Yep, I did the math. Aragorn would've been 9 years old during The Hobbit, which takes place 61 years prior to Lord of the Rings. This movie has already failed. Sorry.

and Del Toro will still not have made his Cthulhu movie.

Holm's a lively old coot and with a wig, some creative CGI and doubles there's no reason they can't make him work in the part.

Hater, the movie about Ringwearer9 and his relationship with peter jackson {[:^)

thats the concept i thought M Night's new one was going to be wrapped around, when i saw the first teaser. boy was i wrong.

http://tinyurl.com/5sfo4c

Elrond: Hey Bilbo, come meet this little knocker named Estel.

"When 900 year old YOU become, look as good you will not!"

Holm's a great actor but it would look silly for him to play the lead role in what are likely to be action-heavy films in heavy makeup.

If Ewan McGregor can play a young Alec Guinness, i don't doubt they find a younger actor to channel Holm.

and yeah, if its done as faithfully as No Country was, I'll be a happy boy.

BTW, compared to those in the past, you're a pretty lousy troller. But, please, keep it up with the entertaining cliches (snore)...

DANNY...no problem as your post are routinely incomprehensible. At least you admit you're a troller.

The novels are still a good read, but Jackson took what worked from them and made the story even better, even if he should have been a little more savage when slicing out some of Tolkeins, let's face it, hugely dated dialogue. If he & Guillermo can make a pair of decent, grown up films out of the twee fairy tale of The Hobbit then they'll have earned my cash at the cinema.

--Christopher Guest, Waiting for Guffman

Smaug's voice? Ron Perlman or Ian McShane.

I can get behind either Freeman of McAvoy as Bilbo. Or perhaps an unknown who can "channel" Holm as someone suggested before.

sigh...

1)Gary Oldman,

2)Hugh Laurie

3)Tim Roth,

that's just off the top of my head.

Americans that do great English accents:

Renee Zellwegger (I fucking despise Bridget Jones but she was spot on)

2)Gwyneth Paltros (SLiding Doors- Fucking hate it, perfect accent) and so forth.

However, Americans that do serious damage to ANY accent: Kevin Costner, Keanu Reeves,

I think they give the rest of their actors the bad name.

The WORST accent of all time was, funnily enough, one of Britain's greatest ever accents: John Geilguld playing a southern preacher. AWFUL.

One of the funniest slams I ever read in a review was where the critic lambasted an actor for overplaying his part by stating that "apparently, he'd been thrown out of the Brian Blessed School of Acting for laughing too loudly."

Now THAT'S comedy.

Aragorn should look like he 30 frm the age he is about 30 until he is about 120 ish, thats what they did, they did not get too old looking even when they were 200 odd, because they did not fear death, it was the fear of Death, which illuvatar gave to men as a gift that he did not give the Eldar that cause people to die sooner and get old and tired. Thats what Tolien wrote anyway

So Viggo playing Aragorn in the seocond movie if its set during white council and dol guldur would probably be fine, but they should young up hsi beard and that just to indicate he is slightly younger in Numenorian years.

Bear in mind that the entire first film here, will be about Bilbo and the Dwarves, there will not even be that much Gandalf as he alwasy buggers off and then comes back from time to time, no Aragorn, small roles for Elrond and Gollum and possibly a very short Cameo of Legolas, (His Elves were written as bad guys in the book BTW. Until they get to Laketown and then they can have some Humans, completely different tone of film from LOTR.

Therefore the Jump from the Hobbit to LOTR for those fans who dont read books, would be quite a jump in tone. Therefore... I think the second film showing how this lighter tone of events, (well it does get a bit darker once they get to the Battle of the five Armies) is the catalyst that causes the events of LOTR is an excellent idea, but only those that were actualy involved in those events should be therei.e. no Legolas or Gimli please.

Also someone a while back said Saruman as a good guy...

Well if you read the history of the Istari, you would know thta Saruman was never a good guy even in Valinor, he wnaterd to come to Middle Earth to get the ring for himself, he was greedy for power and alwasy feared and was jealous of Gandalf, but Humble as Gandalf was (at times) he always gave Saruman his place as leader of the Istari, until he realised all too late what was going on.

So Saruman would still ahve to play that part of decieveing everyone and having his own schemes

In fact does Saruman not block the sacking of Dol Guldur as long as he can? And Galadriel wanted Gandalf to be the leader of the WC not Saruman!

All of these plot lines and skullduggery make for an interesting story, hope they make it before Chris Lee dies off.

There you go

Sauron, when they discover who the Necromancer really is, Gandlaf could explain soem of Morgoth and Saurons history.

Numenor - this could be explained in aragorns peoples backstory.

Children of Hurin - some of his could be shown explaning how Dragons came into being and the first Dragon that was killed by Turin.

If done correctly these would realy enhance the big scale of these films and show us some of the History told in the Silmarillion????

Guillermo and the writers may choose to touch on the larger history of Middle Earth too. In subtle ways, not sweeping info-dumpy expositions.

As a fan of the books but also the movies, I'm excited as hell for these "Hobbit" films.

"Dol Guldur was established by Sauron after his return to Middle-earth somewhere after 1000 Third Age, although his identity was long unknown. Dol Guldur was originally known as Amon Lanc (bald hill), and had been the capital of Oropher's Silvan Elves, who had departed north to the Black Mountains (later known as the Mountains of Mirkwood). After Sauron took over Amon Lanc, Thranduil son of Oropher led his people over the Forest River, where they remained.

The White Council long feared the power in Dol Guldur might be Sauron. In 2063, Gandalf went to Dol Guldur, and Sauron, not yet powerful, fled to the east, returning in 2460 just as the One Ring was obtained by Sméagol the Stoor. However, the Ring disappeared with Sméagol under the Hithaeglir.

In 2845, Thráin II, King of Durin's folk in exile and holder of the last of the Seven Rings of the Dwarves, was imprisoned in Dol Guldur's dungeons. In 2850 Gandalf again entered Dol Guldur, finding the dying Thráin, and was entrusted with the map and key to give to Thorin Oakenshield, although Thráin could not tell him his own or his son's name before he died. Gandalf confirmed that Sauron was the master of Dol Guldur at that time.

Gandalf returned to the White Council and urged an attack on Dol Guldur, but was overruled by Saruman, who had begun his own search for the One Ring in that area. In 2941, Saruman finally agreed to an attack, which occurred at the same time as the Quest of Erebor. This was carefully planned by Gandalf so that Sauron and Smaug could not assist each other, as they otherwise surely would have done. Sauron fled to Mordor, his plans now ready. Dol Guldur remained staffed by Khamûl, a lieutenant of Barad-dûr and second of the Nazgûl.

During the War of the Ring, the forces of Dol Guldur made three assaults upon Lórien, causing grievous damage to the outlying woodlands. They were driven back each time by the power of Nenya, which only Sauron himself could have overcome. After Sauron perished, Celeborn led the Lórien host over the Anduin and captured Dol Guldur. Thus Dol Guldur was finally cleansed by the Elves of Lórien, for Galadriel herself came forth and "threw down its walls and laid bare its pits". Renamed Amon Lanc it was part of Celeborn's realm of East Lórien for a time."

For those who aren't familiar with Tolkien's unfinished tales, I hope this helps. I don't know that much about them, either, but I've read all the books and a few of the tales.

Imagine a scene with Galadriel, in all her fiery rage, throwing down Dol Guldur's walls and laying bare its pits. Damn...

I speculate that Gladriel became even more powerful after the destruction of the One Ring since she could weild it without fear of Sauron taking over. O yes, I would love to see that! Erm, unless it would show her in even more of the Electric Bugaloo stage.

I would also have loved to see the Ents wiping out the force of orcs who were to lay waste to Rohan while Theoden and crew were away at Minas Tirith. Sigh, maybe some day...

The Appendices to LotR set out the events over the next 60 years. There's no obvious dramatic climax before Bilbo's Party.

Nothing in "Unfinished Tales" or "The History of Middle Earth" hints at a dramatic story during that period. Aragorn grows up, meets Arwen, fights battles, walks the earth having adventures and stuff, searches for Gollum and captures him, but no climactic event occurs.

That being said...I do have the right to say I was disappointed (1st key word: DISAPPOINTED) that the synopsis (2nd key word: SYNOPSIS) of the story was far from intact.

Am I upset that Legolas surfed down the stairs at Helm's Deep? Nope.

Am I disappointed Aragorn didn't carry the Sword that was Broken? Yep.

Am I disappointed that Ghan-Bhuni-Ghan was not in the films? Ummm...not really.

Tom Bombadil and the Barrow-Wights? Yep.

Upset that Bilbo's song about Earendil the Mariner wasn't sung at Rivendell? Hardly.

Gimli being portrayed as a bumbling FOOL? Yeah...I didn't care for that.

So all this talk about "Sculpture vs. Painting" doesn't hold water. It's like saying you're gonna do a sculpture of DaVinci's painting of the Last Supper, but you're throwing out half the disciples and replacing them with Roman Centurians and women for "dramatic effect"...because the general public will go for soldiers and chicks a lot more than 12 disciples.

Now...will I shell out good dough for Hobbit theater tickets and Hobbit DVD sets? Undoubtedly. Will I be disappointed? That remains to be seen....but with Walsh and Boyens doing the writing....well, I'll reserve judgement until we have a product to judge.

The adaptation of existing material from the novel was pretty cool in places. Classic cases: the escape from Moria, the lighting of the Beacons.

The "new" ideas (Frodo at Osgiliath, Sam sent home, Scary Faramir, Arwen's fate tied to the Ring etc) were weak and introduced contradictions into the plot.

Here's hoping the writers curb their ingenuity.

That said, I certainly share the concerns over the writing

irritable, don't you think the second movie could have the White Council carrying out an assault on DolGuldur as a possible climax? I think there will be plenty of ingenuity on display...for better or worse.

Does it really matter? Only in so far as the writers have tended to stuff things up when they invent new plot details.

I agree that the Witchking/Gandalf slapdown was grating and unnecessary.

I guess we have to be grateful for the excision of Xarwen.

The one omission which seems remarkable, because it's the most cinematic incident in the whole novel, was the rising and dissipation of the vast black Sauronic cloud over Barad Dur as the Ring is destroyed. The collapse of the Tower in RotK was probably a technical tour de force of CGI, but the book's description of the huge column of smoke and fire in the form of Sauron seemed like an obvious opportunity for a mammoth CGI climax.

"Come not between the Nazgul and his prey! Or he will not slay thee in thy turn. He will bear thee away to the houses of lamentation, beyond all darkness, where thy flesh shall be devoured, and thy shrivelled mind be left naked to the Lidless Eye."

I don't understand how anyone could say that this dialog is not "cinematic", or that it's confusing. Pretty damned straightforward there.

I was always jazzed by Tolkien's writings of the Orc scenes in Cirith Ungol, especially where Shagrat and Gorbag (*killer* names) are fighting over Frodo's Mithril mailshirt. Like, Shagrat spins around and stabs Gorbag in the throat saying "not dead yet, eh Gorbag?" And then Shagrat leaps on the body of Gorbag, stabbing and slashing horribly, and let's out this terrible roar of triumph...and then licks the knife clean. It's one of those scenes I just can't get enough of.

PJ's version was absolutely *nothing* like this...although he decided to use the knife-licking in one of his own scenes he added. Puzzling it was.

And Lugburz.....what a great Orc-name for Barad-Dur!