Worst Case Scenarios

bungobaggins wrote:I want to point out something Jackson says before he gets into his big "125 pages" hubbub.

https://youtu.be/WssJ_ZEsDyo?t=4m18s

He says that the advancement of technology will get people (especially young people) back into the cinema. I think he's overlooking a basic truth that Kevin Spacey (star of the recent Netflix House of Cards series (which has been nominated for 9 Emmy awards)) has stated so wonderfully in this video.



It's stories we are starving for (good stories) not new technology. It doesn't matter where we watch anymore. I really don't think new tech and spectacle are going to draw audiences back into the cinema.

Kevin Spacey wrote:If you're watching a film on your television is it no longer a film because you're not watching it in a theater? If you watch a tv show on your ipad is it no longer a tv show? The device and the length are irrelevant, the labels are useless...for kids growing up now there's no difference. Watching Avatar on an ipad, or watching youtube on a tv, or watching Game of Thrones on their computer. It's all content; it's just story.

I personally find that true. I don't care WHERE I watch something at, but The STORY (preferably a good one) should come first I find it hard to watch a bad story in the theater no matter how shiny and new it is. But I can sit and watch Game of Thrones on my 60" LCD 1080i tv going thru a surround sound in the dark in the privacy of my own home in my underware if I want and I am quite happy      

Well if we're talking about what makes movies financially successful then I think there are plenty of factors other than story and character (though those are also important).  That said, just having the newest technological features won't be enough.  Avatar might be the exception because I'm sure the hype over 3D contributed to its amazing endurance throughout January and February, without which it would not have become the record-breaker it was, but HFR does not seem to have excited people the same way.  I suspect Avatar is more the exception than the rule, and it benefited from a lot of things, including being James Cameron's first film in 12 years.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Thanks for that link Bungo- you can embed vids in your post incidentally, just click on the little youtube icon above the post box and put the link in there (Ill fix it on your last post for you)

Thanks Petty. I tried doing that before with the LA Times interview with Jackson, but I couldn't get it to link to a specific time within the video, so I left it as a url. I guess it slipped my mind with the Spacey video.

Eldorion wrote:Well if we're talking about what makes movies financially successful then I think there are plenty of factors other than story and character (though those are also important).

I think a big factor that Hollywood is exploiting at the moment is brand recognition. I'm not sure if this is the best example, but look at how Pacific Rim performed against Grown Ups 2 at the US box office. Grown Ups 2 actually grossed more it's opening weekend ($41 mil. to PR's $37 mil.). Domestic gross total for GU 2 is $128 mil., PR's is $99 mil. I was really surprised that GU 2 beat it at the box office, but it is a sequel to something that, apparently, a lot of people remembered and enjoyed.  

Here's my favorite movie reviewers take on Grown Ups 2.  I love Mike and Jay.

Yeah, brand recognition is important, but eventually people get tired of stuff.  I think too long of a gap also hurts a movie brand, even one that is remembered very fondly, because there's less sense of necessity or excitement.  This was probably an issue for An Unexpected Journey.  (Why the Growns Up brand was strong enough to make the sequel a hit I don't know since I never saw either, but they both looked pretty bad.)

Unfortunately Pacific Rim was a really hard sell from the beginning.  Giant robots, without anything else to make it more palatable to people with moderate or no interest in giant robots for their own sake, were never going to set the world on fire.  I loved Pacific Rim but I'm just amazed and grateful that it even got made.

NB Half in the Bag is great! I need to catch up on a bunch of their reviews.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:New modern films, contemporary to our times should reflect our times- and that includes much more diversity than before.
But I hate it when they rewrite or alter older works to bring them into line with current viewpoints- in my book its the same as destroying archeological sites- they are a piece of the time and people they were created for as well as stories to be told, not to be altered, rewritten and tampered with according to the norms of any one particular time period.
Its short sighted and incredibly arrogant.

Tolkien was a fair minded. His women and men were both Modern and Archaic, and though slightly elevated (he wrote High Romance for fook's sake!) they represented a Real kind of human (of Tolkien's real world experience). His characters are never cardboard cutout stereotypes, in spike of the what the Joycean-type Literati think - the Fooksticks!

So - to get to the point - PJ should have done the movies 'according-to-Tolkien'. Then they would have been (1) Brilliant, (2) Magnificent, (3) Worthy of many Oscar Awards and (4) Excellent.

Oh yeah - people haven't changed or evolved much since Tolkien's day, only technology has. This is why Tolkien is timeless {{{Elvishly speaking.. maybe....}}}

Oh yeah - PJ is full of shit. We all know that. Eru save him --- because no one else will!  

hear hear Orwell, basically if PJ had been faithful to Tolkien we would have all enjoyed AUJ and be waiting with anxious pleasure for DOS. PJ can waffle on as much as he likes, nothing changes the fact the film was underwhelming pap.

I was just thinking, can he really call it an interpretation when he's not even interpreting the source material? He's completely making it up! I can bet that not one person ever envisioned a fight going on while the dwarves were in barrel! So it should be called Peter Jackson's The Hobbit, which I know a lot of you have said before. And what really bugs me is that PJ is bipolar in what type of film he wants to make! He says it's a different type of story than LOTR, which is true, it is. But being a one trick pony, he can only make one type of film; action and gore. He tries to make it kid friendly (in his mind) by defying physics and making it look like a coloring book. Well, when you put the two styles together, all you get is ????!!!!!!!??????????

Thats a pretty good appraisal of Pj Tin.  

Agreed, Tin! The bipolar nature of The Hobbit was my biggest concern for the films years ago when I first started following them.  It was clear very early on that PJ wanted to make a prequel to LOTR, but the source material for The Hobbit simply isn't large enough in scale to support an epic story.  The only way to turn it into a good epic would be to throw out the original almost entirely and I knew PJ wouldn't do that because he pays lip service to Tolkien and doesn't want to completely alienate his fandom.  So we're left with something uncomfortable in the middle that doesn't fit into children's or epic fantasy.

PJ has conceitive-itus, with severe symptoms of grandioseness, selective hearing, optic nerve damage, excessive collective gas in the upper intestine & a severe accumulation of excess bowel by- product in the LOWER intestine leading to colon blockage. , A high density of hallucinogenic interference causing mass insomnia & ego delusions on an incumbent size. Ability to function even on a small scale is limited & sensory recognition is exacerbated by internal & external input.

azriel wrote:PJ has conceitive-itus, with severe symptoms of grandioseness, selective hearing, optic nerve damage, excessive collective gas in the upper intestine & a severe accumulation of excess bowel by- product in the LOWER intestine leading to colon blockage. , A high density of hallucinogenic interference causing mass insomnia & ego delusions on an incumbent size. Ability to function even on a small scale is limited & sensory recognition is exacerbated by internal & external input.    

Interesting diagnosis.
Jackson's a tricky case study to crack.

It just basically comes down to he's a big headed, blinkered, half deaf, self centered, vain sack of shit ! Easy diagnosis when you know how !  
The hardest bit is...... the cure !!
I always thought "pistols at Dawn" was fitting, (as long as PJ has the blanks !)
Sorry, I was being forgetful , I MEANT to say LYING sack of shit !

Everyone check the hobbit movie news website now! The photo for the story is PRICELESS!!!!!
(I'd post it but I'm limited to my phone because the Internet sucks in my dorm because we're in the basement!!)

Just kidding I did it!!

https://www.facebook.com/hobbitmovies/posts/10151876970143478

http://the-hobbit-movie.com/forum/topic/five-characters-from-the-lord-of-the-rings-that-should-return-for-the-hobbit-tri?replies=1

Here's my response to adding more LOTR characters into the Hobbit... worst case scenario

Saw that Yahoo article the other day. I also noticed the author's blurb at the end.

Daniel Wood is a long-time 'Lord of the Rings' and 'The Hobbit' fan after his dad read him both books as bedtime stories as a child. Of course back then he didn't understand a word he was hearing, so he's grateful they made films.

That, for me, explains everything.

bungobaggins wrote:Saw that Yahoo article the other day. I also noticed the author's blurb at the end.

Daniel Wood is a long-time 'Lord of the Rings' and 'The Hobbit' fan after his dad read him both books as bedtime stories as a child. Of course back then he didn't understand a word he was hearing, so he's grateful they made films.

That, for me, explains everything.

yep another idiot too lazy to read the damn book...here's a concept instead of sitting in the dark in front of a box with moving pictures that can only represent parts of the book. How about sitting in a well lit room and turning a freekin page and get the whole real story MORON.... People like that annoy the crap out of me     

absolutely agree Sin ! I love watching films but, I never get my imagination going by watching a film, but I bloody well do when I read a book ! I can feel all the things I SHOULD get from a film, I love books, of all sorts. Nothing beats the thrill of your own imagination ! Screw you Jackson ! Watching The Hobbit has been like getting a lobotomy, but done in slow motion.  

I think I have put my thumb on most of my issues with Jackson's Hobbit. It is the hyperstylized video game look and textures that they fleshed the film out with. Well that on top of the amount of made up content in comparison to the material that was Tolkien. IF I want the look of a video game I want a controller in my hand controlling the action myself. In a film I want a realistic looking world not some cartoonish version of middle earth. Plus the story just isn't the Hobbit with crappy additions like Azog and his whole made up non tolkien story

Part of me is wondering if PJ didn't have a choice, like he was pushed to fluff it up by his superiors (which usually is the case with big budget films). You'd think they'd give him so wiggle room because he's a proven success (financially) but that may not be the case, especially with all the problems getting the damn thing green-lit! He may have sold The Hobbit's soul to the devil in exchange for a chance to make it. I don't know. I just have a feeling that Executive Producers, whose grimmy fingers stuff money in directors' pockets, have to take some blame for how the film ends up.

your probably right Tin, and this time around were dealing with Warner Bros. instead of New Line. New Line was very fan friendly WB are just a bunch of greedy suits who care nothing about the fans of a franchise. Only what the bottom line of the revenue is that they make off their investment. But it doesn't explain Jackson's enthusiasm for the HFR and 3D. Thinking he is going to revolutionize modern cinema when there never will be such a thing ever again unless they figure out a way to broadcast the films directly to your television set or mobile internet capable device.

I don't get why these film industry people don't get that. It's like the music industry denying that Napster exists. Totally blind to what the real world is. It will never be the same again I hate to break it to them.  But Jackson had choices I am sure like how much of the story he rewrote, He could have told the film company NO on the 3 film decision I am sure. But opted to go along with it because of how much money it would make I am sure. I do NOT buy the whole "more story to tell" lie he told after comic-con.

Since we can all see how weak the Azog material that was added last minute was. Jackson should IMO take most of the blame since they are his films creatively and his choices and made up additions are the majority of whats wrong with the films at this point already.Such as the OTT Goblin Town, the OTT stone giants thrill ride, the completely OTT troll sequence that when compared to the book makes absolutely no sense, along with the additions of Azog the fork monster, and Radagast the bird toilet.

Jackson was given a remarkable amount of freedom to make The Lord of the Rings the way he wanted, and that was back when he was still unproven at the box office and LOTR was considered a risky property to invest in.  The reasons for Jackson's independence are probably the logistical distance of the production in New Zealand from the studio headquarters in California, as well as the fact that Jackson had been the one to get the license from Saul Zaentz and was working on the films for Miramax previously.  PJ's deal with New Line was as much about him allowing the studio to make LOTR as the studio allowing PJ to do it.

The situation is different with The Hobbit for a lot of reasons, but at this point Jackson is a proven blockbuster filmmaker with a mostly successful track record, and while he's had a few disappointments, the LOTR films are among the most successful movie series ever made.  So the studio has every reason to let PJ continue to do what he's been doing and expect to continue to make lots of money when the films are released.  The reason the green-light was delayed is because there are now two studios involved due to the complicated rights situation of The Hobbit, and one of them (MGM) almost ceased to exist a few years ago due to its financial troubles.  But The Hobbit was always seen as one of MGM's most valuable assets and there was no question that it would be made once the studio either got back on its feet or sold off its properties (though it didn't always feel like that as fans during the wait ).

More than that though, I think most of the weaknesses of The Hobbit -- and, to be fair, most of its strengths as well -- are in line with what we've learned about PJ's strengths and weaknesses as a film-maker over the years.  We could already see some of PJ's bad habits coming to the fore in TTT and ROTK, based on the decisions he made with pick-up shoots and editing. By the time he got to King Kong and eventually The Hobbit he had nothing to prove so he was able to indulge all of his worst movie-making tendencies, which is why both King Kong and The Hobbit are way too long, have ridiculous action sequences, and get lazy on the storytelling side of things.

As for the three film split, it's especially obvious after AUJ that there is not three feature films worth of story to be mined from The Hobbit even after the additions that PJ made, but I've always been skeptical of the claims that PJ and/or the studio made the decision just because they wanted more money.  I'm sure that the studio was happy to sign off on the third movie because they knew it would give them an extra payday, but in the comments that PJ has made he has appeared very reluctant to let go of Middle-earth because he knows that this time there is no going back. I think that inability to say goodbye is what's really the problem here.

When LOTR ended pretty much everyone assumed The Hobbit would follow sooner or later, and while PJ was undoubtedly tired of the franchise and ready to move on to King Kong, it must have been in the back of his mind.  But this time, he's exhausted all the Tolkien books with available film rights, which I think is part of the reason he's crammed so much of the Appendices into The Hobbit.  It helps make it more serious and LOTR-like, but this is also his last opportunity to film in Middle-earth so he's throwing in every idea he's ever played around with.  With that in mind, it shouldn't be surprising that the "pick-up shooting" earlier this year brought back pretty much the whole cast at the same time and stretched out to be longer than many films' entire principal photography. In a way it almost seems like a second principal photography where PJ gets to go back and do everything he didn't get around to before, as opposed to just filling in story gaps and making corrections like they did on the LOTR pick-ups.