{"id":32322,"date":"2009-05-31T14:31:48","date_gmt":"2009-05-31T19:31:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/?p=32322"},"modified":"2009-05-31T14:31:48","modified_gmt":"2009-05-31T19:31:48","slug":"fictional-frontiers-may-31st-transcript","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/2009\/05\/31\/32322-fictional-frontiers-may-31st-transcript\/","title":{"rendered":"Fictional Frontiers May 31st Transcript"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Fictional<\/a>Elven x<\/strong> sends along a transcript from today’s segment of Fictional Frontiers<\/a><\/strong>: A fun show this week on Fictional Frontiers with Sohaib and Larry Curtis talking about all things LOTR and The Hobbit. Some cool Smaug\/Mike Mignola news and a heads-up for something Hobbity and extremely special at ComicCon this year … someone will be there! \u2013 No, not Guillermo, someone from the Production side of things. Enjoy this week\u2019s show. <\/p>\n

Sohaib:<\/strong> It\u2019s been too long definitely, Larry Curtis from theOneRing.net \u2013 Larry, welcome back to Fictional Frontiers.<\/p>\n

Larry:<\/strong> Well thank-you. It\u2019s always good to be on and to be with you.<\/p>\n

Sohaib:<\/strong> I guess we should go right to the biggest news that\u2019s come right on down the road over these last couple of months, and that\u2019s the revelation that The Hobbit films we thought were going to be a prequel and bridge film are in fact going to be if I\u2019m not mistaken their going to basically split the Hobbit into 2 parts. Is that correct?<\/p>\n

Larry:<\/strong> That is correct. It\u2019s pretty easy to image this is a little bit of a leak, but it\u2019s easy to imagine that writing team of Peter Jackson, Guillermo del Toro, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens and they started to dig into the material, and they looked at all the things available to them and they discovered how rich the Hobbit is \u2013 and say \u2018we\u2019re going to be cramming the movie if we try and put it in one and then somewhat invent material to make the bridge \u2013 this story is so rich this is our two films\u2019, and I feel pretty comfortable saying I think that\u2019s how it fell into place \u2013 they just found out they had so much good material.<\/p>\n

Sohaib:<\/strong> So were you happy to hear that they had decided to go this route versus the bridge film.<\/p>\n

Larry:<\/strong> Well I think either road would have been very interesting, I mean it would be interesting to see how they attempted to tie the two together a little more directly. There obviously will be overtones in the Hobbit of the Lord of the Rings that will loom out there in the distance even if it\u2019s never mentioned, of course in the film, but either way would have been interesting, but I guess, yeah \u2013 I\u2019m a little gratified to really see the Hobbit explored. The imagination of these film makers – and no reader should feel like that\u2019s an exploitation of the book, it\u2019s just that film is a different medium \u2013 but the imagination of these storytellers and these film makers there\u2019s plenty of things there. There\u2019s all kinds of great creatures and spiders and characterizations and it will give them a little more chance to flesh out all the dwarves and a little more Gandalf, and a little more exploration of the relationships between these characters. And I would say, just because there are 2 Hobbit films, doesn\u2019t mean that some of the off-screen action during the Hobbit like when Gandalf disappears I still think that could easily and probably will be incorporated into these films.<\/p>\n

Sohaib:<\/strong> So the question I have then is that for some time we have been speculating about the return of certain cast members, do you think that this is going to maybe put a lot of these rumours to the wayside, or do you think we may indeed see a Viggo or Orlando Bloom in one of these two films? Is it still possible to still see them in there and if so, it would obviously be in very limited capacity.<\/p>\n

Larry:<\/strong> Well yes, I think it almost goes character by character. I think it was always a stretch to say that any of the Hobbit characters would show up unless they were extremely little children, which wouldn\u2019t probably serve the story, it would just tickle audiences, and actually maybe not tickle all audiences; it would bother some, but there are characters that are a natural fit. It does make sense. Orland Bloom \u2013 his character showing up for a moment of two even having a little dialogue makes perfect sense \u2013 certainly that\u2019s possible. Viggo Mortensen, his character \u2013 in fact he\u2019s in New Zealand this week, perhaps for unrelated things, perhaps not \u2013 his character certainly Strider\/Aragorn being older and being active in Middle-earth before Lord of the Rings, he could definitely have a part in Lord of the Rings, it would be completely logical it would not be a stretch it would fit in nicely with the story. Gandalf of course is absolutely essential in the story \u2013 but all the counter-bit parts I mean MTV, and this isn\u2019t a criticism of them, but they would ask Sean Astin or Elijah Wood \u2018hey are you going to be in the films?\u2019 and they\u2019d say \u2018oh of course we\u2019d be delighted to\u2019 but that would never make sense, and especially now \u2013 it does not really make sense at all.<\/p>\n

Sohaib:<\/strong> If you were a fly on the wall, or someone who could actually participate in actually working on this script \u2013 where do you think the ideal breaking point, the midpoint, for the 2 films?<\/p>\n

Larry:<\/strong> You know that is a fun question to mull around, I mean it\u2019s often debated on message boards and not just at theOneRing, but there as well. I\u2019ve heard a lot of good suggestions and of course it\u2019s important that each story has a little bit of a conflict and then a climax that gets results. If I had to vote and don\u2019t hold me to this if they call me in and ask me to consult I might change my mind, I would favour the escape from the Elven King Realm in barrels. I think putting the Dwarves in barrels and putting them door to the river would make a nice ending to a first movie.<\/p>\n

Sohaib:<\/strong> So as far as visual effects are concerned I suppose the big drawing points are going to be the Riddle sequence in the Cave (Larry:<\/strong> \u2018yes\u2019) between Bilbo and Sm\u00e9agol, obviously Bilbo going in to the vast chamber of Smaug and then I\u2019m assuming probably the battle at the end of The Five Armies.<\/p>\n

Larry:<\/strong> And yeah, the way I have divided things, and actually I can\u2019t think of any great divisions where both of those scenes that you mentioned aren\u2019t both in the second film. The Smaug scene especially, I really feel like so much hangs on that whole interaction, because we have to feel the menace of Smaug and yet understand his clever playful nature, and its Bilbo\u2019s heroic moment when he matches wits with the Dragon, an ancient creature. So it\u2019s pretty intense.<\/p>\n

I think I have a little bit of design \u2013 pretty unknown news about the Dragon actually \u2013 Guillermo hangs out on our message boards every once in a while and he lets little gems drop from time to time, and he has mentioned \u2013 you and I have even talked about it before \u2013 Mike Mignola has been to New Zealand and Guillermo reported that he really energized the design team, and Lee and Howe are still there but, but Mignola was there but someone cleverly asked if he had worked on Smaug a little bit \u2013 and Guillermo didn\u2019t say he hadn\u2019t, and in a way he didn\u2019t say he had, it\u2019s assume to believe that he probably did. But to have Alan Lee and John Howe and Mignola kind of tackle the Dragon problem together.<\/p>\n

Sohaib:<\/strong> That\u2019s very exciting and very interesting because Mike Mignola style is very distinct \u2013 and for those of us who are fans of the Hellboy films and the comic as well \u2013 he has been a visionary in the comic industry for some time \u2013 but he\u2019s very different in tone from (I don\u2019t want to say almost the picture book styling\u2019s of the picture book masters that were involved on the original films), but it\u2019s almost modern pop-culture-ish kind of art versus storytelling artistic (?). How do you see the two working together? <\/p>\n

What do you think, do you think it\u2019s going to be a mishmash of the two, I think it\u2019s going to be something that highlights the inner workings or the Spirit of Tolkien from the past leading to what we hope to see with fantasy in the near future.<\/p>\n

Larry:<\/strong> I think you\u2019re really onto something. It is a bit of a mix, and their styles are not the same \u2013 which I feel is really is a positive for the film. I love that Guillermo \u2013 he\u2019s mentioned lots of times that artists inspire him as much as writers for all of his works or as a film makers that artists are key to him (I\u2019m going to throw in some other names in but) Mignola\u2019s style is clearly different and one thing I love about what he does is he\u2019ll draw monster A and he\u2019ll draw monster X and you can tell that he drew them both but they are completely different in their execution and how the thought process \u2013 you can see his thoughts in the creatures. I think it\u2019ll be really exciting. <\/p>\n

I guess the safe choice would have been to keep Alan Lee and John Howe exactly as they worked on Lord of the Rings Film and kind of replay that. But I don\u2019t think that\u2019s the best way to make a film, I think you need to reenergize, and Guillermo of course has people that he trusts. He has Spectral Motion actually working on the films, they\u2019re in the concept art stage, and of course WETA Workshop is still involved \u2013 Mignola is there – a guy named Wayne Barlow \u2013 I don\u2019t know if you\u2019re familiar with him, but he\u2019s worth a Google (www.waynebarlow.com<\/a>) he draws a lot of very alien, in fact he has a book called extra terrestrials and then one about Hell \u2013 where he really emphasizes how \u2013 It\u2019s called Inferno \u2013 how different, how non human are all these demons are that are in Hell. Anyway, all these things are quite different \u2013 I think I\u2019m leaving out a comic book artist as well, there\u2019s another one \u2013 but anyway Guillermo really gets his team together and really tackles from a new way all the visuals of Middle-earth. And, he\u2019s very open. This is a stage where anything can be, they can bounce ideas, they can collaborate and be energized, so I just find it tremendously exciting.<\/p>\n

Sohaib:<\/strong> I\u2019m really excited as well and you know especially given that here at Fictional Frontiers we\u2019ve had so many other takes on Dragons not just in films but in literature as well \u2013 it\u2019s a real challenge because dragons have been seen in so many ways up until this point I was concerned that we were going to see some more of that fantasiful take and I\u2019m glad to see that Mikes going to be involved or we\u2019re hoping involved from those hints you have given us have led us to believe. And I think it\u2019s going to reenergize not just the team itself but it\u2019s also going to re-energize those of us who \u2013 I don\u2019t want to say we\u2019ve been there done that, we love the original films, to me they\u2019re the best films ever put on celluloid, but I think you really need to bring something different, you don\u2019t just want to regurgitate what\u2019s come before, even though it is a prequel film.<\/p>\n

Before we head out Larry I\u2019m going to be in San Diego, you\u2019re going to be in San Diego, what in the store for fans who hope to have another tORN panel to attend?<\/p>\n

Larry:<\/strong> Well I do know that Guillermo del Toro will not be at San Diego. But I do know WETA Workshop will be there, and they\u2019re always full of interesting things, and they\u2019re not so famous that they\u2019re unapproachable either which is great. I mean you can take a minute in San Diego and say Hi to some of those guys and they\u2019re really cool. There is a little bit of a rumour that a very significant figure involved with the Hobbit films that will be in San Diego – I think I might have all that information cut off from me forever if I throw a name out \u2013 but people who are there should watch the schedule for a really significant figure from the production of the Lord of the Rings to show up in San Diego. Its actually sold out \u2013 all four days at ComicCon, you and I are lucky to be there, and I owe you a drink, we\u2019ll have to sit down \u2013 but people should watch, and event those people who can\u2019t, should watch the internet there\u2019ll be some major impact splashes.<\/p>\n

Sohaib:<\/strong> So there will be a tORN panel though correct \u2013 is that what you guys are working on?<\/p>\n

Larry:<\/strong> Yeah that\u2019s correct. I should probably try and promote myself better. Calisuri, one of the sites founders and I, and perhaps one or two other people will be doing a presentation about the Hobbit \u2013 lots of visuals, we\u2019ll show some of the artwork of these artists I\u2019ve mentioned even the ones I didn\u2019t mention. And we may even have a little surprise – a video here and there in the presentation. It promises to be fun. And last year it was a tough ticket to get \u2013 it first thing in the morning, the line was out the door and they turned several hundred people away \u2013 so watch those schedules, plan ahead. Hopefully they\u2019ll give us a bigger room this year.<\/p>\n

Sohaib:<\/strong> You guys definitely deserve to have a bigger room. I was at the panel last year \u2013 a lot of fun speculating on the cast amongst other things. I\u2019m really excited about going to San Diego \u2013 this is the first I\u2019ve heard about Mikes possible involvement with the film and to me being a comic fan and as I mentioned before being a fan of the Hellboy films, I\u2019m really becoming more and more excited about the Hobbit film. And another reason on a side note is because James Cameron with Avatar towards the end of the year is going to be really raising the bar so we really need to see something incredibly special.<\/p>\n

Larry it\u2019s been great. I want you to come back in 2 weeks; can we do another segment in 2 weeks?<\/p>\n

Larry:<\/strong> Yeah there\u2019s tons to talk about including Guillermo\u2019s book and all kinds of things \u2013 I\u2019d love to come for sure.<\/p>\n

Sohaib:<\/strong> Ok Larry we\u2019ll see you in 2 weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Elven x sends along a transcript from today’s segment of Fictional Frontiers: A fun show this week on…<\/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":[123,16,14,435,4,148],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events-comiccon","category-events-conventions","category-events","category-guillermo-del-toro","category-hobbit-movie","category-hobbit"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1tLoH-8pk","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32322","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=32322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32322\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}