Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Three Films

So, it seems the rumors (or is that 'rumours'?) were true: Peter Jackson announced yesterday that, having just concluded principal photography on the two HOBBIT movies, he's now decided to go ahead and make it THREE films instead.

Obviously, this will involve new filming, new scripting, new everything. There's much speculation about where he cd break Bilbo's story into three pieces, but I don't think that's what they'll do. Consider: it's only four and a half months until the release date of the first film. Given all the special effects, scoring, editing, &c. they'll have to do, it's too late to change that one much. Besides which it's clear from hints Jackson has been dropping for a while that he really wants to film material from the Appendices (which for all events and purposes means Appendix B, supplemented by Appendix A). So I think the two HOBBIT films will remain pretty much as they are, and that the third film will be a 'bridge' spanning events from the years between Bilbo's return home and the Long-Expected party sixty years later. We know a lot about the events in these years, but since Tolkien chose not to write that story, any movie based on these materials will obviously contain less Tolkien, and more Jackson, than any of the other five. We'll see what they come up with.

Four and a half months to go . . .

--John R.
current reading: WHERE THEY STAND and MEMOIRS OF HECATE COUNTY









4 comments:

David Bratman said...

And yet more stuff for Mike Foster to have to remind the students in his Tolkien classes that they got that from the movie they saw, not from the book they were supposed to read.

John D. Rateliff said...

Hi David
It never fails to amaze me that people would sign up for a class devoted to reading one of the best books ever written, and then not read the book. Gah!

--John R.

Brer said...

Dear Mr. Rateliff, I was wondering if you could shed some light on when and how the phrase "The Journey Begins" became associated with "The Hobbit"? I possess an old black-light poster from the Seventies that clearly shows Bilbo, dwarves, and a wizard in a landscape with hobbit holes labelled only with this phrase, and now I see it linked with the first of the Jackson Hobbit movies. Is it a quote from the book? Yrs. in puzzlement, BB.

John D. Rateliff said...

Dear Brer

Don't know the answer to that one, I'm afraid. I had that old poster too, as well as the Canty one. Wish I still had a copy, but it's long since gone. Thanks for the reminder of days gone by.

--John R.

P.S.: If anyone, Gary Hunnewell wd be the one to ask.