Sauron in the Hobbit

No, just re found my silliness after a week or so of being a bit serious, or wrapped up in very average self written fan ficiton for another story. I blame people on this site. I had no idea such a thing existed till I came here!

I suggest two movies. (Did so on the Old Forum too - until Big Brother erased my wisdom, along with a pile of Wisey's Channellings - which still rankles btw! )

(1) The Hobbit: There and Back Again, and (2) The Hobbit-less: The White Council."

I'd even watch the second movie, so long as it isn't allowed to contaminate the first. The Hobbit would closely follow the book. The second movie would "fill in the gaps" for those who want more LotR-type stuff and also want to know what Gandalf was off doing when he left the Company. In fact, because so little is known of Saurons getting booted from Dol Guldur, PJ could come up with a whole range of wild and wooly things and not necessarily be too far out of kilter with Tolkien. Tolkien hints about how strange and dark Mirkwood is without saying what kinds of monsters might lurk there. I wouldný mind, so long as PJ keeps his imaginings reasonably in sync with Northern European and/or Scandanavian Folklore. Some of Morgoths monsters might even appear. Why not? (I really don't know why PJ hasn't called me yet. I do know how to please everyone!)

Voice of reason? Of course it is.

Kafria wrote:No, just re found my silliness after a week or so of being a bit serious, or wrapped up in very average self written fan ficiton for another story. I blame people on this site. I had no idea such a thing existed till I came here!

Increased silliness is a known side-effect of Forumshire. Personally, I still want to see kung fu!Galadriel deliver a roundhouse kick to the Necromancer. And is it too late to cast Jackie Chan as Glorfindel?

odo banks wrote:In fact, because so little is known of Saurons getting booted from Dol Guldur, PJ could come up with a whole range of wild and wooly things and not necessarily be too far out of kilter with Tolkien. Tolkien hints about how strange and dark Mirkwood is without saying what kinds of monsters might lurk there.

I think that's an example (one of many, to be sure) of a way in which Tolkien knew better than PJ how to tell a story. As detailed as his invented world is, Tolkien still knew when and where to leave things understated, when to be vague and let the reader's imagination fill in the rest. Movies, being visual in nature, can't do this in exactly the same way, but they can still use subtlety. Unfortunately, PJ is not good at subtlety at all, especially when it comes to portraying a fictional world.

Notice how PJ shows the entirety of Shelob very early on in the scene, thereby also throwing away a rule of horror -- never show the whole monster. He runs into similar problems with showing the entire Watcher in the Water at Moria; in the book it was just a mass of tentacles and literally nothing else is gone; there's no indication of if it's a squid or even a single creature. I expect to see plenty of Mirkwoodian monsters shown in detail, despite the fact that movie monsters are always far more frightening when you don't get to see the whole thing.

I hope that PJ does not go overboard with "filling in the gaps" and inventing lots of detail for Mirkwood, but I've come to terms with expecting this sort of thing.

Wow! You guys are scholars! I must admit it's been over a decade since I read, re-read and totally geeked out over the books. Fun to read and remember what you guys are still up on.

What surprises me, though, is that guys that love and know the books so much are interested in these movies. Perhaps I'm too much of a purist, but I also just love good storytelling. One of the great thing (in my opinion) about Tolkien is that he knew when to keep it in his pants. He didn't show some things because they were better left imagined or not completely understood. Granted, film is a different media, but I feel like PJ just isn't the right guy to handle this quality of story. He failed pretty miserably with LotR, no? Adding in scenes and characters that didn't help the story one bit, trying to make simple and elegant scenes like the death of Boromir and the temptation of Galadriel sexy and exciting... Now I hear he is adding some female elf character to the Hobbit, throwing in Sauron... The guy makes great horror schlock (I personally would love to see something else along the lines of Dead Alive) - but when he goes for this I'm afraid he doesn't get why the books are good.

Just sad. But hey, it markets like McDonald's.

Welcome Bookstrumpall!

...and such purist clarity!

Such attention to detail ---

and oh how grand to see someone look so far back in Forumshire time and actually find a Serious Conversation of ours...

One Post and you already sound like you belong.

(I'd actually almost forgotten that Odo Banks was once not always a mere caricature of himself! )

Greetings Bookstrumpall (what a wonderful name!) Welcome to Forumshire.

I like the cut of your gib.

Welcome to Forumshire, Bookstrumpall! I have to agree with much of what you say about the films, but I think they have a number of redeeming features. I, personally, appreciate those even while I dislike other parts. However, I know that childhood nostalgia affects my perception of the films since they were early favorites of mine and are tied up with a lot of memories from when i was younger. I don't pretend to be entirely cold and rational about the films for that reason. Still, I do think they're pretty good overall, but I can certainly understand why you'd disagree.

hello Bookstrumpall, cool name, can I call you Strumpall, Strum, Pall, or Book? would like to here the reason behind that name you should take a look at the newbis thread

Pettytyrant101 wrote:But as TH is set long after Sauron has lost his physical form what will PJ do? Have a big eyeball indoors? That seems really silly. Not have him in at all and promote someone else, maybe the Witch-King, to the role of on-screen villian, or the even the Mouth? Or will he give him a body and have an onscreen Necromancer?

We have some potential new insight into this question from the OP thanks to a recent interview with Benedict Cumberbatch. Someone on another forum pointed out that, in this interview reported on Ady's Taz's blog, Mr Cumberbatch said the following:

As far as the experience, what an extraordinary one it was because at the time I was in my work; I was in isolation with him and this incredible tag team. And at the very cool place with that technology doing mo-cap for two characters, Smaug the dragon and another character, which will remain nameless, and it was an awful lot of fun.

Since Cumberbatch has already been confirmed for the role of the Necromancer alongside the role of Smaug, I think it is likely that he is referring to this character in the interview. The "nameless" comment could be interpreted one of two ways. Cumberbatch may have meant that he would not name the character during the interview but that a name would be given during the movie. Alternatively, he might have meant that the character would be referred to only as "the Necromancer" in the films, rather than being identified as Sauron. This would be true to the book, although it would be strange not to identify the character as Sauron during the White Council scenes.

Of course, I might also be mistaken and Cumberbatch may have a third CGI character he is playing who is truly nameless. I find this unlikely, however, and I think we can reasonably assume that the Necromancer will be depicted via motion capture CGI. That doesn't necessarily tell us what he will look like, but I think we can rule out the possibility of the Necromancer being a disembodied Eye (though I suppose it's possible, I never found this possibility to be particularly likely). However, the fact that Smaug is also to be a mocap character goes to show that there are still a wide range of possibilities for the Necromancer's appearance and he won't necessarily be a humanoid figure. Nonetheless, I thought I'd share the quote since I don't recall the mention of a second character being pointed out in this forum before.

How's that going to work. If the Necromancer has a physical body of some sort what happens to it- how does he end up a big eyeball by Lotr's?- are we going to see the WC destroy his body then? I shudder at the thought.
How does it gel with Sarumans words to Gandalf in FotR about him not bieng yet strong enough to regain physical form? (even assuming he does get turfed out a body in TH that would still imply he was more powerful at the Necromancer stage than he is throughout LotR's- which is obviously not true).

I honestly expect PJ to simply not address the issue. I would be loved to proved wrong and see PJ come up with some stunning explanation for all this, but I can't say I'm holding my breath. The most I'm realistically hoping for is that he'll keep the Necromancer's screentime low-key and shadowy so there isn't much to see and the issue will be less glaring. Sadly, this is the sort of continuity error you have to deal with because of thoughtless changes to the original story, although based on some of PJ's comments I think the Eye was more of a misinterpretation of the book than a deliberate change.

The main problem I had with the big eyeball in Lotr's was not laughing- particuarly at the end when the Ring goes in and its pupil shrinks like someone has just kicked it in its invisible fiery underregions.

It's probably a good thing they're doing away with the Eye, then. Just try to imagine how the Eye would have gotten from Dol Guldur to Mordor!

I don't know whether to laugh or cry Eldo!!
I fear travesties and liberties on a not disimilar scale is exactly what we are going to get with this whole WC/Necromancer thing.

I think the necromancer woun't be a big issue to do. I mean.. some will be disapointed anyway, but I believe they are going for some sort of ghost feeling. Like smoke and shadow, yet when he talks his face seems to be "solid" and real. I mean, he do magic, so I don't know, him being some sort of mystery, in the cross zone between a ghost and a reall person.. well, that's what I think anyway. Maybe he will become more "solid" when adressing the white council, just to try and not freak them out, but when realizing they know, he will truly reveal himself and well.. be ghosty.

well logically either Cumberwatsit is doing just the voice of the Nec, then it will be either cgi or invisible. Or if he is doing mocap then the Nec will have some kind of figure or form. It depends whether its voiceover or mocap. If they stick to the book he wont have a body? but anything is better than the Eye, that was crappy and totally unscary. As Norc said, a ghostly figure would probably be ok, or like the Death Eaters in HP have that swirly smoke effect with a mask like face in the middle of the smoke.

Remember that they had played around with Sauron appearing in the form of Attan-something, the glowing light giver of gifts incarnation for the battle at the Marrannon (Oh I can't spell anything this morning). They may flash some of that as he's trying to wheedle his way out of an attack.

I don't know whether or not he will have a body, but I am certain they will mo cap his face while he speaks so maybe a floating, but a recongizable face and a more blurry and foggy body just whirling around. I mean, he had enoguh body to be dangerious though not to regain his full .. power, if you know what I mean. So some sort of person, glimpses of fabric and armour, just a hint that this is some sort of Maia(he is isn't he?) who once had a human form (he would need a hand to put that ring right )

If they stick with the book Sauron will have a body, but I expect they'll put more stock in preserving film continuity with LOTR than following the book. I think Norc is onto something with the ethereal/smoke idea where the Necromancer's face will be the most distinct thing about it. It would be easy to retcon that as Sauron's "natural" incorporeal form in the movieverse and say that he only took the form of an Eye after getting to his perch on top of the Barad-dur. Honestly, this is probably the closest think to an intelligible explanation we can expect.

Tihi.. I can't wait to see the movie and see if I am right

If they stick with the book Sauron will have a body- Eldo

What body? Where you getting that from Eldo or have I misread you somewhere? There is nothing to indicate the Necro had a body is there? And quite a lot to suggest he did not.

I'm basing that on the fact that Sauron himself had a body. I feel like we've discussed this before, but there are numerous quotes to back this up during LOTR, and I'm not aware of anything that suggests Sauron only reformed his body in the brief time between TH and LOTR.

Letter 200 wrote:It was because of this preoccupation with the Children of God that the spirits so often took the form and likeness of the Children, especially after their appearance. It was thus that Sauron appeared in this shape. It is mythologically supposed that when this shape was 'real', that is a physical actuality in the physical world and not a vision transferred from mind to mind, it took some time to build up.... After the battle with Gilgalad and Elendil, Sauron took a long while to rebuild, longer than he had done after the Downfall of Numenor.

Letter 246 wrote:Sauron should be thought of as very terrible. The form that he took was that of a man of more than human stature, but not gigantic.

There are similar quotes to this effect, but continuing would get rather repetitive. With this in mind, I'm not sure how else to interpret the Tale of Years, when it says:

Appendix B wrote:2060: The power of Dol Guldur grows. The Wise fear that it may be Sauron taking shape again.

Obviously the Wise are correct that it is Sauron, and I'm not sure what "taking shape again" would mean other than reforming his physical incarnation in light of the quotes from Tolkien's letters. This was about 900 years before The Hobbit, but it was also a far, far longer period than it took Sauron to reform after his destruction in the Downfall of Numenor, which is consistent with Letter 200 above.

I'm not sure what you were referring to when you said there's a lot to suggest the Necromancer had a body. I may have overlooked something though, so I'd be glad to look at whatever it was you had in mind.

Yeah, *cough* I had all that in mind when I lay out my idea.