{"id":29485,"date":"2008-08-18T20:17:29","date_gmt":"2008-08-19T01:17:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/?p=29485"},"modified":"2008-08-18T20:17:29","modified_gmt":"2008-08-19T01:17:29","slug":"fictional-frontiers-8-17-2008-transcript","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/2008\/08\/18\/29485-fictional-frontiers-8-17-2008-transcript\/","title":{"rendered":"Fictional Frontiers 8-17-2008 Transcript"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Fictional<\/a> TheOneRing.net’s Larry Curtis recently chatted with our pal Sohaib on \u2018Fictional Frontiers with Sohaib,\u2019 on WNJC 1360 AM, Philadelphia. Take a gander at the transcript below (thoughtfully written down by Elven once again), Larry and Sohaib chat about the DragonCon 2008 Hobbit panel and much more! <\/p>\n

Sohaib:<\/strong> Larry, welcome to Fictional Frontiers.<\/p>\n

Larry Curtis:<\/strong> Hey, welcome. Thanks for having me, I really do appreciate it.<\/p>\n

Sohaib:<\/strong> A little bit about your background Larry, because it\u2019s funny, Mike and Chris have participated on regular segments on the show for the last couple of moths and we\u2019d love to have anyone form the One Ring on, but I think our listeners would love to hear about your background and how you\u2019re affiliated and associated with the One Ring dot net.<\/p>\n

Larry:<\/strong> Sure \u2013 well Mike and Chris are two of the four owners and founders of the site and I ran into Chris kind of early in the history of the One Ring and he kind of adopted me is really what happened. I admired the One Ring simply, just like you do, and I really was kind of in awe of the passion that they attacked their website with but they didn\u2019t do it for personal gain and I was so impressed by that, so we just kind of had a meeting of the minds and he brought me on board and as the Lord Of The Rings films kind of unfolded I headed up the efforts for fans to meet kind of line up and gather and celebrate the opening of the films together, and that just evolved into a staff position at the One Ring, so \u2013 it\u2019s just been a fun way to pull out my passion and my fandom and balance that with real life \u2013 it\u2019s been a good time.<\/p>\n

Sohaib:<\/strong> (Laughs) So you must be getting pretty excited about the upcoming films as well … Any new rumours? Because I guess every two weeks we always have, I know things are slowly moving forward, but is there anything of real significance, anything juicy piece of information you could give us and our listeners?<\/p>\n

Larry:<\/strong> Anything of substance I can\u2019t ever definitively say. Even when you talk to the guys really involved (um) even people you know will be involved, everybody\u2019s so careful to say \u201cwell IF this happens\u201d … I guess until every contract is signed and everything\u2019s finalized, everybody\u2019s pretty hesitant to talk. But there are always rumours which are really fun. One of the things that really a big topic right now is that Guillermo del Toro as the Director (you know) how will he balance his tasks with Peter Jackson, the Producer, and its sounds more and more like it\u2019s really Guillermo\u2019s film \u2013 that Jackson\u2019s really going to step back a little bit and let this happen. So, that\u2019s really interesting to me \u2013 how these two film makers are going to balance that out. That\u2019s kind of the stage we\u2019re at, it just all kind of what you hear and what somebody says in the press here and there.<\/p>\n

Sohaib:<\/strong> Right \u2013 When Hellboy II was released, it was released with such critical acclaim that its first week ticket sales were tremendous \u2013 it was the #1 at the box office. Then unfortunately Dark Knight came and the Dark Knight wiped out everything, that included Wall-E and a lot of other films, and I wonder if that had any impact \u2013 when it happens – I know Guillermo\u2019s not that type of Director who\u2019s going to look at box office totals, but what\u2019s such a project \u2013 which was a pet project of his \u2013 I wonder if that really is sort of forced him to rearrange his schedule \u2013 because I think he probably assumed that, \u2018OK, I\u2019m going to be working on the LOTR films, but there\u2019s probably going to be a lot of press and a lot of other things I have to deal with in the upcoming weeks because of Hellboy\u2019 … but then within a week or two it all dissipated. Do you think that that had an impact \u2013 the Dark Knight coming in there and wiping out Hellboy, unfortunately?<\/p>\n

Larry:<\/strong> Well the whole Dark Knight phenomena it\u2019s really, its\u2019 just breathtaking to watch those box office numbers soar. I don\u2019t think anyone planned for that \u2013 not Guillermo and not even the studio\u2019s involved \u2013 I think \u2013 who could have predicted what would happen. So, however, in answer to your question, I don\u2019t know that the scheduled changed. I did, and I hate to name drop \u2013 but I\u2019m about to, I did have a chance to actually talk to him about his schedule, post Hellboy, and he was … well first he was going to take a vacation. His wife had (kind of) demanded, and he agreed to take a week or ten days off which is pretty hard for him. But, then he was going to get into the … I don\u2019t know, if the writing stage for him means putting a pencil on a paper or if it means brainstorming and coming up with ideas, but that was his plan, is to pretty quickly go into that phase where he\u2019s what he called \u2018the writing phase\u2019. I mean he was pretty eager to jump right in to LOTR as soon as he could, not that he didn\u2019t love Hellboy of course, but he\u2019s the kind of guy that\u2019s onto the next thing.<\/p>\n

Sohaib:<\/strong> Right. What interesting is as I stated, there was such a strong critical reaction to the Hellboy film the sequel, and then the first weeks box office totals were tremendous but then it just \u2013 as I said the Dark Knight phenomena came and then it wiped it out \u2013 Do you think, I wondered on a subconscious level as a creator of film, a film maker, you wonder \u2018Ok, I made a film that did very well the first weekend \u2013 like a lot of Summer blockbusters do, and then the audience disappeared \u2013 maybe I should not follow that same tact (know know)… or maybe have similar types of jokes or maybe I should change the dialogue around a little bit\u2019 … basically \u2018maybe I should not go that same route with my next project\u2019. Do you think that that \u2013 I don\u2019t want to say that was a failure of the film, cause I don\u2019t think it was a failure \u2013 but I guess relatively \u2013 the relative box office failure of the film \u2013 Do you think that\u2019s the way he\u2019s going to be working on the script, knowing that like you\u2019ve met Guillermo, you\u2019ve spoken to him \u2013 Do you think that\u2019s going to impact the way he works \u2013 the script that he produces, do you think that\u2019s going to impact that at all?<\/p>\n

Larry:<\/strong> I think the short answer is No \u2013 but, I totally agree that the concept of \u2013 that\u2019s got to be \u2013 even if you\u2019re trying not to \u2013 it\u2019s got to be challenging or difficult to see the box office roll in \u2013 good first week, you have to hesitate a little, at least has to make you pause and think you know, when that second week comes. And I have heard that even the studio\u2019s were a little shocked by \u2013 again, not a failure, definitely Hellboy II was not a failure creatively or financially \u2013 but I guess they were a little surprised by that second week.<\/p>\n

And I think that any normal person, I think it would give them pause. But I do think Guillermo\u2019s pretty dedicated to his own creative vision and the process of film making that he goes through from writing to directing to casting \u2013 all those things, I think a normal person would be more effected, but his creative energy is such, I think he\u2019s shrugs that off pretty quick, I think he just makes films the way that he thinks he needs to make films.<\/p>\n

Sohaib:<\/strong> Right, and that what I\u2019m hoping he maintains that attitude \u2013 but I\u2019m sure he will with these two films as well. Talk a little bit about DragonCon. I\u2019m not actually going to be able to go there \u2013 I was actually planning on going to the convention \u2013 I\u2019ve never gone. Hopefully, next year. This year I went to San Diego so that was the big trip for me \u2013 Talk a little about DragonCon, cause you are going to be there and I believe you mentioned off the air that you were going to be giving a presentation there as well, is that correct?<\/p>\n

Larry:<\/strong> Yeah, that is correct. The One Ring has a pretty long standing relationship with DragonCon both \u2013 there\u2019s a track of programming called the Tolkien Track which could be all things, Lord of The Rings books, and films, all kinds of things \u2013 we have a pretty long standing relationship with those folks \u2013 they really work pretty hard and intensely to provide a LOTR flavour for that convention. There\u2019s lots of other flavours as well but its definitely there \u2013 and we try to support that as best we can so this year we\u2019ll be doing a presentation about the Hobbit actually \u2013 it\u2019s not official \u2013 in fact that kind of what makes it fun \u2013 is we can take an unofficial look at the Hobbit and speculate a little, and mix in some rumours \u2013 maybe if we\u2019re lucky we can even start a rumour here and there (laughs), and we do it from our laptop on a big screen so it\u2019s not just us talking. I\u2019ll be there with one of the other owners of the One Ring \u2013 his names Bill \u2013 or Corvar is his onscreen name \u2013 he and I will be talking about the Hobbit with some visuals and some actor\u2019s faces and kind of some fun things like that.<\/p>\n

Sohaib:<\/strong> OK, and for those of you who are listening online \u2013 because we actually screen throughout the entire nation live, our listeners are actually even overseas \u2013 but the Convention\u2019s actually August 29th to September 1st in Atlanta, Georgia. If you\u2019ve never been to Atlanta, Atlanta\u2019s a fun city \u2013 it\u2019s a humid city, but it\u2019s a very fun city and they, for the last 5 or 10 years actually, I think since, I\u2019m dating myself again here (laughs) since the Olympics Games, I think the city really went through a revitalization \u2013 aside from having Michael Vic associated with the city (both laugh) .. So the city\u2019s a wonderful place to visit.<\/p>\n

When I was in San Diego, we had a couple of minutes left, I know there was a segment during the Panel about speculation as far as the cast of certain characters \u2013 the casting of certain characters of the films \u2013 Are we getting any other rumours about Smaug ? It\u2019s funny, I was there (SDCC), Initially, I think one of the first people mentioned was Vin Diesel for Smaug, and I actually liked the idea of Vin Diesel as Smaug \u2013 maybe I was actually a minority, but there were rounds of boo\u2019s \u2013 are we hearing anything more about Smaug at all \u2013 is there anything you\u2019ve heard \u2013 maybe if there\u2019s nothing, you could let our listeners in on other rumours other than Vin Diesel, as far as the character of Smaug is concerned? <\/p>\n

Larry:<\/strong> Ah \u2013 I\u2019m actually one of the people who kind of advocates Vin for that as well In fact in San Diego, after those boo\u2019s, (laughs) I was like \u2018Hey, hold on\u2019 \u2013 you know, he has a reputation sometimes of (as whatever) as an action star \u2013 or whatever, but that guy has a tremendous voice, and if people take a minute to listen to his voice, there\u2019s a film called Pitch Black, if people aren\u2019t familiar with that \u2013 he opens that film with some narrative dialogue, and I mean his voice is pretty tremendous. I mean he actually can act, he\u2019s a pretty talented guy \u2013 it\u2019s just that he\u2019s so big and bald and buffed that people forget that he\u2019s doing some actual performing through his voice \u2013 but as far as more rumours go, Smaug is probably one of the very most closely guarded secrets about the film. <\/p>\n

In conversation with Guillermo he\u2019s been very definite that he has a ideas, he has very specific ideas as far as casting as far as how he\u2019s going to reveal Smaug, he has all these visuals are in his head, but of course he\u2019s keeping them to himself \u2013 and in my opinion Smaug is one of the real elements that film will succeed or struggle with \u2013 it can\u2019t just be a dragon and it can\u2019t just be a creature on film, it has to be a fully realized character that\u2019s not human, that talks, that communicates and is one of the WOW moments of the film, and it will be fascinating to see how Guillermo will direct that, and how he\u2019ll visualize that and how the WETA workshop people will fulfil the visions and how they make him talk realistically and most importantly \u2013 the element you brought up \u2013 how they cast that and get just the right voice for Smaug, and how they present that.<\/p>\n

Sohaib:<\/strong> Exactly \u2013 you talk about Vin Diesel and for those of our listeners who are interested in an acting performance … actually I thought it was an amazing performance by Vin was actually in Boiler Room (Larry agrees) which was about an investment banker and basically about corruption in respect to Day (?) Traders and its an amazing film but as far as his acting is concerned I thought he was excellent \u2013 and like you said \u2013 Pitch Black. You put the visceral image of a dragon with the voice of his character in Pitch Black and it fits perfectly \u2013 cause you have to remember, cause what I think people are forgetting is that the dialogue in that film, and even like the iron giant, it\u2019s very minimal, it\u2019s basically you\u2019re doing it with 4 or 5 word sentences \u2013 you\u2019re talking about long drawn out paragraphs so to speak, and a lot of the dialogue in the Hobbit, as far as the conversations with and the riddles between Frodo, actually Bilbo and Smaug are not just one or two word answers \u2013 once that voice is given off and flow \u2013 I think it\u2019s going to be very impressive but …<\/p>\n

Larry we have 30 seconds \u2013 is there anything that before you head off to Atlanta \u2013 because I know this week we\u2019re not going to have our segment but I guess the following week. Maybe we can call in from Atlanta, I don\u2019t know, maybe that\u2019s possible, I don\u2019t know if you\u2019ll still be there on Sunday?<\/p>\n

Larry:<\/strong> Yep absolutely, we could do that for sure. I\u2019ll pitch two things in my 25 seconds. One is that the One Ring has the first design of a Dragon by WETA which is actually has nothing to do with the movie but, one of the good people in our workshop Daniel Falconer drew up a dragon and put it on a T-Shirt. So we will have that available at DragonCon, and that of helps pay the bills and keep the lights on for us (laughs). So we\u2019ll have a fan table there. Then the second thing is DragonCon in general is just so cool, it\u2019s so relaxed, its 24 hours, there\u2019s always something to do. It\u2019s kind of a great freak show \u2013 and I mean that in a good way \u2013 it great people watching. So if anyone can get down there it\u2019s just a coolest thing.<\/p>\n

Sohaib:<\/strong> Well definitely Google DragaonCon online and you can check out the website. So Larry, it\u2019s been great \u2013 definitely I say, I hope you can do the segment with you in the next 2 weeks from DragonCon ..<\/p>\n

Larry:<\/strong> Yeah. That should be easy. Love to do it.<\/p>\n

Sohaib:<\/strong> Thanks I\u2019m really appreciative of you coming in and we\u2019ll be hearing from, if not Larry then someone from the One Ring in the next 2 weeks. Thanks a lot Larry.<\/p>\n

Larry:<\/strong> Thanks very much!<\/p>\n

Email: sohaib@fictionalfrontiers.com<\/a>
\nwww.fictionalfrontiers.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TheOneRing.net’s Larry Curtis recently chatted with our pal Sohaib on \u2018Fictional Frontiers with Sohaib,\u2019 on WNJC 1360 AM,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[114,16,122,435,7,4,148,159],"tags":[535,555,554],"class_list":["post-29485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hobbit-casting","category-events-conventions","category-events-dragoncon","category-guillermo-del-toro","category-hobbit-book","category-hobbit-movie","category-hobbit","category-torn-community","tag-fictional-frontiers-with-sohaib","tag-philadelphia","tag-wnjc-1360-am"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1tLoH-7Fz","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29485\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}