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

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Pic of Elrond in armour- seems to be from ages ago though as thats the old non cgi Bolg- but even so why is Elrond in this? Why is he in armour near orcs?

Why was he a battle commander in the FOTR prologue when the book describes him as "the herald of Gil-galad"?

From an interview with Evangeline Lilly-

'Tauriel’s story ends in classic Tolkien fashion. And I think that Tolkien was a master of the greater life lessons and bitter life truths and he didn’t shy away from anyone’s storyline. I think that’s what made him so particularly good. He really had whole and complete arcs for all of the characters that he took the time to introduce you to. And Tauriel is no exception.

And I think even if he, if you are familiar with Tolkien’s appendices and his work outside of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings trilogy, you see in those books that he wrote a lot more for women. And already the sign of the times changing as he was writing those books in the 1960′s and ’70s. So now suddenly women are actually taking on the world’s stage. So it’s kind of cool if you look into, if you project or you’re looking at Tauriel and you are looking for references, Tolkien references, you need to look in all of his other books to see how he wrote for women. And I think that Peter Jackson being an expert on Tolkien took all that into account.'



'Peter Jackson being an expert on Tolkien'

    

Pettytyrant101 wrote:From an interview with Evangeline Lilly-

'Tauriel’s story ends in classic Tolkien fashionThat's...reassuring...or confusing?. And I think that Tolkien was a master of the greater life lessons and bitter life truths and he didn’t shy away from anyone’s storylineExcept your's. I think that’s what made him so particularly good. He really had whole and complete arcs for all of the characters that he took the time to introduce you to. And Tauriel is no exception.She is

And I think even if he, if you are familiar with Tolkien’s appendices and his work outside of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings trilogy, you see in those books that he wrote a lot more for women. And already the sign of the times changing as he was writing those books in the 1960′s and ’70sWhat,The Ancrenne Wisse,Smith of Wooton Major, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and The Road Goes Ever On, if Jackson has those confused with the appendices no wonder things are so different.... So now suddenly women are actually taking on the world’s stage. So it’s kind of cool if you look into, if you project or you’re looking at Tauriel and you are looking for references, Tolkien references, you need to look in all of his other books to see how he wrote for womenYeah you do, shame Phillipa Boyens hasn't read The Silmarillion in 25 years, oh well the Wiki counts, right? And you can watch DOS to see how Jackson and co do it. And I think that Peter Jackson being an expert on TolkienNo Comment, merely a hint sarcastic    took all that into account.And forgot most of it no doubt



'Peter Jackson being an expert on Tolkien'

    

   Indeed

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Yeah most likely- I guess PJ is going to shoehorn fights in for everyone then   

Elrond's role in Dol Guldor was confirmed (kind of) over a year ago, one of my old EMPIRE magazines mentioned a scene of Elrond joining Gandalf in scouting out the ruins of Dol Guldor, as Gandalf has been captured in DOS, I guess this scene was either rewritten, or refers to a flashback of the two of them finding zombie Thrain.

Eldorion wrote:

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Pic of Elrond in armour- seems to be from ages ago though as thats the old non cgi Bolg- but even so why is Elrond in this? Why is he in armour near orcs?

Why was he a battle commander in the FOTR prologue when the book describes him as "the herald of Gil-galad"?

What I found more mysterious was the fact they actually bothered to cast Gil-galad at all, sure it's cool for fans, he dosen't really do anything in the film I would have just combined his role with Elrond's. The actor who portrayed Gil-galad actually filmed a fair bit of footage (the shot where Sauron reaches out stupidly towards Isildur's sword, was (If my sources were correct) originally shot showing Sauron grabbing Gil-galad and setting him on fire with his heat) but most of it was left on the cutting room floor, there was an interview with him floating around on youtube a while back.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:From an interview with Evangeline Lilly-

'Tauriel’s story ends in classic Tolkien fashion eh?. And I think that Tolkien was a master of the greater life lessons and bitter life truths and he didn’t shy away from anyone’s storyline. oh I gettit! you are gonna die in the BO5A. I think that’s what made him so particularly good. He really had whole and complete arcs for all of the characters that he took the time to introduce you to. And Tauriel is no exception. Only Tolkien didnt invent your character

And I think even if he, if you are familiar with Tolkien’s appendices and his work outside of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings trilogy, you see in those books that he wrote a lot more for women. srsly? And already the sign of the times changing as he was writing those books in the 1960′s and ’70s. So now suddenly women are actually taking on the world’s stage. *groan* So it’s kind of cool if you look into, if you project or you’re looking at Tauriel and you are looking for references, Tolkien references, you need to look in all of his other books to see how he wrote for women. And I think that Peter Jackson being an expert on Tolkien took all that into account.' I cant even



'Peter Jackson being an expert on Tolkien'

    

  

I think the most eyeroll-worthy thing in that quote is the claim that Tolkien wrote LOTR in the '60s and '70s.  He actually wrote the book between 1937 and 1949, although it wasn't published until several years after it was completed.  I find it rather doubtful that Tolkien's female characters were influenced by mid-century strides towards gender equality.

Edit: well no, the most eyeroll-worthy thing is actually describing PJ as an expert on Tolkien, but I think the date confusion (and particularly the theorizing based on it) is a close second.

why is she still trying to come up with excuses this late in the game?

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Pic of Elrond in armour- seems to be from ages ago though as thats the old non cgi Bolg- but even so why is Elrond in this? Why is he in armour near orcs?

Elrond is looking at that actor and sadly thinking  'you poor sucker, your days of happy Goblining are numbered, a cgi shitfest cometh'.

why is she still trying to come up with excuses this late in the game?- Mrs Figg

More worryingly didn't she claim at the start to be a Tolkien nerd? She seems to be about as knowledgeable on Tolkien as Boyens- ie she knows diddly squat and so resorts to just making stuff up and hoping no one checks.

The sad thing is that a lot of people are just going to believe what they are told about these movies and Toliien in general .

Yes, sadly that has been true since Pj started the lies about the extra material being used and how everything was from Tolkien- telling people the utter embarrassing nonsense we have been fed under the guise of being a film of TH is Tolkien is about the worst thing you could do to his reputation as a writer of any weight, significance or seriousness.

If I had never read Tolkien and TH film was my first introduction there is no way in hell I would think 'yeah, thats for me, I want to read that guys stuff.'

I think Tolkien is famous enough and established enough that his reputation is going to outlast the legacy of The Hobbit movies.  I think they'll mainly be remembered as a disappointing follow-up to the earlier trilogy, and the claims of their faithfulness to the book largely forgotten as fewer people feel compelled to defend the films as they grow older.  I think the more lasting damage to Tolkien's legacy (if you want to call it that) will come from the LOTR films, not because they are bad, but because they place it firmly in the realm of pop culture and create a real obstacle to the efforts of certain Tolkien scholars and proponents to win him recognition as "true literature". But that was already an uphill battle and there's a long history of academics looking down on Tolkien's fiction, so you can't really blame the films for LOTR not being studied next to Dostoevsky.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:More worryingly didn't she claim at the start to be a Tolkien nerd? She seems to be about as knowledgeable on Tolkien as Boyens- ie she knows diddly squat and so resorts to just making stuff up and hoping no one checks.

Well in fairness I'm sure there are plenty of people who read Tolkien and enjoyed him enough to re-read him at some later date, and for whom that alone makes them the biggest Tolkien fan they've ever met.  Not everyone makes as much of a study of him as some of us here do.  Of course, that doesn't excuse the writers of the films for not doing their homework, but having read the book at all makes Lily more of a fan than many of the actors involved.

I just feel like I'm being pandered to when they trot out the actors and say, "Hey I'm a big Tolkien nerd!"

True, that is what pretty much everyone involved in every adaptation ever is expected to say, so most of them say it.  I'm sure there are plenty of genuine fans involved in the films but there's not really any way to tell who's sincere and who isn't. That said, I have been a little surprised that as many actors (relatively) have openly said they've never read the book. Hell, Guillermo del Toro basically made fun of it back when he was attached to the project. I suspect that The Hobbit's reputation as LOTR's lightweight cousin has emboldened people in this regard.

Perhaps one day an interviewer will pause the actor after they have finished a long spiel of nonsense and explain clearly and systematically how dumb and inaccurate the things the actor has been saying actually are.

Also, I'm curious by what you mean about Del Toro there, Eldo. Am I missing something obvious? What mockery did he make?

 I think the more lasting damage to Tolkien's legacy (if you want to call it that) will come from the LOTR films, not because they are bad, but because they place it firmly in the realm of pop culture and create a real obstacle to the efforts of certain Tolkien scholars and proponents to win him recognition as "true literature".  Eldo

hmm I am not sure if I agree with that, I think the LOTR films have opened a lot of peoples eyes to the fact that Tolkien is worthy of study alongside the classics, there has been an upswing in University studies on Tolkien and conferences, debate etc, since the films immense popularity, before the films LOTR was just a fantasy book low brow ordinary folk loved but academics scoffed at, but since the pop culturing of LOTR people have sat up and academics have fallen over themselves to be cool with the kids, after all most academics are teaching kids. Also a lot of classic literature has been pop cultured without harm to the original, ie Sherlock, but its true that fantasy gets a bad rap.

Forest Shepherd wrote:Also, I'm curious by what you mean about Del Toro there, Eldo. Am I missing something obvious? What mockery did he make?

Perhaps mockery was a poor word choice on my part, but del Toro made a number of generally disparaging but also self-contradictory remarks about The Hobbit and Tolkien in general over the years.

http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Guillermo_del_Toro

I was never into heroic fantasy. At all. I don’t like little guys and dragons, hairy feet, hobbits — I’ve never been into that at all. I don’t like sword and sorcery, I hate all that stuff.

C.S. Lewis was another thing. I really enjoyed him as a kid, but he’s too Catholic for me. It’s not something as an adult I can feel comfortable relating to.

[When asked if he was influenced by Tolkien.] Not at all. I could barely finish "The Hobbit". Curiously, that kind of fantasy, never called out to me. I think that fairy tales are in themselves a different genre. Heroic fantasy, in general, leaves me cold. I am more interested in Robert E. Howard's work of terror than his novels about the muscular Conan. Although there are two writers of fantasy that I think are sublime: Clark Ashton Smith and Lord Dunsany.

I tried my best to read Lord of the Rings [sic], the trilogy. I could not. I could not. They were very dense. And then one day, I bought The Hobbit. I read it and I loved it.

Many of these comments were made while he was promoting Pan's Labyrinth, and after del Toro was attached to The Hobbit the topic came up again:

http://www.mtv.com/news/1586421/guillermo-del-toro-addresses-hobbit-fans-concerns-talks-possible-casting/

MTV: Just two years ago, you were quoted as saying, “I was never into heroic fantasy.” Did your views change?

Del Toro: I wasn’t. I completely gravitated towards horror. For whatever reason, I never hooked into sword and sorcery. I really rediscovered fantasy through my love of filmmakers as a filmmaker. Something kind of popped and jelled. I now can empathize with one side of the fantasy genre without ever wandering into lubricated musclemen with giant swords. “The Hobbit” occupies a particular seat in fantasy that is irreplaceable. They can dredge up old cadavers in my closet. I’m not running for president. I’m a f—ing filmmaker! I’m just trying to make the movie I want to.

I think the strangest thing is the implication that he began reading The Hobbit but stopped because he mentally lumped it in with Conan the Barbarian type stories, but then changed his mind when he learned more about TH. Exactly what is there in the beginning of TH that is reminiscent of Conan?

Mrs Figg wrote:before the films LOTR was just a fantasy book low brow ordinary folk loved but academics scoffed at, but since the pop culturing of LOTR people have sat up and academics have fallen over themselves to be cool with the kids, after all most academics are teaching kids.

There has probably been an increase in Corey Olsen types writing books for general audiences that are timed to coincide with film releases, but I'm not sure the impact on more sober academic work has been as positive. There was after all plenty of research into Tolkien and books being written about him before the films came out, but they were not necessarily flashy and accessible enough for the general market.

Also a lot of classic literature has been pop cultured without harm to the original, ie Sherlock, but its true that fantasy gets a bad rap.

That's a reasonable point, but I think that for Tolkien scholars they've always been struggling to gain recognition from the serious circles of academia, so the potential for the films to be a stumbling block is greater than if Tolkien had already gained recognition.

In the long term I think it will only help JRRT's reputation among academics. Nothing can cement a work of literature into canon like the number and the stature of people who cite it as an influence. With whole generations growing up on LotR, how can it not have an influence?

That's an interesting point, Dave.  It will be interesting to see what the long-term impact of the movies is; talking in the span of decades here.  LOTR was already massively well-known but the the films did help raise its profile even higher.  Perhaps as time goes on some of the specific inconsistencies and points of confusion will fade away next to the overall influence you mention.

There are certainly other examples of a work making the jump from "pop" to "high art", so it's not as if Tolkien's initial reception will dominate his legacy forever. I do think that LOTR will continue to be read for a long time, one way or another.

pop culture itself is studied by academics, I think these days theres less of a distinction between high and low art, its all worthy of serious study, more cross overs and fluidity, less snobbery. maybe there are some academics who poo poo Tolkien and poo poo the films, but that means they are stubbornly rubbishing the tradition of storytelling, sagas, myth and legend of folk culture as well, they think Hercules/Perseus is ok because its ancient Greek or Roman but our homegrown fantasy isnt good enough. which stinks.

A tweet from the editor of Empire magazine after apparently seeing the trailer- joke or not? Impossible to tell with Pj how bad and bloody stupid it could all get-

Nick de Semlyen @NickdeSemlyen · 14m
Forget War Horse - The Hobbit Part 3 will feature battle goats. BATTLE GOATS.

Pettytyrant101 wrote: A tweet from the editor of Empire magazine after apparently seeing the trailer- joke or not? Impossible to tell with Pj how bad and bloody stupid it could all get-

Nick de Semlyen @NickdeSemlyen · 14m
Forget War Horse - The Hobbit Part 3 will feature battle goats. BATTLE GOATS.

I hate everything.

 boy oh boy!