Waiting for 'The Battle of the Five Armies'...

Ugh, that argument needs to leave. HOneslty, every author wants to change what they've written. It's natural. That doesn't give osmeoe license to just do whatever the helll they want!!!
FOOLS! And at this point, whether people have read the books or not, everlyone knows who kills the dragon. It's been so over foreshadoewd an idiot could figure out who does it. Why even bother PJ hmm? Damn, if I could send huan after him I would!

bungobaggins wrote:

Henri: "They just use the flashy title by line to wind every on up and suck us in. jackson would never change it that much most of the changes that have been made have been either in the appendixes of lord of the rings or in unfinished tales which tolkein made him self years later as he connected the stories tolkiin even as he wrote the books he was wracked with changes he made and wanted to make..."

It's going to take a lot for this argument to go away. People are too lazy to read the fucking appendices. They're just running with Jackson's talking point from two years ago.

It's rather irritating when a dead and null point is brought in as ammo especially when its being parroted from another source wholesale.

Mrs Figg wrote:

Forest Shepherd wrote:It's when he points out inherent problems like Legolas being so very different from the books that are great. It'd be one thing to have book-Legolas showing up in The Hobbit Trilogy, but to have LOTR-Film-Legolas show up is really nothing but self-referencing for the filmmakers.

But thats his point. It isnt LOTR film Legolas who shows up in The Hobbit, its a fatter nastier dumbed down version of Legolas from the LOTR film who is there just for fan pandering. Legolas from the film LOTR was not a complete dick to everyone he met.

I'm not so sure - I think the Legolas we see in TH is very consistent with the one we see at the Council of Elrond in FotR. He clearly has no love of dwarves at that point, not until they leave Lothlorien does he start acting like a friend to Gimli. They probably didn't have to make him that much of a dick, though, but I thought TH Legolas was very recognisable as the elf he is when we meet him for the first time in FotR.

bungobaggins wrote:It's going to take a lot for this argument to go away. People are too lazy to read the fucking appendices. They're just running with Jackson's talking point from two years ago.

You don't wanna know how many years people spent regurgitating the "spirit of Tolkien" argument almost verbatim from the LOTR DVDs.  The filmmakers themselves have always set the tone for arguments in defense of the films.  What I find significant here, though, is that most people (both filmmakers and fans) seem to have given up trying to defend the films as being a faithful adaptation of the book.  With LOTR, the argument generally went that whatever specific changes had been made to the story as told in the book, it was either necessary or ultimately irrelevant to the "core" or "spirit" of the book, which PJ had successfully interpreted.  Of course, what this core was varied wildly from person to person (among those who bothered to define it at all), and the argument could easily be turned around by purists who claimed that PJ missed the core (as David Bratman famously did).  But with The Hobbit, the book itself has been left behind by the film apologists, whose main argument now is that Tolkien himself wanted to leave the book behind too.  The plus side of this is that this argument is trivially easy to refute and does not leave any room for subjective interpretation.

What's amazing to me is that Jackson not only allowed this seed of misinformation to germinate, he then went on Colbert and gave the impression that he wasn't sure his claims were ultimately correct, or at least based on correct information.

And Stephen Colbert, meaning the man beneath Stephen Colbert, whether he likes the films or not [he certainly seems to], is too nice to have made things obvious -- he corrected Jackson without, in my opinion, making it painfully clear that Jackson's claims about what Tolkien 'intended' for The Hobbit, as a book, are rooted in oversimplified sands.

I agree, Jackson's defense here can be refuted with facts, but I also think this claim is going to have life nonetheless; as a weed that chokes.

We need true gardeners!

http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/videos/0tvck8/peter-jackson

Link to the Colbert interview. The exchange about the appendices happens towards the end of the interview. It's funny because Peter brings it up, and it sounds like he's hoping that Colbert will confirm what he's been saying throughout the entire press junket. Jackson says "I've been wondering about this for years," and during other interviews I recall him saying, "the story as I understand it," in regard to the "appendices being notes for an expanded version of The Hobbit."

I am convinced Jackson was lying through his teeth the whole time and has never actually read the appendices. He was hoping for confirmation from Colbert, but Colbert rebutted him.

Ringdrotten wrote:

Mrs Figg wrote:

Forest Shepherd wrote:It's when he points out inherent problems like Legolas being so very different from the books that are great. It'd be one thing to have book-Legolas showing up in The Hobbit Trilogy, but to have LOTR-Film-Legolas show up is really nothing but self-referencing for the filmmakers.

But thats his point. It isnt LOTR film Legolas who shows up in The Hobbit, its a fatter nastier dumbed down version of Legolas from the LOTR film who is there just for fan pandering. Legolas from the film LOTR was not a complete dick to everyone he met.

I'm not so sure - I think the Legolas we see in TH is very consistent with the one we see at the Council of Elrond in FotR. He clearly has no love of dwarves at that point, not until they leave Lothlorien does he start acting like a friend to Gimli. They probably didn't have to make him that much of a dick, though, but I thought TH Legolas was very recognisable as the elf he is when we meet him  for the first time in FotR.

But in FOTR Legolas wasnt actually being a dick. He was much less a dick than Boromir in that scene for example. He was just a somewhat haughty Elf, not a sneering isolationist teetering on the head of Gimli cos its kewl.

Stephen screwed up a bit there I think... his possible paraphrase 'this is nice but it's not The Hobbit' doesn't come from Tolkien's publishers, but a still unknown reader, and more importantly is in reference to the 1960 Hobbit revision, not the Quest of Erebor.

At least 'that's how I understand it'...  

In any case, if one is not sure in the first place, Mr Jackson [or Boyens], why speak to the press first, before you investigate things a little more fully...

Because their narrative ('all our changes re justified by the author') was more important than truth.

It's very telling, how many just ate it up.

bungobaggins wrote:I am convinced Jackson was lying through his teeth the whole time and has never actually read the appendices. He was hoping for confirmation from Colbert, but Colbert rebutted him.

I don't really want to think that Jackson has never read the Appendices, but that video makes it really hard to think otherwise. "That's the story I heard."  

Elthir wrote:I agree, Jackson's defense here can be refuted with facts, but I also think this claim is going to have life nonetheless; as a weed that chokes.

We need true gardeners!

Agreed, it's stuck around for quite a while already and I doubt it's going anywhere.

That said, I think it's convinced a lot fewer people (or, to put it another way, more people were alienated by the changes and aren't willing to overlook them).  And the general drop-off in quality between LOTR and TH and corresponding lower level of popularity will, I think, mean it has fewer passionate defenders.  For as much as the purist/liberal debate is supposed to be about whether the films were a faithful adaptation, for many people it boiled down to defending their enjoyment (or lack thereof) of the films.

I havent read a truly passionate defense of DOS (outside TORn)anywhere yet. I have read a lot of people saying they really like it but nowhere near as enthusiastic as for AUJ.

Well a few of my friends (non Tolkien fans 'The Children of Hurin was kinda boring, why was all the writing old fashioned? And he skipped all the cool fighting scenes, where were the hobbits?  ) thought DOS was much much better than AUJ (probably because it was closer to LOTR) they also don't seem to understand my issues with the films 'There's three of them! Everything from the book is in the film!' yeah and a whole bloody lot more...

 

I suppose anyone who hasnt read the book and just wants an entertaining popcorn movie which is vaguely like LOTR will be ok with everything onscreen. and thats fair enough I guess.   

Well I'm not certain what we're all talking about here. The stupid Colbertnation website thing has no quality setting on its bloody videos, and my internet's acting up so the quality is all over the place.
Ok waiting for something.
Oh yeah I see:

(paraphrased gruesomely)

Colbert: "Yada yada, Riddles in the Dark Chapter was revised somewhat by Tolkien. It has a darker quality to it than the rest of the book."

Peter: "Yeah. Yeah. It does. it does. And from what I understand, Tolkien, well you should tell me actually, the Appendices actually.."

Colbert: Colbert mentions that Tolkien began a rewrite of The Hobbit, Unwin told him to stop after seeing a partial draft, saying that it was not The Hobbit.

Peter: OH yeah, haha, see that's why I should come on the show.
*Audience laughs appreciatively*

Yeah that was strange.

Also, why did Stephen Colbert "the character" admit to liking The Hobbit film so much? "As good as or even better than anything in the Lord of the Rings."
I mean, really?

Forest Shepherd wrote:Also, why did Stephen Colbert "the character" admit to liking The Hobbit film so much? "As good as or even better than anything in the Lord of the Rings."
I mean, really?

I'm pretty sure he was only talking about the Bilbo/Gollum scene when he made that comment, but regardless, both Colbert the actor and Colbert the character have been open about being big fans of LOTR (both books and movies) for a long time.  It was a running joke on The Daily Show a decade or more ago, back when Colbert was a correspondent there, before he had his own show. But Colbert has demonstrated his geeky chops enough for me to take him seriously on it.

Mrs Figg wrote:I suppose anyone who hasnt read the book and just wants an entertaining popcorn movie which is vaguely like LOTR will be ok with everything onscreen. and thats fair enough I guess.   

It's interesting to look at the diverging consensuses of the book-primary fans and the movie-primary fans.  I don't mean the purist-liberal divide, but the split within the part of the fandom that likes the movies between those who remain prefer the book and (generally) remain hung-up on how similar the films are, and those who prefer the movie or just haven't read the book and thus don't care about faithfulness at all.  There were already differences in the LOTR era -- the book-primary fans almost always name FOTR the best of the trilogy, while the film-primary fans have more disagreement but generally prefer ROTK.  With The Hobbit so far, a lot of book-primary fans (those who care about faithfulness but thought PJ was faithful enough with LOTR) seem to prefer AUJ because it is closer in tone to the book, at least in parts, and lingers on certain sequences in the book, like the party.  The film-primary fans seem to prefer DOS because it is closer to LOTR, and because it is faster-paced and has more action.

Mrs Figg wrote:I suppose anyone who hasn't read the book and just wants an entertaining popcorn movie which is vaguely like LOTR will be ok with everything onscreen. and thats fair enough I guess.   

She's right you no.

Colbert: Colbert mentions that Tolkien began a rewrite of The Hobbit, Unwin told him to stop after seeing a partial draft, saying that it was not The Hobbit.

Yes, and not that you said otherwise but this is the part that was off -- although Stephen, at the end, sort of adds his own caution that that's what he thinks.

As far as I know Unwin never saw The Hobbit rewrite [the 1960 re-write]. I might have delved into this before, but anyway...

... the first revsion to the Hobbit which altered the encounter between Bilbo and Gollum appeared in 1951 -- so before The Lord of the Rings was even published. Amusing note, Tolkien had sent corrections and re-writing of chapter V in 1947, and was rather surprised that these had been used, as he wasn't really intending this material as 'final' with respect to publication. In any case he accepted the way things turned out.

Thus this was not The Quest of Erebor, and The Quest for Erebor was not a re-write of The Hobbit but an idea for Appendix A: to be an account of Gandalf's part in arranging the visit of Thorin and the other Dwarves to Bilbo's home and of the persuasion of Bilbo -- as 'seen' by Gandalf himself [thus it overlapped with an Unexpected Party].

'It was to have come in during a look-ing back conversation in Minas Tirith, but it had to go, and is only represented in brief in App. A... though the difficulties that Gandalf had with Thorin are omitted.'

Tolkien, letter to Colonel Worskett, 1963

In 1955 Tolkien wrote [to Rayner Unwin] of the need to compress into the available space unwritten sections of the Appendices, including information about the House of Durin, but even the short form of The Quest of Erebor was omitted from the material sent to publishers. Only a very abridged version appears in the published 'Durin's Folk' in Appendix A.

JD Rateliff states that when Tolkien decided to revise The Hobbit in 1960 [thus years later], he 'approached Bilbo's story from the point of view of the rejected Appendix material, very much to Bilbo's disadvantage' -- and even if Tolkien had used actual passages from this now older material, again in theory, my addition is that this still would not make the original Quest of Erebor a revision of The Hobbit itself.

Jackson can obviously claim that any other material surrounding Bilbo's tale is Tolkien-written [if it is], but he can't claim that simply by writing it, Tolkien intended to add it to The Hobbit itself, as a story, already woven together.

'Apparently in 1960 Tolkien began to revise The Hobbit more substantially, recasting it in a language not 'overtly addressed to children'. But before long he abandoned this text -- recognizing, perhaps, that for better or for worse, he had created The Hobbit as a children's book and a fairy-tale, and to make it otherwise would be to deny its essential nature and destroy much of its charm.'

Hammond and Scull

And did Rayner Unwin ever see this abandoned start?

'According to Christopher Tolkien, when his father had reached this point in the recasting he loaned the material to a friend to get an outside opinion on it. We do not know this person's identity, but apparently her response was something along the lines of 'this is wonderful, but it's not The Hobbit'. She must have been someone whose judgement Tolkien respected, for he abandoned the work and decided to let The Hobbit retain its own autonomy and voice rather than completely incorporate into The Lord of The Rings a 'prelude' to the greater work.

'When he briefly returned to it in 1965 for the third edition revisions, he restricted himself in the main to the correction of errors and egregious departures from Middle-earth as it had developed (...) and left matters of style and tone alone.'

JD Rateliff, The History of The Hobbit

Well, it doesn't seem that Rayner Unwin necessarily saw this version, or that is, this doesn't seem to be known so far [unless I've missed something here]

I note that there is, I think, some opinion from the Tolkien scholars here [all three]. The scholars rightly make it clear that their commentary is not fact, but if we boil things down, in my opinion we really don't know why Tolkien abandoned the 1960 Hobbit, although the assumptions seem likely enough in any case.

Anyway this person referred to as 'her/she' [this unknown reader] cannot be Rayner Unwin at least; and again it seems as if we don't know if she was connected to Tolkien's publisher at all.

ok. i honestly don't know what to do now. until now the norwegian titles for the hobbit movies have been ok. "an unexpeced journy" is translated literally to "en uventet reise" and so is "the desolation of Smaug" "Smaugs ødemark" BUT!!! the last movie! what the frick-frack!!! at first when it was still "there and back again" it was bad. because the title has a double meaning, there and back home again, which makes the norwegian translation "fram og tilbake igjen" ridiculous. why? because it is the sort of thing that just means "i went there and now i am back at the beginning=no progress" and it doesn't have a very good double meaning at all! a better title would be "dit og hjem igjen" meaning there and home again which also is much closer to what it's actually referred to in the translated books. 

but now that they've changed that title, what now. i was ready to accept the badness of the previous one, i could honestly live with it because i generally refer to the english titles, but this one is BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD!!
the chapter "the battle of the five armies" in the book is called "femhærskrigen" (i don't have a copy here, so i might be wrong) meaninglitterally a war with five armies (fem=five, hær=army, krigen=the war) and that is a GOOD TITLE! now, if imbd is correct (and they often fucking are!) the title is gonna be "kampen om di fem rasene".... apart from the fact there is a very prominent grammar mistake "di" should be "de", it says "the battle of the five races" which sounds so fucking racist!! i really hope this is just a mistake and that some nuthead has been there and written it, because this can honestly NOT be the fucking title!!! why can't they use the BOOK! as a reference!


edit: ok. there isn't a chapter in the hobbit called "the battle of the five armies" but it is referred to as "femhærskrigen"  (pretty sure about that)

"Kampen om de fem rasene" is wrong on so many levels. First of all, it should be "slaget", not "kampen". And "slaget om" would still be wrong, as that literally means "the battle about (the five races)". And like you say, using the word race is just plain stupid. Making it a battle between five "races" leaves Bilbo, Gandalf, the Eagles, Beorn and probably more out of it. Besides, it's not five races so much as five species, so this is utterly stupid. By the way - I enjoyed reading that post, Norc, a well worded piece of crabbit to go with my coffee

haha, thank you and i meant every single word of it

I'm growing more and more fond of nynorsk. Where we say "battle of five armies" they say "femhærskrigen". That's right, one word just waiting to be used. Apparently the vikings must have had these kinds of things going on all the time....

well, it could be both nynorsk and bokmål, but yeah it is a great word  but more subject to the fact that we never use spaces  much like the germans...