Thoughts about The Hobbit that might have been

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Al, I completely, 100 percent agree with you.

[vison]

. . . . There's no need to reinvent the wheel.

Jeez. I wish someone had told PJ that before he got started on LOTR.

[Alatar]

In fairness vison, I don't think he did. Visually at least the only thing I've ever heard really criticised was the Wargs.

Adapting for movies though is a very different thing. And while I don't agree with many of PJs changes, I never felt he was doing it just to be different. He genuinely believed the films needed those story changes for dramatic purposes.

Redesigning the wheel, at the level GdT was talking about with Smaug, would be more like "I don't think Frodo should destroy the ring, lets have Gandalf do it."

[Primula Baggins]

The note in that that bothers me is the implication that this story isn't enough, that it has to be embellished and updated to be interesting. I didn't like hearing similar implications from PJ in talking about LotR, either.

[axordil]

It doesn't have to be embellished and updated so much as transformed from a textual narrative to a visual narrative. But that's true of better adaptations in general.

[Inanna]

Smaug redesigned is not "done" for me. Not at all. I am so on Alatar with this.

And while Thorin might have been tongue-in-cheek (or not), it sent shudders down my spine.

[eborr]

The issue as I understand it is with the dragon, if we look at Tolkien's own dragon paintings his vision is very much of the dragon as Wyrm, in other words scaly and snake like, rather than the more sturdy shape as shown by later interpretors.

They only thing that strikes me as odd about GDT's dragon is the arm coming out of the limb, which doesn't look right, it's a bit like the teradactyls (sp) crawling forward using the toe bit of their wing.

But as GDT says, if you want you classical dragon then they have six appendages which does't work either. The thing which I find quite disturbing is that the illustrations of Alan Lee and others, many of which I really admire, become accepted canon as opposed to an interpretation

[Primula Baggins]

It doesn't have to be embellished and updated so much as transformed from a textual narrative to a visual narrative. But that's true of better adaptations in general.

That's actually my point, Ax. Of course the way the story is told has to change. What I resist is the idea that the story itself or the characters in it must be embellished or updated for the story to "work" at all.

[Elentári]

I think that one of the strengths, nay triumphs, of PJ's trilogy was the way it made "Fantasy" more believable for those not already fans of the genre. Middle-earth became a real place to so many as a result of the films, because the fantastical blended in so well with the mundane. I do think that GDT would have given us designs that were fantastical for the sake of "art" and his vision, rather than Tolkien's often clearly-defined world.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

And while it is true that the one of The Hobbit is more "fairy-tale" like than LOTR, it still has a strong level of detail, giving you the feeling that you are with the characters in a real place. For all of the faults of the Jackson LOTR films, he definitely captured that aspect, and I do get the feeling that Guillermo would have gone in a different direction.

[Primula Baggins]

I agree with Elen and Voronwë. This detail and realism is an attribute of LotR the book and is what made the story real to me from the first reading. The fantastic was blended in with the real and familiar in a way that let me accept it all as part of a real, detailed, completely thought-out world. For me a great part of PJ's success was due to his focus on making Middle-earth visually real.

I don't understand taking one of Tolkien's great strengths and deliberately pushing in the opposite direction, making it less possible to accept Middle-earth as real.

I think I'm tone-deaf to "high fantasy" in the sense of "beautiful, though physically preposterous." (It may be my early contamination by science fiction.) I need to be able to believe something is real* in order to accept it and move on. The deliberately unreal or surreal feels false or even pretentious to me, however visually stunning it might be.


*Meaning, successfully sell it to me. I may know that flying dragons or transporter beams are physically impossible; but make it feel plausible, sell it to me, and the world you're depicting stays real in my mind.

[SirDennis]

For me a great part of PJ's success was due to his focus on making Middle-earth visually real.

Leaving aside Pan's Labyrinth (which clearly falls within the same focus you describe) and the "Troll Market" from HB II (which does not) I think the clearest sense of what G's Middle-earth might have looked like can be gleaned from his treatment of the elves' realm in HB II. Not so much the way their skin appeared but in their overall design and setting.

The nonsense surrounding the dated New Yorker interview notwithstanding, I continue to believe GDT would have treated Tolkien's story and the Middle-earth of our hearts with great respect and the utmost care. His leaving the Hobbit production is still the worst tragedy it has weathered.

Sadly, especially in light of the tone of recent discussions, his time on the production may have done more damage to his film-making career than mere fans can appreciate.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Why do you say that, Dennis?

[SirDennis]

Well, apart from projects he laid aside (and some he lost) to work on The Hobbit -- all for naught -- he's suffering a bit of bad publicity over that article.

It is unfair that his attachment to The Hobbit is being judged not on the designs he actually settled on but instead on a writer at The New Yorker's impression of his initial designs. It's as if we are trying to gauge the future attractiveness of a person from a third party's description of their fetal ultrasound.

This comes at a time when he has one project still stalled from before going to NZ and another locked in pre-production hell -- no green light with a projected shooting schedule fast approaching. Bad publicity is the last thing he needs right now

When I said "tone of recent discussions," I am taking what has been said at FB, TORn, and to a lesser extent here in total. In general it has not been positive.

[Primula Baggins]

It's as if we are trying to gauge the future attractiveness of a person from a third party's description of their fetal ultrasound.

Vividly put, SirDennis! And a valid point.

[eborr]

Sir Dennis articulates very well what I was struggling to say, that for some reason certain voices are trying to damage GDT and portray his influence on the hobbit in a negative light.

Is it necessary at this stage in the production when so much is surrounded in secrecy to come up with excuses in case the film is no good !

Hopefully the "thank good is not Hobbitboy 2 brigade " will cease their clamour and we can speculate on the films that PJ will deliver.

[Primula Baggins]

I can assure you I didn't express my opinion out of any wish that GdT's career might suffer, or any lack of respect for his talent.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Nor I. As Dennis well knows, I have a lot of respect for Guillermo, and enjoyed his participation in the TORN messageboard very much. I found many of his comments about The Hobbit to be very insightful. However, I always had a lingering doubt about whether he was the right person to direct these films, because his conception of fantasy seems to me to be very much at odds with Tolkien's, and the comments that he is quoted as making in this interview (not just the reporters comments) really exacerbate that sense. Tolkien's ideas about fantasy can be best summed up by his famous comments about the green sun in the essay On Fairy-stories:

Fantasy, of course, starts out with an advantage: arresting strangeness. But that advantage has been turned against it, and has contributed to its disrepute. Many people dislike being “arrested.” They dislike any meddling with the Primary World, or such small glimpses of it as are familiar to them. They, therefore, stupidly and even maliciously confound Fantasy with Dreaming, in which there is no Art; and with mental disorders, in which there is not even control: with delusion and hallucination.

But the error or malice, engendered by disquiet and consequent dislike, is not the only cause of this confusion. Fantasy has also an essential drawback: it is difficult to achieve. Fantasy may be, as I think, not less but more sub-creative; but at any rate it is found in practice that “the inner consistency of reality” is more difficult to produce, the more unlike are the images and the rearrangements of primary material to the actual arrangements of the Primary World. It is easier to produce this kind of “reality” with more “sober” material. Fantasy thus, too often, remains undeveloped; it is and has been used frivolously, or only half-seriously, or
merely for decoration: it remains merely “fanciful.” Anyone inheriting the fantastic device of human language can say the green sun. Many can then imagine or picture it. But that is not enough—though it may already be a more potent thing than many a “thumbnail sketch” or “transcript of life” that receives literary praise.

To make a Secondary World inside which the green sun will be credible, commanding Secondary Belief, will probably require labour and thought, and will certainly demand a special skill, a kind of elvish craft. Few attempt such difficult tasks. But when they are attempted and in any degree accomplished then we have a rare achievement of Art: indeed
narrative art, story-making in its primary and most potent mode.

Guillermo's sense of fantasy is much more dreamlike and hallucinatory. I think he is less interested in making the green sun credible as he is in using the green sun to produce a certain emotional effect. That sensibility worked (at least on certain levels for many people) in a film like Pan's Labyrinth. But it would not work for The Hobbit. Or at least it would not work for me.

As for Guillermo's career being damaged by the bad publicity over the article, I don't really buy that. Much ado about nothing, in the long run. In regards to his career being damaged by his losing projects because of the time that he committed to The Hobbit, well, if he wasn't willing to commit to such a huge project, than he should never have done so. Nothing convinces me that he was the wrong person for the job more than the fact that he bailed on the project rather than seeing it through.

[Teremia]

I actually would have found it interesting to see GdT's take on The Hobbit. I don't mind a little hallucinatory fantasy, here and there. I thought Pan's Labyrinth LOOKED very nice--it was just the triteness of certain aspects of the story that got to me.

But, hey, I don't mind the prospect of PJ's Hobbit either!

I just hope the film gets made and doesn't have too many cringe-worthy moments. As much outdoor scenery and Shore scoring as absolutely possible, please. The rest is frosting on the cupcake.

(With LOTR everything felt more dire because more of my heart was in those books.)

[SirDennis]

I can assure you I didn't express my opinion out of any wish that GdT's career might suffer, or any lack of respect for his talent.

I didn't get that from your comments at all. Well reasoned comments, such as (for only a couple examples) yours and VtF's, are always welcome.

But what appears to be happening is that a pack of dogs have gotten hold of something and are shaking it for all it's worth. Add to that the inevitable comments from people that really haven't been paying attention all that closely and what we have are the makings of a character assassination.

GDT is no stranger to an industry that seeks to capitalize on independent vision without having to pay for it up front. Perhaps his status has grown beyond the returns the governors have enjoyed and they are trying to take him down a few notches? I'd imagine at least a few execs thought his leaving The Hobbit an act of defiance that should not go unpunished forever -- or maybe it has to do with new multi-platform studio he's trying to get off the ground? The last thing the industry wants right now is more competition.

One thing for sure, the shelf life of new house-hold names (which GDT became when he left TH) is about 6 months. That is to say 6 months is about how long it takes for the unwashed masses to turn on them. Which is longer than 15 minutes I suppose, but not by much.

Edit to add: (in light of Vtf's most recent post) It is true that VtF shared his doubts with me quite some time ago. He is not one to start expressing dissent only when it seems safe to do so.