The Hobbit - starts filming March 21

Jeyl said:
While I understand your approach in asking me this question, it does disappoint me when one assumes I'm not a guy simply because I like stories that really involve female characters who mean more to the story than to their leading men.
Click to expand...

I didn't ask a question, I just didn't want to assume you were male or female. Thus the allowance for either.
 
firesprite said:
Tolkien himself said that Bombadil had no real place in the story. It wasn't a loss.
Click to expand...

This is a slightly modified version of a post I made on another forum on this topic.

While I think that Bombadil is a character who is not really missed from the films, and who probably would not work had they decided to keep him; at least in the film that was made, to say he had no place in the book is an error. To not like him on a personal level is one thing, but to disregard his importance is another. Indeed Tolkien only kept in that which had meaning to his story as he told it.

I like Bombadil and what he represents. He more than any character (even Gandalf) is Sauron's antithesis. Both have immense innate power, but where Sauron wants total domination over all things: Bombadil wants domination over nothing. It is for that reason the ring has no power over him, and precious little over Hobbits (it also explains why Faramir wasn't tempted, at least in the book, but that is a different debate). But it is precisely because of that he is of no use to the enemies of Sauron: he has no interest in anything outside his little corner of the world.

I'll defer to someone who knew infinitely more about these things than I.
quote:


J R R Tolkien

From a letter dated 25 April 1954

...Tom Bombadil is not an important person - to the narrative. I suppose he has some importance as a 'comment'. I mean I do not really write like that: he is just an invention (who first appeared in the Oxford Magazine about 1933) and he represents something that I feel important, though I would not be prepared to analyze the feeling precisely. I would not, however, have left him in if he did not have some kind of function. I might put it this way. The story is cast in terms of a good side, and a bad, beauty against ruthless ugliness, tyranny against kingship, moderated freedom with consent against compulsion that has long lost any object save mere power, and so on; but both sides in some degree, conservative or destructive, want a measure of control. But if you have, as it were taken 'a vow of poverty', renounced control, and take your delight in things for themselves without reference to yourself, watching, observing, and to some extent knowing, then the rights and wrongs of power and control might become utterly meaningless to you. It is a natural pacifist view, which always arises in the mind when there is a war. But the view of Rivendell seems to be that it is an excellent thing to have represented, but there are in fact things with which it cannot cope; and upon which its existence nonetheless depends. Ultimately only the victory of the West will allow Bombadil to continue or even survive.Nothing would be left for him in the world of Sauron...
​
While he isn't missed from the film, I do not believe the film is better because of it. He doesn't do much to progress the story, but the book is more than a series of plot points and set pieces. As much as I like the films (and I do despite there being certain choices made I fundamentally disagree with) they are in no way near matching the scope of the books. That is not a slight on the films but a comment on the sheer scale of the world Tolkien created.

I don't think any film-maker could possibly match it, although Peter Jackson and co. came closer than I ever thought possible.
 
Speaking of Bombadil, one thing I did miss from the films was the Barrow-downs. And it actually did have an impact on the story later on, as the sword that Merry took the Barrows and used to stab the Witch King was actually crafted during the war in the North against Angmar. In Tolkien's own words:

J.R.R. Tolkien said:
No other blade, not though mightier hands had wielded it, would have dealt that foe a wound so bitter.
Click to expand...

I always felt it was trivialized a bit by having Aragorn just happen to bring along three or four sets of random swords for the hobbits, which left the question wide open as to just why Merry's blow to the wraith's leg actually hurt him when nothing else could.
 
Jeyl said:
If there was more, she should have been a part of the Fellowship. But than again, why would the Fellowship need anyone who stood up against the nine wraiths at once, won, and got Frodo to Rivendell just in time to save him? Yep.
Click to expand...

Of course that didn't happen in the book. Arwen saves Frodo simply to give Liv Tyler more screen time.
 
micdavis said:
Of course that didn't happen in the book. Arwen saves Frodo simply to give Liv Tyler more screen time.
Click to expand...

Beat me to it. That could be viewed as a departure by Jackson from Tolkien's original narrative when Frodo was saved by... a male character - simply because he wanted to try to "fix" Tolkien's story and pander to female audiences.

Frankly, I'm a little surprised that the sexism thing is even brought up at all. Much of the story was written in the trenches of World War I, when the author was far away from any form of female contact. So, the parts of the story that were written during Tolkien's tour were, perhaps unsurprisingly, beautiful and striking imagery - far away from his own world. Instead of muck, sorrow, darkness, pain, and death, Tolkien wrote about beautiful places filled with light and joy - Rivendell, Lothlorien, the Shire - and wonderful characters which perhaps exemplified the man's longing more than anything else. Arwen is probably the best example of that - and she does serve a purpose in the story - but when viewed through the lens of a soldier in the trenches in 1916, suddenly there's nothing more wonderful in the world than a woman who'll never die, of a city far from war. Every author puts a great deal of themselves on each page, and Tolkien more than most - so it's hardly surprising that Tolkien's obvious yearnings extend into his writings.

One other thing, on a personal level. Though Tolkien was a far greater man than I'll ever be, and I hesitate to compare my own work to his, I will add that, as a male, it's very difficult for me to write strong female characters without them taking over the story. It's very difficult to strike a balance between believable and weak. Tolkien did that very well, and far better than most of his contemporaries.
 
I guess it's my mild OCD, but I do hope they don't cut up the song like that. I like the rhyme scheme of the original and would like to hear all the lines.

Then again, I prefer the animated version's "Chip the glasses" arrangement to the one in the book, so maybe it's what I'm used to that I want to hear.
 
From the production video, looks like PJ is getting back to his old hobbitty self. He'd been looking pretty painfully skinny there for a while.

And they certainly are becoming masters of logistics...
 
On a somewhat related note, what songs do you hope are left in and which ones do you feel it would be ok to leave out? Don't want it to turn into Middle Earth: the Musical do you?

We've already heard that the Misty Mountain song will be in, which I agree with. I think the Funny Little Birds song would fit in. Not so sure I'd want the song the Elves sing in though. They're already established in the moviegoing consciousness as rather somber and solemn. I suppose it could work if handled well though.

Chip the Glasses I think I'd let slide, simply because two songs that close together might be too much.

Clap Snap the Black Crack could also not be worried with.

But Roads Go Ever On and On is a definite inclusion, especially since it was alluded to in the trilogy.

Thoughts?
 
A little elf giddiness could be explained by Gandalf remarking to Elrond (perhaps) that elf mirth seems to diminish as they themselves are fading from Middle Earth. It would make a nice retconned contrast to how they appear in LOTR.
 
Treadwell said:
A little elf giddiness could be explained by Gandalf remarking to Elrond (perhaps) that elf mirth seems to diminish as they themselves are fading from Middle Earth. It would make a nice retconned contrast to how they appear in LOTR.
Click to expand...

I think that was the reason given in the books as well.
 
Jeyl, you make the same tired argument about nearly every film discussed on this forum. Maybe you have missed your true calling. Take it into your own hands, write some books, make some films...and boom, there you go.
 
Wow, I hope he's kidding or this is a fake "spoiler", because Benedict Cumberbatch just went down SEVERELY in my book:

http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2012/01/05/52480-benedict-cumberbatch-reveals-hobbit-tidbit/

Really? The 5 Legions?? You're going to be in The Hobbit and you don't even know what crucial points in the story are called??

And why on MIDDLE EARTH would the Necromancer be at the Battle of Five Armies??? He has NO business there, and on top of that, it wouldn't concern him. It had nothing to do with the Rings of Power...and HE. WASN'T. THERE.

This is up there with the nonsense that Peter Jackson tried to do in RotK when he tried putting in Sauron to fight Aragorn at the Black Gate. Make my go cross eyed; how is that even possible?!

-_- STOP messing with the story and just do it right, Peter, for frig's sakes!! :|
 
I'm willing to bet there's a few people involved for the paycheck and are unfamiliar with the source material or at least not fanatical about it.
 
Jackson came to his senses about Sauron being at the final battle, so I wouldn't be surprised to see this change in the two years before we see the Battle of 5 Armies on screen. I can see where they're going with it though from that article. Don't fully agree, but I see it.
 
micdavis said:
Of course that didn't happen in the book. Arwen saves Frodo simply to give Liv Tyler more screen time.
Click to expand...

Something I have absolutely no problem with.

Pretty much the same reason she's in the Hobbit movies, as I understand.

Again, something I have absolutely no problem with.
 
This thread is more than 11 years old.

Your message may be considered spam for the following reasons:

  1. This thread hasn't been active in some time. A new post in this thread might not contribute constructively to this discussion after so long.
If you wish to reply despite these issues, check the box below before replying.
Be aware that malicious compliance may result in more severe penalties.

Similar threads

bwayne64
Titanic Filming Model
Replies
0
Views
427
bwayne64
bwayne64
edge10
Happy Birthday to Bill Shatner - March 22nd
Replies
3
Views
462
ScourgiousJinx
ScourgiousJinx
Sluis Van Shipyards
Coach filming location question
Replies
2
Views
559
Sluis Van Shipyards
Sluis Van Shipyards
Too Much Garlic
Bring the horror back to the Terminator franchise
2 3
Replies
53
Views
1,394
batguy
B
Captain Dunsel
The Fall Guy: The Motion Picture
2 3
Replies
50
Views
2,034
bwayne64
bwayne64
Back
Top