Waiting for 'The Battle of the Five Armies' [2]

chris63 wrote:http://middle-earth.thehobbit.com/erebor/experience

Did you beat Smaug?

This is probably what Stephen King felt like when he watched Stanley Kubrick's The Shining.

bungobaggins wrote:This is probably what Stephen King felt like when he watched Stanley Kubrick's The Shining.

Except The Shining is considered somewhat of a masterpiece.  I'd say it's much more like how Tchaikovsky would have felt if he ever heard THIS:

.

Well I would like to imagine that the great composers would get a good chuckle out if it, especially if they were aware of the founding principles and philosophy of Portsmouth Sinfonia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portsmouth_Sinfonia



Take that, Kubrick!

Oh my! What a pig.

And, really guys, It's not a moose. We've been over this.

Isn't it a prehistoric moose? Close enough in my book.

THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES / 26 NOV 2014
SIR IAN MCKELLEN SAYS GOODBYE TO GANDALF

http://au.ign.com/articles/2014/11/27/sir-ian-mckellen-says-goodbye-to-gandalf

Interesting to hear in that article that most of the Gandalf-bits were over with in the original two-film split.

Also, instead of, "There are some fantastic parts for older actors," I think Sir Ian should have said: "There are some fantastic parts for older male actors."
Just saying!

The original splitting point was the escape from Mirkwood, right? By that point in DOS I think Gandalf was still at the Nazgul tombs or maybe just getting to Dol Guldur, but I wonder if the original plan was for him to be captured by the end of the first film.

I think in the two film days Gandalf was supposed to visit the Nazgul tombs before he met up with the company in the Misty Mountains. Which would make more sense based on where Rhudaur is in relation to Rivendell. Now that we have Gandalf crossing the mountains twice to get to the High Fells and then back to Doggle Door puts us in "Radagast traversing the mountains in one day" territory. In other words, utterly impossible.

inb4 it'saworldfullofmagic-he'sawizardgetoverit.txt

Gandalf's back-tracking across the Mountains was certainly an egregious lapse of movie logic (though still not as bad as the timing of his detour to Minas Tirith in FOTR), but was he ever apart from the Company for long enough to visit the tombs at that point in the story?  I guess they could have added an absence between leaving Rivendell and being captured by the goblins, but I'm not sure how exactly that would have worked.

NB I haven't listened to any of the commentaries.

Someone posted http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=11365887 over at TORN.

Dan Hennah had this to say:

Everything is director driven with Peter. It's a very cool thing because you can't just slide off on some whimsical tour. You have to stay with the book. And he is very strongly a Tolkien aficionado. It's about Tolkien's book, Tolkien all the time. And we go back to Tolkien's illustrated book as much as possible.

I don't mean to be cynical, and I'm sure Dan is a really nice guy and I think he's done amazing work. But that quote is just complete bullshit. I don't know that he's being out and out dishonest, or if he's not really aware of Tolkien, or what is going on. But it's so far from reality I wonder what the hell is going on when I read something like that. For any "good" change from the text, there are 10 arbitrary BS changes that are meaningless and stupid, such as Beorn's ridiculous physical appearance. Yeah, "It's about Tolkien's book, Tolkien all the time. And we go back to Tolkien's illustrated book as much as possible", except for the times when we do exactly not what he wrote.

Make the changes, I don't care. Film is a different medium, adaptations require changes, blah blah blah. But I'm calling bullshit on Tolkien being their go-to source. Oh, Smaug was illustrated with 4 legs by Tolkien and John Howe and Alan Lee? Fuck it. He looks like a dog. Change him.

what the fuck, dan?

towing the line. company man through and through, no doubt.

from Herocomplex latimes.

HC: You won an Oscar for your work on “Lord of the Rings.” Has it been advantageous to have that prior experience in Middle-earth?

DH: Absolutely. I worked on “Lord of the Rings” for five years and got to know that world incredibly well. “The Hobbit” goes off in a different direction, but Hobbiton itself, the Shire, is similar to what it was, and Rivendell is the other place they go to, but everywhere else in their journey, we didn’t visit in “Lord of the Rings.” So this is a different world. In “Lord of the Rings,” we went south from Hobbiton, and in “The Hobbit,” we go east. We sort of took the view that going east would be like going east across Europe and into Asia.    And those were the influences we used in our architecture and in our coloring and in our general feel. It was a really lovely thing to actually have a physical reference that we could use as our inspiration as we traveled, so just in general the use of stone, the use of timber, the use of peaked roofs, flat roofs, all those things — they do happen as you travel across Europe. (I thought he just said Asia)

HC: So you were able to pull in some non-Tolkien influences?

DH: Yeah, absolutely, but you know, the interesting thing is that Tolkien wrote it. We discussed this going east thing, and really we based that on the fact that Tolkien had gone east from London, so forgetting about the English Channel, he had gone east across Europe in his research, and in his story, really. So that was the influence there. So in a way, while it’s not Tolkien   , it is Tolkien, you know? But I think we have to say in terms of our design, Tolkien is our bible, and that’s the beginning and the end, really. And sure, there are opportunities to extend it, but you have to use them really subtly.  

HC: What does it feel like to see these designs of such iconic places and characters come to life as you go?

DH: Look, it’s the best feeling in the world. It’s really great. Interestingly on “Lord of the Rings,” I spoke to a lot of people who were fans of the books and who were terrified that we were going to misrepresent their vision. It’s a huge consideration. At that stage, 50 million people had read the books. And now I think it’s up to 200 million, certainly with “The Hobbit” and the popularity of “The Lord of the Rings” films. So we’ve got 200 million people out there who all have a vision of what this world is, and it’s a huge responsibility to bring their vision to life. Really it was bringing Tolkien’s vision to life. But it’s not deviating from that vision, not having your own personal conceit jump out and, “Oh, I’ve got a great idea. It’s not really in the book, but it’s a great idea.” So you avoid that impulse. ok   (( I have a list.))

HC: What’s it like working with Peter Jackson?

DH: Ah, he’s a delight. He’s a vision-directed director. He has a clarity of vision right from the very beginning. And a great vision memory, so when he sees a piece of concept art and then the next time he sees it, it’s a built set, he’s retained all of the elements from that concept art, so you’re always striving to be as accurate as possible as the process works its way from that concept art through to the final set.
............................................................................................................................................................

I think he has worked for Jackson so long he has started to believe half this stuff, its sounds like hero worship to me, obviously a nice guy but deluded if he thinks they use Tolkien as their guide, they use Jackson as a guide. Maybe on the ground building the sets and seeing all the details he doesnt get the overriding picture, he watches great sets being built all the fantastic details and genuinely believes that this translates into the final product. But how he can say Beorn as Sonic the Hedgehop is based on Tolkien I will never know. He has had 15 years of work from Jackson and wants it to continue. Dont blame him for that, its always wise to keep the boss sweet. He says they used whimsy in TH that must be a reference to Bunny sleds and poop hats, thats the only whimsical thing I can think of, and thats not very whimsical, its stoopid. TH is not whimsical at all, its LOTR lite.

I just want to say that I am not attacking him as a human being, he is a nice and talented guy, but he is talking balls and it has to be challenged.

At least they didn't cover the sets in cgi. Or did they.

parzival wrote:Especially this guy.  

Doesn't this guy stand on a lot of Football Terraces every Saturday ?

Eldorion wrote:

NB I haven't listened to any of the commentaries.

You haven't missed much. I'd actually recommend NOT listening to the commentaries. The quality of conversation between PJ and Boyens is very poor. I listened to the full AUJ commentary, and I downloaded the audio file for the DOS commentary, but I could only get about 20 minutes in and then I got really bored.

Mrs Figg wrote:
I think he has worked for Jackson so long he has started to believe half this stuff, its sounds like hero worship to me, obviously a nice guy but deluded if he thinks they use Tolkien as their guide, they use Jackson as a guide. Maybe on the ground building the sets and seeing all the details he doesnt get the overriding picture, he watches great sets being built all the fantastic details and genuinely believes that this translates into the final product. But how he can say Beorn as Sonic the Hedgehop is based on Tolkien I will never know. He has had 15 years of work from Jackson and wants it to continue. Dont blame him for that, its always wise to keep the boss sweet. He says they used whimsy in TH that must be a reference to Bunny sleds and poop hats, thats the only whimsical thing I can think of, and thats not very whimsical, its stoopid. TH is not whimsical at all, its LOTR lite.

I just want to say that I am not attacking him as a human being, he is a nice and talented guy, but he is talking balls and it has to be challenged.

Yeah, I totally agree. I like Dan Hennah a lot. But it seems almost denialist of him to claim so hard that Tolkien's work is the bible. And they used his illustrations? Is he on another planet? It's like, empirically not true.

thats not popcorn is it? its fried Orc toenails isnt it

Mrs Figg wrote:thats not popcorn is it? its fried Orc toenails isnt it

I'm surprised Denny's hasn't put that on their Hobbit menu...

Sadly the Hobbit menu (which I think i heard is not returning this year) was just regular Denny's dishes with Hobbit-themed names slapped on them.

The BBFC confirms that BOFA will be 144 minutes long. This figure would include credits, and makes this the first Middle-earth film to clock in under two and a half hours since 1980's Return of the King.

http://www.bbfc.co.uk/releases/hobbit-battle-five-armies-2014

Wow. So PJ was telling the truth when he said it would be a lot shorter. You'd think he'd try to make this one the longest. Of course we all know that there is next to nothing left of the source material to tell, but still! I'm surprised. However, that'll be a nice quick film and hopefully much less bloated. That, or it will leave several loose ends flailing in the wind because DOS was chuck full of them.

Well it's based on the same number of chapters of the original book as AUJ was: six out of nineteen. There's so much invented material in these films that chapter comparisons are a little misleading though. There will likely be more White Council/Dol Guldur material in this film than either of the first two. PJ said that he wanted this film to be shorter and faster paced though, and I see no reason to doubt him. However, I can definitely see the rumors of BOFA having a 40 minute longer EE being true.