The Hobbit and LotR Continuity Questions

[Alatar]

I know there are some who feel that we should not try too hard for continuity, and that we should "Let The Hobbit be The Hobbit", but lets be honest, thats not gonna happen. So, watching FotR again on Saturday (With the RTE Concert Orchestra and Choir playing the score live) a couple of points occurred to me.


Saruman: Will we see any hint of his eventual fall from grace? It will be very jarring if the last time we saw him he was a kindly old wizard and suddenly he's whacking Gandalf round the place for no apparent reason. I suspect we will see some indication of the change that is to come. It should be subtle, like perhaps a desire to use the palantír to spy on Dol Guldor, with Gandalf warning of the peril of using the stone. That sets up a payoff in FotR and even an explanation for Saruman's descent.

Galadriel: This is a really tricky one. For some reason PJ decided we needed extra tension in Lothlórien and gave us a creepy Galadriel who seemed almost malevolent. How will this tie in with the Galadriel of The Hobbit. Again, if we have a wise and wonderful Gladys in The Hobbit, it will make no sense at all when this scary psycho turns up in FotR. Perhaps here there is an opportunity to foreshadow once again? Show Galadriel as wise and powerful, yes, but ambitious, and hungry for knowledge and power. The sort of person who would be seduced by the power of the Ring. (And no, I'm not suggesting the Ring be mentioned, just that she would be sort of person to be tempted by a powerful weapon of that kind)


Thoughts?

[CosmicBob]

I guess I didn't get the malevolent Galadriel from FOTR, except for the one part of the one scene at the Mirror. Which I think was pretty much expected and seemed to be mostly Frodo's perception. So I don't think that she should be shown as being ambitious or hungry for power. Because, really, what is there for her to be ambitious for? Dominion over Middle-Earth?

But, she did leave Valinor for a reason and it didn't seem to be only for family. But I don't think that will play into PJ's interpretation of the character, certainly not Cate Blanchett's interpretation. So maybe she does (or did in the FA) have some ambitions for power.

I think she should just be a wise presence and I also think that they shouldn't mention any Rings of Power in either one of these Hobbit movies. Since the ring Bilbo finds is just a "magic ring".

Regarding Saruman, I don't know. I don't know if he was tempted prior to the coming of the Necromancer to Dol Guldur. But he must have had the palantír of Orthanc and had kept it secret from the Council, so maybe he was being tempted for a long time?

[vison]

I'm sure he was tempted. As you say, he kept the palantír secret, and there was no good reason for that. It would have been a very interesting item for the Council - had they known about it.

[Inanna]

I didn't get the malevolent Galadriel from FOTR either - and especially at the end, in ROTK, you see her as one of the wise. That's the role she will play, I'm guessing.

As for Saruman, we already have some snippets of his not-so-nice behavior from the appendices, don't we? I seem to remember some derogatory comment regarding Gandalf re his love of the hobbits and pipe-weed (I'll try and dig up the right reference when am home). As well as the discussions in FOTR (the meeting at the homely house) related to his advice to the White Council on not moving against Dol Guldur in time. I think there is enough here to foreshadow his betrayal in LOTR.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Based on the short interview clip with Christopher Lee that we recently saw, it appears that we will only see the "good" Saruman in these films. Of course, one cannot always base things on such a short snippet, but the other thing is that his part appears to be very small, which would not give much opportunity to develop his fall (or the beginning thereof). On the other hand, it could be done without his direct presence, based on comments by Gandalf, Galadriel, Radagast and/or Elrond.

As for Galadriel, I think Al was probably thinking of the earlier scenes in which they have are telepathicly saying something about "one who has seen the Eye" in a somewhat creepy manner, or her basically making Boromir cry with shame. But I don't really think that was too far off from the book, in which Galadriel does have some ambiguity, and is a subject of fear to people like Éomer and Boromir. I doubt that will come across much in the Hobbit films, but I suspect she will be portrayed as a personage of particular power. As she should be.

[WampusCat]

Saruman's fall could be subtly foreshadowed with the right words and expressions, even if it is not clearly spelled out. That's what I hope for.

PJ is not particularly fond of subtlety, though (i.e. nuclear Galadriel).

I'm wondering how they will handle Bilbo's experience of wearing the ring, since it would be odd to have him confronted by a fiery eye.

[Elentári]

Nuclear Galadriel isn't a problem for me...I agree with CB that it was Frodo's perception of her as a manifestation of how she would appear if she took mastery of the Ring.

I do think that Saruman's discovery, or first use of the palantír could be the way to link HOBBIT with FotR in a subtle fashion, so that in TH we see the moment he falters, so to speak.

Maybe near the end of the second movie, we might see Saruman sitting/standing in front of the covered palantír, wrestling internally, and then he reaches for the cloth and the camera cuts to another scene so we are left wondering? (Of course, those having seen FotR know the significance of the seeing stone, but it wouldn't spoil things for those viewing HOBBIT first.)

[CosmicBob]

I do think that Saruman's discovery, or first use of the palantír could be the way to link HOBBIT with FotR in a subtle fashion, so that in TH we see the moment he falters, so to speak.

Oh! That would work SO well, I think. Even if it's not turned to Sauron yet (Barad-dûr hadn't been rebuilt yet, if I recall).

[Frelga]

One positive thing is that Christopher Lee is supremely able to convey the ambiguity of not-quite-yet-fallen character.

[Inanna]

I'm wondering how they will handle Bilbo's experience of wearing the ring, since it would be odd to have him confronted by a fiery eye.

Good point. I didn't think of that. He *can't* be confronted with the eye in TH.

[eborr]

One would hope that the evil of the ring is treated with a mite more subtlety than in the Fellowship,

[eborr]

One would hope that the evil of the ring is treated with a mite more subtlety than in the Fellowship,

[Primula Baggins]

Presumably Bilbo at the start of the LotR films wasn't treated to visions of the Eye every time he used the Ring to, say, hide from the Sackville-Bagginses. Doesn't the film imply that the Ring's power was growing in response to Sauron seeking it?

I think the bigger question will be why film Gandalf has no suspicions about the Ring when he learns what it can do.

Because he can't suspect; we see the moment in the FotR film where the idea first crosses his mind, when Bilbo shows such strong possessiveness toward it. The Ring's hold on him has been growing, maybe because it has begun to "wake."

Gandalf would be disastrously negligent to let Bilbo keep possession of the Ring if he had the least suspicion of what it might be. So I hope PJ has a light hand with the ominous clues.

[Dave_LF]

The obvious thing would be for Gandalf not to know about it. But for that to work, the dwarves really shouldn't know either, and that would require a lot of changes.

But his lines and behavior at the long-expected party do kind of suggest he is just learning about it.

[Holbytla]

I always thought that Gandalf and his "knowledge" of the ring was a weak point in Tokien's story. By all rights, he should have had Bilbo or at least Frodo, long gone from the Shire before the Ringwraiths came a knocking.

Of course that would have alleviated the Flight to the Ford and the whole chase, which would have made for a much duller story.
I'm not sure of the best way to reconcile all of that, but Gandalf and his ring "knowledge" was always a bit of a thin plot device.

[axordil]

IAWH. Remember the tangled relationship between TH and LOTR, textually. Just because the raw events occur on the same timeline doesn't mean every plot point can be aligned.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Or even should be.

[Holbytla]

No textually and creatively there is no seamless transition.
Should there be, and would Tolkien wish there could be?
Most likely as the story never ceased to be under revision.

Tolkien had to deal with creating a world that expanded far more extensively than he could contain, and alas he still only had one life to give.

The undertaking of this story was far more than one human could accomplish in one lifetime.

We can sit here and and wish for transitions, character developments, and plot devices all we want, but the be all end all of the story from the dawn of time to the destruction of the ring, is compromised by Tolkien's inability to be deathless.

The Hobbit and LOTR and the Sil, in a perfect world, would have been a seamless transition. In the publishing and movie world, we are left to the whims of the producers and publishers and (gasp) directors.

[Primula Baggins]

No, of course not. But I think the temptation for a film (= straightforward, in this case) storyteller will be to try. I don't honestly see that PJ would or could decide not to try.

I don't know how he'll succeed, or how anyone would. I had problems fitting together three novel-length stories (very simple, not very long as novels or LotR go, with not many characters by any standards) that I wrote in chronological order over three years. And I'm no idiot. It's hard.

And PJ has the special handicap that the writer of the original stories wasn't giving all that much thought to it. (My impression being that he never had much time to give thought to it.)

[CosmicBob]

I think Tolkien gave a lot of thought to his timelines and continuity. But, as you say, he didn't have much time to give. He had a full-time job and other interests.

But based on History Of Middle-Earth, Tolkien devoted a lot of time to how and when things happened. I do think he didn't try to fit the events in The Hobbit (other than the finding of the Ring) into LOTR very much. The trolls for instance - they appear in LOTR but the seem out of place with the rest of the story as it evolves from a Hobbit-like tale into a far darker one.

I think Hobbits don't really belong in Middle-Earth, certainly not in the vision of Middle-Earth in The Silmarillion. But he fit them in and I think he did a pretty good job of it.