Christopher Tolkien Resigns from Tolkien Estate

[Nick1Ø66 4,689]

2 minutes ago, Chen G. said:I like the darker tone, and as a result the decayed image of Laketown is much more fitting to me.

Whatever you'd call it, I like it. I don't want a light, children-oriented fairytale. 

 

 

Who said they wanted that?

[Chen G. 3,944]

I know some people didn't like the shift of tone from the novel to the film. I'm certainly not one of them.

 

[BloodBoal 7,538]

3 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

I like the darker tone, and as a result the decayed image of Laketown is much more fitting to me.

 

Having done Lord of the Rings first, I couldn't expect Peter Jackson to adapt the Hobbit in a way that wasn't informed by his work on Lord of the Rings. In that sense, it's not a straightforward adaptation of The Hobbit, it's an adptation/interpertation of it as a part of Tolkien's overall body of work.

 

Whatever you'd call it, I like it. I don't want a light, children-oriented fairytale. 

 

And yet...

 

 

 

 

[KK 3,307]

I'm not sure how much that imagery is really appropriate for children though...

[Chen G. 3,944]

Two of those are from An Unexpected Journey, which doesn't count. The brooding proper doesn't start until The Desolation of Smaug.

 

I think all that is there to be said about Alfrid has been said. He's an example of (bad) comic relief. He's certainly not representative of the tone of the film.

 

When I think about those films, I think about the burnt corpses in the Western Guard-Room, or the fallen lakemen in Dale. Truly sobering images. I appreciate the filmmakers for going there.

[Nick1Ø66 4,689]

Worst scene in The Hobbit for me was when the Laketown survivors turn into a mob and try to murder Alfrid and Bard has to stop them.  It's not that I have any love for Alfrid, I despise the character, but having a mob of common folk try to murder one of their own is about the most un-Tolkien like thing I can think of.  The scene just rubs me the wrong way every time I see it, and reminds me off how far from the source material they let these movies stray.

[Chen G. 3,944]

Yeah, I see how it can irk some viewers.

 

I like the energy in the scene, though. It feels like they are really about to tear him to shreds, and given the hell that they went through, it doesn't strike me as outlandish. Again, I like the darker, dire feel of the films.

 

And it does go to illustrate Alfrid's single good narrative function: Bard looks all the more noble around him. And the same is true of Bard's children: I'm thinking about the juxtaposition of Alfrid running for cover as Bain and Sigrid help the elderly.

 

Still a terrible character. But again since he's killed, I don't mind. Very cathartic.

 

[Nick1Ø66 4,689]

@BloodBoal, there's just something ironically wrong about posting those pics in a thread honouring Christopher Tolkien.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Chen G. 3,944]

When it comes to film adaptations of the great tales, which I believe we'll see Peter Jackson at least involved with (Zack Sneider did much worst to the DC films, and he's still around), I think they'll be great.

 

The Hobbit is very difficult to adapt! and it doesn't sit as well with Jackson's ouvre. Although Beren and Luthien's story presents its own challenges, as well. The Children of Hurin, though....

 

Each could also make for a killer Howard Shore score!

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Chen G. 3,944]

The Hobbit has its own difficulties in adaptation. 

 

And yes, some of those difficulties necessitate straying away from the novel in order to produce a good film: having the Company being chased, giving Thorin an attempt at Smaug, introducing Bard earlier, introducing Bolg earlier, keeping Thranduil in the loop of the story, featuring the White Council, etc...

 

About the only changes I find problematic are the inclusion of both Azog and Bolg (you can have got away with just one of the two filling Azog's role), the romance and the abundance of Legolas. Neither is deal-breaker, though.

 

I do think that Jackson wasn't as passionate about The Hobbit book as he was about The Lord of the Rings. It's just isn't as good.

[John 2,032]

I'd have preferred if Thorin and Smaug had never met in the films, as they never did in the novel. Having these two archnemesises, both of which have an unnatural, mortal hatred for each other, never actually meet each other in person has a much more profound feel than the two meeting and never really doing anything satisfying; i.e. big showdown, one opponent kills the other after a brutal and epic struggle, etc. In the films, their confrontation is rather underwhelming. Thorin never does anything noteworthy except taunt Smaug for a few scenes, unsuccessfully tries to kill him by melting a giant gold statue on top of him (really? that's the best you've got, PJ?) and that's really it. It's all very underwhelming and mediocre.

 

That being said, I really enjoyed the Erebor scenes in the third act of DOS; they're the closest thing to the masterful "escape from Moria" sequence from FOTR that the Hobbit trilogy has to offer.

[Chen G. 3,944]

It was absolutely necessary from a dramatic standpoint.

 

Peter Jackson was always making these adaptations for those who love cinema, not books.

 

Improving the book during the process of adapting it isn't a bad idea!

[Nick1Ø66 4,689]

 

27 minutes ago, BloodBoal said:

 

It's a good way to prepare ourselves for future Tolkien adaptations.

 

I wonder they'll make us think "Well, they're not very good, but at least they're not as bad as PJ's The Hobbit!" or "Maybe PJ's The Hobbit wasn't so bad after all!"

 

See, I only watch the superb Maple Films four hour, single film edit of The Hobbit and I never have to see any of those scenes again.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Chen G. 3,944]

I'm yet to see a fan-edit that didn't mortify me.

 

just cut twenty minutes off of An Unexpected Journey and the romance from the end of The Desolation of Smaug forward (the early scenes are fine) and half of Legolas' action scenes (not his brawl with Bolg, that's great!) and leave it at that.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

2 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

Improving the book during the process of adapting it isn't a bad idea!

 

I don't see how having an overly long chase sequence that adds nothing to the overall narrative is "improving the book".

[Nick1Ø66 4,689]

1 minute ago, Chen G. said:

I'm yet to see a fan-edit that didn't mortify me.

 

just cut twenty minutes off of An Unexpected Journey and the romance from the end of The Desolation of Smaug forward (the early scenes are fine) and half of Legolas' action scenes (not his brawl with Bolg, that's great!) and leave it at that.

 

The Maple Films edit is far superior to Jackson's bloated mess.

[Chen G. 3,944]

Says you.

 

10 minutes ago, BloodBoal said:

I don't see how having an overly long chase sequence that adds nothing to the overall narrative is "improving the book".

Because film is driven by conflict. And it needs urgency. You can't have it both ways and both criticize the pace and the inclusion of the chase plot.

 

And it ends up serving as a set-up for the Battle, which again is a good idea. In the book, the Battle was an afterthought.

 

Again, they could have killed off Azog in the battle (by Thorin, not Dain!) and give the vendetta to Bolg, instead. But the idea is sound, either way, and both Azog and Bolg are suitably menacing.

 

12 minutes ago, BloodBoal said:

Don't see how that's a necessity to produce a good film either

 

Because film is a visual medium. You can't have Gandalf disappear only to narrate to Bilbo what he was up to, and you certainly can't leave it unexplained. You have to show, not tell.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Nick1Ø66 4,689]

18 minutes ago, BloodBoal said:

 

Where's the urgency when you have a chase sequence that feels like a Tom & Jerry cartoon, with Dwarves being all like: "Here! Look, here!" "Oh, wait, no! Over here!" and Smaug failling to even hurt a single one of them even though they're pretty close to him.

1

 

More to the point, it undercuts Smaug as a character.

 

All we've been hearing about is Smaug the terrible, and the awful things a Dragon can do to you and instant incineration...and we even saw him decimate Dale! We're REALLY expecting something bad.

 

And then a bunch of bumbling Dwarves who couldn't manage to deal with some idiot trolls, spiders and goblins are able to evade and outrun the greatest calamity Middle-Earth has ever seen...in his own digs.

 
Yeah maybe Tolkien knew what he was doing.  Even Jackson knew it was a bad idea. As I understand it, all that stuff was added after the decision to make it three films. It wasn't put in there for "urgency"...it was stuck in there b/c he needed an ending to his movie.

[Chen G. 3,944]

That it undercuts Smaug's menace I suppose is true, although the issue of scale  I think is working in the Dwarves favor. There is also a sense to me that Thorin's fimiliarity of Erebor, which Smaug doesn't seem to share outside of his treasure Hoard, is at play here. 

 

It doesn't feel, to me as a viewer, that the Dwarves had it easy, but I do think they could have gotten away from the thing a bit more bruised and panting and stuff, sure. Although I like the interpretation that Smaug was largely toying with them - it's certainly a valid way of looking at it. When he flies to Laketown, you know he means buisness.

 

You don't need to convince me that there are flaws - I'm not oblivious to them. But I think you are being oblivious of a lot of the merits of the trilogy, too. It's possible to genuinely and unabashedly like The Hobbit. Really. It is.

[Barnald 365]

2 hours ago, BloodBoal said:

 

It's a good way to prepare ourselves for future Tolkien adaptations.

 

I wonder they'll make us think "Well, they're not very good, but at least they're not as bad as PJ's The Hobbit!" or "Maybe PJ's The Hobbit wasn't so bad after all!"

 

I fear you have no idea what's coming. I predict that those lamenting The Hobbit films as 'The Desecration of Tolkien' have seen nothing yet.

[Fancyarcher 350]

This makes the possibility of a Silmarillion adaptation all that much likelier. Knew this had to happen eventually too. 

[Incanus 5,713]

7 hours ago, BloodBoal said:

 

I still have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that someone who managed to adapt The Lord Of The Rings (a book trilogy considered by many to be unadaptable) so beautifully struggled so much to adapt a book like The Hobbit. Bu then again, I think PJ just made the task harder for him by adding stuff that was not needed in the first place...

Quite.

 

But how about that Christopher Tolkien fellow. Isn't he a swell guy.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Quintus 5,399]

I'm sure he's a nice respectable fellow, but Mr Tolkien has always come across as a bit of a misery hasn't he, a bit too zealously protective of his father's work and legacy. I get that, but he seems to have had an active disregard for the fans who paid for his estate. A bit like George Lucas.

[Bilbo 3,709]

2 minutes ago, Quintus said:

I'm sure he's a nice respectable fellow, but Mr Tolkien has always come across as a bit of a misery hasn't he, a bit too zealously protective of his father's work and legacy. I get that, but he seems to have had an active disregard for the fans who paid for his estate. A bit like George Lucas.

 

I don’t think that’s fair at all.

 

JRR and Christopher Tolkien have struck me as two people who would rather 1000 fans that were really into Middle-earth the way they were rather than the millions from the hippy movement back in the day or now the film folk. 

 

Basically, the people who bought the History of Middle-earth series and I don’t think either of them were truly motivated by money (even Tolkien sr just wanted enough to retire early and spend his last few years with his wife).

 

I don’t get this whole “contempt for the fans” bullshit tbh. Why should they care what fans think anyway?

 

They create something, people bought it, people reacted to it in a certain way, why does there need to be anything else?

 

The creator gets to do what they want with their work and if the masses don’t like it that’s it. They have no rights or say in the issue. They can choose not to buy it but at the end of the day a creator should only be interested in serving themselves. 

[Quintus 5,399]

I dunno. Picking and preferring one subset of "fans" over others seems a bit snobby and ungrateful to me. Assuming that actually happens here (it may not, but it seemed to be the suggestion).

[Chen G. 3,944]

I'm told that he always was a very private, closed off man, which to some may come across as snobbish.

[Bilbo 3,709]

He doesn’t do too many interviews but this:

 

 

kinda sums up the man.

 

 

Given the choice between the published Silmarilion, the UT, the HoMe, and all the books we’ve gotten since the mid 00s over movie adaptations of the same? I’d take the books every time. 

 

[Quintus 5,399]

7 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

I'm told that he always was a very private, closed off man, which to some may come across as snobbish.

 

Not at all.

[Chen G. 3,944]

I would have liked him to have been more cooperative with the film industry. Although were probably about to get those anyway, so no real harm done.

[toothless 963]

 

 

Conclusion : it's on the filmaker to use the tools wisely.

[Chen G. 3,944]

Very true. But, you know what, the films satisfy my appetite for onset craft well enough, and so much of the CG is done well, that it doesn't irk me in this film. Could it have been even more practical? sure.

 

But that's the thing with CG: It's quicker. It doesn't take as much time out of preproduction and it doesn't slow down principal photography. It's mostly relegated to post-production. Had Peter Jackson had longer preproduction, we would have seen all the more in the way of practical effects.

 

But even as it is, there's a lot of impressive craft to enjoy here. Even organic environments like Mirkwood which are notoriously difficult to recreate convincingly in a studio - are practical!

[Nick1Ø66 4,689]

3 hours ago, Chen G. said:

 

 

But that's the thing with CG: It's quicker. It doesn't take as much time out of preproduction and it doesn't slow down principal photography. It's mostly relegated to post-production. Had Peter Jackson had longer preproduction, we would have seen all the more in the way of practical effects.

 

 

 

Are you sure about that?  CGI done quickly usually sucks, and you can tell (as you could in The Hobbit).

 

And I think blaming The Hobbit's problem on the production schedule is tired and lame. If they didn't have the time to do it right, then they should have delayed. Jackson should have said "I'm not putting my name on something that doesn't live up to LOTR. Give me more time or I'll walk and you can keep your millions." In any event, The Hobbit had plenty of preproduction time. They just chose to abandon the work done for Del Toro, which again is on Jackson, and forgo bigatures and more practical effects because of the HFR. Again, that's a decision that Jackson made. Jackson also didn't have to go along with making The Hobbit three movies, which introduced all kinds of narrative, and scheduling, problems.

 

As you said, Jackson was in complete control of The Hobbit, and whatever its deficiencies are fall squarely on his shoulders.

[Chen G. 3,944]

At no point was I expecting Jackson to continue Del Toro's work. So, all the pre-production period under Del Toro doesn't count.

[crocodile 7,984]

Tauriel: A Middle-earth Story. Finally!

 

Karol

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[crocodile 7,984]

We don't have those yet? I'm shocked.

 

Karol

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

There's a theme part called New Zealand.

[Barnald 365]

On 11/15/2017 at 1:31 PM, Barnald said:

If the new proprietors are solely interested in cash things could get very ugly. I await news of a Tolkien theme park (and BB's inevitable guesses at the attractions) with great trepidation.

 

We only had to wait a week.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

It's interesting that we don't have any Kiwis on the board.  Several Australians, no New Zealanders.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

7 minutes ago, Barnald said:

We only had to wait a week.

 

You're welcome.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

26 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

It's interesting that we don't have any Kiwis on the board.  Several Australians, no New Zealanders.

 

Is there a difference?

[Nick1Ø66 4,689]

3 hours ago, BloodBoal said:

We gotta think bigger... TV shows are only the beginning. Think of the other possibilities... A Middle-Earth theme park!

 

Be thrilled by the Smaug's Ride roller-coaster! Go down the river aboard Bombur's Bombastic Barrel Bonanza! Will you dare enter inside the Dol Guldur house of horrors? Make sure you visit the Sign Of The Prancing Pony to order one of Barliman Butterbur's Burgers! And do not forget to stop at the Golden Hall to take pictures with King Theoden and get a chance to kick Grima Wormtongue's buttocks! Middle-Earthland, only $500/person!

 

It's coming here to Oxford next year!

Seriously, if anyone wants to come to town for it, let me know and I'll show you my favourite pubs. First rounds on you.

 

[TheOtherJones 7]

On 11/22/2017 at 12:47 PM, Saint Nicholas MLXVI said:

 

It's coming here to Oxford next year!

Seriously, if anyone wants to come to town for it, let me know and I'll show you my favourite pubs. First rounds on you.

 

This exhibition is presently at the Morgan Library and Museum in Manhattan. My wife and I went this past weekend and had a wonderful time. I got serious chills reading the original manuscript of The Last Voyage of Earendel and seeing some of the content involving Ronald and Edith. What an amazing love story.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,504]

A Tolkien Estate? That's something I'd hate!

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Tolkien's grandchildren, picking the corpse.