Finally .... The Hobbit is going to be made into a film! Hobbitwatch

Empire magazine this month has a good account of the story of the Bilbo Baggins saga and how the film rights for Tolkien's work, The Hobbit, was apparently more convoluted than the meandering plot in The Silmarillion. It will be directed by Guillermo del Toro and Peter Jackson will be heavily involved.

Read about it here on Empire magazine
http://www.empireonline.com/futurefilms/film.asp?id=9834

And on the best Tolkien site on the net by a country mile
http://www.theonering.net/

... where they will be watching as every blade of grass is re-assembled around the little Hobbit village of Hobbiton in the little Hobbit country of the Shire.

Click here to see a picture of Bilbo
http://pharyngula.org/images/evil_bilbo.jpg

Enjoy!

I always suspected you for a hobbit lover!

Tolkien was a Shropshire lad and I have oft wondered how much he was influenced by Wales and the Welsh. The names of places have clear Welsh tendencies and as for mines and dwarfs! Also in parts of middle England there is a bemusing tendency to spend time relaying information on lineage. "You know Siân, daughter of Wilfred, related to the Egbert's of Ludlow, you know the ones that, .....yawn". And in Tolkien he does spend an inordinate time on such matters.

hmm, I was excited by the Jackson films when they came out. Now I find them disappointing. When I thought about it and remembered back to when I read the books as a teenager I admitted to myself that I did find the second and third books of the Tolkien trilogy to have been a let down after the brilliant Fellowship of the ring. The Hobbit and the Fellowship of the Ring are closer both chronologically and in spirit - theres none of the Catholic imagery that you get with return of the king or the Anglo-Saxon influence which makes the two towers seem out of place.

So in principal I'll be looking forward to this. On the otherhand be prepared for an unrealistic and grotesque CGI version of Smaug.

Respvblica wrote:

hmm, I was excited by the Jackson films when they came out. Now I find them disappointing. When I thought about it and remembered back to when I read the books as a teenager I admitted to myself that I did find the second and third books of the Tolkien trilogy to have been a let down after the brilliant Fellowship of the ring. The Hobbit and the Fellowship of the Ring are closer both chronologically and in spirit - theres none of the Catholic imagery that you get with return of the king or the Anglo-Saxon influence which makes the two towers seem out of place.

So in principal I'll be looking forward to this. On the otherhand be prepared for an unrealistic and grotesque CGI version of Smaug.

I think it'll be a children's film and hope it'll be a precursor to the Silmarillion Tri-Trilogy (nine parts) but think about the spiders of Mirkwood !!!!! Think about the Bear Man Beorn just before Bilbo finds the ring !!! Nothing else much happens except the final and incredibly unexpectedly violent

Spoiler:

!!!

Guillerlmo del Toro I admire, but i think he is too dark for the Hobbit, a book which has a wam cosy centre. That is what hobbitness is all about.

del Toro will make a warm cosy centre in the cobwebs of Mirkwood alright

Auditor #9 wrote:

del Toro will make a warm cosy centre in the cobwebs of Mirkwood alright

Excellent, I love the book. Is it still going to be Ian McKellan and Ian Holm playing the two leads (and surely Serkis as Gollum)?

The Hobbit had plenty of dark stuff. Never mind Mirkwood, what about the Goblin's layer, or Gollum, or the wolves? Del Toro should make a fine job of it.

Squire wrote:

Tolkien was a Shropshire lad and I have oft wondered how much he was influenced by Wales and the Welsh. The names of places have clear Welsh tendencies and as for mines and dwarfs! Also in parts of middle England there is a bemusing tendency to spend time relaying information on lineage. "You know Siân, daughter of Wilfred, related to the Egbert's of Ludlow, you know the ones that, .....yawn". And in Tolkien he does spend an inordinate time on such matters.

As I recall, the Shire was based around Oxford, for the Trilogy at least.

Auditor #9 wrote:

Respvblica wrote:

hmm, I was excited by the Jackson films when they came out. Now I find them disappointing. When I thought about it and remembered back to when I read the books as a teenager I admitted to myself that I did find the second and third books of the Tolkien trilogy to have been a let down after the brilliant Fellowship of the ring. The Hobbit and the Fellowship of the Ring are closer both chronologically and in spirit - theres none of the Catholic imagery that you get with return of the king or the Anglo-Saxon influence which makes the two towers seem out of place.

So in principal I'll be looking forward to this. On the otherhand be prepared for an unrealistic and grotesque CGI version of Smaug.

I think it'll be a children's film and hope it'll be a precursor to the Silmarillion Tri-Trilogy (nine parts) but think about the spiders of Mirkwood !!!!! Think about the Bear Man Beorn just before Bilbo finds the ring !!! Nothing else much happens except the final and incredibly unexpectedly violent

Spoiler:

!!!

I'd forgotten about those characters.
I didnt like the Orc/goblins of Jackson's Lord of the Rings. They were
grotesque. And I didnt like the elves either. They were boring blonde
aryans. The elves should be lively and playful even if some of them have to be unhumanly good-looking.

I'd love to see the Silmarillion visualised. I liked the Noldor Elves like Feanor. At least he had a bit of a personality.
I always thought Jennifer Connolly would have made a good elf. Maybe too old for Luthien now though.

Will Eddie Hobbs play Bilbo?

Respvblica wrote:

I'd forgotten about those characters.
I didnt like the Orc/goblins of Jackson's Lord of the Rings. They were
grotesque. And I didnt like the elves either. They were boring blonde
aryans. The elves should be lively and playful even if some of them have to be unhumanly good-looking.

I'd love to see the Silmarillion visualised. I liked the Noldor Elves like Feanor. At least he had a bit of a personality.
I always thought Jennifer Connolly would have made a good elf. Maybe too old for Luthien now though.

The Silmarillion - can you imagine it

Jennifer Connolly has that elvish Nargothrond look or maybe the look of some of those Sea-Dwelling elves.

Poor old Paul Hunter the snooker player who went to the Undying Lands fairly recently - I think he would have made a good elf too.

Yes Jennifer's got the grey eyes Tolkien always went on about. She's beautiful in an sharp/elfish way.