Lord of the Rings

Bumping because they already have a film in the line, says the Wrap:

https://www.thewrap.com/new-lord-of-the-rings-movie-release-window-peter-jackson/

The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum. Directed by Andy Serkis. Sounds like it’ll focus on young Aragorn.

Is there a thread for the Lord of the Rings movies?

Edited by BigBadShadow25 on May 9th 2024 at 9:24:06 AM

So the Fellowship movie is pretty vague about if the time skip between Gandalf leaving Frodo in Bag End with the Ring and returning after the Nazgul are set loose to find Frodo still exists. But there's a 17 year gap of time, during which Gandalf went on many adventures to find the true nature of Bilbo's Ring. And some of those adventures were he and Aragorn's search for Gollum. (This IS alluded to in the movie. Gandalf says "I searched everywhere for Gollum, but the enemy found him first). So they aren't just pulling this story out of nowhere.

Well, it sounds like Frodo aged gracefully!

Clearly Hobbits have some Numenorian roots somewhere.

Okay, seriously, IS there a thread for the movies? Because if there isn’t, I’m making one.

Edited by BigBadShadow25 on May 9th 2024 at 9:43:11 AM

So it is yet another Gollum movie.

Look, I love Andy Serkis too, but Gollum really isn't that interesting of a character. Surely there are better, more deserving topics for a movie?

But it will follow Aragorn!

Samwise movie WHEN?

When you finish your vegetables.

There are some talented people involved. But really, could it possibly be as good as those first movies? And they were a mere shadow of the book.

Sure, Andy Sirkis can play Gollum again and I'm sure he'll do great. But Viggo Mortensen is too old to believably play a young Aragorn, Orlando Bloom is too old to play a prequel Legolas, and I doubt Ian McKellan is up to playing Gandalf again. And no hobbits were involved in hunting for Gollum.

Peter Jackson had his chance to go back to Middle-earth and the result was the Hobbit movies. Not exactly his finest hour.

Edited by Bense on May 9th 2024 at 7:43:05 AM

Has it been mentioned before on this thread that coming out December this year is an animated prequel called The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim? It's set in the Jackson film continuity and stars Brian Cox as the voice of Helm Hammerhand (the namesake of Helm's Deep), with Miranda Otto returning to narrate the film (as Eowyn).

Edited by king15 on May 9th 2024 at 2:58:11 PM

I’m gonna open a sandbox for it here.

I still really enjoy the first two Hobbit movies. I've never watched the third.

They have some parts that work, and others that really don't.

There's always a jarring tonal shift between works that adapt Tolkien's writing more or less verbatim and the works that add original material. You can tell the difference. For example, the assault on Dol Guldur in PJ's adaptation of The Hobbit is much too "actiony" for Tolkien's writing style.

Edited by Fighteer on May 9th 2024 at 12:32:52 PM

I'd say that is true for the majority of the battle scenes in general, including the original trilogy. The books don't give all that much focus on the violence compared to the movies, which are far more action-filled, for better or for worse.

There's a reason people say Tolkien probably would have hated the movies...

Bilbo getting knocked unconscious just as the final epic five army battle must count as one of the greatest rebuttal to action movies around.

He's hardly the first one, mind you. I remember reading some medieval work that basically treated any battle the same way, basically just summing up who killed who in a very detached, clinical fashion.

Though, Bilbo gets told what happened in the battle afterwards. In a work of prose, where everything is told to the reader via narration, the difference between "seeing something as it's happening" and "being told about it after the fact" isn't so sharp as it is in a visual medium.

It's important to remember that Tolkien was from the last generation to grow up without movies as a mainstay of entertainment. I think the age of cinema has seen a definite change in how novels are written, where writers will craft their prose to conjure up the sort of imagery you'd get from watching the events on screen - we even talk about books having "scenes" and having some events occur "off-screen".

Edited by RavenWilder on May 9th 2024 at 11:50:51 AM

That's true. He did it with Smaug, too. Man, I was so mad when I read about Bard Whatshisface just showing up out of nowhere to slay Smaug.

And with Gandalf's fight with the Balrog. And the Ents attacking Isengard (recounted by Merry and Pippin). And with the journey on the Paths of the Dead and fighting the corsairs (told by Gimli).

In the LOTR book, the entire journey along the Paths of the Dead and up the river to the Battle of Pelennor Fields is told after-the-fact by Gimli and Legolas to the hobbits.

Edited by HeraldAlberich on May 9th 2024 at 3:49:13 PM

There's already been a Hunt for Gollum movie. Watch it here before it gets copyrighted: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H09xnhlCQU&t=66s&pp=ygUPaHVudCBmb3IgZ29sbHVt

I don't want more Gollum, I want Beren and Luthien.

I'd love to have some kind of Legend of the Galactic Heroes style anime about the Silmarillion