little overexposed. I would get rid of the Thorin on the right and put the two trolls there (different trolls). Or maybe the three of them. And introduce any other colour to the poster. Other than that, it's nicer to look at than the other posters. The basic ideaa reminds me of the FOTR poster.

I'm not bothered that the ring is the central element in the poster. It's prominent in the story and it's famous. They simply need to avoid the "THE FATE OF THE WORLD WILL DEPEND ON THIS!!" thing and play it like any other fantasy element in the film, like the sword. Things that help Bilbo on his adventure. Not future evil McGuffins.

[KK 3,307]

I'm personally not bothered by the ring's focus either. They're putting the story of the Hobbit against the bigger picture of Middle-Earth. I just hope Jackson executes it well.

And that poster is a lot better than the ones that came before it.

[alicebrallice 134]

hahahahah!

people are starting lining up for the midnight screening tickets (you can buy them at the cinemas on sunday!!! at 9am, and they release them online on monday) here in sweden. this pic is from down south... haha god I really hope people aren't as crazy here in gothenburg. I was gonna go to the cinema around 6-7am on sunday.

[Incanus 5,714]

I lined up for FotR premiere tickets in my reckless youth. I was there mere 3 or 4 hours though so I didn't suffer for my tickets too heavily. Now I doubt I could muster time or energy to get tickets for the earliest showings.

[Luke Skywalker 1,795]

Jackson's clear intention to make this every bit the expanded LotR prequel

now, really?

would have never passed my mind...

i wonder if gkgyver still thinks the contrary after seeing all this recent exposition to material...

The Hobbit's amazing transformations, with a cool "tool" that allows you to switch between before and after the transformation.

fuck...killi looked more the part of a dwarf before commiting to the film...

[Once 605]

The Hobbit's amazing transformations, with a cool "tool" that allows you to switch between before and after the transformation.

Interesting that Aidan Turner's beard is longer than Fili's.

EDIT: Well done, Luke.

[Luke Skywalker 1,795]

Kili

Who is: The younger brother of Fili, he is another one of Thorin Oakenshield's nephews. He's already been branded "the hot dwarf" and reportedly develops a thing for willowy elf Tauriel (played by Evangeline Lilly of Lost fame).

Played by: Aidan Turner (Ireland)

WTF???!?!!!

No wonder Legolas went the homo way....

it's amazing the ammount of makeup needed. Some actors are unrecognisable.

Couldnt they have hired actors that had more dwarvy faces?

[Jay 37,353]

You guys are nuts, that's an awful poster

1. The focus on the ring! NO!!! The ring should just be an invisible-making trinket in this movie. NO REASON to center on it in marketing! The quest is about reclaiming their land and defeating a dragon, the ring is just a side object gained by happenstance. Bah.

2. Why put Thorin on the top AND on the bottom?! No! The picture of Thorin on the top should have been replaced by Elrond or Saruman. Give movie goers a face they recognize instead of one that's also on the poster below. Epic fail.

3. Why does Gollum look so weird? Should have picked a totally different facial expression for him.

4. Orange and teal, why why why?

Bleh.

[Henry B 50]

"NO REASON" to use the Ring in marketing for this movie? Come on, surely you can think of one.

[Jay 37,353]

I don't think average Joe Public movie goer will see the ring and go "Wow, I want to see more movies about the ring! Even though I've already seen it destroyed, and I want to know what else that ring got up to before Elijah Wood got it!"

No, the poster should show dragons and goblins and trolls and Gandalf and Martin Freeman and 13 dwarves so average Joe Public movie goer will go "Hey, that wizard guy from the LOTR movies, cool they are making a new movie in that world, awesome! Look at all the new bad guys and the new main characters!"

[crocodile 8,010]

I lined up for FotR premiere tickets in my reckless youth. I was there mere 3 or 4 hours though so I didn't suffer for my tickets too heavily. Now I doubt I could muster time or energy to get tickets for the earliest showings.

Your powers are weak, old man!

Karol

[Incanus 5,714]

I lined up for FotR premiere tickets in my reckless youth. I was there mere 3 or 4 hours though so I didn't suffer for my tickets too heavily. Now I doubt I could muster time or energy to get tickets for the earliest showings.

Your powers are weak, old man!

Karol

I know but I also have to admit that my enthusiasm for these films isn't on LotR level.

[Henry B 50]

I don't think average Joe Public movie goer will see the ring and go "Wow, I want to see more movies about the ring! Even though I've already seen it destroyed, and I want to know what else that ring got up to before Elijah Wood got it!"

No, the poster should show dragons and goblins and trolls and Gandalf and Martin Freeman and 13 dwarves so average Joe Public movie goer will go "Hey, that wizard guy from the LOTR movies, cool they are making a new movie in that world, awesome! Look at all the new bad guys and the new main characters!"

That's like saying "I don't want to see a movie about Darth Vader because he already died in Return of the Jedi." The Ring is one of the most recognizable images from LOTR, so they're throwing it in to get people's attention.

[Jay 37,353]

I disagree, I think the characters are all more recognizable than the ring. The LOTR films ended up focusing so much on Aragorn, Rohan, and Gondor stuff, the destruction of the ring became the B-side in its own movie

[Henry B 50]

Okay, but regardless of whatever the cinematic emphasis was, the Ring featured in the very title of the films and in all sorts of media.

[Bryant Burnette 654]

Fellas, I work at a movie theatre for a living. Trust me when I tell you that it would be marketing suicide to not have the ring on the poster.

However dumb you think the public is, they are vastly dumber. Currently, we've got a poster up for a one-night event that consists of two episodes from season two of Star Trek: The Next Generation, designed to promote the Blu-ray release. I have overheard many, many people who have looked at the poster and then said, "Oh, look, a new Star Wars movie." Others assume it's a poster for a new Star Trek movie. I've heard literally nobody make a comment that actually recognizes the poster for what it is.

People, on the whole, are dumb AS HELL. Woe unto the marketing campaign that fails to take that fact into account.

[Jay 37,353]

Here's some posters I hadn't seen before

[Incanus 5,714]

Hmmm it seems like those are modelled after the first The Hobbit banner. Gollum's head is retouched to look at the audience, while in the original it looked toward Bilbo.

[Brónach 1,302]

The ring in this these films is like the magic sword of the hero. There'll be entire scenes based on it. I don't think it's wrong to have it on the posters.

[KK 3,307]

Those posters were old and I'm pretty sure BloodBoal already posted them here.

As for the Ring, it's obvious why that would be a smart marketing tool. It doesn't matter that the Ring was destroyed, the public will automatically associate the film with the LotR trilogy on the basis of the Ring alone.

I disagree, I think the characters are all more recognizable than the ring. The LOTR films ended up focusing so much on Aragorn, Rohan, and Gondor stuff, the destruction of the ring became the B-side in its own movie

A symbol is always a more recognizable insignia than characters. The Ring is the ultimate trademark symbol and having it on the poster cries out "Hey, look! We're the same dudes who made LOTR, so this movie is gonna be EPPIIICC!"

I understand it, it was an inevitable marketing device..

[Jay 37,353]

I hope no posters for Film 2 or Film 3 focus on the ring at all

Though there's a chance, based on that one shot in the trailer of Bilbo losing the ring in Mirkwood

[Brónach 1,302]

Oh. In the great scheme of things, that fits. It abandons Bilbo being closer to its Master.

But Bilbo will get it back.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Jay 37,353]

There are bound to be Mirkwood, Laketown, and Dale Film 2 posters as well

All the Film 3 posters will be battle royale posters, hell yea!

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Jay 37,353]

Hell yea!

[KK 3,307]

Tauriel posters with Fili by her side.

[Luke Skywalker 1,795]

underside...

[gkgyver 1,645]

It's true that the purists have every right to be irked by Jackson's clear intention to make this every bit the expanded LotR prequel instead of its own merry little self contained adventure, but at the same time I can fully understand the decision and I'm in fact glad of it.

How do you know it won't be a self-contained adventure? I think it will absolutely be that adventure on its own that you talk about, but there is by necessity characters and places from LotR. They can't replace characters, and choosing other actors would quite frankly be stupid, except for Bilbo because Ian Holm's appearance is beyond the capabilities of digital rejuvenation.

And I still maintain that The Hobbit isn't a true prequel. That doesn't depend on what Jackson and his team do with the film. The book was written before LotR, nobody sat down and wondered "how can I create a backstory to Lord of the Rings?" That's usually when things get awkward with a prequel.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Brónach 1,302]

As long as one is able to get a valid end by the time of There and Back Again. Without having to go into LOTR to see the ending of the story.

[Wojo 2,453]

And I still maintain that The Hobbit isn't a true prequel. That doesn't depend on what Jackson and his team do with the film. The book was written before LotR, nobody sat down and wondered "how can I create a backstory to Lord of the Rings?" That's usually when things get awkward with a prequel.

Don't read this part:

While The Hobbit as a book is not a prequel at all, it most certainly was revisited once JRRT sat down to write TLOTR. He had to "correct" the "Riddles in the Dark" chapter so that his sequel novel would work in the first place. If "Gollum willingly bets his magic ring on the outcome of the riddle-game, and he and Bilbo part amicably," then, with all things being equal, the only other way to set the plot of TLOTR into motion would be to have Gollum change his mind about the Ring after the fact. And there would really be no convincing way to show the reader that since the third person narrator of The Hobbit and TLOTR follows only the hobbits and their party until the split at the beginning of The Two Towers. What would Gollum do, make his way to the Shire early on in the story so we "see" him beat down Bagginses' door and demand it back? No, Bilbo had to be shown as a thief from Gollum's point of view so that he could be motivated to hate him and start wandering and tell Sauron's forces, which set the Nazgul on a collision course with the Shire. This forced a retcon, i.e. Bilbo lied in the first edition of The Hobbit.

Start here:

Where was I. Oh yes. While TLOTR is the sequel to The Hobbit in book form, which makes The Hobbit a prelude without being a prequel, The Hobbit film trilogy unfortunately must be written and marketed as a film prequel in order to draw in the legions of fans who saw those three movies -- and still didn't have literature teachers make them read the books -- so they see the connections and go see these movies as well.

[gkgyver 1,645]

An extended Lord of the Rings? You say that like it's a bad thing. The Lord of the Rings is about the war of the ring. The Hobbit is about a group of dwarves travelling to a mountain to regain their treasure and land. In the larger picture, it is also about the beginnings of the war of the ring, and that they include these events parallel to the story is, IMO, a much appreciated enhancement.

How this is pulled off in the screenplay, or how it holds up cinematically is another question, but I can't fathom how someone can call this a typical LotR prequel when the source material is all Tolkien (apart from bunnies and orc shamans).

[Marian Schedenig 8,193]

Technically, LOTR is a sequel to the Hobbit in regards where it starts off and a sequel to The Silmarillion overall. Or put differently, LOTR is the end of thousands of years of Middle-earth history, and The Hobbit is the small adventure that kicked it off.

This forced a retcon, i.e. Bilbo lied in the first edition of The Hobbit.

Which I still admire as certainly one of the brilliant strokes in literature history.

[Jay 37,353]

LOTR is the end of thousands of years of Middle-earth history, and The Hobbit is the small adventure that kicked it off.

Yes.

This forced a retcon, i.e. Bilbo lied in the first edition of The Hobbit.

Which I still admire as certainly one of the brilliant strokes in literature history.

I'm not a fan of it, but he had to come up with something

[Wojo 2,453]

I like it because it sells the idea that the works we know as The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are really just excerpts of Bilbo's memoirs, the Red Book of Westmarch. And at great protest and under the convincing of his long friend Gandalf, Bilbo had to change his story in order to complete his tale.

[Faleel 5,347]

Or perhaps Frodo "changed" it, with knowledge given to him by Gandalf and Bilbo.

[BloodBoal 7,538]