The good news: there will be a movie version of The Hobbit, and Peter Jackson will be involved.
The bad news: I gather the “sequel” discussed here will be set between The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Rings, which means it will have nothing to do with Tolkein, who wrote very little occurring in that period, and nothing resembling a fully fleshed out adventure. The Silmarillion and other parts of the Tolkein canon, including the LotR appendices, provide more than enough material for pre-Hobbit storytelling; I have no idea why Jackson would want to do that other than a positive desire to make his own stuff up. I mean, I want to see the fall of Gondolin, the flight of the Noldor from Valinor, the fight of Morgoth and Fingolfin. If he wants to do a story with a lot of creative liberties, he could do a full film treatment of the Last Alliance or some of the battles in the earlier Third Age.
UPDATE: More than a few people are questioning whether the “sequel” is really going to be something other than doing the book in two parts. I hope it won’t, and maybe I have heard incorrectly. When I get a chance, I’ll look for more sources on this.
7 thoughts on “Hobbitt 2: Bilbo Meets Jar Jar”
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You know, I don’t think I’ve seen anywhere that the Hobbit “sequel” will be a new story – seems to me that wouldn’t it make plenty of sense to split the book into two movies? I hope they do that, means they can keep more true to the book.
The only thing I’ve seen is that the two movies will be prequels to LOTR. Having Jackson on board is great news, I trust him to do the story justice.
I also hadn’t heard that the second movie was a completely different story. I thought they were simply breaking out the Hobbit into two movies, although the term “sequel” has me wondering.
FWIW, the story of Turin is probably the plot of about 8 zillion operas. And while I loved LOTR, I never cared for The Hobbit. The one killer of that book was when Gandalf went off to face The Necromancer, and then Tolkien never mentioned it again. Damn, I wanted more. Of course we know who Necro was now, but that would be a fine story.
It would really surprise me if Tolkien’s estate would sign off on any non-Tolkien based story set in Middle Earth, although I suppose it’s possible they don’t have the right to say no. I’d think the Hobbit being filmed in two parts is more likely.
There is a trailer for the Hobbit that has been available on the Internet for quite a while. It is not very detailed, but the hook is “Smaug awakens 12/19/06”. It indicates to me that some preproduction work and CGI stuff was done way back. I recognized a scene with Gollum from one of the LOTR movies and there was a Gandalf the White shot too.
I am glad Jackson and New Line ahve buried the hatchet so to speak and are moving forward. I hope Jackson directs, I think we need that for continuity.
The only movie rights out there are for the Hobbit and LOTR, which JRR himself sold off many many years ago. Rights to any Silmarillion material or anything else belong to the Tolkien Estate, and ol’ Chris is just as likely to give those up as John Kerry is to release his military records.