How did Peter Jackson turn one small book into another massive film trilogy? Simple: all it took was some imagination and a bit of help from the author of The Hobbit himself.
The director has taken heat for turning what was intended to be a two-part prequel to his Lord of the Rings series into a three-part saga, especially given that the first Hobbit film clocks in at nearly three hours. Unlike the LOTR books, The Hobbit is a thin volume written for children, leading some to accuse him of stretching out narrative and milking the franchise. Instead, Jackson contends that the brevity of the book actually helped make it possible.
“The book is written in a very brisk pace, so pretty major events in the story are covered in only two or three pages,” Jackson told reporters on Wednesday. “So once you start to develop the scenes and plus you wanted to do a little bit more character development, plus the fact that we could also adapt the appendices of Return of the King, which is 100-odd pages of material that sort of takes place around the time of The Hobbit, so we wanted to expand the story of The Hobbit a little bit more, as did Tolkien himself. So all those factors combined gave us the material to do it.”
The appendices, which were tacked onto the final book of the Lord of the Rings series, fill in many blanks that were left in The Hobbit, which co-screenwriter Philippa Boyens pointed out.
“If we hadn’t done The Lord of the Rings, we wouldn’t have had done this. But we did,” she said. “We know where Gandalf was. So as soon as we knew we were going to that part of the tale, what happens in those years, because we knows what happens because Tolkien kept writing, you start to draw in and make a mythology.”
Series newcomer Richard Armitage, who plays the lead dwarf Thorin, chalked it up to the entire saga’s deep subtext.
For those of you who couldn’t catch The Colbert Report’s Hobbit Week, TheOneRing.net has assembled links to clips from the shows. Steven Colbert, a self-professed Tolkien uber-geek, dedicated this past week to interviewing cast members from the upcoming Hobbit movie. Interviews included Martin Freeman, Andy Serkis, Sir Ian McKellen, Elijah Wood, and director Peter Jackson himself. Follow the links below to see all five spots, but beware that it’s been reported there may be a spoiler or two!
Courtesy of Warner Bros Belgium, here is an amazing 13-minute look into The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. It features behind-the-scenes footage, interviews with Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage and many, many other key cast and crew members where they discuss the inspiration for, and direction of, the story the first film reveals. Plus there’s plenty of new, previously unseen (at least by me!) sneak previews of what you’ll see on the big screen! So I guess I’ll add: spoilers! Continue reading “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey – 13-minute TV special!”
TV spot no. 10 has now officially been made available on Warner Bros. facebook page. For those of you (like me) who may have lost track of which spot number 10 is, exactly, it has a bit of new footage of the Riddles in the Dark scene between Bilbo and Gollum in the middle, and new footage of Galadriel and Gandalf towards the end. The total length of this spot is 34 seconds. Enjoy!
Six new clips have surfaced from The Hobbit all at once. These aren’t TV spots, and they’re not teasers. They’re full-on sequences of action and dialogue lasting for as much as a minute and a half. It’s so revealing that your head will spin. See as much as six minutes from The Hobbit right now. Warning: some heavy spoilers. We’re not kidding here. Continue reading “OFFICIAL: Six incredible video clips from The Hobbit”
How did Peter Jackson turn one small book into another massive film trilogy? Simple: all it took was some imagination and a bit of help from the author of The Hobbit himself.
TheOneRing.net staffer Garfeimao and long-time TORn friend Nancy Steinman were able to secure tickets to the World Premiere of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Here are Garfeimao’s largely spoiler-free thoughts on what she saw.