Do what you have to do to take care of yourself harry. You wanna live to play around with your future younglings don't ya?

Its a win-win situation.

However, the real question is whether ringwearer9 is currently in the throes of orgasm or violently gnashing his teeth in agony?

Where is ringy? he's bound to explode with sheer jubilation that the hobbit is not being directed by a zombie movie director

Who'd have ever seen that coming?

All that said, few would have guessed Jackson was capable of what he delivered with Lord Of The Rings before those film hit, so who knows? But just on pure gut feeling, not a fan of this choice.

As for Jackson and Heavenly Creatures, yes it was a great film, and yes it showed that he could make a serious film, it didn't show any idication however that he was capable of making an epic filmic saga that delivered in terms of pure popcorn entertainment, visuals and scope, while all the time maintaining depth of story and character at the forefront as well, and balancing all of those ingredients so damn perfectly. Or at least for me it didn't anyway.

You're just bitter because you didn't get the version of Tolkien that you always dreamed of. The version that comes complete with some appaling doggerel and Tom Bombadil.

Although I'm still sore at the waste of a question in the Stallone Q&A that he was responsible for.

ooer!

But with all the same characters and sets laid down by the Jackson, Lord knows he did a sterling job bringing Middle Earth to life but Jackson plus Guillermo is a match made in heaven! Only things i'm worried about are the studio or ratings folk might not be able to handle a Guillermo Del Torro Hobbit! and this might all be a load of bunkum which will unmake my day!

Maybe now we won't get pointless scenes like the "Warg" attack in TT, and maybe now we won't get ONE shot of a character saying "Saruman" into the camera.

This should guarantee that the grittiness the series deserves, even in The Hobbit, will return. I love it!!

Denzel for Bard!!

and Hulk Hogan for Bilbo!

"MY PYTHONS ARE PUMPED BROTHA!!!!"points finger at Gollum and Legdrops that little bastard.

And Gandalf says:"Lets saveh sohmah treehs ah for the Buddha Bihlbo!"

He'll have an unbelievably pointy headed solution.

I've started a boycott The Hobbit movies poll here: tinyurl.com/489teu32 and I suggest that anyone with even an ounce of decency left intact sign my poll to stop any more future examples of this elitist, blue-blooded propoganda. Join me, my fellow movie fans, and we can truly make a change...by signing my poll!

One thing I'm still not sold on is the second film; the one that's supposed to bridge THE HOBBIT with LOTR. Sure, I suppose there is a ton of material there with which to craft a storyline. But there is no central character and there is very little dialog. I'll be interested to see how that one plays out after THE HOBBIT makes its run.

"HISSSSSSS"

At any rate, glad to hear he would keep within the movie Middle-earth universe that PJ has already put out. Continuity is very important. I loved Pan's Labyrinth so this gives me hope.

Curse posting from workies anyway!

I believe the Elves were quite “badassed” in the Battle of Five Armies, yes? Didn’t Bilbo choose to stay with them during the battle?

I too would love to see something done from the Silmarillion but it’s a bit large in scope, yes? How about selected tales like ‘The Tale of Beren and Luthien (C’mon, Sauron as a werewolf AND vampire? Even Vern would be happy about that {[:^))’. ‘The Children of Hurin’ is already a stand alone book so it would also be a great and obvious choice. Lawks, it’s got love, incest, murder, a BIGGER dragon, Morgoth (that settles it IMHO), petty Dwarves and totally bad-assed Elves. No pirates or vampires though. Man, I can only dream about ANY of the Silmarillion being turned into a movie. Aiya!

Ungoliant: Gimme whatcher holdin' behind yer back, Blackheart!

Morgoth: Gulp, aintcha full yer great glutton?

I guess ol' Morgy was doin' Her Blackness a favor since they would've probably burnt right through her gut!

"Pan's Labyrinth" might not have played as huge in scale as "Lord of the Rings," but the visual and emotional subtleties in Del Toro's opus were about as solid as I've ever seen in a film. Ofelia was a wonderful central character, and Guillermo handled her role with respect and deep empathy. That's not an easy thing to do, which is what gives me confidence he'd do a great job with "The Hobbit" duology.

Also, for anyone who doesn't know: the first film will be "The Hobbit," taken from the classic Tolkien novel, while the second film will center on events surrounding Gandalf's investigation of The Necromancer -- a nasty entity who turns out to be Sauron -- in Mirkwood's Dol Guldur. A massive battle led by Gandalf ensues that drives The Necromancer out, pushing him into Mordor, where Sauron goes to rebuild his armies and reclaim his evil glory.

Sounds pretty badass to me. I hope Del Toro can do it justice.

You're obviously entitled to your opinion of how many films Jackson/Del Toro should make, but wouldn't it be incredible to see a big-budget Middle Earth story (Gandalf, The Necromancer, and the battle of Dol Guldur) that no one's ever seen before hit the screen?

Also, Mattyboy122, it's untrue that nothing happens. Google "Dol Guldur" and you'll get loads of very specific information about what happens. I'm sure PJ and Del Toro will add and make stuff up to augment the drama, but I'm excited to see the story they'll tell.

So why not piece together a narrative that complements "The Hobbit" with extremely well-documented footage from supplementary tales? It could work. Especially with creative people like Jackson and Del Toro at the helm.

By the way, have you googled "Dol Guldur" yet? It might give you some food for thought.

Anyone who expects that they're be major thematic and stylistic changes will be sorely disappointed, by nothing more than their own self-denial.

Peter Jackson brought Tolkien to the screen, his vision will remain so long as it's being made by his company; with him and his wife writing and producing.

Myself, I'm quite glad.

But as Mattyboy122 also failed to acknowledge, many of the scenes that worked (whether you think they did or not) were invented or augmented scenes that never appeared in the books. Plus the decision to remove Tom Bombadil turned out to be a VERY good idea, since the film would've slowed to a crawl before it went anywhere with Tom included. This is my opinion, obviously, but I think the majority of LOTR fans would agree with me. "Appropriate editing" wouldn't have done much for the film in this case, would you agree?

Plus, I think you're being narrow minded reducing the second "Hobbit" film to a "... whupass fights version of a Prequel [that] just screams out as lame Tolkien Fanfic with a giant ass budget." As before, you're entitled to your opinion, but it ain't Fanfic since the events were outlined and written by J.R.R. himself.

I'm not saying these films will amaze people or play as well as Jackson's "Lord of the Rings." Del Toro has a lot to live up to in this department. What I'm saying is that, to me, the two-film format might deliver with good writers, WETA, and Del Toro directing. "Pan's Labyrinth" was enough to convince me he could handle it.

Yes, let’s condemn the very notion of a movie maker providing continuity between movies before we’ve seen it on the screen. Oh sure, curse PJ’s very name to all of Arda for even mentioning a second movie. I’ll bet Jupiter is starting to wobble on its axis as I type this. Is that the sound of a tiny cow being berthed? Sigh, here we go again with the Cult of Tolkien Fundamentalist. And having an opinion doesn't automatically infer rightness. O the damned hoot!

Whoever the poster was who asked about Saruman being in The Hobbit, no, but we'll probably see him in the second movie when the Whote Council meets. See RoTK, Appendix B. Hey, maybe that title would satisfy The Purist. O the hoot!

You act like that's some tiny cult of people. It's only a couple billion or more.

MandolorianShoutingSa ge: Were you asleep? Saruman got his on the great spikey wheel o' death in the beginning (Extended Edition) of RoTK. Bosh, the theatrical version don't count but Saruman's imprisonment was referred to by Treebeard in that one too.

O the floot!

Hobbit I can wait for. Hobbit 2: Walk Harder I can wait even longer for. Mountains of Madness' Time, my friends, is upon us.

My reservations about what such comments mean to a Hobbit film are directly proportional to how awful the Elves at Helms Deep were, for example (without even ten-foot-pole touching the mercifully excised ‘Arwen’ warrior Princess crap that was filmed). In addition to being the finest cinematic cheese with the silly walk marching and Haldir's 'I could give a damn' death only serving to highlight the fact that they called that old war the *Last Alliance of Elves and Men*...not the 'Penultimate Team Up of Pointys and Not' or the ‘Last Alliance until we abruptly decided it wasn’t’. When you pull that kind of shit you end up sucking the air out of the story by cheapening the narrative. If Galadriel in the introduction points out the ‘Last Alliance’ it helps make a strong statement about the differing path of Men and Elves and adds a good bit of gravitas to the situation. When you blow that off in the second film you start allowing your audience to suspect you might just be peddling the usual cheap fantasy crap that sounds like the scribbling of a paint huffing D & D nerd. Tolkien’s story hangs together so well because of small but hugely meaningful details like that and screwing around with them casually stands out as massive hack work.

The point of making these comments Tinfang is to bitch about what the films *could be* based on what we’ve heard that the people in charge have suggested they’d like. It’s like free focus group input encouraging our valiant filmmakers to see the light as we see it. If I hadn’t read the interview material with Jackson talking shit about this ‘variant’ I wouldn’t have been all that stressed assuming he would have the good sense to stick with the tone of the book as he did very very successfully with the Rings films.

Sadly, at this point it’s looking a hell of a lot like this is a big case of a bunch of Dwarves (New Line) hiring an ill prepared Hobbit ‘Burglar’ (Jackson) to plunder the horde of an Evil Dragon (the filmgoing public).

The irony is of course that I quite liked the Trilogy. I felt Two Towers was the weakest although Return of the King had the most heinous atrocities. I don’t think it’s a surprise that the bits that hove most closely to the books had the most power. Most people remember the bits swiped and swapped from the book, Gandalf chatting with Frodo about consequences, the bridge of Khazad-Dum, Boromir’s heroic death, the Ents attack on Isengard, the charge of the Mumakil, etc. Many of my non-Tolkien reading friends were like ‘Wow…that stuff’s amazing’. When I asked them about the ‘added’ bits they either seemed to think them unremarkable, occasionally peculiar and some outright dumb. I’d love a Hobbit that avoided ‘the dumb’ as much as possible.

But most importantly are far less likely to screw up something that's already good. Sequels usually just trash the name of the originals by fucking up the story and characters. Big Time. Someone will now say something about Star Wars to make a cheap point, but I will ignore them. This has been tonight's Word.

But I take back the "biotch", as you already said something about Godfather. See how Godfather II, being both a sequel and prequel, is capable of easing the strife? I hereby sign a declaration of cessation of hostilities.

I guess I just see watchful concern but Jackson’s comments which, when updated, seem to refer to the bridge movie. I believe he did say “faithful” adaptation of the Hobbit, didn’t he? Why not be optimistic about it instead of hyperbolic negativity right out of the starting gate? Again, I share your concern but all the good PJ did in LoTR far, far outweighed the negative. I tend to go the Cole Porter route and accentuate the positive.

Still don’t agree that Haldir and crew at HD were “awful.” Yes, if you are included in that breed of LoTR fundamentalist but happily, I’m not when it comes to movie adaptations. What you see as silly, others clearly do not. Now, excising Arwen from the final cut was a mercy to even the slightest of LoTR, the book, fans. I completely agree with you there and wouldn’t you say that’s a positive indication of having people steer Jackson away from such idiocy? I think PJ learned a lot from fan response and the removal of Arwen at HD proves it. Now he has a director, not just Fran and Philippa, to keep him constrained from his excesses. I say rejoice! Eglerio!

Finally (everyone cheers), there is book precedence for more “alliance” fighting where men and elves join forces. Look at the Battle of Five Armies from the Hobbit. That was post Last Alliance yet it happened, yes? That was a temporary alliance of convenience just as Jackson depicted in Two Towers. It wasn’t meant to convey another great alliance but rather a smaller scale tactical force multiplier, in the military sense. Jackson had precedence provided by no less than Tolkien. Maybe he did pick up a few things from the books after all. Too bad he missed the Scouring of the Shire but that’s for another debate.

I still believe in Vern, though. That's what makes the magic real.

Okay, I guess I've been up too long. That magic talk was out of line.

so who won the smackdown, gents? cholera, are you standing proud? terry, are you triumphant? or are both you girls wallowing in a morass of your own doo doo butter?

http://tinyurl .com/2wqbv5

Oh. My. God.

Ranger 1: "Pfftt---shoop-WHOOSSHHH! Holy Western Elf tits, where'd you get this shit Mablung?!! Hoo-and-hah but that'll straighten out your pubes!

Ranger 2: "Remember that Thorongil guy, y'know, great fighter but was kinda skanky? He got this shit from some runts out West. Hoblits or something like that. Said they were a bit on the tooty-fruity side but they grow some awesome shit. I'm about out but he said he'd be back sometime and he'd cop some more for his buds. Got any of that honey cake left?"

Ranger 1: "Fuck, here comes that stick up his ass Boromir! Better stash that stuff!"

TerryMalloy or any other who has read Silmarilion--what settings did that book take place in and how well were they described? I'd like to at least see some new stuff for the bridge movie, like Rhun, like I said, if they're gonna do it anyway.

Then 'The Avengers' and 'At The Mountains of Madness' come out in the summer of 2012 and the world immediately collapses into a black hole under the weight of all that coolness.

As much as I loved Jackson's films, this sounds just fine to me. We get a change of pace and new characters while still retaining Jackson's involvement (and hopefully WETA and some of the same actors). It should be loads of fun.

Perlman as Smaug would be terrific. Working Doug Jones into it would be terrific. As much as I liked Serkis, I think I preferred the "transitional" non-CG Gollum we saw in flashbacks to the fully-CG version. On repeated viewings, it doesn't work as well for me as the real actors do.

Good luck, Guillermo!

should i read the hobbit? or the simallimilarilion? i never bothered with either because i had conceptions about them...the hobbit being wimpy, the other one with the long name being obstruse. am i wrong?

Xiphos, I have a great fondness for Beyond Thunderdome. The cage colloseum with the gratuitous chainsaws was the ShEET. At least it was when I saw it as a wee lad.

By the way I recognize Middle English because I think Chaucer is the man.

well i have a borders coupon and i will go get the hobbit tomorrow on your excellent recommendations, gents. i think my misconceptions of the hobbit arise from the bakshi animation. not that there's ANYTHING wrong with bakshi but it's planted in my head as being kind of warm and fuzzy, you know? i am glad to prove myself wrong.

And if anyone says I'm being a dingbat Tolkien nerd, I shall STRIKE THEM DOWN WHERE THEY STAND.

And by the way, if a cable guy ever starts wanting to hang out with me I'm going to kill the fucker and make it look like an accident. I'm sorry but that's just how it has to be.

xi, you drive a ducati? that's hot.

Also, what is a Silmaril, and can that book have any influence on The Hobbit 2?

Of course, there are some rounds that will fuck up your chili bowl worse than others if it doesn't hit something critical, but I know you have to already be very well versed in the whole science of that.

The Silmarillion has a lot of cool worlds. But unlike the Hobbit, it actually is very dense, simply because of all the unfamiliar locations, names, etc. I've only read it once but it's more like a history book than a fantasy novel. You'll want to have the Maps of Middle Earth laid out on the table as you go through this thing.

And if I'm not mistaken, Middle Earth does not look the same at all from age to age. Continents shift like Pangea. It's craziness.

Since we know PJ reads these TB's, let me offer up a suggestion. I know from reading The History of the Hobbit that Tolkien had originally named Gandalf "Bladorthin." Know where I'm headed? Yep, get Wesley Snipes to play, tah-dah, BLADEORTHIN in the Hobbit! That would bring him back for one more movie and I'm sure the writers will have no problem working in the angle of Gand, erm, I mean Bladeorthin being a vampire Istari. That'll also make the TOLKIEN IS A RACIST! crowd happy. Man, they could cast Tommy Lee Jones (just cuz he's on a roll...no Blade connexion) as Thorin Oakenshield too and I'm sure Kris Kristopherson(sp?) would be happy to play Beorn. While they're at it, get Bruce Willis to play a foul-mouthed wise cracking Bard of Esgaroth and I think we've made you a happy, happy Vern. Whatcha think?

Sigh, looks like I'm back in form, eh elanor-lass?

BTW, did you mean M-4 or M-14? I prefer an M-240 or SAW meeself.

As far as Freddy or Blade...I like Freddy, but Jesus, I could beat the shit out of him, because I've seen Dream Warrior a thousand times. I even have the Dream Warrior soundtrack. Also, Robert Englund hasn't been scary since V: The Series.

That said, the fucks at New Line thought they could rob the artists by shilling out a shitty version of The Golden Compass probably thinking that the people loved LOTR because it had whimsy and elves and shit. This is why Hollywood is a festering crotch wound; everyone with money gets some kind of fucking mental retardation from being rich or something, and just allow shit like Daddy Day Camp to exist. For every damned LOTR series we get, there are literally 20 or 30 middle of the road 'safe' flicks that I don't want to see.

I say another Freddy movie would be great, but get Wes Craven off his ass and make up for Scream. Though, horror movies need to do something special these days to fuck with people and actually, you know, scare them. Folks these days don't seem to get scared at the movies. I don't mean 'eerie, because fingers are coming out of Jessica Alba's eye' kind of scary, I'm talking about Cronenberg in the bathroom in his rubber trenchcoat offing himself with a pair of scissors in Dead Zone. That will FUCK A BODY UP.

Hobbits aren't gay, but the entire concept of their fruity innocence and youthful appearance shames the closet homos into barking about how 'gay' they are. I think dudes with moustaches like Triple H are kind of gay, but that's because a guy I know likes dudes like that.

More Hobbit flicks after the Blade series continues, besides Snipes needs to get out of hock somehow, and I know for damn sure there's no 'Money Train 2' in the works.

I don't think the screenwriters need to delve into the Silmarillion, however. It would be extremely cool if they touched on it though. It is, after all, the backstory to the Hobbit as well. Tolkien refers to it when Gandalf is telling about the blades (Sting, Glamdring and Orcrist) they find in the trolls hideaway. "They are from lost Gondolin!" or something like that. "The glimpse of a hidden vista." as Tolkien used to say.