Filming Possibilities

Ah Earandil. Saradoc it was Veronwe, the awesome elf that was saved from shipwreck by Ulmo though all his beloved commrades did not make it. He was put upon the rocks outside the great hall that Tuor emerged from fully clad like his ancestors.Veronwe, exhausted in mind and body and knowing the absolute dangers of going in the surpising easterly direction obed Ulmo and took Tuor through the hazardous, orc infested trek,freezing in the abnormally frigid winter with little to eat save some way bread. When all hope had basically fled they met up with other elves and finally Veronwe met up with one of his comrades. It is a magnificent story. And in the long prose mentioned in the above post you do have Tuor coming finally after a series of unbelievable stone gates and elves in different livery to an open place where many of the residents of Gondolin including the King stood in amaze seeing Tuor garbed in rainment they themselves had seen so long ago and knew were still or were supposed to be still hanging on the wall near the high seat of the king. The movie could end on just that, for he had finished his initial quest, this quest itself alone stands as a complete story. Well to me it does at any rate.

Well, I think the fall of Gondolin would be spectalucar if done correctly! I feel like it's the most epic of all battles in Middle Earth! The absolute best vs. the absolute worse.

Agreed, Queen Tin...

Oooh... Earendil! I hope they get someun spunky to play him!

Did you not realise that this is somewhat of a sensible thread, Porgy... I don't think admiring exhultations about male characters is what's wanted here.

You have it your way, Orwy - I'll have it mine!

What the...? What's with the wool, Porgy?

Orwell if you edit this post I'm gunna flip

Hello, I didnt read page one but got through page 2 onwards.

I always thought a TV series would be a good way of portraying the silmarrillion, unfinshed tales etc.

I would start the series with a very brief history of the world, created by angelic being called the Ainur and Eru, their ultimate creator. Would give a brief history of waking of the Elves and even briefer of Dwarves. Would then talk about the journey, Elves at Valinor and Feanor creating the silmarils. Next some death and destruction and silmarils being stolen, end of intro.

Each episode thereafter would focus on different characters, whether sons on Feanor, houses of Men or something dwarfy (although not much if any of that). They would all tie back to each other with flashback scenes... Oath of the Sons of Feanor, crossing of helcaraxe, men coming out of the east and befriending Elves etc. That way you could have recurring characters to tie it all up.

There would obviously be certain parts of certain episodes where lots of characters are involved, like battle of flame, tears etc which would add to it all. Last few episodes would be around tying all of the threads together culminating in voyage of Earendil and the forces of the Valar landing in Middle Earth.

Nice ideas Lance- I agree tv is the way to go (for LotR's too).
I would be tempted to nick the framing device from the Cottage of Lost Play- a mariner washed up on unknown shores who hears the creation tales from a mysterious ancient Elf.

Is this new ?

I think so; I've never seen it before.

I hate the Conan-style narrator's voice.

i think the sillmarollion was published 15 yeras ago
so not that new

I always thought a TV series would be a good way of portraying the silmarrillion, unfinshed tales etc.

I like this idea, particularly in the style of Eastern European or Russian flok tale animation!

I think Peter Jackson should make a movie on every single thing tolkien ever wrote. even his shopping lists or internet bills or whatever

Internet bills?! Now thats just silly. It's obvious to anyone Carly that Tolkien would have used a palantir.

or eagle, a "homing" eagle, drrrrr,

I think tv would be the way to go for Lotr. The structuring would allow the first half of Fellowship to be told in full properly. Though I still don't know about how to portray Tom.
The more I think about it, the more I think a studio filming the Silmarillion would be doomed to fail. Outside of the fact that a studio would likely have to butcher the story, the nature of how the story itself is told doesn't seem fitted to movies or tv. The Silmarillion is like a legend from long ago - large spans of time are covered, gaps in events (likely lost to the ages). It almost feels wrong to show everything that happened. I don't understand how a lot of the story would be told in a visual way, without ruining it.

I think with Tom RA you do him as he is presented inthe books.
Assuming it was being made for tv- you would be at least 2 hours of tv in (probably 3) before Tom would make an appearence- before that you've had plenty of 'normal' stuff- from Bilbos party through the years that pass till Frodo leaves, then youve the whole Three's Company bit, Farmer Maggot, Crickhollow and the conspiracy bit, Fatty Bolger and the Old Forest before Tom even appears- so I think the audience would be ready for a bit of unusualness and adventure by Tom and the Barrows.
In fact one of the biggest factors I think making it a possibility someone will remake LotR's in my life time is if you followed the book, 90% of everything that happens in the first 3 or 4, hour long episodes, would be completly new to audiences who only know the story through PJ.

The LotR' is top heavy- the BBC radio version runs for 13 hours and 6 of those are taken up by Fellowship and thats minus the Tom/Barrowdowns section. One of PJ's errors in my view was following the splitting of the LotR's into 3 books, which was never intended by the author but is just the result of the cost of paper at the time. A mad decision for Pj to take as the books are not even close to being equal in content.

Actually more happens in RotK than in FotR, it's just told in a more compressed style.

I am very biased about the missing bits from Crickhollow to Bree because that section is my favourite in all the books. When the Hobbits pass into the Old Forest through the High Hay, its like I found Wonderland or Diagon Alley. It starts getting magical, and when they meet Tom its like the epicentre of otherworldly Faerie. He is the essence of enchantment for me, and the next time I get close to the otherworldly is in Lothlorien in Caras Galadhon. I miss it badly in the FOTR and was looking forward to it, but was sorely disappointed it was missed out. But I know there was not time, and Rivendell was wonderful to make up for my disappointment.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:The LotR' is top heavy- the BBC radio version runs for 13 hours and 6 of those are taken up by Fellowship and thats minus the Tom/Barrowdowns section. One of PJ's errors in my view was following the splitting of the LotR's into 3 books, which was never intended by the author but is just the result of the cost of paper at the time. A mad decision for Pj to take as the books are not even close to being equal in content.

I'm curious now, how would you have split the films? I used to think that a six film adaptation, one for each book, would have been good but that would be imbalanced in its own way. Plus I'm not sure how financially feasible that would be.

A good quetion Eldo.
One of the main reasons I feel tv is better suited than film is you don't have to break it up save into episodes- which is much easier.

If I take my own edits of the films as an example (as I have already split them into 6 parts and they dont include PJ's major deviations) there are some obvious problems splitting it into 6 films.

book 1 - 1:09
book 2 - 1:48
book 3 - 1:59
book 4 - 1:02
book 5 - 1:40
book 6 - 0:52

Now if you assume an ideal running time of 3 hours per film then there isenough missing from the first book to make up the needed time easily- but books 2 and 3 in partcular would still need considerable triming to fit into a running time of even 3 hours.

The other major hurdle is break points- would ending at the Ford be a big enough finale for a film? Well you could play up the is Frodo dead or alive aspect more and make that your cliffhanger- but it would be a bit artficial. And leave you with the problem of starting film 2 in Rivendell wih a lot of exposition.
Book 6 is another major problem, as although you could put Scouring back in there is probbly not enough visually for Frodo and Sam do to in Mordor to sustain the bulk of the running time.

It could be possible to do it in 4 films- taking 2 for fellowship and one each for TT and RotK. Again though it leaves the problem of where to brake in fellowship.

So in short the answer is- they should have aimed for TV from the start and not blockbuster films into which the story nor style of story telling fit comfortably fit.
But if they had to do it in cinema then a minuimum of 4 films ideally 6 would be my choice.