Old Friends, Familiar Faces

HijiNKS ENSUE British Knights Shirt at TopatocoThere is a new HE Podcast. Download episode 77!

You can still order Ultimate Fancy Editions of HE Book 2 AND get your name in the book until I tell you otherwise. Could be a few more days, or longer. Not Sure Yet.

I don’t mind Frodo being added to The Hobbit, despite the fact that he would have been a some kind of halfling larva during the events of the books. Now that Peter Jackson is at he helm I do not fear for the quality of the movie in the least. Where Tolkien is concerned, Peter Jackson can do no wrong. He took plenty of liberties with the Lord of the Rings trilogy in adapting them for film and I would say the stories were no worse for the ware. Forget that entire plot points, even entire chapters were left out of the films, there were plenty of times when a certain character;s actions were just attributed to a completely different character. Again, not a problem as long as Jackson is doing the driving. I firmly believe his editing, character alterations and scene deletion/combing are the only reasons LOTR was even filmable. To film the story as Tolkien wrote it would have been like trying to make a movie out of the assembly instructions for a Metalunan Interocitor.

Though I wouldn’t be surprised of the addition of Frodo had been a request from the studio. I can see the suits giving Jackson notes like, “Who was that little guy from the last 3 pictures? Frildo? Franco? Was it James Franco? The kid with the arm? Get him  back! We need the little guy or people won’t know what movie they’re watching! And what about this dragon? Can he be less Reign Of Fire and more How to Train Your…? We need something cute for the kiddos. Ok, what about that Narnia beaver? Kids love beavers! And are we married to this Gandalf? Can we get a different wizard? Get Disney on the phone and see if those Waverly Place kids have passports! And check IMDB and let me know if any of the Dumbledores are still alive. We need wizard options people!”

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22 Comments

  1. Wolverine vs gandalf you say?
    I would watch that.

    btw, I should be able to stop myself saying this, but I can't. "finding there way into the film" should be "finding their way into the film"
    Sorry.

  2. They might have Frodo reading from Bilbo's Red book, then the "Wayne's World" ™ ripple effect takes them into the past…*todlootdlootdloo..*

  3. Thank the sparkly powers above Jackson (blessed be his name) did take liberties.
    Tolkien, wordsmith that he was.. he sure could ramble. IF Jackson hadn't adapted it for visual media the way he did imagine all the bullshit singing etc there would of been any time an elf stepped onto the screen.

    The Hobbit will be awesome

  4. Eh, I can't say either way if I'm excited or not about Frodo coming back to Middle Earth, but if it's depicted in the way that the link states by introducing the story as Frodo and Gamgee hear of the story and the book is passed on then I can see a use for it.

  5. Apparently I'm the only person who's actually kind of pissed about this. Huh. Oh well, I hated the movies anyway; the only reason I would have seen TH at all was for Martin Freeman, and now I don't have to bother.

  6. I am also pissed about this, because frankly the math doesn't add up. In the first LotR book, Bilbo is celebrating his, what, 111th birthday? And he went on his quest with the dwarves when he was about 30? So, what, is Frodo negative 30-40 years old? If they are going to bring a recurring character into this movie (which was the first J.R.R. Tolkein book I ever read, so therefore my favorite) then they should at least get the time line right instead of saying "hurr durr, Elijah Wood was popular, so he can be in this movie too! :-D" *sigh* It just frustrates me when the film makers don't take the feelings of the Tolkein enthusiasts seriously.

    • Wait…Elijah Wood was popular? I skip all the bits of Sam & Frodo in the movies because they (like the bits in the book) are extremely boring.

    • You are forgetting, there are still two logical ways Frodo can appear, o more accurately, Elijah Wood.
      Way 1: Framed narrative, the movie starts with Frodo opening the Red Book and reading from it, or possibly even narrating.
      Way 2: Frodo does not appear, instead, Wood plays the part of Drogo Baggins, Frodo's father and Bilbo's relative.

  7. The first 2 LOTR were awesome, but RETURN OF THE KING was not that great. Jackson swore up and down he'd never include flashbacks to the previous films in the series, so the first 5 or so minutes are flashbacks to ROTK. Oops. Plus after deleting Saruman's death scene, he probably still gets threatening phone calls from Christopher Lee in the middle of the night, threatening to go "Sith Dracula" on his arse…

    • saruman's death scene is in the extended edition, and apparently Christopher Lee knew the real sound people make when they get stabbed. something to do with working for the brit's government at one time, I heard.

  8. It's not so bad as we thought. Apparently Frodo will be reading the story from the Red Book, sometime before LotR but WAY WAY after the actual events of The Hobbit. So that's OK.

  9. Add to that:

    Gimli was a buffoonish comic relief character- exactly opposite from the book.
    Faramir- acted in the exact opposite way his character did in the book.
    Pippin and Merry – idiot comic relief – nothing close to the book.
    Arwen- now a mighty warrior!
    Gandalf- meh. I'm tired.

    Basically there were tons of changes made, many of them weren't needed to transition from movie to book, they were just done because Jackson and team thought it was better that way.

    Here we go again with the Hobbit. Maybe they can just have Legolas accompany them through the whole story. In fact, why not make HIM the one to shoot the arrow into Smaug's heart? He was way more popular than any new character would be.

  10. Ah, the movie would show Hobbiton and bring back The Shire theme within the first five minutes of the film anyways. Hobbiton is the Tatooine of Middle Earth.

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