News from the set

I don't neccessarily mind the look, but wheres the COLOR ?

I think the picture looks good, though there's a limit to what one can tell from just a few stills. I don't particularly mind the colors being gone because that was never something that really stuck in my imagination, but that's a personal judgement. I think it's a fairly minor point, though; I don't complain about all the eye and hair color changes in LOTR either.

yes, but it looks so drab, and they're still in the shire!

I suppose so, but I'll wait until seeing the exterior of the Shire to make any judgment.

I can't remember hobbits with large pointy ears.

I think that was something PJ added to their design, along with them having giant feet.

I'm sure Elthir will correct me if I'm wrong but IIRC the Hobbits in the books had only furry feet, not giant ones. With all the long tracking shots of Hobbit feet in trilogy, though, I think Peter Jackson might have a foot fetish to rival Quentin Tarantino's.

They have slightly pointed ears in LotR mainly hidden by hair, they certainly werent quite so prominent, not that I remember anyway. I think Tolkien makes a mention of it somehwere in Letters and says their ears should be slightly pointed but not over much (will need to dig out letters to be sure).
As to foot size the description in the prologue it doesn't make any mention of it simply saying, ;'they seldom wore shoes, since their feet had tough leathery soles and were clad in a thick curling hair..' from that I would assume their feet size was in proprotion to the rest of them.

It's funny in a way that PJ is making hobbits absurd (in a different way than Tolkien made them absurd) while making the dwarves more serious (which is absurd) and making them one or two tone, beard-wise (which is absurd).

Yeah, you're right about that Petty. I forgot about that letter (my emphasis).

Letter 27 wrote:I am afraid, if you will need drawings of hobbits in various attitudes, I must leave it in the hands of someone who can draw. ... I picture a fairly human figure ... fattish in the stomach, shortish in the leg. A round, jovial face; ears only slightly pointed and 'elvish'; hair short and curling (brown).

I think Bilbo's ears in that picture definently qualify as more than 'slightly pointed'!

(good lore Eldo- prompt!)

Pettytyrant101 wrote:I think Bilbo's ears in that picture definently qualify as more than 'slightly pointed'!

Definitely -- more so than both the book version and the LOTR film version.

(good lore Eldo- prompt!)

Google is good for identifying which letter a particular quote comes from when I can remember the specific wording.

Of course, PJ won't disrespect Tolkien by having big ears. That's a relief.

So we have one screen shot from which we can tell he has completely ignored the visual description of both hobbits and the dwarves- good start PJ!

I think completely ignored is an overstatement. It's not like anyone should be surprised by PJ making changes anyway, and in the grand scheme of the entire story these are pretty minor.

Well ok they are dwarves, and that conceivably is a hobbit but after that yes completely ignored. The clothes are wrong, the beards are wrong. What is right exactly? And where are the musical instruments? - are we going to get a sing song?

It's a single screenshot, Petty. I know you love to rag on PJ, but just because you can't see musical instruments in a single still frame doesn't mean that they aren't there. While I wouldn't be surprised if they get cut, I'm going to wait till I know one way or another to criticize the film for it. And from the little we can see the set seems fairly consistent with the John Howe's depiction of Bag End that was the basis for the set in LOTR, which I think is reasonably accurate to Tolkien's vision of it, even if he makes the walls somewhat less curvy.

Mmm so the best you can find to defend this with Eldo is basically- it looks ok as a hobbit hole. We know the set design was good from LotR's. What counts now is what he puts in it. And this pic seems like the first concrete proof weve seen so far showing the direction PJ is taking. Which is as suspected that he is making it darker, less colourful, less fun and less for children. Less like the book therefore and less of a good thing in my view.
And I'd still like to know what that huge list is- my money is still on it being a cheap joke.

I find myself in agreement, Petty. Yes, I do.

Yes Hobbits do not have unusually large feet -- that I'm aware of anyway.

The Harfoots were said to have neat and nimble hands and feet, while the Stoors were broader, heavier in build, with large-er feet and hands -- meaning larger than the Harfoots; but again the Stoors are described as broader and heavier in build as well, so I see no great reason to think that even they had notably large hands and feet in proportion to their own bodies.

Tolkien didn't depict Mr. Baggins with large feet in his illustration of Bilbo in Bag End (he has boots on in some drawings, incidentally). While Tolkien did note slightly pointed ears for Bilbo in a letter (already quoted by Eldorion), I want to check his illustrations about the ears too; although hair may obscure the issue, and admittedly there's some new Hobbit art from JRRT I have yet to see -- just published by Hammond and Scull.


Anyway, the ear description is at least attested somewhere, and at one point (the later 1930s if I recall correctly); but I think the idea of large feet hails from fans, and possibly some artists.

... and so, of course, must be discounted from use in The Hobbit movies. You, dear Elthir, are a breath of fresh air. Big pointy ears. Big hairy feet. Preposterous.

Well I think the big feet might be a fan assumption (and Mr. Proudfoot may have something to do with this too); and although the ear issue might be muddied just a bit perhaps, Jackson can hang his hat on the letter and toss in a word like interpretation, despite 'slightly'.

There's an 'ear debate' regarding the Elves too of course! but in any case Jackson will surely continue his feet and ear depictions, for continuity with his own films in any case, I would think.

This is a long shot, but maybe those extremities need to be made larger in order to make him seem smaller After all, he is smaller than the dwarves, and its going to be very hard to get the right angle where Bilbo is only slightly smaller than a lot smaller

Worth thinking about...

With LotR they cast a very tall man for Gimli so when he was next to the hobbit acotrs they were comparitvely the right height, which meant they didnt have to do any effects or forced persepctive shots, they could all be in shots together. Not sure what height Martin Freeman is in comparison to those playing the dwarves. But with 13 dwarves hard to imagine all the actors will be 6 footers. So maybe they will have to do some trickery in the shooting to get the heights right this time.

Perhaps if they hired Ian McKellen, thirteen dwarfs and a midget, they would save a lot of time and money.