The Road Goes Ever On and On: Everything Tolkien - Book 2

[Mehinen]

Was this the first time that I heard about the new video from somewhere else?

It was great to see Dale and the other locations! They look so different from each other - and was that one place Thranduil's wine cellar?!

[fantasia]

Well I posted it the day it came out and surprisingly nobody commented on it. Not here at least, but they did comment on it on my FB page.

Yeah, I loved the new blog video. Though it was kind of an odd video due to them wrapping up the filming and saying goodbye and sharing final memories and passing around the champagne. I'm like "*sniff*, it's all over" and then it's like "wait a minute, the first movie hasn't even come out yet!!!"

Less than 5 months to go.

[AslansChild]

I'm like "*sniff*, it's all over" and then it's like "wait a minute, the first movie hasn't even come out yet!!!"

Also, it was very nice Peter Jackson said they'd continue to have vlogs during post production.

Commenting on the video itself, it was really really cool. I liked how it showed Comic-Con, and all the different sets and actors. I LOVED the huge house! Freeman looked so cool sitting on that huge chair with this huge mug, like a little boy.

It is sad it's over though...it's like: "It's finally done." He's already said that he won't be doing Simrallion, so...I guess he's done with Middle Earth. (Well, not really...he practically lives there.)

Did you see the rumors about the possibility of them splitting up the Hobbit into THREE films at the last minute? *face-palm*

http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2012/07 ... r-jackson/

[daughter of the King]

I just can't see it. Even with the Dol-Goldur bit added to the Hobbit films I don't see how it would stretch over three movies in a cohesive manner. Unless of course they added a lot that it isn't there. They mentioned the Appendixes, and there is a lot in there, but it doesn't all fit in the Hobbit timeline. I certainly wouldn't mind seeing more of Aragorn and Arwen's story or Gollum's background, but neither of those would take place during the Hobbit.

The blog was great, even though they didn't show us much. Radagast's house was interesting. Seeing Legolas was pretty cool. My favorite was probably Dale. What a magnificent set! And Beorn's house!

[Lady Galadriel]

I wouldn't mind 3 films, but The Hobbit story itself should only be 2 films, I think. LOTR was three films because it was a trilogy. The idea I'm getting of possibly waiting until Movie 3 to see Smaug and the Battle of Five Armies doesn't sound natural.

I don't comment on the video blogs because I am trying to stay relatively spoiler-free. I do see some spoilers here and there but I try not to read or see too much.

[narnialuver]

I would love to see 3 film in 3 years. But I highly doubt that they would do that for 1 book. doing a movie on the Return of the King" appendices would be more plausible. If they do do a third, I am all for it!

[johobbit]

Well, I tell ya', I found that new blog video somewhat emotional -> the end of all those months of the long, productive, hard-working days of filming, but, as fantasia said ... we haven't even seen the movies yet. And I thoroughly enjoyed seeing Dale, Beorn's hall, and Radagast's home—very, very cool!

I think out of all the production blogs, the scene of the Dwarves singing (from one of the first ones) is still my favourite. *goosebumps*

I'm wondering if the rumour is true about the third film, if PJ will still make the first two The Hobbit, and then the third using Appendix material, and material from The Sil, possibly ("Of the Rings of Power", for example). Gracious, a third film on more of M-e's history can open up a world of wonder! Very curious about this ... and rather skeptical.

So, not much to say except ... 141 more days!!!

[fantasia]

I have very mixed feelings on the idea of three movies. In my eyes, more movies = more money for the studios, so I question the motivation of the decision is one of greed rather than the best choice for the book they're adapting.
But my bigger concern is that yes, while there is more than enough material to stuff into three Hobbit movies, I feel like the majority of that would come from The Sil and the appendices and the more they cram in, the more the movies lose the feel of The Hobbit and instead turn into Middle Earth History.
We'll see what happens.

[daughter of the King]

Can they use anything from the Sil though? PJ has said that the Tolkien Estate still holds the rights to Sil and they will probably never make a Sil movie because he didn't think the Estate liked what they did with LotR.

If they wanted to fill a movie with M-E history, wouldn't it better to make that a separate movie from Hobbit?

[johobbit]

Oh, that's right. The Estate. *bows low*
I agree, Dot, that a Middle-earth history film would be best separate from The Hobbit films.

Did I mention here (if so, it must be in the previous Tolkien topic) that we gave my dad The Fellowship of the Ring for Father's Day? He whipped through it fairly quickly, so we presented him with The Two Towers last Sunday, and he's already nearly halfway through it. He is enjoying the story—at 85 & 1/2 years of age—but gets rather confused with all the names, understandably, so Nellie of Narnia and I answer any and all questions he has. It's very fun! There is a map at the back of each of the editions we gave him, but the printing's kind of small, so we want to copy a larger map of Middle-earth for him to follow. He recently said that he just may be interested in seeing The Hobbit films, since he read it for the first time last year.

[daughter of the King]

TORN posted this on Facebook, too good to not share it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FPxYDGfniM&feature=player_embedded

There are some spoilers, so if you haven't seen the movies or read the books I would suggest not watching it.

[fantasia]

Peter Jackson has just confirmed that The Hobbit will now be three films instead of two. As I said before, I have very mixed feelings on this, but if anyone is going to do it correct, it's PJ and team. We'll see. I'm not thrilled.
https://www.facebook.com/notes/peter-ja ... 4596546558

ETA: Some comments below are not appropriate, just a heads up on that.

[daughter of the King]

No. Absolutely not. There isn't enough story to make Hobbit stretch into three films! It's not like LotR! Don't do this Peter Jackson! /rant

I suppose I should reserve judgment, but this doesn't sound like a good idea. I would love to see material from the Appendixes, but a lot of that does not take place during Hobbit. Therefore, Hobbit should be two films and another film should be produced afterwards with a different focus. *sigh* I'm sure I'll like it no matter what, but still, I know I will dislike parts of it just like with LotR *coughFaramircough*.

[shastastwin]

Before this, I was looking forward to two well-crafted films that adapted The Hobbit and some material from the Appendices to fill in Gandalf's story (which I thought should be in there). It might be padded to make two films, but it would still have been nice. We've seen the double-film split happen a lot recently and it can be done well. Now that PJ has said there will be three movies, I feel as though they will be squeezing everything out of the films and making this into PJ's story not Tolkien's story (which happened in some parts of LotR). I tend to be an optimist when it comes to film news, but this is one time that I have to say I'm not excited in the least by this announcement. I hope it turns out better than I think it will.

[fantasia]

My one hope is that with nearly every film you make on this scale, you have hours and hours of footage that end up on the floor of the cutting room. So I am PRAYING that the extra movie will be made up of this footage and will not detract from The Hobbit. I mean I would think it'd have to be because they're done filming. But whether this is the best choice for the theatrical releases of these movies, I still don't know.
My big fear is that these three movies are going to be "The Lord of the Rings Prequel: The Hobbit and other Middle Earth History."

[Lady Galadriel]

So a third movie has been confirmed. I am not so sure I like the idea, and I am curious because I didn't know there was enough going on in Middle-earth around the time of the Hobbit to fill up 3 movies. Well, come to think of it, knowing Tolkien's complexity, I wouldn't be surprised, but how much of the extra plot lines will actually be related to The Hobbit?

It doesn't make much sense to me. But there is only one way of finding out how well it works...to wait, I guess...

TORN posted this on Facebook, too good to not share it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FPxYDGfniM&feature=player_embedded

There are some spoilers, so if you haven't seen the movies or read the books I would suggest not watching it.

Nice! Thanks for posting it! I was expecting it to look more like those "Lord of the Rings in 5/10 seconds" clips.