How Peter Jackson Should Have Framed the Hobbit Trilogy
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- Опубліковано 9 лип 2022
- One of my biggest concerns prior to The Hobbit being released as a movie trilogy was how to go from the epic, adult level of The Lord of the Rings to the child-oriented whimsy of The Hobbit, and while Peter Jackson made some moves in the right direction, I think there’s a better way he could have gone about it.
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Unfortunately Peter Jackson had a LOT less freedom with the Hobbit. I think actually is because of Peter Jackson that these movies have some redeeming qualities. Blame on Warner’s rush and greediness.
My thoughts exactly! If you listen to what he wanted to do it was quite different.
Yes
@@jkhristian9603 Source?
@@seandavidgallagher4494 I don't remember exactly. It was from many different interviews and sources. I know he talks about it in special features for the movies, although he bites his lip about placing blame. He does say that he had planned for two movies and did preproduction for two. I highly recommend watching the Hobbit documentaries. Also check Google for interviews with Jackson, especially post release. As the years go by we learn more and more, probably because of non disclosures expiring. But that's just my guess. But overall from the interviews and documentaries, the strong impression I get is that Jackson wanted to (and started to) do a smaller, vastly different film and MGM and/or WB forced him to change things relatively late in production. And the film that suffered the most was Battle of the Five Armies.
If you UA-cam Evangeline Lilly hobbit interview, she talks about not wanting to be in a love triangle when she took the role. During reshoots she was told “the Studio” ie. Warner Brothers, asked for it to be added. They also wouldn’t give Peter Jackson more time…He had six weeks of pre production time after Del Toro left the project. LOTR had almost two years. You can’t even compare them lol.
Something like the Princess Bride, with asides like "I did not get eaten by Gollum at this time" :-D
While I’m not defending all of Peter Jackson’s choices he made for the Hobbbit Trilogy(barrel chase scene,Alfred not dieing at the begging of BOFTA, Ninja Legolas) most of the Hobbit issues were primarily a Warner Brothers problem. The Hobbit is not the only Trilogy or franchise they’ve tinkered with. PJ had 6 weeks of prep/production time after Del Toro left. LOTR, he had two years lol. He also went to the hospital with bleeding ulcers at the start of him taking over. If you watch the special features, he was literally staying up 24 hours or longer to get it done. Poor guy. The reality is he didn’t have the time or proper support from WB to do the project properly.
My main problem with the Hobbit movie was that it was just plain boring. Like a lot of modern movies there were endless fighting scenes that just went on and on and on and on and on and on.....
Plus I was really annoyed at the cute elf girl/handsome dwarf guy love story.
Hey don't have enough material to make a trilogy? Why not throw in a Dwarf and Elf sexual relationship
By and large, I agree with your idea of the framing device.
The Hobbit does have some pretty epic moments, like when Smaug almost flambees Bilbo and then collapses the secret passage from the outside. And of course the attack on Lake Town and the valiant defense of Bard and his men, until Bard's last arrow, the Black Arrow, finds it mark. But alas, the movies don't do either of those scenes justice.
There are two images I keep getting in my head while I listen to your take.
One is the moment when Bilbo is scaring the Peter Jacksons kids with troll stories in the first ring movie. That scene is so lovely, and it does a lot of this already.
The second is the setup of Princess Bride, where the audience is asking follow-up questions and arguing with the story teller. I hear Bilbo and Gandalf bickering over the right way to tell the story. Maybe even producing different shots of the same scene.
That would be a cool little film.
I think you made a great video with wonderful insight. It would be cool to see Bilbo and Gandalf bouncing off each other while telling the story.
I will say the trilogy we got wasn't too bad. But I was annoyed with a few things; the departers from some aspects of the lore and characters, the love triangle between dwarf and elf, and Smaug being a wyvern instead of a four-leg and winged dragon.
Damn, that's certainly an idea, sounds amazing.
I think this would be a little hard to engage with, and it would undermine the Bilbo who is actually having the adventure. The main story has to be told from his point of view, with the "faerie" elements introduced in proper sequence -- Gandalf, Dwarves, trolls and so on.
You could have an epic Prologue with Balin narrating the sack of Erebor, Nanduhirion, and the loss of Thrain. Montage of Dwarves blacksmithing and coal-mining, gradually letting down the tension but setting up Thorin's motive for the quest. Cut to the Shire and Bilbo. Stay with him till the adventure is done, but skip the return journey. Tie up loose ends with the visit of Gandalf and Balin.
By having this Prologue the audience is in a position of knowing more than Bilbo (Drout's epistemic regime). So for example, when Gandalf says Thrain went away a hundred years ago last Thursday, we know what he means but Bilbo does not.
Just my 2c (another great video btw I’m stoked to see how your channel has grown so well since the early days): I think the pre-production planning a script decisions were made well before Jackson come into the project. So the early vision of these themes and plots in the movies were out of his control (in some way). There’s the aspect of “what looks entertaining for the screen” as well, and the influence/pressure from the studio etc. It was a cluster from day 1 I expect. This movie shouldn’t have been made without Jackson from the beginning.
imo they just needed to stick to the book, it was all right there
@Peak Aussieman Peter Jackson wanted to do 2 movies. One about the Hobbit and another based on what happened between the Hobbit and LOTR in the appendices.
@@jkhristian9603 that definitely would be cool as heck and mayyybe somewhere on the table in the future.
I agree this would have fixed things. Two movies was more than enough too.
I have sometimes thought that the frame should have been not the rather complex Quest of Erebor setup, but simply Sam (Astin's voice) reading to his children from the Red Book, complete with early-Disney-like opening of a storybook at the start (I cannot forgive Jackson for delaying one of the most well-known opening lines in literature for twenty minutes for the sake of spectacle; but I digress). It could even undermine what you hear with what is on the screen in an amusing way. For example, Sam's narration could talk about William's purse crying out (from the book), even while what you see on the screen is the 'real' version of what happened to alert the trolls. It would be easy to use other bits to establish Bilbo's writings as unreliable. You could even insert Elanor and her dozen siblings, "But Papa, where did Gandalf go?" "Well, Elanor my lass, your old Dad heard _that_ from Gandalf himself! Listen..." and cue some Dol Guldur stuff. "But now we must go back to Bilbo! They had come to Mirkwood, and…"
Jackson's and Warner's desire to make The Hobbit into what the kids today call 'epic!' was an artistic blunder, though an obvious, safe, and comfortable commercial decision*. Even Tolkien himself abandoned substantially rewriting The Hobbit to be more in line with LotR, when someone read it and told him 'It's good but it's not The Hobbit'.
* Jackson's Hobbit is full of safe and even unimaginative decisions. Riddles in the Dark is Riddles in the Slightly Dim, instead of giving us an almost pitch-black screen with only Sting and Gollum's lamp-like eyes for illumination; but that would be harder to do well, although much creepier (with the occasional jump-scare) if pulled off correctly. The video-game Goblin-town-complete with preposterous physics-is easy, even cliché. Claustrophobic running through labyrinthine dark tunnels is hard, but true to the book and, again, can be far more tense (oh no! A dead end!) occasionally amusing (A dead end? Why did they build this?) and have the occasional jump scare. In both cases, Jackson went for the obvious fantasy formulas seen in so many films - sadder, because he had established these formulas himself.
Hmm your way would probably fix the Hobbit, and solve a lot of the discrepancies in the LOTR movies too and could be used to reconcile the differences.
Maybe it'd also work better as 1 or 2 movies at most rather than 3.
Great video, and signed onto your discord serve, very happy to sign on my friend!
I was somewhat excited when I had heard that they were making a Hobbit movie. By that time, I had grandchildren I was excited to introduce to the world of Tolkien. I had done so with my own kids when they were young, but through the books. I thought The Hobbit movie would be a great introduction. Then, we could watch the LOTR. But, with all of the CGI, the constant fighting, the love triangles with non-characters, the absence of the talking ravens and thrushes, etc....well, it was NOT the story I had loved so dearly since I had first read it in the '70's. I love your idea of Bilbo telling the story and Gandalf filling in the missing parts. That makes so much more sense. But, the Powers That Be wanted another Cash Cow, and well, we get what we got. Sad, really.
I think Tolkien's approach that you describe here could work very well as a TV / streaming series, and I could absolutely love it.
As I see it, the basic problem with the Hobbit trilogy that we got was that too many people who could influence the project approached it with a "Quick! Let's ride on the success of the LOTR films and make lots if money!" motivation.
I don't know if "I want to basically copy this successful book / movie / series as soon as possible so I can get rich" has ever produced stories of lasting value, though undoubtedly money has been made. *cough* Fifty Shades *cough*
Remindes me of the game Aragorn's Tale. It plot was Mayor Samwise periodically telling his kids the life of aragorn whilst preparing for the arrival of Aragorn with a party.
Things I like about this movie, Bilbo was largely done right. Martin Freeman nailed it. I really enjoy his relationship with Thorin and Balin, and his goodbye at the end is just perfect. I even like Tauriel, although the forcing the romance subplot on her was such bullcrap. I believe even her actress was pissed about that.
I wonder if there is enough footage of Ian Holm in character as Bilbo in the films and outtakes that could be used to edit the Hobbit to create such a cut.
I would also suggest that you could have Gimli interrupting and saying 'That's not how I was told by my father!'
Great idea really - Gandalf actor would be the best narrator to fill in details that are left out of The Hobbit - picture in a picture - Hobbit remains adventurous but light hearted and Gandalf covers more serious bigger picture elements of the LoR inclusion
If you ever played the game "Aragorn's Quest", you'd find they did something very similar. The game was marketed as a kid-friendly Lord of the rings game. It loosely follows the story of Aragorn but is framed by Sam telling his kids about who the king of The Reunited Kingdom is. As such it keeps everything very g-rated with Sam narrating and keeping things from getting too dark. One of the best ones is Sam voicing over when the character dies saying "Wait, no that's not how it happened".
I'd like to see footage of that game again. It was quite a cool one!
But I like watching dwarves float down rushing Rapids in wooden barrels for 30 min....
J/k
Might have been interesting to place it in Rivendell before the Fellowship goes South. Legolas and Gloin would be there to offer the Elf / Dwarf POV.
Or Bilbo telling the story to Sam, Merry & Pippin, while Frodo is filled in by Gandalf
I miss so much complaining about The Hobbit movies, now that I am watching the Amazon mess😅. The Hobbit was almost perfect lorewise in comparison.
they shouldve allowed Peter more time and more freedom. It wouldve ultimately earned Warner more money in the end because the films wouldve been received much better
I have to agree with you but I did enjoy the films
A question that has been bugging me. How much do the people/ humanoids know about the world around them. Do they know how the world was created? Do they know about the beings that did it and who they are? Or are they just as clueless as we are about our own world?
The men of Gondor at least seem to know of the Valar. Most others probably don’t.
@@TolkienLorePodcast That's both sad and a little mysteriously beautiful and it sort of ties to how the world won't be destroyed again if they(the Valar) don't get involved again. Although I'm sure there are many ways they get involved or leave their mark to where people who are ready could connect to them. Heck, even still in dreams etc.
I prefer the animated Rankin/Bass version
I actually rather liked the framing of The Hobbit in the movies. Obviously, it would fundamentally change the nature of the story were it not told from Bilbo's perspective (you could say Jackson still did that by focussing too much on things that have nothing to do with Bilbo, of course). I have the feeling that if there were several narrative interruptions by Gandalf in Minas Tirith, it might feel mildly jarring. It's my opinion it should have been done so that the movies could easily be watched in chronological order. That might receive some backlash from movie-fans, to be sure (I think that was why the Star Wars Prequels weren't as popular, while I actually get the impression that newer viewers usually enjoy it better when watched chronologically), but I think The Hobbit being told as a comical prequel, faithful to the book, would be more accepted because there are a lot of book fans out there.
In a impossible perfect world it would be fantastic if Peter Jackson had a chance to make The Hobbit along these lines and given the freedom to do it. In the world we live in I'm at least glad we have your version which I like much better and agree with.
Somewhere in his late writings, Tolkien offhandedly mentions that Book 1 of The Lord of the Rings is also primarily Bilbo's work: he attributes the editorial comment about the peculiar (but excellent) arrangement of Bree's Men and Hobbits explicitly to Bilbo, and does it in such an off-handed way that it appears that he felt that it was _obvious_ to the readers that Bilbo was the author of the first Book. (and this is why it is hard for me to cite the exact reference)
I had a similar idea for a potentially complete tv series from the beginning to the end. I thought maybe Samwise kids find the library in which the red book and the elvish books are kept, and then start reading them, so they start with The Silmarilion and maybe even quote first few sentences of the book, and then show the stuff. once in a episode they could go back to the kids and maybe have some dialogue here and there. This way they could go through books chronologically and some day they're like: "hey this one is a lot funnier." and they start reading the Hobbit and showing it. This would justify the changes in tone, and even maybe different approaches. Like Wargs talking in Hobbit but not in LOTR.
Wait, if the trolls werent really arguing, than how did they end up staying up late enough for the sun to rise? Also I think theres a letter where Tolkien said the cockney trolls with familiar relationships seem to indicate that they have souls. Or something like that,Ill have to look up the exact quote, but I think that scene is literal. Which doesnt resolve my confusion on the nature of trolls.
I’m sure they argued, just not quite in the humorous way described lol.
I just watch a fan edit that cuts out all the extra stuff and just sticks with Bilbo then watch lord of the rings. Just because they were made in reverse order doesn't mean you have to watch them that way, you can still watch the more whimsical story then watch the serious one. I would have preferred a more strait take almost like they forgot they already made Lord of the Rings and just gave us the Hobbit.
I don't dislike The Hobbit movies as much as most people, but there's definitely too much bloat and silliness with the chase scenes. If he had stuck closer to the book and kept it to two movies, they would have been far superior. He could even have given Legolas a cameo in the Battle of Five Armies or whatever. But it comes off as too much of a cash grab in the current form.
Well to be fair. PJ had half the freedom he had on the Hobbit, it wasn't his decision to make it into a trilogy and he wasn't the first director for the trilogy either. Combined with the overuse of CGI, i don't really blame him too much for all of it. For me it's another case of Hollywood fucking shit up for money. The problem is, that these franchises are so big. No matter how bad it is. We all keep watching it and it all keeps on making money. The next series that's gonna come out looks very problematic for me tbh.
Well, I think in truth having a live action The Hobbit was doomed from the start as it was always going to be contextualised from Jackson's TLOTR. Jackson should never have taken it on and I think he probably regrets doing so to this day. For me, The Hobbit could only have worked through an animated medium. Thank God Christopher Tolkien never got to see it, he obviously hated Jackson's TLOTR, what he would think of The Hobbit travesty doesn't bare thinking about.
Christopher Tolkien sounds like an absolute over-the-top pessimistic contrarian than a legitimate critic on what's good and bad about PJ's TLOTR adaptations, but he did say it's his own opinion, so it really doesn't matter to all of us anyway.
I like it. Much more organic and so much less clunky.
Watch the M4 hobbit recut. You wont regret it.
As others have said, I think the biggest problem was excessive studio meddling intended to make a quick buck and the late change of directors. I think it would have been much better if Jackson had been allowed time to prepare like he had for LOTR and if it was limited to two films. Someone else though would have had to restrain his Legolas man-crush and do away with the ridiculous elf-dwarf romance.
Personally, I liked seeing Gandalf's trek to Dol Guldur and the White Council assault to drive Sauron out. It could have been done better by not turning Galadriel into the centerpiece of it but emphasizing the team aspect of it.
Your framing idea is interesting and I think would have avoided many of the problems the trilogy did have.
I agree it would have been a much better framing for the story. Unfortunately those movies suffered from huge issues. It is hard to save them when seeing that the filmmakers mainly wanted to make money, and not take the opportunity to create vessels for a beautiful but less ambitious story that maybe happened to target a less profitable audience. We ended up with a mess that could detract potential new readers from enjoying the book, and that would be for me the worst thing about the whole thing.
If the Hobbit filmmakers were all in on the money or passionate, they wouldn't have felt so downright depressed to begin with. I mean look at everyone working behind the scenes on the Hobbit films! They all look so miserable and tired rather than feeling greedy or passionate about making anything worthy. It's just sad.
You have a video about Tolkien's retcon! I'll be back!
I think the 70s animated Hobbit movie is a near perfect adaptation. Of course it came before the Bakshi-version of The Lord of the Rings, so the course from childish to epic goes in the right direction in this case.
are you related to that science youtuber? you look like him
now i remember, cody's lab
Nope
To long, to silly, and to much deviation from the book. I even have the Fan-Edit that cuts out as much fluff as they can, and it's still a bloated mess that I can't even finish.
I do like the idea of using bilbo and gandalf as a framing device for the story, if it's at minas tirith at the end of the war of the ring, other characters such as legolas could be there which could rationalise his inclusion. In the event though I absolutely loved the hobbit films. Having grown up with PJ's trilogy (I was 12 when fellowship came out, and that was my introduction to LOTR), it felt like getting more of what I loved. I could overlook the silliness and just enjoy the epic parts of the story. Having looked into the lore a lot in the 12-ish years between the trilogies, I absolutely adored scenes like the battle at dol guldur, where something that was mentioned in the source material was taken and expanded. Maybe the films could have been made better, but nothing can ever be perfect and I thoroughly enjoyed what we did get.
Good try, buddy. Your framing would have been better than what we saw, but the original fault was in filming LOTR BEFORE the Hobbit. If the order had been IN ORDER, a lighter (and simpler tone) for the Hobbit would have worked. The actual show runners put CRAP into the Hobbit that had no business being there. AND, don't tell the story in Rivendell as an old man, but to young Hobbits in the Shire after his return.
The Hobbit movies were such missed opportunities. Near total swing and a miss.
Obviously it shouldn't have been three films. All the crap in it can be attributed to the necessity of stretching the book into three movies.
Warner’s greediness
I watched all the commentaries for lotr and the hobbit. With lotr even with the changes he had to make he was still trying to bring Tolkien's vision to life. Lotr was a passion project.
The hobbit however is where things started to take a turn. Instead of trying to bring Tolkien's vision to life Jackson was making changes that *he* wanted. Some changes you can argue are necessary for cinema, but overall Jackson was changing the hobbit into *his* vision. Instead of a passion project it became a vanity project. He did to the hobbit what George Lucas did to the star wars prequels
Jackson didn’t change anything. All the scripts were already made when Jackson took on the project and he was not allowed to do much.
@@di3486 who's talking about scripts? I'm taking about book to movie adaptations
@@user-yf6zz3cl8i Do you know what a script is? Is the written plot for the movie adaptation.
@@di3486 @Di :3 Okay. I'll break this down Barney style for you since I don't have any crayons to draw you a picture. You see when a book is going to be made into a movie we call that an adaptation.
When a book is going to be adapted into a movie sometimes changes need to be made because certain things from the book just don't work, or at the least work well in cinema. Sometimes the changes are made simply because the director doesn't like certain elements from the book. Hence why we have no Tom Bombadil in the films and why Azog was still alive fighting Thorin's company.
Oh and by the way, the word adapt means change/modify something pre-existing as so it can serve a new purpose.
Now if you have any further questions I'll be more than happy to assist you. Otherwise take that dick you've been sitting and spinning on this entire time and stick it in your mouth so you can shut the fuck up
@R calm it down. Di :3 clearly understands how adaptations are done but you seem to be completely missing his point, which is that the script for the movies was already written when he took over the project. Now you can engage with that politely or I’ll start deleting your comments.
You speak as if the Hobbit was created after LotR. But the Hobbit was written for his son. It is a children’s story. To not treat it as such would be to disrespect the source.
I’m talking about the Hobbit movies coming after the LOTR trilogy, not the books.
you are trying to create headcanon to convince yourself of authorial discrepancies such as the trolls, how the story got framed, or how textual revisions fit in. It's all just impotent fan theory because Tolkien's work isn't designed to be from an unreliable narrator. While it may be declared as such, it adds no value at all because it has no elements that allow you to identify with the narrator or figure out a mystery that isn't clear to the narrator. Everything is supposed to be taken at face value. One has to never actual think because all the information is spoon-fed.
Uh, what? The appendices make it 100% clear there are at least four sources of the story, and none of them are God so necessarily they are fallible and thus unreliable. In fact we KNOW Bilbo is unreliable because he lied in the Hobbit (1st ed.).