XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien
From: mr@sandman.net
In article ,
Stan Brown wrote:
> > Does anyone have a clear idea of how Jackson is splitting /The Hobbit/
> > into two films?
>
> I assume it's by making stuff up. Certainly the fragmentary reports
> we've seen include lots of characters that were never in the book.
Surely, but they are not splitting the story into two parts by adding
characters. That's mixing concepts. They may make the story *longer*
by adding characters and story elements, which thus leads to the
necessity to split the story into more than one part. My
interpretation of the OP was that it was an inquiry as to what parts
of the original story that is in the first and what parts are in the
second.
Since Smaug doesn't enter into the book until well into the last
third, it seems rather safe to assume that the second part of the
story would be centered around the cave, the mounatins and the dragon
itself. It seems likely, and not unexpected, for this story element to
be given a lot of screen time, since it is in many parts a lot of
"action sequences" in the book. I would assume that this part would
require little "embellishment" in ways of added characters and story
elements. I expect that most of what isin the books is greatly
expanded upon, like their time in the village, Bilbos sneaking in the
caves and such.
This means that the first part of the story may contain more added
content than the second. Parts of the book that could be greatly
expanded are things like the Gollum part (which is expected, given his
"legacy" from the prior movies). The goblin caves, the eagles, the
spiders and the wolves are all action sequences that hopefully are
longer than the very few paragraphs used to describe them in the book.
Then I expect the time spent in Rivendell to be where most of the
added characters will make an appearance. I really have no problem
with this. It's not like Galadriel will come along on their journey,
or Legolas to keep them comapny to Beorn (a part of the story I expect
to be fully left out, like Bombadill). I wouldn't even feel that the
presence of Galadriel in Rivendell would be diversion from the *book*,
since there are several unnamed elven characters in the book.
And it even makes sense that she is there, since she was a member of
the White Council, and Gandalf did leave the company to travel to Dol
Goldur with the Council shortly after their visit to Rivendell.
Legolas may be a stretch, but even though it isn't much explained in
thebook - the doings of the White Council and the journey that Gandalf
makes. I would very much like to see an interpretation of those
actions brought to the screen, which of course would explain the added
length greatly.
I'm sure this would trouble purists greatly :)
> > I've seen all sorts of discussion on casting and
> > locations and schedules, but hardly *anything* on what's expected to
> > be in the story (or about the two movie split). Am I just missing
> > things? Am I the only one who cares more about story issues than who
> > got cast as Dwalin?
>
> I'm heaving a big sigh and resigning myself to another two years of
> people raving about how wonderful and faithful to Tolkien it all is.
> Pfui.
"another"? As if there have been years of people proclaiming that the
Lord of the Rings movies were "wonderful and faithful to Tolkien"?
> Having made this one comment, I'm going to do my best to sit on my
> hands through those discussions, unsubscribing the newsgroup if I
> can't otherwise restrain myself, because I am clearly out of step
> with the majority who just love, love, love Jackson.
I can't think of any regular poster in this group that would stand for
that comment.
> I'm not going to convince them, and they're not going to convince
> me.
Surely USENET wasn't made to convince people? :-D
--
Sandman[.net]
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