EMPIRE MAGAZINE JUNE 2009 GDT & PJ TALK HOBBIT

[WampusCat]

[heresy]I could have lived with such a substantial change from the book if it meant seeing more of Sean Bean's Boromir. [/heresy]

[Padme]

Sean's Boromir was good. I didn't end up disliking him as much as book Boromir.

Of course I really liked Viggo's Aragorn, but Book Aragorn wowie wowie wow.

[Frelga]

[heresy]I could have lived with such a substantial change from the book if it meant seeing more of Sean Bean's Boromir. [/heresy]

But what would Denethor angst about?

[WampusCat]

Orcs in Osgiliath? Bad tomatoes? General orneriness?

[sauronsfinger]

How likely would it be that many of us here can right now name people who will express utter hate and disdain for these two films regardless of their content and before a single frame has been filmed?

[Holbytla]

We have had 3 courses of the meal already.
True there is a different chef involved in preparing the dessert, but we are still at the same restaurant.

My taste has already been tempered so there is little chance these movies will be overly disappointing for me. I am expecting more of the same road from great to wtf? And The Hobbit is not LOTR.

I am eager to see Mirkwood because I think that is one of the areas the previous movies excelled at: cinematography.
I am less eager to learn of the character arcs and plot devices.

They would have to make some major gaffs to mess this up.

[Padme]

I know some people who haven't even seen the first three and would never watch these two. So there are people out there who don't have an interest in any of it.


That said I'm expecting this to be fantastic. I love Del Toro's work, it's very good (and I am mostly not talking about Hellboy). TDB and Pans were both wonderful movies.

[solicitr]

How likely would it be that many of us here can right now name people who will express utter hate and disdain for these two films regardless of their content and before a single frame has been filmed?

Precious few, actually: my disdain for PJ's trilogy was not remotely a priori but rather the result of seeing it, and my intense disappointment at what I had sincerely hoped would be a masterpiece. I was as big a fanboy as one could want before FR was released, haunting all the leak-sites, downloading the trailers and generally being very, very psyched- disregarding or explaining away the early warning signs that had appeared on places like aintitcool and TORC.

I'm fully prepared to hope that GdT will do better. He's a much more intelligent director. But I pay more attention to warning signs now: twice burned, and all that.

[Alatar]

I am eager to see Mirkwood because I think that is one of the areas the previous movies excelled at: cinematography.

Actually, this is an area I'm worried about. PJ was generally afraid of cinematic darkness (not in tone, in light). Shelobs lair was washed with blue light. In the Goblin caves and Mirkwood it has to be dark:

The nights were the worst. It then became pitch-dark – not what you call pitch-dark, but really pitch; so black that you really could see nothing. Bilbo tried flapping his hand in front of his nose, but he could not see it at all.

Now, granted, watching a black screen isn't much fun, but I envisage Mirkwood being more like the night scenes in Vietnam war movies. You can see whats going on, but its undeniably "dark", not bright, but blue, as Shelob's lair was. We've already "seen" Gollums cave, with a shaft of light, but will that be considered "canon" for The Hobbit?

[Pearly Di]

How likely would it be that many of us here can right now name people who will express utter hate and disdain for these two films regardless of their content and before a single frame has been filmed?

I don't know which other Tolkien messageboards you frequent, sf, but I've read nothing but positive vibes about the Hobbit movie on all the sites.

There's a little bit of negative backlash against PJ (as opposed to the fangirling over Del Toro) in the fandom but that comes from the people who were never that enamoured with PJ's film trilogy in the first place.

There does seem a general fandom consensus, even among those who like PJ's LotR, that Del Toro is the better director.

Time will tell, eh?

[Alatar]

Right up until theres something people don't like in The Hobbit, when they will loudly declaim "Thats PJ screwing up GdTs artistic genius".

I'll be frank. GdT is a fine director, but he's as capable of lowbrow humour as PJ is, (see Hellboy 2), and PJ is as capable of a deft touch as GdT is.

Its not like one's a hack and the other's a genius.

[Pearly Di]

Right up until theres something people don't like in The Hobbit, when they will loudly declaim "Thats PJ screwing up GdTs artistic genius".

Its not like one's a hack and the other's a genius.

My feelings exactly.

At the moment, GDT can do no wrong, seemingly, but we are some way from the finished product.

[sauronsfinger]

Padme has it pretty much right I believe. Del Toro shows lots of talent as a director in some of his films and in others leaves much to be desired. That makes him no better and no worse than most people in the business who have a decade of experience or more.

Everyone praises PANS LABYRINTH and I certainly liked it but the non-fantasy scenes were by far the better part of the film. The two HELLBOY films are just the usual genre stuff with excesses far worse than Jackson was prone too in the trilogy. In some ways that puts him along side Jackson. If you look at his pre-trilogy work, his better material was non-genre material and his talent shined in certain scenes in films such as HEAVENLY CREATURES.

I expect that once the first HOBBIT film is released that we will revive many of the old battles and lines of argument that prevailed last time. The two basic themes being "its not at all like the book" and the reply being "thats because its not a book but a film". Millions of words will be written and most will fall within those two categories.

But it will keep us off the streets - for better or worse - and it may keep Tolkien message boards talking about Tolkien instead of the 2012 election. Again - for better or worse.

[axordil]

Having seen Pan's Labyrinth and Heavenly Creatures, I can see sensibilities the two auteurs share. But having seen The Frighteners and Hellboy, I can see...other sensibilities they share as well.

Let us hope that the knives show up at the knife fights and the pies at the pie fights.

[yovargas]

Also let's not forget that LOTR rocked.

[Elentári]

Al wrote:

GdT is a fine director, but he's as capable of lowbrow humour as PJ is, (see Hellboy 2), and PJ is as capable of a deft touch as GdT is.

Its not like one's a hack and the other's a genius.

Good point. I think the two will balance each other. Maybe GDT will control PJ's excesses. I'm sure we are on to a winner with them.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I've not seen ANY of GdT's films. My comments in this thread, which is about the interview in Empire Magazine of June 2009 with GdT and PJ, are regarding the statements made by the two of them in that interview. If you look at those statements specifically regarding the films, you'll see that PJ's are almost all directed towards tying the Hobbit films to his LOTR films, whereas GdT is more focused on being true to the Hobbit itself. That is an objective analysis, not based on either some biased in favor of GdT (since I haven's seen any of his films), or against PJ's LOTR (which I have always mostly defended).

[sauronsfinger]

Given the reality that Peter Jackson personally made over $200 million dollars on the trilogy and stands to make another fortune on these next two films, is it unreasonable for him to want to follow a proven winning formula?

Every single filmmaker in the business knows that they must have profitable films if they want to stay in the business. Jackson rightly sees Middle-earth as a franchise in the same way that Star Wars or James Bond is a franchise. That is simply a reality of business.

Frank Capra was allowed the widest latitude in the business in the decade of the Thirties because Columbia Pictures made a profit off his films. John Ford was allowed wide powers over his directorial efforts for the same reasons. Even someone like Fritz Lang knew that if they turned out a string of losers, their highly praised talent meant nothing in terms of getting future jobs. D. W. Griffith basically invented the Hollywood feature film but once his films became financial milstones around the studios neck, he was consigned to living in a Hollywood hotel waiting for phone calls that never came. For a modern example, just look up Michael Cimino on Wikipedia.

I don't think anybody can righly fault Jackson for wanting continuinity with the previous Middle-earth films that produced the record that they did.

Sure, Del Toro will have his own vision and the films will show that. Jackson would not hire Del Toro if all he wanted was merely a skilled robot to take his orders. Hopefully, this will be a balancing act that will produce the right amount of everything necessary to keep most people happy.

[Padme]

If it were me recommending GdT movies, the Hellboy(s) would be the last I would recommend. I would recommend The Devils Backbone and Pans. And neither for the special effects features, but for the directing and human aspects GdT seems to be able to understand. I think that PJ was wise in picking GdT for just the reason of GdT can so well grab the emotions of the actors on screen.

All this said, I hope to all things good, this movie isn't their 'jump the shark'.

[Frelga]

The two basic themes being "its not at all like the book" and the reply being "thats because its not a book but a film". Millions of words will be written and most will fall within those two categories.

Personally, my complaints about the movies were not "it's not like the book", but "it doesn't make any sense". To which the reply usually was, "but it looks pretty."