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Post by Andorinha on Apr 27, 2009 8:16:42 GMT -6
I see from the member-registry that we have a new name on the roster, Ardo Whortleberry, whose advent here I should like to herald. Hullo, Ardo, jump right in when you get the time!
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Post by Stormrider on Apr 28, 2009 6:39:24 GMT -6
Welcome to Tolkien's Ring, Ardo Whortleberry! What a kewl name--I love it!
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Post by Stormrider on May 15, 2009 5:54:35 GMT -6
Ardo, first of all.....
Your tale sounds familiar to me as well...at least the love of Tolkien and the re-reading many many times over the years since the first discovery of this wonderful tale. And many of the rest of us did the very same thing!
I also thought the story would make an awesome movie, but was really disappointed in the cartoon versions that came out--weren't we all!
While PJ did a pretty good job of it with LOTR, I still love reading the books and following its course more than the altered movie version. I was critical of the character appearances in the movies after having pictured my own "looks" for everyone. And some of the changes shocked me at first. But on the whole, I think PJ did a pretty darn good job of it. It was wonderful to see LOTR on the big screen.
Now I can't wait until they really get going on The Hobbit Movie! I wonder who will play the Dwarves! I've seen a couple of Del Toro's movies recently and he does a very nice job with special effects so I am sure it will be done as well as PJ's movies.
Thanks for posting your "Discovery of Tolkien" tale here.
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Post by Fredeghar Wayfarer on May 15, 2009 17:25:16 GMT -6
I also thought the story would make an awesome movie, but was really disappointed in the cartoon versions that came out--weren't we all! Hey, speak for yourself! I love the Rankin-Bass cartoons (and I have a feeling Ardo may have some fondness for them as well. Very handsome avatar you have there, Mr. Whortleberry. It seems familiar somehow...  ). Granted, the Rankin-Bass Return of the King seems very corny and understated compared to Jackson's epic. But I still enjoy it and The Hobbit remains one of my favorite animated movies. Never could get into the Ralph Bakshi Lord of the Rings though. In any case...welcome, Ardo! Good to have you here. Nice to hear that you've read The Prydain Chronicles as well. That's my second favorite series and I managed to get a few folks here hooked on it. |
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Post by Ardo Whortleberry on May 15, 2009 17:54:41 GMT -6
Greetings, Fredegar, and Well Met! ~~~
In spite of my choice of "Avatar", I have to confess I was horrified and appalled at the sight of the Rankin-Bass animated version of "The Hobbit" - I understand the restrictions of the format of the one-hour cartoon, but I felt like my favorite story of all time had been a bit butchered, and fell woefully short of its potential ---
I never did see the Rankin-Bass version of ROTK, but I was simialrly dissapointed ( although not quite as much so ) with the Saul Zaentz animated adaption of the first half of LOTR -
It started out well enough, but then so much of the story got left out - it had some nice effects
( such as when the faces of the Black Riders were "revealed" to Frodo at Weathertop ) but I wasn't happy with the combining of "rotoscoped" live-action figures intermingled with the traditional hand-drawn animated characters ( as in the scene at "The Prancing Pony", in "Bree" ) ---
--- I guess I am not easily sastified - "picky, picky, picky", you can call me...
Yes, I suppose you can say I was finally "sold" on the "Peter Jackson Version" - but even with that version, I can't but help having my quibbles....
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Post by Ardo Whortleberry on May 15, 2009 18:35:19 GMT -6
Greetings, Stormrider! ~~~
Firstly, thanks for the birthday greetings --- I turn Fifty-two today - I don't know if that's an auspicious age for a hobbit or not, but it's auspicious enough for me ---
Everything you said about your feelings and reactions to the movie versions is just how I felt about them, too - We had a discussion about all this ( early on last year, back in the B&N Book Clubs ) and I expressed, then, how I felt that:
no matter how fanatstic the technical achievements ( the special-effects and so on ), even no matter how wonderful the acting might be, in a cinematic version of the stories, ( at least, for all of us who read the books first, before seeing the movie ) - any such cinematic version is still not going to match or surpass the imaginations of the individual readers -
( and their own personal visions of how the story "looks", when they read the story )
But then, I also think we have all been heavily influenced, now, in the wake of the movie's success, as to how we might picture certain things in the original stories -
for instance, before Sir Ian Mc Kellan's
incredible performance as "Gandalf", I never would have pictured, in my mind's eye, Gandalf as looking quite like Ian Mc Kellan ( in facial characteristics, body-type & so on, but perhaps even in aspects of personality or the sound of the voice, etcetera ) - but nowadays, it becomes harder to seperate "Ian Mc Kellan's Gandalf" from "Gandalf" himself ~~~
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Post by Fredeghar Wayfarer on May 16, 2009 4:08:28 GMT -6
In spite of my choice of "Avatar", I have to confess I was horrified and appalled at the sight of the Rankin-Bass animated version of "The Hobbit" - I understand the restrictions of the format of the one-hour cartoon, but I felt like my favorite story of all time had been a bit butchered, and fell woefully short of its potential --- Hmm. Alone in my principles, I guess. I still love those cartoons. They aren't perfect but The Hobbit at least is pretty true to the spirit of the book. I'm biased though, as I saw the cartoon before reading the novel. It was my gateway drug into the world of Middle-earth. |
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Post by Ardo Whortleberry on May 16, 2009 16:47:07 GMT -6
Once Again, I Thank You For Your Kind Welcomes! ~~~ [ "Editor's Note": I decided to delete my original "introduction" & replace it with something more streamlined - the original was over-wordy, over-long, perhaps over-bearing, and over-loaded with too many personal reminiscences, which tended to turn it into a turgid tome ] As Sulu said, in "Star Trek IV": "...San Francisco!......I was born there!...." [ but, I never actually lived there - I grew up in the East Bay, (and have lived my entire life there): Albany; Berkeley; and then Oakland (where I live today) ] The first time the Door to Middle-earth was opened for me when was I was eight or nine years old, and read "The Hobbit" for the very first time ( but not the last! ) --- "The Lord Of The Rings" followed not long after... In my time, I have also perused the pages of "The Tolkien Reader" ( and at one time held subscriptions to the fanzines: "Orcrist" & "Mythlore" ) However, I have never felt truly compelled to read "The Silmarillion" [ & all the other books subsequently published posthumously - they never seemed as "accessible" (to me) as [H] or LOTR ] At one time, I read the entire Trilogy aloud to my then teenage daughter, & several years back, I read "The Hobbit" aloud to my wife... Other Heroic Fantasy authors I have read include: C.S. Lewis ( "The Chronicles Of Narnia" ) Lloyd Alexander ( "The Prydain Chronicles" ) [ but, of course, Tolkien has always remained "King" to me, in this department ] As to my personal "profile": I've turned into the quiet, staid, unadventurous, stay-at-home homebody type in my "middle years" ( especially in comparison to my wilder younger days )... If anything, I think I strive to be most like "Lionel Hardcastle" ( on "As Time Goes By" ) I've been an inveterate TV addict for many years ( my favorite shows are PBS - especially the British productions ) And I watch a lot of DVDs ( checked out from the library ) - But I also enjoy listening to music - Mainly Classical; Jazz; Celtic; [ "Thistle And Shamrock" on NPR ]; Bluegrass & Folk.... I guess I have sort of "missed my calling in life" - that is to say, I always had my allotment of a touch of artistic talent, and craved to be immersed in some kind of creative work: Painting, Drawing, Cartooning, Illustration, etcetera... But I seem to have been distracted by the vagaries of everyday living... |
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Post by Ardo Whortleberry on May 16, 2009 16:53:59 GMT -6
:Hmm. Alone in my principles, I guess. I still love those cartoons. They aren't perfect but The Hobbit at least is pretty true to the spirit of the book. I'm biased though, as I saw the cartoon before reading the novel. It was my gateway drug into the world of Middle-earth.[/quote]  !!! I understand you well...The book itself was my "gateway drug" into Middle-earth, which explains my prejudice against the cartoon version... |
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Post by Andorinha on May 17, 2009 0:56:34 GMT -6
LOL, started out thinking the Rankin-Bass Hobbit was fairly atrocious, (still think the animated LOTR rotten) but I have to admit The Hobbit animated version has grown on me over the years. I find I actually do not "dislike" it now, may even find it enjoyable? Anyway, I seem to run the old vhs tape about once every two or three years. The nature of this single volume book seems to lend itself well to pictorial representation, far more readily than LOTR, I should think. Still have severe distress with portions of Jackson's LOTR, but find other elements of that series "acceptable," enjoyable on their own -- still, not MY vision of Middle-earth...
Hoping they do the Hobbit up "right," without too much added foreshadowing of LOTR, the book was originally written as a stand-alone adventure, deserves to be treated as such?
Oh, happy birthday, Ardo, a day or so late.
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Post by Stormrider on May 17, 2009 7:13:14 GMT -6
But I also enjoy listening to music - Mainly Classical; Jazz;
Celtic; [ "Thistle And Shamrock" on NPR ]; Bluegrass & Folk....
I guess I have sort of "missed my calling in life" -
that is to say, I always had my allotment of a touch of artistic talent, and craved to be immersed in some kind of creative work:
Painting, Drawing, Cartooning, Illustration, etcetera... Ardo, I love Classical music, too! I've only had a smattering of Celtic but what I have heard, I like. Mainly I have been a 60's 70's classic rock fan but Classical brings up a good second--not that I remember all the composers and pieces that they wrote very well, but I do like Classical--A LOT. I played the flute in 3rd and 4th grade but gave it up for an artsy class and could kick myself. If I had kept up with it, I might play like Jethro Tull now! My musical partner while taking lessons was a violinist and I have always loved violin music. I might have thought about playing one myself if I was not tone deaf and incapable of tuning the strings. Occassionally, the aspiring artists here at TR have had art contests based on JRRT's tales. I know Majah was contemplating having another one to herald the Hobbit movie but she hasn't posted anything about it yet. We would love to see some of your dabblings in this realm of talent. Majah is very good with water color and my stuff looks like cartoon characters but we still have fun with it. |
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Post by Ardo Whortleberry on May 18, 2009 6:05:11 GMT -6
Hoping they do the Hobbit up "right," without too much added foreshadowing of LOTR, the book was originally written as a stand-alone adventure, deserves to be treated as such? My feeling is that will most likely be much foreshadowing in the "Hobbit" movie - they will also most likely find ways to complicate the scenes where Bilbo puts on the Ring ( i.e.: his mental state when wearing the Ring ) - scenes which in the original story would have been more simple and straightforward - ( the precedent already being set in the LOTR films ) because, otherwise, they might asume, the viewers will be scratching their heads when Bilbo puts on the Ring, & the main effect this has is simply to make him invisible, without changing so much his perception of the world around him, or even transporting him to that nightmare world of "Sauron's Conciousness" [ as what often happens to Frodo ] --- But, perhaps it could somehow be explained that these "bad side effects" of the Ring lessen, the further away one is from Sauron, Mount Doom, the agents of the Dark Lord, etc. Actually, that was sort of inferred ( or intimated ) already, in the LOTR movie, although they might feel the need to explain ( in the "Hobbit" movie ) that, although Sauron was attempting a comeback ( at the time Bilbo found the Ring ), the Dark Lord was still pretty much "out of commission" at that point in time... Also, since the "Hobbit" movie was planned to come out in two parts, it appears that the idea is to make the second part a "bridge" between the end of the events in "The Hobbit" and the beginning of events in LOTR - thus tying all five movies together even tighter, in a "continuum" --- |
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Post by Stormrider on May 18, 2009 22:40:14 GMT -6
I certainly hope that The Hobbit Movie will be somewhat lighthearted since the Ring did not have a "hold" on Bilbo as it did in the later years of his possession. I hope it is portrayed as more of a handy invisibility tool to aid Bilbo in his adventures with the Dwarves.
Certainly there are some frightful and dangerous encounters in the story; i.e., captured by Trolls, captured by Golbins, meeting Gollum, running from the Goblins and Wargs, walking thru Mirkwood, escaping the Elves, meeting Smaug, and fighting the war (did I miss anything?) But Bilbo's use of the Ring sort of lightens up the scary aspects of these encounters.
However, when Gandalf disappears several times in The Hobbit Book, that was when he went to the White Council (and did he go to Dol Guldor then, too?). I have a feeling that some of that will be tied in alongside what is happening with Bilbo and the Dwarves. So I don't think the whole Hobbit story will be told in the first movie with the tie-in movie as the second part. I think they will run side by side with Gandalf's escapades as PJ did while he was at Orthanc with Saruman in LOTR and when Frodo wakes up in Rivendel and sees Gandalf (there was a flashback on how Gandalf escaped Orthanc).
At what point do you think del Toro will cut off the Hobbit Movie as the end of Part 1? After they escape the Goblins and Wargs? After they meet Beorn? It might be a good stopping point to end movie one as they face Mirkwood and Gandalf says farewell to them again! (Actually I llooked in my book and split it right in half and the beginning of Chapter 8 "Flies and Spiders" is almost perfectly in the middle of the tale!
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Post by Ardo Whortleberry on May 21, 2009 19:32:54 GMT -6
Hello, Stormrider! ~~~
Well, you didn't miss anything, but during the "walk through Mirkwood", there is the unpleasantness with the Giant Spiders, a rather frightening and then violent scene, which will probably be very scary in the movie version ---
In the Appendices to LOTR, it says:
Year 2941 { the year of Bilbo's Adventure} :
"....The White Council meets; Saruman agrees to an attack on
Dol Guldur, since he now wishes to keep Sauron from searching the River. Sauron, having made his plans, abandons Dol Guldur..."
Apparently, this was what was supposed to be happening while Gandalf left Thorin & Company on their own, because he "...had business of his own to attend to..." ( and then Gandalf disappears from the story for several chapters ) ---
I read somewhere that much of the second movie was going to revolve around this "attack on Dol Guldur", ( although it sounds like that was more of a "non-event", more than anything else, at least from the very brief discription given in the Appendices/Chronology )
You could well be right about Del Toro "spreading out" the events in "The Hobbit" over the space of the two movies ( although that was not my original impression, at least judging from the rumors that I saw before ---
I'd like to make a guess, too, at where the "divide" in the story would take place, but I need to think on that a little, first ~~~
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Post by Andorinha on May 21, 2009 21:01:26 GMT -6
RE Stormrider's: "However, when Gandalf disappears several times in The Hobbit Book, that was when he went to the White Council (and did he go to Dol Guldor then, too?). I have a feeling that some of that will be tied in alongside what is happening with Bilbo and the Dwarves. So I don't think the whole Hobbit story will be told in the first movie with the tie-in movie as the second part. I think they will run side by side with Gandalf's escapades as PJ did while he was at Orthanc with Saruman in LOTR and when Frodo wakes up in Rivendel and sees Gandalf (there was a flashback on how Gandalf escaped Orthanc)."
Eeeuwww... Sigh, I had not thought that they would compromise the original integrity of The Hobbit by running the two different storylines together, icky (just my opinion). I suppose that is a possibility, it certainly would produce a "cliff-hanger" effect so that the audience would have to come back for the second installment, but I was hoping for a close to the "original book feeling" sort of movie. Well, we'll see what they do on that score, too bad the prospective audience does not get consulted on such matters.
For me, a great deal of the attraction of the book lies in its Victorian travelogue aspects: days where nothing really happens, just plodding along through the wonderful countryside, pony-back through the changing landscapes; with forbidding, ruined castles looming up on distant hills, and bright patches of forest mingled with the grassland-scrub of the rocky Trollshaws. I imagine all that will be lost, the quiet sense of travel-reality, and the whole thing will move video-gamelike from one scene of conflict to the next, sigh. I like/ want a slower pace as I journey through the magical cleaness of the Third Age, a time when all the Peoples were closer to the Roots of Nature, and one could spend hours just gazing dumbfounded at the pristine brightness of the flowers, the mountains, the running waters and the trees... Sigh, I must be getting old, feeling a bit like a fossil, accidentally preserved to see a less human, more industrialized-electronified era. Must be the Fading...
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